An overwhelming sense of despair and helplessness pervaded her mind, threatening to weaken her resolve and sap her physical reserves, depleting her completely. She now cringed in a corner, the poor excuse for a weapon now hidden deep in the folds of a coverlet she'd found as she dragged herself as far from Matisak as she possibly could.
She wanted to scream, but that most likely would raise him sooner than it would alarm anyone outside. She could not believe that no one in the neighborhood had called the police at the sounds of shots and screaming. She thought she had faintly heard the sound of sirens earlier, but they had died away, as if racing away to another location.
But then, she was in Chicago.
Matisak came closer… closer… closer.
As they screeched into view of the house where Gamble lived, Brewer's car slid in beside Boutine's. Brewer hopped out and grabbed Boutine who was prepared to rush the house. Joe repeated his earlier call for calmness and rational thought. The FBI men had come to a halt at the end of the block, their car motors idling hot. Brewer held both hands against Otto's massive chest, making him hold on, but Boutine shoved his friend aside. Brewer, like a hound on a scent, was right back at him, standing in his face, calling for an intelligent approach to the situation.
“ Otto, we don't know anything. We can only presume that Gamble and Jess are inside there. We have no evidence whatever that Matisak is in that apartment house.”
“ Gamble works at Balue-Stork; he knows Matisak,” countered Otto, about to strike Brewer if necessary.
Again Brewer placed a restraining hand on him. “Going in wild eyed and shooting isn't going to cut it, Cowboy.”
The old nickname Brewer used for his friend seemed to slow him even if just a little. Boutine's steely eyes bore into Brewer like a pair of super-heated, twisting corkscrews. “If anything's happened to Jess…”
“ She may not even be here, Otto. Now come on.”
Otto finally relented. “Whataya' have in mind?”
“ The alleyway. We make our way toward the house from the rear. Then, if it's warranted, we'll get backup.”
Otto bit his lip and nodded. “All right, we do it your way, for now. But this bastard's been yanking my chain for too long, Joe, and I want two things to come out of this night. We see Jess safely away and we take this creep out. And if she is in there alone with this devil, I won't allow it a moment longer. Come on!”
Boutine began down the alleyway at a trot.
“ But we got no warrant. Otto, no juice here, no probable-fucking-cause anymore than we had at Matisak's house.” They both knew that everything found at Matisak's would be ruled inadmissible in a court of law. “If you charge in here-” But Boutine wasn't listening; instead, he was pointing at a silver-gray, Balue-Stork van nearly invisible in the metallic shadows behind Gamble's place.
When Brewer caught up. Otto whispered in his ear, “There's your goddamned probable cause, Joe.”
Joe went closer to the van, inspecting it, looking into the little square of glass at the rear, seeing only darkness inside. “It'd still be better if we drew Matisak out,” he whispered back to Otto who was studying the house.
When Otto made no reply, Brewer, fidgeting with the van door and finding it unlocked, suggested they check the interior. He also said, “We maybe oughta call the fire department to the house across the street, cause a little diversion for Matisak and his friend Gamble. Then we go in like you say, if they don't step outside.”
Boutine just kept thinking of Jessica alone inside with a madman. If she weren't already dead, she was suffering. “I'm going in now, Joe.”
“ That's crazy, Otto.”
“ Damn it, Joe! Jess is in there. I feel it.”
Suddenly the van door came flying open and both men whipped out their guns, almost firing at Captain Kaseem's stiff body. “Jesus Christ!” said Brewer, shaken.
“ Oh, God, it's Kaseem,” said Otto, stepping around the van for a better look. ' 'Think this is probable cause enough for the court, Joe?”
“ We've got to get inside there. Now.”
“ Now you're talking.”
“ But we need to call for backup, Otto.”
“ Go ahead. I'll make my way around front and enter from there. You come in from behind.”
Brewer raced back to the car and the radio, all the while praying that Otto would not do anything heroic or foolish on his own, that he'd wait a decent interval for Joe to be in place. Brewer's mind was rocketing with images and questions. Was Jessica inside that house, alone with Matisak? Was she just as dead as Kaseem? What would it do to Otto?
Brewer tore open his car door and radioed for assistance from any and all in the area, giving Gamble's address, using the Chicago Police code for “officer down.” This code would send an army down on Gamble's place.
He then raced back down the alleyway for the rear of the apartment house. When he and Otto had been in the academy together, Boutine always did things the dangerous way, getting the highest marks on obstacle courses and range shooting, but also getting shot and killed more times than anyone else in the class. That propensity, along with the western flare and drawl, had earned him the moniker of Cowboy among his friends in the agency. Otto had been orphaned at an early age, had witnessed the disintegration of his family, and the loss of a small horse ranch outside Bozeman, Montana. He had come up the hard way, and for this Brewer had always admired the determination, grit, and back-bone of the man. Even in his wild youth, even while being shot dead with red dye or an electronic beam on the proving grounds at Quantico, Otto was always focused, controlled. He had now spent the better part of his life tracking the most insane of criminal minds with a sense of purpose that bordered on religious zeal.
It was what separated the Joe Brewers of the Bureau from the Otto Boutines.
So, here he was, the Cowboy still, tracking down the sinister bad guys, just as reckless and careless as the much younger man Joe had first met at the academy so many years ago.
Would he wait for backup? Would he give it the few minutes necessary? Would Otto even wait for Joe to get into place before he did a swan dive through the bay window out front? So far this night, Boutine had gone against all his training, allowing his own to take control of him.
It was up to Joe to back him up any way he could. If Boutine would allow him that privilege.
Mad, crazed Matisak was again enjoying himself; his bloody wound seemed numb now. His facial features were contorted more with hatred for Jessica Coran than with pain.
“ You've been a naughty girl, haven't you, Jessica? It will take more time now. I'll have to sedate you again, tie you by your heels again, tie your hands again… just as you want… to keep me here longer. You would die to catch me… give your life for the cause of stopping me. I am flattered, and I respect you… I do. So much character. I've never killed anyone with so much fight in her. But you leave me little choice but to do it now and be damned with how it looks.”
His hand shot out for her from where he kneeled over her. With the gun in his right hand, he tore at her hair with a bloody left hand, viciously yanking her head forward, into the barrel of the gun, blackening her eye, making her screech.
“ I should blow your fucking brains out now, bitch! Like I did Gamble's.”
Pain was shooting through her. “But you won't.” Her words were breathless.
“ You think you know me?”
“ Enough… enough to know that you want to make me suffer more, and to do that-” She tore out the trach tube at her throat and hurled it across the room. They both heard it shatter into multiple pieces.
He pistol-whipped her across the chin, knocking her back. “I have others.” His assured eyes smiled wickedly at her. He put the gun into his belt and reached for her with more rope, readying to tie her up once again.
With all the strength she could put behind it, she brought up the jagged piece of glass, sinking it deep into his throat, making him scream and pull back. At the same instant the living room window burst into a thousand pieces
