Don’t let it get to you, the voice inside Hunter’s head said to Taylor. Don’t get upset. Don’t let him under your skin. From the corner of his eye he could see Taylor struggling with her anger, and if he could see it, so could Lucien.

Taylor didn’t take the bait. She did struggle with her anger, but she kept it under wraps.

Lucien chuckled proudly and his attention returned to Hunter.

‘The answer to your question, Robert, is – yes. I can tell you the location of all the bodies that can be found.’ He calmly sipped his coffee. ‘As you might understand, some can never be found. It’s a physical impossibility. Oh,’ he said casually, ‘and I also know all of their identities by heart.’

Once again, Lucien tried to read Hunter’s expression. Once again he failed, but he detected a hint of doubt in Taylor’s eyes.

‘I’m willing to sit through a polygraph test if you think I’m deceiving you, Agent Taylor.’

He’ll easily beat it. Hunter’s words from the early-morning meeting came back to her. He’s probably counting on a polygraph test.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ she finally said.

Lucien laughed animatedly. ‘I see. Did Robert tell you that we both beat the polygraph when we were in college, just for fun?’

Taylor didn’t confirm it, but she didn’t know that Hunter had beaten it as well.

‘He was much better than I was, though,’ Lucien said. ‘It took me months to master the technique, but he got it down in just a few weeks.’ He looked at Hunter. ‘Robert always had tremendous self-discipline and concentration control.’

Something different coated Lucien’s last few words. Taylor thought it was jealousy, but she was wrong.

Lucien lifted a hand in a ‘wait’ gesture.

‘But why should you believe a word I’m saying? I haven’t done much other than lie to you up to now.’ There was a lengthy pause. ‘As I’ve suggested, you could try a lie-detector test.’ Lucien threw his head back and laughed a full-fat laugh. ‘I wish you had. That would’ve been fun.’

Neither Hunter nor Taylor looked amused.

‘You don’t have to say it, Robert,’ Lucien commented, anticipating what Hunter was about to say. ‘I’m pretty sure I know the procedure. To establish a thread of trust between us, you’ll need some sort of token of good faith, isn’t that right? If I were a terrorist holding hostages, this is the point where you would ask me for a hostage, just to prove that I’m willing to play fair.’

‘You’ve got to give us something, Lucien,’ Hunter agreed. He hadn’t shifted from his relaxed sitting position yet. ‘Like you’ve said, you’ve given us nothing but lies so far.’

Lucien nodded and finished his coffee.

‘I understand that, Robert.’ He closed his eyes and drew in a deep, tranquil breath, as if he were just sitting in a flowery garden outside somewhere, appreciating the delicate perfume that traveled the air. ‘Megan Lowe,’ Lucien said without opening his eyes. ‘Twenty-eight years old. Born December 16 in Lewistown, Montana.’ He slowly ran the tip of his tongue across his upper lip, as if his mouth had started to salivate at the memory. ‘Kate Barker, twenty-six years old. Born eleventh of May in Seattle, Washington. Megan was abducted on July second, Kate on July fourth. Both were independent street-working girls, working in Seattle, Washington. Megan was the brunette whose head was found inside the trunk of the car I was driving. Kate was the blonde one.’

Lucien finally opened his eyes and looked at Hunter.

‘The remains of their bodies are still in Seattle. Would you like to write down the address?’

Thirty-Five

Director Adrian Kennedy, who was watching and listening to the interview from the holding cells’ control room, immediately got the bureaucratic machine running to obtain a federal search warrant. Being an FBI director has its advantages, and despite the early hour and the fact that Washington State is three hours behind Virginia, Kennedy managed to get a warrant signed by a Seattle federal judge in record time.

Even though Lucien had told Hunter and Taylor that the key to the location where the two victims’ remains were stored was on the same keychain they had used for the house in Murphy, Kennedy wasn’t willing to wait. He wasn’t about to send Hunter, Taylor or any other agent all the way from Quantico to Seattle, just to check if Lucien was lying again or not.

With a federal search warrant secured, Kennedy placed a call to the FBI field office on 1110 3rd Avenue in Seattle, Washington. At 8:30 a.m. Pacific Time, a team of two agents was dispatched to the address Lucien had given Hunter and Taylor – a commercial storage unit.

‘So where are we going, Ed?’ Special Agent Sergio Decker asked, as he took the driver’s seat and switched on the engine of the midnight-black Ford SUV.

Special Agent in charge, Edgar Figueroa, had just climbed into the passenger seat. He was in his mid-thirties, tall and broad-shouldered, with a bodybuilder’s physique. His dark hair was cropped to a centimeter of his skull, and one just needed to look at his nose to know that it had been broken at least a couple of times.

‘To check a self-storage unit on North 130th Street,’ he replied, buckling up.

Decker nodded, backed the car up, took a right on 3rd Avenue and headed northwest toward Seneca Street.

‘What case is this?’ he asked.

‘Not ours,’ Figueroa replied. ‘I think a call came in from high above in Washington, DC or Quantico. We’re just going to verify the veracity of the address.’

‘Narcs?’ Decker questioned.

Figueroa shrugged and shook his head at the same time. ‘Not sure, but I don’t think so. DEA isn’t involved as far as I know. I wasn’t told much, but I think this is supposed to be victim’s remains.’

Decker’s eyebrows arched. ‘Stashed in a commercial storage unit?’

‘That’s the address we have,’ Figueroa confirmed.

Decker took another right and merged onto the I-5 North, heading toward Vancouver, British Columbia. Traffic was slow, as expected at that time in the morning, but not excessively so.

‘Do they have somebody in custody?’ Decker asked.

‘As far as I understand, yes. And again, I think they’re holding him either in DC or Quantico.’ Another shrug from Figueroa. ‘Like I said, I wasn’t told very much, but I did get the impression that this is something big.’

‘Do we have a warrant, or are we just going to talk our way through this, using our FBI charm?’ Decker joked.

‘We do have a warrant,’ Figueroa said, consulting his watch. ‘A court marshal is meeting us at the address.’

The trip from the FBI office on 3rd Avenue to the independent self-storage building, located on the north side of the city, took them about twenty-five minutes. Just like most self-storage buildings, from the outside this one also looked like a regular warehouse. It was painted all in white, with the self-storage trade name in huge green letters across the front of the building. The large customers’ car park at the front of the unit was practically empty, with only a handful of cars scattered around the lot. A young couple was unloading the contents of a rented white van onto an industrial-size wheeled cart. The van was parked by loading dock number two.

Decker parked the SUV by the side of a small decorative green garden directly in front of the unit’s main office. The ground was still wet from the rain that had stopped about forty minutes earlier, but judging from how dark the sky looked, rain was on its way back.

As both agents stepped out of the car, a woman, probably in her early forties, exited a white Jeep Compass that was parked just a few yards away, four spaces to their right.