The Killing House (30 page)

'I believe you.'

'I would hope so.'

M kept studying the landscape, memorizing signs and routes. She kept squeezing her knees.
A coping mechanism
, Fletcher thought.

'Forty-six point eight,' she said. 'That's where I fell on the CARS scale.'

Her words carried a sharp edge, as though she'd never been able to dislodge herself completely from the diagnosis.

'The number is complete bollocks,' she said. 'It says I'm incapable of functioning in social situations, incapable of forming or maintaining relationships. I have friends, I've had a number of satisfying sexual relationships, and I don't shy away from social situations. I can hold a conversation. I've learned through reading textbooks and from experience to pick up nuances in speech and body language so I can mirror social situations. And I can speak about myself when I feel it's appropriate, like now.'

But not without great effort
, Fletcher thought. Even equipped with all her textbook knowledge and hard-learned experiences, each day she had to fight her way through an alien land plagued with people autistics called neurotypicals. He suspected she lived in a constant state of exhaustion.

Clearly M fell into the high-functioning category on the autism spectrum. Clearly what saved her from a life of complete isolation and loneliness was a high intelligence quotient.

'I've answered your questions, and now I want you to answer mine,' she said. 'Is it true what they're saying about you on the telly and in the papers?'

'Which part?'

'They said you killed three agents sent to arrest you.'

'They weren't federal agents.'

'Who were they?'

'CIA operatives skilled in wet work. They were dispatched to make me disappear.'

M turned in her seat and gave him her full attention. She was watching his face very closely now.

'Tell me,' she said. 'Tell me everything.'

68

The unique psychodynamics and wiring of the autistic brain demanded structure and clarity. Fletcher took a moment to gather his thoughts.

'When the Behavioral Analysis Unit was first established,' he said, 'we were working with a number of psychiatrists who specialized in violent crime. They were assisting us in developing our profiling methods. While interviewing incarcerated serial killers and mass murderers, we learned that, in addition to being overwhelmingly male, they all exhibited certain key traits during childhood.'

'Broken and abusive homes, bedwetting, torturing animals, etcetera.'

Fletcher nodded. 'A good majority also had neurological impairments from past trauma. It changed their brain chemistry. In a few rare cases, their brains had been formed that way in the womb.

'While working as a profiler, I discovered that Behavioral Analysis was engaged in classified research, something called the BMP - the Behavioral Modification Project. Three psychiatric hospitals were involved. They sifted through lists of juvenile offenders in their respective cities and towns and with the help of Behavioral Analysis identified those young males who
exhibited traits associated with serial killers and mass murderers. The stated goal was to remove these potential killers from their environment and give them access to therapy and medical resources, education and, later, employment opportunities that were unavailable in their former existence - all of it funded by federal dollars.

'In reality, BMP was using these young men to test a vaccine being developed to eliminate, or at least curb, male violence and aggression.'

'The profiling unit was involved in human medical testing?' M asked.

'Not the entire unit. The director of Behavioral Analysis at the time was involved, along with three other agents. There were also a number of high-ranking agents within the Bureau who were profiting from the testing.'

'Profiting?'

'A vaccine that would curb or eliminate violence would be worth billions of dollars to the drug company that could successfully manufacture it. They paid handsome sums of money to the three hospitals providing the patients.'

'You mean guinea pigs,' she said.

Fletcher nodded. 'The agents involved doctored paperwork so the patients would never be found. They were generously compensated.'

'Were you involved?'

'No. I discovered what was going on by accident.'

'Did this vaccine work?'

'No. All the patients died.'

'How many?'

'Dozens, possibly hundreds,' he said. 'I was never able to find out an exact number.'

M digested this for a moment.

Then she said, 'Go on.'

'The test subjects were carefully selected so their deaths wouldn't raise any questions. The paperwork was doctored in advance, and after a patient died his medical file was transferred from one facility to another. With no one looking out for these young men, these mass murders were washed away in tides of bureaucratic paperwork.'

'And the bodies?'

'We never found them.'

'We? Another agent was helping you?'

'No,' Fletcher said. 'Karim was helping me. I helped him on a ... private matter a long time ago. He said if I ever needed a favour, I should call him. After the three psychiatric hospitals associated with the BMP shut down, I asked Karim to discreetly search for evidence. Two of the hospitals were set in private, wooded areas. He hired forensic archaeologists to study the topography for burial sites. Nothing came of it.'

'What about the parents? Surely one of them must have -'

'Most of the patients were orphans. Wards of the state. Of those who did have
a
parent, the mother or
father wanted nothing more to do with their troublesome son. No one wanted these young men, and no one came looking for them after they died.'

'That's ...' She didn't finish the thought.

'Barbaric?' Fletcher prompted.

'I was going to say ghoulish.'

'History gives us examples at every turn,' Fletcher said. 'Let's take your British government - their child-migration scheme. The British wanted to dispose of those members of society who would be a drain on their financial system, so they rounded up thousands of poor and orphaned children and shipped them off to Catholic monasteries in Australia. The Aussies received free slave labour, and the orphans were treated to decades of sexual abuse, beatings and death.'

'That happened in the early 1800s.'

'And continued well into the mid-1800s, when the Children's Friend Society continued to send vagrant children to Australia and Canada,' Fletcher said. 'The truth wasn't made public until 1987, when a British author and social worker took it upon herself to launch an independent investigation. And then we have the esteemed myrmecologist, psychiatrist and eugenicist, Auguste Forel, who, in the thirties, convinced Swiss officials to adopt a racial-hygiene law. Over sixty thousand women were sterilized. Hitler later adopted a similar eugenic law, and we know what occurred there. Here in America we have the Tuskegee syphilis experiment in the thirties, where the United States Public Health Service infected nearly four hundred impoverished
black sharecroppers with syphilis. Voltaire said, "History doesn't repeat itself - man does." '

'Voltaire?'

Fletcher sighed. 'Never mind,' he said. 'The British government hid their sins, just as the American government used its vast influence and powers to hide the Behavioral Modification Project. I was in the process of collecting the necessary information to expose what was happening when the three aforementioned CIA operatives were dispatched to my home.'

'And you killed them.'

'I did.'

'And the information you collected?'

'I stored everything inside a safety-deposit box,' Fletcher said. 'The FBI reached it before I could.'

'And then you were on the run.'

Fletcher nodded.

'You're a fugitive because you know about the FBI's involvement in medical testing.'

Fletcher nodded again.

'And the Behavioral Modification Project? What happened to it?'

'Shut down,' Fletcher said. 'All the documentation and evidence was destroyed. It doesn't exist.'

M digested this silently.

'Borgia is calling you a serial killer.'

'I've killed some men,' he said. 'But I'm hardly a serial killer.'

'Did they have it coming?'

We all have it coming, one way or another
, Fletcher thought.
'They were guilty of their crimes,' he said. 'I don't regret what I did. Do you have any more questions?'

'Not at the moment.'

'What information have you uncovered on Borgia?'

'Just surface stuff. He's single - he's never been married. Nothing jumps out on his credit-card statements. I downloaded his phone records - that took some doing - but I haven't had a chance to delve through everything. I need more time. I believe you, by the way. What you told me.'

'I'll never lie to you, M.'

'Machine,' she said.

'Pardon?'

'When I was a girl, Karim would periodically check in with the school staff to enquire about my progress. Dr Franklin said, "She never stops moving, that one. Always on the go, like a little machine." That's why Karim calls me M. It's short for "Machine". I want to know where we're going.'

'To get my car. The Jaguar.'

'Why?' she asked in a casual tone.

'Locked inside the trunk is a netbook computer containing information I downloaded from Corrigan's cell phone - call history, contacts, everything.'

'Corrigan as in Dr Gary Corrigan, the former surgeon.'

'Karim told you?'

A curt nod, and she added, 'I told you I was helping him on this project.'

'Corrigan performed the organ removal in another
location. There could be something on his phone that might allow me to find out where Dr Sin and Nathan Santiago were taken.'

'What kind of cell did he have?'

'An iPhone.'

'Then that will make it easier. All iPhones contain a GPS function - the maps icon. The program is always running in the background, recording where the phone travels. We can download that data and analyse it.'

'You said Karim was going to be moved to Manhattan either later today or early tomorrow.'

'That's what I was told.'

'I want you to call the head of his security detail.'

'Bar Lev,' she said.

'Call and tell him to speak to Karim's physician, ask if the transfer can be postponed until tomorrow morning.'

'Why?'

'Let me tell you what I have in mind,' Fletcher said.

69

It was a widely known fact within the Bureau that the FBI's New York field office was considered to be the best in the country. Size was a factor: it boasted the largest office and the greatest number of personnel. Since it was located in the most volatile city in terms of organized crime - and now, because of 9/11, the most volatile in terms of terrorist activities - the Manhattan field office hired only the brightest technical and forensic minds. Their Evidence Response Team was first rate. Consisting of top supervisory special agents, mechanical engineers, computer and program analysts, even forensic K9 specialists, Manhattan ERT could work any major investigation - had, in fact, worked several terrorist cases. Because of the quality of personnel, these terrorist plots had never materialized.

So it came as a complete surprise to 35-year-old Damon Ortega as to why he and the other eighteen Manhattan agents delivered to Ali Karim's historic Park Avenue mansion were being asked to perform what amounted to nothing more than watch patrol.

Bundled into a long overcoat, a scarf wrapped around his neck and a clipboard tucked underneath his arm, Ortega paced the cold garage to keep warm.
A four-man team of evidence technicians had been brought here all the way from the federal lab to search for evidence inside the three luxury vehicles parked against the side of the far wall. Another team was in Cape May, New Jersey, processing Karim's Range Rover.

They refused to touch the Jaguar.

A close examination revealed the car contained armour plating and shatterproof windows. They couldn't unlock it. A tech had tried, using a Slim Jim, and ended up getting shocked - not enough to kill him, but enough to knock the guy flat on his ass. It was the oddest damn thing Ortega had ever seen. Like the others, he kept a safe distance from the car, as though it were a dozing panther that could wake up and pounce at any moment.

One of the evidence guys - or girl, it was impossible to tell which was which with all of them dressed in the same white Tyvek clothing, particle masks and white hoods - saw that Ortega had wandered too close to their work, and waved him away.

Ortega resumed his post near the private elevator. He didn't need any problems here. Some big players from Headquarters had come all the way from Washington to monitor the Malcolm Fletcher manhunt. Like the lab geeks, they looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping before engaging in hushed conversations.

Why were these Washington suits keeping their cards
so close to their chest? Everyone knew what was going on: they were searching for evidence to tie Fletcher to Manhattan's bigwig security owner, Ali Karim.

When the news broke about what had happened in New Jersey, the Bureau grapevine went into overdrive. Suddenly everyone at the Manhattan field office had some sort of story about the former profiler and his extraordinary - and some said
eerie
- talent for capturing serial killers. Nobody seemed to know the cause of Fletcher's strange ocular condition, and it seemed only to enhance the man's already overpowering sense of menace.

It was maddening to be this close to such a major investigation and yet shut out of the inner circle. He had graduated
summa cum laude
from Yale
and
Harvard Law schools, and here he was acting as a secretary, keeping a log and writing down the time and name of each and every person who entered and exited the garage. His eight-year-old daughter could do this job.

By midnight, Ortega was the only one left inside the garage.

At 1.20 a.m. he called upstairs for a bathroom break. When he came back, along with a fresh cup of coffee, he relieved his temporary replacement. Clipboard in hand, he went back to pacing.