The Killing House (28 page)

High-definition was not kind to Borgia. The pancake makeup gave his skin an unflattering orange tint; it did a poor job at hiding the dark and puffy circles underneath his tired eyes. Despite his exhaustion, Borgia spoke clearly, and well.

'The task force assigned to find and apprehend Malcolm Fletcher received and acted on a credible tip. I can't get into specifics about what happened or how he escaped - our investigation is still ongoing - but I can
tell you that the evidence we've uncovered at this stage suggests that Malcolm Fletcher, in addition to killing one of Ali Karim's employees, a man named Boyd Paulson, attempted to kill Karim himself before fleeing.'

Dan Harris raised an eyebrow, nodding. 'I understand he also killed a member of the Hostage Rescue Team.'

'That's incorrect. We deployed gas into the house. One of our Hostage Team officers rushed up the steps to the first floor, and, because he couldn't see clearly, made a wrong turn and fell over a banister. He landed the wrong way and was killed instantly.' Borgia sighed, then added with real emotion: 'It was an unfortunate accident, and our thoughts and prayers are with the man's family.'

'The victim, Ali Karim, is a well-known security expert and has an office here in New York. Why did Malcolm Fletcher target him?'

'We haven't ascertained why Malcolm Fletcher targeted him or his employees,' Borgia said. 'Our investigation is in the preliminary stages.'

'Tell us about Malcolm Fletcher.'

'He's not an ordinary criminal. Before he became a federal agent, he trained as a Navy SEAL. He has considerable talents, especially in the area of surveillance and counter-surveillance - training which has assisted him in eluding law enforcement. He's also a polyglot - he speaks multiple languages, which has allowed him live abroad and blend in without arousing suspicion.'

'You've called him - and I quote - a rare combination of sociopath and psychopath.'

Borgia nodded. 'Because of his background and training in psychology, he managed to evade detection by our screening process. That gives you an indication of just how highly intelligent he is. People who knew him described him as a loner - and emotionally impenetrable.

'While he worked as a profiler, he was suspected of murdering mass murderers and serial killers - cases he was working on. When the Bureau discovered what he was doing, we sent three agents to his home to question him.'

'And what happened?'

'Fletcher attacked them. One agent is still on life-support.'

'And the other two agents?'

'We don't know what happened to them,' Borgia said. 'They disappeared.'

'And during all these years as a fugitive, what has he been up to, do you know?'

'Fletcher has become, in his own right, a very dangerous serial killer. As long as he's out there, no one is safe. We need the public's help to find him. The federal government is offering a three-million-dollar reward to the person offering information leading to Fletcher's capture and arrest.'

'This picture we're about to show, is it a recent picture?'

'This is the last picture we have of him. Before
Fletcher disappeared, he had taken the extraordinary steps of erasing all information about himself from the Bureau - this happened before computers and databases were as prevalent as they are today. Everything existed on paper.

'Malcolm Fletcher has one distinguishing characteristic, as you're about to see,' Borgia said. 'One that's impossible to disguise.'

63

Malcolm Fletcher's face appeared on the LED screens overlooking Times Square. The picture showed him with short black hair and a face composed of chiselled-granite angles. He wasn't wearing contact lenses. His strange, black eyes stared down at the surrounding streets.

Many people stopped to watch. Others shivered and turned away, quickening their pace.

Dan Harris's voice spoke over Malcolm Fletcher's photograph: 'Explain the man's eyes, what happened?'

'We honestly don't know,' Borgia said. 'Unfortunately, there's nothing on file in Bureau records as to the nature of this medical condition. The specialists we spoke with are divided. Some believe it's either ocular melanocytosis or pigment-dispersion syndrome, both congenital diseases which cause an unusual dispersion of dark pigmentation in the eyes. There's also ocular siderosis, caused by iron toxicity. The lack of colour in the eyes could simply be an aberrant genetic mutation.'

'A birth defect, in other words.'

'A rare, one-of-a-kind birth defect.' Borgia paused for emphasis, then continued. 'This defect will allow us to find him.'

'What about contact lenses?'

'It's a possibility. However, when he worked for the Bureau, he made no effort to disguise his condition. Another former profiler told us that Fletcher said he was allergic to contacts. If Fletcher is, in fact, wearing contacts they'll be specially made ones that cover the
entire
eye. We've seen some created by Hollywood prop makers, and even the best ones can't mimic the human eye - the tiny blood vessels, etcetera. If you get close enough, you can see that they're fake.'

'Let's read off that toll-free number.'

A small crowd of scrawny Goth teenagers dressed in black leather jackets and hoodies had gathered across the street from ABC's massive LED screens. Heavily tattooed and pierced, they pounded cans of Red Bull in between chain-smoking cigarettes to counter the downing effects of alcohol and ecstasy. T. J., a reedy man with a blue Mohawk and pierced lips, was the first to speak: 'Jesus, that dude's a freak.'

The man standing near by glanced in his direction. T. J. couldn't see the eyes. Dude was wearing sunglasses.

T. J. looked away, feeling his scrotum tightening. He had noticed the guy coming out of the coffee shop. Something about the dude gave off this, like, primal reaction that made T. J. want to turn and start walking in the opposite direction - quickly.

Maybe it was the guy's size. Dude was built like a brick shithouse - tall and ferociously solid underneath that stylish John Varvatos look he was rocking: scuffed black boots with a grey tie worn against a chambray shirt; a black scarf wrapped loosely around his neck.
He wore black leather gloves and a fedora that gave him that cool and edgy New York artist look.

The only woman in the group stared at the picture of Malcolm Fletcher on the TV screens and said, 'I think he's kind of hot.'

'Hold up,' another man said. 'You think this guy's
good looking
?'

'He's got a sexy face,' she said. 'Strong jaw and nice cheekbones. I'm just saying.'

T. J. saw the big dude with the sunglasses dump his coffee into a bin and start to walk towards them. T. J. waved a hand to shut up his friends.

The stranger stepped up next to them. 'Excuse me,' he said with some sort of accent - British, maybe. 'I was wondering if I might take a quick look at that.' He pointed to the
New York Times
tucked underneath the girl's arm.

'You can have it,' she said. 'I just buy it for the Books section.'

The man thanked her and wished them all a good day. T. J. breathed a sigh of relief when the dude walked away.

Malcolm Fletcher didn't have to hunt for the story. The
New York Times
had printed his headshot above the fold so the news of his escape wouldn't be missed. His picture covered nearly a quarter of the paper. The title read 'American Nightmare'.

The story was long on speculation and short of facts; it reeked of bureaucratic rote. The Bureau's PR
executives were working overtime to spin the botched raid.

The last paragraph encapsulated the same lies Alexander Borgia had spouted on that morning's TV programme: 'Malcolm Fletcher defies characterization, at least in any textbook sense. On one hand, he's a very clever and highly intelligent sociopath who lacks any sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. He's also an extremely cunning and manipulative psychopath. He's unable to feel normal human emotions such as love and empathy.'

Fletcher made his way up Seventh Avenue, heading for Central Park. On his way into the city, he had changed into clothing more suited to walking around New York during daylight. The old clothing went inside a department-store bag, which he had tossed into a dumpster. The tactical belt went inside the new backpack. After ditching the white BMW by the side of a busy street, he had wandered for the good part of an hour before finding a suitable vehicle to take him to New York. He had ditched that one inside a parking lot a few blocks away.

Fletcher checked his watch. He had plenty of time.

He found a department store and quickly purchased the clothing he needed. He declined the shopping bag; instead, he neatly folded the clothing inside his backpack.

Inside a drugstore he purchased two disposable, pre-charged cell phones with sixty minutes of talk time, a mail folder, a marker pen and a copy of
Newsweek
. He
found a diner, sat in a quiet corner and activated both phones. He wrote his number on M's phone and sealed it inside the mailer.

After breakfast, Fletcher continued up Seventh Avenue. He turned right on to Central Park South and entered the busy lobby of the New York Athletic Club. The older gentleman standing behind the reception smiled pleasantly, eager to help.

'One of your members, Emma White, asked me to deliver this to the front desk,' Fletcher said, and placed the sealed mailer on the countertop. 'She asked that you place it inside her mail box.'

'Certainly, sir.'

Fletcher left and stood by the lobby windows. Five minutes later, he looked across the street and saw M waiting in the prearranged spot.

64

M sat on the bleached-stone wall surrounding Central Park, her head tucked down as she examined her cell phone. She wore a bulky winter parka with nylon leggings and trainers. A pair of oval sunglasses covered her eyes. The strap of a gym bag was draped across her shoulder, the signal that she hadn't been followed.

Still, Fletcher needed to be sure she was clean. He placed the copy of
Newsweek
flat on top of the folded newspaper and held them in his right hand as he exited the building. He crossed the street, dodging his way around a parked horse and carriage offering a scenic tour of the city, and walked past her. He dropped the newspaper and magazine into a kerbside bin and strode away. He didn't turn to watch her.

He moved to a grouping of pull-cart pavement vendors, their green-and-white carts and umbrellas advertising the same slogan: KEEP OUR PARKS CLEAN. He wandered a few feet away to another group of vendors selling cheaply framed pictures of Manhattan. He perused the selections, tracking time in his head.

When fifteen minutes had passed, Fletcher sat on the wall and pretended to check messages on his smartphone.
Behind his sunglasses he watched the entrance to the New York Athletic Club.

At the twenty-minute mark M came through the front doors, dressed in new attire: black yoga pants and a different pair of trainers. A bulky grey hoodie covered her white hair. Another pair of sunglasses concealed her eyes. She moved to the corner to hail a cab.

Fletcher watched the area closely.

It took her five minutes to get a cab. It pulled away and he kept watching.

He waited another ten minutes.

She was clean.

Fletcher stood and then went to hail a cab of his own. He had to wait nearly twenty minutes.

Climbing into the back, he leaned forward and gave the driver an address in the Howard Beach area in Queens. On the passenger's seat he saw stapled pages showing his Most Wanted picture and the three-million-dollar reward for information leading to his capture.

Traffic was mercifully slow; he wouldn't reach his destination for quite some time. He leaned sideways across the backseat, closed his eyes and dozed. He came awake sometime later to the trill of his disposable cell.

Fletcher glanced at his watch as he reached into his pocket. A little over an hour had passed.

'I'm clean,' M said. 'I'm on the Long Island Expressway, driving a black Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows.
I borrowed it from a friend. It has no connection to Karim's company. Now tell me where I'm heading.'

Fletcher gave her the address. 'Call me when you arrive,' he said and hung up.

Forty minutes later, Fletcher arrived at his destination. He paid the driver in cash, along with a generous tip, and exited the cab.

The exterior of the Bayside Motel was still the same drab stucco he'd first seen decades ago, but the interior had been renovated. It had a dimly lit lobby and the owner had tried to brighten it up with silk flowers placed inside wicker baskets.

The motel still catered to budget-conscious clientele, the majority of whom appeared to be foreigners. Even better, a young staff manned the reception desk. In his experience, this wired generation, plugged into their phones, iPods and computers, barely looked beyond their constant texts, emails and phone calls to examine the world around them. They rarely read the newspapers or watched the news - a fact evidenced by the dwindling subscriptions and news ratings that continued their precipitous slide month after month, year after year.

The young woman behind the front desk had long, clean brown hair that carried a lingering trace of coconut. Fletcher spoke in broken English, his accent clearly suggesting he had travelled there from France. He explained he had been mugged during the early-morning hours and had just returned from the hospital.
He didn't have a reservation but enquired about a room, possibly one on the ground floor so he wouldn't have to climb any stairs.

The woman, sympathetic to his plight, checked for vacancies. Fletcher checked the lobby for security cameras. He didn't find any, but behind the front desk he found a colour picture of himself resting on a computer-printer tray.

The woman had a ground-floor room available. She insisted on a licence and credit card. He gave her the passport for Richard Munchel and insisted on paying in cash. She agreed, and gave him a plastic keycard. Fletcher thanked her in his mangled English and courteously declined the porter's offer to assist him to his room.