Chris Carter - Gallery of the Dead

Tears welled up in the girl’s eyes again. She couldn’t understand what was happening to her. Why was she in that room? Who was that man? Why did she have to sit in the dark? And why didn’t her mother come pick her up like she said she would? Her mother never lied to her.

Then a new thought came to the girl. Maybe the man was the boy’s father. Maybe he had found out that his son, Thomas, was meeting her at the park after school and he didn’t want that, he didn’t want his son sitting next to her, or smiling at her, or holding her hand. The man didn’t want that because she was different. But Thomas was also different and she really, really liked him. If she could, she would sit next to him every day.

Heather closed her eyes and the tears became sobs. She cried for a long while before she heard footsteps approaching from outside the small room. She quickly wiped the tears from her eyes and jumped to her feet.

‘Mommy?’ she called, feeling her way in the darkness toward the door. ‘Mommy, I’m here.’

Heather heard a key being inserted into the door lock. It turned once, twice, three times.

‘Mommy?’

The door was finally pulled open and light spilled into the room from the corridor outside. Heather blinked, turning her face away from the door. The sudden bright light hurt her eyes.

‘Mommy?’ she called one more time.

‘No,’ the man replied, his voice firm and strong. He used the remote control in his left hand to switch on the lights inside the room.

Heather blinked a few more times before her vision finally could handle the brightness.

The man stepped into the room and allowed the door to close silently behind him.

Heather shivered.

‘Mommy isn’t coming for you.’ The man returned the remote control to his trouser pocket, from where he retrieved a pair of latex gloves. ‘Nobody is ever coming for you... Except me.’

The FBI Special Weapons and Tactics team convoy was made up of three black SUVs. There were five specially trained assault agents in each vehicle. The team leader was Special Agent Trevor Richardson, an ex-military black-ops officer with over seventeen years’ experience in covert operations. His team was the best the FBI had to offer and they were all pumped up and ready to strike.

The address they had took them to a very quiet street on the outskirts of Chula Vista, the second largest city in the San Diego metropolitan area, Southern California. There were only three houses on the street, all of them back from the road and far enough from each other for one to be able to throw a loud party without ever bothering the neighbors. The specific house they were after was by far the largest one on the street, tucked away right at the top of the hill. The team had already acquired the architectural blueprints for the property. It showed a massive two-story building with six bedrooms upstairs, all of them en suites and three of them very oddly shaped. Downstairs there was a large kitchen, a dining room, a living room, a study and an extra room that could be absolutely anything — a games room, a projection room, a lab, a gallery... whatever the owner had decided to make of it, really. The basement was enormous and though they knew of its existence, its layout was a complete mystery to the team.

From the outside, the house was also the most imposing on the street, with a large, very well-cared-for front garden and a driveway that ended in a wide cobblestone courtyard, with a three-car garage to its right. The car parked in front of one of the three garage doors was an Infinity QX80 — the exact vehicle they were looking for.

The car and the house were registered to Arthur Weber, a thirty-four-year-old computer whiz and entrepreneur who, at the age of twenty-five, had become a millionaire several times over, thanks to the success of his mobile applications company — Walking Gadgets. He had sold the company two and a half years ago for an absolute fortune and since then, at least according to what the team was able to gather in such a short time, had become somewhat of a recluse, withdrawing from social life almost completely. Mr. Weber had never been married, had no children and no siblings. His mother had raised him alone, as his father had walked away from them even before he was born.

The sun was about forty minutes away from rising when the three FBI SUVs pulled up outside the gates of Mr. Weber’s house.

‘OK, everybody, listen up,’ Agent Richardson said, as all fifteen agents gathered around in a circle. ‘As I’ve explained before, we’re splitting into three teams — Alpha, Beta and Gamma. Gamma team will enter the house and immediately proceed upstairs. Beta team will take the ground floor and Alpha team will venture into the unknown that is the basement. I will be leading Alpha team. Collins will head Beta team and Gomez Gamma team.’ Richardson checked his watch. ‘The sun will be up in just over thirty minutes and I want this all wrapped up by then.’

‘Roger that, sir,’ fourteen voices said in unison.

‘Now here’s the deal,’ Agent Richardson continued. ‘Whoever this guy is, he has no clue we’re coming for him this morning, so surprise is on our side here and we want to keep it that way. No loud noises. Once inside, hand signals only between team members. Team leaders will maintain minimum radio contact. The point to remember is that if this is our guy, he’s responsible for at least five deaths, one of them a fellow agent. He’s smart and very resourceful, but the good thing is, he shouldn’t be carrying a weapon. The bad thing is, like I’ve said before, he’s got a little girl hostage, who he might be keeping in the house. We have no real intel on that and for that reason, I want all of you to be on your toes. The girl’s name is Heather. She’s fourteen years old. She has Down syndrome and she’s the daughter of an FBI special agent.’ He lifted up a tablet, on its screen a portrait photograph of Heather. ‘This is her and she’s our priority today; is that understood?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘The idea is to take Arthur Weber alive, so deadly force is to be used only if absolutely necessary, but if that necessity shows its ugly face, I want you to drop him without hesitation.’

‘Roger that.’

Agent Richardson looked around his elite squad of men — fourteen ‘don’t fuck with me’ badasses whom he would trust with his life.

‘All right,’ he said in conclusion. ‘Once in there watch your six and cover every corner. Lock and load, Godspeed and let’s go get this sonofabitch.’

All three teams moved fast and stealthily, easily clearing the gates and the front lawn in absolutely no time at all. The FBI had already been in contact with the alarm company that serviced Arthur Weber’s house and the whole system had been switched off without the owner’s knowledge, so no one had to worry about bypassing circuits or disconnecting wires.

As they approached the house, Alpha team rounded it to the back door, while Beta and Gamma teams stayed with the front one.

‘Beta and Gamma teams in position, over,’ came the announcement from the Beta team leader over their headsets.

‘All right,’ Agent Richardson replied, nodding at the team agent who had slid a fiber-optic tube under the back door. The tube was connected to a five-inch monitor screen.

‘Clear,’ the agent said, nodding back at Agent Richardson before moving to the door locks.

‘Alpha team is also in position, over,’ Agent Richardson replied.

‘Done,’ the agent said, as he finished picking the locks.

‘Back door is breached,’ Agent Richardson said into his microphone. ‘We’re going in, over.’

‘Front door is breached,’ came the reply from Beta team leader. ‘We’re going in, over and out.’