he said to Joseph Konrath, his first mate.
Jessica and Sorrento returned to the bridge, and the captain greeted them and then said, “I've checked in again and again with boats downriver and no one's seen him. But I have an idea.”
“ What's that, Captain?” asked Sorrento.
“ Reports from here to Pilottown-end of the river-say that no one has spotted this yacht. That's just too unbelievable, unless he's taken another tack.”
“ What tack? North, you mean?” asked Jessica.
“ Well, he may have used one of the old canals to cut from the river to a bay area.”
“ The canals? What canals?” asked Jessica.
Quarels took them to a nautical map on the wall. “We are about here, the canal I have in mind is right here,” he said, pointing just ahead. “Leads west into the bay and some swamplands.”
“ Isn't that the fastest way to get to the Grand Isle area?” asked Sorrento. This guy has some real estate there and most animals do run back to their lairs when chased.”
“ Show me where Grand Isle is, Captain,” asked Jessica.
Quarels pointed it out, a small dot on the map to the southwest of their position. “It's just a hunch, but when Sorrento asked about Grand Isle before, I recalled the canal up ahead. Just a hunch, but I think it may be the reason why no one's seen our man.”
Jessica turned to Sorrento and said, “Grand Isle, of course. He's got to be heading there, Mike.” She then said to Quarels, “We had a local lawman check there yesterday, and he found no sign of Swantor in the area, but all that's changed now.”
“ Follow the course of the canal, Captain,” said Sorrento.
“ All right. We'll do just that, but the storm's going to pound us in there, and we have a skeleton crew.”
“ Back in Florida, Swantor made some passing remark that his wife got the house, and he got the boat. Perhaps the house in question is on this Grand Isle,” said Jessica.
“ Mansions, high living,” said the captain. “That's Grand Isle.”
“ Combs's background check on Swantor had the house in contention.”
Sorrento rubbed his chin. “Swantor's ex-wife, maybe she still resides there on the island.”
“ His ex.” They all fell silent.
“ You thinking what I'm thinking?” Sorrento asked.
“ That he intends on feeding his ex to Kenyon?”
“ If so, what's he need Selese for?”
“ I don't know, maybe to… to keep Kenyon in line?”
“ My God.”
Jessica wondered at the curious irony, if her long, circuitous chase after the Skull-digger should end on an island.
“ Under normal circumstances, I'd radio for assistance, bring up another cutter to go around the boot at Pilot town, surround the island,” suggested Captain Quarels. “But reports are bad all along the coast at the Gulf, and I can't get any help, not at the moment.”
“ We'll keep trying,” said Konrath. “But reports of flooding problems south of us are keeping all crews busy.”
“ Rains preceding Hurricane Alice,” said Quarels.
“ What about helicopters?” asked Jessica.
“ Sorry, they tell me that all our helicopters in this sector've been diverted to the coast until they know what's going to happen there. It's a category four, with several waterspouts. Already had a ship in the Gulf swamped by this thing, so they're expecting additional rescue efforts will be necessary.” It was getting stormy here, as well. When Jessica and Sorrento had made their way back up to the pilothouse, the wind had whistled down the length of the boat, swirling and eddying about them, threatening to send them overboard. The western horizon had been ablaze with beautiful colors at dusk, but now it'd become late, and darkness had suddenly come on with the storm front, clouds blotting out moon and stars.
Jessica drew an imaginary line on Quarels's Mississippi River map with her index finger the distance to Grand Isle. “How many hours?” she asked Quarels.
“ Three perhaps in good weather. Can't say in this.” He nodded to the black windows ahead of them.
They drank coffee under the light of the pilothouse and watched as a deluge of rain began pouring over them. The powerful winds made the ship shiver.
Jessica said, “He's facing worse weather if he is south of us. We have to make better time, and hope he's had to slow down.”
“ When we get into the center of the canal, we'll open her up,” Quarels promised. Then he invited them to look on at the sonar and radar screens. According to the equipment aboard, the cutter began a wide turn into a sharply cut canal, its banks like walls sketched in thin green lines. Jessica tried to imagine them by day.
Now they headed into deep backwater swamp. “I wonder how much your fugitive is relying on the weather,” Quarels said to them. “Normally, in a dry season, some of these canals might not be deep enough in sections. Lot of boaters get hung up on sandbars in them. But if he's been monitoring the weather… well, he's planned this thing out, that's certain.”
The canal took them west first through a back bay area that Captain Quarels had pinpointed on the map. He showed them how it would sharply turn again south. Jessica and Sorrento were studying the nautical map of the area when Jessica's phone rang.
She stepped away, taking the call. “Jess, it's me, John.”
“ What's is it, J.T.? Any good news? I could use some good news.”
“ Unfortunately, SquealsLoud has gone through with it, Jess. The Montoya woman was handed over to Kenyon, and the other madman filmed the entire thing. It's a horror movie beyond anything I've ever seen.”
“ And it's playing on Cahil's website?”
“ As we speak, and God knows where else. You can access it if you want to, but I'd leave it alone, Jess.”
She looked across at Sorrento and the captain. “He's already killed his captive. We're too late to help her.”
Sorrento wrapped his arms about himself and rocked. The captain took in a deep breath of air and bit his lower lip, shaking his head.
“ It's on the computer as a graphic film. The entire event, according to my partner in Quantico.”
“ Are you going to open it? Take a look at it?” asked Sorrento.
“ I hate giving the bastard the satisfaction, but we might draw some clues from it,” she replied angrily. She went to her laptop, opened it and logged on to the Internet. She found his E-mail waiting.
Sorrento stood beside her, placed an arm on her shoulder and said, “Steady yourself.”
“ I'd like to see what kind of a maniac we're chasing as well,” added Quarels.
Jessica opened the media E-mail, and the three of them watched the scene unfold in stark dread. From the wheel, First Mate Joe Konrath watched his controls but intermittently looked over his shoulder at the computer screen as well. When the bone cutting began, Jessica looked away. The men remained fixed on the sight, disbelieving it at the same time that they witnessed it.
“ My God in Heaven,” said Quarels.
“ Poor woman,” added Sorrento. “We've got to nail these two bastards.”
In all her years with the FBI, Jessica had never seen anyone actually executed before her eyes. She had never even gone to a federal or state prison to watch an execution. This murder brought about by Swantor was meant to shock, and it did.
“ If he reaches Grand Isle and finds his wife, he'll do the same to her,” Jessica projected. “We need to contact police there. Have someone get the ex-Mrs. Swantor out of there if she's on the island.”
She shut down Swantor's horror show. She then asked Sorrento to contact this man Potter at Grand Isle and attempt to get word that Swantor was on his way there, ending with, “And warn Mrs. Swantor to leave at once.”
Sorrento explained that the island was police free, but that it was serviced by a Sheriff Danby Potter, a one- man police force from a small town on the mainland, Lewistown. “Station house is the size of a phone booth. The
