Robert Walker - Unnatural Instinct

A map of the two suspect locations, Brown's rental and Shaw's rental, were already on the wall when she stepped into the ops room. Everyone was front and center, and at the back of the room stood Santiva, carefully taking in every detail.

Jessica told them, “We need to move on the Shaw address and the Brown address. We'll need an aerial attack as well as a ground attack-aerial helicopters equipped with mega lights and infrared. Whatever else happens, I don't want this bastard slipping off into the night or getting into those woods and costing us days of manhunt. I want him locked down immediately. I've asked the military for support. They have infrared telephoto lenses that will tell us where the heat sources are, even through rooftops. We'll concentrate our ground attack where the choppers tell us to. We can't go in blind.”

“ He'll hear the choppers.”

“ We've contacted the factory beside the property to make enough noise to cover the choppers' approach. He won't be able to distinguish the sounds until late in our arrival. The factory is equipped with a sound system and a horrible old work whistle that will likely blow out our ears as well. They have an alarm system that we intend on using simultaneously as well.”

“ It's going to sound like an air raid over London in '44,” said Richard.

“ We've done a lot of old-fashioned homework already. One of the guards out at the plant has spoken to this man claiming to be Gideon Brown, and he characterized him a talkative but weird and antigovernment, the sort that might blow up a federal building. Maybe there's some truth in it, maybe not, but the man has I D'd Brown by the sketch artist's depiction we've been going by.”

Jessica then told the assembled force, “While we're awaiting the paperwork, I want two teams assembled, one at each location, ready and waiting to go in, and I want you all to pray we have the right location in one of these choices.”

“ We can't afford another Iowa,” muttered J. T.

“ Iowa lost us time, but it was a logical step, and the noose we're about to put out there makes good sense as well. We'll pair off and go at each location with SWAT team backup.”

One entire unit went for the Shaw residence, the other for the Brown rental. Nothing was spared. Both sites received equal attention. They needed results, and there was no room for error.

Jessica's instincts told her, however, that the Brown place would be where they would find Maureen DeCampe, or what was left of the poor woman. Their first stop was the chemical/paint factory, which, at a glance, must be breaking sixteen federal laws. Having no time for such concerns, they worked out a timing with the owners to blare their whistle and alarm at once. The shock of noise would at first alert Purdy aka Brown, but he would just as quickly determine the noise to be coming from the factory, and as such, he would likely ignore it. At precisely ten seconds after the factory alarm, the hovering helicopters were to move in with minimum running lights and noise, searching infrared cameras seeking body heat, at which point Jessica would be given a go.

Jessica and the others were in radio contact with the helicopters. Once given a report as to where the warm bodies were, they would simultaneously hit the lights and kick in doors.

Everyone was aware of the risk of booby traps.

Jessica and Santiva were in constant contact with the helicopters. Santiva insisted on leading the team at the house, Jessica at the bam. Keyes remained close at Jessica's side, J. T. and Sharpe with Santiva.

Jessica gave the nod to the factory boss, who called his man to let loose with the enormous noisemakers. Jessica and the others had ready earplugs. In the allotted ten seconds, the helicopters moved into place to begin scanning the structures for signs of life. Meanwhile, Jessica and the others, backed by SWAT teams, descended on the farmstead like an army seeking out its front lines. They moved rapidly to encircle both structures, and they had been able to do so efficiently, given the location of the chemical firm from which they poured. In less than forty seconds, with the helicopter lights now creating an eerie daylight scene outside the bam and homestead, Jessica got word through her earphones that the only signs of life were coming from the bam. The copilot shouted, “Possibly two life forms of any size.”

Jessica knew that Santiva had gotten the same message, but his force still meant to enter and secure the house before joining the second squad at the bam. They proceeded there with caution, being alert for any traps the old man might have laid for them.

J. T. went straight in behind Eriq Santiva, followed by Richard and the others. At the same time, the first strike force was entering the house, Jessica signaled for more men to go around to the rear of the bam to secure any exits there. When Eriq Santiva had learned of their plan to move on the two locations simultaneously, he knew there were inherent risks, but Jessica's argument that tonight was DeCampe's last night of life if they did not act had persuaded him to climb down the throat of a reluctant federal judge who had given the warrant to move on the Iowa location. The judge, understandably, wanted far more to go on than they had, but Eriq put on all the pressure of his office, and finally the warrant came through some twenty minutes after they had arrived within sight of the chemical factory abutting the targeted farmstead.

“ The realtor was right to be suspicious of anyone willingly paying up front cash money for this place,” Jessica noted in Shannon's ear.

Still, they had found no sign of Nancy Willis's car or the woman. If she had come out here to learn more about the man to whom she'd rented the property, there was no evidence of it. The infrared had, however, picked up two living people inside the bam. Perhaps the realtor was being held hostage alongside DeCampe. But that still left Purdy. Was he one of the red flares on the infrared, or was he gone from this place already? His van was then spotted, parked to the rear of the house, beneath a stand of trees. Jessica got the report from Richard, who broke into her frequency.

They inched forward. The decision had been made to blast the place with the alarms and sirens, and to turn the place from pitch black to daylight; nothing was held back now. Their cards had been laid on the table. Still, Jessica feared the crazed old man might in a moment of panic kill DeCampe outright. Shannon Keyes had warned that if he felt cornered, threatened even, she believed he might well strike out at DeCampe, “to assure her death before he is taken alive.”

For that reason, they had come on foot, equipped with earphone radios. Now they had reached their objective, coming up on the old man to take him by surprise.

Just back of them where the road had risen up to meet them, an ambulance awaited Maureen DeCampe, but no one knew if it would be used to comfort her or merely to cart away her remains.

Jessica had left nothing to chance; inside the ambulance, she had both a minister of DeCampe's faith and one of D.C.'s leading physicians dealing with gangrene. Everyone was on standby. Inwardly, Jessica prayed for a good outcome tonight. She prayed for Kim Desinor and Maureen DeCampe, and she prayed for them all.

The air around them had filled with an electric energy. A storm of dry lightning strikes occasionally lit up the terrain. It felt like a scene out of All Quiet on the Western Front.

Everybody, it seemed, wanted to be in on the kill.

Everybody was itching to get their chance at Purdy.

Everyone knew the stakes.

They stood under the glare of the helicopters, the chemical factory alarms still ringing out, the atmosphere like that of a war zone that masked a sky above that had gone from clear and filled with stars only moments before to an ominous gray confusion of swirling clouds.