Perfect Killer

by Lewis Perdue

  "So… I guess this is the ultimate good-news, bad-news thing," Rex said. "The good news is we have a helicopter; the bad news is we have a helicopter."

  Laughter cut through some of the tension.

  "This one's okay?" I asked Jasmine.

  "Well, it just has to be, doesn't it?"

  "Enough gas?"

  She nodded.

  "How about the stuttering from the engine?"

  "Sounded like a fouled plug," Jasmine said. "I'll check once we excavate Rex's tools."

  The moon had started to dip below the trees as we piled out of the Suburban, pulled on dark coveralls and boots.

  "One more thing," Jasmine said. "The 47 is a lot slower than the Jet Ranger. We can cruise around seventy-five knots… eighty-two or eighty-three miles per hour. It'll add another ten or fifteen minutes to the flight time."

  Time had become our enemy and this latest news urged us on faster. We used the bolt cutters to get rid of all the chains and padlocks, then rolled the light helicopter off the trailer with surprisingly little effort.

  Rex and I unloaded the Suburban and tried to figure out what we could strap to the skids, under the fuselage, and to the forward portion of the tail frame. We soon realized we'd need to leave a lot of the gear behind.

  While Rex and I struggled to sort out the gear, Tyrone and Jasmine unbolted the pesticide hoppers and removed the spray boom. With help from Anita, they hot-wired the simple ignition circuit, then patched the SuperNova spotlights' coiled power wires directly into the helicopter's twelve-volt electrical system.

  Rex and I rigged a makeshift net from half-inch climbing rope and strung it from the front to the rear of the skids on both sides in roughly the same places the old M*A*S*H choppers carried the wounded.

  The makeshift net also offered Rex and me a safer platform from which to ride the skids, necessary because the cockpit held only two people.

  "Careful of the right side where the rear skid frame meets the tail," Jasmine warned us. "The exhaust pipes get really, really hot."

  The moon sank from sight as our watches raced toward 4:00 a.m. Dawn would follow soon. We'd be toast if we hadn't finished before it was light. Then, shortly before 4:15 a.m., we rolled out the floppy strip of metal-grid reinforcing wire used for light-duty concrete pavement like sidewalks and driveways. It was a good twenty feet long and eight feet wide. We stiffened it lengthwise with three lengths of half-inch steel rebar cable tied to the grid. Then we connected two "vees" of rope to each side of the metal grid and a single piece of rope from the apex of the vees.

  Rex and I climbed into our safety harnesses, checked our packs, and put them on. We put on our red helmets, as did Tyrone, who was our loadmaster and might have to climb out on the skids to hand us equipment depending on what transpired. He had put on his safety harness and helmet earlier.

  I had the dead blond woman's H&K automatic in a thigh holster and spare magazines in the cargo pockets of my coveralls. Rex had a worn, nickel-plated .380 Colt automatic pistol with white grips my mother had left him in her will. Jasmine and Tyrone had the matching .357 Ruger revolvers. They also had the M21 between them, but I doubted it would come in handy. If we got into a firefight, we were doomed.

  As Jasmine fired up the helicopter's engine, Anita gave Rex a kiss and a hug, then drove away.

  Rex and I slipped on our goggles and stood next to the metal grid as Jasmine lifted the helicopter about five feet off the ground. Her hover was unsteady at first, then grew more and more solid.

  Using the walkie-talkies, Rex and I had her hover over the wire grid as we attached the ropes to the skids of the chopper. Then Rex made his way over to the left side of the craft. I climbed aboard my side and snapped my safety harnesses to the tail frame and radioed for Jasmine to lift off. I held on tight as she lifted slowly up into the dark sky.

  "Hold a minute," Rex's voice played in my radio earpiece. An instant later, brilliant light shot from his side. The SuperNova light on my side was snapped to one of the grid ropes with a carabiner. In the illumination of Rex's light, I spotted the metal grid spinning about, trying to keep time with the rotor downwash.

  We landed for an instant to fix stabilizing lines from two of the metal grid's corners.

  It was 4:30 A.M. when we took off again. I lay almost prone on top of the gear, head forward, legs splayed for bracing.

  I pulled the night-vision spotting scope from my overalls and trained it ahead to keep an eye out for power lines. It made me wonder what other unseen terrors waited in the dark.

  CHAPTER 80

  David Brown leaned against the windowsill of the commandeered office on the fifth floor of the federal office building in Jackson, Mississippi, and looked down at the nearly deserted stretch of Capitol Street. A newly lit Marlboro hung from the corner of his mouth.

  "Where the hell are you, you thieving pig-frigger?" Brown drew on the Marlboro and let the smoke drift out his nostrils. A knock sounded on the door behind him, then he heard it open.

  "What now?" Brown mumbled without turning. In the window's reflection, he saw his assistant's silhouette outlined by the light spilling in through the open door.

  "I may have something"

  Brown turned around. "What kind of something?" He took the cigarette out of his mouth and looked at his watch. It was 4:32 A.M. The sky would be brightening soon with the predawn glow.

  "Call records from Stone's phone Verizon wouldn't release them without a subpoena."

  "Worthless bastards." Brown sucked the Marlboro down to his nicotine-yellowed fingers. "We've got to be able to get what we need without having to get some bleedingheart judge involved."

  "Yes, sir, well… We found calls to someone here in Jackson, a man named Rex, last name undetermined."

  "Come on! How can someone have Undetermined as a last name?"

  Brown's assistant shrugged. "He's a cipher. He's a contractor and took care of the maintenance on the apartment building where Stone's mother last lived."

  Brown scowled as he dropped the Marlboro on the polished linoleum floor and crushed it out with his shoe. "Tell me something useful for a fucking change."

  "This Rex character is married to a doctor who works at the VA where Talmadge is being held. The MPs on Talmadge's floor spotted her this morning."

  Brown smiled broadly. "We've got that cocksucker now! Let's make that bastard pay for all the trouble he's caused, him and that nigger bitch."

  The assistant turned his face away from the slur.

  "Get moving!" Brown barked. "Tell the VA to double the guard. Move Talmadge to another room; get the Jackson cops out there. Warm up our troops and let's make sure these slimefucks have a properly warm reception."

  CHAPTER 81

  With Tyrone navigating by her side, Jasmine homed in on the Garmin GPS waypoints set the previous afternoon. I clung desperately to the makeshift rope netting with one hand and with the other kept the night-vision monocular trained ahead to keep us from snagging anything but air. Down on the right, the brightly lit parking lot of the Mississippi Highway Patrol headquarters sailed past. The VA loomed larger, dead ahead.

  I pressed the transmit switch on my radio.

  "Showtime," I said. "Rex, you ready with your lines?"

  "Ready," he said.

  "Tyrone?"

  "Here."

  "You might want to turn on the M21's scope and use it to scan the shadows." "It's all shadows, man," Tyrone replied.

  "You got that right," I said.

  I tucked the night-vision monocular in the calf-height cargo pocket of the coveralls

  and got ready with my side of the rope that suspended the metal grid beneath us. The VA hospital sat on the left now, and a row of high-voltage electrical pylons on the right. The University Medical Center dominated the view straight ahead.

  The earth eased up toward us and passed underneath at a slower and slower pace until we had reached the electrical substation supplying the VA hospital. I whipped out the night-vision monocul
ar, passed my hand through the carry loop, then trained it below on the thick wires slouching off toward the VA.

  I keyed my radio. "Jasmine?"

  "Here."

  "Rotate to the left about one hundred and fifty degrees and hold your position." In moments, we were positioned directly above the wires. "Okay, down maybe

  twenty feet. Rex, you ready?"

  "As ever."

  "Okay, Rex, slip the knots and hold on."

  I let the night-vision monocular swing from its carry loop as I leaned down and

  slipped the two knots holding the wire grid on my side. From the peripheral horizon of my focused attention, I registered a siren and the flash of emergency lights. I grabbed both ropes in one hand and took a final look below through the night-vision scope. I let the scope drop and used that hand to key my radio.

  "Down a bit more," I said.

  Suddenly the darkness split apart with thunder that rocked my chest like a howitzer; that same instant, night became day as an electrical sunrise chased the darkness

  with an arcing blast of blue-white lightning. Rex and I let go the ropes as Jasmine gunned the Bell 47's engine, accelerating us away from the substation, back the way we had come. There now were few lights in the hospital and none in the parking lot. Jasmine kept us low for the moment. As we passed east of the loading dock, I heard the emergency generator roar to life.

  An instant later, sparks streamed downward off a piece of lit primer cord, then a second, a third, and three more afterward. Three almost evenly spaced blasts followed almost immediately. The final three had much longer fuses. Rex had suggested the halfsticks of dynamite as a diversion. As I looked back, flames leapt from a full garbage Dumpster.

  Then Jasmine took us out over Woodrow Wilson Avenue, where we quickly spotted Darryl Talmadge's room. As Jasmine moved us in toward the roof, I unhooked my harness from the safety line securing me to the helicopter's tail, then snapped the carabiner to a bowline knot tied in the end of a piece of the half-inch climbing rope. Another bowline was tied about five feet higher than this and had a sling and a sack of gear carabinered there.

  As Jasmine brought us in to the VA's roof, a blast rocked the far corner of the hospital, sending a small ball of fire rolling up maybe fifty feet. Then came the final two blasts. Those had been the long fuses.

  As Jasmine moved us gently into position, something that looked like a flashlight flickered in the room next to Talmadge's.

  "Light next door!" I said into my radio.

  "Clocks ticking," Rex said.

  Jasmine brought the helicopter down softly, keeping enough rotor lift to avoid crushing the roof. From a duffel roped to the skids, I grabbed the hand sledge cable-tied to a hank rope, then swung it through Darryl Talmadge's window. Rex and I rappelled down and entered after kicking away the remaining shards of glass.

  Things were all wrong.

  Talmadge was not in his bed.

  Then, the door burst open.

  CHAPTER 82

  "Get the fuck out of my way, you two-bit rent-a-cop, or I will fucking blow your tiny nuts off!"

  David Brown, in full SWAT gear, and followed by his assistant and two other Customs officers, brandished his H&K submachine gun at the VA's lone security guard at the main entrance at ground level.

  Before the guard could respond, a brilliant flash and bang rumbled from outside, then the lights went out.

  "That just fucking ices the damn cake," Brown said. "And where the hell's our backup?"

  "Still waiting for authorization!" Brown's assistant tried to explain that media coverage, the previous day's lawsuits, and the deluge of law enforcement complaints to the state's senators and congressional delegation had chilled the cooperation Brown had demanded. The Army was double-covering its ass, the FBI was rethinking its earlier, reluctant cooperation, and the Jackson Police Department was outright hostile to them.

  "Well, you better fucking get your sorry act together or I'll shred your worthless ass when this is all over!"

  Three more blasts rattled the windows around the security screening area in the VA's main entryway.

  "Listen," Brown said as the explosions echoed away. "It's a fucking chopper. Those idiots are trying to break Talmadge out!" He turned and pointed the MPS at the security guard. "Take us up there."

  The guard hesitated until Brown thumbed off the safety.

  * * * * * The first MP burst into Talmadge's room before Rex or I got our balance. The MP aimed his sidearm at us as a second MP lunged in. Suddenly, from the shadows behind the door the aluminum tubing of a crutch bottom arced out of the darkness and caught the first MP squarely on his nose, snapping his head back beneath a geyser of blood, showering dark and black in the dim light.

  "Yeeeeeeeeeehah!" A rebel yell followed the blow, and I knew Talmadge had to be somewhere behind it.

  The MP's finger closed on the trigger as he staggered back into his partner. The slug plowed into the apparatus behind the bed.

  "Get back!" Rex yelled behind me as he rushed forward and loosed a long blast from the big bear spray container. The potent chemicals guaranteed to stop a bear in its tracks wrenched out two sustained screams from both men as they staggered back into the hallway. Talmadge propped himself on one crutch as he leaned against the door. Rex helped him shove the door shut, then jammed the wood-splitting wedge under it. I rushed him the hand sledge.

  "By damn that Shanker boy is all right!" Talmadge yelled. "Sum'bitch promised he'd get me outta here!"

  Rex hammered the wedge tight beneath the door before the men outside threw their weight against it. Outside, new voices joined the urgent babble, one of which made me think of the old gin in Itta Bena.

  "Okay, let's rock," I told Talmadge. I leaned over and picked up his bony, huskthin frame and carried him over to the window.

  "Can you stand?" I asked.

  "Course I can. I can walk some too."

  "Cool."

  The old man was surprisingly capable, probably from mainlining adrenaline. I harnessed him in.

  Across the room, Rex bent over the paint-thinner can and sloshed the contents under the door. The sharp solvent smell pricked at my nose as I held out a makeshift nylon web sling to Talmadge. "Step into this."

  Rex hurried over to us, pulled a road flare from a cargo pocket, ignited it, and tossed it by the door.

  A loud whoomp! filled the room with brilliant yellow light.

  "That should make them back off," Rex said as he helped me secure Talmadge. Moments later, the room's sprinklers started.

  "Jasmine," I called into the radio. "Start your ascent."

  "Roger."

  Outside, the helicopter's engine revved. From beyond the room door came the whoosh of fire extinguishers, then the nasty, sharp, splintering blows of a fire ax. They'd be inside soon.

  Finally, we attached bright yellow, shock-absorbing lanyards between our safety harnesses and the helicopter. The rope slack disappeared as the door buckled. Outside, the helicopter moved until our ropes led out at roughly forty-five degrees.

  I stepped behind Talmadge and gave him a bear hug as the room door imploded. "Get us out!" Rex screamed into his radio. The helicopter's engine screamed; the rope snapped taut, the shock-absorbing lanyards stretched almost lazily, lifting us gently off our feet. Rex and I fended our way over the windowsill. Suddenly, the lanyards' elastic slack bottomed out and we slingshot into the gathering dawn with gunshots sounded from behind.

  "Clear," I radioed.

  Rex, Talmadge, and I bobbed like yo-yos at the end of our lines, awful for equilibrium but great for making us tough targets. The unmistakable report of an H&K MP5A at full automatic sounded from the roof as Jasmine dipped the nose of the helicopter to gather speed, jinked, then labored upward. Another volley burst from the H&K hit the fuel tank and spawned a mist of aviation gasoline. Then the M21 cracked loud and sharp. I prayed Tyrone's shots wouldn't ignite the high-octane fuel. Passing out of this world as a tiki-torch bungee boy had never ranke
d high in my pantheon of ways to die.

  CHAPTER 83

  David Brown burst through the hospital's roof access door in time to see the old helicopter rise gently into the approaching dawn. His heart hammered and the tobacco rawness burned at his throat as he hustled across the roof.

  The helicopter dipped suddenly out of sight beneath his first volley. Brown ignored the Marlboro complaints in his chest as he sprinted for a better shot. Then the old chopper labored into his sights again. As the Heckler and Koch came alive in his hands, Brown saw a muzzle flash from the helicopter's passenger seat. In the next eternally long split instant, Brown felt a crushing impact squeezing his chest. The last thing he remembered was falling into the darkness beneath the roof.

  CHAPTER 84

  Jasmine jinked the wounded old chopper up, down, and sideways to throw off the shooters. The erratic movement bungeed us like a paddleball. Rex, Talmadge, and I clung together to dampen the wild gyrations.

  Looking back, I caught a split glimpse of the shooter with the submachine gun falling off the roof. The shooting stopped then, but the spray of aviation gasoline grew worse. The droplets of high-octane gasoline sprayed from the right fuel tank, immediately above the dangerously hot exhaust.

  Our wild oscillations evened out as we made our way across I-55 and over the Pearl River forest and flood plain.

  Jasmine steered us east toward a waypoint Rex and Tyrone had set the previous afternoon. In my night-vision scope, the tops of the tallest trees passed not more than fifty feet below. I scanned the area ahead and caught sight of a set of towering high-voltage pylons. I keyed my radio.

  "Do you see the high-voltage lines ahead?"

  Tyrone answered, "I've got them in the sniper's scope. Our van's just beyond."

  "The wires might be a moot question," Jasmine said.

  Before I could ask her what she meant, the spray of aviation gasoline stopped and the engine stuttered.