Page 198 of King’s Ransom

I held eye contact with him.

I wasn’t going to blink either.

‘He hasn’t said a word while he’s been in custody,’ Longmuir said. ‘Won’t answer anything, not even when we asked him if he wanted a lawyer. Just stares straight ahead. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

I said, ‘Did you ask him about Lenny Grossman, the superintendent?’

The real Lenny Grossman hadn’t been found. After telling the super at his apartment building in the Bronx that he was going on vacation in the Ozarks, Lenny had never turned up anywhere in the Ozarks. Instead, his doppelganger—Uri—had turned up for work at 59West for almost a month as Lenny. (It was the same with the female driver of the courtesy van. Not a single wealthy resident noticed either substitution.)

‘We did,’ Longmuir said. ‘He just gazed straight ahead and said nothing. We also asked him where he diverted the payment of $40 million in bitcoin that was paid directly from King’s account, because no-one can find it. Again, not a word. The guy’s eerie.’

‘No, he’s disciplined,’ I said. ‘He holds himself to a higher standard.’

‘Huh?’ Longmuir grunted.

‘I spoke with Records,’ Audrey said. ‘This guy has no identity that anyone can find, no history at all. Nothing. He surgically removed his fingerprints long ago. No dental matches. No residence we can find. No passport.’

‘If he has a passport, his picture on it would be with a different face,’ I said.

And if he had a residence somewhere, I imagined we’d find a surgery in it, where he did his identity-stealing operations.

‘He was a doctor once,’ I said. ‘But in another country. He said when he came to America, we didn’t accept his qualifications. But he obviously knows plastic surgery. That’s how he lives in other people’s skins, by performing surgery on his own face and on the faces of his colleagues.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Director Longmuir breathed.

‘He also has military training,’ I said. ‘He can fight, shoot and handle weaponry. He talked about being in a conscript army. He comes from a country with compulsory military service.’

‘It’s not easy to wipe yourself off all records,’ Audrey said. ‘That took time, a lot of time.’

‘He’s a preparer,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s made preparations in case he ever got sent to prison.’

‘We’ll keep a close eye on him,’ Longmuir said confidently. ‘This guy is not getting out of our sight.’

I threw a sideways look at Longmuir.

If I had to make a bet between the Unperson and Deputy Director Longmuir, I’d take the Unperson.

‘You want to talk about preparations?’ Audrey said. ‘Get this, our cyber guys reported this morning that the website for Modern Alchemical Solutions vanished from the darknet last night. It had some kind of self-delete program. He must’ve set it to delete in the event he was captured or didn’t log in for a certain amount of time.’

‘He said he was like me,’ I said softly. ‘I also prepare.’

‘Sam, you’re nothing like him,’ Audrey said.

‘Any insights from his DNA?’ I asked. An analysis of his blood might show roughly where he came from in the world.

Audrey said, ‘His DNA showed broad genetic matches with populations that come from the Baltic region of Europe: north-western Russia, Estonia, Latvia, maybe even Finland. Couldn’t get more detailed than that.’

‘All countries with compulsory military service,’ I noted. ‘What about his partners, Uri and Vasha?’

Audrey said, ‘Only that they weren’t their real names. No fingerprints, either; the skin on their fingertips had also been surgically scraped off ages ago. Their DNA showed they were brother and sister and also of Baltic descent.’

‘A gang of bad hombres,’ Longmuir said. ‘But we got ’em. You got ’em.’

‘But did I get all of them?’ I said. ‘Was that his whole team?’

The Unperson was now sitting in the back of the van. His guards had finished attaching his handcuffs and leg-irons to studs in the van’s floor.

He was still staring right at me.