He cracked the cover of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic, and a key fell out, landing softly on the carpet. It fit the file drawer.
Crouched, he tugged the drawer open.
It was crammed with files, each tab featuring a different name. He thumbed through the first one. Bank-account details. A Social Security number. The photograph paper-clipped to the back of the folder sent a prickle across the nape of his neck. It was a middle-aged man lying unconscious and naked on the bed downstairs.
The same bed Evan had slept in the past few nights.
Shaking off his discomfort, he continued to flip through the files. So many men and women had gone through René’s operation before Evan. Every mini-dossier contained financial information. Clipped to each back cover was a photograph of a different naked, drugged victim positioned on the bed. He’d figured that René had run his scheme a time or two before, but seeing the crammed rows of file tabs, Evan grasped just how routine and efficient the process was. From what he could piece together, René had extorted over $300 million from these people.
The rear file tab had not a name but a question mark.
Evan pulled it free and opened it.
A printout of the katana sword on the auction Web site. His Privatbank AG account information. A fingerprint card. And a photograph of him sprawled unconscious across the mattress in his bedroom cell, just like those who had preceded him.
He studied the picture of himself, emotions moving in him like dark currents. Then he tore the photo and the fingerprint card into tiny bits and pushed them down a heating vent beneath the desk.
Behind him he heard the door creak open.
Manny shouted, “I got him!”
Keeping his back turned, Evan rose. He gripped the broken pencil.
Footsteps pounded the hall.
“Turn around,” Manny said.
Evan did. “It’s about time,” he said.
Manny stood just inside the threshold, his less-lethal shotgun aimed not at Evan’s face but at his crotch.
“Drop the pencil.”
Evan eyed the angle of the barrel and dropped the pencil.
Nando eased through the doorway, and then the fresh recruits poured past him and spread across the room’s perimeter. Shotguns with neon stocks all around.
They waited.
Heavier footsteps announced Dex’s approach. He broke through the ring and contemplated Evan, snake eyes peering through an expressionless mask. René entered a step behind him. He took in the open file drawer, anger lurking behind that plastic grin.
“I like a challenge,” he said. “But you’re testing my patience.”
Evan said, “And you’re testing mine.”
He stepped back until he felt the desk pressing against his hamstrings. René gave a nod to the men, who closed in on Evan from three sides, leading with their shotguns. Evan looked for any break or opportunity, but there would be none tonight.
Dex strode up to him, a needle flashing in his hand. A well-placed smack spun Evan into the desk, and he felt the pinch above his shoulder blade. Warmth spread beneath his skin, his muscles jellying. As he slipped to the floor, he caught a tilted glance of Dex peering down at him, his head cocked, his expression something between hunger and curiosity.
31
A Hard Man
Evan awoke naked on the floor of his bedroom, blinking into the harsh light of morning. His head throbbed. His mouth was chalky, his throat dryer than it had ever been. A single breath led to a coughing fit.
He started to rise when a ring of fire ignited around his neck.
His body slapped the floor, his muscles twitching against the rustic oak planks. He managed to fight one hand up to the blazing nerves of his throat and felt a metal band clamped into place.
A shock collar.
Behind him he heard Manny laugh. “This is gonna make our job easier, ése. No more getting our arms all tired holding up the shotgun and shit.”
Evan pushed himself onto all fours, managed to get a wobbly foot down beneath him.
His neck caught fire once more, nerves burning up through his face. His chest struck the floor again. Convulsing, he couldn’t tell if the shock was still running or if he was just feeling the aftereffects of the current sizzling through his skin.
When his vision unblurred, he watched Manny turning the transmitter over in his hand, admiring it. “This thing is great.”
“Take it easy,” Nando said. “René’ll be furioso if you fry his brain.”
“It’s not gonna fry his brain. People use it all the time.”
“For chimps in labs. At the lower setting.”
Manny grinned. “Boss did say to put a little more oomph in it.”
Evan shoved himself up again, wiped drool from his lower lip. He sneaked a glance at the inside of his arm, saw the tab of Scotch tape preserving René’s fingerprint stuck there, hidden from view. “No breakfast cart this morning?”
The next shock flipped him onto his side. Through the static he heard Manny laughing.
“Gimme that.” Nando wrestled the transmitter away. “It’s time for his exercise.”
Manny walked over and kicked Evan’s feet. “Hurry up and get dressed. Or I take back the transmitter.”
Evan trudged across the snow-dusted ground, scratching at his skin beneath the shock collar. The new guard in the tower watched him not with binoculars but through the scope of a dedicated marksman rifle. It wouldn’t have the range of the sniper rifles in the mountains, but the right one in the right hands could be effective to six or even seven hundred meters. When Evan paused to identify the gun from its silhouette, the guard reached into his pocket.
Evan barely had time to wonder what he was doing before countless needle tips jabbed into his neck. He lost his legs again. Snow against his cheek, crusting the hollow of one eye. He lay there, panting for breath. There’d be no getting used to the shock level.
So the tower guard was also armed with a transmitter for Evan’s collar. And God knew who else. Evan pulled himself up and staggered for the tree line, keeping his gaze low.
He’d thrown on multiple layers again. He felt bulky beneath two shirts and two sweaters, ballooning at the midsection like Tweedledee.
Once he was hidden by the evergreens, he sat with his back to a tree and groped around the collar. Contact points rimmed the inside, metal prongs grouped in twos, the rounded tips jutting into his skin. His thumb found a notch near the back where the band snapped into place. No keyhole that he could discern. Perhaps the release was remote-controlled as well? The collar had little give; there’d be no moving the contact points off the skin. It was tight enough that swallowing was hard, like having a peach pit at the base of his throat that would not go down.
Rising, he hiked up the gradual slope of the northern face, wanting to get a better look at the entire valley. He crested a bulge in the mountainside and assessed his options. From this vantage it was clear that the western and eastern sides of the range were too steep to be traversed. Clifflike runs of shale would prevent any ascent while simultaneously leaving him exposed. He doubted that René had bothered to place snipers on those ends of the range. One shooter to the north and one to the south, aided by the eyes of the guard in the tower, could contain Evan in the valley.
Since the northern slope provided the best route to freedom, René had positioned the stronger sniper there. Which meant that when Evan made a break, he’d head up the opposite mountain. Wanting a better view of the southern rise, he hiked higher up the northern range now.
This was his last chance to recon.
He was leaving tonight.
Tomorrow René was planning to force him to empty out his bank account. Which was unacceptable for a host of reasons, not least of which were the ramifications of wiring money from his account without his own meticulous encryption procedures in place. Charles Van Sciver and an array of the most powerful search-software programs ever created were working around the clock for the faintest trace of the Nowhere Man to blip onto the radar. One click of the mouse would make Evan disposable to René and put Van Sciver onto his scent at the same time.