Robert Walker - Darkest Instinct

“ But you did talk to them, inside, earlier…” shouted Jessica over the wind. “And they didn’t like it; told us to stay put,” he countered. “Radio them it’s a police emergency,” Jessica countered his counter.

“ They’re going to want to know more than that.”

“ Tell ‘em it’s got to do wid dat, ahh, ahh, whataya-callit case. Dat, uhhhh…” began Eriq, in rare form.

“ The Night Crawler thing?”

“ Right… dat’s it, kid. Tell ‘em dat.”

“ Suppose they want to talk to one of the policemen?”

“ Tell them we’re FBI,” said Jessica. “And if they want to talk to me, tell them I’m Agent Coran and this is Agent John Thorpe…”

“ Thorpe; FBI?” He looked Eriq over as if he hadn’t seen him before. “You think they’re going to believe that?”

“ We’ll give them badge numbers if they ask,” she replied. “Let’s get out of here, now.”

“ Roger that…”

Don had gone sullen on her, and his new somberness had begun the moment Santiva had entered the picture, Jessica believed. He no doubt had originally accepted her offer in the comfortable male fantasy that a woman alone, a woman like her-vulnerable and in need-could prove to be fun and “rewarding” in every sense of the word to take on as his lone passenger to a Caribbean paradise; that they’d fly off and into a romantic adventure together, a la Romancing the Stone or some such thing.

The tower, on hearing their FBI numbers read, had no trouble allowing Lansing to take off, but the dispatcher did so with caution heaped upon caution. And the takeoff itself proved to be like rushing into a blinding wall. Unable to see ahead of them, Lansing did a marvelous job of getting airborne in the dense fog.

Jessica, in the copilot’s position gasped when the plane smashed against the mountain of cloud they were under. With Jessica clutching at her copilot seat and Eriq tucked into the rear, the little plane was buffeted about like a toy in a wind tunnel once lift was reached. With the rush of noise and the engine so near, Jessica saw-rather than heard-Don muttering to himself, likely kicking himself for taking on this job. Only when she placed on the headphone set could she hear him cursing himself.

The sky was lighter now, but this was of little comfort. They were still flying blind into an unpredictable wind shear. Still, they rose higher, trying to escape the thermals and the fog, the bumps, grinds and whips, when suddenly they were above the enormous pillow of clouds-popping free like a bird escaping a cage, flying directly into the brilliant sun, a welcome sign even if it, too, was blinding.

Lansing leveled the plane out, its roar like a cat’s purr in the infinity of sky, and in a moment the compass indicated their heading as due south. They would follow along the western coast of the Sunshine State; only today, there was neither sunshine nor view below them, only above.

Jessica wondered at the killer’s luck. With this kind of cloud cover, how were they going to go in low over suspicious boats? How could they possibly ID the suspect sailing ship even now, armed with Ken Stallings’s description? Furthermore, the winds would have given the sailing vessel full power to skim over the water. And Allain had six hours on them.

Eriq seemed settled for the moment in the rear seat, having steadied his nerves after the bumpy takeoff. He appeared beat, so dead tired in fact that when Jessica glanced again at him, his eyes were closed. She prayed he hadn’t overdosed on Dramamine. With Lansing beside her, they filled the little cockpit from top to bottom. He seemed a capable pilot. She had given little thought to his skills or possible lack thereof before now, but he’d handled the thermals and the wind well, appearing a capable master of the air. She felt somewhat guilty at having duped the young man. Now that they were airborne, she wondered how much of the lies had been absolutely necessary to get them here. It now seemed foolish to have run such a charade on Lansing to get what she wanted, but telling him the truth now could mean a 180-degree turnaround and a return to the ground-and to hell with that, Jessica quietly told herself, keeping silent counsel as the plane soared southward toward the emerald Caribbean Sea.

The wind itself-sometimes called Satan’s leash dog- seemed now to Warren Tauman his ally in escape, for it had risen with the saving fog that masked his escape to now send him at twice and thrice the speed he would have been making without its help. He needed to conserve on fuel. It was a long trip to where he was going, and he knew his route was at best a circuitous one, no beelines since Cuba lay in his path. Although he felt certain that he had all the time in the world to get to where he was going, since no one knew his plans or his destination, he wished to be out of American waters, and he wished to start over elsewhere, even as he meant to convince the authorities anxious to see him dead that he remained in Florida. He had a plan for that, too. He had paid well to have a final letter delivered to the press. This one would be sent to Florida’s panhandle to throw police and FBI off his trail. When news that the Pensacola Democrat had received another letter from the Night Crawler, everyone would scurry to that location, thinking he was headed west along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

Still, the incident in Tampa had frightened him, and it had put his mind to work. He must do what was necessary, if he were ever to get Mother back, to control her. He probably needed to cut his losses for a while, and he’d done just that. To keep the Tampa area cops on hold, he’d cut loose the dead girl who had been dangling off the aft side. With a body bobbing about in the water during their search, the cops would focus more on it and less on him.

They could send out all the radar equipment in the world against him in that fog, and with his ship’s built-in radar scrambler, he could just bounce signals right back at them. The authorities had only proven once again how inept and inadequate they truly were.

He’d heard news reports of how an FBI forensics expert had been put on his trail, how she was supposedly the best in the land; he’d seen the tabloids in supermarkets which claimed that in their frustration, authorities had turned to such nonsense as psychics and handwriting analysis to track him. If that was the best they could do…

The wind continued at his back even as he neared the northwest tip of Cuba off in the distance. Southward, a hundred miles south of Cuba to be exact, he would come into sight of the Caymans. He’d come through the roughest of the storm, which had moved northward as he had maneuvered along the backlash at its southeastern edge to turn into his now southwest course. And with the storm winds around him having abated, Warren switched on the two-diesel engines which powered the boat onward. He turned on the autopilot and finally had a moment’s time to relax. The odor of diesel wafted across the water, but due to a state-of-the-art air filtration system in the cabin below, the odor did not linger as in most sailing vessels.

He went below, relieved himself in the head, located a beer in the fridge, and although he wanted to lie down, rest, there was too much yet to do. He wished now that he’d kept the body he had forfeited during those first moments of decision after killing those two nosy FMP officers. It would have given him pleasure to pass the time with her body now. Still, he knew it had been wise to cut all his losses.

The speargun killings had been a rush. He hadn’t expected it, but it was true-a real rush. Maybe killing people in any way whatsoever was exciting, stimulating, fulfilling for someone like him, he now thought. The sight of the FMP officer’s blood on deck the entire day recalled to his mind the geyser spray of it at the moment the spear had opened a hole in the big man’s chest. Most of the blood had been washed off by rain, but the original blood loss had been tremendous; it had come spurting out across the Tau Cross. He had never cared for the sight of blood, especially his own; it had always made him nauseous, even a little finger cut, but the speargun killing had changed his mind in an instant. There was something extraordinary about punching a hole in a balloon and seeing the air explode, and so too with the human heart.