Extreme Instinct
Page 27
“He's a powerful man,” admitted Repasi.
“Powerful enough to buy himself a medical examiner and an FBI field chief?”
Repasi dropped his gaze.
“Enough said,” she bitterly replied, storming off.
Neil Gallagher caught up with her and offered her a ride to the hospital. He started in by asking questions about Warren Bishop, how well she knew him, for how long, what sort of man he was. She pleaded for him to give her a break. “Can we please talk about this later?” she asked, silencing him. During the long, lonely ride over to where Warren Bishop lay in a coma, Jessica pieced all the parts together. And she felt like a fool. J.T. had warned her to be wary of Frank Lorentian, not to turn a blind eye to his threats or the reach of his power, and what had she done? She'd put the billionaire thug out of her mind and he had in fact blindsided her; he had gotten to someone she loved, and he had ruined Warren Bishop's career in the bureau as a result, managed to get two of his own men maimed for life, no doubt, and they had managed to let the beast they were all after escape once more.
She wondered how charges could be brought and made to stick against Lorentian. She wondered if Warren and the other two men would cooperate once he and they recovered. But realistically speaking, she knew that Frank Lorentian was about as untouchable an outlaw as they came, for he was an outlaw with enough money to buy anyone or anything required to float just above the law, up there with the likes of many another wealthy American baron.
The wait at the hospital was long and drawn out. Finally, Neil Gallagher approached her to say, “I'm sorry about your friend, Bishop. I hope he fully recovers.”
“Why? So you can hang him out to dry?”
“No one in the operating rooms up there is going to come out of this unscathed, Dr. Coran. We will get at the truth here. Friend or not, Bishop interfered in this investigation, short-circuited a very real possibility of capturing this madman you've all chased here to Salt Lake. I have my duty, too, Doctor.”
“Do your duty, then, Gallagher.”
“When this is all over, I'll want a statement from you, Doctor.”
“I apparently didn't know Warren as well as I thought.”
“Obviously.” Gallagher began pacing before her. He'd been watching her write on a notepad.
“Shouldn't you be orchestrating the manhunt for the Phantom?” she asked.
“I have my best, most trusted people on it. Believe me. We'll have him. We'll have him soon. It would help greatly if one of those three upstairs could give us something on the man we're after. And what about you, Dr. Coran? Have you been thoroughly forthcoming about what you know of this maniac who likes to fry women into oblivion?”
“Men and women, it makes no difference with this guy so long as he has the log to burn,” she replied snappishly. “I've told you all I know.”
“What's that you've got there?” he asked, pointing to her notepad.
“He intends to kill a total of at least nine victims, according to our math.”
“Nine? Why nine? Why not seven, like that film, or twenty or fifty or a hundred?”
“All I know is that he intends to fill up this... this ascending and descending”—hole, she wanted to say, but instead finished with—”scale.”
“Scale? The scale you showed me earlier?”
“Which, if he's allowed to carry on, will soon look like this,” she replied, handing him the hospital logo notepad she'd been working over.
Gallagher raised it to his eyes and read the newly developed listing for murder. It read:
#1 is #9—Traitors
#2 is #8—Malicious Frauds
#3 is #7—Violents
#4 is #6—Heretics
#5 is #5—Wrathful & Sullen
#6 is #4—?
#7 is #3—?
#8 is #2—?
#9 is #1—the last victim?
“We suspect this maniac has some fixation with themes found in Dante's Inferno,” she confessed, for giving information to Gallagher, for some reason, always felt like a confession, she thought.
“Dante's Inferno”!” he reacted, looked up from the new list, and now he stared through Jessica, asking, “What kind of madman is this guy?”
“Some might say he is on a quest of some sort, the meaning of which only he fully comprehends. None of this means anything to the rest of us; it's all concocted in his fevered brain, and I'm sure Dante Alighieri didn't in 1321 ever expect his lurid descriptions of Hell to ever fuel a twentieth-century madman's killing lust.”
He complimented, “Ingenious of you to figure out this much.”
“Luck and happenstance have had much to do with getting this far, but the fact remains, he's at large. There're too many holes, unanswered questions.”
“Logically, your numbers appear accurate; this is most probably accurate.” Gallagher pressed a finger into the list. “The man intends to kill nine victims.”
“Unless he rolls it over, goes back through the rungs to number one again after hitting nine,” she suggested.
“All madness, complete madness.”
“We have reason to believe he's hearing voices, that he's driven, obsessed, possibly possessed, or at least he believes himself possessed.”
“Of a demon?”
“Or demons. I've sent this list along to Quantico, from where it has now gone out to the nation's leading academicians and the mental health professionals in the hope someone somewhere might recognize the thinking. Put it together with the fevered mind that has obsessed over it.”
“Yeah, I see, like they did in the Unabomber case.”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“I read something about it.”
“Read something about it? The Unabomber case, you mean?”
“No, no... your case, Dr. Coran.”
“Where?”
“Your earlier list, the first one you showed me. It was published in The New York Times, the LA. Times, and every other major newspaper in the country as well as being aired on national television.”
“No one told me!”
“Sorry, I thought you knew.”
“I've been... out of touch....”
“Thinking seems sound enough. Someone, somewhere must know this head case and his background, where he lives, right?”
“Yeah... we can only hope. We've also got a line of inquiry following an itinerary, a bus schedule we believe he is on. That's how I got here as quickly as I did.”
“Yeah, you mentioned as much when you first informed us.”
Jessica wondered how Repasi was connected to Lorentian, and she decided that Karl was hired to keep a running tab on the progress in the case, and that Warren, who had somehow become hopelessly indebted to Frank Lorentian, had succumbed to using his office for Lorentian's personal vendetta in this matter. Repasi was in the hospital, too, but he was busy downstairs with the autopsy on the latest victim, whom Jessica felt guilty over since she had not even gotten the woman's name.
“I'm going down to the morgue to see Dr. Repasi,” she told Gallagher.
“I'll accompany you, Doctor.”
“As you wish.”
They found Repasi just finishing up. When he saw them, he said, “No surprises. Same MO down to the gasoline hot spots about face and upper torso.”
Jessica needed to get away from the body and the smell of smoldering flesh adhering to the room. She felt as if she could no longer breathe. Gallagher, a sensitive man, saw her need and ushered her out almost as soon as he'd accompanied her into the morgue.
Gallagher escorted her to a hallway, and at the end of the corridor they found a balcony that overlooked the now darkened city. The warm, fresh air felt good on Jessica's skin, and it invaded her nostrils, attempting battle with the odors from the death room that had taken hold.
Gallagher now asked, “This bus itinerary—it tells you where his next destination will be? Can we get there before him?”
“I'd hoped that for S
alt Lake, but we were too late for Salt Lake.”
“Thanks to Bishop, yes.”
“I wish you wouldn't condemn Warren before he's even had a chance to... to defend himself.”
“All right, sorry again. I'll give him the benefit of a doubt. Meantime, where is the killer's next stop, if you don't mind sharing?”
“Wyoming. Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I believe,” she replied. “Can you get me there quickly?”
“As soon as you're ready to go.”
“I have to know first how Warren is doing.”
“The other side of the hospital, there's a helipad. We can take off from here together for Wyoming. It's not far by air.”
She sighed, taking in a deep breath of the clear air, and despite the humid night, a chill, made primarily of fear, wafted through her nerves as she contemplated her next encounter with this madman who'd created some sort of fantasy involving Dante's Inferno, Satan, nine to possibly eighteen murders, and Jessica Coran. She leaned in against the balcony, steadying herself, feeling Neil Gallagher's reassuring hand on her shoulder, hearing his whispered words.
“This must be a nightmare for you. I've only seen the one example of this madman's work. You've now seen five. Now that we know what bus he's traveling on,” suggested Gallagher, “we're staking it out to see if he's stupid enough to attempt another boarding tomorrow morning. Frankly, I don't hold out any hope of his doing so, but as they say, crime makes you stupid, so.... And frankly, Doctor, I'm a bit confused why you and the others chasing him didn't stop and board the bus before it got this far.”
“Don't you think that Warren must've given it thought? Radio the state patrol and surround the bus? Maybe get everyone inside killed? But you've got to realize, we only learned for certain that he was on that specific bus after his arrival here in Salt Lake. There was no opportunity to take him out somewhere along the road before he became a Salt Lake problem, Gallagher.”
“I see.”
“Besides, there're some thirty or so other passengers on that bus.”
“Of course. And if we didn't know before how dangerous it is to approach this lunatic, we certainly know now, don't we?”
“Yes, of course. Any attempt at an assault on the bus would have cost more lives.”
“All the same, this morning, when the bus pulls from the curb, it will do so only after a thorough check by my people. By the way, the victim of the fire was a tourist to our city, a passenger on another tour bus. Her name was Evelyn Grey.”
“We know he's crazy, but he's also cunning. It's highly unlikely he'll rejoin the tour group or follow the now known path of tour thirteen fourteen on bus sixty-seven of the Vision Quest lines. Still, he has a plan that involves killing four more people at the very least. Whether he shows up in Jackson Hole or not is anyone's guess. And as for staking out the bus, he now knows we're on to him, close on his trail. He's hardly likely to show up tomorrow morning to board that bus.”
“All the same, Quantico has asked for my full support, and as far as I'm concerned, Doctor, you people need all the help you can get. From here on out, I call the shots. Two of my men are guarding Bishop and those two questionable fellows whose faces were rearranged by your killer, possibly dying, certainly maimed for life, due to the ineptness of the investigation thus far. Now, tomorrow morning, my men will be there when tour number thirteen fourteen readies to leave the Hilton. We've interviewed the driver and the tour guide, and they know of our interest in Mr. Dunlap, should they ever lay eyes on him again.”
“He's not a fool.”
“We'll take him down, one way or another. The bus driver is being replaced by an agent, and we already have the other end covered, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“At Jackson Hole. There we'll greet the bus as the owner-operators of this place he would have been staying at tonight, a place called the Wagon Wheel Motel.”
“If you knew where his next destination was, why'd you bother asking me?”
“Call it a test.”
“I see.”
“After Bishop's performance... rather hard to know whom to trust.”
“Sure... I can understand that.” Jessica inwardly fumed, but she kept careful control of herself. “Refreshing to find a man with a plan,” she told him, thinking his plan foolhardy and full of holes.
Still, she kept silent. “Do it.” She knew that Gallagher's plans would net him nothing, that the killer wanted to be caught up with by one person alone: her. That his bread crumbs and leavings thus far had all pointed to one thing: that she be his ninth, his last victim. He was no fool. He would not return to the company of tourists on a bus with a known itinerary, not now, now that they'd come so close to catching him. If nothing else, Warren had thrown a scare into the fiend.
“Then you will join us in Wyoming, Dr. Coran?”
“Go ahead without me. I'm here until Warren regains consciousness.”
Still awaiting news at Salt Lake Memorial Hospital, Jessica finally learned that Warren Bishop remained in an hours-long intensive surgery and that he wasn't expected to regain consciousness anytime soon after the operation, nor would he soon have use of his left side even if he should survive the surgery. The killer's bullet had been a spreader, a single bullet exploding from a cut jacket, creating a series of winding, twisting, tearing pellets coursing through Warren's body. He'd been wearing a Spectra vest, a technically superior vest to the Kevlar line most FBI men were still wearing, but the bullet entered at close proximity, the powder bums on his clothes telling the story, and the bullet entered just above the sternum, where the vest hadn't been completely secured by Bishop. From there, the bullet took its winding courses—up, down, around, back and forth, cutting small but deadly paths through vital organs, arteries, and veins.
While she waited, Jessica was deserted by Neil Gallagher, who'd conferred with Dr. Karl Repasi and had invited Repasi to join him in the helicopter to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. With this team away and awaiting the next strike of the cobra at the next stop on the killer's itinerary—an itinerary that may well have changed by now— Jessica at least felt some breathing space.
She remained uncertain of the killer's path now, whether he would indeed show himself in Jackson Hole, but just the same, she and Gallagher had little else to go on. An hour after Gallagher and Repasi had left her, Jessica was joined by J.T., who swept her up in his arms. They held one another for a long time, J.T. asking all in one breathless fell swoop, “How's-Bishop-doing, how're-you-Jess, ' n-what-happened?''
“Bishop's torn up on the inside like a garden soaker. If he survives, his prognosis for a full recovery isn't good.” Tears filled Jessica's eyes. “Worst of it is, John, he used us, used both of us.”
“Used?”
Jessica confided what little she understood and suspected of Bishop's botched attempt at ridding the world of the Phantom via Frank Lorentian's hired thugs.
“He must've been in to Lorentian big time from the get- go,” said J.T. “And to think, we never suspected him of a thing.”
“We may never know exactly what kind of debt he owed to Frank Lorentian, if he doesn't survive.”
“What about the other two, Lorentian's goons?”
“Second-degree burns to the face; neither man may ever see again. One of them was that guy we met at Lorentian's, his bodyguard Rollo.”
“I knew we'd be dogged by Frank Lorentian. I just knew it. But I thought it was Repasi.”
“Karl Repasi, too, was keeping tabs on us—for Warren, near as I can tell. Warren was paying Karl to keep him informed of our movements.” “That explains a lot.” J.T. again comforted her and said, “I'm sorry about all this, Jess. Really I am. I know you and Bishop go back a long way.”
“I thought I knew him.”
“Don't be too hard on yourself, Jess. I didn't suspect the man of a thing, either, certainly nothing like this.”
“Meanwhile, a killer goes free. We could've had him, John! Damn Warren fo
r that, damn him.”
Again J.T. held her, trying to absorb her pain. In a moment she pulled away, dabbing tears from her eyes with a handkerchief that appeared to have seen a great deal of use this night. It was nearing 3:00 a.m.
She stepped away from him, bent, and lifted a notepad she'd been working on before he'd arrived. “Oh, by the way, J.T., look at this and give me your appraisal. I've had a lot of time on my hands here, and I've been reading Dante's Inferno, and the killer's list, all the missing pieces, you know?”
He reached out for the proffered notebook, nodding. “Yeah, what about the missing pieces?”
“I think I know what they are, what they'll be when they come.”
J.T. gaped at her, the notepad half in his hands, half in hers. She wanted to push it fully into his hands like a hot potato.
The notepad was filled with the information she wished to share with Thorpe, information no one else had. “Working this out is the only thing that's kept me sane in this place, waiting word on Warren,” she told him. “Go ahead, check my work. What do you think? You think the killer's final list will look like this?” She tore off a sheet from the notepad she held in her hand.
J.T. stared at the long list Jessica had completed. He sat down, holding the list before him, simply whistling aloud. The notepad read:
#1
is #9-
—Traitors
#2
is #8-
—Malicious Frauds
#3
is #7-
—Violents
#4
is #6-
—Heretics
#5
is #5-
-Wrathful & Sullen
#6
is #4-
—Avaricious & Prodigal