"Ahhh, sure, sure… I've got enough material on the park that I don't need it any longer. I've pretty well put the story to bed."
"Whatever it cost." She dug into her purse.
"No, take it. Anything to help get this madman you're chasing. And I'm dreadfully sorry about those three brave agents."
Jessica swallowed her desire to confide any sliver of truth to the woman. "Yes, it has hit the agency hard, just as the previous five murders by this maniac have."
"Good luck on your manhunt, Dr. Coran. We all know one thing."
"And what's that?" she asked, folding the Yellowstone map back into its original shape.
"That you're the best person for the job."
"Thank you. I hope that's so."
"Well, obviously, from what you've told us, the killer certainly thinks so."
She smiled for the first time in twenty-four hours. "Yes. Yes, that certainly is so."
After the phony story was put to bed, a phone call to the hospital told her that Bishop died at 3:19 a.m. while still on the table, undergoing surgery, and that Agents Morganstern and Howler had also both died of wounds suffered in the fire. Excellent, she thought. Mrs. Crighten had played her part well.
EIGHTEEN
I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on men unless they act.
An all-points bulletin stretching nationwide was put out on Dorphmann, but Jessica knew that any resulting action would likely only net authorities a few arrests here and there of look-alikes, deadbeat fathers, estranged boyfriends, and the like. Dorphmann had hinted that he had physically altered his appearance already, or rather that Satan had done so for him. He had burned off his fingerprints, thinking this crucial to his living the life of a nonfugitive once he'd finished the Devil's work he'd been put to; he had shaved his head, had likely put on some weight given the free food provided by the tour package. He might have altered his appearance in other ways, such as changing the color of his eyes, from contact green to frame glasses and blue eyes. There was little telling, but he obviously knew something about makeup and diversion and escape tactics, as he'd proven in Vegas and now in Salt Lake City.
Jessica had returned to her hotel room after leaving the newspaper office, and now she felt badly that she couldn't be beside Warren Bishop when he opened his eyes, but there appeared no help for it. She had a rendezvous with a madman, a rendezvous that was long in coming, one she could put off no longer. She meant to put an end to Feydor Dorphmann's maniacal kill spree so that no one else would ever suffer at his hand again.
She telephoned the hospital and got hold of John Thorpe, whose sleepy voice slurred a good morning to her. It was 9:40 a.m.
"Anything new on Bishop?" she asked.
"He's dead, or haven't you heard?" J. T. quipped.
She pleaded with J. T., "Please stay by his side, John."
"I will, for you, Jess. Meanwhile, I'll go over Repasi's findings on the Grey woman, see if he missed anything or failed to tell us anything of a vital nature we don't already know, right?"
"Clever boy."
J. T. broke the news to her that he'd gotten hold of Chief Santiva, who was en route to Jackson Hole, to report Bishop's true condition and why they had felt it necessary to plant the phony story.
"How'd he take it?" she asked.
''He thought it a long shot, but agreed we had little else to gamble on with this nutcase, so he's okay with it, Jess. He still doesn't understand what Bishop and the 'other two agents' thought they were doing. He still doesn't know about the long arm of Frank Lorentian in this matter."
"He'll know soon enough, when he touches down at Jackson Hole. Gallagher will give him an earful, no doubt."
Jessica thanked J. T., finishing with, "For all you've done, John, over the years, thanks."
"Hey, don't go getting maudlin on me, Jess. As for sitting this out with Bishop, it's no big deal. You're needed up in Wyoming, so get saddled up and get going. And don't worry about Warren. On the QT, they're calling him a fighter."
"Has his prognosis improved?" she hopefully asked.
"His condition is stable but still critical."
"Damn…"
"He's a tough guy. He'll weather it, and he's out of surgery and in IC, where he's under constant watch, Jess. What kind of trouble do you suppose he was in with Frank Lorentian?"
"Most likely gambling debts. When I look honestly back on our early days together at the academy, I remember now how avid a gambler Warren always was. I'd rosily chosen to forget that aspect of his character."
J. T. replied, "Damn, I know it. I had a girlfriend once who'd bet on which of two apple blossoms would fall from a tree first."
"Yeah, Warren had that shortcoming, but I had no idea it had become a driving force in his life. Maybe it contributed to his divorce. I can't say."
Jessica felt badly that friends, coworkers, his agency, his former wife, and his kids would hear through the news media that Warren Bishop had died of a gunshot wound in the course of his duty as an FBI agent. She tried to minimize the horror of it all by pretending Bishop was, in a sense, doing decoy work in his most unusual undercover operation, most possibly his last as an FBI operative, and one he was not even aware of. She rationalized spreading the lie also in that it might save lives if Feydor Dorphmann bought into it.
"Where will you be, Jess, if he comes around?"
"I… I'll be at the hotel, getting some sleep," she lied.
"When will you be taking off for Jackson?"
"Sometime this afternoon."
"Maybe I can join you then. Call me before you make any arrangements, okay?"
"Will do," she lied again, knowing now precisely where Feydor Dorphmann was directing her to go. J. T. didn't know it, but she might well have said her final goodbye to him.
Rather than racing immediately off to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Jessica chose another course of action, or inaction, as the case turned out. She'd chosen to sit it out in Salt Lake City for a time, hoping now that Feydor, having had time to think things through and to "talk" with his demon god, would contact her at her hotel room.
She knew that in Jackson Hole she'd have the backing of an entire army of FBI agents and local authorities, all wanting to put an end to the career of the Phantom; she knew that Eriq Santiva was flying there now. She understood that a coordinated effort to create a foolproof net to catch the killer would be instantly under way once Eriq took command there. The FBI crowd would bring to bear every known weapon in the arsenal of crime detection to apprehend the fiend responsible now for the deaths of three FBI men, the manhunt fueled with a vengeance not previously felt.
Meanwhile, an FBI hotline in D.C. was inundated with tips flooding in from every corner of the country, from people in all walks of life, from wastepaper managers to basketball players to TV evangelists who claimed divine knowledge of the messages left by the killer, to academicians whose specialty-the history of the occult and religions of the world-made them TV talk-show guests on Oprah and Rosie. Everyone had some take on the killer, each as distorted and twisted as the next.
However, not even the TV affiliates and networks, nor the newspapers buying into the exclusive coming out of the offices of the Salt Lake Herald, knew as much as the killer and Jessica Coran knew. But at least these more responsible sources named names and displayed photos of the killer, alongside his handwriting and his Dante's Inferno fetish, the nine rungs of Hades, the list of sins and victim names. They had the "story" as Jessica had fed it to them; they had the prediction that Feydor Dorphmann would kill a ninth, unknown victim to fulfill his demented contract with the Devil or devils that haunted him…