Gurion said, “Organs once unsuitable for transplant can now be used. The decellularized organ is like a natural scaffold for the new cells. Bioprinting is maybe more important because applications of the technology are . . . well, stunning, revolutionary. Some people think certain biotech developments, like those related to AI, are a little Frankenstein, but that’s just ignorance. This science has great potential to alleviate human suffering.”
Turning from the window, David harked back to something that the attorney had said earlier. “They were tortured? For a fact?”
Looking toward where the bed had most likely stood, Gurion clamped his lower lip between his teeth as if to bite back a strong wave of emotion. His pale-blue eyes glimmered with unshed tears. When he spoke, his voice was steady but strained. “I’m the one who found them. My wife and I were invited for Sunday brunch at ten thirty. Just the four of us. Renata and Ephraim loved to cook. They could lay out quite a spread, just the two of them, no help from staff. They usually started on it at five in the morning, making a big production of it, but always having fun, the two of them like chefs on some lighthearted Home and Garden Channel cooking show.”
The attorney fell silent and seemed lost in grim thought, and David said, “The press reported they were stabbed to death.”
“That’s what the FBI wanted to say. Keep the truth for court if there’s ever a prosecution.”
“What was done to them? The torture, I mean.”
“I’ve told no one. Not even my wife.”
“If you’re constrained by the FBI or you’d just rather not—”
“It’s all right,” Gurion said. “If you’re going to consider writing about them, you need to know. What they suffered.”
Shamed by his ongoing deception, David waited.
Gurion went to the open door to the bath and stood there with his back to the bedroom, as if he could not bear the sight of it even now that it had been emptied. “They were faceup. His ankles were zip tied together. So were hers. Ropes tethered each of them to a different footpost of the bed. Their hands were cuffed, too. Other ropes pulled their arms out over their heads, linking the cuffs to the headrail.”
David was able to picture it. He didn’t want to, but he could. Locks and alarms had failed them. Overpowered in their sleep, they were totally vulnerable once secured.
“Both were . . . disfigured.”
“How?”
“Horribly. Their faces. Even with all the blood . . . it looked like slow and careful carving.”
“Maybe they were already dead when that was done.”
“Not according to the Bureau’s medical examiner.” He continued to stand at the threshold of the bathroom, staring through the open door. “And I don’t think they were tortured for information.”
When the attorney’s silence grew extended, David said, “Then what do you think it was about?”
“Vicious hatred. The psychotic hatred of killers whose souls were long ago extinguished. Ephraim and Renata were kind and giving, the last people to inspire homicidal rage. But their killers must have hated them. Only people consumed by demonic hatred could do that, all that, to other human beings.”
“Do you have any theories of your own? Suspects? Someone other than foreign agents?”
Gurion seemed reluctant to face the bedroom, as if by facing it he would invite ghastly images to surge in memory. He turned with the caution of a man on a high wire. “No theories. No suspects. But it changed me. I’d never owned a gun. I bought one the next day. And a second, for my wife, a week later. And then two more, so we would have one close at hand wherever we were in our house. I underwent training and got a license to carry.” He drew aside a panel of his suit coat to reveal a shoulder holster. “Are you licensed to carry, David?”
“No.”
“I recommend it,” Gilbert Gurion said. “Especially if you’re going to write about Ephraim and Renata. But even if you’re not, I recommend it.”
| 37 |
Half a mile from the Zabdi estate, David pulled to the curb and shifted the SUV into park. He adjusted the dashboard vents to direct the outflow of cold air more directly on his face.
He sat for a few minutes, thinking and trying not to think, alternating between the two.
Whoever invaded the house that Saturday night had possessed the knowledge and technology to override the alarm and, later, to erase all archived video from the security system. That suggested well-funded professional operatives, rather than just a woman who was the director of a small foundation and seemed to enjoy playing at being a femme fatale.