Steven James - Opening Moves

But it didn’t seem like we were doing so on our way to success.

Five minutes later as we were about to turn onto Bracken Street, we got word that the more directed, focused search had produced results.

Two officers had spotted Basque’s car about a half mile from us in the parking lot of a textile factory. A squad was there now and the officers were checking inside the factory.

I said to Calvin, “I doubt he’d park right in front of the building where he takes his victims.”

“I concur. I believe he would want seclusion. And taking potential victims to a working factory would provide very little isolation.”

“He could take them to someplace private, restrain them, drive the car to another location.”

“And then return on foot.”

I got on the radio again, gave dispatch our location, and asked if they could identify any abandoned buildings or closed businesses nearby.

“How nearby?”

“Half a mile.” I figured we could start with that, move out from there.

After a moment of checking, the dispatcher told me there was an abandoned slaughterhouse less than a quarter mile away.

That worked for me as a place to start.

I whipped the car around the corner and found the side street we were looking for.

3:56 p.m.

29 minutes until the gloaming

The slaughterhouse loomed in front of me, a giant black corpse of a building.

I parked, then called dispatch and requested backup and an ambulance. They asked if there was a victim. “Not that I know of.” It’s possible Tod is here. “But I want to be prepared if there is.” They told me one would be here in four to five minutes.

Yesterday at the farmhouse in Fort Atkinson I’d needed to wait for backup because I feared that Mallory might be in danger. There, we rolled in with sirens blaring. Here, I’d come in quietly. As far as I could tell, I had the element of surprise on my side.

And I was going to use it.

“Calvin, you’re staying here.”

“On your toes in there,” he cautioned me.

“Right.”

I left him by the car and went to find a way into the slaughterhouse.

Radar rolled to a stop in the bank’s parking lot.

He took a deep breath, paused for a moment to try to calm his nerves, then went inside to meet the kidnapper’s demands.

I ended up having to crawl through a broken window on the second floor. Fortunately, the climb hadn’t been hard at all, nothing compared to the bouldering problems at the gym.

Gun out, I descended the stairs.

The slaughterhouse looked as though it hadn’t been used in years, but still somehow, the air was filled with the damp smell of decay and rot, as if death had never left this place.

My thoughts raced. I couldn’t keep them still and they flipped through all that we knew about the crimes this week, the earlier homicides, the missing persons.

Locations and travel routes.

Trying to thread everything together.

The mattresses…the mission on West Reagan Street…the location of Basque’s car…

I reached ground level. Abandoned offices on my left. Dull patches of light fighting their way through the grimy windows.

No sign of anyone. No sounds except for water dripping somewhere out of sight. As I moved forward, half a dozen rats scurried across the concrete floor in front of me.

I passed through a long narrow corridor that led to a winding chute that cows would’ve evidently been led along on their way to the slaughter.

There was an opening up ahead on my left that appeared to lead to the pens where Brantner Meats used to keep their cattle.

As I was approaching it, I heard the sounds.

Maybe someone gasping; I couldn’t be sure. Whatever it was, someone was hurt and the wet, strangled cough that followed sent an unsettling chill dipping into my stomach.

I leveled my gun and edged forward, peering around the corner.

And saw him.

Basque.

He was holding a scalpel, standing over a woman. Blood all over her, spread across her neck and chest and abdomen.

I whipped around the corner. “Drop the knife! Back away from her!”

He was only four, maybe five meters away.

He did not comply, just stood as still as death and looked at me thoughtfully.

“Hands up! Back away from the woman, Richard!” But he didn’t move, he just eyed me, the blade dripping red at his feet. His gaze was fastened on my gun, as if he were curious about it, as if it were something he’d never seen before and he was wondering what exactly it was for.

I stepped closer to him, reminding myself that backup was on its way. “Richard, drop that knife and put your hands in the air.”

Above us, on long tracks, hung rusted meat hooks, somber and still-which only served to make the scene more macabre.

Another step.

Careful, Pat.

All at once Basque spun and started for the far door. Barring an immediate and direct threat to someone’s life, I wasn’t about to shoot him in the back, but I could catch him and I could take him down. I yelled for him to stop even as I dashed toward him.

But after we’d both gone only a few steps, he spun and fired a handgun at me, but he was off balance and missed. I squeezed the trigger, but my SIG refused to fire. Odds were ten thousand to one against it, but it jammed now when I needed it most and before I could process that, he shot at me again. This time he hit my left shoulder, sending me spiraling sideways, off balance. I landed hard on the ground, and hot pain exploded from my shoulder and seared through my whole body.

Judging from the pain coming from both the anterior and the posterior of my shoulder, it was probably a through and through, entering just below the bone of my shoulder and exiting near my armpit. I still had mobility of my arm, but it was sure going to hurt to move it.

Too bad.

I jumped to my feet and rushed him, snagging one of the meat hooks hanging above us as I did. I swung it fiercely toward him and it traveled down the track even faster than I thought it would. Basque managed to dodge it, but while he was distracted it gave me just enough time I needed to close the space between us, and then I was on him, tackling him just like I’d taken down Vincent Hayes on Sunday night. My shoulder screamed at me as we collided with the concrete.

Behind me I could hear the woman coughing, struggling to breathe.

At impact, Basque’s gun spun across the ground, but he still had the scalpel and made use of it, driving it into my right thigh. A fresh burst of pain sprayed through me, but I was able to wrench his arm back to control him. The scalpel was still sticking out of my leg when I cuffed him. Looking toward the woman, I knew I needed to clear her airway if she was going to make it.

His gun wasn’t jammed, so I picked it up and aimed it at him. “You move, you try to run, you’re going down.”

He didn’t acknowledge that, just lay there, cuffed, watching me silently, not trying to escape. Reserved and calm. He still hadn’t spoken a word.

I ran to the woman. As gently as I could, I tilted her head to the side to help drain blood from her mouth.

Now that I was this close to her, I was able to see the extent of her injuries. There were ghastly wounds in her abdomen, her chest, her throat. I’d never seen anything like it. Maybe Basque had heard me coming and cut her in ways to make sure she wouldn’t survive in case he was caught or killed.

I couldn’t imagine that there was any way to save her. Not with injuries like this.

Come on, Pat! You have to help her!

She spit out a mouthful of blood and grabbed a breath.

As I tried to stop the bleeding from her throat, I heard Basque from behind me: “I think we may need an ambulance, don’t you, Detective?”