Текст книги "An Evil Mind"

Автор книги: Chris (2) Carter

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Hunter took his hands off the steering wheel and turned his palms up.

‘Do you see anyone other than the three of us? Anyone following us at all?’

‘Not yet,’ Lucien replied confidently, before his eyes moved up and to the right, ‘but they’re up there, probably waiting, flying around in circles. You know it and I know it.’

Taylor’s inquisitive eyes also found Hunter’s in the rearview mirror. He kept his gaze on Lucien.

‘No, we don’t know that,’ Hunter said. ‘And neither do you. You’re assuming it. So you want us to sit here while Madeleine runs out of time because of an assumption?’

‘My assumptions are always very accurate because they’re based on facts, Robert,’ Lucien said.

‘Facts?’ Taylor this time. ‘What facts?’

Lucien’s stare finally left the rear-view mirror and moved to Taylor. On its way, Lucien noticed that her grip on her gun had slacked just a touch.

‘Let’s see, Agent Taylor, we can get a move on as soon as you and Robert take off your shirts and throw them out the window. How about that?’

‘Excuse me?’ Taylor said. The offended look she managed to pull could’ve won her an Oscar.

‘Your shirts,’ Lucien repeated. ‘Take them off and throw them out the window.’

Silence from Hunter and Taylor.

‘You disappoint me, Robert,’ Lucien said. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t notice the buttons on both of your shirts?’

A muscle flexed on Taylor’s jaw.

Lucien addressed her. ‘It was a good try, but the colors don’t quite match the ones you had earlier.’ He lifted his right index finger and pointed at Taylor’s shirt. ‘Those are about two shades darker. I’m guessing that what we have here is a microphone, a GPS satellite transmitter, and perhaps a camera?’

There was no reply.

‘Disappointing. I’d imagined that the FBI would be more careful than that.’ Lucien shrugged. ‘But then again, I didn’t give you guys that much notice, did I?’

Hunter’s earlier thought came back to him: this could be a costly mistake.

‘So,’ Lucien carried on, ‘we have a few options here. You can both take off your shirts and throw them out the window . . .’ He gave Taylor a provoking wink. ‘And that would no doubt add to my pleasure here in the backseat. Or you can rip the buttons off, one by one, and throw them out the window.’ Lucien was still staring at Taylor. ‘I bet you have a beautiful belly button, Agent Taylor.’

‘Fuck you,’ Taylor couldn’t contain herself.

Lucien laughed. ‘Alternatively, you can keep your shirts on with the buttons intact and just rip off the satellite transmitter, which I’m sure is taped to your bodies somewhere.’

Without even noticing it, Taylor looked like an angry kid who had just been caught on a lie.

‘Please,’ Lucien added, ‘waste as much time as you like thinking about it.’ He placed his head against the leather headrest and closed his eyes. ‘Let me know when you’ve made your minds up.’

Hunter unbuckled his seatbelt, leaned forward a little and ripped the satellite transmitter from his lower back.

With her weapon still aimed at Lucien, Taylor did the same.

Back in the Operations Room in Quantico, Director Adrian Kennedy heard a scraping sound. A moment after that, Hunter’s microphone went into complete silence. A couple of seconds later, so did Taylor’s. The two dots that represented both of them on the radar screen they were looking at faded to nothing.

The agent sitting at the radar station quickly typed several commands into his computer before finally looking up at Kennedy, who was standing by his side. ‘We’ve lost them, sir. I’m sorry. There’s nothing we can do from here.’

‘Sonofabitch,’ Kennedy whispered between clenched teeth.

Inside Bird Two, circling around the sky near Berlin’s municipal airport, Agent Brody ran his hand through his close-cropped hair and uttered the exact same comment.

Eighty-Eight

‘That’s much better,’ Lucien said, once Hunter and Taylor had both dropped their satellite transmitters out their windows. ‘Now, let’s be on the safe side, shall we? Take off your belts and drop them outside the window as well.’

‘That was the only transmitter we had on,’ Taylor said.

‘Noted,’ Lucien said with a polite nod. ‘But forgive me for not trusting you at this particular moment, Agent Taylor. Now, if you please, the belts.’

Hunter and Taylor complied, dropping them outside the window.

‘Now empty your pockets. Change, credit cards, wallets, pens . . . all of it. And your watches too.’

‘How about this,’ Taylor said, showing Lucien the keychain that belonged to him. The one they had used to get access to the house in Murphy in North Carolina.

‘Oh, you’d better hang on to that, Agent Taylor. We’ll need it to get into this place.’

Hunter and Taylor dropped their watches and whatever they had in their pockets out the window.

‘Don’t worry,’ Lucien said. ‘I’m sure the pilot will collect everything once we drive off. Nothing will be lost. Now, since we’re on a roll here, let’s do the same with your shoes too. Take them off and leave them outside.’

‘The shoes?’ Taylor asked.

‘I’ve seen transmitters hidden inside heels, Agent Taylor. And since you’ve already abused my trust once, I’m not leaving anything to chance. But if you want to waste more time, you’ll get no opposition from me.’

Seconds later, Hunter’s boots and Taylor’s shoes hit the asphalt by the side of the car.

Lucien leaned forward slowly and looked down at Taylor’s feet.

‘You have very pretty toes, Agent Taylor.’ He nodded his agreement. ‘Red, the color for passion. Interesting. Did you know that it’s estimated that maybe as many as thirty to forty percent of men have some sort of foot fetish? I’m sure that there’re people out there who’d kill just to be able to touch those pretty toes.’

Cringing at his words, Taylor instinctively moved her feet back, as if trying to hide them away.

Lucien laughed animatedly.

‘And last but not least,’ he continued. ‘Let’s get rid of the cellphones, shall we? We all know that they have trackable GPS systems.’

As much as this was making them mad, Hunter and Taylor couldn’t argue. Lucien was still holding all the cards in this game. They did as they were told, and the phones were dropped outside their windows.

Satisfied, Lucien smiled at Hunter via the rearview mirror.

‘I think we’re good now,’ he said. ‘You can start the car again, Robert.’

Hunter did, and the satellite navigation system came to life on the 8.4-inch touchscreen on the dashboard.

‘You won’t need that,’ Lucien said. ‘There’s no road name, or number or anything. Just a dirt path.’

‘And how do we get there?’

‘I’ll guide you,’ Lucien said. ‘First thing we got to do is get the hell out of this shithole of an airport.’

Eighty-Nine

Director Adrian Kennedy stared at the radar screen inside the Operations Room at the FBI Academy in Quantico for a long time, trying to figure out what to do next.

‘We can try to track the GPS signal in their cellphones,’ the agent at the radar station offered.

Kennedy shrugged. ‘We can give that a spin, but this guy is too smart. He figured out the buttons just because they were a couple of shades darker than the original ones for chrissakes. Who notices the color of buttons on someone else’s shirt?’

‘Someone who knows what to expect,’ Doctor Lambert said. ‘Lucien never expected the FBI to simply bend over and accept his demands. He knew we would try something, and he was ready for it.’

‘And that’s exactly what I mean,’ Kennedy said. ‘If he was ready for the buttons, I don’t think there’s a chance he would allow Robert and Agent Taylor to proceed carrying their cellphones with them. Even a ten-year-old kid knows that a cellphone GPS system is trackable.’ He looked at the agent at the radar station. ‘But by all means, give it a spin.’

The agent called an internal FBI application on his computer. ‘What’s the agent’s name?’ he asked.

‘Courtney Taylor,’ Kennedy replied. ‘She’s with the Behavioral Science Unit.’

A few more keyboard clicks.

‘Found her,’ the agent said.

The application he had called up on his screen listed the trackable GPS ID for every cellphone issued to an FBI agent.

‘Give me a few seconds.’ The agent began typing ferociously. A moment later, the word ‘locating’ appeared on his screen, followed by three blinking dots. Just a few seconds after that, the screen announced: ‘GPS ID found’.

A new dot appeared on the radar system.

‘The phone is live,’ the agent said. ‘The GPS is still transmitting, which means it hasn’t been destroyed, and the battery is still in it. The location is exactly the same as we had before. They’re still on the runway at Berlin’s municipal airport.’

‘Either that,’ Kennedy said, ‘or they were told to leave their phones behind.’ He looked at Doctor Lambert, who nodded.

‘That’s what I would do.’

The cellphone in Kennedy’s pocket rang. It was Agent Brody inside Bird Two.

‘Director,’ Brody said once Kennedy answered the call. ‘Our pilot has just been in contact with the pilot in Bird One. He said that the car with the target is gone, but they left behind a pile of stuff on the runway – cellphones, wallets, belts, even shoes. The target is taking no chances.’

Kennedy had his answer.

‘What do you suggest we do?’ Brody asked. ‘With no ears on the ground anymore, and no accurate target location, landing can be too risky, and even if we get away with it without the target noticing it, we don’t have a dot to follow once we’re on the ground.’

‘I understand,’ Kennedy said. ‘And the answer is: I’m not sure yet. Let me call you back once I figure something out.’ He disconnected. His tired brain was working hard to come up with an idea. And then a thought came to him. ‘The car,’ he said, looking at Doctor Lambert and then at the radar station agent. ‘Robert got the car from the guy who runs air traffic control at the airport. His name is Josh. We heard that whole conversation through Robert’s button mic, remember? Josh said he just got the car, a Jeep Grand Cherokee, a couple of months ago.’

‘And a lot of new cars,’ the agent said, picking up on Kennedy’s line of thought, ‘already come equipped with an anti-theft satellite tracking system. It’s definitely worth a try.’

Kennedy nodded. ‘Let’s get Josh on the phone right now.’

Ninety

As soon as he drove through the airport gates, Hunter found himself on East Side River Road.

‘Make a left,’ Lucien said, ‘then take your first right. We’ve got to cross the small bridge into the city of Milan. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite compare to the one in Italy. No Duomo Cathedral to see here. Actually, nothing at all to see here.’

Hunter followed Lucien’s instructions. They crossed the bridge and passed an elementary school on their right before coming to a T-junction at the top of the road.

‘Hang a right, and just follow the road on,’ Lucien commanded.

Hunter did, and within a few hundred yards he drove past a few houses, some small, some a little larger, but nothing too exuberant.

‘Welcome to the city of Milan, New Hampshire,’ Lucien said, jerking his chin toward the window. ‘There’s nothing here but rednecks, fields, solitude and isolated places. It’s a great place to disappear, go under the radar. No one will disturb you here. No one cares. And that’s one of the greatest things about America – it’s riddled with similar towns. Every state you go, you’ll find tens of Milans and Berlins and Murphys and Shitkickersville. Just God-forsaken places where many of the streets don’t even have a name, where people don’t notice you.’

Taylor felt the weight of Lucien’s keychain in her pocket and thought back to the seventeen keys it held. Each one of them could belong to a different anonymous place scattered around the land. Just like the house in Murphy.

Lucien read her like a book.

‘You’re wondering how I come upon these places, aren’t you, Agent Taylor?’

‘No, I’m not,’ Taylor replied just to contradict Lucien. ‘I don’t really care.’

Hunter checked her in his rearview mirror.

Taylor’s reply didn’t deter Lucien.

‘They are actually quite easy to come by,’ he explained. ‘You can buy them for next to nothing, because they are neglected, abandoned, half-destroyed places that no one wants or cares about anymore. If there is an owner, he or she usually just wants to get rid of the burden, so any offer is an offer, no matter how small. No refurbishment needed either. On the contrary, the more fucked-up, dirty, rotten and putrid the place is, the better. And you know why that is, don’t you, Robert?’

Hunter kept his eyes on the road, but he knew exactly why: The fear factor. You throw an abducted victim into a soiled, rancid and dark place, infested with rats or cockroaches, and the place alone will scare the life out of them.

Lucien didn’t need an answer. He knew Hunter knew. Lucien moved his head from side to side, and then forward and backward to try to release some of the tension in his neck.

‘This particular house,’ he continued, ‘was sheer luck, but a great find. It belonged to someone I met while at Yale. His great-grandfather built it some one hundred years ago. The house was passed down from generation to generation, being refurbished twice before it finally ended up as my friend’s property, but he hated everything about this place – the location, the looks, the layout and, according to him, its legacy and its history. In his mind, the house was cursed, a jinx. His mother died in an accident in the backyard. A few years later, his father hanged himself in the kitchen. His grandfather also died there. He said that he never wanted to see this place again. If he did, he’d burn it to the ground. I offered to buy it from him, but he wouldn’t have it. He just gave me the keys, signed away the deeds and said, “Take it. It’s yours.”’

Once they passed the initial cluster of houses, the scenery began to change. To their right, following the banks of the river, were nicely cropped fields that stretched as far as the eye could see. To their left, nothing but densely populated forests.

After about two miles, Hunter started noticing several little dirt paths that sprang out from the main road, leading deeper into the forest fields on their left. From the road, he couldn’t see how deep they went, or where they’d lead.

Lucien was still watching Hunter through the rearview mirror.

‘You’re wondering which one of these will take you to where Madeleine is, aren’t you, Robert?’

Hunter locked eyes with him for a quick moment.

Lucien gave Hunter a tight smile. ‘Well, we’ll be there soon enough. And for your sake, I really hope we’re not too late.’

Ninety-One

He’s going to keep on pushing.

Taylor’s finger tightened around the trigger on her weapon once again, as anger began to boil her blood.

Lucien noticed it, and calmly leaned his head against the window.

‘Easy on that trigger, Agent Taylor. I don’t think you can, or want, to shoot me just yet.’ He winked at her again. ‘Plus, I’m sure that that would really piss Robert off. He wants that privilege for himself.’

Without any warning, Hunter’s memory threw several images of Jessica lying in a pool of blood in her living room at him. His grip stiffened around the steering wheel until both of his fists had gone white.

The road swerved slightly to the left, then to the right, then to the left again. There were no crossroads and no tight bends, just dirt paths every so often leading away from the main road and into the unknown. The forestland to their left seemed to get denser the further they went. There were no lampposts, and darkness began to clothe them like an ill-fitting suit, tight and uncomfortable. Hunter switched the inside lights on. There was no way he would allow Lucien to hide his movements in darkness.

‘How much further?’ Taylor asked.

Lucien turned and looked out his window before carrying his gaze across to the one on the other side.

‘Not long.’

The road swerved left again in a half-moon shape, following the contour of the river on their right. The nicely cropped fields were all but gone. Now they had only dense forestland on both sides of the road.

‘Keep your eyes peeled for a sharp left turn that’s coming up, Robert,’ Lucien said. ‘Not a dirt path.’

Hunter slowed down and drove for another one hundred and fifty yards.

‘Yep,’ Lucien said, and nodded, ‘that’s the one. Right ahead.’

Hunter bent left.

The road, now flanked by more forestland, seemed to stretch forever into undiluted darkness. Since they’d left the airport, they hadn’t crossed a single vehicle in their path. No one in their rear-view mirror either. The further they went, the more it felt like they were driving away from civilization and into some sort of twilight world. One thing was for sure: Lucien knew how to pick a secluded hiding place.

They drove for another mile before the road turned into a bumpy dirt path. Hunter shifted down and wondered if he should engage the four-wheel-drive just in case.

‘We’re lucky,’ Lucien said, ‘it looks like there’s been no rain lately. These roads can easily turn into a nightmare of water pools and deep mud when rain comes.’

Hunter slowed down a little more, moving from one side of the road to the other, choosing the best path, trying to avoid making the car jerk too much.

‘There’s a right turn coming up,’ Lucien announced, tilting his head to one side to get a better look at the windscreen. ‘We’ve got to take it, Robert.’

‘This one?’ Hunter asked, pointing to a turn about twenty-five yards ahead of them.

‘That’s it.’

Hunter took it.

They were now clearly driving through the middle of nowhereland. The last sign of human life they’d seen had been miles back. If a bomb exploded right where they were, no one would hear it. No one would care. No one would come.

The road got bumpier still. The next mile seemed to take them an eternity to cover.

‘One more left turn coming up,’ Lucien said, ‘and we’ll be almost there, but keep your eyes open, Robert, it’s a tiny path, and it’s quite hidden away.’

Hunter saw it after another fifty yards, but he almost missed it. It really was a minute path. If they weren’t specifically looking for it, no one would ever notice it.

Hunter veered left. The trail was barely wide enough for the Jeep to fit through, and everyone heard the shrubs and bushes scrape the side of the vehicle.

‘Ooh,’ Lucien commented, ‘I don’t think the air traffic controller back at the airport will be happy about this, but then again, since his car was commandeered by the FBI, I’m sure it will be federally insured.’

This time, Hunter had nowhere to go to swerve away from the bigger bumps and holes. Good thing that they were in a brand-new car and the suspension was strong and steady.

They had to sit tight inside the shakemobile for another half a mile, until the road came to an abrupt end. Hunter put the car in neutral and looked around him. Taylor did the same. There was nothing but forest surrounding them.

‘Did we take a wrong turn somewhere?’ Taylor asked.

‘No,’ Lucien replied. ‘This is it.’

Taylor looked out the window again. The Jeep headlights reflected on the shrubs and trees.

‘This is it? Where?’ she asked.

Lucien nodded toward the front of their vehicle. ‘We have to walk the rest of the way. You can’t get there by car.’

Ninety-Two

Hunter was the first to leave the Jeep. Once he was out, he unholstered his weapon and opened the back door for Lucien. Taylor followed shortly after.

‘Now what?’ she asked, looking around her.

‘Through there,’ Lucien said, indicating a few loose tree branches that’d been piled up against each other just ahead and to the right of where the Jeep was parked.

‘We’re going to go deep into this forest with no light and no shoes?’ Taylor asked Hunter, looking down at their bare feet.

‘Not much I can do about the shoes,’ he replied, before reaching back inside the car for the glove compartment. He came back with a Maglite Pro Led 2. ‘But we do have light.’

‘That’s handy,’ Taylor said.

‘I knew night was approaching,’ Hunter said. ‘And I wasn’t counting on Lucien’s hiding place being very straightforward. So I also asked the air traffic controller for a flashlight.’

‘Robert Hunter,’ Lucien said, nodding and pursing his lips as if he was about to whistle. ‘Always thinking a step ahead. Too bad you didn’t foresee the shoe problem.’

‘Let’s go,’ Hunter commanded.

They assumed the same formation as when they were leaving the plane. Hunter took point, Lucien came second, and Taylor stayed four to five steps behind Lucien, her weapon always trained on his back, just a couple of inches below his neckline.

Hunter quickly removed the branches Lucien had indicated, and it revealed a well-worn trackers’ trail.

‘Just follow it,’ Lucien said. ‘The place isn’t very far from here.’

Despite already being in a hurry, Hunter’s gut feeling filled him with an extra sense of urgency, as if something he couldn’t quite pinpoint was off, but he didn’t have much time to dwell on it.

‘Let’s move,’ he said.

The flashlight had an ultra-bright and wide beam, which made things a little easier.

They took to the trail and, surprisingly, Lucien didn’t try to slow them down with the excuse of his shackled legs. He didn’t have to. Pebbles and little rocks and sharp-edged dried sticks forced Hunter and Taylor to move a lot slower than they would’ve liked.

They had covered only about thirty yards when the track swerved hard right, then left, and then it really felt as if they had crossed some sort of twilight gate. All of a sudden the bushes, trees and scrub gave way to a plain field – a clearing in the middle of nowhere.

‘And here we are,’ Lucien said with a proud smile.

Hunter and Taylor paused, their eyes looking around in disbelief.

‘What the hell is this?’

Ninety-Three

Hunter shone his flashlight on the structure standing before them.

It was a stiff and squared, ivy-covered brick house, with white Romanesque columns that must once have been imposing outside the front entryway. Now, only two of the original four were still standing, and those had cracks running from top to bottom.

The house had been built one hundred years earlier, and then reconfigured again twice after that, so whatever remained of its first incarnation as someone’s grand hillside home was now merely memory. Add to that the disfiguration caused by the elements and a total disregard and lack of care for a property, and you’d end up with the carcass of a house they had in front of them – a battered shell of a home of long ago.

Three out of the four outside walls still remained, but they all had several holes and major fissures in them, as if the house belonged in a warzone somewhere in the Middle East. The south wall, on the right side of the house, had almost entirely crumpled onto a pile of rubble. Most of the internal walls had also collapsed, giving the place nearly no room separation, and filling it with what looked like destruction debris. The roof had caved in almost everywhere, with the exception of the old living room at the front of the house, the corridor beyond it, and the kitchen on the left, where it was still partially in place. Weed and wild vegetation had grown through the floorboards and among the debris just about everywhere. The windows were all broken, and some of the window frames had been ripped from the walls as if by some sort of internal explosion.

‘Welcome to one of my favorite hiding places,’ Lucien said.

Taylor blinked the surprise away. ‘Madeleine?’ she yelled out, taking a step to her right.

No reply.

‘Madeleine?’ she yelled again, this time even louder. ‘This is the FBI. Can you hear me?’

She got nothing back.

‘Even if she’s still alive, she won’t be able hear you,’ Lucien said.

Taylor looked at him with fuming eyes. ‘This is bullshit. There’s nobody here.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ Lucien questioned.

‘Look at this shithole. This is not a hiding place. How can you hide or keep anyone locked in a place without doors or walls? Where anyone can simply walk in, or out?’

‘Because no one knows this place exists,’ Hunter said, trying to analyze the area surrounding the house. ‘And no one will ever come looking for it out here.’

‘Right again,’ Lucien said, looking at Taylor. ‘Hence the term hidden place.’

‘This is bullshit.’ Taylor couldn’t hide the anger in her voice. ‘You’re telling us that you left Madeleine somewhere in this ghost shell of a house – no windows, no doors, no walls, and she never walked out?’

Lucien’s gaze went to Taylor and right then his eyes looked like dark vials filled with venom.

‘Not somewhere inside it, Agent Taylor.’ He paused and ran his tongue over his bottom lip like a lizard. ‘Buried underneath it.’

Ninety-Four

Lucien’s words sent fear crawling like a rash across Taylor’s skin. Her now confused gaze immediately returned to what was left of the house, before moving to the soil surrounding it.

‘Well, not exactly buried,’ Lucien clarified. ‘Let me show you.’ He lifted both cuffed hands and pointed toward the north side of the disfigured structure. ‘Through there.’

In a hurry, Hunter and the flashlight took point again. Lucien and Taylor followed.

‘My friend’s grandfather,’ Lucien said, as they started walking, ‘and by friend, I mean the person I got this place from, was a hardcore, old-school patriot. I was told that he had his best years in this house during the USA versus USSR era. You know, “death to all communists” kind of thing. And he really subscribed to that ideology. And there was plenty of talk about a very possible atomic war.’

As soon as they reached the side of the house, Hunter and Taylor understood what Lucien was talking about.

On the ground, halfway along the north wall, they could see a very large, external, thick metal, basement-entry double door. The doors were locked together by a Sargent and Greenleaf military-grade padlock, very similar to the one they’d found in the house in Murphy.

‘My friend’s grandfather,’ Lucien continued, ‘in his paranoia and deep belief that an atomic war was inevitable and imminent, refurbished the whole place, extending and adding a substantial bomb shelter to the original basement.’ He nodded at the padlocked doors. ‘The house might look like an earthquake site, but the shelter has more than lived up to its expectations.’ He indicated the padlock. ‘The key for that is on the keychain.’

Taylor immediately reached for it.

‘Which one,’ she asked urgently, holding up the bunch of keys.

Lucien leaned forward and squinted at them for a second. ‘The sixth one starting from your left.’

Taylor selected the key and reached for the padlock.

Hunter and Lucien waited, and as they did, Hunter’s awkward sensation that something wasn’t quite right came back to him. He looked around him for an instant.

‘What’s at the back of the house?’ he asked.

Lucien studied him for a moment, and then let his gaze move toward the far end of the house.

‘A very badly treated backyard,’ he replied. ‘There’s a large pond as well, which now looks more like a deep pool of mud. Would you like me to give you a tour? I have all the time in the world.’

Click. The padlock came undone. Taylor unhooked it from the doors and threw it away before grabbing one of the handles and pulling it toward her. The door barely moved.

‘Heavy, aren’t they?’ Lucien commented with a smirk. ‘As I’ve said, this isn’t a regular cellar, Agent Taylor. It’s a fallout shelter.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Hunter said.

Taylor stepped back while Hunter first pulled the right door open, then the left one.

They were immediately hit by a breath of warm, stale air. The doors revealed a concrete staircase that took them down a lot deeper than one would’ve imagined. There were at least thirty to forty steps.

‘Deep, isn’t it?’ Lucien said. ‘It’s a well-built shelter.’

Hunter went down first, and they all moved down in a hurry.

At the bottom, they were greeted by another heavy metal door with a very sturdy lock.

‘The seventh key,’ Lucien announced, ‘the one to the right of the one you used on the padlock.’

Taylor moved forward and unlocked the door before pushing it open.

The air inside the dark room beyond it was leaden with dust, and felt even staler, but there was something else in the air, something that both Hunter and Taylor could easily recognize because they’d been around it too many times.

The smell of death.

Ninety-Five

Sometimes sour, sometimes putrid, sometimes sickly sweet, sometimes bitter, sometimes nauseating, and most of the time a combination of everything. No one can tell you what death really smells like. Most would say that there’s no specific smell to it, but anyone who’s been around it as many times as Hunter and Taylor had been would recognize in just a fraction of a second, because as soon as you smell it, it chokes your heart and saddens your soul in a way that nothing else does.

As they sensed death, Hunter and Taylor were filled with a disquieting fear, and the same thought exploded inside both of their heads.

We’ve wasted too much time. We’re too late.

Hunter shone the beam of his flashlight into the room and moved it around the place almost frantically.

It was empty.

There was no one there.

Lucien took a healthy deep breath, like a hungry man taking in the aroma of freshly cooked food.

‘Wow, I’ve missed this smell.’

‘Madeleine?’ Taylor called into the room, her gaze chasing after the beam of the flashlight. ‘Madeleine?’

‘It would’ve been very stupid of me if I had left Madeleine locked inside the very first room one comes to in the shelter, wouldn’t it?’ A cryptic smile graced Lucien’s lips.

‘Where is she?’ Taylor asked.

‘There’s a light switch on the wall to the right of the door,’ Lucien told them.

Hunter reached for it.

A feeble yellowish bulb at the center of the ceiling flickered a couple of times, as if in doubt whether it would come on or not. It finally did, and it brought with it an electronic hiss that echoed annoyingly around the room.

They found themselves in a semi-bare room, twenty feet square. Two of the thick, solid concrete walls were adorned by a few handmade bookshelves, all of them loaded with books that were covered by a thick layer of dust. The wall to the left of where they stood had a single steel door set right in the center of it. The door had a dappled gunmetal look to its surface, as though it were meant to draw the eye. Against the wall directly in front of them was a console desk that must’ve been at least fifty or sixty years old, where a multitude of buttons, switches, levers and old-fashioned dial gauges could be found. A switched-off computer monitor hung on the wall just above the console desk. This was definitely the shelter’s main control room.