Girl Undercover 12: Showdown (8 page)

We let go of each other and Ian asked, “How was your flight? I’m sorry I wasn’t able to find a first-class seat for you this time. Business class was all they had left.”

I smiled at him. “You really think stuff like that matters to me? I was very comfortable in business.”

“I’m happy to hear that. How’s Brady holding up?”

I had spoken to Brady again as my plane had landed at La Guardia, super nervous that the man in his head had made another appearance during the day. He hadn’t. Brady told me to stop worrying; he felt fine. But just in case that suddenly changed, his wife had come to the station and been with him all day so he could get another shot of Haldol into his system quickly. He was not about to take any chances. I explained this to Ian, and how Brady’s wife was a nurse.

Ian nodded, pleased, and picked up my suitcase. “Let’s go. I have a car waiting for us outside.”

He leading the way, we hurried toward the exit and the adjacent parking lot where he had parked his rental car, a shiny black Mercedes with tinted windows. He opened the passenger seat door for me, and I entered the car while he went to put my suitcase in the trunk.

When he was beside me, seated in the driver’s seat, I asked him, “I assume you went to check out Stenger’s house earlier today?”

“Yes, as soon as I’d found you the flight. It’s closer than I thought to the city. Only a twenty-five minute car ride from Nikkei if there’s no traffic. It’s a mansion, not a house, by the way. A gorgeous, big one.” He gave me a sideways grin and stuck the key into the ignition, starting the car and pulling out of the parking spot. “Not that that should come as much of a surprise.”

“Right, it doesn’t,” I agreed. “Do you have some kind of plan as to how we can get to him? I’m sure it’s well protected. Was there a wall encircling the property?”

We drove onto a road alongside the airport parking lot that would take us to the freeway back to the city.

“No, there wasn’t,” he replied. “Which was surprising at first. I, too, had been convinced there would be some kind of tall fence going around the place to stop unwanted visitors. But it was completely open.”

“Wow… That seems unbelievable.”

“I know. But then, as I thought about it some more, it didn’t seem so strange any longer. Given all that Stenger and his team have accomplished in the fields of genetic engineering, computer security and medicine, it’s more likely than not that an invisible fence circles his home, an invisible fence far more advanced than what’s currently on the market. Instead of merely giving the intruder a shock or even notifying his security team, the fence will surely make stuff happen to anyone who tries to cross it.”

I considered Ian’s words and, while they were only speculation, they made perfect sense, I soon concluded. A technology-savvy man like Stenger would of course use more sophisticated, smarter barriers to protect himself, ones that would fool potential intruders into thinking it would be a piece of cake breaking into his house. A regular wall, especially a chain-link fence, was not the way to go. As concerned as he was with aesthetics, chain link would not only appear pedestrian, but give the property the feel of a prison.

“You’re right,” I said. “He definitely uses some kind of invisible fence.”

“There were also more than one entrance to the house. Surely he relies heavily on cameras that cover any potential entrance point that are being surveilled 24/7.”

“Agreed. Were there a lot of security on the premises?”

“Not as far as I could see and I walked around the area for almost an hour. From what I was able to discern, there were only a couple of men at the main entrance. Then again, it’s not really needed if he has that invisible fence. Also, he likely has lots more inside the house and who knows what they’re able to do. It wouldn’t surprise me if he uses hybrids that have been developed solely to protect him. Remember that we can’t be sure what abilities they might have.”

I nodded, instantly picturing Javier and Tim, who had been able to pole-vault themselves so far into the air. Tim was still at large, which meant that he must have been able to swim under water for a very long time, like a fish. Then I thought of Alyssa, the Smiley Killer, who had been able to sneak up on us on all fours like a cat, not making a sound, and how that first hybrid had been able to climb buildings like a spider.

“Which is why we should not try to break into the house,” I said. “It’s better if we come openly. Announced somehow, with Stenger’s explicit permission to enter the house.”

“Yes, I thought so too. But before we do that, we need to be sure that he’s actually at home when we get there.”

I leaned back into the expensive-smelling leather seat as I faced Ian. “And how do we do that?”

Ian smiled at me. “Your boyfriend will tell us of course.”

“Right. Jonah.” I grimaced with disgust. “I almost forgot about him. How is he? Still at your place?”

“Yup. He’s furious and refuses to eat. He only accepts water from me. I’m not sure what he thinks he’ll gain by going on a hunger-strike. All he’ll achieve is getting weaker, which will make it even harder than it already is for him to escape.”

“Yeah, that’s a good point. Huh. Well, the guy was never a logical thinker. So are we headed to see him now?”

“I was thinking that we should first go to your place to drop off your luggage, then go see him. He’s not going anywhere.”

“Yes, let’s do that. I wouldn’t mind freshening up a little. How did you go about getting your hands on him, by the way?”

“Basically, I just waited for him as he left his building last night. As I’ve been surveilling him, I came to learn what his habits are. He tends to leave the house in the evening, after getting home from work. Almost every night he goes to hang out with friends or to pick something up at the supermarket or the drugstore. Last night was no different, thankfully. I was so determined to get him to tell me where his father was that I hung around him the entire day yesterday. I never let him out of sight for more than a couple of minutes. Since I couldn’t count on him going out in the evening, I had planned to just go up to him during the day and simply hold my gun to his back and make him come with me.

“I wasn’t happy about having to assault him in broad daylight, of course, as so many things could go wrong. But I also knew that we didn’t have much time. I needed to get him somehow, so I waited for him to take a break between clients and take a walk outside Nikkei. He did go out in the late afternoon. Unfortunately, he was with another trainer, so I had to wait for a better opportunity. I got another when he walked home from work around eight—you called me around that time, but I was too focused on Jonah to actually answer the phone.” He gave me an apologetic little smile.

“That’s understandable,” I said. “Go on.”

“I was about to go up to him when he was only minutes away from his building. But as I neared him, some bloke stopped him and joined him for a couple of blocks before leaving again. By that time, Jonah was too close to his entrance and well within sight of the doorman that I didn’t dare approach him. So I bought a newspaper and hung around the newsstand in the corner of his block, praying that he’d come out. And he did an hour later, just as I had decided that I would be able to hold onto the newspaper at the same time as I checked your voicemail. As you can imagine, following him took precedent over listening to your message.”

“Yes, I can imagine that. So how did you finally get him?”

“It was easier than I had I thought. Much to my surprise, the bloke for once decided he had some business to do inside the park.” Ian chuckled. “I could hardly believe my luck.”

“He walked into the park?”

Ian grinned, delighted. “Yup. I think he was just crossing it to get to the eastside. It was so dark inside the park that it was hard to see much and few people were there. Even so, I waited until no one was around before I snuck up behind him, put him in a chokehold at the same time as I held a knife to his back. I told him not to make a sound or I’d drive the knife into his lungs. Then I urged him to get walking. Which he immediately did.”

“Did he realize who you were?”

“No, not until we were inside my brownstone. I thought he’d figure it out based on my voice despite that I did my best to make myself sound like a different person. I did warn him that I’d stab him if he tried to turn around, and that I’d be long gone before anyone would notice. I was lucky that few people were out on the streets as well, so getting him to my block was a piece of cake. I of course didn’t keep him in a chokehold the entire time as that would seem suspicious, nor was it necessary to keep the bloke moving.”

“As much as he hates you, he must’ve been furious when he understood who you were.”

“Yes, he was, but I pushed the knife into his back so that it broke some skin and he shut up before he could actually yell something.” Ian chuckled quietly again. “The bloke’s a candy-assed chicken shit, as I always suspected… Anyway, he was like putty in my hands after I scratched him with the knife. Until we got to my apartment. There, he did try to fight back a little. Especially when I put the gag around his mouth. Also when I asked where I could find his father. On that particular point, he put up the most resistance.” A corner of his lips quirked up into a lopsided little grin. “For a short time.”

I regarded him for a moment. “You look exhausted. Did you get any sleep last night?”

“Nope. But it wasn’t because it took me that much effort to get information out of Jonah. As I told you, the bloke’s chicken shit. He spilled the beans fairly quickly when I started to apply my ‘special’ interrogation skills.”

Against my will, I shivered. There was no question in my mind what Ian meant, and I had seen with my own eyes ways to inflict extreme pain on others with little effort. Ways that didn’t even leave marks on the subjects. I knew torture was necessary in this case, but the thought of inflicting pain on another person to make them talk, even someone as despicable as Jonah, always made me cringe. I prayed I myself wouldn’t have to apply whatever techniques Ian was referring to. I was convinced it would hurt me almost as much as it hurt the subject.

“In all seriousness,” Ian continued, “I didn’t have to work on him too much for that to happen. It was more because of what I learned that I didn’t get any sleep.”

I frowned. “You mean because you found out Stenger was living so close to us?”

“No. I always thought that he’d have some residence in the vicinity. I just had no idea where it was.” Ian turned his head away from me even though we had stopped at a red light. We were only minutes away from my place, the traffic was so sparse.

“Then what did you learn?” I asked him.

When he didn’t turn his head to look at me but kept staring out the windshield, I put a hand on his arm. “Ian? Are you okay?”

He shot me a quick glance that lasted long enough for me to catch a pained expression in his eyes. I instantly froze.
What is wrong?

I asked him just that.

“Nothing,” he responded. He tried to smile but failed as he kept staring at the road. “You’re right; it did rile me that Stenger was living so close to us. Knowing that we could’ve found him much sooner had I only applied pressure to Jonah really pissed me off.” He shook his head. “If only I’d have gotten to him much sooner!”

Glancing at him, I was mesmerized at how easily he had just lied to me, lied straight to my face. But something in his eyes, something hard and unrelenting, warned me to confront him about it. It told me loud and clear that I better not do it if I wanted him to go through with our mission. I don’t know what it was that made me so sure of that, only that I was, and that I needed to keep in place the accusation that had been about to leap off my tongue.

We lapsed into an uncomfortable silence that lasted until we reached my house.

“Well, here we are,” Ian said and opened the door. “I’ll help you with your luggage and then we’re off to pay Jonah a visit.”

Chapter 7

As I had expected, there were no marks of any kind on Jonah when I saw him an hour later, tied up on a wooden chair in the middle of Ian’s living room. When he noticed me, his eyeballs looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets, he was so furious. But the gag in his mouth prevented him from getting more than a small, garbled sound out. His face quickly turned red from his efforts to speak.

“Hello, Jonah,” I said, stopping before him while Ian switched on his TV and turned up the volume. Massimo, who had been sitting before Jonah like a watchdog, skittered off and hid underneath the antique leather couch. I was beginning to think it was just me that cat didn’t like.

“Feel free to remove the gag,” Ian said. “As thick as the walls are, no one will hear him if he tries to scream now that the TV is on. Besides, he knows that it’ll hurt badly, so he’ll probably stay within reasonable sound levels.” Ian joined me, looking at Jonah. “Right, mate?”

Jonah didn’t try to say anything, just glared at Ian like he wanted to kill him. I went around Jonah and loosened the gag little by little to see if he would obey and not scream.

When all he did was hiss that I was a two-timing bitch, I removed it completely and walked around so that I faced him.

“You never did love me, did you?” he demanded in an accusatory tone. “It was all just a lie, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was,” I replied calmly. Ian was standing beside me, peering at Jonah as he wriggled like a worm on a hook in the chair.

To my surprise, Jonah’s face twisted like he was about to start crying. A couple of seconds later, he did start to cry. Big, fat tears rolled down his cheeks. Staring at him, I didn’t know what to say. Had my admission really hurt him that much? Apparently so.

“Oh, God, you’re so mean,” he sniffled like a young child. “How can you do this to me? I would’ve given you everything… Treated you so much better than what
that
jackass ever will!” He glared at Ian, daggers shooting out of his eyes.

“Oh, you know that’s not true, Jonah,” Ian said calmly, returning Jonah’s furious glare. “You’re a loser and everyone knows it. Stenger knows it, too, which is why I’ll be the one taking over when he’s dead.”