Eules chewed his lip, then he cued his Motorola mike. “All Gunposts. Report target acquisition status, in order, now.”
“Post Number Two,” the first response crackled. “Target acquired. Give me the word.”
“Post Number Three. This guy’s just standing there. Give me the word.”
“Post Number Four. Sir, which shirt button do you want me to put a round through?”
That about said it all.
Eules paused, looked at the forest, his thumb ready to come back down on the radio cue.
Shit, he thought.
“All posts. Hold your fire. Do not fire unless the target makes an aggressive move with the knife.”
««—»»
“Drop the knife,” Helen said. “Drop it, then raise your hands very slowly and stand up straight. Keep facing the window. Don’t make any sudden movements.”
He turned very, very slowly, and looked at her. “I…”
“Don’t be stupid!” Helen yelled. “Those guys out there invented the term ‘trigger-happy.’ Surrender.”
Now Campbell’s eyes roved intermittently about the room, from Dahmer’s body to Tom to Helen, then back to Dahmer’s body.
“Give it up,” Helen implored. As for Campbell’s health, she wasn’t especially concerned either way, nor was she terribly worried about crossfire or a stray bullet trajectory that might accidentally hit her. The snipers were good—she knew that—former military hot shots, cool as cucumbers, and field trained to the extent that they could take targets at will. But Campbell was close, about six feet away, and the knife ever-present in his hand.
If he lunged for her, would they really get him before he got to her?
««—»»
Eules keyed his mike again. “Extraction Teams, status report, in order, now.”
“Team Leader, Team One, posted and ready.”
“Team Two, posted and ready, sir.”
“Team Three, posted and ready to roll.”
“Hold your marks,” Eules calmly ordered. “Enter on my command only. Once you get the extraction order, watch for crossfire. Team One secures the room. Two and Three secure the house. Remember your ops orders. Cover and concealment.”
“Roger. TL out.”
Sanders, the lead sniper, still hadn’t moved a muscle as he sighted down his target. “Shit, sir, he’s still just standing there—he knows we’re all over him. This guy’s not gonna give himself up. Let me take him.”
“Hold your mark,” Eules ordered him, eyeing the guy again through his field binoculars. “We’re cops, not meat-grinders. We just aired a guy out the other day.”
“Hey, sir?”
“What?”
Sander’s hesitated. “Adjust your angle a few degrees left. I just caught it. There’s someone else in the room.”
“That’s Drake,” Eules already knew, “a state pathologist.”
“No, no, not the guy tied up in the chair,” Sanders corrected. “I see him. I mean harder left, like ten o’clock. There’s another guy sitting right at the edge of the shadow by the kitchen front.”
Eules stepped once to the left, zoomed his Zeiss 7x50 binocs. He squinted at the image, not quite believing what he was seeing at first. He’s right. It looks like a—
“Christ, sir, it’s a body.”
Eules strained his vision through the bright infinity-shaped field. His mouth opened in some silent disgust. He’s right. The whack’s got a corpse sitting in there with him.
««—»»
Now Campbell was staring at the face of Jeffrey Dahmer’s corpse.
“Doing time in a state psych wing is better than being dead,” Helen suggested.
Campbell’s gaze slowly turned back to her, the mad gray eyes now pinpointed in disdain. Tears glittered at their corners.
His voice, now, sounded like rubbing sandpaper. “You ruined everything. I was the legacy, I was the power—through him. And now? I’m supposed to go off to some psych wing for the rest of my life?” His face seemed to set then, into a mask of something less than human. “Better that my life end here.”
“Don’t. Think. Get a grip on—”
“And yours too, bitch.”
It was nothing so trite as slow-motion. Campbell seemed to move through some other plane of existence when he broke from his stance and dove toward her across the empty air between them.
Helen heard nothing, not even her own scream, as she watched the monster float forward, the knife glinting. She tried to jerk out of the way but still could barely move; the effort proved but a feeble hitch that didn’t even raise the legs of the chair.
Glitter rained down in the silence, the windows imploding. Suddenly an array of strange dark things cavorted quickly and robotically about the room, black-booted feet crunching over shattered window glass. Helen’s heart felt like a dead lump in her chest.
“Team One, clear.”
When her sentience returned, three tactical cops in blackish utilities stood around her with black handguns drawn. They stood with their backs to her, and on their backs she saw gold capital letters: FBI.
A voice called out from somewhere unseen. “Team Two, clear!”
And another: “Team Three, clear!”
“This is Team Leader to Gunpost One. The target perimeter is secure.”
A mammoth figure turned, terrifying in ballistic glasses and a flak vest thick as a couch cushion. “Are you all right, ma’am?”
Helen didn’t really hear him. She didn’t really hear anything just yet. Instead, she blinked, and asked imbecilically, “Do you have a cigarette?”
“We don’t smoke, ma’am. Are you all right?”
She gusted a sigh. “Well, I’m paralyzed,” she said. “But to tell you the truth, I’ve never felt better.”
Only then did her thoughts return to Campbell, and so did her gaze. He lay face down a yard away, dead before he’d even hit the floor.
EPILOGUE
“Congratulations, Deputy Chief,” Olsher said after the ceremony at the State House. It was two days before Christmas. A big sugary cake shaped like a police badge graced the banquet table, gold icing with chocolate script spelling DC CLOSS. It was all so hokey she loved it.
On the night in question, she’d been rushed to St. John’s. The Trexaril Campbell had injected into her would’ve eventually neutralized all of the succinicholine sulphate, but they’d put her on a dialysis machine anyway, to slough it all off in less than half an hour.
“You know,” Olsher continued to gloat, “the only reason I was giving you a hard time is because I wanted to keep you on your toes.”
“I know, Larrel,” she said. “Thank you.”
“But now you’re the same rank as me so I guess I can’t give you any more gruff.”
“Actually you can, Larrel. You have more time-in-grade so you’re still my boss.”
Olsher finished a last bite of cake, then disgustingly fired up a huge cigar. “You know, you’re right.”
After her official promotion, Governor Thompsen and the Police Commissioner had given her a framed commendation and the Wisconsin State Medal of Valor. The only thing about the entire affair she couldn’t stand—aside from Olsher’s cigar—was the fact that she’d had to wear her dress-blue police uniform, which made her feel like some kind of silly law enforcement doll.
Later, they’d moved the party to Olsher’s house, which Dr. Sallee and Jan Beck had struck up with congratulatory signs and multi-colored streamers like a kid’s birthday. All the liquor and beer had been personally paid for and delivered by Prison Director James Dipetro. “It’s the least I can do,” he’d told her, “to thank you for taking my career out of the toilet.”