by Edward Lee
“You’ve already told me that. Please don’t beg for your life. It will soil my opinion of you.”
“But what you’re not considering is the fact that I anticipated something too.”
Campbell paused. The knife glinted. “What?”
“The state psychiatrist told me that serial-killers crave power rooted in fear, and the greatest display of that power eventually arrives when the killer seeks to kill those who’re after him, like what you just said: the hunter destroyed by the hunted. So it was logical for me to assume that you might try this.”
Campbell squinted at her.
“So I took a precaution,” she continued. “And when you were getting your…sandwich…I regained enough use of my arms to activate that precaution.”
Campbell peered. “What?”
Helen opened the locket on her chest. The picture of her father was long gone; instead it was replaced by something else.
A nickel shaped metal disk, with a gridded button on it.
“This is a direction-finding transponder,” she told him, “identical to the one I used on North’s car. Except this one has a distress frequency which relays back to state police headquarters. I was able to activate the distress switch when you went to the kitchen.”
“You’re…lying,” he murmured.
“Right now there are probably fifty tactical police officers surrounding this house,” Helen said.
— | — | —
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“The last desperate trick of the animal in the trap,” he replied.
“Really, shithead? Turn around and look down. Turn around and look at your chest.”
Campbell hesitated, then turned. The gesture offered his chest to the window. And when he looked down at the front of his shirt, he saw—
“What are—”
—bright red illuminated dots.
“Those red dots on your chest,” Helen continued, “are emission points from laser sites. Right this second a half a dozen snipers have you in their crosshairs.”
Campbell’s gaze froze down. The red dots on his chest moved minutely.
“If you try to close those curtains, or if you make even the slightest threatening move toward me,” Helen promised, “those snipers will kill you in place. You won’t even have time to blink before you’re dead.”
Campbell’s neck remained locked down, his eyes glued to the neon-like dots.
“Don’t believe me?” Helen challenged. “Then make a move.”
Campbell didn’t move.
“Those guys out there can hit an apple from half a mile away,” she enlightened him. “How hard do you think it’s going to be for them to hit you from fifty yards?”
««—»»
Special Agent Eules had gotten the distress call from Wisconsin State PD’s Communication outfit less then twenty minutes ago. They’d scrambled fast from the Madison F.O., sirens and lights off, and arrived at the plat-grid along with about half the uniformed cops in Madison County. In less than two more minutes, Eules had posted snipers from four separate firing lanes in the opposing woods, and three Extraction Teams waiting for an “enter and clear” order. It was almost too easy.
He focused his binoculars a digit more, then asked his own man, “Talk to me, Sandie.”
Sandie was actually a Gulf War-era Seal sniper named Sanders (he’d cut his teeth in 1989, in Panama, killing 22 enemy soldiers in one night at the central airport), and he remained crouched and motionless as he sighted his target. He looked carved out of the darkness, aiming a McMillan M88, anodized black to repel shine, and fitted with an LSI low-amp laser and Bosch & Lomb T-Reticle scope. The McMillan loaded .50 hardball, to punch through windows without deflection and ensure ballistic penetration. It would penetrates brick walls and engine blocks, too.
“Target’s not moving at all, sir. He’s just standing there looking at my dot.”
“Can you take him without hitting Closs?”
“She’s out of the picture. I can drop this guy so easy I’d feel guilty cashing my pay check.”
Eules chewed his lip, then he cued his Motorola mike. “All Gunposts. Report target acquisition status, in order, now.”
“Post Number Two,” the first response crackled. “Target acquired. Give me the word.”
“Post Number Three. This guy’s just standing there. Give me the word.”
“Post Number Four. Sir, which shirt button do you want me to put a round through?”
That about said it all.
Eules paused, looked at the forest, his thumb ready to come back down on the radio cue.
Shit, he thought.
“All posts. Hold your fire. Do not fire unless the target makes an aggressive move with the knife.”
««—»»
“Drop the knife,” Helen said. “Drop it, then raise your hands very slowly and stand up straight. Keep facing the window. Don’t make any sudden movements.”
He turned very, very slowly, and looked at her. “I…”
“Don’t be stupid!” Helen yelled. “Those guys out there invented the term ‘trigger-happy.’ Surrender.”
Now Campbell’s eyes roved intermittently about the room, from Dahmer’s body to Tom to Helen, then back to Dahmer’s body.
“Give it up,” Helen implored. As for Campbell’s health, she wasn’t especially concerned either way, nor was she terribly worried about crossfire or a stray bullet trajectory that might accidentally hit her. The snipers were good—she knew that—former military hot shots, cool as cucumbers, and field trained to the extent that they could take targets at will. But Campbell was close, about six feet away, and the knife ever-present in his hand.
If he lunged for her, would they really get him before he got to her?
««—»»
Eules keyed his mike again. “Extraction Teams, status report, in order, now.”
“Team Leader, Team One, posted and ready.”
“Team Two, posted and ready, sir.”
“Team Three, posted and ready to roll.”
“Hold your marks,” Eules calmly ordered. “Enter on my command only. Once you get the extraction order, watch for crossfire. Team One secures the room. Two and Three secure the house. Remember your ops orders. Cover and concealment.”
“Roger. TL out.”
Sanders, the lead sniper, still hadn’t moved a muscle as he sighted down his target. “Shit, sir, he’s still just standing there—he knows we’re all over him. This guy’s not gonna give himself up. Let me take him.”
“Hold your mark,” Eules ordered him, eyeing the guy again through his field binoculars. “We’re cops, not meat-grinders. We just aired a guy out the other day.”
“Hey, sir?”
“What?”
Sander’s hesitated. “Adjust your angle a few degrees left. I just caught it. There’s someone else in the room.”
“That’s Drake,” Eules already knew, “a state pathologist.”
“No, no, not the guy tied up in the chair,” Sanders corrected. “I see him. I mean harder left, like ten o’clock. There’s another guy sitting right at the edge of the shadow by the kitchen front.”
Eules stepped once to the left, zoomed his Zeiss 7x50 binocs. He squinted at the image, not quite believing what he was seeing at first. He’s right. It looks like a—
“Christ, sir, it’s a body.”
Eules strained his vision through the bright infinity-shaped field. His mouth opened in some silent disgust. He’s right. The whack’s got a corpse sitting in there with him.
««—»»
Now Campbell was staring at the face of Jeffrey Dahmer’s corpse.
“Doing time in a state psych wing is better than being dead,” Helen suggested.
Campbell’s gaze slowly turned back to her, the mad gray eyes now pinpointed in disdain. Tears glittered at their corners.
His voice, now, sounded like rubbing sandpaper. “You ruined everything. I was the legacy, I was the power—through him. And now?
I’m supposed to go off to some psych wing for the rest of my life?” His face seemed to set then, into a mask of something less than human. “Better that my life end here.”
“Don’t. Think. Get a grip on—”
“And yours too, bitch.”
It was nothing so trite as slow-motion. Campbell seemed to move through some other plane of existence when he broke from his stance and dove toward her across the empty air between them.
Helen heard nothing, not even her own scream, as she watched the monster float forward, the knife glinting. She tried to jerk out of the way but still could barely move; the effort proved but a feeble hitch that didn’t even raise the legs of the chair.
Glitter rained down in the silence, the windows imploding. Suddenly an array of strange dark things cavorted quickly and robotically about the room, black-booted feet crunching over shattered window glass. Helen’s heart felt like a dead lump in her chest.
“Team One, clear.”
When her sentience returned, three tactical cops in blackish utilities stood around her with black handguns drawn. They stood with their backs to her, and on their backs she saw gold capital letters: FBI.
A voice called out from somewhere unseen. “Team Two, clear!”
And another: “Team Three, clear!”
“This is Team Leader to Gunpost One. The target perimeter is secure.”
A mammoth figure turned, terrifying in ballistic glasses and a flak vest thick as a couch cushion. “Are you all right, ma’am?”
Helen didn’t really hear him. She didn’t really hear anything just yet. Instead, she blinked, and asked imbecilically, “Do you have a cigarette?”
“We don’t smoke, ma’am. Are you all right?”
She gusted a sigh. “Well, I’m paralyzed,” she said. “But to tell you the truth, I’ve never felt better.”
Only then did her thoughts return to Campbell, and so did her gaze. He lay face down a yard away, dead before he’d even hit the floor.
EPILOGUE
“Congratulations, Deputy Chief,” Olsher said after the ceremony at the State House. It was two days before Christmas. A big sugary cake shaped like a police badge graced the banquet table, gold icing with chocolate script spelling DC CLOSS. It was all so hokey she loved it.
On the night in question, she’d been rushed to St. John’s. The Trexaril Campbell had injected into her would’ve eventually neutralized all of the succinicholine sulphate, but they’d put her on a dialysis machine anyway, to slough it all off in less than half an hour.
“You know,” Olsher continued to gloat, “the only reason I was giving you a hard time is because I wanted to keep you on your toes.”
“I know, Larrel,” she said. “Thank you.”
“But now you’re the same rank as me so I guess I can’t give you any more gruff.”
“Actually you can, Larrel. You have more time-in-grade so you’re still my boss.”
Olsher finished a last bite of cake, then disgustingly fired up a huge cigar. “You know, you’re right.”
After her official promotion, Governor Thompsen and the Police Commissioner had given her a framed commendation and the Wisconsin State Medal of Valor. The only thing about the entire affair she couldn’t stand—aside from Olsher’s cigar—was the fact that she’d had to wear her dress-blue police uniform, which made her feel like some kind of silly law enforcement doll.
Later, they’d moved the party to Olsher’s house, which Dr. Sallee and Jan Beck had struck up with congratulatory signs and multi-colored streamers like a kid’s birthday. All the liquor and beer had been personally paid for and delivered by Prison Director James Dipetro. “It’s the least I can do,” he’d told her, “to thank you for taking my career out of the toilet.”
“Well, my career was pretty deep too.”
“You know, I taught her everything she knows,” Olsher tipsily boasted. “I’m like a father to her! Except…a little darker.”
“My father didn’t smoke cigars, either, Larrel,” she said.
Eules and his men drank liberally, but then so did most everyone else. “Thank you for saving my life,” she bumbled to them.
“Hey, are my guys good or what?” Eules immodestly replied. “Cherry-pickers, all of them.”
Then one of the snipers said, “This is the real reason we do this stuff. There’s always a free kegger afterward.”
Helen drifted around in a happy daze. Then someone tapped her on the shoulder.
“Congratulations.”
It was Tom.
“Thanks, Tom.” She didn’t know how to feel about him now, but that didn’t surprise her. “Sorry I—”
“You really did think I was involved, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes. Sorry.”
“No big deal. But…were you really going to arrest me that night?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
He smiled then, looked around as if distracted. “Well, you saved my life. Thank you. If you hadn’t been perceptive enough to put a DF on yourself…”
We’d both be dead, she realized.
“Look, I know I’ve made things rough for you, but I still meant what I said,” Tom stared. “I think we should talk about getting back togeth—”
She cut him off. She had nothing against him now. Why should she? It simply wasn’t meant to happen. “Let’s be friends, okay, Tom? That’s the best thing to do.”
He sipped his drink, unscorned. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
A moment later, Olsher bulled in, bearing a large, flat parcel in gift wrap. “You’re immortal now, Helen. What could be a greater honor than this?”
“What…is it?” Helen tore off the wrapping paper and nearly shrieked. It was the front page of a newspaper, matted and framed. TOUGH AS NAILS GAL COP SOLVES “DAHMER” CASE! the headline read, along with an absolutely atrocious picture of her. But it wasn’t the Washington Post, the New York Times, or even the Tribune.
It was the National Enquirer.
“My favorite journalistic forum. You’re all heart, Larrel. I’ll hang this in my living room where everyone can see it.”
The room filled with laughter. She glided around, greeting the revelers much like a bride at a reception. All this is for me? she thought. No one had ever really thrown a party for her. Then she bumped into someone getting a plate of hors d’oeuvres in the kitchen. It was Nick.
He gave her a congratulatory peck on the cheek. “Great work, hon! You’re famous!”
“Just what I always wanted. But the pay raise is all I care about, just like any cop.”
Nick chuckled, arranging rolls of cold cuts, pigs in blankets, and toothpicked chunks of cheese. “Say, how about I take you out later for a night on the town, continue the celebration?”
Helen faltered. “Gee, Nick. I don’t know.”
“Aw, come on. I’m not a rubberneck, you know that. And besides, you only make deputy chief once. If that’s not cause for celebration, what is?”
Helen looked at him. He’s really not my type at all. Profane, arrogant, and so…just so…coppish. But then—
She shrugged, gave it some more thought, and smiled.
I’ve still got my whole life ahead of me. Why shouldn’t I play the field like everyone else?
“Come on, Helen. Whadaya say?”
“Sure, Nick,” she consented. “Why not?”
— | — | —
About the Authors:
Elizabeth Steffen lives in the desert Southwest, where she works for a federal law-enforcement agency. Her hobbies are sunbathing, dead movie stars, and showing off her fingerprinting talents.
Ex-police officer and Army grunt, Edward Lee is the author of over thirty novels and a variety of short stories, comic scripts, and novellas. He lives in Florida.
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