by BJ Bourg
It took over an hour for us to reach the banks of Devil’s Lake, and another twenty minutes to remove the sniper rifles from our drag bags and set them up. A slow check of our surroundings indicated we were east of Wellman’s camp and we had a good view of that side of his property. I scanned the western bank of the lake where I knew Dean and Ray were set up, but I couldn’t make out anything. I smiled my approval.
I pressed the radio button on my thumb and spoke into my throat mic. “Sierra One to Sierra Two, are y’all in position?”
“Ten-four,” Ray called. “Been here all night. Everything’s quiet.”
I gave them my position and checked on Jerry.
“Quiet here,” he called softly, “but around midnight a boat came into the garage. I’m pretty sure it was water patrol.”
I scowled. Who in the hell could that be, and why were they here?
“Anyone have contact with dispatch?” I asked. We were on our sniper channel and no one else had access to it, so water patrol would not have been able to contact us.
“Negative,” Jerry said. “It’s too dangerous to switch channels.”
He was right. The sun was hovering above the treetops to the east—left of my position—and we weren’t about to risk detection by moving to change the radio channel. We’d find out soon enough who was here and why they’d come. I had a sneaking suspicion Dawn had forced someone to bring her out here. If so…good for her. I liked that she cared enough about her cases that she wanted to be involved and—
“Good God,” Patrick said from beside me. “Would you look at that?”
As soon as he spoke, a sudden motion from the corner of Wellman’s camp caught my eye. The movement was at the outer edge of my field of vision, so I eased my rifle over a bit until the source came into full view. My heart nearly leapt into my throat when I saw Septime’s young boy, Leroy, sneaking around the northeastern corner of the camp. He was crouched low and heading toward the front of the building carrying a loaf of bread in his hands. I glanced toward the front of the building and grunted when I saw the large cage. There was a baby raccoon inside.
“Sierra Two, are you seeing this?” I whispered.
“Ten-four,” Ray called. “Someone needs to get him the hell out of there.”
I turned my attention to the western banks of Devil’s Lake, studying every shadow and crack in the foliage, searching for anything that was out of place. “Sierra Two, do you see anything on my side of the lake?” I asked.
“Negative,” Ray said. “I don’t even see your position.”
“We’ve got to get that kid out of there,” I said to Patrick. “If the Trinity Sniper’s out here—”
“Just stay put,” Patrick hissed, “and keep your eye on the bank. He’s out there somewhere and we need to be ready if he shoots.”
Leroy had made it to the raccoon cage and he was reaching for the locking mechanism.
“Anything?” I asked over the radio. When no one answered, I made up my mind. “Cover me, Patrick. I’m going after—”
“Stand-by,” Ray called. “Dean’s spotted something.”
I hesitated, one hand on the ground, ready to push off and go after the kid.
“Sierra One, are you set up in a patch of palmetto bushes eighty yards east of Boudreaux’s camp?” Ray’s voice was laced with excitement.
“Negative,” I said. “We’re about forty yards away.” My eyes were suddenly drawn to movement along the western bank. When I focused on the source of the movement, I scowled. Dean’s hooded head was extending up over his scope, as though he were looking at something. “What the hell are you doing, Dean? Get your ass—”
CHAPTER 39
A gunshot suddenly exploded from somewhere to my left and the forest erupted in flapping wings as scared birds scattered in fear. Before I had time to process what I’d heard, I flinched as I watched Dean’s head whip backward and then slam forward onto the stock of his rifle. His entire body went limp and there was a patch of red mist on the bushes behind where his head had been a split second earlier.
“No!” I swung my rifle to the left, searching for the bastard who’d killed Dean, but my view was obstructed by trees and thick underbrush and I couldn’t get a fix on the sniper’s location.
“Damn it!” Patrick said from beside me. “What the hell is she doing?”
I swiveled my rifle back to the scene before me and gasped when I saw Dawn running toward Leroy. Her arms were pumping fast and her legs stretching far as she tried to cover as much distance as possible with each stride. The little boy had managed to open the raccoon cage and was reaching inside for the ball of fur. Dawn must’ve screamed at him, because he stopped what he was doing and turned to look in her direction. Unsure of what was about to happen, he turned to run away from Dawn.
There was movement beside me and I heard Patrick scramble to his feet and bolt into the woods behind us. I knew he was heading toward the gunshot, hoping to get a fix on the sniper if he fired a second shot. I felt helpless as I watched Dawn advancing on the child.
“Ray, do you see the shooter?” I asked over the radio. Nothing. I adjusted my scope and peered in his direction. He was camouflaged well, but I could make out his gloved hand applying pressure to the back of Dean’s hood. “Ray, get back on your rifle!” I hollered. “Stop that bastard before he kills someone else!”
Ray’s hand retracted and I saw motion in the bushes as he settled in behind his rifle. His voice was shaky when he said, “Ten-four, glassing him now.”
I turned my attention back to Dawn just in time to see her launch herself into the air and tackle the running kid. Right as she did so, another gunshot exploded to my left and I saw a large chunk of wooden siding splinter off the corner of Wellman’s camp, missing Dawn and Leroy by inches.
Several yards to my left, the swamps erupted in fully automatic gunfire, and I knew Patrick was raining hell down on the sniper’s location. There was a brief pause—I knew he was reloading—and then the gunfire began again. I took one last glance at Dawn and, after seeing that she had dragged the kid around the corner to safety, I pushed off the ground and raced toward the gunfire.
Patrick reloaded once more before I reached his location. I found him squatting beside a fallen tree, sending bullets downrange like he was getting paid to do it. I dropped to the ground and grunted when I found myself in a bed of cypress knees. One stabbed me in the chest and two into my ribs, but I ignored the pain and flipped open my scope caps. I glassed the area Patrick was spraying, but didn’t see anything.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“He took out running,” Patrick said, and paused to strip another empty magazine from his AR-15. Keeping his rifle aimed at the sniper’s location, he slapped a fresh magazine in the well. “I don’t think I got him, but I scared the shit out of him. He’s definitely on the run.”
I hesitated. In hide and seek with guns, it was downright deadly to be the seeker, but we needed to stop this killer and we needed to stop him now. I knew we may never get another chance to be this close to him again, so I stood and waved for Patrick to follow me.
As we advanced on the sniper’s location, I switched channels on my radio. My earpiece was immediately flooded with excited chatter. Ray was screaming for air med and Dawn was calling for dispatch to send reinforcements. When there was a break in the traffic, I radioed dispatch to have Ben get his chopper in the air and fly to the lake as soon as possible to help us track the killer. The dispatcher acknowledged my transmission and Dawn radioed for me to go to a secure channel. When I did, she said, “This is an inside job, London. The killer’s one of ours.”
I stopped walking to process what she’d just told me.
Patrick stopped, too, and shot a curious glance in my direction. “What’s going on?”
I wasn’t sure if my earpiece was projecting to where Patrick could hear, but I waved him off. “It’s nothing to worry about, Patrick.”
“Can’t talk now?” Dawn asked.
> “Right. We’re on the killer’s trail at the moment—heading east along the northern shore.”
“Okay…we’ll talk when you get back.” Dawn hesitated before hanging up. “Just be prepared to shoot one of our own.”
“I already am.” I turned my radio back to the sniper channel and nodded to let Patrick know I was ready. I moved farther to the left to create some distance between us, and we made our way as fast as we silently could, careful not to snaps twigs, splash in the water, or rustle dead leaves. It would’ve been safer to move on our bellies, but we’d never catch up with the Trinity Sniper.
We had gone about a mile when I realized I hadn’t seen a sign in a few dozen steps. I hissed at Patrick and waved for him to get down. He dropped to his knees and held his rifle in the ready position. I crouched low and scanned the ground between us, which was where the killer’s tracks had appeared. The last sign I’d seen was a muddy boot print entering a patch of water. I indicated with my hand for Patrick to stay put and I slowly backtracked, searching the ground as I went. When I arrived at the water hole, I realized he hadn’t made it out the other side. I glanced toward the north, but couldn’t see the far side of the water hole.
Feeling the skin on the back of my neck crawl, I slid behind the thick base of a cypress tree and waited, listening. Other than an occasional plopping sound in the water surrounding me and birds singing overhead, all was quiet. I was about to step out from behind the tree when I heard it. The noise was distant, but unmistakable. Patrick must’ve heard it too, because he came running toward my position yelling, “He’s getting away!”
I lunged forward, splashing through the water hole and heading north toward Pelican Pass, where a boat engine had roared to life. Patrick was hot on my heels, both of us running as fast as our legs could carry us, but it was no use. We were no match for the outboard. I could hear it pulling away much faster than we were approaching.
When I reached the banks of Pelican Pass, the boat was merely a dot in the distance. The sun shone brightly against the water and it was hard to make out any descriptors in the blinding reflection. Patrick ran past me and splashed into the shallow water along the shore. Resting the forearm of his rifle against a low tree branch, he began firing at the fleeing boat, cursing loudly as he did so.
I didn’t even try to stop him. Instead, I keyed up my radio and called for Ben. It took a minute for him to respond. When he did, I gave him our location and asked for his ETA (estimated time of arrival).
“Twenty minutes,” he called, his voice sounding muffled.
“Shit!” I rested the butt of my rifle against the ground and sighed. The shooter would be long gone before he got close to us. I keyed up my radio and asked him to follow Little Bayou south to Pelican Pass. “The shooter was last seen heading east on the Pass.”
“Ten-four.”
Patrick had fired all of his magazines dry and just stood slumped against the branch, looking tired.
I sank to the ground and leaned against a tree of my own, and then radioed for Norm to meet us in his boat.
“It’s over,” Patrick said, his voice barely over a whisper. “We’ll never catch him now. He’ll disappear and won’t resurface for a year or so, and it’ll just start all over again. I’m always two steps behind him.”
I only nodded, wondering what Dawn had meant when she said the killer was one of ours. What did she know? And how did she know it?
CHAPTER 40
When Patrick and I made it back to the camp with Norm, I went straight to the dock where Ray and Jerry were slumped on the pier beside a black body bag. Their eyes were bloodshot and it was clear they’d been crying. I dropped to my knees beside the bag and put my hand on Dean’s chest.
“What the hell happened, Ray?”
Ray rubbed his nose on the sleeve of his coverall and shook his head. “I don’t know. He said he saw the killer—had him in his crosshairs. I asked him where he was, but he didn’t answer me. Instead, he let out a weird noise and lifted his head. Before I could tell him to get his head back down, he…he was gone.” Ray stopped and rubbed a tear from the side of his face, fighting hard to keep his voice from trembling. “I looked over at him and tried to stop the bleeding, but it…it was no use. When I looked back through my scope I couldn’t see anything. Everything was blurry.”
I nodded my understanding and put a hand on his shoulder. My thoughts drifted to Dean’s son and daughter. I knew firsthand how difficult it was for children to lose their parents at a young age. Life as they knew it was forever changed—forever destroyed. Roger might push through to the other side in one piece, considering he was heading for the military, but who would look after Lily? She hadn’t even graduated high school yet. She didn’t have a job, her mother was missing in action, and her dreams of attending college were now hanging in the balance. I gritted my teeth. If I had any say-so, she would be well cared for.
The steady drum of helicopter blades and the roaring of outboard motors broke me from my thoughts. I turned to see four boats squeezing through the Cut, and they were being escorted by two helicopters. One was Ben’s and the other displayed a large FBI logo.
Two of the boats were ours and the others bore FBI logos identical to the one on the helicopter, and they were all crowded. I stood and moved toward the end of the dock, where they were securing the boats to the row of cleats. Sheriff Chiasson was in one of the boats and he was surrounded by at least eight members of our SWAT team. He was the first to disembark.
“Damn, London, this is horrible…just horrible.” His face was pale and his voice shaky. “I gathered up the men and came as soon as I could.”
I gave him the rundown of what happened. While I spoke, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s field office in the city walked up and listened intently. When I was done, he turned to Sheriff Chiasson. “My team is ready to assist in any way we can.” He pursed his lips. “Obviously, our main concern is confirming the status of our men in the field. I want to inform their families as soon as possible and I want to be in on the hunt for their killer.”
Sheriff Chiasson nodded and shot a thumb to the second boat, where several of our detectives were unloading crime scene gear. “You can send a team with my detectives while we set up a command post inside this camp.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dawn descending the steps of Wellman’s camp. I felt a need to rush over and hug her, but I didn’t. I turned away from the sheriff and waited for her to reach me, but Melvin got to her first. I couldn’t hear everything that was said between them, but I heard him ask if she knew where Sally was, and she said no. He mentioned they’d called her out, but she hadn’t answered her phone. I was actually relieved that she hadn’t, because I certainly didn’t feel like dealing with any drama today.
As soon as Dawn broke from Melvin, she approached me and grabbed my arm, pulling me out of earshot of everyone else. I noticed Patrick eyeing us as we walked off. Before she had a chance to say anything, I told her how brave she’d been earlier when she saved Leroy’s life.
“Just doing my job,” she said simply.
“How’s he doing, by the way? He must be freaking out.”
“He’s fine—thinks it was all a joke. The boy has no idea how close he came to dying today.”
I thought back to that moment and how desperate and helpless I felt watching Dawn expose herself to the sniper. “Well, I’m glad you didn’t get shot.”
“Yeah, that would’ve definitely ruined my day.”
I grinned and then asked her what she’d meant earlier.
“The ballistics lab was able to determine that both of our projectiles were fired from the same rifle.” She took a deep breath and glanced toward the group of officers and agents milling around on the dock. “We got an IBIS hit on one of the projectiles…it was fired from the same rifle you recovered from Brandon Berger four years ago.”
I scrunched my brow. “Are you positive?”
“An analyst has to confirm the findings, bu
t I’ve never had a false positive IBIS hit.” She searched my eyes. “You seem skeptical.”
“If what you’re saying is true, then Dean committed suicide.”
It was Dawn’s turn to scrunch her brow. “How is that possible?”
“You tell me. Brandon had Dean’s rifle, and I assigned it back to Dean when the hearing was over.”
Dawn turned toward Dean’s body bag. “Is that the same rifle he was using today?”
“No, those rifles were decommissioned when we got the Accuracy Internationals. We kept the others as backup weapons, because there was nothing wrong with them.”
“What if someone else got their hands on it?”
“He’d never let anyone touch his rifle…” My voice trailed off as I remembered what Ray had said about Dean lifting his head up. I’d only seen him hesitate and lift his head once before taking a shot. What does it mean? My thoughts swirled around in my head and I suddenly remembered my unwritten sniper rule. I felt sick to my stomach, dizzy. “Holy shit!”
“What’s going on?” Dawn asked.
“I know who killed him. I know who’s been doing this.”
“Who?”
“We’ve got to go—and go now!” I rushed to where the sheriff was standing with the SWAT guys and detectives, and grabbed his arm. “I know who did this and I’m going after him.”
“Who? Where are you going?”
His mouth slid open wider and wider as I explained. “Okay, okay, who are you taking with you?”
“Norm, Dawn, Jerry, Ray, and Patrick.”
“Who in the hell is Patrick?”
“I’ll explain later.”
CHAPTER 41
Two hours later…
I stood outside my truck and adjusted the focus on my binoculars, scanning the front of the house.
