had jammed the chopper sharply to the right, sending Jessica’s shot astray.
“ Turn back! Get us around! Eriq’s on board with that maniac, and he’s got a flare gun!”
Lansing didn’t hesitate, bringing the chopper back around in a tight arc, returning to the pursuit. “Now that sonofabitch’s tried to kill me!” he barked.
The chopper skimmed straight over the water now, catching up with Tauman’s boat. When they neared, they could see that Eriq had lost his gun in his mad jump onto the boat, but that he’d somehow managed to get hold of Tauman before he could reload the flare gun. The two men were fighting for control of the gun now, and it was pointed overhead.
Tauman viciously kicked Eriq in the groin, bringing him to his knees, but Eriq wouldn’t let go of the gun, and Tauman, too, went to his knees, unable to free the gun and control it. “Is it loaded?” Lansing wanted to know. Jessica could not say. “I don’t know. Get me closer, and I’ll put a bullet in the bastard.”
“ You got it.”
They dipped now over the boat, which the wind carried just ahead of them. The other boaters racing these waters had all slowed, staring, pointing, wondering what was going on and who were the good guys and who the bad in this confusing set of circumstances. “Get on that radio and tell those others to stay back. Inform them we’re FBI,” she ordered Lansing.
“ Good idea,” agreed Lansing, who was about to find the necessary frequency when Jessica screamed and the second flare went sailing across the cracked glass bubble. “Sonofabitch!” Lansing shouted into the open frequency, the chopper rolling and banking again in response to his reaction to the near hit. But this time Lansing held on to his emotions and the controls, keeping the chopper fairly well in place.
Jessica again leaned far out over the side, trying to draw a bead on Tauman, but Eriq was all over the monster now, pounding him and pummeling him, looking as if he might kill him with his bare fists. Tauman wouldn’t stay down, however. Then suddenly Tauman slumped into a heap, appearing either dead or deeply unconscious. She watched as Eriq lifted Tauman by his hair and battered his head against the gunwale. Satisfied that the creature had finally been rendered harmless, Eriq went below to get the ship under control. Jessica took that as her cue to board the boat. She didn’t want Eriq turning his back on this serpent.
She quickly holstered her weapon and breathed deeply in relief. It was over-finally over. They had the Night Crawler in custody, and the Night Crawler’s boat deck was painted in the demon’s blood. And somewhere aboard the boat, they would find incriminating evidence to prove this was indeed Patric Allain, indeed Warren Tauman, indeed the Night Crawler.
“ God, we were right in tracking him here,” she said as much to herself as to Lansing and the cockpit. “We’ve got him. We’ve really got him.”
“ It would appear so,” agreed Lansing, smiling, breathing easier now. “I guess that’s what you guys call probable cause, huh? I mean, the sonofabitch tried to kill us. So your boss had every right boarding the guy’s boat the way he did.”
“ Carte blanche. Now we start the long process of prosecuting this bastard carefully, by the book, so that we don’t violate his civil rights. He is, after all, innocent until proven guilty.”
Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on Don Lansing, who replied, “Like those cowardly mothers who planted that bomb in Oklahoma City in ‘95?”
“ Yeah, how we had to look after their precious civil rights. Provide them with defense attorneys, provide them with a judge and a jury and a forum-as if they still had rights as American citizens, as if they were human. Bastards deserved to be stripped of any and all rights. You don’t give civil rights to murderers and baby-killers. They forfeit the right to be assumed human when they turn to taking human life, so far as I’m concerned.”
“ You… you were part of the force that tracked those guys in Oklahoma down, weren’t you?”
“ Part of the BSU sent to Oklahoma, yeah.”
“ BSU?”
“ Behavioral Science Unit, part of a larger division. We profile killers, try to get into their heads, track them through understanding them as best we can.”
He nodded. “So, maybe if we shipped the cretin back to England it’d be better all around. Isn’t he guilty over there until proven innocent?”
“ You might have a great idea there, Don. Imagine the Menendez trial in England. The defense would’ve had to prove innocence, and all the prosecution would’ve needed to do would’ve been to burn incense, blow smoke and hold up mirrors, rather than the other way around. As it was, it was just the opposite in California.”
“ Why not extradite this guy to England then?”
“ Good point. Maybe we’ll consider it, but I doubt the American public will stand for it. Everybody wants him fried in Florida. Trouble with that is the electric chair’s too good for the likes of this mother-”
“ Death row food for how long?”
She shook her head, unable to answer.
“ So, what do we do now?”
“ We take the bastard back to the States to stand trial.”
“ Maybe we should let the Cayman authorities have him?” he wondered aloud. “Maybe their brand of justice would be swifter, surer?”
“ You got a point, Lansing… you have a point, but once again the U.S. isn’t likely to stand for it. Our government and the State of Florida’ll be looking to control this one, not to mention America’s Most Wanted.”
Jessica took in another deep breath of the rushing, hurricanelike air all around her. “Bring the chopper in as low as you can. I’m going down to the boat.”
Lansing was doing gyrations both in his seat and in his head, asking, “What? What’d you say?”
“ I’m going down there… on the ladder.”
“ Hey, we’re not talking child’s play here, Dr. Coran.”
“ I want to be with my partner, and I want on that ship, now, Don!”
“ But-”
“ No buts! Just do it.”
Jessica snatched off her headphones and looked out over the side. The straight drop gave her renewed respect for Eriq. Tauman was still unconscious, but she hadn’t recalled his lying half on, half off the back of the boat where those thick, black nylon ropes were still draped. She wondered if any bodies dangled there now, but she rather doubted it. She also wondered if he’d moved, or if he had been moved. Had the boat simply shifted his deadweight? Had Eriq come back to kick him a few times?
Or had the Night Crawler, she wondered again, moved himself?
With the chopper lower now over the slowing boat, the bottom rungs of the ladder were loosely coiled aboard the ship when Jessica began her descent, doing so with one eye on the evil below her while the wind tore at her body, whipping wildly at her blouse and slacks. She thanked God she’d been wise enough to wear cotton pants and comfortable sneakers.
Each rung down the rope ladder brought her nearer Tauman, and she couldn’t help but recall her father’s long-ago words to her when they were on a hunting trip once in Minnesota. Her father had had to kill a snake, and she went to pick it up, curious to examine it as closely as possible. It was beautiful in its size, and variegated color scheme and surprising in its dead heft. She was thirteen at the time.
“ Never assume a snake is dead until you cut off its head and feed on its heart,” her father had warned.
“ Oh, yuck. Dad. Whataya mean? Eat its heart?”
“ Old Indian proverb-American Indian, Lakota, I think. If you don’t cut off the head and eat the heart of your enemy, he will rise again to strike you when you least suspect it.”
Another glance at Tauman told her this particular snake was stone still. Maybe Eriq had indeed killed Warren Tauman. It would certainly save the taxpayers a bundle if it were true; still, she wanted this devil alive. Florida had the death penalty, and she would conduct hundreds of hours of laboratory tests over the remnants of his victims to prove Warren Tauman more than just the “alleged” killer.
Jessica was two rungs from the boat deck now, twirling uncontrollably around and about over the deck of a still moving ship, dangling from the chopper overhead, holding on tightly. Maybe Don Lansing was right. Maybe she was a fool to risk life and limb in this manner, but for so long now they had tracked this beast, and so she felt she had to get a closer look and be certain that her partner was all right.
She didn’t want to jump too soon, didn’t want to lose her balance as Eriq had. In the meantime, due to the
