Stephen Cannell - Final Victim

"That's a hell of a start, Karen," Lockwood said.

"Here's a problem you can work on." Malavida moved from the bed over to the direction finder on the table. "We can only home in on this guy while he's using his computer… We could be drifting around out in the swamps forever, waiting for him to get hot, which is the only time we can read the electrical leakage from his equipment. I'd sure like to narrow the time frame, or we're gonna be using a hell of a lot of bug repellent."

"I think we should be out there at about the same time we first intercepted him," she finally said. "That will be day after tomorrow, say four-thirty in the afternoon."

"Why?" Lockwood asked.

"There was something about that call that seemed like it was scheduled," she continued.

"What it seemed like to me was a lotta sick, rambling bullshit," Lockwood corrected her.

"Satan in Oslo said, 'You have severed her limbs, which are worthless, lustful appendages. How did it feel? Did you taste her blood this time? It has been a week. How did it feel?' A week. Maybe he's saying it's been a week since they last talked."

Again, Malavida and Lockwood were both impressed by Karen's total recall of Satan's message on the monitor. It was becoming obvious that she had a photographic memory.

Lockwood stretched out on the adjoining bed and laced his fingers behind his neck. "He could have been talking about a week since The Rat's last kill, not since his last call."

"Yeah, I thought of that too. But after The Rat unrolled all that religious gobbledygook about the wicked not suffering punishment in eternal hell, Satan said, 'Enough about this. I've told you each session I can't use your religious rantings.' Each session… A session is generally by appointment. I was wondering, what if these two freaks have a weekly date to talk on the Internet?"

"This guy is in Oslo, Norway. Why wouldn't he just send e-mail to talk to The Rat? Why would it have to be by weekly appointment?" "I think he's in prn," Malavida volunteered.

"He's where?"

"In prn. I did a UNIX 'who is?' on Pennet. I found he was on from the Inselbrook State Penitentiary in Oslo. The number he was calling from is in the law library. They wouldn't tell me who was there last Sunday at midnight."

"If he's got a prearranged time," she said, "we could just show up out in the wetlands when they're chatting on the Net. We'd have a much better chance of catching The Rat if we knew the exact time." Lockwood knew Karen was right. He sat up on the bed.

"How come you didn't come up with this?" Malavida said.

"Cut me some slack. I'm just here with my limited law enforcement skills," Lockwood said, and then suddenly all of them were smiling.

Lockwood slept all day Saturday and into Sunday. He woke up a few times and saw that Karen was watching television while Malavida was working on his equipment. At noon Sunday, he called Heather in the hospital in Hollywood, but was told by the nurse that she was sleeping.

At two P. M. they drove south, toward the Little Manatee River, on Interstate 75. A few miles north of Sun City, they saw a wooden pier with a small shack that advertised boat rentals, and pulled into the gravel parking lot. They went inside the shack and rented a fifteen-foot aluminum boat with two wooden benches and a fuel-stained twenty-horsepower Evinrude outboard. The man who rented it to them was as stringy as alligator bait, with the name "Gilbert" stitched on his greasy shirt. Lockwood asked him about the roads in the wetlands and if there was a map.

"Ain't no road map. Them roads change ever' season. Y'all try an' take that blue LeBaron in there, y'gonna be buyin' it from Mr. Hertz straight off"

The man took forty dollars cash and Karen's driver's license as a deposit, and told them that the Little Manatee River was about a mile farther down the bay. After warning them to stay out of the marshlands, and that if he had to come pull them out it was an extra hundred, he gave them a quick instruction course on how to operate the tired motor, and then he wandered back up the pier to his shack.

They needed to change the plan. Since the roads weren't marked and Lockwood would be at a distinct disadvantage in the car, they decided to go together in the boat.

They loaded in the equipment. Lockwood hit the starter button and the Evinrude coughed to life. Malavida untied them, jumped aboard, and pushed off. Lockwood had little experience with boats and was delighted to find that Karen Dawson came from a family of recreational fishermen; he readily handed over the helm.

A mile down the bay they found the mouth of the Little Manatee and glided into its reeded silence. Karen idled the engine down and they slid along the placid waterway. The dense reeds on both sides lined the channel like slats on a picket fence. It was as if they had moved back in time. The muted colors were washed and cooked pale from the Florida sun. Once they saw a gator slide off the bank and submerge itself in the pale-brown water by the edge of the river. Blue herons sat on dead logs and watched with curious, frightened eyes, their long necks stretched forward like old men in church. Water bugs slithered across the surface, their large, winged bodies making the feat seem impossible. The ever-present keening of insects was overpowering.

Lockwood was trying to keep his senses alert, although the placid scenery had a dulling effect… The marshy wetlands were desolate and beautiful in their peaceful lation. Occasional deciduous trees hung out over the river, gnarled stick figures pointing the way.

At ten past four, Malavida, who was in the bow, held up his hand. "Hold it. Got something." He was looking at a volt-ohm meter attached to the radio receiver. "Turn right," he commanded and Karen swung the boat right. "Hold it, hold it!" he shouted. "Shut off the engine."

She did, and then they were drifting. Lockwood grabbed the paddle in the boat and put it into the water to stop their turn.

"Back to the center," Malavida said, and he waited while Lockwood made the correction.

"See this?" He pointed at the little digital display on the meter attached to the radio receiver. "That's a very weak, fluctuating electrical signal. It's consistent with the kind of TEMPEST output we should get from a new TI or Toshiba notebook. It's coming from that direction…" He pointed at a wall of reeds on the side of the river.

"We're gonna need a dozer to get through there," Lockwood said. "Maybe there's a tributary farther up that heads back around," Karen ventured.

"Okay, let's look," Lockwood said.

She hit the starter and the engine coughed and turned over, running roughly, choking on unused gas and oil. She smoothed it out and they continued on up the river, which was now beginning to snake back and forth as it transected the watery swamp.

Lockwood opened the box and checked the clip on his.45. He had loaded the dumdum bullets in so they would be fired last, just in case the first several shots failed to do the job. The saying in law enforcement is "If you don't get 'em with one, you'll be carried by six." But Lockwood was such a bad shot, he liked a full clip.

Karen was right. They found the tributary about a quarter mile farther up on the left. She turned into it and they headed back in the direction they had just come from.

The channel was twisting and blocked in narrow spots by fallen trees. A few times Lockwood and Malavida had to get out of the aluminum boat and pull branches out of the stream. It was slow going, but Malavida said the computer signal was getting stronger.

"This guy is up here somewhere," Malavida said.

At 4:15, the signal abruptly stopped and the needle gauge went to zero. They were moving slowly up the river. "Cut the engine," Malavida said, and Karen shut off the outboard. They were drifting silently, the river narrowing and getting shallow. They listened to the keening insects, their ears desperately trying to peel some other sound out of the wall of noise.