Fatal Instinct

Twenty-Seven

Simon Archer had arrived in Quantico, Virginia, very early that morning.

Casadessus wouldn't leave Archer alone about Jessica Coran; he would not let Archer sleep. Days had gone by in which he had fought the influential force within him that kept saying over and over that he must have her, must see Jessica Coran's insides turned out, must feed on her. Casadessus' appetite for the more youthful and powerful was not surprising. Casadessus believed that by feeding on the physical energies of others, by feeding on organs such as the heart, that Archer simultaneously fed on the psychic energy of his victims, thereby making him stronger. Of all the hundreds involved on the case of the Claw only she had an inkling of what had actually occurred, and it stood to reason that only she, now with Emmons' body under her full control, might someday show others that she was right: that Simon Archer was the Claw.

He had carefully arranged to leave New York without anyone's knowing, booking his flight under the name of Ernest Casadessus, the name belonging to his grandfather, a man who took delight in beating, torturing and biting his own children, if his mother's rendition of her upbringing could be be-lieved.

His work in Quantico, Virginia, must be swift and sure, he knew, and he must be back in New York on Monday, at the office, as if nothing had happened. So far, he had had no trouble either at the airport or at Quantico, where he had successfully taken the tour of the grounds and had learned the whereabouts of Dr. Coran's office and labs. He followed this with phone calls asking about her whereabouts and how he could get in touch with her, careful never to leave a message, but always making it sound urgent.

He had learned that the Emmons autopsy by the FBI was going on tonight, but he had been stymied when he learned that Dr. Coran wasn't among the doctors doing the final autopsy. She could be the only one capable of interpreting errant fibers or other clues of minutia he may have inadvertently left on the body, so he resumed stalking the FBI woman.

Before the rather superficial tour of Quantico ended, he had located a safe place into which he stepped and disappeared. He had waited for hours, very patiently, for the right moment, when a security guard came toward the door where he stood on the opposite side, inside a stairwell.

He grabbed the man quickly and surely, driving the needle into the man's chest like a spoke in a hurricane. The man's body went instantly limp, his eyes alone moving, searching for some reasoning in Archer's eyes, but only Casadessus' bottomless eyes were looking back.

Casadessus wanted very much to take the man's eyes and feed on them, but Archer argued with him, saying that it would undermine the larger goal. He had such a finely tuned plan in mind for Coran that nothing, not even his own appetites, must get in the way. It would be exquisite, poetic even; even the poet, Leon/Ovid, would appreciate it when he read about it in the papers.

Archer quickly stripped the security guard and replaced his own clothes with those of the guard. He acquired the guard's gun, badge and identification. Carefully he scooped up his other clothes and placed everything, including the guard's brown-bag lunch, in a cloth handbag he had earlier folded and stuffed under his shirt. He dragged the dead man's naked carcass to the concrete cave just below the steps, dumped it there and strolled out of the stairwell.

He was careful to keep to this floor of the building, staring out a full-length window at the security vehicles below. He then took his time, learning as much as he could about the security in the building, the alarm systems and where the keys to the vehicles were kept. After he finished with Dr. Coran, he must get quickly to the airport.

And so he haunted the halls with great care and caution. At the central switchboard was another security man. For a moment they stared at one another, the black security guard asking him what section he was from.

“ Subbing, just temporary assignment,” he muttered as he lifted his bag in one hand, the needle in the other, and jabbed the guard with the paralyzing, killing snake serum. He quickly dragged the body through a stairwell door and deposited it in a utility closet. He returned to the panel and looked everywhere for a list of telephone numbers. Finally he found one with Jessica Coran's name on it.

He quickly dialed and it rang without answer until an answering machine beeped on and her recorded voice began giving him instructions. He didn't know what to do. If he left a message, they'd have his voiceprint; if he didn't leave a message, she might not come within his grasp, and time was of the essence..

He hung up, trying to think. Could she have already entered the building?

He dug through the signatures of people coming and going through this area, his eyes scanning for her name. There it was. While he was upstairs, she had entered the building. The time she signed in read 11:47 P.M. His heart raced. She was here, very close, within his grasp.

She must be in her lab, must be poring over the autopsy results on Emmons, must be digging for the single thread of evidence that would lead back to him. But it wasn't about to happen that way. Dr. Coran was in for a great shock.

Archer carried with him another hypodermic. Meant to incapacitate rather than kill, the drug would effectively paralyze her. She'd stiffen and her eyes would be frozen open long enough to watch him torture her body, to take what he wanted. But not here. It would be done far from here, and the trademark of the killer that now would be stalking D.C. would be very different from the Claw who terrorized New York. The weapon he'd devised was every bit as deadly as the claw, and of far more precision. It utilized a scalpel that fit over the hand, razor-sharp and deadly, but it would leave an entirely different marking than the claw's three-pronged ruptures.

The body would be discovered on the street, perhaps pinned to a chain-link fence just outside the darkened interior he had found earlier in the day. He had done it all this time without any help from the bungling Ovid. He didn't need Ovid. All he needed was Casadessus.

He went for the elevator, which opened on a number of tired faces, none of whom seemed to pay him any attention as they made for the register and signed out of the building. They were talking about finding a night spot for drinks, but one moaned he was far too tired after the grueling day they'd had. The others tried to get this one, called J.T., to join them, but he remained steadfast, saying, “Dr. Coran'11 be expecting me at the crack of dawn.”

“ You let her run your life, too?” asked another.

“ Hey, why not?” asked another.

“ Imagine her with that cane beating your-”

“ Knock it off!” shouted the one called J.T., who looked up at the guard who'd remained near the elevators, saying, “Where's Tuttle tonight?”

“ Wasn't feeling well,” said Archer flatly.

“ Hmmmmm. Well, g'night.”

Archer stood in the hallway on the floor where Dr. Coran's lab was located when he saw a door opening ahead of him. He dropped back into a parallel hallway. All around him were glass partitions through which he saw laboratories. Given the fact it was so late and that it was Labor Day weekend, the place was nearly deserted. Still, the lights over various lab tables confirmed that there were some people yet in the building.

But where was Jessica Coran?

Then he heard her, or rather he heard her cane as it tapped out a singular chorus to him. She was approaching from the door that'd burst open, sending him hiding. She was coming straight toward him: tap, tap, tap… coming for the elevators, no doubt. He readied his hypodermic and listened as she approached. Closer and closer, tap, tap, tap…

He was acutely aware that the hallway corridor formed a complete square at the center of which were elevators on both sides.

When she was within inches, he lurched from around the corner and stabbed her full in the chest with the hypodermic, but it wasn't her. It was an elderly man in a white lab coat who now stood clutching at his heart, certain he had been killed by a madman, going to his knees, his cane skittering away, clattering against the floor.

“ Damn, damn, damn,” Archer moaned where he stood over the fallen old man, whose eyes had rolled back in his head, the whites staring up at Archer without seeing him. But somewhere he felt eyes upon him and when he turned back, he saw her. Dr. Coran was several offices away from the incident in the hallway, but through the panes of glass through which she had watched, she saw a poorly disguised Dr. Simon Archer attack her serologist, Dr. Robertson. Her eyes told him that she knew that he had come for her.

For a moment they simply stared at one another, hunter and hunted. Then she revealed to him that she had a gun. Pointing it, aiming it at Archer and firing, she burst the three panes of glass between them, but Archer had disappeared. She could not tell if she had hit him or not, but drawing up her nerve, she rushed toward Steve Robertson's prone and still form. Archer had somehow escaped. She wheeled about with the gun extended, her white lab coat flapping about her legs, her cane tucked below her arm. She fought to keep balance, knowing her full weight on her ankles was not good, but she must be prepared to fire again if need be.

She saw that the elevator was taking someone down, possibly Simon Archer being true to form-a coward when faced with a victim who fought back. Every victim of the Claw before now had been defenseless and taken by surprise.

She knelt over Robertson, seeing blood on the floor beside him. She took his pulse and found it weak and erratic; searched frantically for a wound, fearing that flying glass had hit him. But there were no wounds. Robertson was unable to speak and quite possibly unable to hear. Paralyzed somehow by Archer, she knew that but for the grace of God it might well be her lying here paralyzed, in the complete and utter control of the Claw.

“ I hope you can hear me, Robertson… Robertson!” she called out to the injured man. “I'm calling 911. You're going to be all right. Just hang on!”

She realized now that the blood beside Robertson was Archer's blood, that she had wounded him. She saw a trail of it leading in the direction of the elevators. She now pushed upward against her cane to regain her feet, but the cane slipped from beneath her when it found blood. She lay on her back when she saw a shadow dart across the hall down from her, going toward her office and lab. She held firmly to the gun, and hearing something metallic skitter away from her, she found an odd glove with a scalpel firmly attached to it: Archer's new weapon of choice. She placed it safely away- evidence for later.

She wanted to hunt Archer down. Turn the tables on the sonofabitch, see him in the position of his victims, avenge Dr. Darius and all those other victims of the man's madness. One thing she did not want was to see this freak Archer incarcerated in Gabe Arnold's Philadelphia madhouse alongside Matisak. She wanted some modicum of justice this time around.

Regaining her feet, she saw that the elevator she had thought to be going down was coming up. Was he aboard it, or had he taken refuge in the labs, hiding in wait there? She could not be certain. She waited for the elevator to arrive and for the doors to open, her gun extended, at the ready.

The door opened on a stranger to her, his hands going up on seeing her gun pointed at his eyes. “Don't shoot,” he said.

“ Who the hell are you?”

“ Frakley, FBI, like you, Dr. Coran.” He flashed an ID and said, “I got a call from a Captain Alan Rychman, NYPD, about you. The captain was real worried, pressed us for a twenty-four-hour surveillance of your place.”

“ Why the hell wasn't I told?”

“ There's been no time. Something to do with your Claw case and that you might be a target for some guy named Archer you've been trying to nail. Rychman made it sound real urgent.”

“ Jesus, it takes Archer's coming to assassinate me for everyone to believe me. How long've you been watching me?”

“ Just since seven this evening.” Frakley saw Robertson beside her on the floor. He rushed to have a look. “I heard the shot, came straight up.”

“ Get to a phone, Frakley; get help.”

“ Where're you going?”

“ Back to my lab.”

“ But where's this guy Archer?”

“ I don't know, but he's wounded.”

“ I can't leave you like this.”

“ If Robertson doesn't get medical attention now, he'll die. You see to that and I'll secure the floor.”

Frakley reluctantly went in search of a telephone.

In the movies, Rychman would have come racing to her side, instead of sending a Frakley, she thought, moving cautiously through the glass maze of the laboratories here, in search of any sign of the madman. Archer had perhaps found the stairwell and was holed up there somewhere. She only thought that she had seen him duck in here. She relaxed a bit; the place was empty. She had to get the building sealed off, and where the hell was security? She went into her office and dialed. As she did so, she stared out at the lab table where J.T. had been studying a replica that had been made of the claw, something to be used, he said, as a teaching tool for next semester's newcomers. It was in the vise when she had gone out, but now it was gone.

Out of the shadows, as if materializing from air, the claw came crashing down at her, swiping out at her throat and latching onto the telephone receiver instead as she leapt away. Her gun flew off the desk where she had laid it down. The phone went through a glass partition, making enough noise to wake the dead, and certainly to cause Frakley to race in from wherever he was, she thought. But he did not come and she was knocked down and now, standing over her was the Claw, Archer's eyes like those of a raging, mad stallion as he raised the deadly instrument above his head and was about to strike.

“ God damn you, Archer, you've screwed up everything,” said Frakley as he entered, his weapon holstered.

Archer's voice had taken on the croaking sounds of a man in pain. “The bitch shot me. My blood is all over the place.”

“ We can't do her here.”

Archer moved closer to Frakley, the claw dangling at his side like that of a giant crab, his form hideous in the darkened room where the lamp had been overturned. Somewhere on the floor lay her gun. If she could only find it. Her mind raced to piece things together. Somehow Archer had found another weak, easily dominated dupe for him. Somehow the man had hypnotic power over others of a certain personality type.

“ After all, Frakley, you killed her here, not me. I tried to stop you and was wounded in the ensuing struggle,” Archer was saying as he turned Frakley's gun on him and twisted and fired. Frakley fell in a heap on the floor, dead.

Jessica took the opportunity to grab up her cane and she brought it around just at the precise moment that Archer's jaw turned into it, knocking him, claw and all, across her desk, sending what remained there onto the floor with his weight. She scrambled about for a few moments for the gun she had lost. On hand and knee, she wildly pursued the missing gun but could not find it before Archer began clawing his way back up, holding onto the desk, stunned but far from incapacitated.

Jessica tore from the office through a door that led deeper into the labyrinth of the labs. She made her way to another door that opened onto an autopsy room, where she left a spinning stainless-steel table in her wake. She went from room B to C and to D before she remembered the service elevator on the other side of the hall. She struggled on without using her cane, acutely aware that Archer and his deadly claw were right behind her.

When she stepped into the hallway, she saw him at the other end, his dark form like an alien from another planet, the deadly claw clacking as if in anticipation of her blood. He'd kill her and set up the bodies, hers and Frakley's, to make it look as if they'd killed one another, to both prove her right about the dual nature of the Claw and to end any further speculation about him.

There was little telling what the maniac had in mind other than her death. After she was splayed open like a tarpon, he'd feed on her, stuff portions of her into Frakley's mouth for good measure.

She streaked for the service elevator, praying the car was on this floor. It was used for bringing bodies to and from the morgue in the basement. She had a fifty-fifty chance that it would be there. She fairly fell against the big red button that opened the sluggish doors, and the moment they opened, she hurled herself against the far wall. Turning, she saw that Archer was racing at top speed toward her, the claw extended at eye level, and as he came crashing into the closing doors, the claw dove through, as if it had a life of its own, snatching at her.

She was too afraid to scream and instead seized the moment to tear out at the coverlet about the claw, trying desperately to rip it from his hand. He fought back, jabbing her, causing a bloody tear in her cheek, another to her forehead. Her hands were bloodied, but she continued to fight for control of the weapon when he finally snatched it back, allowing the elevator doors to close. She jammed at the controls to take it down as quickly as possible, but there was no hurrying the machinery.

She tried desperately to catch her breath. She had to get to a phone. There was one in the morgue. But he knew she'd be there, and he'd be taking the stairs two and three at a time; he'd be there waiting for her when the doors opened.

She jammed the emergency stop button and found herself between two floors. From the floor level below, the awful claw was scratching to get at her, tearing at her ankles, causing her to feel weak and terrified with the memory of how Matisak had immobilized her by cutting both her Achilles tendons. She jumped for the upper floor, pulling herself up. Archer climbed halfway into the cab after her. She quickly pulled herself to the floor above, reached up and slammed home the control button, sending the car down, but the mechanism was too slow for any chance of cutting Archer in two. However, the action did send him to the floor below.

She raced for the stairwell but she heard him coming toward her. Glancing around, she saw a storage closet, and praying it was not locked, raced for this hiding place. She pulled the door wide and gasped at what it revealed. There in the dark, amid the clutter of broken glass from a smashed light, mops, brooms and fallen debris, lay the body of a security guard, a large black man she knew as Amos Croombs. The dead man's uniform matched the one Archer was wearing. Behind her she heard Archer's approach. She hadn't any choice. She pulled the door closed behind her and sought refuge here with the dead man.

She could hear Archer nearing; she could feel him on the other side of the door. She'd been a fool to come into this dead end, she now told herself. He'd whip the door open any moment and kill her here. She didn't stand a chance.

If she could see, she might arm herself with something, a bottle of bleach to throw into his eyes-anything-the moment he opened the door.

But it was too late to dare make a sound. He was turning the doorknob.

When Archer looked into the dark interior of the closet where he had dragged Croombs' body, he saw only what he had left there before, the dead security guard. He scanned the deep shadows for any sign of Jessica Coran, but found none. In a moment, he quietly closed the door and moved on in pursuit of his prey.

Below the deadweight of the security guard, Jessica could hardly breathe and she felt the steady drip of blood as it oozed from the corpse's mouth, soiling her. She must wait patiently until Archer was out of earshot before she dared free herself of the position she was in. Once she was sure, she toppled the body, making more noise than she had wished to, and in the bargain feeling something heavy and metallic, like a hefty tool, cold and icy against her thigh. She reached down and found Amos Croombs' firearm. It was like a godsend. Archer had no doubt killed both security men on duty, but he'd foolishly left Croombs'. 38 behind.

She checked the cylinder and learned by touch that every chamber had a round. She now held the weapon to her breast, hoping Archer had heard the noise she'd made, hoping he would return, throw open the door again. She'd blow his brains out.

She waited, kicked out at some metal shelving to make more noise, and shouted for him by name, but he didn't return. He was on another floor, gone in search of her, hunting her as if she were an animal. But now it was time for her to hunt, to make him sweat.

Cautiously she made her way from the closet. She knew she was close to the lobby, that it was just down the corridor. Was he lying in wait for her there? Expecting her to try to escape the building through the obvious route? She rounded a corner and saw the big glass doors and the darkness beyond. Was he outside, waiting for her? She had her chance now at escape, but should she take it?

Where was the bastard? She didn't want to escape him now. Now she wanted to hunt him down and place a bullet in his brain.

She surmised that he had done one of two things. He had panicked and run with the claw in hand, or he had remained calm and had returned to Frakley's body to plant the claw on him. It would still be his word against hers in a court of law, no matter what. There were no witnesses to his attack and he had Frakley to explain away everything. The bastard was shrewd, and even if his plan had gone awry, he would remain calm. She knew where he could be found, if she moved quickly. She rushed to the elevators, seeing that another car had come to a standstill on the floor where Frakley's body lay dead in her office.

She got into the other car and went hunting. If she killed him, there would be justice. She could prove forensically that he had attacked both Frakley and her, that he had been shot by her when he attacked Dr. Robertson with the hypodermic needle; that he had killed the security guards. She had proven the guilt of Matthew Matisak ten times over, but what justice had come of it? She wanted to blow this bastard away as she had so often dreamed of blowing Matisak away.

This was her chance.

He would see now how it felt to be hunted.

How it felt to be helpless.

To plead for life, to beg, to know you're going to die.

To be like his many victims in their last moments on earth.

She stopped at the floor below and located an office, into which she stepped and turned on the building intercom. She said carefully into the mic, “Archer… Dr. Simon Archer, now I'm coming for you; I intend to kill you for all that you've done. I'm coming for you, Doctor… coming…”

Archer got the message loud and clear where he stood over Frakley's body, securing the claw to the dead man's hand. He looked up and around, fearful that she was watching him this moment. She had somehow armed herself, or otherwise she would have fled into the night. Her voice sounded full of venom and fury.

Knowing the danger to himself now, he made his way back toward the service elevator she had introduced him to. He rushed past some of the same objects he'd seen the first time around, coming to a standstill suddenly in a refrigeration room, where one of the vaults was standing open. Sitting up, its eyeless face staring back at him, was the Emmons cadaver. The ghoulish sight did not frighten him. It was the idea that Coran was watching him so closely. He dove for the floor at the instant a shot rang out, a shot that would have taken off his head.

He crawled along the floor on his belly, making his way toward the service elevator. Where was she? How could he get free? Questions came in a tumult as he crawled animallike to get away. At the elevator a bullet ripped past his ear and into the metal door. He was still bleeding from his earlier shoulder wound.

He ran for the stairwell and disappeared ahead of the gunwoman, who seemed to be toying with him. In the stairwell he hesitated a moment, unsure which way he should run, up or down. He felt like a rat in a maze, and she was making him run in the direction she wanted. She'd like to get him on the roof, force him over the side, watch him catapult to the concrete below. By the same token, she could be waiting for him if he rushed to the bottom. Which way? he asked himself. Then he heard her coming. Heard her cane going tap, tap, tap behind him.?