Capture (Butch Karp Thrillers) (22 page)

Swanburg pulled another photograph out of his briefcase. “This is Stewart’s right buttock. Do you see a small purple bruise and tiny red smear?”

“Looks like a needle track,” Fulton said. “I’ve seen ’em on enough junkies to last me a lifetime.”

“You know what you’re talking about,” Swanburg said. “It’s a needle track.”

“Someone poisoned him with a hypodermic? What was in it?” Karp asked as Fulton swore.

“I don’t know yet. Whatever it was, it was fast-acting. I assume it happened at the entrance to the apartment, perhaps as Stewart was returning home from—I believe he was having dinner with his mother, or upon answering a knock. I doubt the killer struck elsewhere and then lugged his body up the stairs, set him down, opened the door, and then dragged him into the apartment. It just doesn’t fit the psychological profile. Anyway, I digress…the poison must have at least immobilized Stewart, if it didn’t kill him instantly, so that he couldn’t cry out or fight his attacker. People were in the building, but no one heard a thing.”

“Jesus, what sort of shit are we looking at here?” Fulton exclaimed.

“Well, there are a number of possibilities, curare for one, an extremely toxic substance gathered from the skin of a certain frog in the Amazon,” Swanburg suggested. “Or it could be some spook stuff from the good old days of the Cold War. The Russians were particularly fond of exotic poisons and means of delivering them—they had an umbrella that delivered a poison ricin pellet with just the tiniest pinprick when jabbed into the victim, as well as poison pens, and a very Bond-esque poisonous lipstick. Whatever the case, I’ve sent blood, hair, skin, and muscle samples off to one of the Baker Street Irregulars who owns a private forensics laboratory in Denver that usually tests for law enforcement and government agencies. It’s not always possible to trace these things, but if anybody can find it, Griff can.”

Karp walked over to the doorway and began reconstructing the crime. “So Stewbie goes to dinner with his mother, and then arrives home, maybe is letting himself in the door when the killer
comes up from behind and sticks him with a hypodermic filled with some kind of fast-acting poison. Stewbie goes down on his stomach and dies as the killer drags him into the apartment, scuffing his shoes and leaving marks on the floor. The killer then fastens a noose around Stewbie’s neck, throws the other end of the rope around the pipe, and then hauls him up, kicks over the stool, and…we have a suicide.”

“Strong dude,” Fulton interjected. “Stewart wasn’t a big guy, but still, that’s a lot to pull up if the killer was working alone. So we’re looking for a big, strong guy or maybe more than one killer.”

Karp frowned and walked over to the photographs. “Why didn’t the assistant medical examiner see what you saw?”

Swanburg shrugged again. “I’ve been asking the same question. Without ecchymosis, he would have assumed luxation. But a cursory examination of the neck would have shown that wasn’t the case, and that Stewart died from asphyxiation. Yet there is no bruising from the death throes.”

“But what about the toxicology report? There was nothing in there out of the ordinary,” Fulton pointed out.

“Some poisons are quickly metabolized by the body, even after death,” Swanburg replied. “And some kinds wouldn’t be detected unless you were specifically looking for them, or at least screening for rare poisons. The toxicology report I saw was a basic check for drugs and alcohol, and reasonably easy-to-spot poisons—like carbon monoxide. So it could have been missed. However, the needle track is fairly obvious, there was even a tiny smear of blood, but while you can see it on the photograph, which was taken by the AME, it wasn’t noted in his report.”

“So what does that say about the assistant medical examiner?” Karp asked.

Swanburg’s eyes lost their twinkle and instead blazed with anger. “He’s either lazy, incompetent…or someone paid him off to say it was a suicide.”

“Which means someone hired a killer to kill Stewart and the AME is in on it,” Fulton said as he clenched his jaw.

“But why?” Karp asked.

“Ah,” Swanburg replied, “it’s a riddle we need to solve.”

B
LINDFOLDED AND SHIVERING FROM EXHAUSTION,
L
UCY HAD
been led out of a building to a waiting car. She could tell it was dark outside by looking toward the slight opening at the bottom of the blindfold, and it was cold. If she’d had to bet, she would have guessed it to be sometime in the early morning.

She was placed in the backseat with Abu on one side. They were soon joined by Kane, who rapped on a window and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

“Where are you taking me?” Lucy demanded.

“A little excursion to Central Park,” Kane answered.

“Why?”

“To pick up a piece of the puzzle. And to set a trap with you as the bait.”

“So what is it this time, Kane? Going to slaughter more innocent people? That’s imaginative,” she taunted. She knew that on top of being a murderous schizophrenic sociopath, he also had narcissistic personality disorder and loved to talk about himself, which she hoped might get him to reveal more than he should.

Kane giggled. “Now, now…we wouldn’t want to be giving away any state secrets, would we? You’ll just have to wait and see what I have planned. But rest assured, I’ve reserved a front-row seat for
us to watch together. I wouldn’t want to give away the surprise, but let’s just say it will make 9-11 look like child’s play and have much, much greater consequences.”

Lucy had been surprised to learn that the Sons of Man council members weren’t aware that the plan was Kane’s. “In fact, except for that idiot Crawford, and a few loyal followers, they don’t know I’m alive,” he said with a laugh. They, too, thought he’d died at the Spuyten Duyvil, where the Harlem and Hudson rivers met. And he was content to let them think it until the moment came to reveal himself.

Apparently, he was concerned that he’d been betrayed by older members of the council, who balked at his plans to kill the Pope while blowing up St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and that his enemies on the council would try to stop him again. So he worked behind the scenes using the congressman as his front man.

“Let’s just say that New York will never be the same,” he continued. “But that will hardly matter when this horrible attack is traced back to the Iranian government. You know we’ve just been dying to bomb those bearded freaks back to the Stone Age, and this will give my generals a reason to do it. Congress and the American public will cheer them on!”

Kane patted her knee. “You’ll love this. The Muslim world will perceive the attack as yet another power move by the United States to establish a pro-Israeli hegemony in the region, and the Russians and Chinese will call it an oil grab, which will give them the go-ahead to roll up the little oil-rich countries on their borders. The big three super states—with most of Europe siding with us—will then pound the shit out of the towelheads and niggers, as well as the spics in Latin America. Granted, things may get a little tense between the big three when it’s all over with the Third World and A-rab rabble, but our friends in the Kremlin will side with us against the Chinese, and then we’ll be one big happy world order. So what do you think, brilliant, eh?”

“You’ll never pull it off,” Lucy scoffed. “You’ve overdosed on the Kool-Aid. You’re either going to be killed or live the rest of your life sentenced to a rubber room.”

“Oh, really?” Kane cackled. “In the face of fear, terrorists, and
tumultuous economic times, my adoring public will be thrilled, thrilled, I tell you, when a few strong, determined Americans, led by yours truly, step forward to guide our country through these crises. And it will only cost them a few of their precious freedoms, most of which the sheep don’t exercise anyway.”

He shook his head as if he regretted what he had to say next. “As the pundits always warn and nobody listens, it is a slippery slope, and much harder to climb than it was to slide down. I’ve given quite a bit of study and thought to this and noticed that once a society gives up its core beliefs, it will rot from the inside and be susceptible to a strong man with a vision. Republican Rome grew fat and lazy and accepted Caesar and the despots who followed. Democratic Germany, smarting from World War I and desperate to regain its world power status—sound familiar?—handed the reins of government to a dictator, Adolf Hitler. A confused America of the early twenty-first century—beset by floods of illiterate immigrants, attacked by terrorists, and losing its grip as the world’s number one economic and military power—gives in to imperial presidencies and tyrants in Congress, who promise a return to the good old days, or to empty promises of hope and ‘change.’ And each election year the sheep slip a bit further down the slope as power concentrates in the hands of the few. But it’s only natural. People want to feel safe in their homes—with plenty of food on their tables and good, mindless entertainment on the television to help them forget what they used to believe. What’s more, they will turn on anyone who threatens that peaceful existence and protect the government that gives it to them.”

“The Thought Police and Big Brother,” Lucy said with a scowl. “‘Thoughtcrime does not entail death. Thoughtcrime IS death.’ Not very original.”

Kane shrugged. “Actually, I’m man enough to concede to a certain admiration of Mr. Orwell’s fine novel,
1984
. When I first read it as a teenager, I thought it provided an excellent blueprint for the way our society, and that of the world, was heading and how it could be controlled. Indeed, even after the Sons of Man, with me at the helm, become Big Brother, we’ll make sure ‘the Russian threat,’ and a smattering of terrorists, are kept around to cow the population.
There will be a car bombing here and there, a border skirmish over some obscure oil field, or a necessary ousting of a tinpot dictator with WMDs. Just enough to stir the pot, even if we have to make it all up, and fully televised with lots of heartfelt stories about the victims and their families. I’ve already seen a couple of prototypes for the newscasts, lots of bells and whistles, but quite touching really.”

As they traveled, Lucy tried to keep track of the number and direction of their turns. She’d also noted when the sound of the tires on the road changed.
We’re going back over a bridge into Manhattan, but which one? Let’s see, when I was brought over from the city, the house where they kept me wasn’t far from the bridge we crossed. We went straight over the bridge for a little bit and then made a left and went uphill and then made a couple more turns, probably a residential neighborhood. This time after a couple of turns, we went back downhill but traveled quite a ways…and since we’re going to Central Park, I’m guessing we’re now crossing on the Queensboro…. And that means the first bridge was the Brooklyn or Manhattan…. And that means I was being held in Brooklyn. But that’s a big place. What am I missing? Come on, Lucy, think.

It wasn’t long after they passed over the bridge that the car slowed down and seemed to turn into a side street. There were a few police and fire department sirens in the distance and she could hear cabs honking, but at a leisurely pace that indicated there was little traffic on the road and no real reason to lean on the horn except boredom.

After the car stopped, Abu removed the blindfold. Then Lucy realized it was not a side street they’d turned onto but one of the small roads into the park. Apparently, they weren’t concerned with being pulled over by the police, but Lucy recalled that Kane had men who’d infiltrated the NYPD and suspected there was a reason for the confidence.

Out of the car, Kane, Lucy, Abu, and the driver were met by a dozen other men who escorted them deep inside Central Park, which was cold and empty, with only the stars of a moonless night and a few lampposts to illuminate the grassy open spaces and the black, leafless trees that surrounded them.

Soon Lucy was standing with her captors in the shadow of the sixty-foot-tall obelisk known as Cleopatra’s Needle, a 180-ton granite monument that was already more than three thousand years old in 1881 when it was brought to New York, a gift to the United States from Tewfik Pasha, the khedive of Egypt. She could just make out some of the hieroglyphics on the lower portion of the stone and noted Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the dead.

Lucy shivered and turned her eyes to where her captors were looking at the trees on the far side of a grassy area on the west side of the obelisk. She was standing next to Kane, who held on to a rope that had been tied around her neck. He in turn was flanked by Abu, while the other men stood in a circle around the needle, armed with silencer-fitted guns. She knew there were more of Kane’s men in the woods, waiting to pounce on Grale.

Suddenly out of the dark, a tall, dark figure emerged, so near without having been seen that he was almost shot by Kane’s nervous men. “
Don’t shoot, friends
!” the man bellowed.
“‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God!’
That’s Matthew 5:9 for any of you who might be interested.”

“Hold your fire,” Kane ordered. “It’s just the crazy preacher, spewing more bullshit. Come on, Treacher, time’s a-wastin’.”

Treacher walked out of the gloom, peering from face to face until he spotted who he was looking for. “Hello, Lucy,” he said. “I’m sorry about all of this, but it will all be over soon.”

“Don’t speak to me, you bastard,” she hissed. “I hope David cuts your heart out and feeds it to the rats!”

The preacher blanched in the light of Kane’s flashlight and then bowed his head. “No doubt he will if he gets the chance. I do hope that someday you’ll find it in your heart to forgive an old man who grew tired of sleeping in the cold and eating garbage.”

“There are worse things,” Lucy sneered. “But you’ll pay a price for this. ‘The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance: he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.’ By the way, that’s Psalm 58:10,
friend
.”

“Glad to see you two are renewing your Bible studies.” Kane’s lisping voice interrupted the discussion. He was about to say something else when his cell phone buzzed. “Yes.”

“They’re approaching,” a man said.

“You’re sure? I don’t want to spring a trap on just any old group of beggars.”

“Tall guy in a hooded robe. Looks like he stepped out of the Middle Ages—beard, pale skin—a half dozen creepy-looking street people are following a few feet back.”

“What about our prize?”

“al-Sistani is with him,” the caller replied. “Grale has a rope around our guy’s neck.”

Kane laughed and gave a little tug on the rope tied to Lucy. “Turnabout’s fair play, I guess. Wait until the exchange and then kill them all, but make sure al-Sistani is safe; after that, you know your orders.”

“Yes, sir!”

Shadows appeared on the far side of the grassy area—a tall one, leading another shorter man, while others scurried from side to side, darting forward and then falling back. At one point, the shadows passed beneath one of the lampposts and for a moment were illuminated.

“It’s him,” Kane said, drawing a deep breath in through his ruined nose. “Tonight I’ll taste his blood on my knife.” There was a sound of a blade being drawn from a sheath and a glint of metal in the dark. He turned to Treacher and handed him the rope around Lucy’s neck. “It’s time, my fine filthy friend. Take her and bring al-Sistani back. Then I’ll make you a wealthy man. Try anything and Abu here will shoot you dead on the spot.”

Abu held up a rifle with a scope. Seeing it, Treacher bowed and then pointed the way for Lucy. “Come, my dear,” he said. “Let’s get this unpleasant business over with.”

Lucy said nothing but followed the preacher toward where Grale stood with his men. At the same time, a short shadow separated itself from Grale and the others and started toward them, also leading another man.

Meeting halfway between the two groups, Treacher and the dwarf who led al-Sistani began to exchange ropes. Treacher had both ropes in one hand and then suddenly stepped back away from the dwarf’s outstretched hand.

“What are you doing?” the dwarf snarled. “I’m supposed to take her to Grale. That’s the deal.”

“Not tonight, Paulito,” Treacher growled, and raised his hand at the dwarf’s head.

Too late, Paulito saw the small zip gun in the preacher’s hand. “‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord,’” Treacher said quietly, and released the pin that fired the bullet that punched a dime-size hole in the dwarf’s forehead, the sound of the gunshot echoing as the little man’s body crumpled to the ground. “That’s Romans 12:19, friend.”

Suddenly, the woods around the grassy area erupted with flashes and silenced gun reports, as well as the screams of men. Treacher dropped the rope attached to al-Sistani and pointed toward where Kane and his men were waiting. “Run, asshole!” he yelled.

Standing in the midst of the protective circle of his men, Kane watched as al-Sistani ran toward him. Then he was surprised and delighted when the preacher suddenly began pulling Lucy back toward him with the rope. He noticed that Grale and his men were running after the preacher, gaining on him quickly, but his men had not moved out of the woods to intercept the lunatic.
Something must have gone wrong,
he thought. “Cover the preacher and the girl,” he ordered.

Abu barked out several commands and four members of the party split off to the sides, where they could fire at an angle at the pursuers without hitting Treacher or Lucy. Under fire, Grale and his men were forced to stop and retreat back into the deeper shadows, dragging a body with them.

“Well, Preacher, you are full of surprises,” Kane said as Treacher came up huffing and puffing, yanking Lucy by her neck rope.

The preacher grinned. “I thought that there might be an extra reward for returning with both hostages.”

“I’m sure I can arrange something suitable…” Kane smiled.

At that moment, an angry, desperate howl rolled toward them out of the dark. “
Lucy!!
” cried the voice.

Kane laughed. “Indeed, it’s worth your weight in gold just to hear
Grale so upset. I’m guessing that he sniffed out my trap and may have won the battle in the woods.”