She chose to not allow the putrefaction of her body to control her mind; chose not to allow her mind or soul one more single hopeless or negative thought, concentrating instead on the people she loved, her children and grandchildren.
These thoughts gave her solace and peace and allowed her to drop off; he could not hurt her further if she were at peace. This much she knew; some voice from far beyond this place had posited that fact in her brain, and she felt certain it had been her mother's voice. While the old bastard that had done this horrible thing to her heard Jimmy Lee in his head, she heard her mother's voice in hers. She hoped that Isaiah Purdy's punishment-his personal hell-would be Jimmy Lee forever in his head. That would be just retribution; she kept telling herself that somewhere beyond this world, a sure justice awaited the old farmer, one that was already dealing with his son.
As a result of her acceptance, her peace with her impending death and the manner of her death, she had found the one weapon the old man had not suspected. She had found silence. She had become too quiet, too content for him, not making enough discomfiting noise. She no longer swore or moaned or whimpered. She would use the one weapon left her: her silence, her serenity, her peace. A small place in her soul told her that this above anything else she might do would make him crazy with rage and anger, and if it worked well enough, he might put the pitchfork through her and put her out of this misery. So now that Jimmy Lee wanted the gag out of her mouth, she would hold onto silence like a life rope thrown to her by her very soul- thrown out to her where she floated amid the pain, the suffering, and humiliation.
Accepting the inevitable, she sublimated all her high emotions at having had a near escape, the death of Willis, her hatred for her tormentor and his dead son, this time, and this place.
Where she lay, if she opened her eyes, she would see again that the devil had returned the pitchfork to Willis, standing it up neatly through her three wounds, using the woman's stiff body now as a kind of instrument, a place to keep the prongs sheathed. This scene of horror no longer created tears in her, although Purdy made sure that she lay within inches of Nancy Willis's dead eyes. Nothing touched her any longer. Not the smell of decay, not the touch of it against her skin. Her mind and strength of will to not care, to not smell, to not see, to not feel a thing, negated it all.
Still, she knew that she had not given in or given up; quite the contrary, she had accepted her imminent death, and she had made peace with it, with her Maker, a God who could allow this curse to be placed upon her in her final hours. She still held onto her inner resolve, her inner strength, believing she would need all the energy she could muster to find her way along the blinding path to the true light shining down from the hands of her ancestors, a light she believed would lead her to their arms, to that safe harbor, God's kingdom. Mother had always called it a safe harbor with a sturdy lighthouse-her euphemism for the other side. Funny it should seem so obviously true now. She could smell the surf, and she smelled the chemistry that was home, the odors of her mother and the house she kept. Whatever form that kingdom took-lighthouse or home, shore or doorstep-she meant to be a part of it, and she meant to see her children there, to greet them on arrival when they would come. When all dreams would this way come, she thought.
Yet she still found strength to condemn the old man in the deepest recesses of her heart, to mark him for God's special attention in a future arena. She silently condemned his soul to the farthest rung of Hades.
He merely continued his hymn: “Looked over Jordan…” But something about his missing a beat here, a beat there, told her that the silence, the peace she had come to, had begun to disturb Isaiah Purdy to his core… “What did I see…”
She secretly, inwardly smiled. She felt that even in death she would win the final victory over Isaiah and Jimmy Purdy-the lice of Iowa. Purdy could no longer hurt her.
Take me any time, Lord, she thought, resolved to never speak another word or make another plea.
“ What? What'd you say?” asked Isaiah, trying to coax words from her now, agitated because Jimmy Lee wanted to hear her beg more.
“ Go ahead, curse me, woman.” Isaiah hoped to hear more tortured sounds from her as he worked to rig a booby trap for anyone else who might come snooping.
But Maureen would not give him the satisfaction. Silence is golden, she thought.
Jessica knew that DeCampe was likely to be killed quickly if the old man smelled a threat to his game. She would have to orchestrate the perfect raid, a commando-style hit on two locations: the house and the bam, if Maureen DeCampe had any hope whatsoever of living through this nightmare. Jessica and Richard had rushed back to the center of operations, and before she had even arrived, Jessica had assembled her entire team for debriefing and planning, using her cell phone. She had assembled as much firepower as they could muster for the raid.
A map of the two suspect locations, Brown's rental and Shaw's rental, were already on the wall when she stepped into the ops room. Everyone was front and center, and at the back of the room stood Santiva, carefully taking in every detail.
Jessica told them, “We need to move on the Shaw address and the Brown address. We'll need an aerial attack as well as a ground attack-aerial helicopters equipped with mega lights and infrared. Whatever else happens, I don't want this bastard slipping off into the night or getting into those woods and costing us days of manhunt. I want him locked down immediately. I've asked the military for support. They have infrared telephoto lenses that will tell us where the heat sources are, even through rooftops. We'll concentrate our ground attack where the choppers tell us to. We can't go in blind.”
“ He'll hear the choppers.”
“ We've contacted the factory beside the property to make enough noise to cover the choppers' approach. He won't be able to distinguish the sounds until late in our arrival. The factory is equipped with a sound system and a horrible old work whistle that will likely blow out our ears as well. They have an alarm system that we intend on using simultaneously as well.”
“ It's going to sound like an air raid over London in '44,” said Richard.
“ We've done a lot of old-fashioned homework already. One of the guards out at the plant has spoken to this man claiming to be Gideon Brown, and he characterized him a talkative but weird and antigovernment, the sort that might blow up a federal building. Maybe there's some truth in it, maybe not, but the man has I D'd Brown by the sketch artist's depiction we've been going by.”
Jessica then told the assembled force, “While we're awaiting the paperwork, I want two teams assembled, one at each location, ready and waiting to go in, and I want you all to pray we have the right location in one of these choices.”
“ We can't afford another Iowa,” muttered J. T.
“ Iowa lost us time, but it was a logical step, and the noose we're about to put out there makes good sense as well. We'll pair off and go at each location with SWAT team backup.”
One entire unit went for the Shaw residence, the other for the Brown rental. Nothing was spared. Both sites received equal attention. They needed results, and there was no room for error.
Jessica's instincts told her, however, that the Brown place would be where they would find Maureen DeCampe, or what was left of the poor woman. Their first stop was the chemical/paint factory, which, at a glance, must be breaking sixteen federal laws. Having no time for such concerns, they worked out a timing with the owners to blare their whistle and alarm at once. The shock of noise would at first alert Purdy aka Brown, but he would just as quickly determine the noise to be coming from the factory, and as such, he would likely ignore it. At precisely ten seconds after the factory alarm, the hovering helicopters were to move in with minimum running lights and noise, searching infrared cameras seeking body heat, at which point Jessica would be given a go.