‘Let’s go,’ Hunter said.
They quickly moved back in the direction of the house. The other two agents saw them, and promptly joined them. They moved past the stairs that led down to Satan’s basement and carried on toward the rear of the property.
The house’s backyard was as dilapidated as the building itself. Lucien had told the truth. There was a small pond, or something that once had been a pond. Now it was just an ugly pool of mud. There was also an ample concrete pathway, most of it cracked and full of holes. Parked on the right-hand side of the dirt path that led away from the house was a beat-up fifteen-year-old Ford Bronco. They all drew their weapons and approached the car slowly and carefully. It was empty. No doubt that was Ghost’s vehicle.
This time it was Brody’s turn to study the forestland surrounding the house.
‘Do you think he’s on foot?’ he asked. ‘Tracking away through the forest?’
Hunter walked over to the dirt path, kneeled down, and used his flashlight to check the ground.
‘No,’ he replied after a few seconds. ‘He’s got a motorbike.’ He pointed to the tire tracks he found.
‘What kind of head start has he got on us?’ Brody asked.
‘Five to six minutes, maximum.’
Brody reached for his cellphone. ‘He can’t be that far then. I’ll call Director Kennedy. He’ll be able to organize roadblocks all around this perimeter.’
Hunter closed his eyes and cursed himself again for not seeing this coming. He said nothing to Agent Brody, but he knew roadblocks wouldn’t work. Not in this forsaken place, and not with the minimum amount of time they had.
A perimeter airtight roadblock requires manpower, and a hell of a lot of vehicles, something Hunter was sure the city of Berlin or Milan in New Hampshire didn’t have. He’d be surprised if both of their police departments together mounted up to more than eight men and four cars. Kennedy would have to request the help of the police departments in adjacent cities. The closest FBI field office was a whole state away. By the time Kennedy managed to gather together the manpower he needed to shut the roads and pathways to try to contain the area, Lucien would certainly have already crossed state lines.
Hunter knew that none of this had been coincidence. All of it had been planned. Lucien had left absolutely nothing to chance.
One Hundred and Six
Four hours later.
The entire fallout shelter was now swarming with FBI personnel. Courtney Taylor’s body together with Ghost’s had both been placed in zip-up body bags and taken to the airport, where they were to be flown back to the chief medical examiner in Quantico.
Brody’s team agents had made it to the Androscoggin Valley Hospital in Berlin in record time. Madeleine Reed was still being operated on, but the doctors had told both agents that due to the precarious condition her body was in — very malnourished and partially dehydrated — her chances of survival weren’t the best. But as long as there was a chance, there was hope.
Hunter and Director Adrian Kennedy were in the shelter’s control room. Hunter had run Kennedy through everything that had happened since they’d lost their satellite communication back at the airport.
Kennedy had listened to everything with a somber expression on his face, and without interrupting. When Hunter told him how Agent Taylor was executed at point-blank range, and the reason for her execution, Kennedy squeezed his eyes tight and let his chin drop to his chest. Hunter actually saw him quiver with rage.
‘How did this happen, Robert?’ Kennedy finally asked when Hunter was done. ‘How come this Ghost character was here waiting for you? He couldn’t just have been here the whole time, could he?’
‘Probably not,’ Hunter replied.
‘So how come he was here waiting for you? How come he knew exactly when you were coming?’
‘He didn’t.’
Kennedy pulled an annoyed face. ‘What do you mean, Robert?’
Hunter had been thinking about this for some time.
‘The FBI has certain secret procedures that will only come into action if a code word is spoken, or a code number is keyed in, or something along those lines, right?’
Kennedy nodded and paused for a second. ‘You’re saying that Lucien had a dormant procedure in place? A preplanned strategy in case he was captured?’
Hunter agreed with a head gesture. ‘I’m sure he did. There’s a reason why Lucien has managed to torture and kill so many people for so many years without anyone suspecting a damn thing, Adrian, even people close to him. And that reason is: he’s too well prepared. He’s methodical, meticulous, disciplined and he’s very well organized. What happened in here was planned a long time ago.’
While he pondered over Hunter’s words, Kennedy let his eyes circle the room once again. They paused on the pool of blood by the door that led into the corridor — Agent Taylor’s blood. Sadness and anger collided inside his eyes.
‘I’m sure that Lucien had told the truth about having left Madeleine with enough food and water to last her just a few days,’ Hunter carried on. ‘But a simple code word or signal would’ve gotten this whole plan in motion. If he weren’t already here, Ghost would’ve made the trip from wherever he was to keep her from dying. He obviously got here with plenty of time because he managed to feed and rehydrate her enough. He knew that within days of the code signal, Lucien would’ve made whomever had him under custody bring him here.’
Kennedy stayed quiet, his mind grinding through the information.
‘Ghost wasn’t his first ever “apprentice”,’ Hunter added. ‘Lucien said so.’
Kennedy looked at Hunter, intrigued.
‘Lucien said that Ghost had outlived his usefulness, like all the previous ones. He said that they all did eventually, so he just finds himself a new little helper.’
A thoughtful pause from Kennedy.
‘I’m sure that the only reason Lucien found apprentices was so that plans like this could work if he ever needed it. He probably found them, taught them the procedures, kept them for a while, then got rid of them and found a new one, and the process would start again.’
‘Because in the long run they’d become a liability,’ Kennedy said. ‘A risk he didn’t need.’
Hunter nodded.
Kennedy still looked uncertain. ‘But to get the procedure in motion, Lucien would’ve had to have gotten the code word or signal out to this Ghost character. So how did he do that?’
‘Phone call?’
Kennedy shook his head. ‘Lucien did not have access to a phone. He wasn’t granted any phone calls. He was incommunicado at all times.’
‘Since he was taken in by the FBI, you mean,’ Hunter said back. ‘But he was arrested by the sheriff’s department in Wheatland, Wyoming. Any calls then?’
A pause, then Kennedy shut his eyes for a second as if in pain.
‘Sonofabitch,’ he whispered. He now remembered reading in the arrest report that the arrested subject was granted a single phone call. The call went unanswered. A code telephone number — a dead line that was never supposed to ring, unless. . That was the code signal.
‘How did this Ghost guy get in here,’ Kennedy asked. ‘You said that the door to this hellhole was padlocked from the outside.’
‘Last room on the right down the corridor,’ Hunter answered. ‘There’s a door inside that leads to another passageway, which leads to an exit at the back of the house. Ghost got in through there. The first room on the left,’ Hunter said, pointing to the corridor, ‘is an observation room with two computer monitors. Lucien had eight motion-sensor equipped CCTV cameras hidden outside. As soon as anything moved within range of the cameras, a red-light alarm would go off inside the whole shelter.’ Hunter indicated a red bulb on the wall behind Kennedy. ‘One of the cameras is set on a tree at the end of the dirt path that leads to the front of the house.’