by Ethan Cross
Inside the back of the van, he laid out his Remington 700 M24 sniper rifle between the second row of bucket seats. A Leupold Mk 4 LR/T M3 10×40mm scope sat atop the weapon. The rifle was loaded with M118LR 7.62 175-grain ammunition and had an effective range of about eight hundred and seventy-five yards. He would only have to shoot half that distance today.
He had it all planned out.
When Belacourt pulled up to the back of the mall, Jansen would slide open the side door of the van, sight in on the coward, and unleash a round traveling at 2,580 feet per second. The front glass of the car shouldn’t be an issue, although he would have preferred to have another shooter there to pop the glass before he delivered the kill shot. But either way, he’d fire a second round to make sure that Belacourt was dead.
Then he’d turn the gun on anyone else nearby and kill a few more of the slaves, just for good measure.
103
After staging his distraction, Schofield had slipped into a set of blue and white coveralls worn by SSA mechanics and system-installation technicians, placed a long blond wig over his hair, and covered the wig with a blue SSA baseball cap. It was the same outfit that he had stolen from the company to use when he’d installed his cameras. He kept it behind a ceiling tile in the men’s second-floor bathroom just in case he was ever confronted at work and needed to make a hasty escape. He liked to plan ahead.
As he exited with the other technicians, he was afraid that someone would notice him. Mortimer, the garage manager, had glanced in his direction once as they hurried up the ramp as a group, and Schofield’s hand had slipped around his pistol. But no one paid him any attention in the confusion of the fire evacuation.
After that, he had walked down the road a few blocks to the office of a local cab company. He paid a driver to take him just across the Illinois-Indiana border to the Lansing Municipal Airport. Several years earlier, he had paid $850 cash to a private seller for a beat-up 1988 Volkswagen Jetta GLI with 105,000 miles on its odometer. Then he had parked it in a long-term lot at the airport, ten minutes from his office. He had changed lots every month and practiced his escape route many times, hoping that he would never have to use it.
But he had been forced to do so, and now he sat behind the wheel of the Jetta, heading home. He knew that it was a risk to return to his house, and he didn’t need to retrieve anything from the property. He had everything that he needed in the trunk of the Jetta, and his family had already gone. But he had unfinished business to take care of, and he finally had the strength to do something that he should have done a long time ago.
The police would be watching the house, but he hoped that it would only be one or two officers. That was manageable. Anything more, and he would keep driving.
He took Route 30 back to Jackson’s Grove and then made two circles of his block without actually turning down the street in order to check for surveillance and police. He noticed two cars that he didn’t recognize. One was a Kia Rio and unlikely to be used as an unmarked police vehicle. But the other was a black and white Jackson’s Grove squad car sitting across the street from his house. It looked like there was only one officer inside. That would be protocol, since most small police precincts didn’t have the manpower to have two officers per patrol car. Schofield guessed that they weren’t actually looking for him, but just trying to locate his family.
Parking one street over, he cut through the backyards of two of his neighbors and came up beside a big house that looked a lot like his own only with cream-colored brick and no landscaping. The cop sat at the curb about fifty feet away. He could see the back of the officer’s head. It looked like he was typing on the computer mounted over the center console of the cruiser, probably filling out one of the many reports that dominated police work.
He was a sitting duck.
Schofield considered his next moves carefully, choreographed them in his mind. He would approach from well beyond the field of view for the side mirrors. He would raise his P22 Walther silenced pistol at the last possible moment, keeping it behind his back until then. The glass could be a problem. A .22LR wasn’t a powerful round and could be easily deflected. The officer would be wearing a bulletproof vest. It needed to be a head shot and even a slight obstruction could cause his first shot to miss. He could try to break the glass with the butt of the pistol, but what if it didn’t shatter completely? Ultimately, he decided that it would be best to unload the entire clip at the man, just to be sure.
Taking a deep breath, he stepped away from the house and followed his plan to the letter. When he was within a foot of the window, he raised the gun and fired ten rounds into the vehicle. He couldn’t risk the officer surviving even long enough to key the mic of his radio.
The cop didn’t stand a chance. The rounds struck him in the head, and he simply shook from the impacts and fell forward.
But he bounced off his computer, and his left shoulder landed squarely on the cruiser’s horn. The vehicle blared out an obnoxious and ear-piercing squeal.
Schofield swore and rushed forward to push the dead man away from the steering wheel, but the damage was done. Breathing hard, Schofield looked all around for any sign that a neighbor had heard the noise, but he saw no one, no movement in any windows.
He shoved the dead man over onto his side to make him less visible and then set off to take care of his unfinished business. This cop wasn’t the last person that he planned to kill that day.
But unlike the officer, his next victim wouldn’t die quickly and quietly. He would be burned alive. He would suffer terribly before death took him.
Schofield had come to realize that his son’s experiments on the animal he had found in the shoebox and the dark drawings he had stumbled upon in the drawer weren’t actually because Benjamin had no soul. The boy was being influenced by an outside source, and Schofield knew exactly who that was. And now the old man next door would learn that he should never have interfered with Schofield’s family.
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Two things happened within a moment of each other that added to Maggie’s unease. The first was a text message from Marcus that read Schofield is in the wind, watch your back. The second was a car horn sounding out on the street. The prolonged nature of the noise seemed strange. If it had been someone pulling out of a driveway and nearly backing into another car or something similar, the horn’s blare should have been quick and angry. She hadn’t heard screeching tires or a collision. Still, it wasn’t strange enough to warrant investigation.
The basement was large and open, half finished, half given over to storage. Shelves containing plastic totes of all sizes labeled with masking tape and marker filled the storage space. There was also a gun safe in one corner, but she lacked the skills to open it. There was no sign of the kidnapped women.
Once upstairs, Maggie crept into the foyer to see if the cop was still outside. Looking through the shades, she saw his car but not him. Maybe he was walking the perimeter. In which case, she was stuck inside the house. She couldn’t let the cop see her leaving the house, federal agent or not.
She moved to the back of the house and peered out a window, but there was no sign of the officer in the backyard or near the garage. Then she moved into the kitchen and looked out through a window to the north side of the house. Her eyes scanned the neighbors’ homes, since the officer might have decided to start asking questions.
And then she saw him. Walking into the neighbor’s house was a man wearing navy-blue and white coveralls. Stan had sent them all an image of Harrison Schofield that he had retrieved from the company’s website, and although the guy in the coveralls was only visible in profile, she could have sworn that it was the same man. But why would Schofield return here? And why would the cop not have stopped him?
Unless the officer was already dead.
Maggie took her Glock 19 from the holster at her hip and ran toward the back door.
105
A text message from Stan appeared on Vasques’s phone saying that Belacourt was a
pproaching. A moment later, the spotter from the Cook County Sheriff’s tactical team called out over the radio that the target was incoming. This was it. A part of her hoped that Belacourt would resist and choose suicide by cop, but she dismissed the thought. She wanted him to stand trial as an accessory to her father’s murder and probably for the murders of his own wife and daughter. She wanted him to answer for what he had done. And she wanted to look in his eyes as they took him away in chains.
She watched the surveillance monitor showing the feed from a small articulating camera mounted atop the van. It showed Belacourt’s stolen Honda Civic pulling through the mall lot and into a parking space near the mall’s back corner. Vasques keyed her radio and said, “Hold positions. Wait for the second target to arrive.”
Her phone vibrated again, displaying a message from Marcus. It read Schofield is in the wind—We NEED Belacourt and Jansen.
Working on it, she typed back. Then she popped in another piece of Juicy Fruit gum, checked her watch, and wondered how long they should wait before taking Belacourt if Jansen didn’t show.
Troy said, “Hey, I was thinking that after this is all over maybe I could take you out to dinner.”
She raised her eyebrows, and he added, “Not like a date, you know, just to celebrate.”
But there was something in his eyes that she had never noticed before. They had been partners for a long time. And she had never really thought about it, but he was probably her best friend. Still, something in Troy’s demeanor and body language suggested that he hoped for more. The FBI had not rules against relationships between partners or even between supervisors and subordinates. She knew several agents who had met and married other agents or FBI support personnel.
Still, a relationship would change everything between them. How could they be partners and lovers at the same time? Vasques hated to think about spoiling what they already had.
But she was also damn tired of being so cautious in her personal life and being alone. So she smiled and said, “That would be great.”
“Good, then it’s a date. Well, not a date, but a … scheduled dinner … between co-workers.”
She patted Troy on the shoulder and chuckled. “I know what you mean. Just shut up and watch the—”
The sound of a high-powered rifle shot split the air, the concussive boom and crack echoing through the interior of the van. She watched the monitor in horror as the front windshield of Belacourt’s Honda exploded.
“No!” Vasques screamed. Then she threw open the back doors of the van and ran toward Belacourt. Maybe he was still alive? Maybe she could help him?
Her feet pounded through the brown slurry covering the asphalt of the parking lot. She heard Troy’s voice at her back, but it sounded far away. He was yelling for her to get down, but she needed to reach Belacourt. He was their only lead on the location of the missing women.
She scanned the area for the shooter as she ran and pulled her gun.
Belacourt’s car was only a few yards away.
She could see him. His head was slumped over to the side. He wasn’t moving.
Across a large open piece of land was a residential area; there was a mini-van on the road opposite them. Was that the shooter?
Then she was falling. Something had struck her and stolen her feet out from beneath her. Her head cracked against the asphalt, and she felt very cold.
Confusion overwhelmed her. What had just happened?
Her mind replayed the events as she tried to make sense of it.
She had been running, and then something had hit her. A loud sound had followed.
Vasques touched her stomach. It felt warm and sticky. She couldn’t breathe, and her whole body had started to go numb.
The air was cold and fresh against her skin and in her mouth as she gasped for air. Her sense of it seemed heightened. She felt as though she was suspended above the ground, not lying on it.
The sound of screaming reached her ears, and she couldn’t tell if it was coming from her own mouth or from someone else.
She looked up at the sky. The different shades of gray and blue and white.
The numbness had crept over her whole body. Now she felt strangely calm as if she was floating on a tranquil sea, a million miles from anywhere, with an endless sky stretching out overhead.
And then she closed her eyes.
106
Maggie approached the house at an angle, so as not to be visible from the front or the windows. The neighbor’s home wasn’t nearly as extravagant as the Schofield residence, but it was still a lovely and expensive-looking house, just on a smaller scale. It was a single-story ranch-style place covered with beige brick and surrounded by red rock landscaping. A white Ford Taurus sat in the driveway. The car was free of snow, as if it had arrived only a few minutes earlier.
There was little to block the wind in the space between the houses. It bit at her skin and pulled at her hair. The snow was deep, and it crept over the tops of her black ankle-high boots and soaked the cuffs of her jeans. Stomping up into the rocky flower bed, she rounded the corner of the neighbor’s house.
A small porch ran along its front. With her Glock at the ready, Maggie stepped up onto the porch and peered through the front window. Her view of the room was partially obstructed by a thin white curtain, but the venetian blinds were open. There was an L-shaped brown and white sectional sofa facing a flat-screen TV mounted on the far wall. A big blue fleece blanket was draped over one arm of the couch.
In the center of the room, an old man was gagged and had been duct-taped to a kitchen chair. He had thick white hair that was soaked and clinging to his face. His clothes looked wet as well, and his eyes were wide with fear and confusion. She could hear Schofield but couldn’t see him. He was yelling at the old man.
“You should have stayed away from my family!”
She inched farther around the edge of the window, and there he was. He paced back and forth in front of the bound man. A silenced pistol dangled from his right hand, and he held a bottle of Kingsford lighter fluid in the other.
Realizing why the man looked wet and what was about to happen, she rushed to the front door but found it locked.
Focusing on the area just below the knob, Maggie took a deep breath and prepared to strike. She stood sideways a few feet back with her leading foot facing forward. Then she executed a swift side kick, planting her heel into the space below the knob. She carried her momentum all the way through the kick, falling into her target and throwing all her weight behind the blow.
The door flew inward on its hinges and slammed into the drywall. Pieces of the ruined frame shot into the living room. Dust from the drywall and splintered wood filled the room as she raced in.
The air was thick with the smell of smoke and lighter fluid and burning meat. Maggie caught sight of someone moving, running from the room, but she had more pressing concerns.
In the center of the room, the old man was engulfed in flames. He was writhing in agony and screaming beneath his gag. He rocked violently and knocked the chair over onto its side.
Maggie didn’t hesitate.
Dropping her gun, she jumped over the burning man and ripped the big blue blanket off of the couch. Then she flung it out over him and dropped her weight on him to smother the flames.
After several moments of frantic patting and rubbing, the fire was extinguished. He was alive, and he had only been on fire for a few seconds. She doubted that he had a hair left on his head or torso, but his injuries weren’t life-threatening.
Once the fire was out, she didn’t bother to undo the old man’s restraints. Her Glock had fallen near the ruined front door. She scooped it up and ran after Schofield.
She hurried toward a door at the side of the house and burst into the yard. The woods would provide the closest cover and a good escape route, and so her gaze moved in that direction first. But there was no sign of him.
Then she looked down at the snow. Long clumsy footprints showed a path from the
side of the old man’s house to the curb. Her gaze followed the tracks up and across the street, and she saw him.
Schofield was already nearly onto the next road over, charging through the snow in between his neighbors’ homes in an awkward loping gait.
Maggie took off after him at a full sprint. The snow was thick and hindered her movements, but she was in good shape and light on her feet. She reached the street and crossed into the neighboring yard. She closed the distance between the houses and the next street quickly.
But she was too late.
She reached the street just in time to see an old Volkswagen spinning its tires in the slush covering the road as it sped away. She took aim with the Glock, but the car was already out of range.
Schofield was gone.
Day Six – December 20 Evening
107
Marcus pulled the Yukon up near the barricade blocking the road down from Schofield’s big brick home. The street and the two houses were a swarm of activity—photographers, CSI techs, police, medical personnel, firemen. The Jackson’s Grove police department had probably called in for help from Cook County, the surrounding precincts, and maybe even the State Police. They had at least three different scenes here containing potential evidence and needed all the manpower they could get. But of all the people on the scene, Marcus cared about only one of them.
As they walked up, he said to Andrew, “Give me a few minutes alone with her.”
“Okay, I’ll see what I can dig up about Mr. O’Malley. See if he and Schofield were enemies.”
Maggie sat on the curb across the road from the house of the old man whom Schofield had tried to burn alive. Her hands rested atop her knees, and her eyes were glassy and unmoving. Marcus wanted to rush up and embrace her, but when she saw him, she made no effort to stand. So he just dropped down onto the curb next to her and said nothing.