“ In that case, I need you to help me outside to… to ditch the van. It's hot.”
“ Yeah, nightly news is going on about how two cops were shot tonight.”
“ I need to stow the van,” he repeated.
“ I'll take care of it entirely. You come inside and find your bed. It's got to have been a trying night for you, and it's getting rather late.”
Grant then sized up Swantor, finding him a bit larger than himself, beefier. He thought of how he needed to find the right moment to gain control over Swantor. He wondered if the fire would remove the fingerprints. In the middle of his back, he carried the gun, but he wanted Swantor's death to appear to be the Skull-digger's suicide. However, he might have to improvise and modify his plans as he went. Aside from the gun, he had a ready needle with Demoral in his pants pocket, should it go that way. Should he have to overpower the larger man. But first he needed him to step out to the van.
He awaited the exact right moment to attack Swantor.
“ I've closely watched your development, Grant,” Jervis said to him, “and I guessed you to be the Digger given your sudden absence from the website, along with those girls you were always flirting with, some of whom also disappeared abruptly from the Net. You were busy with the real thing… Or should I say the 'Rheil' thing. Nifty how you sent that Island of Rheil tissue to Cahil to implicate him. You do know they've had him in custody for the killings, right? You really should have laid low after that, but not you… you're something else.”
“ Yes, I guessed as much about Cahil even before the public knew.”
“ An educated assumption.” Jervis had ushered him belowdecks, and he now pushed open a door and pointed, saying, “This cabin is yours, if you want it, for as long as you want it. We'll set off tonight, Cancun perhaps. Get you out of the country. Put some distance between you and New Orleans at least. Whataya say?”
“ And in return?”
“ Showing is better than telling. Come with me.” Swantor turned his back and led the way to the midsection of the yacht where a large living-room space abounded with state-of-the-art computer equipment, several screens sending forth images at once. “It's my control room, you might say.”
“ This is fantastic. Incredible.” Grant and Phillip already thought of it as their own-as soon as they ridded themselves of Swantor.
“ I have the capability of beaming all over the world any words or images I choose, and I can do it from international waters. I've got a stop tracer on my hard drive that's stupendous. I've bought myself a new identity, and I'm ready to start my own Web page, and you, sir, are my star- America's Most Wanted.”
“ Star? What exactly do you expect of me?” Grant walked about, staring at the electronics, awed by the display of power, but confused by the man.
“ All I ask is that you share with me and my audience, what it's like.”
“ What it's like?”
“ To be the Skull-digger! Feeding on human brain tissue. In feet, I'd like to film you in the act.”
“ Film me?” “Doing the operation, yes, and feeding. I'll provide you with the means.”
Grant had swallowed hard at that point. This guy's crazier than Phillip, he thought. “It's a deal, but I need your help with-”
“ The woman you abducted from the city? She's still alive? Perfect.”
“ She's in the van, along with my tools.”
“ Yes, you will need a costar. Don't worry. I'll assist you in discarding the van, and I'll arrange for you to feed on your latest victim, so long as I can film it, you see. By the way, what's her name? I think viewers will want to know her name.”
“ Selese.”
“ Lovely… yes. I think we should get her situated in here first”-he opened a door opposite the room offered to Grant-”and then we can get your tools inside, and then I'll take care of the van.”
“ I think we should take care of the van as soon as possible,” Grant replied.
“ Of course, agreed. We can do the filming later.”
Grant immediately replied, “Of course, you're right. We transport the girl here, and then get rid of the van.” Grant frowned and decided that Phillip had to have the Montoya woman aboard the boat, and that authorities would be left with Swantor's body alone. Phillip wasn't about to give up Selese until his hunger was satisfied.
Amendment one to Grant's well thought out plan.
Jervis Swantor and he had then gone to the van and, careful to see there were no witnesses, they took hold of the still-drowsy Selese and led her, dragging her heels, to the yacht.
“ How're we going to keep her from escaping?” asked Grant. “I'm prepared for that, too,” Swantor replied. He led the girl into what was to be her cabin. There he chained her hands to the metal-framed bed. As he worked the handcuffs, he asked Grant to help him with her ankles.
While Grant worked the bonds, he let his guard down around Jervis for a moment as the other man stood and went to the door, saying, “I know of a road that will take us to a backwash of the river, a perfect place to ditch the van.”
“ And you,” Phillip said only to Grant.
It was then that Grant and Phillip felt a crushing blow to the back of their shared head, and all turned to black.
FOURTEEN
Another iron door, on which was writ, be not too bold.
In a back bay in the confluence of the Mississippi Peninsula Island area 3 A.M.
The effort of having fought his way to wakefulness caused a searing pain to throb throughout his brain.
When Grant Kenyon had fully awakened, he'd found himself shackled to a wall and lying in a bed in a room opposite Selese Montoya's accommodations. He fought to a sitting position and discovered his left ankle was bound by an enormous chain, each link the size of a crab. The girl was nowhere to be seen. He fought with the chain on his ankle, a futile effort. It had been securely bolted to the cabin wall. He then suddenly remembered his hidden gun and the needle in his pocket, all meant for Swantor.
He reached for the gun, not surprised to find it gone. He patted for the syringe, also gone, along with his wallet and keys.
He imagined Swantor would be turning him over to the police now, but then why the elaborate hoax? Why hadn't he simply had the cops waiting in the bushes? How much time had elapsed since taking the blow to the head? he wondered. Then he felt the rhythmic movement of the boat and realized they were on the water en route somewhere known only to Swantor.
He screamed out, “Swantor! You bastard! What're you pulling here?”
He got no answer.
He tore at the chain, bruising himself in the process.
He sat on the edge of the bed now, his head in his hands.
He looked up to the ceiling corner to watch that damned camera eye moving from side to side, watching him.
Muttering to himself, he realized that Swantor meant to do exactly what he'd said he would, film the Skull- digger at work on his latest victim and put it on the Internet. “Not if I kill him first…”
Phillip told him, “I'm angry as hell. Angry enough to tell you this, Grant. I'm hungry to the point that this creep's brain will do as well as any.”
“ He's a bigger psycho than you, Phillip.”
He recalled now how Swantor had earlier entered the room with a gun-Grant's gun-and the Demoral-filled needle. “I insist you inject yourself now. I'm going to attend to your van, and when I return, we'll leave New Orleans together, the three of us.”
