The Zombie Room (16 page)

Decker and Mangle had retreated back to nearby trees and Tazeem ducked down beside them.

‘You can hear it,’ Mangle said, shushing them. ‘Listen, you can hear the buzzing.’

Tazeem held his breath and sure enough could hear what sounded like an overloaded electrical socket. A steady buzzing was punctuated only by an occasional dull thump as one of the girl’s limbs flopped onto the grass. A few more seconds, and the buzzing stopped. Other than the occasional twitch, the girl now lay still.

Presently, the man arrived where she lay. He hoisted her onto his back with practised efficiency and started back toward the main building.

‘Fucking hell,’ Decker said once he was sure the man was out of earshot. ‘Least we know why they don’t bother with fences now.’

‘Yeah,’ Mangle said, ‘this is definitely the right place.’

Tazeem rented a small bungalow in a quiet residential district, a few miles north of the city. He left his easily identifiable Mercedes in the lock-up garage and they used the white VW to get around in. Ferret was now incommunicado and Tazeem spent the next few days trying to gather further information through his network of sources.

Mangle and Decker grew weary hiding out waiting for Tazeem to plan their next move, and decided on another reconnaissance visit to the clinic. They stationed themselves by the fence in an area of dense dogwood bushes. The first hour produced nothing but boredom and creeping damp patches on their clothes from lying on the ground.

When finally a buzzer sounded, both Mangle and Decker
expected the same routine as they’d previously witnessed, with a troop of girls being led from an outbuilding back to the house. This time, however, the door from the main building opened and eleven girls wearing the uniform sky-blue jumpsuits, led by the single woman in beige, made their way outside.

‘What are they doing?’ Decker asked after several moments.

‘Not much of anything, it doesn’t look like; just walking around.’

The girls appeared to wander aimlessly around the grounds. Again there was a single man stationed beside the house. He had brought out a chair and sat reading a book beside the doorway, paying virtually no attention to the girls.

‘You recognise any from Seven? Or from the warehouse?’ Decker asked.

‘No, not from here anyway. None that look like they could be Ermina either.’

One girl followed an angular path around the flower beds, slowly gravitating further away from the building. Mangle kept low and watched for any sign of interest from the attendant. She never cast a glance back over her shoulder and he didn’t appear to look up.

‘Is that the one from the warehouse?’ Decker asked.

‘I can’t tell for sure while she has her head down like that,’ Mangle said, squinting at the girl closest to them. ‘But it doesn’t look like she’s wearing one of those collars, and the guy over there seems fine with her being so far from the house.’

He was right. The girl still followed the perimeter of one flower bed after another, maybe 200 yards from the house, and neither the attendant nor the woman in beige paid her any heed.

‘She’s humming,’ Decker commented. ‘What have they done to make them so sure the girls won’t run off?’

Mangle didn’t answer. He could hear the girl now as well. ‘Hey,’ he said, in a voice he hoped would carry to her. If she’d heard him she gave no indication.

Decker picked a small stone and tossed it towards her. It bounced in the grass a few feet in front of her and she immediately stopped
humming. The girl peered absently over towards the fence but looked less than curious at their presence. After a prolonged moment of staring, she resumed the tuneless humming and again walked the line around the flower bed.

‘It’s her,’ Mangle said, with rising excitement in his voice. ‘It’s the same one.’

The woman in beige walked toward the girl but there was no urgency or suspicion in her movements. She linked arms with her, and turned back towards the clinic. ‘Come on Tatty, time to go back inside and see Dr Chu.’

Back at the bungalow Tazeem still sat dejectedly at the table with his phone pressed to his ear. He looked older than Mangle had noticed before; the added worry of each passing day had aged him.

‘OK, call me right away if you hear anything,’ he said and ended the call.

Mangle sat down beside him and Decker went to fetch three beers from the fridge. By the time the beers had been drunk Tazeem had been brought up to speed about their trip back out to the clinic.

‘So she was right out by the fence and didn’t make a run for it?’

‘No. She didn’t even look like it had crossed her mind. And she wore no collar like the girl last time,’ Mangle said.

‘The attendant didn’t seem concerned in the slightest. He barely looked up from his book. The girls were wandering around out there as if they didn’t have a care in the world,’ Decker added.

‘I’m getting nowhere. It looks like the one person who can give us some answers is this Dr Chu.’

At just after 6 p.m. on Friday, Benjamin Chu was eager to begin his weekend of rest and relaxation. He climbed behind the wheel of his steel-grey Aston Martin, pressed the ignition button and waited as the seats, mirrors and steering wheel hummed into his
pre-programmed position. He tossed his security pass onto the seat beside him, and followed the gravel driveway the mile towards the main gate. The evening had prematurely darkened and the gathering clouds began to shed a fine rain.

The Saturday night of unadulterated pleasure he had planned at The Club, inaugurating the new girls, was a tantalising prospect. The Club had priced itself out of the market for all but the most lavish and frivolous of patrons. The delays and disappointments he had faced at the clinic in achieving the ladies’ cultural reform could be disheartening, but finally seeing them in their new environment, acting as he had instructed, was almost reward enough. The generous six-figure salary he collected in addition he considered to be a very welcome bonus. He smiled to himself as the gate opened allowing the car in front to proceed, and reached for his ID as he pulled into position at the security console.

‘Please present identification,’ a voice crackled through the speaker. Benjamin placed his hologramatic ID card with the neon green triangle against the scanner, and looked into the camera lens. These security measures were completely unnecessary in his opinion: considering the lengths he went to with the girls, there was zero risk of escape. Too much security might draw unwanted attention to the clinic from curious outsiders, but the ID scanner at the gate at least ensured there were no tourists.

‘You may proceed,’ the voice announced, and the gates parted for him to leave.

Benjamin withdrew his ID and drove through the gate. The job at the clinic was a result of furthering research his father had begun many years ago in China. This work was intended to create an alternative to life imprisonment or execution, for the most serious and habitual offenders. His father believed that by curing the behaviour patterns that led to extreme anti-social behaviour, you could regulate and rehabilitate the individual, enabling their release back into society.

The implications for other potential applications of his work were quickly realised. Benjamin’s father had been a good man,
and when the government took control of his work, he destroyed as much of the research as he could and fled the country. He settled in Garden Heights as a political refugee, took on a menial position, and married. After some years his father had written memoirs of his time working in China that he absolutely refused to have published, but was pleased when his son took such an interest and happily answered his questions. His father died when Benjamin was a teenager, and when he announced that he wanted to continue his father’s work, initially his mother was delighted.

But to have such capabilities, and not exploit them ambitiously and financially, made no sense to Benjamin. His growing expertise took him outside the realms of general decency and beyond his university’s tolerance for negative publicity, and he was subsequently expelled. His mother moved away, unable to tolerate the mistrust of the community after Benjamin was labelled a ‘Psychological Frankenstein’ in a newspaper exposé.

Without the university’s resources Benjamin was left with a huge financial shortfall, and test subjects were hard to come by. He was in need of a sponsor. But the negative press from his research scandal had attracted the attention of an organisation capable of satiating his desires for wealth, power and, above all, knowledge.

The rain fell heavier and Benjamin’s Aston Martin automatically increased its wiper speed. He chose to believe that his father would be proud of his accomplishments, whatever his mother had said. His father’s research had been limited to psychological manipulation, and environmental control, but with the added chemical element that Benjamin had perfected, he believed that given time, there was nothing he couldn’t coerce a patient into willingly doing.

A set of flashing hazard lights up ahead caused Benjamin to ease off the accelerator. Some idiot had broken down and left their car jutting out, blocking most of the road. Benjamin steered towards the grass verge, planning to drive onto it to pass by, but the stranded motorist was now walking towards his car waving
their arms to flag him down. Great, he thought. A chunk of my weekend wasted already. But a quick phone call to roadside assistance and he’d be on his way. Five minutes he’d give, tops. His window purred down only a couple of inches to prevent any rainwater invading the interior, as the soaked motorist walked around to the driver’s side.

‘Hi, thanks for stopping. Could you help me get the car going?’

‘I know nothing about cars, you should phone for assistance,’ Benjamin said irritably, and looked forward again, indicating his desire to leave.

‘It’ll just take a moment, I’d really appreciate it.’

‘If you don’t have a phone, I’ll make a call for you. Other than that you’re on your own, friend,’ Benjamin said impatiently and revved his engine.

The passenger side window exploded inward, showering Benjamin with shards of glass. He panicked and stamped on the accelerator, sending the Aston Martin skidding forwards on the greasy road surface. Through the rain-streaked glass of the car in front, he saw a head pop up in the driver’s seat, and the car reversed into his path. The front of Benjamin’s car crunched into the rear bumper of what was clearly not a broken-down car. The Aston Martin stalled. Whoever had smashed his window caught up and reached through the shattered pane, grabbing a fistful of Benjamin’s jacket and screaming threats of violence if he tried to move the car again.

When the doctor refused to get out of the car and help, Mangle was at a loss. He hadn’t contemplated somebody who wouldn’t get out and help in a similar situation. He saw Decker sneak out and around the side of the doctor’s car, and when Decker smashed the window, Mangle was almost as surprised as the doctor. Tazeem saw things weren’t going to plan and slid over into the driver’s seat of the Volkswagen. Mangle regained his senses and ran towards the cars. Decker was already ahead of him, yelling and attempting to haul the doctor from the Aston
Martin. He snatched away the doctor’s cell phone before he could call for help.

‘Throw him in the back,’ Decker said, pulling the doctor through the shattered window.

He rushed around and restarted the doctor’s car. They had picked the spot carefully and Decker drove towards a dense clump of fir trees and manoeuvred the car behind them. Running back to the road, Decker kicked away the broken glass, leaving no evidence of the collision.

Mangle hopped into the driver’s seat of the Volkswagen and once Decker, Tazeem and their captive were all on board he accelerated away.

The lock-up wasn’t the ideal location to interrogate someone, but their only other alternative was the bungalow, so it would have to do. Tazeem pulled down the shutters and locked them. Decker dragged the terrified doctor to the chair they had prepared, and taped his arms in place. He didn’t know how far they would have to go to get the information they needed.

‘What do you want? I have money, I’ll give you all I have,’ the doctor said in a shrill voice.

‘We don’t want your money,’ Tazeem said bitterly. ‘I want to know where my cousin is.’

‘What?’ The doctor stammered.

‘Is Ermina at the clinic?’ Mangle demanded.

‘I don’t know the name of every girl there,’ the doctor protested at what he considered to be an absurd notion.

‘So how do we find out if she’s there?’ Tazeem asked. His voice raised an octave, and a note of pleading had crept in.

‘It’ll be in the records, if she’s there now or if she’s been there. They’re in the office next to mine.’

‘You can’t think if we let him go he’ll just gonna call us up with what we want,’ Decker said, as Tazeem looked to be contemplating the possibility. The doctor’s immediate claim that that’s exactly what he’d do if they freed him went unheeded.

‘You’ll have to get us in there,’ Tazeem stated.

‘That’s ridiculous. You can’t just walk into the clinic, they have security.’

‘How many guards are on duty at the weekend?’ Tazeem persisted.

‘Right now, just one. This is a very busy weekend, a lot of the girls are being moved into the club environment,’ the doctor said, pride evident in his voice. It made Tazeem feel sick.

‘Will he be armed?’

‘Yes, the security staff are always armed. But the attendants aren’t armed as they chaperone the girls between sessions, in case anyone sees them.’

‘We’re going back there now. No one will know he’s missing yet. This will be our best chance to get inside,’ Tazeem said.

Mangle and Decker exchanged looks but said nothing. The doctor protested enough for them both. Tazeem peeled off the tape holding the doctor’s arms to the chair and ushered him back toward the car, pushed him into the back seat and slammed the door.

‘Are you sure about this?’ Decker asked.

‘No, but what else am I left with? There’s been no word from Ermina in over a week. I have to know if she’s been forced onto this … conveyor belt of sex slavery,’ Tazeem said, shaking his head as he reached for the right words. ‘If there’s even a possibility of her being there, I have to try. I appreciate all the help you’ve both given, but you shouldn’t come with me. We don’t know if anything he said is true; there could be a dozen guys back there. Get a cab back to the house and if I can I’ll meet you there later.’