Extreme Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

The voice sounded like Chris Lorentian's; it sounded like a voice from the grave. Jessica immediately wondered if she weren't simply in the midst of a nightmare, one of those horrible replays of a true event the brain safely tucked away but the soul took out to examine more closely, always about this predawn hour. Yes, her weary mind playing tricks on her, but her blood temperature plunged at the chilling tones coming over the spectral wires, while her hands—trembling with the dreamed-up receiver—turned strangely clammy, her mouth as dry as potato dust.

  Finally, she heard herself ask, “Who is this?”

  A high-pitched voice replied, “Mel... Marrrr-tin.”

  “I don't know you. Who are you?” The voice sounded far away yet strident, pulled tighter than a guitar string, shaky and twangy. A quaking, older-than-Chris Lorentian female voice, she felt certain now. If it was the nightmare of the other night happening all over again, there seemed to be certain minute changes. Still drowsy, part of Jessica remained just as certain that she'd wake from this all-too- familiar nightmare any moment now to find a silent room, the receiver on its cradle, her nerves intact, her bodily con­trol and functions returned to her. Another part of her mind screamed that this was no ephemeral event.

  “He made me... made me call.” The disembodied voice filled Jessica's ears; the shaky, cracking voice re­sounded with terror. Obviously in pain, obviously in tears, the caller conjured up the image of the helpless form Jes­sica had seen in room 1713 of the hotel, the scorched re­mains of Chris Lorentian.

  “Who is he? Who is the bastard? Give me something, anything, any clue,” Jessica pleaded.

  “Any Chhh... Christ...”

  Any Christ? she asked herself. Was the caller swearing? “A name!”

  “Beelzebub!”

  “Satan?”

  “Doe .. . douwhn...”

  “Dough?” Doooon't let him hurt me! Says... says he's doing it for... for you.”

  “Doing what for me? Who is he? A name! And what does he want from me? Ask him! Ask him! Keep him talking,” Jessica pleaded.

  Another voice, all male and vicious and throaty, growled into the receiver, “I... I kill for... thee, Kkkkoran....”

  “Who are you? What are you?”

  “I am Charon!”

  “Listen to me, Sharon.”

  “Char... Char-ron,” he corrected. “And there's no time for Hellsmouth like the present. It's over for number three.”

  She only understood his threat. “No... no,” Jessica muttered and then screamed, “No!'' even as she heard the slosh, slosh, slosh of a wet substance, and she heard the baritone voice of a male shadow, the Phantom, saying something in the background that sounded like a muffled, “Burn... die, bastard thing, bum in the mouth of Satan for all eternity, bum in the well!”

  “Mel!” Jessica shouted just as the whoosh of super­heated air traveled through the lines, stinging her ear. She could smell the fire and feel its singing, singeing song amid Mel Martin's single, long, contorted wail of pain until there was nothing left but the beating of the fire's wings moments before the phone line went dead.

  This is it... / wake up screaming now, right? Jessica thought, all in the same instant that the phone line went dead. I wake up now. But she realized it was no dream, that she was awake, and that the weight and firmness of the receiver in her hand were corporeal, not spectral.

  She choked and coughed as if the fire had somehow singed her own lungs, and gasping for water, she slammed down the receiver and grabbed the glass of water she rou­tinely kept at her bedside, knocking it over, spilling the contents over the carpet. “Damn, damn, damn this mudder freakingsonofa- bitchin'bastard of Satan!”

  Tears had come of their own volition. Jessica had sel­dom felt so maligned, so abused, and so helpless. She wanted desperately to reach out and touch this someone, this SOB. Then she recalled the security measures War­ren's local bureau had placed on her phone. She prayed they had the fire freak on tape, and that they could place him precisely where he had called from this time without delay. She prayed the fiend had remained close by and that FBI operatives were busting in on the monster at this very moment.

  She'd gotten the killer to speak to her; small comfort, but it was something. Warren's vigilant men must have gotten the killer's voice on tape, which meant a voice- print—surefire evidence against him once they appre­hended the creep. Too late for poor, defenseless Mel. She was obviously gone now, the way of Chris Lorentian.

  “God,” she wondered aloud, “could he be in the hotel again?” Could he have remained that cool, to stay that close to her and the scene of his crime, she wondered, knowing that criminals, more often than not, enjoyed re­visiting the scene of the crime in an effort to relive the moment of their having been in complete control of the murder victim's life, to feel again that sense of power over another life.

  She instantly and instinctively reached for her Browning automatic, a gun that had saved her life on more than one occasion. A million questions positioned themselves all in a row for her consideration, but all of the little soldiers were tripping over one another as in a Laurel and Hardy movie, causing a havoc of confusion and wonder. But up­permost and clear in her mind was one question: What was his reasoning? Did he believe that he would eventually do her in the fashion of his other victims? Did this bastard believe himself bom of fire, that he would die by fire, and did he want her in that fire with him? Why had he singled her out for his sick game of flesh-burning murder? Why was he so bent on torturing her through vividly displaying the torment he inflicted on his victims? And again she wondered, how close was he to her at this moment?

  She wanted to yank the receiver up again, call the desk to determine the origin of the call, but she couldn't. She was expecting another phone call any moment from Harry Furth, the genius who put the tap on her phone, but she hadn't seen him actually get the job done, and she hadn't gotten back to Warren's Las Vegas FBI branch to find out for certain. She cursed the possibility that once again she might be the only one privy to the killer's chilling audio setup. She hadn't been 100 percent happy with the idea of people listening in on her phone calls, but for the sake of narrowing down the facts about their Phantom Killer, she had little choice in the matter.

  The phone rang.

  Could it be the monster returned? She hesitated until it rang three times.

  Finally, she lifted the receiver, saying nothing.

  “We got the asshole. We got 'im.”

  “And this is?”

  “Agent Harry Furth.” Harry Furth's thick voice sounded a direct opposite of the killer's hollow tone.

  “Where? Where is he?”

  “Page.”

  “Page what?”

  “Arizona.”

  “Arizona? Page?”

  “Lake Powell.”

  “Lake Powell?”

  “Page, Arizona.”

  “But... isn't that... hundreds of miles away?”

  “I don't need a geography lesson, Doctor.” Harry sounded tired, brittle. No doubt like herself, feeling help­less as he listened in on this brutality he could not stop. “But it's not really so far. It's near Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park, actually closer to Monument Valley. By air, you can be there in under a couple of hours.”

  “We got anybody there, on it, now?” she wanted to know.

  “We've got local law enforcement on it. They're crashin' the place as we speak. Keep your fingers crossed.”

  “Where... I mean, exactly how far is this place from here?”

  “A day's drive. Not far. Happened at the Wahweap Lodge and Marina, on Lake Powell. Great place to vaca­tion.”

  “Not so for Mel Martin, obviously...”

  She was relieved in one sense that this cruel, sadistic monster was not in the building, that he was not as close to her as he'd been only the night before, but she was disappointed he'd not remained in the city, that he was expanding the geography of his kill spree, in a sense cre­ating a larger radius for them to cover. Was it part of
his plan? Usually, the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI must work diligently to narrow the geography of the crimes to a specific location, to hone in on the killer, often doing so well as to locate the street on which the killer lived. Usually, the killer lived and worked and killed within a relatively confined area, close to home and to places he felt familiar and comfortable with. The crime geography remained fairly constant with most serial kill­ers—save the Henry Lee cross-country types—even if the killer happened to be mobile, but this pyromaniac killer had jumped to another square quite quickly and unexpect­edly, enlarging the geography overnight. It made her won­der where next he might strike. No one could possibly know using the normal techniques. Not with this guy any more than they'd been able to use normal procedure in the apprehension of the Night Crawler in the Caribbean the year before.

  She considered her options. Stay put; return to Quantico; go to the second fire death scene. “I'm getting dressed, Harry. I want to get out there to Lake Powell.”

  “Whoa, wait up there, Doctor. You need to stay next to this phone, where he can reach you. We need as much tape on this creep as possible, need to study the tape in depth, and we need to get a fix on him next time. Somehow you have to keep him on the line longer.”

  “That's ridiculous. He's not on the line with me, his victims are! How do I keep the victim alive and on the phone longer, long distance, when this mother's in control of her and me and the time clock?”

  “I don't know, but the phone line's our only link to this crazoid.”

  “Harry, if you want someone to man this phone, then get someone, but I won't be a prisoner to this madman, and I don't intend staying in the Flamingo another night. Do you understand?”

  “But Dr. Coran—”

  “No, no argument.”

  “All right... all right. We'll get an actress to play you, a decoy.”

  “Now, that makes a great deal more sense, Harry. My time's worth more than that of an actress.”

  “Guess you ain't heard the latest contract Julia Roberts signed with Disney.”

  She only snorted her reply. “Hmmmph.”

  “Meantime, we'll get a voiceprint made. This time the guy screwed up big time. We got 'im on tape, and we got 'im spoutin' off in the background, but the scatter needs cleaning up. I can do that, but it'll take twenty, maybe thirty hours, depending.”

  “Do it, and let me hear of the results. As for now, can you get me to Lake Powell, to this Wahweap Lodge?”

  “I'll get a chopper prepared out at the airport; go to Hangar Twenty-four. They'll be expecting you.”

  “John Thorpe may be accompanying me.”

  “Gotcha, and I'll let the guys in Arizona know what's going on soon as I hear back from them.”

  “Do you think they might've gotten in there on time?”

  “Doubt it. There was only a small window, a few minutes watching her bum, and he may've gotten out be­fore the fumes got to him, which doesn't leave our guys much time to converge.”

  “Then you heard the entire conversation?”

  “Every word, Doctor. Made no sense. Guy's completely nuts. I don't know how you held it together as well as you did, but you did, and you got a hell of a heart—gumption, my pappy used to call it.”

  She didn't feel like she had any gumption, or that she'd held anything together. Still, she replied, “Thanks, Harry. Tell 'em at Powell to not disturb the body or the crime scene. Understood?”

  “Will do.”

  “Will I see you at the airport?”

  “No, I want to get right on this tape. See what comes of it. Maybe later, I'll see you in Page, you know, when I've got something.”

  “Damned glad you got in here and set up the tap when you did, else we'd have nothing.”

  “Couldn't do otherwise. My boss was roasting my chops to get this set up. He seems to think you're pretty special... priority one, Dr. Coran.”

  She smiled at this. “Tell Bishop thanks for me. And Harry, I've jotted down a couple of things the killer said that may be especially relevant to our narrowing this mys­tery man down. I want you to tell Bishop these could be important clues to reveal something about the killer, the words he used to refer to himself, Char-ron, he'd said, or Charon, and the unusual word Hellsmouth. Could be a place.”

  Furth replied, “I thought he said Char-man, that he was like this char-grill guy, char-man. Didn't catch the refer­ence to Hellsmouth. Any event, you can tell Bishop your­self.”

  “How's that?”

  “Warren's got a thing for you. Why don't you give him a call? He's gonna want to know about this new wrinkle. May even want to accompany you to Page, knowing War­ren as I do.”

  The innuendo was thick enough to slice with a blunt scalpel, she thought, but it was no secret how Warren Bishop felt about Jessica Coran. She'd seen Bishop at one of today's sessions, and they'd had more coffee together. He'd been understanding—sweet, even—when she spoke of the awful first phone call from the Phantom's supposed first victim, telling him in graphic detail how horrible it all was. He'd been sympathetic, suggesting that she have something a bit stronger than coffee later with him in the lounge, suggesting they have dinner together.

  They'd known each other for years, since her first year in the FBI Academy. They'd been close friends and had studied together, competing with one another to be the best. He was so good in hand-to-hand that they made him an instructor on the spot, and so he'd actually become one of her trainers.

  Over the years they'd stayed in contact, remaining best of friends, but when the death of Chris Lorentian had hap­pened and Jessica had been placed in danger, Bishop had been out of town on another case, which had taken him to New Mexico.

  Now he and his team had gone into swift action, surfing and sifting through FBI computer files for any and all sim­ilar fire deaths that might be related. These fire deaths ranged from those ruled accidental to those intentionally set fires that engulfed whole homes, restaurants, or ware­houses, leaving someone dead in the process. They'd nar­rowed the list down to seventy-two that smacked of similarities, primarily the use of butane as an accelerant alongside the smoked remains of some poor slob, male or female. Bishop and his team were reworking and rethink­ing every angle on each such case, but Jessica's gut re­action was one of skepticism. She believed this guy had started with Chris Lorentian—that “#1 is #9” pointed to this supposition. The phone call to her, the message written in the victim's own bodily grease, all had something to do with the number 1 and the number 9.

  Perhaps the killer had a preset game plan that called for nine lives. And it had something to do with the notion of traitorous behavior.

  She believed the victims knew their killer, or at least had had some previous contact with him. And this as­sumption was a world of difference from its opposite view, that victim and killer were strangers, that these were stranger killings.

  Bishop was a broad-shouldered, handsome man with a wonderful smile and a great sense of humor. His sense of duty and honor were equally honed. A Desert Storm vet, he would make any woman a great prize, but like Jessica, his work had for all these years kept him from a personal life. It was natural and easy for the two of them to share time together, reminisce about the academy, about their earlier lives and the people they had once been. In fact, Jessica rather liked being reminded of a time when she was a naif, an innocent. Bishop made her feel good, made her laugh, as he was still capable of doing, but she was also sure that he also made her look hard at what she'd become without the slightest intention of doing so.

  They'd parted at her door, all thought of their jobs and professional selves abandoned. They'd kissed, for old times' sake on her part, but somehow it had become a passionate embrace, one she felt safe within, confident with. Still, she had halted him at the door, telling Warren that her heart belonged now to James Parry, and that re­gardless of her strong feelings and attachment to him, she simply couldn't betray James. “Not like this,” she'd said, and Bishop, in his usual po
ise and with a grin of accep­tance, thanked her for what he termed “The best evening of my life in a long, long time.”

  “Liar,” she'd countered.

  “I mean every word of it, Jess, and if Parry doesn't take care of you, I'll go looking for the bastard.”

  “My hero, my shining knight.”

  “Uughhhh! Now you're making me sick.” He remained laughing all the way down the corridor and when he waved good-naturedly from the elevator. “Don't worry about a thing, Jess,” he assured her then. “I've got Harry Furth, my best man, on the wiretap. If this murdering piece of filth does call you again, we're going to nail the putrid excuse for a human being. Trust me.”

  “Yeah, Bishop,” she'd replied. “I do—trust you, that is.”

  “Trust me to take this elevator down and leave you in peace, you mean?”

  “That, too, Warren, and thanks for understanding.”

  “Long as you're happy, Jess.”

  She had smiled then as the elevator doors closed on his strong, tall form. It would have been so easy to have in­vited him in.... She now pushed the thought away, telephoned for a cab, and began packing an overnight bag for Page, Arizona.

  Jessica's next call went to J.T., alerting him to the alarming news: Once again the Phantom had struck like a flaming shadow, and the SOB had forced his victim to contact Jessica via telephone so that Jessica might listen in on the murder. J.T. instantly reacted, coming to her room to stand in wait with her, to be with her, to console her. They ordered a pot of black coffee from the all-night room service, and between gulps she told him as much as she could recall of the ugly, bizarre, phoned-in murder of the Martin woman; then they packed, not knowing if they'd be returning to Las Vegas. John Thorpe insisted on accompanying her to Lake Powell at Glen Canyon. “Ever hear of a name like Charon?” she asked J.T.

  “We'll have it run through the FBI computers. See what kicks out, follow leads to his crooked past. We'll get this twisted bastard, Jess.”

  Warren Bishop met Jessica and J.T. at the airport, where a helicopter had been chartered for their early- morning flight. Bishop had come rushing to her side as soon as he'd learned of the phone call that had so rocked Jessica's night. In the dismal gloom of an airport at 5:20 a.m. of what already felt like a scorching day in this desert paradise, they stood waiting on the flight pad.