“I do.”
“If I take you back to Harmony House, you may never get to.” She would also lose any chance of ever getting retribution for Jacob’s death.
“Because Dr. Fenton might take my echo box away?”
She nodded. “Yes. And I made you a promise to stop anyone from taking it away from you.”
“Yes, you did.”
“But I need your help to keep that promise.”
He thought for a moment and reached his decision. “I will help you keep that promise.” He counted his footsteps under his breath as he and Skylar made their way down two flights of stairs to the lower departure level. They were joined by an increasing number of Mets fans heading for the same train, who all shared the same thought: there was nothing more fun than staying up all night making fun of Phillies fans on their home turf the night before a good shellacking.
Eddie continued quietly counting to himself. “Two hundred and thirty-two. Two hundred and thirty-three.” He stopped abruptly to scratch his neck where the newly purchased Mets T-shirt collar was rubbing against it. “I don’t like this shirt. It itches my neck.” He started to take it off.
“You only have to wear it until we get on the train.”
“It makes me uncomfortable.” He pulled the shirt over his head.
Skylar glanced at an officer in the distance, and spoke conspiratorially. “If a police officer tags you, it will be even more uncomfortable.”
Eddie looked around. He also saw the officer down the platform. “I do not want to be tagged. I want to hear my mother sing.”
“Then keep walking and do your best not to draw attention to yourself.”
He put the Mets jersey back over his head as he resumed walking toward the train. “Two hundred and thirty-four. Two hundred and thirty-five.”
CHAPTER 82
Harmony House, Woodbury, New Jersey, May 27, 10:11 p.m.
The distraught call from his boss was not Michael Barnes’s main concern. It was understandable that Fenton resented being in the back of a squad car. Of course he was livid about being taken in for questioning. Detective Butler McHenry was a nuisance, but not a legitimate threat, not to either of them. McHenry had no jurisdiction nor evidence he could use against Fenton. The detective was fishing, hoping the old man would slip. In Barnes’s professional estimation, that was highly unlikely. Possible, because anything was possible, but the odds were low. Fenton would lose a few hours being questioned, but that would be the extent of it. McHenry was nothing more than a frustrated detective who knew justice would never be carried out. His only move was to pester and annoy.
Barnes’s bigger concern, the one causing the knot in his stomach to grow increasingly tight and resistant to the over-the-counter remedies he’d been gobbling down, was that the team he’d sent after the nurse had not been heard from. Strunk and Dobson should have checked in over an hour ago, but both of their phones had stopped transmitting GPS signals at Gloria Pruitt’s residence. Which meant something had happened.
But what?
Barnes ran through a variety of scenarios, and the most likely involved the local police showing up at the nurse’s house while Dobson and Strunk were engaged in the activities he’d prescribed. But even that was a stretch. A neighbor would have had to have seen something suspicious and called the police, or possibly even intervened directly. But his team’s response in either scenario would have been to eliminate the witnesses. They would have had no qualms about it, and neither would Barnes. Far better to have collateral damage than anything even potentially leading investigators back to Harmony House.
So what was the holdup?
He called his team again. Both calls went right to voicemail. Something was very wrong. As he imagined various locations where his two men might be, Barnes never considered anywhere remotely close to their actual location. Which was the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
Parts of them were there, anyway.
CHAPTER 83
Peaceful Easy Feeling, 5.3 Nautical Miles off the New Jersey Coast, May 27, 10:14 p.m.
The GPS coordinates were N 39°37’51.44”, W 74°05’56.59”. The National League East fans had jointly purchased the Albemarle 360XF three years ago, mostly because of the Volvo Penta IPS engine that came with it. IPS stood for Inboard Performance System, and that was what set this fishing boat apart.
At the moment, however, the Volvo Penta IPS wasn’t being asked to give them anything, because the engine was turned off. The boat was still, except for the gentle rocking caused by the ocean currents beneath it. They had picked this location because of the three-hundred-foot vertical wall that was directly beneath them. The wall teemed with carnivorous life that didn’t seem to care about whether its food came from land or water. Whatever the sharks didn’t eat, the marlin, cod, mackerel, and Atlantic barracuda would. And whatever they declined would be savored by the bottom-feeders, which never rejected anything remotely edible. The absence of sunlight apparently made everything look good.
The key to getting these fish to feed on human remains was to chop up the bodies into pieces small enough to look appetizing. This was exactly the activity the boat-owning assassins were engaged in. And it explained the blood spattered all around the back of the boat, including over its beautifully scripted name.
The partners accomplished their work with matching Henckels carbon steel eleven-inch meat cleavers. The blades were razor sharp. Neither man showed any emotion about the work. It was just part of the job. The mess would all be hosed away within minutes after the last chunk of human flesh had been tossed overboard.
Giles paused as his phone rang. Not his regular phone. The encrypted one used exclusively for communication with their employer. They were probably calling for a progress report. He answered by saying, “The job is complete.”
“I had no doubt,” Stenson replied. “That’s not why I’m calling. I have another job for you.”
“I’m listening,” Giles responded, which was what he always said when Stenson called. Murphy paused to listen in.
“It needs to be done tonight.”
To the National League East fans, this only meant one thing: their boat was going to be paid off a lot sooner than they had anticipated. And if they got lucky, they would still make it to Citizens Bank Park the following day to watch their favorite teams battle each other for divisional supremacy.
CHAPTER 84
American Heritage Foundation, Alexandria, Virginia, May 27, 10:15 p.m.
Realizing how long this night was about to become, Stenson was thankful he had taken the time to play doubles and get a massage earlier that day. It took serious conditioning to stay sharp and alert for twenty-four continuous hours, and sometimes much longer. Such marathons were rare, but they arose without warning. Any given day could turn into one, which was both an exciting part of working at the American Heritage Foundation and a frustrating one.
Foundation employees were on call 24/7/365. They were emergency-room doctors. The world was their patient. One who could go into cardiac arrest at any moment. Or suffer a cerebral hemorrhage. Or think it had when it had merely bumped its forehead. Most patients had no idea what they really needed, and the same was true for the world.
At least, that’s how Bob Stenson saw it.
He had been administering critical care to a patient on and off life support for the greater part of three decades. The patient was far better off now than when their unique program of intervention began operations, and that was all the proof Stenson needed to validate his efforts.
He keenly watched the infrared images on his computer screen as the National League East fans discussed the specifics of the new assignment they had just been offered. Stenson had transmitted the subject’s name (Michael Barnes), along with his relationship to the subjects of the just-completed assignment (their superior), and highlights of his military and civilian record (the list was long and impressive). The baseball fans needed to know exactly who and what they would be going up against.
They were taking considerably longer than usual to arrive at a price, which Stenson had expected. He had never tasked them with going after such a well-trained subject. By now, Barnes had certainly realized his two-man team was gone. Which meant someone had eliminated them. Whoever did the deed had recognized what Barnes’s next move would be, and preempted it. Barnes would now be on the alert for an attack. This assignment required outthinking one of the best in the game, and success was by no means guaranteed.