Occasionally she caught glimpses of Prentice Fortune as he fiddled with the lights and the camera. Everything had to be perfect but she could sense his frustration at the rising water level. This is not how it was supposed to end; this was a chink in his plan that he never catered for. Jo-Lynn tried to move her legs. She knew he used duck tape to strap her to either leg of the chair. She used all her might and anger and pulled and stretched the tape binding her legs. The water must be having an effect on the glue, she reasoned to herself. She tried pulling her hands but they seemed more firmly secured to the back of the chair and remained dry. She gave another effort, this time concentrating on her left leg which she thought had a little give, and sure enough her ankle moved. Jo-Lynn moved to her right leg and again strained hard against the grey tape.
A staircase waited at the bottom of the long, narrow hall. It waited for Ray, beckoning him and appeared to be the only way out. He stopped when he reached the landing newel post and gripped tightly onto the rail, then leaned forward craning his neck so he could see and listen. Silence.
‘You know what? I can't wait.’ Fortune pulled the knife from its protective leather sheath. ‘Five minutes, ten minutes who really cares? They’re all out there, watching this live on their little TV’s and computers anyway.’
Panic filtered through Jo-Lynn's numbed senses. This was it. She strained with all her might against the loosened tape on her leg. She knew something would have to snap either the tape or her leg. At the moment though she wasn't taking bets as to which. She could feel the edge of the tape piercing her skin, but it no longer mattered. Nothing mattered anymore; nothing, except survival. As Prentice Fortune approached, she began screaming and shifting violently on the chair. Cold malice spread through his features. She knew he was enjoying himself. He waded through the silt water, his trousers clung obscenely to him; it was obvious he was enjoying it on more than one level.
Snap! Her foot come free. Just one foot. He drew nearer but not within striking distance. Jo-Lynn wanted to be sure to hurt him, even if it was to be the last thing that she would do. She wanted the satisfaction of knowing that she at least caused him pain.
And then he was upon her. So close she could feel the heat from his body.
He pressed the knife tip to her throat. ‘Smile…you're dead.’
Jo-Lynn looked into the dead eyes that were so prominent through the mask, it was as though she was looking at a shark about to attack. The tip of the blade pierced her neck and slowly began to enter her. Knowing that she had less than a second to make her move, Jo-Lynn pulled her leg back and with all the force she could muster and raised her knee deep into his groin. The action sending her backwards into the water and him falling like a stone in the opposite direction. The knife flew from his hand as he made an involuntary reaction against the pain. He screamed as he rolled over in agony taking in mouthfuls of brown water. As he fought to regain his composure he yelled. ‘You're gonna die.’ But before he barely finished speaking, a siren buzzed through a speaker high on the far wall. Prentice Fortune looked up at it.
‘NO…No, no, not now.’ Fortune held his head with both hands trying to shut out the noise and more importantly the meaning of the noise.
Jo-Lynn tried to roll on to her front. Her hands and feet now trying to thrash wildly as the air slowly began to force its way from her lungs. She felt him rush past her, the movement, sending currents toward her face. Her ears detected the faint sound of a siren. She knew she needed to move to the platform at the bottom of the stairs and somehow get her head above water. She pushed heavily on her free leg, forcing herself upright through the water. Jo-Lynn's head emerged and she grasped the fetid air, inhaling it into her lungs as though it were nectar. She balanced precariously and scanned the room but there was no sign of him. Now desperation flooded her as surely as the water in room she was in. This really was her last chance, if she had to break her arm to free herself form the binding attaching her to the chair she would, she was that determined. She pulled and stretched and pulled and stretched and shook violently, wriggling and forcing the tape to give. As she pulled tiny speckles of blood began to break through the surface of her skin around the binding but the tape had to give. She screamed in anger and frustration, cursing the tape, cursing her situation and swearing at her lack of strength. Jo-Lynn lowered her head and began to gnaw at the tape, her teeth biting ravenously, hardly caring if she was eating her own flesh; now the only thing that mattered was survival. A tiny strand of tape pulled free and suddenly she had something to make purchase with, her teeth attacked again; all the time the water continued to rise. The slow trickle through the inlet was now a continuous flow. In the last quarter hour the level had risen over three inches. Jo-Lynn pulled, then pulled again. Then she stretched her arm as hard as she could, hoping to break the bondage before setting to it with her teeth once more. Another effort, more tape spat from her mouth into the filthy brown water and then finally her arm burst free. Within seconds she had freed her other arm then her leg and was collapsing head first in to the water, exhausted by the sheer effort. As Jo-Lynn hit the water's surface she remembered the knife.
‘Go girl, go.’ Maria Codez sat on the edge of her chair watching events unfold. The whole office sat in stunned silence. No one had wanted to go home. The emotions in the office were beyond anything that they had experienced before. Codez was rooted to the spot, she didn’t want to blink but her contact lenses kept drying out and reluctantly her eyes batted for the briefest of milliseconds. She was almost tempted to ask if she had missed anything. As Jo-Lynn freed herself, the whole office erupted, everyone in Sagem Carter cheered.
Chapter Forty-Two
‘I can't see a damned thing.’
‘Trust me…drive straight on.’ Leroy tried to peer through the blackened night, but he knew that even a rabbit with carotene overdose would be as blind as crooked boxing referee on a night like this. The four-wheel drive bounced through a few potholes before finally lodging itself firmly in a crater. The tyres span uselessly, churning mud and the last vestiges of grass in the waterlogged field.
‘Great. Now what?’ Georgina looked at Leroy. ‘Maybe you could push?’
Leroy opened the door. ‘We don't have time.’ He set off on foot. ‘Georgina, c'mon. We ain't got long.’
Catching a final glimpse at the clock inset on the dashboard, Georgina headed into the pouring rain and the black Missouri night. As she ran, following the darkened figure ahead, Georgina auto dialled Harley. Her footing was treacherous, many times sinking into the muddied field. The phone went through the routine of dialling, oblivious to its owner’s desperation. The line connected.
‘H…hel..lo Harley?’ Georgina gasped, trying to wipe cold stinging rain away from her eyes while she ran. ‘What's…the …sit…u…ation?’ The syllables were interrupted by pants of exertion.
‘She's still alive I think, though the feed went dead a couple of minutes ago. Something happened. They had a fight, then he ran away and the live feed went down. The detective was lying on the floor near the foot of the stairs…he wasn’t moving.’
Georgina didn't know if it was good news, though she was pretty sure that he would want to claim his pound of flesh.
‘G…g…good…shit!’ The line went dead as Georgina slipped down a grassy bank, her ear pressed the disconnect button as she fell. Mud and wet grass plastered itself to her. As she fell her mobile phone bounced out of her hand, landing somewhere in the darkness
‘Fuck.’ Georgina tried to halt her fall but scrambled messily, grasping air, awaiting impact with the sodden ground, which inexorably rose to meet her. ‘Uh!’ She rolled down a sharper incline, calling out in surprise, hoping Leroy would hear. Suddenly her body was encased in freezing cold water and her voice shut off by water rushing in through her mouth. Between shock and fear, lay panic. Georgina instinctively coughed out the water, before her head submerged beneath the blackness.
Leroy stopped and turned, taking a moment to look around
. He called out low through the driving rain. ‘Georgina!’
A light ahead briefly distracted him. It flicked on and off seven times in succession before plunging finally into darkness and the still of the night. The house disappeared but at least Leroy knew in what direction to head. ‘Georgina?’ He waited but knew he had to move onwards toward the house, alone if necessary.
Georgina was carried along; her head jarred off something that seemed too hard to be an embankment. As her senses returned, she could smell the stench of effluence, decay and death. This was no river; it was a tide of decay, the overspill from the abattoir combining with the flood and sewerage outlets. Somewhere it would meet the river but for now Georgina was carried along on a fast moving current of death. Too cold and weak to swim against its relentless force, she hoped that she would be able to grasp something and hold on until she could pull herself out. In the near distance she saw a light flicker on and off several times. She held her breath to try to stop her teeth chattering but it was as though her whole body was being frozen, her fingers and feet had already begun to lose their feeling. Her head banged off something hard. Before blacking out, Georgina sensed the motion of falling.
Georgina awoke knee deep in water with a torrent bouncing off her back, over her head. The ground beneath her hands and knees was solid, not a riverbank but something man made. She looked at her watch, blinking away water, trying to focus. Her head pounded and when she placed her hand to the point of pain it returned covered in blood. She staggered forward out of the Niagara that was bouncing off her and collapsed, letting the current, now much subsided carry her along until she came to a halt. For a while she sat there dazed and concussed, trying to think straight, trying to see straight. Georgina noticed rows of strip-lights along the ceiling in what appeared to be a storm tunnel or flood chamber. Her watch read eight o'clock and a wave of uselessness threatened to overwhelm her. She hoped against hope that Leroy had managed to save Jo-Lynn.
Leroy moved forward carefully, the light came once more. Encouraged, his pace quickened, he was now a couple of hundred yards away and could see the outline of a child silhouetted against the drawn blinds when the light was on and instantly recognised Ray Montoya. He began to run faster, his hand reached inside his jacket and unclipped the retainer on his holster allowing access to his weapon. About 100 yards from the house an automatic movement sensor picked Leroy's presence and a one thousand-kilowatt halogen lamp floodlit the entire house, which in turn triggered one at the back of the house. Like a rabbit motionless in car headlights, Leroy was temporarily frozen. Immobile and blinded, he felt extremely vulnerable. To his left there was nothing but open space, to his right there was nothing but a lightning tree, the branches reaching out, screaming at the injustice of a life cut short, at the same time offering protection. Leroy began to run toward it, half way to it he heard a loud rapport. Another thunderclap and a burst of white lightning, though this time it was followed by a searing pain and Leroy fell to the ground. The lights went out.
Inside the house, Fortune was a mass of confusion. He placed the rifle down and breathed in the smell of cordite from the spent round. His finger circled the tiny hole in the reinforced pane of glass, the sharp edge drew blood just as he had drew blood, and for the briefest of moments he felt a sense of satisfaction but soon his mind was returning to more serious matters than one rogue policeman. The boy was nowhere to be found. A noise from the room next door brought his mind back into sharp focus; the night was not over yet, not by a long way.
Jo-Lynn scrabbled around under the water, her hands feeling for the knife. She had seen it fly from his hand and made a mental note of approximately where it had landed. She began her frantic search not knowing how long she had until he returned, and suddenly there it was, her fingers ran across the blade, knocking it slightly further away. She scurried after it, panicking that it would fall irretrievably from her grasp, but she found it and held on to it for all her life was worth. Jo-Lynn ran through the water to the decking and her husband. With mixed and confused emotions she checked frantically for a pulse. A steady rhythm, Rick was still alive. The next part of her plan was something she had been thinking of ever since she realised the function of the chamber she was in. She knew that there was a lever somewhere that opened the trap door to allow the floodwaters to enter the sewage system below. The only obstacle now was to find it. The only place in the room she had not access to was the space underneath the stairs. She ran through the water as fast as her legs could carry her, driven by fear and hope, the water the only impediment to her progress. Jo-Lynn stumbled and fell once but got up straight away. Sunken away, on the far wall beneath the stairs was, as she had hoped, a lever mounted on a board. She didn't stop to analyse the finer points of the mechanism. She grabbed hold of the cold metal handle and pulled down with all her might, nothing seemed to happen. An enormous wave of despair started to fill every pore of Jo-Lynn battered and beaten existence. As she turned and looked with desperate hope at the centre of the chamber, a hydraulic 'phut' sound made her heart begin to race. Something was happening.
Georgina thought she heard a gun being fired, the sound echoed down the tunnel making the water around her feet ripple. But now there was silence. She wanted to do something, wanted to act, to do her duty, serve and protect, the words came to her mind but never had she felt so impotent. She looked around, nothing but endless tunnels, sending water and worse to an unknown destination. Nothing overhead but the occasional working strip light followed by florescent tubes that danced through the night, flicking on and off. She wondered for a moment whether they were permanently on or was it her presence that activated them fooled into thinking that she was a sewer worker. A noise a few yards down the tunnel made her look upward. She stood and wandered down, sloshing through the water, trying not to think about the smell of the floating effluent. She wondered if the FBI would pick up her cleaning tab and smiled at the surreal nature of her predicament. The strip light on the ceiling illuminated the rough brickwork and a small oblong inset within it. Without warning the oblong swung outwards and a deluge of water followed and with it a loud claxon wailing in distress. Georgina was covered in water once more; hardly able to breathe she staggered backward, searching for air. The water pinned her to the wall and all she could do was cough and splutter, hoping that the deluge would stop before she needed to breathe again. Georgina thought she saw a blur of something fall with the water. The sound of a heavier splash impacting on the water confirmed her suspicion.
The klaxon rang through the house.
Fortune turned, the boy could wait. He knew that the boy would never be able to open the front door, and the windows were constructed from toughened glass, he could not break them, not a boy. He slung his rifle over his shoulder, now was the time to finish what he started. He entered the hall and stopped at the door to the cellar. As he unbolted it, another alarm sounded. He couldn’t believe it. Prentice Fortune’s hands unfastened the retainers, urged on by a sense of panic. He would not be denied his moment of triumph. He ran down the stairs as soon as the door was open, then along a narrow passage to another door. This time a steel reinforced door, more bolts. Fortune began to curse his own security. The last bolt pulled back, he grabbed hold of the handle and yanked the cumbersome door before taking the final set of stairs two at a time. Instantly he knew she was gone. The final few gallons of water poured through the opened trap door. Fortune stepped forward, close to the opened hatch, then knelt down and placed his head into the opened space, looking, searching.
The chair lay below, being carried along with the current.
He shouted through to the network of tunnels.
‘You won't escape.’ His voice echoed. As he straightened into a kneeling position, he heard movement from behind and a voice.
‘Yes I fucking will.’
Fortune turned just in time to see the large blade enter his shoulder and run downwards fully to the hilt, sinking into his flesh. Jo-Lynn pushed with all her mig
ht and he toppled backward through the open hatch.
Georgina watched the body, arm and legs splaying widely, grabbing air, as it hurtled through the opening. She stepped back a few paces to make sure he did not catch her as he plummeted to the ground. His body impacted on the water like a mistimed high diver, displacing showers of water in all directions. As soon as the body landed, Georgina was making her way toward him, reaching in her back pocket for the nylon ties, which she preferred using to the cumbersome regulation handcuffs. He was lying still in the water; the tip of the blade had pushed all the way through his shoulder with the tip of the blade exposed through the back of his jumper. His hands were floating above his head, Georgina wasn't even sure if was still alive but was in no mood to take the risk. She knelt on the body submerging it in the knee-deep water, as she did so she noticed the tip of the blade protrude even further through the back of his shoulder. Quickly, she grabbed his right arm and pulled it to the centre of his back. As she repeated the action with the left arm, Prentice Fortune pulled the nylon tie from her hands. He rolled over and dragged her down into the water. Georgina spat out water and fought for air. Fortune was still felt powerful despite the knife embedded in his shoulder. Georgina grabbed hold of the handle of the knife and pulled down with all her might. The knife moved downwards, cutting flesh, breaking bone. Prentice Fortune yelled with pain. A spurt of blood shot out of the wound streaking across Georgina’s jacket. She yanked upwards and the knife came free in her hands. Georgina didn’t wait; she couldn’t afford to wait. She plunged the knife deep into Prentice Fortune’s throat and heard a sickening crack as the serrated blade severed his windpipe. Fortune staggered backwards with his arms outstretched and toppled backwards for a final time into the water. Even though he was dead, Georgina set about securing his feet and arms with the ties, before slumping exhausted and dizzy into the water. She sat for a while submerged to her waist staring at the body of the dead man, not even curious as to who he was, just relieved to be alive.
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