Down: Pinhole by Glenn Cooper Read Free Book Online Page B

spool of gauze was largely spent, consistent with dressing a gunshot wound. Upstairs the bed was slept-in and it appeared he used a good deal of toothpaste. The forensics people took the toothbrush for DNA testing. The female owner’s underwear was scattered about the bedroom and it looked like Woodbourne had left semen behind, which, with the blood evidence, also went to the DNA lab.
    In the sitting room John donned gloves and picked up the shattered TV remote control that had been hurled into the LED screen, cracking it.
    “He couldn’t figure out how to turn the TV on,” John told Trevor. “In the nineteen-forties he might have seen an early TV with a couple of knobs.”
    Trevor smiled and made a crack about how his mum couldn’t figure out how to turn her own set on. “He might’ve seen them glowing in the windows of the other houses and got frustrated.”
    According to the homeowners the only things missing were a set of chef’s knives, ranging in size from a paring knife to a cleaver.
    “He was a blade man in his day,” John said. “He strangled then sliced.”
    “He also has one of our guns,” Trevor said. “He’s got eight rounds left in the mag, kitchen knives, and his bare hands. I’d say we've got our work cut out taking him alive.”
    “He’ll kill again,” John said. “At the drop of a hat. Why do you think he picked this house?”
    “Unoccupied for a start. The police are canvasing up and down to see if anyone heard or saw anything.”
    “See if you can track down his old police files if they still exist,” John said.
    “Looking for?”
    “Place of residence. I’ll bet you six pints of best bitter he lived around here.”
    “Wouldn’t have looked like this back then. These houses must’ve been built in the sixties or seventies.”
    “Doesn’t matter. Old dogs return to their porch.”
     
     
    John was in his office, watching the tape of Emily’s disappearance for the umpteenth time when he got a call to come over to Quint’s conference room. He knew that the VIPs were there but he wasn’t privy to the agenda.
    When he entered the room, all eyes fell upon him. Quint briskly introduced the group but he already knew who each one was from the visitor photo badges his department had prepared—the US and UK energy secretaries, the FBI director and the head of MI5.
    “The decision has been taken,” Quint said as soon as John was seated. “In three day’s time we’ll restart MAAC and replicate the conditions of the Hercules experiment. The only difference will be that, unless you’ve changed your mind, you’ll be standing where Dr. Loughty was when we hit full power.”
    “I’m not changing my mind. But why wait? That’s a full week from when Emily disappeared.”
    Smithwick, the energy secretary answered him. “I’m the one who urged that we take as much time as we needed to get this absolutely right,” she said. “There needs to be a robust security plan. We can’t have another Woodbourne situation. The prime minister was crystal clear on the need for safety first.”
    “I concur,” George Lawrence said. “I’m putting MI5 in charge of lab security. This is particularly necessary since you, as head of security, could be heading off to parts unknown.”
    “I don’t have a problem with that,” John said, “as long as Trevor Jones is tasked with getting Brandon Woodbourne back to the lab.”
    Lawrence said, “I’ve had a look at his credentials and it seems that he’ll be a good man to interface with the local police. They’re more likely to cooperate with one of their own rather than one of mine. I’ll agree to your proposal.”
    “How will the logistics work?” John asked. “Assuming I’m not blasted into trillions of pieces and I survive passage through Dr. Coppens’s tunnel, we don’t have any idea what I’ll find on the other side. If time is the same there, a week will have gone by. Emily might not be easy to find. I won’t be able to