Alan Jacobson
The Hunted
PROLOGUE
The United States Attorney stood on the courthouse steps, the hot August air oppressively still and heavy with humidity. Reporters were gathered around him, microphones and digital recorders shoved toward his drawn face.
“I only have a brief statement for you. At twelve-thirty this afternoon, Judge Richard Noonan held a hearing on newly discovered evidence in the Anthony Scarponi murder conviction of six years ago. The defense has secured what Judge Noonan has determined to be a credible witness who can provide evidence of Mr. Scarponi’s innocence. Collaterally, the Department of Justice has failed to locate former FBI agent Harper Payne, who was the central witness for the government in the original trial. As a result, Judge Noonan has ordered the release of Mr. Scarponi on two million dollars bail pending the scheduling of a new trial.”
A flurry of questions burst forth from the press corps. Instead of answering them, the U.S. Attorney turned and walked back up the courthouse steps. A screaming headache was beginning to take shape, and the last thing he needed was two dozen journalists asking the one question he had been asking himself repeatedly the past several days: How could this have happened?
The apartment was a sparsely decorated studio on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., secured by contacts he had maintained while incarcerated in the maximum security prison in Petersburg, Virginia. He had hoped the day would come when he would be out on his own again, free to roam the streets like a jaguar prowling for its next quarry.
Anthony Scarponi knew that to have true freedom, the tiny tracking device implanted in his buttock had to be removed. Some foreign physicians would perform such a procedure without asking questions, but finding one in the United States would be time-consuming and dangerous.
There was only one possible course of action.
He stood with his right leg up on the edge of the bathtub, a large magnifying makeup mirror perched on a step stool beneath his buttock. A high-intensity halogen light lay on the floor, flooding his skin with enough brightness that if he looked away, he would have a temporary blind spot. His paraphernalia was laid out across the bathroom counter, within reach of his left hand: syringes filled with lidocaine hydrochloride solution, sterilized stainless steel probes, a scalpel, forceps, clamps, gauze rolls, pads, and suture kits.
After injecting the surrounding area with anesthetic, he began by opening a long slit overlying the tiny, delicate scar line left by the surgeon’s original incision. It was tedious work at first, as he had to locate the exact position of the microchip they had implanted. That it was buried toward the rear of his buttock made the probing more difficult. Though he was not supposed to know this had been done to him, he had sources. Even inside a maximum security federal prison, he had sources.
According to his informants, a couple of guards had taken him from his cell on a Monday — and didn’t return him until the following Sunday. Scarponi surmised he had been drugged, then kept sedated until he could heal. It took a few months, but he eventually learned what they had done to him.
An hour later, the lidocaine syringes lay empty, the last one having been injected forty minutes ago. He was now working on sheer determination, grit, and guts, using the skills of discipline his Chinese mentors had taught him. After much tedious probing and searching, he finally found the tiny device. Carefully, he extracted the foreign body, which was a quarter the size of a penny, and placed it gently into a Pyrex dish filled with saline solution.
Ten minutes later, he tied off the last suture, packed away all evidence of his crude surgery, then chased down an ampicillin capsule and a Vicodin tablet with a glass of water. Scalpel in hand, he walked over to the rat that was lying still in its cage. It was fast asleep, the drugs he’d given it two hours ago having done their job in marked contrast to the largely ineffective lidocaine he had used on himself.
He suddenly realized that he should have chosen a guinea pig instead of a rat. Then it would have mirrored his own situation so closely the feds couldn’t help but see the irony in what he’d done. In the end, though, it didn’t matter, because he wouldn’t be around to feel their shock, taste their hatred.
He removed the rodent from its tiny prison, made his incision, and did his deed. He stepped back and laughed a shrill howl, marveling at his masterpiece, intrigued by what the feds would think of his latest feat.
1
“I’ve got her tied down to the chair. I slap her. She likes it, she smiles at me. She wants more.”
Dr. Lauren Chambers swallowed hard, then leaned forward in her seat. “Who is this, Steven, who’s tied down?”
“Gina. My girlfriend. The others are unconscious.”
Lauren bit her bottom lip. This was one of the most extraordinary first sessions she had ever experienced with a patient. Steven Simpson, a forty-year-old state worker, had come to her because he had lost his ability to fight off his sexual urges. But they weren’t just sexual fantasies, her patient was quick to point out. “They’re torture fantasies,” he had said. “There’s a huge difference. Haven’t you been listening to me?”
Normally, Lauren had no difficulty focusing on her patient. She was a professional, and when she walked into the office, she left her problems at the door. But today was different. She forced herself to look at this person, really see this man, who wore oversize, rose-tinted glasses and a bright blue polyester shirt opened at the collar. She decided that if a dictionary publisher were searching for a defining image of the word geek, Steven would qualify. His hair was frizzy and wild, parted and combed across his head in an apparent attempt to tame it. But the effort had failed miserably, and he looked more like a mad professor than the moderately paid state worker drone that he professed to be.
Judging by what he had just told her, she had to agree with him. These torture fantasies were not merely a benign form of sexually oriented daydreaming.
Though in a hypnotic state, Steven smiled. “She wants more.”
“Steven,” Lauren said, “you mentioned others. How many women are there?”
“There are four. They’re all strapped into chairs. I’m more intrigued by the last one, the blonde.”
“These… sessions you have with Gina and her, uh, friends. Are they just fantasy, Steven, or are they real?”
“There’s blood. She’s grinning at me so I slap her again. There’s too many of them, too many women. The blood is coming from her nose, it’s dripping down to her chin. I smear it all over her face with my hand. She’s laughing. She loves it, she wants more. She wants me to hit her again. But there’s a noise from behind me. It’s Cynthia. She’s naked. She’s calling my name.”
Lauren suddenly felt uncomfortably hot. She knew she was taking risks by placing her patient under hypnosis on his initial session. Establishing an accurate diagnosis and a trusting rapport with a patient often took the better part of two meetings. But from what she had seen in their first forty-five minutes together, Steven’s case required immediate intervention.
Although therapy could sometimes get stressful — and this one certainly qualified — she never feared for her safety. Yet something about Steven made the hairs on the back of her neck stand at attention. She pulled a couple of times on her silk blouse, attempting to flap some cool air against her moist skin, then refocused on her patient. “So what happens next, Steven?”
“I take Gina, right there on the chair.”
“While she’s tied down?”