A street vendor hawked knockoff Nikes on a ratty bedspread, the swooshes positioned suspiciously low. They, too, were blue-and-white Cortezes, fan paraphernalia for residents who wanted to be seen rooting for the home team.
Evan headed up an alley and scaled a fire-escape ladder to the roof of a crack house. He walked across the rotting shingles toward the spire rising from the neighboring building and crouched by the rusted rain gutter, peering through a shattered stained-glass window into the church below.
The pews had been shoved aside, gang members congregating in the nave. A pistol on every hip, submachine guns leaning in the corners, at the ready. They weren’t a gang.
They were an army.
The men exchanged rolls of cash, sorted baggies of white powder, collected from street-worn hookers. Electronic scales topped table after table like sewing machines in a sweatshop. Pallets of boxed electronics lined the far wall, fronted with heaps of stolen designer clothes. A hive, buzzing with enterprise.
Evan searched the milling crowd for Xavier. The tattoos were overwhelming. Pentagrams and names of the dear departed. Crossbones, grenades, dice, daggers, machetes. And words — words in place of eyebrows, blue letters staining lips, nicknames rendered across throats in Old English letters. Other tattoos coded for crimes the men had committed — rape, murder, kidnapping.
Their rap sheets, inked right on their faces.
Xavier was nowhere to be seen.
A broad-chested man descended from the sanctuary, and the body language of the others changed. Everyone quieted down, their focus drawn. The man had MS in a Gothic font on his forehead, showing him to be a high-ranking member; it was an honor to display the gang’s initials above the shoulders. But that wasn’t what drew Evan’s attention first.
It was his eyes.
They were solid black.
For the first time in a long time, leaning over the eaves of the crack house, Evan felt a chill. It took a moment for him to recalibrate, to pull himself out of visions of the occult.
The man had tattooed the whites of his eyes.
He had a lean, lupine face, a crucifix running down the bridge of his nose, unfolding its wings across his cheeks. Twinned rows of metal studs decorated his cheeks, and his lower lip bore shark bites, double-hoop piercings on either side. Block letters spelling FREEWAY banded his chin like a drooled spill of blood.
Freeway hugged one of his lieutenants, a hand clasp to shoulder bump, and headed out. The army parted for him.
Benito’s words came back to Evan—They are the people you would least want to anger in the entire world—and he shivered against the wind.
Walking along the edge of the roof, Evan watched Freeway clang out through the steel door. The guards quieted instantly and stepped aside. Evan mirrored Freeway’s movement from above, walking along the rim of the roof as Freeway turned the corner.
A few men threw heavy-metal devil’s-head signs at him from the alleys, their fingers forming an inverted M for the gang name. Freeway did not return the signs.
When passersby saw him coming, they averted their eyes and stepped off the sidewalk into the gutter to let him pass.
Still no sign of Xavier.
Freeway entered the bodega. Through the remaining window, Evan saw the store owner stiffen. He scurried over and turned the sign on the front door to CLOSED.
Freeway walked through the aisles, grabbing items off shelves, and disappeared into a back courtyard without paying. The owner waited a few moments, catching his breath, and then followed.
Evan’s RoamZone rang, the piercing sound startling him. He hadn’t noticed how tense he’d grown while watching the gang leader.
The burner cell’s number registered in the RoamZone’s caller ID.
Evan answered, “Go.”
Joey said, “I cracked it.”
Evan took in a breath of crisp rooftop air.
“You’d better get over here,” she said. “It’s worse than we thought.”
40
Enhanced Interrogation
Candy pulled the Audi through the side gate, released Tim Draker from the trunk, and marched him in through the rear door. She stayed five feet behind him, pistol aimed at the back of his head. She’d zip-tied his hands at the small of his back, but you couldn’t be too cautious. Not with an Orphan.
Draker stepped into the living room, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Mattresses covered the windows and walls, soundproofing the space. An array of implements were spread out on a drop cloth. Across the room stood Charles Van Sciver, his log-thick arms crossed.
Candy couldn’t help but smirk a bit when she saw Draker sag at the sight of him, as if someone had put slack in the line.
Van Sciver stared over the ledge of his arms, one eye sharp and focused, the other dilated, a dark orb. “Let me tell you what we know,” he said. “Jack Johns has long been aware of the directive from above to neutralize washouts, dissenters, Orphans who tested high-risk for defiance. But the shadow file? He knew of its existence before I did. And he knew it was only a matter of time before I got my hands on it. So he reached out to anyone he could and hid those people any way he knew how. He got to a few before we got to him. You were one of them. After you left the Program, he helped you hide. He also took care of the asset you’d recruited for me. David Smith. Twelve years old. Now thirteen.”
Van Sciver paused, but Orphan L gave no reaction.
At the mention of the boy, Candy felt cool air across the back of her neck. An uncomfortable sensation, like when she thought about that alley outside Sevastopol, Halya Bardakçi with her baby-giraffe legs and that almond-shaped face. East Slavic through and through, beautiful and alluring, cheaply had and cheaply dispatched. After she’d been stabbed in the neck and dumped in the back of the car, she was still alive. Rattling against the hatch as she bled out.
Van Sciver took a step toward Draker. “We know Jack hid the boy here in Richmond. We know that you helped him before you went to ground. I want to know where the boy is.”
Draker said, “Even if I did know anything about this, why would you want the boy? You think he can lead you to X?”
“No,” Van Sciver said. “I think he can bring X to me.”
Draker said, “I don’t know anything about this.”
“Is that so,” Van Sciver said.
The men regarded each other solemnly.
Then Van Sciver took a step back and tapped on the wall lightly with his knuckles.
A moment later Thornhill entered from the next room. He was holding the turkey baster. He walked a casual arc in front of Van Sciver.
“Enhanced interrogation,” Thornhill said, with that broad, easygoing grin. “It’s such a well-considered term. Gotta hand it to the Agency. They do know their marketing.” He gazed into the middle distance, tapping the baster in his palm. “You know another one I like? Rectal rehydration. It sounds so… therapeutic.” His stare lowered. “When your intestines are all swollen up with fluid and you get a steel-toed boot in the gut, do you have any idea how much it hurts?”
Draker said, “I do.”
“That’s just the start,” Van Sciver said. “Have a look around.”
Keeping her gun raised, Candy watched Draker take in the items arrayed on the floor.
There were padlocks and plywood.
Nylon ropes and boards of various lengths.
A decline bench and jugs of water.
Mattresses and drop cloths.
Duct tape and a folding metal chair.
A sheen of perspiration covered his face now, and it was no longer a fake-addict sweat. He lifted his head again. Set his jaw.
He said, “Let’s get to it, then.”