'Pull over. I have to show you something.'
'Show me now.'
'You can't watch and drive at the same time.'
'Watch what?'
'This,' M said, and tapped a finger on the screen to play the video.
74
M placed her BlackBerry in Borgia's line of vision. The video played, Borgia's confident voice echoing over the phone's speakers: '
I'm going to go check your gun permit. When I return, Mr Karim, if you don't tell me where you've hidden Fletcher, I'll have tear gas launched inside every room of this house.
'
It was interesting to watch Alexander Borgia's curious physical transformation. He sat up, rigid, a flash of surprise, maybe even fear, on his face. The confidence had vanished. His gaze widened and his jaw dropped, as if a deer had suddenly materialized on the highway directly in front of them. Then he remembered he was driving, righted himself and got control of the wheel.
'Pull into the breakdown lane,' M said. 'Slowly. Try anything stupid and I'll press a button and email this across the country.'
Borgia grew very still. She studied his expression and found the matching flashcard: fear.
He hit the blinker and, checking his mirrors, navigated his way across the lanes. M lowered the BlackBerry. She decreased its volume and then placed the phone on the seat between them. Her eyes never left Borgia.
They had come to a full stop. M unbuckled her seatbelt after Borgia had put the car in park. He left the
engine running, and the video played between them, the sound occasionally broken by the
whoosh
of a passing car.
Borgia twisted around in his seat to face her.
'Eyes straight ahead, Mr Borgia.'
He looked out of the front window. 'That video gets out,' he said, draping his arms over the top of the steering wheel, 'you'll condemn your boss. He'll serve time; you know that. You'll destroy his company, his reputation, everything he's built. He'll never recover.'
'Why did you try to kill Karim?'
'Sorry, but that's above my pay grade. And yours.'
'Meaning?'
'What do you think is going to happen next? That you're going to, what, walk away and live your life?'
'Karim's lawyers are in possession of this video,' she said, which was true. She had given a copy of it as well as the others to Karim's legal team. 'If something should happen to me, this video will be posted on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.'
'That's not going to change your predicament, Miss White.'
'You're going to tell me -' M began, when Borgia reached for her.
Mistake.
M was ready, her fist was ready; she was already out of her seatbelt, and she had enough room to move. She deflected the blow easily with her right arm as her left fist came up. She hit him with a solid blow that broke his nose.
It didn't stop him. Borgia was frenzied, like an animal caught in a snare. He had managed to unlock his seatbelt when she hit him again, and still he went for her. He grabbed the lapels of her jacket, clutching it as though she were the last-remaining life-vest aboard a sinking ship. He was trying to push her down against the floor.
Borgia was smaller than she was, and nowhere near as strong. She grabbed his head and smashed it against the console radio. When he screamed she gripped him by the back of the hair and smashed his face against the edge of the dashboard. She got to her knees and pinned Borgia against the seat and hovered over him the way the HRT operator had hovered over Karim and she hit Borgia again in the face and she hit him in the throat and kept hitting him until he went limp and begged for her to stop, please stop.
75
Special Agent Robert Ortega was back on watch patrol inside Ali Karim's garage, but at least he had something interesting to occupy his attention this time around: a firm, heart-shaped ass. It belonged to Miranda Wolfe, and right now she was bent over the Ford Expedition's engine block, her tight-fitting black trousers hugging every perfect curve. A bald guy with a noticeable beer gut hanging over his belt and - surprise, surprise, no wedding ring on his finger - stood next to her, holding a flashlight.
'Miranda,' the bald guy said, 'do you feel that?'
'Feel what?' she asked.
'The heat. I think it's coming from the Jaguar.'
She moved to the car and pressed her hand against the side.
'What the hell is causing this?' she said, more to herself. She moved her hand away.
'Your hand,' the fat guy said. 'It's covered ... it looks like black dust.'
The overhead rows of fluorescent lights hanging from the garage ceiling started to flicker.
The fat guy and Miranda Wolfe looked up, wide-eyed. Ortega's attention was locked on the radio clipped to the woman's belt. Smoke was rising from the
loudspeaker. He was about to speak when the garage door started to rise.
Ortega flinched at the sound. He was standing near the elevator, only a few feet away from the wall controls for the garage; no one had pressed the button and yet the garage door was rising. He was still staring at it when the fat man said 'Holy
shit
', and Ortega turned to see the guy and the woman backing away from the Ford, plumes of grey smoke drifting up from its engine block.
The overhead lights kept flickering.
Ortega called upstairs on his wrist-mike; didn't get an answer. He grabbed his radio, pressed the push-to-talk button, got nothing but static.
He tried it again. The static grew louder. He looked at his radio, wondering why it -
Plumes of grey and white smoke rose from his radio loudspeaker; the LED panel was dead. He tossed the phone, the smell of burning plastic and fried circuitry filling his nostrils. The fat guy had his radio in hand and it was smoking. Wolfe had tossed hers to the floor; she had her cell in her hand and it was smoking.
A set of overhead fluorescents exploded. The woman screamed, glass shards raining down on her and tinkling across the garage floor. Smoke billowed from the security camera positioned in the corner and scattered in the wind blowing inside the garage.
Another set of overhead lights exploded as the Jaguar's engine roared to life. It backed up, tyres peeling across the garage floor. Ortega pulled his weapon.
He was looking down the target sight, advancing to the car, when the car turned around and faced him.
More lights exploded and he screamed at the driver to stand down. The car's headlights were turned off but eerie green orbs of light glowed and pulsated from the centre of the car's front grille.
The green lights exploded in blinding flashes of light. The colour burned his eyes and he heard the fat guy screaming '
Run, Miranda, get the hell out of the way
' and Ortega couldn't see, oh, God no, he had been blinded by that green light and he couldn't see. He heard tyres squealing and he staggered around aimlessly as the Jaguar raced out of the garage.
76
Fletcher pulled into the destination he had researched earlier in the day - a self-service car wash located on the fringes of Manhattan that operated on coin-and-dollar-fed machinery so people could clean their vehicles any time, day or night. It had four wide bays equipped with sprayers and vacuum hoses, dented kiosks offering Armor All wipes, packages of micro-fibre towels and a wide variety of chemically scented air fresheners. The small shack, where a daytime cashier usually sat behind a bulletproof window to collect money or swipe credit cards for customers who pulled in for gas, was dark and empty.
He would have preferred to wash the Jaguar inside one of the day-operated washes with their enclosed bays and powerful brushes. This would have to do. He fed the final dollar into the machine and the motor's compressor rumbled and roared.
He started with the front hood. The spray of water exploded with a hiss of steam. He moved the spray nozzle closer to the hood and the powerful spray peeled away cracked chips of black paint, sending them flying into the air. It took nearly forty minutes to clean away all the black paint.
Now the Jaguar was white. The police wouldn't
be looking for a white Jaguar, and he didn't have far to travel. Fletcher drove away, watching the streets.
M had made arrangements for the use of another vehicle - a forest-green Jeep Grand Cherokee parked on the fourth level of a private New York garage free of security cameras. Fletcher parked next to it and got out.
He reached underneath the Cherokee's front bumper, found the magnetic box and took out the car key. He opened the hatchback and then returned to the Jaguar to remove a fresh set of clothes from a suitcase.
After he finished changing, he placed his tactical belt on the backseat of the Jeep. He returned to the Jaguar and quickly collected the items he needed. Then he grabbed the final item, the netbook computer, shut the trunk and drove away in the Jeep.
Dawn had broken by the time he reached the back of a strip mall lot in New Brunswick, New Jersey. A silver Ford Mustang was parked by a nearby dumpster. The door opened and M stepped out, bundled up in a heavy coat and wearing sunglasses.
Fletcher parked next to her. He left the Jeep's engine running and, tactical belt in hand, got out and made his way to the hatchback.
M joined him, hands tucked in her jacket pockets, breath steaming in the frigid air.
'I listened to the news on the way here,' Fletcher said.
'I did too.'
'So you know Borgia is missing, and since you were
the last one seen with him, you've become a person of interest.'
'They're also talking about your escape, although they haven't mentioned you by name.' There was no emotion in her voice, just that flat, neutral tone. 'The reporters camped out in front of Karim's house got footage of what happened inside the garage - the smoke and the exploding lights. They're saying an agent has been blinded.'
'I installed a laser dazzler system in the Jaguar's front grille. The blindness is only temporary.'
'Is that the computer?'
'Why?' Fletcher asked. 'Why did you go with him?'
'To talk to him about Karim. Why else?'
Fletcher sighed. 'What did he say?'
'Nothing useful. Maybe you'll have better luck with him.'
'Where is he?'
'Hog-tied in the trunk of my car. I brought him here in case you wanted to speak to him. I relieved him of his clothing in case he was wearing some sort of device that would allow the FBI to track him.'
'And his car?'
'Someplace where they can't find it - unless it has a hidden GPS or tracking unit. I also disconnected the battery from his phone, tossed everything on to the highway. Give me your computer. I want to get to work.'
Fletcher handed it to her, and told her the name of the software program he used to analyse cell-phone data.
'I'm assuming you have a location where you can work safely.'
'I have everything I need.'
'Any news from Karim's Baltimore contact?' Fletcher asked. M had emailed the homicide detective several images of the disfigured man who had killed Boyd Paulson and abducted Nathan Santiago and Dr Sin.
'He left a message,' she said. 'The disfigured man is named Brandon Arkoff. He's the co-owner of the funeral home in West Baltimore, Washington Memorial Park. His partner is a woman named Marie Clouzot. He said he released their images, along with the ones I gave him for Nathan Santiago, to the Baltimore press. He released copies to the newspapers. This morning he's going to hold a press conference asking the public for help. Maybe something will come of it. Karim is awake.'
'When?
'As of an hour ago,' she said. 'I spoke with Karim's bodyguard.'
'Where is he now?'
'Being moved to Manhattan. He'll be heavily guarded. Do you want to speak with Borgia, or do you want me to take care of it?'
'I'll take care of it.'
'The keys are in the ignition. I also left a disposable cell on the seat. I wrote my number on it. I'll get to work on analysing Corrigan's cell-phone data. I'll contact you when I'm finished.'
Fletcher was about to speak when she turned abruptly on her heel and marched around the front of the Jeep.
'M?'
She looked at him from across the Jeep's roof.
'Thank you,' he said.
M seemed genuinely puzzled.
'For what?' she asked.
She didn't wait for an answer. She slipped behind the wheel and drove away.
Fletcher would have preferred someplace private to conduct his questioning. While Karim owned a good amount of both commercial and residential property within the state of New Jersey - some of which, M had told him, was unoccupied - Fletcher did not want any evidence of what he was about to do to be traced back to Karim. There was no need to give the FBI's case against Karim any additional ammunition.
The small town of Monroe, New Jersey, was a fifteen-minute drive from New Brunswick. Named after the fifth President of the United States, James Monroe, the picturesque town offered an abundance of farmland and thickly settled forests.
Fletcher stopped when he spotted an ideal location: an undeveloped field that stretched for miles in every direction, no homes or buildings anywhere in sight. He scouted the edge of the forest and found an area where he could park without being seen from the main road.
He performed a final check and, finding no witnesses or approaching cars, pulled off the road and drove across the field of frozen ground and dead grass. He parked in a spot offering a good amount of tree cover, popped the trunk and got out to speak with Alexander Borgia.
77
Having spent the last hours caged in darkness, Agent Borgia winced in the sudden light. Naked except for a pair of grey boxers, he lay on his side against a bright blue polyurethane tarp, his arms stretched behind him. M had used several zip ties to bind the man's ankles and arms together and then used a final pair to hog-tie him.
She had also worked him over. His face, a swollen, pulpy mess of split skin and drying blood, was almost unrecognizable. Fletcher put his foot up on the back bumper and rolled up his trouser leg, wondering what Borgia had done to provoke her.