True Evil

CHAPTER 52

The helicopter that touched down on the roof of the University Medical Center was a sleek, white Bell 430, capable of carrying eight passengers plus crew at 140 knots for nearly four hours. Alex had flown into many hostage situations, but rarely in a chopper as powerful as this. A 430 would deliver them to the Gulf of Mexico with time to spare. She bent almost double as she ran beneath the whirling rotors. The familiar whup-whup-whup set her heart racing. She leapt through the open door, took a quick look at the six black-clad SWAT agents behind Kaiser, then strapped herself in beside him.

"Ready?" Kaiser shouted.

She gave him a thumbs-up.

Kaiser smiled as the whine of the engine rose. "These things always remind me of Vietnam."

"Is that good or bad?"

"Good question." He squeezed her shoulder in reassurance. "The trick now is taking Tarver alive."

Alex nodded.

"That's where you come in. That's how I sold the director on you being here."

"So I'm a hostage negotiator again?"

"In a manner of speaking. You're going to negotiate, only there won't be any hostages. Or so we hope, anyway."

"Amen."

"I'm going up front for a second. I need to speak to the pilot before we lift off."

Kaiser went forward and leaned down beside the pilot's helmet. Alex looked out at the sky, gray overhead and piled with black clouds to the east. Feeling a vibration against her thigh, she took out her cell phone and looked at the LCD window. It read: 1 NEW MESSAGE. When she opened the phone, she saw that the message was from Jamie. Finally! She hit READ. The message read, Dad's packing our stuff! Says we're moving. 2DAY! Heard him talking 2 HER about Mexico. Can he take me 2 Mexico? He seems scared. I'm scared. Can u come get me? On computer. Dad wont let me call u.

Alex slammed the phone against her leg. Bill's timing was perfect, as usual. She wanted to tell Kaiser to order the chopper to the Ross Barnett Reservoir to pick up Jamie, but of course she couldn't. Andrew Rusk's written confession would soon nail Bill Fennell's hide to the wall, but right this minute, Bill had legal custody of the boy.

Alex had thought this chopper was taking her to the man who'd murdered Grace, but now she realized that Eldon Tarver hadn't really murdered her sister. He was just the weapon. Bill Fennell was the real killer. And now, like Tarver, Bill was planning to flee the country-with Jamie in tow. That left Alex no choice about what to do. But she couldn't tell Kaiser why she had to get out of the helicopter. She might just have to commit a felony herself in the next half hour-a kidnapping. And Kaiser couldn't be party to that.

She lifted the cell phone to her ear and began simulating a conversation with one of her mother's nurses. "What?" she yelled. "I can't hear you!"

Kaiser turned and watched her from the cockpit.

"When?" she shouted. "What does that mean?…Her kidneys? Now? Or the in the next couple of hours?…Jesus, all right. I'm on my way… Probably ten minutes."

Kaiser walked back and knelt beside her. "What is it?"

"My mother's crashing. All systems. She signed a DNR, so she's probably going to die in the next few minutes. Do you believe this shit?"

Kaiser looked at his watch, then the metal deck, then back up at Alex. "It's your call. We can't wait for you if you go back down. Is she conscious?"

"In and out. Mostly out. But still…it's my mother, you know?"

"I know." He looked at his watch again, silently calculating. "I wish you could be there. You know it's going to come down to a standoff, and you could be the one holding the bullhorn."

"Don't make it worse, okay?" She forced a smile. "I appreciate you getting me the chance. Just go. Nailing Tarver is the thing."

Alex unstrapped her harness and climbed back down to the roof. Kaiser knelt in the big sliding door, watching her with compassion. Under the roaring blades he shouted, "I'm sorry about your mom!"

Alex waved and sprinted toward the breezeway at the edge of the helipad.

The 430 lifted into the darkening sky before she reached the door, then swooped off in a wide arc to the south.

She took out her cell phone and dialed Will Kilmer.

The FBI helicopter was thirty miles south of Jackson when the doubt gnawing in Kaiser's gut became intolerable. He took out his cell phone, dialed directory assistance, and got the number for the University Medical Center. When UMC's switchboard operator came on the line, he identified himself as an FBI agent in an emergency and demanded to speak to the chief nurse on the Oncology floor. While he waited, one of the agents behind him moved forward and said, "What's going on, John? Something new?"

Kaiser shook his head. "I don't buy Morse's story about her mother."

"Why not?"

"No way would that girl miss a chance to take down the guy who killed her sister. I don't care if her mother is dying. Morse almost ruined her career over this, and there's no way she'd miss the final act."

"Hello?" said an irritated female voice. "Who is this?"

"Special Agent John Kaiser of the FBI. We have a life-or-death emergency in progress, and it involves the daughter of one of your patients, Margaret Morse. Her daughter is Special Agent Alex Morse."

"I…her."

"Could you speak up please? I'm in a helicopter."

"I know her!"

"I read you loud and clear now. Is she in the hospital now? Alex Morse, I mean."

"I haven't seen her since she ran out twenty minutes ago."

"I see. Can you tell me about her mother? Has her condition suddenly worsened?"

"I don't think it could get much worse."

"What I mean is, has she crashed? Have you called Agent Morse in the last few minutes and told her that her mother was dying?"

"Oh, I don't think so. Not that I'm aware of. Let me check."

Kaiser looked at his pilot, pointed at the airspeed indicator, and signaled that they should slow down. After nearly a minute, the nurse came back on the line.

"No, sir. No call like that went out from here. In fact, Mrs. Morse's kidneys seemed to be a little better this morning. Putting out more urine."

Kaiser hung up, leaned over the pilot's helmet, and spun his forefinger in a circle. "Turn around!"

As the 430 banked over I-55, Kaiser dialed the Jackson field office and demanded to speak to a technical specialist.

"Yes, sir?" said an even younger voice than he'd expected.

"I need GPS coordinates on a cell phone. As fast as you can get them. Call the cell company and tell them lives depend on it." Kaiser read off Alex's cell number, then said, "I think it's a Cingular phone. Call me back the instant you have the coordinates."

"Will do, sir."

As soon as he hung up, the pilot leaned over and said, "Where are we going?"

Where the hell was Alex going? Kaiser wondered. Did she not believe that the man towing Rusk's boat toward the Gulf Coast was Tarver? Could someone have called and told her that? He didn't think so. Chris Shepard certainly had no way of knowing that. Was Will Kilmer still working the case? Could the old ex-cop have discovered something at the last minute? Possibly. But then again, Alex's reason for bailing might be something completely unrelated to Tarver-something that overrode her concern for the murder case. What could possibly be that important?

"Hover!" he said to the pilot. "Keep us where we are!"

As the 430 slowed to a hover, Kaiser sensed that desperation was blocking efficient thought. He'd seen the phenomenon many times: people in emergencies couldn't make the simplest logical connections. No one was immune, not combat veterans, not astronauts, not-His phone was ringing.

"Hello? Hello!"

"I've got the coordinates, sir. That phone is at thirty-two degrees, twenty-five minutes and some-odd north; and ninety degrees, four minutes-"

"Just tell me where they are, son! Lay a map over those numbers!"

"We already did. It's Coachman's Road, near the Jackson Yacht Club. Right on the edge of the reservoir."

"The Ross Barnett Reservoir?"

"Yes, sir."

"Would Rose's Bluff Drive be near there?"

"Yes, sir. Right there. And whoever has that phone is even closer to there now."

"Damn it! That's her brother-in-law's house."

"Sir?"

The pilot looked over at Kaiser, his eyes questioning behind his faceplate.

Her nephew, Kaiser thought angrily. Is this some kind of custody crap? Jamie Fennell was the reason Alex had worked this case so hard and so recklessly. But…what if it was something else? What if the kid meant something to Tarver, too? Was that possible? Could Bill Fennell somehow be helping Tarver to escape? Not if the pathologist was driving down to the Gulf, he couldn't. But what if he wasn't? What if someone else was driving that truck?