Wednesday, 9 December 2015
11:22 A.M.
“Well, that was a complete waste of time,” sighed Baxter as they stepped back out into the spur’s main atrium.
Masse had not even attempted to answer a single question during Curtis’s half-hour monologue. It had been like visiting a caged animal at the zoo, Masse present in name only—a subdued and defeated shadow of the sadistic monster that still kept her up at night, feeding off the fumes of a reputation that he could no longer live up to.
Wolf had utterly broken him, body and soul.
She could not know for certain whether his attention had kept returning to her because he knew what she had done or simply because she had been the one famously credited with his arrest. Either way, she was glad that it was over.
Rosenthal had been waiting for them in “the Bubble,” the secure staff area at the far end of the spur, and was already making his way over.
“We’ll need to conduct a thorough search of Masse’s cell,” Curtis advised him.
The inexperienced guard looked uncertain.
“I . . . er . . . Does the governor know?”
“You’re not serious?” Baxter asked Curtis in exasperation.
“I’ve got to agree with Baxter,” said Rouche, “but in a politer way, of course. Masse isn’t involved. This isn’t the best use of our resources.”
“On what we’ve seen so far, I’m inclined to agree,” started Curtis diplomatically, “but we have a strict protocol to follow, and I cannot leave the premises until such time as we rule out, without a shadow of a doubt, any possibility of Masse’s involvement.”
She turned back to Rosenthal:
“Masse’s cell . . . please.”
Dominic Burrell, or “the Bouncer,” as he was better known to inmates and staff alike, had been imprisoned for beating a complete stranger to death simply because the man had made the mistake of looking at him “funny.” He had spent the majority of his incarceration in House Block 1 but had recently been transferred to the high-security unit following two similarly unprovoked attacks on warders. He was generally avoided where possible, given his reputation and obsession with bodybuilding, despite his unimpressive stature of five feet six inches.
He watched from his cell as the group on the ground floor were escorted up to Masse’s empty room, which stood directly opposite his own. As they began their cramped search of the six-by-ten-foot room, he lost interest and continued tearing the fabric of his mattress into long strips, assisted by the razor-sharp wedge of plastic fashioned out of melted food packaging.
When he heard the guards unlocking the first cell door in order to line the inmates up for lunch, he flipped the mattress back over and wrapped the long piece of material around his waist to conceal it beneath his clothing. He was ushered out onto the walkway and noted that Masse was only two people ahead of him in the queue. Once the prison guard had moved on, he shoved past the man between them, who was evidently aware of his reputation and backed away without argument.
Standing on his tiptoes, he whispered into Masse’s ear: “Lethaniel Masse?”
Masse nodded, disguising their conversation by keeping his eyes forward.
“I’m here to deliver a message.”
“Wha’ mes-sage?” Masse slurred painfully.
Leaning around to check on the warder’s location, he placed a firm hand on Masse’s shoulder and gently pulled him closer until his lips were grazing the fine hairs of his ear:
“You . . .”
As Masse turned his head, the Bouncer locked his enormous arm around his throat and dragged him backward into the empty cell beside them. As per prison rules, the men in front and behind reassumed their places in line, neither interfering nor alerting the guards to the fight.
Through the open door, Masse made eye contact with one of the men in line, who just stood there watching him suffocate impassively. He tried to call out, but the few incoherent mumbles that he managed through his mangled jaw failed to attract the attention of anybody who could help him.
Masse wondered for a moment whether the burly man intended to rape him when he ripped his top open, but then he felt the sting of the blade tearing into his chest and realized that he was going to die.
He had felt it only once before—the unfamiliar sensation of fear, tainted with a twisted fascination as he finally appreciated what each of his countless victims had experienced in their final moments, the helplessness they had felt at his hands.
Curtis, Baxter, and Rouche had been advised to finish up their fruitless search of Masse’s cell and leave before the lunchtime prisoner movements. While the doors on the first floor were opened up, Rosenthal had escorted them down to ground level and across the atrium. They had almost reached the red iron gate when the first whistle blows pierced the calm above them.
It was difficult to make out what was happening as three warders struggled to reach whatever the jeering prisoners were blocking. More whistles joined the panicked calls for assistance as the shouts grew more excitable, echoing deafeningly around the empty metal building as the prisoners occupying the cells on the ground floor joined the cacophony.
“Let’s get you out of here,” said Rosenthal as bravely as he could muster. He spun back around and inserted his ID card into the reader on the wall; a red light blinked in response. He tried again. “Shit!”
“Problem?” asked Baxter, keeping one eye on the events developing above.
“We’re in lockdown,” he explained. He was clearly beginning to panic.
“All right. So what do we have to do in a lockdown situation?” Rouche asked the young man calmly.
“I-I don’t . . .” he stuttered.
The whistle calls above were growing more desperate, while the shouting somehow grew even louder.
“The Bubble, perhaps?” Baxter suggested.
Rosenthal looked at her wide-eyed and nodded.
The noise above rose to a crescendo as someone was lifted over the walkway railings and dropped into the empty void at the core of the atrium. The half-naked body ripped the netting from the wall on one side and landed facedown just a few meters away from the group.
Curtis screamed, attracting the attention of the men above.
“We need to go. Right now!” said Baxter, but she froze when the dead body made a sudden and unnatural movement toward them.
It took her a moment to realize that the length of knotted material trailing down the destroyed netting had been wrapped around the bloody victim’s neck. Just then the makeshift rope pulled taut, dragging the corpse up into the air as a second, more muscular body, dropped alongside it.
“He’s still alive!” gasped Rosenthal in horror as the counterweight thrashed about desperately while the frayed noose took its time to choke him.
“Go! Go! Go!” ordered Baxter, shoving Curtis and Rosenthal after Rouche, who had almost reached the door to the Bubble.
“Open the door!” he yelled.
The whistles went silent one by one as the riot escalated. There was a chilling cry from somewhere above and then a burning mattress dropped into the middle of the atrium, the chaos fueling the inmates’ excitement like fresh blood to shark-infested waters.
The first of the prisoners had clambered down the broken netting as the group reached Rouche at the Bubble’s secure door.
“Open up!” shouted Rouche, hammering frantically on the metal.
“Where’s your card?” Baxter asked Rosenthal.
“It won’t work. They need to open it from inside,” he panted.
More inmates had made the perilous descent onto their level, while the first man benevolently unlocked cells at random with a blood-smeared security pass.
Rouche rushed around to the front, where he could see a warder inside through the protective glass.
“We’re police officers!” he yelled through the impenetrable window. “Open the door!”
The terrified man shook his head and mouthed the words “I can’t. I’m so sorry,” gesturing to the approaching ensemble of the country’s most dangerous men.
“Open the door!” shouted Rouche.
Baxter joined him at the window.
“What now?” she asked as calmly as she could.
There was nowhere for them to go.
An enormous inmate climbed down from above. He was wearing a prison officer’s uniform that looked absurdly small for him. The trousers were cropped halfway up his shin, and his stomach was on show beneath the hem of the shirt. The ensemble would have looked almost comical had it not been for the fresh scratch marks torn across his face.
Curtis was pounding on the door, pleading desperately.
“He isn’t going to open it,” said Rosenthal, slumping down onto the floor. “He can’t risk them getting through.”
The rioters were rushing toward them, eyeing Rouche and Rosenthal with burning hatred and the women with hunger. Rouche grabbed Baxter by the arm and shoved her into the corner behind him.
“Hey!” she shouted, trying to fight him off.
“Stay behind us!” he shouted to the women.
Rosenthal seemed confused by the word “us” until Rouche dragged him back up onto his feet.
“Go for their eyes,” Rouche shouted to the petrified young man seconds before the pack engulfed them.
Baxter kicked out wildly. There were hands and sneering faces everywhere. A strong fist grabbed a clump of her hair and dragged her a couple of feet, but she was released when a fight broke out between two of her attackers.
She scrambled back against the wall, looking for Curtis, but the powerful arm returned for her. From nowhere Rosenthal appeared, leaping onto the man’s back, sinking his fingers deep into one of the tattooed inmate’s eyes.
Suddenly, the lights went out.
Only the eerie illumination of the crackling fire in the center of the atrium remained, two silhouettes hanging above the dying flames like the aftermath of a witch hunt.
There was a loud bang. The space filled with smoke. Then another.
Men in full riot gear and protective masks entered through the iron gate on the far side of the hall as the inmates covered their faces and ran for cover, dispersing in all directions like hyenas chased off a kill.
Baxter spotted Curtis lying unconscious a few meters away and crawled over to her.
She wrapped the FBI agent’s ripped shirt back around her. A large bump protruded from her head, but she appeared otherwise unharmed.
Baxter felt her nose and mouth burning and could taste the CS gas as it diffused into her section of the room. Through her failing vision, she watched the spectral shapes fan out into the haze surrounding the fire, welcoming the searing pain in her airways because it meant that she was still alive.
After forty minutes of eyebaths in the medical center, Baxter was finally permitted to join Rouche and Governor Davies. Having recovered more quickly than the other two, Rouche had kept her updated with the latest news while she ungraciously received her treatment.
They had learned that one of the dead prisoners had been a man named Dominic Burrell. More troublingly, however, the other had been Masse. From the CCTV footage, they had confirmed that it was Burrell who had murdered Masse prior to taking his own life.
Curtis was awake but still shaken by the ordeal, and Rosenthal had a broken collarbone but was in high spirits.
Now that Baxter could see, she suspected that Rouche was more injured than he was letting on. He was limping and appeared to be taking intentionally shallow breaths. She noticed him holding his chest painfully when he thought nobody was watching.
The governor had ensured that once all the inmates were returned to their cells, the scene had been left untouched. He then explained, as politely as possible, that there was nowhere else for the prisoners to go and, as such, the high-security unit was operating as usual, only with two dead bodies hanging from the rafters. So the sooner they did whatever they needed to do, the better.
“I’m ready when you are,” said Baxter, who looked a tad crazed now that her eyes were bloodshot and inflamed. “Should we wait for Curtis?”
“She said to go on without her.”
She was a little surprised that the FBI agent would volunteer to miss out on her own crime scene but decided not to push the matter:
“Then let’s.”
Baxter and Rouche stared up at the two bodies dangling six feet apart above their heads. She noticed that he was holding his chest again. They had managed to persuade the lead detective to give them five minutes alone with the scene before he and his team took over.
Entirely protected from the elements by the numerous security doors and quite sensible lack of opening windows, the bodies hung surreally still, suspended from opposite ends of the same piece of knotted material, which had been looped around the railings on the first floor.
Baxter was too disturbed by the macabre scene to feel the weight lift off her shoulders: whatever Masse had or had not known was irrelevant now.
She was safe.
“So when we both told Curtis that your case and my case were in no way related, it actually turns out that they really, really are,” said Baxter flippantly. “‘Bait,’” she read aloud. The scruffily scrawled letters on Masse’s chest now looked black with congealed blood. “Just like the other one.”
She moved position to look up at Dominic Burrell’s muscular body, also stripped to the waist, also sporting a mutilated message across his chest.
“‘Puppet,’” she read. “That’s new, right?”
Rouche shrugged noncommittally.
“Right?” Baxter asked again.
“I think we’d better talk to Curtis.”
Baxter and Rouche returned to the medical center to find that Curtis was feeling much better. In fact, she was in the middle of conducting an interview with a handsome man in his late thirties, dressed in civilian clothes, and whose mid-length, dark brown hair flopped down loosely in a style that looked a little young for him.
Not wanting to interrupt, Rouche went to make them another coffee. Not hesitating to interrupt, Baxter didn’t:
“You good?” she asked Curtis, who looked a touch annoyed at having to pause midsentence.
“Yes. Thank you,” she replied, dismissing Baxter as politely as possible.
Making an inquiring gesture toward the attractive man, Baxter felt as though she were caught between two supermodels—the three-meter gap between them and the doorway hadn’t done him justice.
“This is . . .” Curtis started reluctantly.
“Alexei Green.” The man smiled. He got to his feet and shook her hand firmly. “And you, of course, are the famous Emily Baxter. It’s an honor.”
“Mutually,” Baxter replied nonsensically, his stupid cheekbones putting her off.
Going red, she quickly excused herself and hurried off after Rouche.
Five minutes later, Curtis was still engrossed in the interview. In fact, unless Baxter was mistaken, the straitlaced agent appeared to be flirting.
“Do you know what?” said Rouche. “Screw it. We need to bring you up to speed, especially now. Let’s talk outside.”
They stepped out into the crisp but sunny afternoon. Baxter pulled her bobble hat back over her head.
“Where to start?” he started somewhat unsurely. “The banker William Fawkes, who was strung up on the Brooklyn Bridge—”
“Mind if we just call him ‘the Banker’ from now on?” asked Baxter.
“Sure . . . We believe he had one arm hanging loose because his killer didn’t finish. This is backed up by eyewitness reports describing someone or something falling from the bridge into the East River.”
“Is it possible they survived the fall?” Baxter asked, pulling her hat down to cover even more of her frozen face.
“No,” replied Rouche decisively. “One, it’s roughly a hundred-and-fifty-foot drop. Two, New York was knocking minus nine degrees that night: the river was frozen solid. Three, and most significantly, the body washed up the next morning. And you’ll never guess what he had scarred across his chest . . .”
“‘Puppet,’” they chimed together.
“So we’ve got two dead victims with the same word carved into them, two dead killers with a different word carved into them, taking place on opposite sides of the Atlantic?” summarized Baxter.
“No,” said Rouche, tucking his cold hands under his armpits. “You’re forgetting about the one Curtis mentioned yesterday that we’ve kept under wraps so far, the one we brought you in to help us investigate.”
“Making this victim and killer number three.”
“All murder-suicides, just like today,” Rouche added.
Baxter looked surprised:
“Any theories yet?”
“Only that things are likely to get a hell of a lot worse before they get any better. After all, we’re chasing ghosts, aren’t we?”
Rouche poured the rest of his tasteless coffee onto the ground. It sizzled and steamed like acid. He closed his eyes and tilted his head up into the sun before pondering out loud:
“How do you catch a killer who’s already dead?”