No Way Out (13 page)

Authors: Alan Jacobson

“Blimey. That’s bloody great.”

Three vans with satellite dishes turned onto the frontage road, headed toward the main entrance.

“Speak of the devil,” Reid said as he watched the news trucks navigate the turn into the parking lot.

Losner buttoned his suit coat and palmed his hair into place. “But why here? Why do it at Stonehenge? We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“That may be the point,” Vail said. “That, and the fact that it’s not well-monitored at night.”

Losner nodded. “There are so many closed-circuit TV cameras all over London, they needed a place off the grid. But why do you think this is about you?”

“Whoever did this doesn’t know what I know about serial killers. Bottom line, these offenders do what they do for a reason, so the crime scene should look a certain way. What we see—the behaviors the killer leaves behind—come from his personality and life experiences. So whoever staged this doesn’t know how a scene like this would, or maybe more importantly,
should
look. They threw all sorts of conflicting shit together.

“But—and here’s the point: they
did
know that you’d call me. And they knew that I’d come. And they also knew that the press would make a big deal out of it and blow it way out of proportion because the body was found at a famous tourist attraction, and satanic stuff like this makes headlines. A religious execution at Stonehenge, which is already mysterious and has its own history of devil worship and decapitations.” She snorted. “They just didn’t know I’d see through their bullshit, or that I’d do it so fast. And obviously they didn’t know that the scene displays such conflicting behaviors.”

The men again fell silent. Finally Losner said, “You sure about this?”

“I’m sure. It looks like they cobbled together all the serial killer conventions they’ve read or heard about. Or, in the case of the satanic stuff, seen in movies or on TV.”

Reid said, “Grouze isn’t gonna accept that, you know. He’ll want us to work this case up neat and proper. So that’s what we’re going to do.”

Losner took a deep, conciliatory breath. “Let’s have at it, then.”

“When are we getting back to London?” Vail pulled her sleeve back and stole a look at her watch. “That’s what I’m really here for, remember? I think we’re onto something with Paxton.”

“I need to help the inspector who’s gonna be running point on this,” Reid said. “He’s a bit green.”

If he wasn’t before he saw the severed head, he is now.

“We’ll get back on the road as soon as possible,” Losner said.

Great. I’m stuck here while they yank their chains on a bogus case.
She stepped back, away from the gaggle of crime scene personnel, and shoved her hands into her pockets.

If Vail was right, and this was about her, who would do it? And why?

To keep her occupied? They probably thought she would go crazy trying to figure out what kind of heinous offender was responsible for such a gruesome crime scene. It would consume a great deal of her energy, leaving less time to work the bombing case. Normally that would be true. But that would also mean that they knew her personality. Or they did their homework.

But why wouldn’t they want me working the bombing?

To prevent me from finding something? Maybe I’m getting too close. Too close to what?

But the prostitute. When killers choose a prostitute it’s because she won’t be missed, and that gives them time to get away, or for evidence to degrade in the elements. But here, there was no need for that. They wanted the victim discovered quickly; that was why they displayed the body at one of England’s most famous tourist sites.

Vail thought back to her interactions with DeSantos. Was he capable of killing a woman and hacking her to pieces just to keep her occupied? She couldn’t accept that. And how would that possibly tie in to his “mission”?
Then again, I don’t know what his mission is.

Vail found the forensic technician they had spoken with earlier. “You have a time of death on Miss Waterford?”

“We’ll have to check on that back at the morgue. But liver temp indicates she was killed elsewhere and brought here.”

“How do you get location from a liver temperature?”

“Simple, really. If I’m right, at the time she was killed, Stonehenge was still open and there were probably several dozen tourists gawking at the place.”

“Right.”
Maybe that means something, maybe not.
Vail stared off at the stone monstrosity before her. With the newly assertive sun fighting to break through the early morning clouds, she saw the arrangement of building-size rocks in a different light: an ambitious construction project taken on by an ancient people thousands of years ago. She had to laugh. As Losner had observed, as much as humankind had progressed in all these centuries, the nature of who we are has hardly changed. At our core, we are just animals with primal needs.

That was how she was going to solve the bombing case. Motive and opportunity. Good old-fashioned police work.

Vail crouched down and looked around at the lush countryside that surrounded her
.
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and cleared her mind.
If someone doesn’t want me poking around, that means I’m close to figuring out something important. But what?

I
t was three hours before Vail’s ongoing plea to get back to London resonated with Losner. He agreed that their useful time at Stonehenge had drawn to a close and convinced Reid to hand the scene over to the junior inspector who would be working the case.

While waiting for them to wrap up their involvement, Vail sent a buddy of hers back in the States, Agent Aaron “Uzi” Uziel, an email asking him to do some digging on Clive Reid and Ethan Carter. She hadn’t forgotten about the familiarity Reid had shown Carter—a man he claimed not to know. It could be that she was looking for things that didn’t exist. But she was bored and it had bugged her, especially when coupled with the Stonehenge crime scene. She had learned a long time ago to keep a healthy dose of paranoia squirreled away in the back of her mind…just in case. It kept her sharp and—sometimes—helped keep her from being blindsided.

She wanted to ask Uzi about DeSantos, and if he had any information on his covert mission. But she knew better. If it was in fact a sensitive matter, DeSantos would not have told even his good friend about it.

By the time she, Reid, and Losner piled into the car for the drive back, the sun had burned through the cloud cover, casting shadows across the grass that carpeted the countryside in and around the stone landmark. Flocks of sheep grazed on the rolling green hills in all directions, and for several moments, Vail enjoyed a sense of calm.

They arrived in London in time for a late lunch, so they stopped in for a box of assorted sushi at Abokado’s, across the street from Scotland Yard. As she started to clear her plate, her BlackBerry buzzed. A text from Montero:

report to me immediately

Vail snorted. “I really don’t like this guy.”

“Who?” Reid asked.

“My Legat, my UK boss. More like the thorn in my side. I’ve been ignoring his messages for days.”

“Never good to ignore superiors, Karen.”

Vail laughed. “Wish someone would’ve told me that years ago.”

On the way out, Reid paused to adjust his tie in the storefront, using it as a mirror. “I’ve got a meeting at the Yard. Strategy session over how we’re going to spin this case. I don’t have to tell you finding a mutilated body among a rash of satanic symbolism is a sensitive matter.”

“Sure you don’t want my input at the meeting?” She grinned.

Reid shared the laugh. “I’d like to avoid the firing squad, if you don’t mind. I’m afraid associating with you is a bit poisonous these days. Guilt by association.”

“Kind of like the Black Plague,” Losner said.

Vail laughed. “That’s hardly fair. I thought I was behaving.”

Reid consulted his watch. “Ingram’s gonna take you wherever you need to go. The embassy?”

“Paxton. I want to have a talk with Gavin Paxton.”

Reid sighed. “Fine. Take her to see our friendly curator. But please, do me a favor. In the remotest of chances that he is involved in this—and I really only say this to stroke your ego—because there’s no way in hell that he is—handle him with care. Be smart about it. We don’t want him heading out of the UK on the next train. We good on that?”

“We’re good.”

AS THEY ASCENDED the stairs en route to the gallery, Vail’s phone buzzed. She pulled it out but did not recognize the number.

“I’ll meet you in there,” Losner said.

She nodded okay as she brought the handset to her ear. “Vail.”

“Karen, it’s Hector. We need to meet. I’ve got some important info for you that I can’t discuss over the phone. Do you know the Caffé Nero in Piccadilly Circus?”

“Do I know it? I’ve been in London a handful of days in my entire life. What do you think?”

“You’re still angry with me.”

“A bit.”

“Fair enough. Pick up the tube at Bond Street station and get off at Piccadilly Circus. The café’s a block away, on Piccadilly. Big blue sign, next to Cotswold Outdoor. I’m at a table against the wall. See you in about twenty.”

As she headed back outside, she texted Losner that she had an errand to run. Five minutes after getting directions to the station, she was swiping her Oyster card and moving down the long corridor filled with large billboards advertising Hollywood films.

She was bumped from behind, and then she felt a sharp prick in her neck. Her vision instantly distorted into a myopic tunnel.

A second later, everything faded to black.

H
er neck hurt. That was the first thought Vail had as her consciousness started to return—slowly at first, then in increasingly rapid increments as she began to regain her senses: vision, then smell, then hearing.

There was darkness all around her, save for a pin of light near the ceiling. A dank, damp, mildew-like odor tickled her nostrils. Off in the distance, footsteps.

Where am I? What happened? I was going to meet Hector
.

She tried to shift her weight and realized that her limbs were encased in ringlets of iron. A broader band encircled her torso, and her arms were pinned against her sides, their movement restricted by the thin metal bars.

Oh God, I’m in some kind of cage.

Anxiety overcame her in that instant, sweat soaking her shirt, the need to move overwhelming. Something as mundane as stretching out her arms—a motion she did a thousand times a day—was now something she had to do—
needed
to do. She forced them away from her body, scraping her skin against the rough metal bars.
I can’t, I have to get out.
She felt panic rising in her throat—

But she stopped herself. She willed her arms to relax, her breathing to slow. Claustrophobia was not her enemy; whoever did this to her, however, was—and she needed to regain her wits to think clearly, to figure out where she was, and why. She needed to conserve her energy and find a way out of this.

As clarity returned to her thoughts, she realized she was suspended above the ground. How far, she did not know…but her metal coffin was swaying, pivoting from an attachment above her head. She found the pin of light again and followed it, trying to locate the boundaries of her chamber. It appeared that she was in a dungeon of some sort, and—judging by the limestone growths on what appeared to be cement block walls, uneven mortar extruding its joints—it was one of considerable age.

The scratch of tiny feet below told her that she had company—rodents of some sort.

She moved her head and her lips touched the metal encircling her face. It tasted like iron—rusted iron.

The loud clomp of heavy shoes echoed; there was a hallway or tunnel of some sort off to her right. Three—no, four—men were coming.

Let them come. I want answers!

When they got closer, she yelled into the darkness, “Who are you?”

Silence, except for the continuing footsteps. Seconds later, they stopped. They were below her, meaning she was at least several feet off the ground.

Breathing.

Finally, one spoke:

Arabic?

“We are with al-Humat,” another translated. “You know who we are.”

A statement, not a question.

Beyond the regular FBI terrorist briefings, Vail knew of al-Humat because of what one of them had done to her friend Uzi.

“Yeah. I know who you are. What do you want with me?”

Vail knew the question was pointless. Whatever the reason, it was a violent group known for doing bad things to those it considered enemies—basically anyone who did not share its beliefs.
Infidels
.

A captor lit a match. In the flickering light, Vail glimpsed her prison—a tall, narrow dungeon. Three other rusted metal devices hung from the ceiling, all of various sizes. One looked like it had once been used to stretch a body between two rolling pins utilizing a crank.

The match burned out and she was again lost in darkness. Suddenly she felt a jerk and her body was lowered toward the floor. It was disorienting, moving downward but not being able to see where she was going.

Her bare feet slapped the cold dirt.

A painfully bright halogen light was turned on, blinding her vision and blowing out her rods and cones.

More Arabic—but no translation this time. She realized they were using interrogation techniques well established in western law enforcement and military training: deprive your subject of her senses, disorient her, keep her guessing, speak in ways she could not understand, control her, provide personal information about her to give her a sense of invasion. In short, break her down, freak her out.

The light went off.

Thirty seconds later, the glimmer of another match revealed three men in black hoods. Fighting to see through her damaged visual field—which needed several more minutes to recover—she saw that one held a video camera, his comrade an AK-47 assault rifle.

More footsteps clomped down the adjacent hall as two of the kidnappers unlocked her from her iron prison. They pulled her out roughly and knocked her legs out from under her. The match again burned out.

Darkness.

C’mon, Karen. Fight! Fight!

She swung her arms and sliced through air, twisting her torso but striking nothing of significance.

A large, slick hand grabbed the back of her neck and forced her face down into what felt like a tree stump. She struck it hard and immediately tasted blood in her mouth.

The man holding the camcorder turned on the bright light again and settled the camera on his shoulder, aimed at Vail. The red “record” LED started blinking above the lens.

Another captor grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back. He shoved a sheet of paper into her hands.

“Read this.”

She squinted at the document, trying to focus and use her peripheral vision to make out the words. It was a confession for America’s transgressions—the typical treatise captives were forced to read prior to…decapitation.

“I’m not reading that,” she said.

“Read it!” the man said, louder.

Don’t give in. Show strength. Don’t let them win. They’re just trying to scare you.

She looked down again at the paper and scanned the bullshit babble—until she reached a paragraph that made her glance up at the masked man holding the document. The text mentioned Uzi—and that’s when she realized she was in trouble. This wasn’t some random kidnapping, it was done for a purpose. Retribution, for her role in a recent case involving Uzi and al-Humat’s sleeper operative.

Her legs went weak and she had to lock her knees to remain erect. To maintain the appearance of resistance.

The footsteps again snatched her attention; as she looked up, the light went out.

Another match was lit. Her face was pushed against the stump again, and out of the corner of her eye she saw a new set of black boots appear at her feet.

Someone pulled her head back. She saw a hooded face with bloodshot eyes. And a long, curved, lethally sharp talwar in his hand.