Lethal Experiment

  I was only able to fit my head and neck into the opening, but that was enough to see that Alison’s room was small, with a bed, a TV, a toilet, sink, and a mini fridge that probably held water and food. But Alison was enjoying none of these comforts. She was completely naked, chained to the wall. Her mouth was covered in tape that encircled her head. Above and below the tape I could see the top and bottom of a red bondage ball Quinn had forced into her mouth.

  I had no idea how long she’d been chained to the wall like that, but she was at least thirty pounds thinner than the last time I’d seen her. She was also clearly in agony, and there was a large puddle of urine beneath her. Callie turned to me and said, “What now?”

  I backed out of the opening and retrieved a pair of heavy duty bolt cutters from my equipment bag. I passed the cutters through the hole to Callie. It took her a minute to cut the cuffs, then she said, “Donovan, give us a little privacy.”

  I backed out of the opening again and waited while Alison used the toilet. I heard Callie say, “This will hurt less if I go slowly.” Then I heard the tape coming off Alison’s mouth. She gagged and coughed and sputtered. Callie kept saying, “It’s okay, Quinn’s dead, everything’s going to be all right.”

  Callie got her cleaned up and dressed and helped her through the wall. When Alison emerged she gave me a cold look. Her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared.

  “Your fault,” she said.

  “My fault?”

  “That’s right,” she said, launching the words aggressively. “It’s your fault. All of this.”

  Callie said, “Donovan’s the only one in the world who figured out what happened to you. You’re safe because of him.”

  Alison pushed me. “That’s the slowest rescue of all time,” she said. “Where’ve you been? You promised me a job.”

  I said, “You ready to start tonight or you want to yell at me some more?”

  Chapter 57

  We got the hugely ungrateful Alison out of there, checked her into the hotel room between mine and Callie’s, got her fed, and got her story.

  After I was declared dead, Alison had indeed entered into a romantic relationship with Quinn, hoping to cash in on the work I’d promised her. Like Quinn said, when Alison realized it wasn’t going to happen, she took off . Unfortunately for her, Quinn was the best guard in the business, and she didn’t get far. When he caught her they had some words and he kidnapped her and brought her to the warehouse.

  When he was home, which was most of the time—Quinn doted on her. But whenever he left, he chained her to the wall, his way of making sure she was glad to see him when he came home. If he planned to be gone more than a few hours, he’d use a longer chain, one that allowed her access to all her comforts. Quinn had been gone about three hours and was on his way home when I caught up to him on Walnut Street.

  So again, according to Alison, my fault.

  “Did he beat you?” Callie asked.

  “Occasionally,” Alison said.

  “Did he force himself on you?”

  “At least twice a day.”

  “You ever put up a fight?”

  “The times I did, that’s when he’d beat me.”

  Here in the well-lit room she looked white as a ghost. I said, “Before tonight, how long had it been since you’ve been outdoors?”

  “More than three years,” she said. “And the only reason I know that is that I had a TV.”

  Callie gave her a sleeping pill and sat up with her until she fell asleep. Then she joined me in my room and we broke the seal on a bottle of mini bar wine and drank it while working out Alison’s training schedule.

  I said, “I’ll give Lou the second and third weeks, you get the next three, and I’ll take the next two. Then she can shadow you on a couple of jobs. After that we’ll test her out on something easy, see how she handles it.”

  “What’s the going rate for nurse maids these days?”

  “Twenty grand a week, plus whatever you make on jobs.”

  “Works for me,” Callie said. “Who gets her the first week?”

  “Dr. Crouch. Because if Nadine doesn’t think she’s ready, we pass on the project, and try to help Alison get her old life back.”

  I punched a key on my cell phone and winked at Callie. “Listen to this,” I said, pressing the speaker button.

  Dr. Nadine Crouch answered by shouting, “Unacceptable!”

  I said, “I’ve got a patient for you.”

  “What’s the matter with you? Do you have any idea what time it is?”

  “This is a good gig,” I said. “It will appeal to your avarice.”

  “I’m trying to sleep, Donovan. Don’t ever call me in the middle of the night like this again. Unacceptable!”

  “How’s twenty-five hundred a day sound?”

  “I’m sure it will sound a lot better when I wake up in a couple of hours. Call me then,” she said, and hung up.

  “She’s a bitter old bitch,” Callie said. “Don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, she doesn’t care much for people, though she seems to like me.”

  Callie shook her head. “You ever hear yourself talk?”

  Chapter 58

  Myron Goldstein was already parked at the rest stop at mile marker 177 just outside his home town of Cincinnati when I pulled up. I got out of my car and made a wide circle around his, checking for possible snipers. As I approached his passenger door, he unlocked it, and I got in.

  “Sal says you want to die,” I said.

  “You’re Creed?”

  “I am.”

  “I thought you’d be younger.”

  “I thought you’d be older.”

  Myron Goldstein nodded. He was a gaunt, sad-faced man with thick lips and sagging jowls. A thatch of wiry black hair protruded from each of his nostrils. He kept a wet, mucus-soaked handkerchief in one of his shaky hands, and used it to dab at the slimy fluid that steadily dripped from his nose. He wore thick horn-rimmed glasses.

  I said, “The way this works, you tell me what’s on your mind and I’ll tell you what I think.”

  “Have you always been a healthy man, Mr. Creed?”

  “Can we just get to it?”

  He smiled a thick-lipped smile. “Yes, of course,” he said. He paused for a moment to dab at his nose, and then said, “Are you familiar with ALS?”

  “Lou Gehrig’s Disease?”

  “Yes, that’s the one. ALS is a progressive, fatal, neurodegenerative disease that slowly but steadily robs your body of voluntary movement. The disorder causes your muscles to weaken, day by day, until they are unable to function. You can see it already in my hands. That’s not Parkinson’s, it’s called fasciculation, and it signals the beginning of the end.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” I said, and meant it. Looking at Myron Goldstein made me ashamed of myself. For the past seven weeks I’d been hosting a pity party over losing Kathleen and Addie, while this poor son of a bitch has been dying by inches. Of course it hurt to lose the people I’d wanted to grow old with—but Myron Goldstein wasn’t going to grow old at all. Maybe Kathleen and her fiancé would someday break up, allowing me to slip back into her life. Or maybe not. But at least I had a future to dream about, which was a hell of a lot more than Myron Goldstein was going to get.

  “So what you’re saying, you want me to kill you, put you out of your misery.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why not just commit suicide? You’d save fifty grand.”

  “I have insurance policies worth much more. But they don’t pay for suicide.”

  “I have to say no,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “This money, fifty thousand dollars. It’s money your wife and kids should have.”

  He tapped the envelope on the console between us. Beyond this, I have no other money,” he said. “The insurance will pay off most of my debts and allow my wife to keep the house, the car, and have a comfortable life. It may not be enough to put my kids through Dartmouth, b
ut there are state schools available if they can’t qualify for scholarships. More than anything, if I go now it will spare my family having to care for me the last year of my life. I don’t want them to go into debt, have to put their dreams on hold, watching me die a slow and horrible death.”

  “What’s so great about Dartmouth?” I said. “Their football program sucks.”

  “Don’t get me started,” he said, laughing. “I might wind up killing you!”

  I couldn’t help but like the man. When Callie put a bullet in Robbie, I finished him off , to end his suffering. Myron was suffering too, but—

  “Killing you,” I said, “It doesn’t seem right, somehow.”

  Myron laughed hard enough to start coughing, which caused him to hack up all sorts of disgusting elements.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “No offense, but you kill people for a living. Does that seem right?”

  “The people I kill, they don’t have a choice. You do.”

  “And I’ve made it. So which is the better kill?”

  We went silent a minute, me thinking about it, him giving me time to do so.

  “Put yourself in my shoes,” he said. “What would you do?”

  I thought about my heart, wondered if there was any way to fulfill this contract without causing a relapse.

  “You ever kill a man?” I said.

  “Heavens no!”

  “Ever cheat on your wife, beat your kids, anything along those lines?”

  “No.” He saw where this was going. “I’ve yelled at my kids a lot, and scolded my dog.”

  “Scolded your dog?”

  “More than once.”

  “You bastard!” I said.

  He smiled.

  I smiled.

  Then I slit his throat.

  Chapter 59

  It was about four in the afternoon when the dry wall guys finished laying their last coat of mud. A bunch of them planned to meet up afterward at a nearby tavern, but I said they’d have to celebrate without me this time.

  The temperature was mild, and several hours of daylight remained. I loitered around the lot of the newly-constructed 8,500 square-foot home, picking up trash until the last worker drove away. Then I set to work.

  The house at 2010 Dunvegan sat on the cul-de-sac of a new development called Rock Hill Gardens. Several homes in the neighborhood had already made it to closing, but none were inhabited yet. When seeking an attic to live in I prefer high income spec homes like these in new, protected neighborhoods. I cordon off a cubicle in a strategic gable of a house like this and use it as a safe house. I had a number of these safe houses scattered in major cities throughout the country, but this would be my first in Atlanta.

  This particular lot was just under an acre, and featured a steep, wooded fall-away that afforded me access to the rear of the house while being sheltered from the view of future neighbors. It would be ready for occupancy in a month, but probably wouldn’t sell as quickly as the others because it didn’t overlook the Rock Hill Country Club golf course.

  I had come to Atlanta because the leaders of a local terror cell had been identified and needed killing. Before I’d had a chance to get them, our informant learned that my old nemesis, Abdulazi Fathi, was coming to town in two weeks to give his people final instructions and a proper sendoff. Reasoning that killing Fathi along with the others would deal a severe blow to al Qaida, Darwin decided to put my mission on hold until Fathi arrived. With two weeks to kill (pardon the pun), I decided I might as well establish a safe house, so I checked out the neighborhoods until I found an upscale one in the final stages of construction. Then I called the number on the builder’s sign in front of the house and got myself hired on his construction crew.

  For days I’d been hiding tools and wire and dry wall under rolls of insulation stacked in the attic above the garage. In a few minutes I’d start walling off the interior gable above the guest bedroom. I’d lay wire for electricity to run my computer and keep my cell phone charged. Then I’d tap into an HVAC vent for heat and air to keep me comfortable, and splice a line into the highspeed internet signal. Thirty days from now, give or take, I’d be living in a mini mansion with all the comforts of home.

  Dry walling a gable is a simple way to steal part of a family’s home without paying rent. All I need is a few square feet and a couple hours of uninterrupted time to nail it up. If the builder were to notice the dry wall in the attic, he’d just think his guys made a dumb mistake. But that hasn’t happened yet, because in these late stages of new home construction, no one ever looks into the far ends of the attic. In older homes there’s always a risk of detection because when homeowners decide to renovate, my gable might need to be accessed to run phone or cable wires or TV antennas for better reception. But new construction at this price point always pre-wires. If the particular gable I want has been pre-wired, I simply re-route the wires around my living space.

  My early years as an army sniper required me to remain perfectly still for hours at a time, useful training for my later years of living in the attics of occupied homes. To hedge my bet, I try to select an unused gable, located as far from the attic access doors as possible. I’m safest just off the far side of a rarely-used upstairs guest bedroom, in case an unexpected cough or snore might alert a family pet. Usually that isn’t an issue, since most of my construction time is spent sound-proofing my living space. I lay a top-quality, non-squeak floor. Then I mix sawdust and baby powder into the caulk I lay between and below the floor joists and in the nail holes to keep the floor from squeaking. My access door is always located on the far side, indented a couple of feet into my living area to avoid detection. Several times a day I don a blindfold and practice escaping. The blindfold forces me to memorize the location of the floor joists in case I have to escape in pitch darkness.

  Once completed, I move in and try to adapt to the routines of my host family. When possible, I sleep when they sleep and remain quiet when they’re active. I monitor their personal computers, their phone calls, and watch family interactions through pinhole cameras I’ve hidden throughout the house. Within weeks I’ll know their habits and schedules better than they do, at which point living with them becomes more enjoyable. If they’re going to be away a few hours I’ll use their toilets, enjoy a hot bath or shower, nap in their beds, share their food and liquor, and use their computers instead of mine when sensitive work needs to be done without leaving an electronic trail.

  The most fun I have is playing with their pets.

  Dogs and most other pets are easy, but I can’t live with a cat. Once a cat discovers me, things are never the same. It never stops looking up at the ceiling and always tries to find a way to get to me. It moans and fusses all night every night and never seems to get over it. I’ve got a soft spot for all types of pets, but when one of my families brings a cat into the house I have to find it a new home ASAP. Otherwise, the owners keep sending exterminators into the attic to check for mice.

  Chapter 60

  It took four evenings to complete my living space on Dunvegan, and wouldn’t you know it, Fathi never made it to Atlanta. That’s the problem working with informants: they’re usually worker bees who have access to little more than rumors. But I was content to kill the two local leaders, and did so with ease.

  I’d followed them to a lively nightspot in downtown Atlanta. The place was so jammed it took me ten minutes just to find them. They were part of a crowd that was watching two hard-bodied women dancing to the loudest music I’d ever heard. Every thirty seconds the cavernous room went dark, and strobes and laser lights flashed from all directions.

  It was a perfect killing field.

  I positioned myself behind the terrorists, put a syringe in each hand, and waited for the strobes. When they flashed, I plunged the needles into their lower backs and stepped aside as they fell to the floor. A couple of people shouted, but the dancers kept dancing, the music kept blaring and I was out of there before anyone figured out w
hat happened.

  My new living quarters were complete, but because the construction crew was still on site, it would be weeks before I could move in. The two weeks I planned to spend training Alison were still in the future. My dinner with Callie and Eva had been postponed twice due to Eva’s tireless rehearsal and performance schedules, but I had a firm commitment from them for Sunday night.

  Finding myself with three days of free time, I decided to meet Dr. Nadine Crouch in Jacksonville, Florida. For five thousand dollars and a beach vacation, Nadine agreed to help prepare my daughter Kimberly for the news that I was alive.

  I could have contacted Kimberly sooner, of course, but I wanted to wait until I was certain I wouldn’t have a relapse. Now I’d killed a dying man and two terrorists without incident, so I figured to be okay from this point on. Since I’d missed a big part of Kimberly’s life, I planned to make up for it, starting now. But first I had to pave the way. I couldn’t just walk up to her with this new face and say, “Hey, Kim, it’s me, your dead Daddy!”

  Kimberly had inherited my entire estate—or to be more precise, the entire estate identified in my will and supporting documents. Naturally I had secret stashes of money tucked away in case I needed to fake my own death.

  Lou Kelly had spoken to Kimberly a few times over the years, but my funeral was their first face-to-face meeting. Since then, he’d called every month to see how she was doing. It was Lou who presented my “Last Will and Testament” to the attorneys settling the estate, so it seemed natural to have Lou phone Kimberly about this. He taped the exchange and emailed it to me in an audio file.

  “I want you to meet someone,” Lou said. “Her name is Dr. Nadine Crouch. She was your father’s therapist.”