True Evil

CHAPTER 53

Bill Fennell lived on the southwestern bank of the Ross Barnett Reservoir, fifty square miles of water that could kick up ocean-sized whitecaps in a storm like the one that was on its way. Despite their proximity to the Jackson Yacht Club, most houses here were older than the McMansions on the eastern shore. Bill had solved that problem by buying four contiguous lots just north of the yacht club, then tearing down the houses on them and building his vision of nouveau riche paradise.

Alex and Will were less than five minutes away from the result, roaring along Coachman's Road in the blue Nissan Titan Will had substituted for his Explorer, which was recovering from the explosion at the primate lab. Will's.357 magnum lay on the seat between them, and a 12-gauge shotgun was lying on the backseat. Alex's borrowed Sig was in the glove box, and she had a Smith amp; Wesson.38 strapped to her left ankle.

"You get any more text messages?" Will asked.

"No. I just hope they haven't left yet. They've got to come out this way, right?"

"Not necessarily. There's half a dozen ways out of that old neighborhood."

"Great."

The turbulent waters of the reservoir came into sight. Will turned south, heading along the spit of land that held the yacht club and the Fennell home. "How do you want to play it?" he asked.

"We're going to ask nicely for Ben," said Alex. "Then we're going to take him out of there. Bill should be arrested for murder before the day is out."

"Bill can be a cranky son of a bitch," Will said. "He almost went to jail for beating up a guy on the side of the road one time. Road rage."

"I didn't know that." Alex let her left hand fall on the magnum. "But I'd say we're prepared to deal with that." She pointed to a tall, wrought-iron gate fifty meters ahead. "Slow down."

Will pulled up to the gate and stopped.

"Chained shut," Alex said, pointing at a heavy padlock.

Will got out, climbed into the bed of his truck, opened the shining toolbox, and removed a long pair of bolt cutters. He cut the chain easily, then tossed the cutters into the truck bed and climbed back behind the wheel.

"You're handy to have around," said Alex.

Will looked hard into her eyes. "Before we go in, let me ask you one thing. What's the chance that we're walking into some kind of trap?"

She had tried not to focus on this possibility, but rather to prepare herself for whatever might happen. But now Will had given voice to her fear.

"That's why you're here," she said softly. "If I knew for sure it was just Bill, I wouldn't need anybody to help me deal with him."

Will sighed like an old man in need of a nap. "That's what I figured."

"I can go without you," Alex said, meaning it. "You can wait right here."

The detective cocked his head and looked over at her, his watery eyes like those of an old hound dog. "Honey, your daddy pulled me out of so many tight spots I couldn't begin to count 'em. I'm here now because he can't be. And I'm gonna do exactly what I know he'd do." Will put the truck into gear and rolled forward. "Let's go get that boy."

He drove through the gate and around the long, sweeping drive that led to the rear of the Fennell mansion, an oversize copy of a Louisiana plantation house, with tall, white columns and a wraparound porch. He stopped when they were still a hundred meters away and parked behind a thick stand of trees.

"This is far enough," he said.

As he switched off the engine, the rain that had been threatening for hours finally swept over the property like advancing waves of gray-clad soldiers. The first drops hit the truck like shots from a pellet gun, and then the aggregate blotted out the mansion. Through the gaps in the trees, Alex could just make out the leaden surface of the reservoir. She opened the glove box and took out the Sig-Sauer Will had given her two days ago, then got out and walked up to an oak tree. Will carried the shotgun loosely along his left leg, his pistol gripped in his right hand. When he drew up beside her, they turned together and surveyed the house and grounds while the rain soaked their clothes.

The mansion had been built facing the reservoir. Hundreds of trees and shrubs dotted the twelve-acre lot, with gardens and ponds placed throughout in the English style. The landscaping alone had cost more than the houses around it. To their left stood a tennis court, to their right an infinity pool with a serpentine slide for Ben.

In front of the house, Alex knew, a broad pier ran far out over the reservoir. A boathouse stood at the end of it, and it held twice the boat that Andrew Rusk owned. A Carrera bowrider, she remembered, with twin outboards that could push it to ninety knots, which was almost flying.

"Me and Jim did this many a time," Will said. "Thousands of times, I bet, if you count domestic calls."

Alex's abraded elbows stung as though the rain were acid. "That's Bill's Hummer," she said, pointing to a splash of yellow sticking out of the distant garage. "He's got a pair of them. H1s."

"I know," said Will. "I used to see them when he'd drop off Jamie to go fishing with Jim."

"I forgot you used to go with them sometimes."

Will nodded, then started marching across the open ground. "Jamie's a good boy. Never liked his daddy much, though. Loudmouthed prick, you ask me."

"You know what I think," said Alex, following closely.

As the house grew larger, a low growl crossed the space between them. It was Will's voice, she realized, speaking in an entirely different register.

"If Bill tries to stop us taking Jamie out of there," he said, "you go outside and wait for me."

"Uncle Will, you-"

"Hush, girl." The detective turned toward her as he walked, his eyes flat and hard. "None of that hostage-negotiator bullshit. You get out of there and let me do what needs to be done."

Alex had never heard Will speak this way. He was talking to her across a generation. But she understood. Will Kilmer had worked homicide for two decades, and he knew that a murder trial was a notoriously unreliable business, especially if the defendant could afford top criminal lawyers. But if Bill Fennell perished in the confusion of a domestic disturbance, there would be no custody battle over Jamie. It was an inhuman train of thought, she knew-or was it essentially human? Either way, Will had a point. All that mattered now was Jamie.

They moved like shadows through the rain. Will walked faster, breathing hard but showing no sign of slowing. When the house was twenty meters away, they halted behind some tall evergreen shrubs.

"Up the porch steps?" Alex asked.

Will shook his head. "Circle the house and try to get a look inside."

"Split up?"

"Normally, I'd say yes. Today? No. When we reach the right corner of the house, we'll climb onto the porch so we can see through the windows."

They moved out from behind the shrubs and started toward the right side of the house. Will pushed through the thick hedge below the porch, then climbed over the rail at the corner and waited for Alex. He moved with surprising grace, she noted, clambering over behind him.

Through the first window they saw only an empty room. They moved lightly along the wall to the next window. Again, she saw no people.

"Put your hands in the air," said a commanding voice from behind them. "I'm pointing a sawed-off twelve-gauge shotgun at your backs."

Utter blackness descended in Alex's soul.

"Keep facing the wall, but toss your weapons back over the rail. All of them."

"Where did he come from?" Will whispered from her left.

The hedge, she realized. He was waiting behind the hedge.

Will half-turned and in a tough voice said, "Listen to me, Bill Fennell. You're already in a bucketful of shit. You don't want to-"

"That's not Bill," Alex told him.

Will looked over his shoulder, then closed his eyes and shook his head.

Alex had to admire Dr. Tarver's strategy. He had sent the "message from Jamie," then waited behind the porch hedge to assess the response. Simple but brilliant, since it would have prevented him from being trapped in the house had an army of SWAT agents descended on it. But no such army was coming. The question was, why was Tarver here at all?

"Don't try to play hero, partner," said the doctor. "Chivalry is expensive, and you're past the age for it." Tarver took a step to his right. "I have a picture of you in my cell phone, Pop. You're sleeping soundly after a few beers."

Will muttered something unintelligible.

"And you, Agent Alex. You remember what it feels like to be hit with buckshot, don't you?"

The right side of her face tingled. She could feel Will tensing beside her, like a cat preparing to spring. She closed her eyes and tried to reach him by force of will. Don't try it…you can't beat a bullet, not even buckshot-

"Get those guns over the rail!" Tarver snapped again. "Now!"

"Where's Jamie?" Alex asked, tossing the Sig over her shoulder.

"You'll see."

Dear Lord, let him be alive…

"I love you, baby girl," said the faintest whisper beside her.

Baby girl? That was what Will had called his daughter, before she died in the-

In the same motion that Will tossed his shotgun over his shoulder, he whirled away from Alex with all the speed that a seventy-year-old man could muster. He fired his pistol as he spun, trying to disorient Tarver as much as possible while he bought Alex one chance. Her hand was almost to the.38 in her ankle holster when the artillery-like boom of the shotgun blotted out the reports of Will's pistol. The sound hurled her back to the Federal Reserve bank, when a desperate man had shattered her closest friend and half her face in a matter of seconds. When she came up with her.38, the smoking mouth of Dr. Tarver's shotgun was only two feet from her eyes.

"It would be a shame to ruin the other half," he said.

Moving only her eyes, Alex glanced down to her right.

Will lay on his stomach, a dark pool spreading beneath him. Several ragged exit wounds revealed splintered white bone from his scapula. One hole was almost directly over his spine.

"Aaahhhhh," Alex moaned, her eyes stinging. "You son of a bitch!"

"He chose his fate," Dr. Tarver said. "A brave man."

He died like my daddy did, said the voice of the little girl inside her.

"What?" asked Tarver, snatching the.38 from her hand.

Had she spoken aloud?

"Into the house," Tarver ordered. "Go."

Alex started to step over Will, but Tarver shook his head and pointed to the front of the house-the reservoir side. As she walked, she stared along the pier, wondering if the Carrera was in the boathouse. Bill often left the key out there. If she could get Jamie out of the house…then get him to the boathouse-

The front section of the wraparound porch was screened. She opened the door to the protected area, walked in, then stopped before the stained cypress door that led to the main house. What nightmare lay on the other side of it?

"Go in," Dr. Tarver said.

She turned the knob and pushed open the door.

Bill Fennell lay sprawled at the foot of the main staircase. His long legs were bent at odd angles, and his mouth appeared to be frozen open. As Alex swept her eyes across the room, frantically searching for Jamie, the shotgun barrel prodded her between the shoulder blades, driving her forward.

"Why did you kill him?"

"He's not dead," said Dr. Tarver. "I sedated him."

True or false? "Where's Jamie?"

Tarver pointed the shotgun across the room to a hall that led to the rear of the house. "That way."

A paralyzing numbness made itself known in her lower trunk. It was spreading upward fast. She looked back at the doctor. "Are you taking me to Jamie?"

A chiding smile in the gray beard. "You're not here for a reunion."

Her palms tingled.

"Open the laundry room."

She braced herself for unendurable horror, then opened the slatted door.

Jamie was perched atop the washing machine, staring down at two black coils on the floor. It took Alex a moment to absorb the reality. The snakes were thick and short, with big triangular heads and pointed snouts. Water moccasins-

"Aunt Alex!" Jamie cried, his eyes flashing. "You came!"

She forced herself to grin as though everything were fine now. "I sure did, buddy." She turned back to Dr. Tarver and hissed, "You sadist."

Tarver chuckled. "The boy's fine. See those cases?"

He'd gestured at two large waterproof cases on the safe side of the snakes. Pelicans, Alex thought. The kind of cases engineers used to haul expensive gear around the world. The larger case was bright yellow, the other white.

"I want you to carry them to the front of the house," Tarver said. "Move it."

"I'll be back, Jamie," she promised.

Jamie nodded with complete faith, but his eyes quickly returned to the snakes on the floor. The cases were almost too heavy for Alex to lift. As she backed out with them, she saw Dr. Tarver pick up a white croker sack with a drawstring and open it wide. Maybe he was going to bag the damned snakes for a while.

Realizing that Tarver had not followed her to the front room, she dropped the cases and rushed to Bill's gun cabinet. Behind those doors lay a wealth of firearms, but they were locked tight. She was trying to break them open when Tarver walked back into the room, dragging Jamie by one arm. Jamie screamed blue murder as he came, in the furious high-pitched voice of a ten-year-old boy. "My aunt Alex is going to blow your goddamn head off, you big ape!"

Tarver smacked the boy on the side of his head, dropping him to the floor. Jamie's screaming ceased.

Where's the shotgun? Alex wondered.

Tarver walked over to a bookshelf, reached up to a high one, and brought down an automatic pistol that Alex recognized as a Beretta from Bill's collection. Then he drew Alex's borrowed Sig-Sauer from the small of his back.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked. "Why didn't you just take off when you had the chance?"

Tarver gave her a tight smile. "I'm entering a new life today. Vanishing into another identity. And I would gladly have let you live to old age. But I'm afraid you have a clue to the road I'm taking to my new life. You may not know you have it, but you do. And if I let you live, you'll eventually remember."

With the most casual of motions, Dr. Tarver half turned and shot Bill Fennell in the head with Alex's Sig.

She jumped back in shock, but she had no time to worry about Bill. Jamie was stirring on the floor. If he raised his head, he would see his father's ruined face. She lunged across the space between them and covered Jamie with her body.

"Perfect," said Tarver. "How's this sound? You couldn't live another minute with the idea that your nephew was under the power of your brother-in-law. You came to rescue him. Fennell resisted, so you shot him. Sadly, the boy was killed in the crossfire. I think the Bureau will want the investigation closed as quickly as possible."

"Please," Alex said to the emotionless face. "Kill me, just let him live."

Tarver shook his head. "He can't survive to tell your friends at the Bureau that he had two strangers as overnight guests last night."

She blinked in bewilderment. "Two?"

"My brother Judah."

Alex pondered this. "Is that who's driving the truck? With the boat?"

Tarver smiled. "A little makeup can do wonders. Good-bye, Alexandra. You led a merry chase."

He switched the Beretta to his right hand, then stepped back, moving the gun left and right as though selecting a target appropriate to the intended fiction. An almost irresistible rush of instinct told Alex to lift Jamie as best she could and run. She knew she would accomplish nothing, but wasn't it better to die trying? The Beretta stabilized as Tarver settled on his final target. At least Jamie was unconscious for the end. Forcing her arms under him, she struggled to lift his sagging weight. No shot came. Why hasn't he fired? she wondered.

Dr. Tarver had cocked his head as though straining to hear something above the sound of the storm outside. Alex found herself listening, too, first in vain, but then…the relentless slapping of rotor blades separated from the rain, and she knew that John Kaiser's glorious Bell 430 was dropping down over the house like the Air Cav descending on a besieged hamlet in Vietnam.

"Your plan won't work now, Doctor," she said, summoning the calm equanimity of a hostage negotiator who has nothing personal at stake in a confrontation. "You'll never sell that story now, no matter what you do. Your being here screws it all up."

Tarver stepped forward and laid the pistol barrel against her forehead. Clearly, he was not convinced. If he shot her now, Alex realized, then somehow slipped away in the storm, his tale of domestic tragedy might still play at FBI headquarters. But time was his enemy, time and the men gathering outside.

The Beretta slammed into her face with blinding force. She collapsed onto Jamie. Pounding footsteps receded, then returned. Dr. Tarver jerked her to her feet. As her vision returned, she saw he was carrying a coil of rope and a roll of duct tape. His backpack lay at his feet.

"That's FBI SWAT out there," Alex said. "You don't have a prayer of getting away."

Tarver cut a length of rope, bound Jamie's legs together, then tied him to the heavy leg of the nearby sofa. "Tell me who's in charge."

"I'm the negotiator. You talk to me."

He hit her again, this time on the bridge of the nose. A river of blood gushed over her lips and chin. Coughing blood, she dug her cell phone from her pocket and handed it over. "Speed dial four. John Kaiser."

Dr. Tarver ripped off some duct tape and bound her wrists as though he did this every day. Then he put her phone in his pocket and pulled his own cell out of the other. He pressed one button and waited. Alex knelt and hugged Jamie as best she could. The slap of beating rotors had diminished, but she could still hear them from the rear of the house. Had Kaiser landed between the tennis courts and the infinity pool? She prayed that the SWAT agents were already dispersing across the grounds.

"Edward?" Tarver said into the phone. "How close are you?…Ten minutes or less. Stay at altitude until I give you the final position… Right."

Altitude? Alex thought. Does Tarver have an aircraft nearby?

Now the doctor took out Alex's cell phone, opened the clamshell, and pressed a button. "Is this Agent Kaiser?…Good. These are my demands. I want an FBI Suburban with its windows spray-painted black driven to the rear door of this house and left there. That's the side where your helicopter is. I want a Cessna Citation fully fueled and waiting at the Madison County Airport with one pilot and its engines running. An FBI pilot is acceptable. Don't attempt to block the driveway when we leave. Don't ask to exchange FBI agents for my hostages. The Suburban should be here in twenty minutes or less-Stop talking, Agent Kaiser, you have nothing to tell me… No, I'm not going to make any threats. Listen very closely, and you'll see why. When the back door opens, do not fire. The Fennell boy will be in front of me. Remember, twenty minutes for the Suburban."

Tarver hung up the phone and shoved it deep in his pocket. Then he picked up Bill Fennell's shotgun from behind the sofa and fired it into the floor.

Jamie cringed into Alex's chest when the weapon roared.

Tarver took hold of Bill's corpse by the ankles and dragged it toward the back of the house. Alex crawled to the sofa, shoved her bound hands under it, and lifted with all her strength. She heard the back door open, then a massive grunt, which told her that Tarver was trying to lift Bill Fennell's corpse, a nearly impossible feat with dead weight. "Yank the rope loose!" she told Jamie. "Hurry."

She heard another grunt, this one like the sound of a shot-putter making a heroic heave, and then the back door slammed. Jamie had almost gotten the rope loose from the sofa leg when Tarver marched back into the room. Alex shook her head, and Jamie lay back down.

"You see why I don't make threats?" Tarver said into her cell phone. "The boy's next, Kaiser. You have nineteen minutes."

Alex saw that he'd brought a bedsheet from the laundry room, one of Grace's five-hundred-thread-count Egyptians. Tarver shook it open, then took a pair of scissors from his back pocket and cut two holes like ghost's eyes near the center of the cream-colored sheet.

"What are you doing?" Jamie asked from the floor. "Making a Halloween costume?"

Tarver laughed. "That's right, boy. And it's going to scare the hell out of some people."

He bent and cut the rope that bound Jamie to the sofa leg, then cut a longer piece and tied Jamie to his own body by tying them both around their waists. He left less than three feet of slack between them.

"Please don't do this, Doctor," Alex begged. "Send Jamie outside. I'll go with you anywhere you want to go. I'll shield you all the way out."

She might as well have been talking to a statue.

"Put on my backpack," Tarver said to Alex, pointing at the blue Kelty on the floor.

"That's where the snakes are," Jamie said quietly.

"There's more than snakes in there," Tarver said, cutting the duct tape from Alex's wrists.

She hesitated, making sure the pack was fastened shut, then carefully shouldered it. The pack was heavy, but to her relief she felt no movement inside.

"Get ready to carry those cases," Tarver said, his eyes on the front door. "Both of them."

Alex suddenly realized that Tarver had made his demands only to put Kaiser and his men at the maximum tactical disadvantage. At this moment, they would be setting up interlocking fields of fire to cover the few feet of porch space between the back door and the spot where the FBI Suburban would pull up in fifteen minutes. They were rehearsing for a scene that would never be played. And they were doing it on the wrong side of the house.

Dr. Tarver picked up Jamie as easily as he would a sack of groceries, then pulled the king-size bedsheet over both of them. Alex could no longer tell where Dr. Tarver stopped and Jamie began.

"We're going to the boathouse," Tarver said in a slightly muffled voice. "Listen to me, Alex. If you drop those cases, I'll shoot him in the head. Tell her where the gun is, Jamie."

Alex saw a jerk under the sheet.

"Under my chin," answered the small voice.

"You walk ahead of us all the way. If you jump off the pier, I'll shoot him. I know there's damn little chance of you abandoning him, but people do crazy things under stress. Remember your gray-haired friend on the porch."

Alex would never forget him. She picked up the heavy cases.

As Dr. Tarver reached for the doorknob, Alex's cell phone rang beneath the sheet. She saw movement, then Tarver said, "I assume you're calling to tell me that everything I asked for is being done, so you don't need to talk. I'm watching the clock. Good-bye." He opened the door and gestured for Alex to exit first. "Straight to the boathouse. If you slow down, Jamie's gone."

Alex set off across the grass, marching into the teeth of the rain. She tried to make out SWAT agents among the shrubs and trees, but she saw none. She started to look back, but Dr. Tarver shouted, "Faster!"

She was almost jogging now. Kaiser had to be panicking; Eldon Tarver had turned the tactical situation inside out. Reinforcements could not have arrived yet, so Kaiser was limited to the agents he'd brought in the chopper. He'd probably posted one or two on this side of the house, no more. Right now, they would be describing the strange parade: a baggage-laden woman leading a ghost toward the lake.

She was on the pier now. The impact of her feet echoed up from the whitecaps beneath the wood, despite the hissing patter of the rain. Barring a mistake by a nervous sniper, they would all reach the boathouse alive. Dr. Tarver had already proved that he would kill without hesitation, and even if Kaiser believed one of his men had a decent shot, he wouldn't give the fire order. From his point of view, Dr. Tarver had nowhere to run. Fifty square miles of water might seem like a lot of running room to a man with a speedboat, but when you had a Bell 430 full of SWAT agents at your command, it was nothing.

"Move your ass!" Tarver shouted from behind her.

Alex heard her cell phone ringing faintly as she ran, but Dr. Tarver didn't answer. One of his earlier phrases replayed constantly in her mind: Stay at altitude until I give you the final position. Who could be coming to rescue Tarver by air? A foreign intelligence service? That would be an act of war.

"Open the door!" shouted Tarver.

She'd reached the boathouse. Alex pushed through the door into fetid darkness. The gleaming white Carrera had already been lowered into the water. It rolled on the waves that crashed under the mildewed walls.

"Load the cases into the stern!" shouted Tarver. "Go!"

Alex set down the larger Pelican and climbed carefully into the pitching speedboat. She stowed the white case back near the huge twin outboard motors.

"Now the other one!"

She climbed out and retrieved the yellow case. As she stowed it, she reflected on how well-planned this escape had been. They had ordered these watertight cases long ago, preparing for an eventuality just like this one. Even if the heavily laden Pelicans went into the water, they would float, and in yellow and white, they would be highly visible from the air.

"Move up into the bow," Dr. Tarver ordered, still under the sheet with Jamie.

Alex unslung the Kelty, then walked forward to the cushioned area where people usually sat to drink beer or sunbathe while others water-skied. A big hand shot out from beneath the sheet and jerked one of her wrists over the other.

"Hold them together!" Tarver shouted.

Two seconds later, he whipped a long strip of duct tape around her wrists. Once they were restrained, he used both hands and wrapped them so tightly that she feared they would go numb.

Her cell phone was ringing again.

This time Tarver answered. "Change of plan, Kaiser. I'm going for a cruise. If your chopper moves within three hundred meters of my boat, I'll kill the boy without hesitation."

Still under the bedsheet, Dr. Tarver got behind the wheel and cranked the Carrera's massive engines. The entire craft shook with their power. The bedsheet covered the throttle, and then the boat was moving forward, steadily gaining way as it moved out of the boathouse into the slashing rain.

The boat shuddered from the impact of waves against the bow, but as the engines gained power, the sharp craft began to leap from crest to crest. Alex tried to think clearly, but no hope came to her. Kaiser probably thought Tarver was making a fatal mistake. Alex knew better. There was a helicopter out here somewhere, waiting to swoop down and carry the doctor to freedom. She wanted to signal Kaiser-there had to be a sniper watching her through a scope-but Tarver was looking right past her through the eyeholes of his ghost costume.

As naturally as she could, she faced the windshield and hunched over as though shielding herself from the rain. She saw the Bell 430 rise above the Fennell house. It climbed and climbed, then banked and arrowed out over the lake, tracking them steadily from six hundred meters out.

When Dr. Tarver turned to look at the pursuing chopper, Alex pointed at him, then stabbed her hand skyward and twirled her finger in a wide arc to indicate the motion of a rotor. She prayed that a sniper was watching her through a scope, but even if one was, what were the chances that he'd read her signal correctly? He'd probably think she was asking for aerial rescue by the FBI chopper.

Dr. Tarver was bearing for a small island that lay a few hundred meters offshore. Only about forty meters long, it was heavily wooded. Alex remembered fishing from it once, with Jamie and her father. Could it conceal a helicopter?

Tarver gunned the throttles, and the boat began to spend more time in the air than on the water. When the little island was dead ahead, he swerved to starboard, circled to the far side, and pulled underneath some overhanging trees.

"Hit the deck!" he shouted, throwing off the bedsheet and pointing his pistol at Alex. "Do it!"

She did. Soon she heard the whup-whup-whup of the FBI helicopter over the Carrera's idling engines. Kaiser was moving closer. She knew he was torn between hanging back for safety's sake and fear that Dr. Tarver would execute his hostages while Kaiser stood helplessly by. The rotor noise increased. Alex couldn't make out anything through the limbs above her, but she knew Kaiser was easing still closer. Her cell phone began to ring.

"Stay down!" Tarver shouted.

Alex flattened herself between the boat seats. A moment later, two gunshots crashed against her ears. Terrified for Jamie, she looked up and saw Dr. Tarver fire a third shot into the choppy water beside the boat.

What the hell is he doing?

Dr. Tarver crouched and opened a long, narrow compartment in the deck of the boat. It had been put there to stow skis, but Tarver pulled a high-powered rifle out of it. From the ornate engraving on the stock, Alex recognized it as another weapon from her dead brother-in-law's collection.

What happened next occurred with the terrible inevitability of nightmares. The FBI chopper dropped into sight a hundred meters from the boat. Dr. Tarver smiled, then jumped up like a hunter coming out of a duck blind and fired five shots in quick succession.

Black smoke billowed from the Bell's turbines even before the final shot struck home. The ship began to yaw wildly in the air. Alex heard an explosion, and then the chopper began dropping toward the water. Its rotors were still spinning; the pilot was using their stored energy to try to reach the surface without shattering the spines of the agents seated behind him.

"It's too fast," Alex murmured, picturing Kaiser bracing himself in the doomed craft. "Oh, God-"

The chopper slammed nose-first into the whitecaps, sending a column of spray high into the air. Mercifully, there were no more explosions. Alex stood up to look for survivors in the water, but she was thrown to the deck when the Carrera sped from beneath the trees. Tarver had his cell phone in his hand, and he was yelling over the roar of the engines.

"There's an island just east of the rendezvous! It's small and oblong. There's a downed chopper on one side. I'll be on the other. Stay clear of that chopper!"

Tarver hugged the perimeter of the island, and soon they were idling in its lee. The island shielded them from the wind, but the rain still stung Alex's face as she searched the dark sky. Jamie crouched on the deck, holding his hands over his ears as though afraid that the madman he was tied to might start firing the rifle again. Alex hunted for something she could use to cut the rope that bound them together. Jamie was an excellent swimmer, and she wouldn't hesitate to throw him overboard if she could. But there was no blade in sight.

The whup-whup of rotors reached her again. She froze. Was this Tarver's accomplice? Or had Kaiser summoned aerial reinforcements? The Highway Patrol and the DEA almost certainly had helicopters based in Jackson, not to mention the sheriff's departments of the surrounding counties.

She could hear the chopper descending through the black sky, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't see it. The rotor noise grew to a roar, and then a group of lights flashed on fifty meters above the boat. No wonder she hadn't seen the damned thing! It was dark gray, almost indistinguishable from the sky. As she watched the chopper descend, hope died within her. Dr. Tarver was talking to the pilot on his cell phone, carefully guiding him in.

The rotor blast drove her to the deck, and static electricity crackled around the boat. As Dr. Tarver shouted above the thunder, she suddenly realized why he hadn't cut the rope binding him to Jamie. With the FBI so close, simply escaping was not enough. Tarver needed insurance to guarantee his survival.

Jamie was it.