The Man With N0 Mercy Page 2

  It was the perfect time. He was the lone supervisor on the shift and had arranged everything. There were no other guards in the cell block, and he’d planned the route to avoid as many cameras as possible.

  The hall housing the prison’s most dangerous inmates was empty and he guided Lamarr forward, through several security doors, until they reached the main hallway connecting the segregated wing from the main prison.

  Neither Lamarr nor Styles spoke. It had been agreed they would act normally and this procedure was boilerplate.

  Once they reached the point where the hallways separated, the pair turned right and followed the signs to the prison’s medical unit. They passed no one and the only sound was Styles’ heavy black, steel-toed boots on the cement floor.

  Next to him, Lamarr in her prison shoes walked silently.

  Arriving at the next checkpoint, Styles used his security card to open the heavy steel doors and together, they walked toward a room at the end of the hall from which a faint light emerged.

  They passed other rooms, all dark. They were prison examination rooms and a supply closet, as well as basic operating rooms for standard procedures like setting broken bones and taking X-rays.

  At the last door, they stepped into the room and shut the door behind them.

  The prison’s lead physician, an older man with stooped shoulders, a long face and wire-rimmed glasses, waited.

  His name was Barnes.

  On one of the hospital beds was another woman, about the same size as Lamarr. Same hair color. Different facial features, but that wouldn’t be noticed by a black-and-white, low-resolution security camera. She’d been an acquisition of Dr. Barnes’, who’d managed to bring her into the prison on what was purported to be an empty gurney.

  When the door closed the guard looked at Lamarr.

  “Take off my restraints,” she said. “Put them on her.”

  Styles followed her instructions.

  “Now take her back to my cell,” Lamarr said. “From now on, she is Julia Lamarr. Do you understand? If anyone asks, that is your answer.”

  The guard nodded. The woman’s face was slack, her eyes glazed over. She needed no instruction. Barnes and Lamarr had already taken care of that.

  “We’re going back to your cell, Lamarr,” the security guard said to the woman. She got off the bed and dutifully followed Styles from the hospital room.

  Once they’d gone, Lamarr turned to the doctor.

  “Let’s go.”

  5

  Surveillance was one of the best parts of her job. Michelle Chang had been a private investigator in Milwaukee for over ten years, and taking part in a stakeout was by far her favorite part of the gig. While many of her colleagues complained about being bored and hating the monotony, she was just the opposite.

  Chang found she could simultaneously monitor a subject and let her mind wander into infinite avenues of thought. An avid reader, Chang could mentally immerse herself in the world of her latest read, be it fiction, non-fiction or biography.

  Lately, she’d been studying cybercrime. It seemed like pundits had been claiming that the amount of crime online was exploding. But they claimed that year after year after year. There was no end in sight. It seemed the more sophisticated online security programs became, the quicker hackers grew more inventive.

  The most insane case she’d ever been involved with concerning online crime had taken place in a little town in Nebraska called Mother’s Rest. She’d teamed up with a guy named Jack Reacher and broke open a horrific conspiracy in which people with terminal illnesses were lured to the out-of-the-way place in hopes of a peaceful, permanent solution to their problem. Instead, they were held captive, and murdered in a manner chosen by anonymous online customers who paid big money for the privilege to watch.

  It had sickened her on a level she’d never felt, even shook her faith in humanity. But she and Reacher had put a stop to it, and then he’d moved on.

  She returned home to her private detective firm in Milwaukee and got back to work, after taking a short break to get her mind back into a good place.

  Now, she focused on her surveillance and noted that even though she could be transported psychologically while doing her job, Chang never lost her focus.

  Like the task at hand.

  The job had been to watch an employee of a local software company on his lunch break. Milwaukee had become home to several new, entrepreneurial start-ups, and this software company was one of them. They were small, but the city had a highly skilled workforce and the tax advantages offered to lure the company in had been impressive.

  The company had been doing well, with one exception. The CEO had noted that some of his company’s most innovative developments were appearing almost immediately after launch by his closest competitor. It seemed beyond coincidental and he soon suspected that one employee in particular had been stealing company secrets and somehow delivering them to its competitors. The crimes had taken place offline, however, due to the nature of the company. Anything done electronically would have been detected. Which is also why the CEO had hired Chang’s firm.

  Chang wasn’t so sure. She’d just seen the man leave a restaurant and was on his way back to the office. He was probably in his early thirties and looked like the hip software developer he was. Jeans, funky tennis shoes, and a long-sleeved shirt with a vest.

  She watched as he followed the same routine he’d performed every day for the past week, without variation.

  Until now.

  Just as Chang made that assumption, the man ducked into the front door of an apartment building, one block from his office.

  It was highly out of the ordinary.

  The building was apartments or upscale condos, Chang couldn’t remember which. As far as she knew, there were no businesses inside. So the idea that he might be going in to use the restroom, or utilize a business’s services didn’t make sense. She also knew that he didn’t live there – his home was a funky loft in the historic Third Ward. Chang had watched him leave there this morning. Maybe he was visiting a friend, or a romantic interest.

  Still, it was odd that he would have lunch alone, and then swing by a friend’s apartment afterward. She knew he didn’t take particularly long lunches.

  Unless he was popping in to drop something off. Like stolen data from his employer.

  Chang reacted instantly. She grabbed a backpack that sported a Marquette University logo. Chang was very youthful-looking and could easily pass for a college student, especially with her diminutive stature. Now, she raced along the sidewalk, and followed her quarry into the building.

  The doors opened onto a lobby with a parquet floor, a purple velvet couch under a tall, rectangular mirror, and a bank of elevators.

  Chang went to the elevators and studied the numbers. There was one on the way up, the other was sitting at “L.” She paused, watching what floor the other elevator would stop at. It reached the eighth floor and stopped.

  She pressed the button and the elevator door opened. She lunged inside and didn’t have time to see the man standing to the left of the door. Instead, she felt the twin barbs of a Taser as over ten thousand volts of electricity shot into her system.

  With a thud, Chang collapsed to the floor of the elevator as the doors closed behind her.

  6

  Pauling’s flight was uneventful. She sat next to a man who worked for a mutual fund company in San Francisco and gave her some stock market advice, unbidden. Pauling was conservative when it came to her investments, and tended to view the stock market as a giant crap shoot. She was in the game, but playing it safe.

  She landed in New York and took an Uber back to her co-op on Barrow Street. It was a classic Manhattan building made of brick and iron, a throwback structure whose style and elegance would never be diminished, even by decades of city air and the corrosive effects of impulsive weather patterns.

  Pauling let herself into her condo after disarming the new alarm and security system she’d had
installed. It had been a decision made after someone had broken in for the purpose of surveillance during the last case she’d worked on with Michael Tallon.

  She wasn’t going to deny, though, that it did make her feel better, if a little overprotected. The system was state-of-the-art with multiple sensors, alarms and live video streamed to a cloud-based server. Pauling hadn’t skimped on the expense and once it was done, realized there would be no regrets at the cost. It gave her peace of mind and her home was a place of sanctuary, considering her line of work entailed people generally behaving badly toward one another.

  Pauling unpacked, stowed her gear, showered and changed into her favorite pair of flannel pajamas before settling onto the couch with her laptop. She turned the television to a 24-hour news channel and launched her browser.

  Work email was a never-ending stream of inquiries, updates and spam. In the time since she’d waded through them at Tallon’s place, a whole new batch had arrived.

  Pauling spent the better part of an hour addressing them, while focusing on unsubscribing from as many as possible. Cutting down the amount of email traffic was key to being more productive.

  Her firm was doing better than ever. In fact, she’d been approached on multiple occasions by multiple competitors interested in acquiring her business.

  She had declined them all, even as the numbers grew with each successive offer. It made her think of Tallon’s offer and she smiled. Maybe one day, but not now, she told herself.

  After so many years working within the confines of the bureaucracy of the FBI, being in charge of her own company gave her the kind of freedom and flexibility that she now realized she simply couldn’t live without.

  It was good to be the boss, plain and simple. In both her work life and her personal life. She wasn’t about to change anything at the moment.

  Pauling was looking forward to getting back into the office. Since it was her business, she cared very deeply about the tiny details of running her own company, and being out of the office for too long gave her a nagging sensation that she was letting things fall through the cracks.

  Not true, of course, but the feeling was there.

  Satisfied with her state of email and other digital matters, Pauling closed her email window and skimmed a series of law enforcement websites she read with a fair amount of regularity. There were always new technologies being developed, new investigative methods and techniques, as well as cases that shed light on recent innovations in the industry.

  Pauling also spent a fair amount of time on the FBI’s website. Most civilians didn’t realize the volume of information available to the public and Pauling enjoyed catching up with current investigations being undertaken by the Bureau. She didn’t think she’d ever return to the FBI, but for some reason it gave her a good feeling to be in touch with active investigations. It made her feel on some level like she was still part of the team. Plus, many of her cases tended to overlap with large crime syndicates and knowing what was going on big-picture wise never hurt someone in her line of work.

  Now, she scanned the latest stories from an aggregated news stream that focused exclusively on recent crime stories.

  There wasn’t anything shockingly new, but one story did catch her eye.

  It involved an FBI agent who’d gone missing. Her last name was Harper.

  Something about the name triggered a memory in Pauling’s mind.

  Harper. Where had she heard the name before? Had she ever worked with her? Maybe collaborated with her on a case while she was still with the Bureau?

  The answer was no.

  Pauling couldn’t place how she was connected to the story.

  And then, when she shut her laptop, the answer came, unbidden.

  Jack Reacher.

  Reacher had been involved in a case with an agent named Harper. Pauling couldn’t remember if it was something he’d told her about, or if she’d read it on a similar site.

  The story was incredibly brief. An agent named Harper had been last seen leaving her gym after a workout and was now missing.

  Pauling thought about it.

  Jack Reacher.

  Harper.

  Pauling wondered if there was more to the story.

  7

  You’re quite pleased with how things went.

  None of them are going to be easy, you know that. If they were everyday, run-of-the-mill types, there would be nothing to worry about. In fact, it’s easy to see how serial killers can get away with it for so long.

  It’s an absence of motive.

  That’s the key.

  Plus, picking defenseless victims helps, too.

  That’s not the case here.

  But you’re prepared.

  You know what you’re up against and can plan accordingly. The planning is almost made easier by them because of what they do, the kind of people they are. It’s clear they often have more regimented routines than most and that works in your favor.

  It feels good to leave the Midwest, even though that’s your home. You’re really not a fan anymore. You used to be. Until the tragedy happened and now it’s just a place you spend your time. You hesitate to say it’s where you live. Because you’re not really living anymore. You’re existing with one sole purpose.

  Until that goal is achieved, you can think of nothing else.

  The one thing you’re certain of, there will be challenges.

  There are going to be multiple searches, and highly motivated ones at that. When women disappear and they have the kind of colleagues like these have, you now it’s not going to be an ordinary, run-of-the-mill endeavor. They’re not going to just staple a few missing posters to some telephone poles and call it a day.

  No, they’ll bring in the big guns. Loads of people. The latest electronic efforts.

  The whole nine yards.

  That’s why you’ve been so meticulous in your planning.

  Because you know you have to be.

  There might even be some loved one who make lots of noise, maybe put up a big reward and blast it out over social media, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

  And they’ll feel despair.

  Something to which you’re no stranger.

  But it’s like a community and the more, the merrier. Which is why you’re leaving the Midwest and moving on.

  To the next.

  The action will soon move to the mountainous west, where the people are independent and the space is wide and open. Where people wear cowboy hats and ride horses. The spirit of the frontier.

  They feel secure out there.

  They will pay for it, just like everyone ultimately does when they realize the world is not there to provide comfort. On the rare occasions it does, the world is simply instituting a ploy and will soon lay the high, hard one on the trusting.

  You vow that will never happen again.

  It’s better to take an aggressive approach and begin the process of elimination.

  The Process of Elimination.

  That’s funny. You laugh as you cross the state line from Iowa into Nebraska, still a long way from your destination.

  You have more elimination to do.

  It’s a process, all right.

  And you’re just getting started.

  8

  FBI Assistant Director of the New York Office, Alan Deerfield, was worried.

  It was nothing new, as worrying was a big part of his job.

  But when the cause for his concern was more personal it represented a different type of anxiety. Even though smaller in scale by its very nature he knew that he would start to lose sleep over it.

  One of his own, Special Agent Lisa Harper, was missing. She had been for nearly twenty-four hours, last seen leaving her gym after a workout and now, no contact with anyone.

  For Deerfield, it hit especially close to home. Harper was one of his favorites. Deerfield had been a bit of a mentor to her and had overseen some of her most important cases, including several that had been very high le
vel.

  She'd actually been transferred and then managed to come back to the New York office. Deerfield knew and respected her, was even grooming her for higher things at the Bureau. She was a rising star and as far as a career within the Bureau, she truly had no ceiling.

  And now no one had seen her, or heard from her. She hadn’t come into work and hadn’t called anyone to warn them she wouldn’t be in. Totally out of character as in, it had never happened before. Harper was one of the most detail-oriented, conscientious agents Deerfield had ever seen. Her job at the FBI was everything.

  For her to simply not show up to work meant something extraordinary had happened.

  According to the reports, her car was still parked in the space assigned to her expensive townhome in Westchester. Her phone had been turned off and there'd been no activity on any of her email accounts or social media. Calls from family, friends and colleagues had all gone unanswered.

  A knock sounded at Deerfield’s door and he saw his assistant, Riswold, waiting to enter. Deerfield beckoned the man in. He was a good number two, steadfast, loyal, not terribly creative, but that was okay. Deerfield had made a career of always being one step ahead, and he didn’t need the same quality in his assistant.

  He welcomed the interruption and hoped that it might be an answer. Maybe some good news, finally.

  When he first learned of Harper's disappearance, he'd waited and then asked Riswold to run a search on the various names and locations of all of Harper's cases, even the ones going back years. Deerfield had asked him to check if there were any red flags, any crimes that had been committed recently in relation to those cases. It was a long shot, and he sincerely hoped it was a waste of time and manpower. Secretly, he hoped Harper had simply come down with an intense flu and fever that had laid her so low she couldn’t even make a phone call. It was a slim ray of hope, but he held onto it nonetheless.