The Tower (1999) (15 page)

Leaning forward in his chair, Allander shook their knees gently and the children jerked from his touch as if they'd been burned. Robbie immediately began sobbing, and Allander moved next to him and placed the boy's head on his chest.

"Don't worry. I'm not here to hurt you. Only to serve as an informant into the little world of your mind, the world that lies beneath your thoughts. The world of your wishes."

His voice was soothing, and the heaving of Robbie's chest lessened. Allander sat the children up on the edge of the bed and returned to his chair opposite them.

"Why can't you take this off our eyes? Why can't you let us see?" Leah asked. Now that Robbie had calmed down, she was stronger, more defiant.

"I will let you see. That's precisely the purpose I serve. I came to your house in need of only the barest essentials." He started to say something else, then stopped as a new thought grabbed him. "Your parents would have stood in the way. Parents create, but can't see the barriers they erect. They pretend to serve and protect but, in reality, they do neither. They can't see, and it's better." Allander's voice trailed off. "If they could, they wouldn't be able to endure the vision."

"What'd you do to them?" Leah asked timidly, not really wanting an answer.

"I spared them the pain of visual catharsis."

"I don't know what that means," Leah said.

"That's all right," Allander said. "Neither do they."

He leaned over and picked a tray up off the floor, sliding it onto his lap.

"Now, I cut up some fruit for you, to replenish you in this"--his hand circled as if trying to pluck the right phrase from the air--"time of exhaustion."

At first, the children resisted being fed, but Allander waved the ripe fruit beneath their noses, and the smell became too enticing. Their small mouths opened and he patiently lowered the tidbits in, one at a time, occasionally feeling the brush of their soft pink tongues against the sides of his fingers.

This was his time, he thought. His perverted communion.

"Now revitalize again, little ones," he said, then giggled uproariously as he pushed them gently on their backs. "You must sleep. You have a learning experience before you."

Noise from the bustling workers outside carried into the building and echoed up and down the hallways. The administration building was adjacent to the cell blocks within the Maingate grounds. It attempted to be more inviting than the prison that surrounded it, but there was something unpleasant about it, an odor that couldn't be scrubbed away, even from the shiny floors. The smell of discomfort.

Jade hooked a quarter into the pay phone and punched in a number, followed by a seven-digit code. "McGuire."

"Goddamnit, Marlow, we told you to check in every--"

"Why don't we just drop that misconception right now. I'll check in for information when I need it. I don't have time to fuck around calling in like a sixteen-year-old girl on a first date."

"You will stay in correspondence with us."

"I will check in for updates when I need them, McGuire. If you have a problem with that, take it up with your superiors and get back to me. Until then, I'm calling the shots."

Such an aggressive attitude was a slight gamble, but Jade figured that someone pretty high up was pushing for his involvement. For the first time, it occurred to Jade how fortunate it was that he had not met his high-ranking FBI proponent. Given his track record with bureaucrats, Jade probably wouldn't like him very much. And he was fairly certain that the feeling would be mutual.

"All right, Marlow."

"Now what'd you get me for a reporter?"

"Alissa Anvers. Channel 5. Had a relative on the force."

"Father?"

"Mother, actually. She can get you on the news tonight. Piece together some old clips and run a special story--whatever they call that shit. She was actually glad to get an edge on the report. Press blackout so far. They're only being allowed within helicopter range."

"Well, information is our only weapon right now. Let's be careful with how and when we give it out."

"We'll consult you. Where are you right now?"

"At Maingate. Took a look at the Tower already. I'm waiting for a printout. They're getting Atlasia's library list together for me."

"They keep track of all the books he read there?"

"Of course."

"All right, Marlow, I want to . . . I'd like to hear from you within the hour if that's at all possible."

Jade dropped the phone back onto the hook.

An attractive secretary walked over to him with a messy sheaf of papers.

"Sorry that took so long to print out. He was quite a reader, I guess," she said.

Jade took the pile and started leafing through it. The woman continued to stand beside him, waiting for him to look up. She tapped a pencil against her full bottom lip as she waited.

"There's a psych institute near here. A college, I think. Where they analyze the prisoners' drawings," Jade said, his eyes still glued to the papers.

"Yes, the Ressler Institute."

"How do I get there?" he asked flatly.

She glanced at her watch. "Well, they'd be closed by now. You'll probably have to try tomorrow."

Jade continued to page through the book list. "What's the name of it?"

"The Ressler Institute," she repeated.

He nodded without looking up.

She watched him tentatively. "Got it?" she asked.

"Yeah," Jade said slowly, his finger tracing down a page. He walked up the long corridor mumbling something to himself.

"Uum. Sir. Sir. SIR!"

Jade snapped his head around, visible annoyed. "What?!"

The woman's forehead wrinkled as she frowned. "The door's that way," she said, pointing to the other end of the hallway.

Chapter
23

S e s a m e Street. Hill Street Blues. A commercial with a balding man resisting the enticements of a healthy cereal. Allander watched the latter until the balding man was won over by the cereal's "crunchy naturalness"; then he continued his journey through the seemingly endless channels.

A shot of the Tower flashed on the screen, filmed from a circling helicopter. A team of men in orange suits could be seen frantically working an enormous pump to empty the Tower of water, while a woman's throaty voice provided commentary.

"--everyone died in the flooding except for two prisoners."

"Two?" Allander bolted upright in the chair. He cursed when they flashed the front and profile mug shots of Claude Rivers. "That corpulent wretch. Level Eleven. I should have known."

"--finally announced in the face of media pressure that Allander Atlasia has escaped from the Tower. Atlasia is a convicted murderer and sex offender who authorities say may have made it to shore. The FBI and local police have launched a massive manhunt. They've put out an all-points bulletin and placed roadblocks on every street leading out of the coastal area."

She paused, clearly readying herself for a dramatic conclusion. "After remaining an iron-clad detainment center for years, Maingate's much-touted security has been breached. Reportedly, the prison is now being emptied while new safeguards are installed. This is Jessica Allende, for Channel 5 Eyewitness News."

The TV cut back to the anchorman, a gentleman with graying hair and sincere eyes. "We'll keep you updated on this fast-breaking story." He straightened the papers on his desk, then looked up. "Law-enforcement officials report that they are doing everything they can at this point to apprehend the escaped prisoner, who is considered extremely dangerous. For a look at the man who may bring Atlasia to justice, here's Alissa Anvers."

A brunette with big, dark eyes stood in front of a quiet, single-story house. She wore a yellow jacket, and the wind was blowing her long hair across her face.

"Thank you, Andy." She raised a hand to indicate the house behind her. "This may look like just another sleepy San Jose home here on Blake Street, but the man who lives behind this door is anything but typical. Who is he? Jade Marlow, former FBI agent and America's self-proclaimed top 'tracker and destroyer.' "

Allander leaned forward in his chair, his eyes focused intently on the TV.

"Marlow has been called in by the FBI to locate Allander Atlasia," Alissa continued. "He came to fame tracking the Black Ribbon Strangler, and has since been involved in over half a dozen high-profile cases."

A tape of Jade at an awards banquet appeared. He was seen attempting to smile as an older agent pinned a medal to his chest. Action footage of Jade leaving the federal building and pushing his way through a sea of reporters followed.

"No comment. No comment. NO COMMENT!" he shouted to them. The reporters cleared as he got into his bullet-riddled black car.

Alissa's face appeared onscreen again, and she smiled into the camera. "FBI Chief of Homicide Brad McGuire had this to say."

Standing behind a podium, McGuire straightened his tie. As he spoke, his face was illuminated by dozens of flashes. "Jade Marlow is the nation's best criminal tracker, bar none. We are extremely confident that he'll locate Atlasia and bring him in."

The TV cut back to Alissa. "California's senior senator, Peter Briggs, also expressed optimism about Marlow's involvement."

She paused momentarily and brushed her hair out of her face. "It looks like we can all sleep easier with Jade Marlow on the case. For Channel 5 Eyewitness News, this is Alissa Anvers."

Allander was flushed with anger. He tapped his fingers on the arm of the love seat as he spoke to the television. "How precious," he sneered. "I've become a pawn in their game."

He couldn't believe the audacity of Agent McGuire and the press. The impudence. They'd all but promised he'd be caught. Didn't they understand what they were up against? He was a mastermind. He'd broken out of a facility that nobody had ever left alive. He'd virtually destroyed it. And they thought that a bumbling agent could track him down like a foolish animal. Some imbecile named Jade, Jade Marlow.

As quickly as his rage had flared, it subsided. He sighed. "I do love games," he said softly to the empty room. "Let's see if Mr. Marlow can keep up."

Rising suddenly from the love seat, he began to pace about the room, chuckling softly and shaking his head. He stopped mid-step and whirled to face the television, which was rolling old publicity footage of Jade. His smile fled.

On the edge of sleep, in the fringes of the dappled orange-and-yellow light that flickered across the insides of Allander's eyelids, something waited, something terrible, like a dead body in a closet. Years had passed during which he had hardly slept at all, but as he had grown older and stronger, he had learned how to relax himself in the right ways. With all that had happened in the past two days, however, he found that relaxing was not easy.

Allander lay on the bed in the master bedroom and watched the fan make lazy circles above his head. Every time he began to drift off, he'd awaken with saliva flooding the sides of his tongue and a shallowness in his chest that restricted his breathing to short gasps. He knew that this time he couldn't push it down. After struggling himself awake a few more times, he surrendered to the terror. He knew that when it came this strong, it was going to have its way with him. He dozed off, and it seized him.

Allander had been taken when he was seven. The man was thick through the hips and buttocks and had a potbelly that hung over his belt. But worst of all was the gray stubble that peppered his puffy face.

They had tracked him for three days before they'd caught him. A checkout girl at the grocery store had recognized him from his sketch. They'd followed him to a filth-ridden motel behind a large freeway. When they'd broken in, he'd reached under his pillow for a gun and they had opened fire, making him dance, his body jiggling foolishly as the bullets entered it.

What they had found inside the motel room was unlike anything the veteran police staff had seen in their careers, and unlike anything they would see again.

Allander had been tied tightly to a chair, thick rope binding his wrists and ankles. He'd been naked, and a small shock of pubic hair had been painted, with a black permanent marker, above his prepubescent penis. He sat in his own defecation; it was later surmised that he had not been allowed movement except when molested or forced to perform acts.

The room had seemed the harrowing entrance to a world beyond reality, perhaps even the doorway to hell itself. It had been scattered with feces and blood, and illuminated only by a blinking television screen. Pornographic videos and magazines littered the floor, showing men with chains, women with animals, children with men. Sex tools of extreme perversion lay beside the more traditional handcuffs, whips, and blindfolds. Sets of masks were also discovered--leather masks with zippers crisscrossing the front, masks that merely covered around the eyes, masks of women's faces.

Most disturbing of all, however, had been the clown masks found beneath the stained sheets. Months later, some of the policemen still would awaken in a deep sweat, seeing the smiling faces and blank eyes of the clowns laughing at them through the darkness. And through the memory came the stench, and the realization of a horror that went beyond human comprehension.