Rise of The Iron Eagle (The Iron Eagle Series Book 1) (11 page)

“What do you think about our profile of the killer as a single white male?” asked Steve. John sat back in the chair, “You’re wrong.” Now he really had Steve’s attention since he wrote the most recent update of the killer’s personal profile. “How are we wrong, or, more directly, how am I wrong? I updated the profile two years ago.” “I’m sorry, Special Agent Hoffman. I meant no disrespect, but your profile has one serious error.” The race you have for the killer is wrong.” “Really…so what race is he?” “He’s Black.” Jim and Steve looked at each other in total bewilderment. “And just what the hell do you base that on?” “Great question! You see, as I was going over the profile and some of the past killings, as well as yesterday’s crime scene photos, I noticed something so minute that anyone could have missed it. Six months ago, the killer left the body of a transient female near the edge of the basin in Hollywood; I was working the crime scene. The woman, while being quartered, was still too large for the killer to move, so he pushed her body out of the back of his vehicle in sections as he slowly pulled it forward. The last section of the corpse was dropped in front of a surveillance camera near an access gate down into the basin. I noticed the camera and ordered the film for the prior twenty four hours. I was able to mark the discovery of the victim’s remains with the time. I watched the video and sure enough at six twenty-eight a.m., ten minutes before the first call came in about the killing, the video showed a Black male pulling a dark object to the top of the basin. He dropped the body part and moved out of the frame. I don’t think even he knew that the camera was there.” “Where the hell is the film?” asked Jim. “I put it into the file and wrote it into the report.” “Why didn’t you say anything to me?” John looked confused, “Jim, I’m sorry, but I didn’t know you were the lead on the case. I just wrote up the report. I was still new to the job, and to be honest no one really gave the whole thing a lot of attention. In fact, the joke at the station was ‘just another basin filet.’There was no reporting officer for the killing.” Jim nodded, understanding, and Steve finally stood up and said, “John, if you would be so kind as to pull that file and video and bring it by my office on Wilshire, we can analyze it and perhaps make out a face.” “You bet,” he said excitedly. “I can run it over to you tomorrow afternoon. Steve told him to come over at three p.m. Jim said he would try to join them, and with that they parted to head back to their perspective assignments.

Chapter Eleven

‘He could hear clipped and hushed tones
as he lay on the floor waiting for help.’

F
rancis came to in total darkness. He wasn’t sure where he was or what was happening. He felt liquid dripping down his legs and realized it was his own sweat. As he became more alert, he recognized that he was inside his container, restrained to the very wall his victims had been restrained to just hours earlier. His back was aching against the steel; his skin was burning. He began screaming, but there was no response to his cries. He struggled against the restraints when suddenly he remembered that all of them had an emergency release. “Phew…the releases. I have to feel for the emergency releases,” he said out loud and moved one hand at a time, feeling with his fingers for the release. He found it on his left hand side and pulled down and it released the grip. His hand slipped through the restraint, and he moved to release his right hand. He was still not fully aware of what he was doing because he forgot about the leg restraints, and he ended up falling face first onto the steel floor. “Ouch…shit…” He reached around and was able to release his leg restraints and stand up. He had gotten out of the restraints but was disoriented and faced with a much more daunting task. He had booby trapped the container, so that when the doors were shut and locked, if any of his prey ever got loose, they would be seriously wounded while trying to find the exit. None of the traps could inflict fatal injuries; he designed them to inflict punishment and to incapacitate his prey until he returned. The problem, he realized, was that he didn’t know where the back ended and the front began.

He slid his feet slowly across the floor trying to feel for a trip wire. He hit a slick spot and slid forward right through one of the traps. He screamed in agony as a piece of barbed wire struck him just above the thighs and wrapped around the lower part of his torso. He fell to the floor, embedding the wire into his flesh. He writhed in agony, at first cursing obscenities, and then, as the wire dug deeper into his flesh with each movement, pleading for help. He knew, however, that there was no one to hear his cries. There would be no help coming. He would die laying on the floor of his own torture chamber. He moved his hand down toward his abdomen and found the end of the wire on the right side of his hip. He gently pulled on the wire, but the barbs were so deeply imbedded that he couldn’t remove them.

Hours passed as he worked to release himself from his own trap. By the time he was free of the wire, he was exhausted, dehydrated, and barely able to move. His mind raced as he mumbled less coherently, “Where am I in relation to the front doors?” He knew that there were three other traps in the container, and the first was three feet inside the entrance. Had he been struck by the first one entering the container or the last at the far end? He knew he didn’t have a lot of time before he would lose consciousness, ensuring he’d never make it out of the unit alive. While wobbly, he began to drag his feet gently, once more seeking the exit. He was unstable, and his right leg was jerking with each step. He could feel the blood and sweat running down his legs making movement that much more treacherous. “If I can get to the front, I can open the emergency latch and be free.” His voice echoed in the container, and he moved forward a few more feet over a fifteen minute period.

Certain that he was at the front of the container, Francis picked up the pace. He rushed forward with more speed until he hit a solid surface. He put his hands on the wall and began to cry, “Oh, thank God! I made it to the doors.” He felt around the edges looking for the emergency release but felt only steel; it took him a few more seconds before he realized he was at the rear of the container. He screamed with a high pitched howl. “Oh God! I have to get to the entrance.” His breathing became erratic, and he jerked in panic. He put his hands at his sides and spoke to himself in the darkness, “I’ve tripped the farthest trap in here, so I know I have at least ten feet before I have to worry about another wire. I can do this.” He moved swiftly in the opposite direction, then slowed when he counted out ten feet. He moved his feet slowly along the floor, looking for the next wire and felt it just on the top of his right foot. He slowly lifted his foot and stepped over the trap; he was disoriented and lost count of the traps. “Two down, one to go,” he said out loud in excitement as he moved further toward the entrance. “Once I get out, I can hide and kill the monster who put me in here.” He was mumbling almost incoherently under his breath as he moved. He felt the slap of the third trap on his flesh before he felt the trip wire on the floor. This one was set higher and hit him at the groin and wrapped its way up to the top of his chest. He slipped in his own blood and sweat and landed on his back. He was almost numb but felt the barbs penetrating the flesh of his back as his head hit the steel floor, knocking him unconscious.

Steve got back to his office a little after four. He sat down and looked at the sea of photographs on his desk. He had a cork board behind him and on either side of him were three separate crime scene photos. Two of the boards had photographs of the latest Basin Killer victims and the other had the photograph of a young girl found last week in Beverly Hills near the court house. She had been strangled and then shot after being sexually abused. Janet walked in while he was looking at the photographs. “Agent Hoffman, may I have a word?” He motioned for her to take a seat. “What’s on your mind, Agent Simmons?” She was distracted while looking around at the boards when he asked the question again. She pulled herself back from the photographs and cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, sir; I wanted to ask you about Detective Swenson. We met this afternoon at Detective O’Brian’s office.” “What about him?” “He looked very familiar to me” “So?” “Well, I mean like I’ve seen him before.” He sighed loudly, “Agent Simmons, I don’t have time for your déjà vu. Is your seeing him connected to any of our investigations?” She fidgeted in her chair, “Not directly, sir. It just struck me when he came into the room that I have seen him before, and I do think it was at one of the crime scenes.” “Oh for God’s sake, Janet…he’s a fuckin’ cop. He’s also a homicide detective; it’s very likely that at some point in the past year that you’ve been working in my office that you may have seen him somewhere. I don’t understand what your problem is.” She started to stand. “Sit down,” he barked, and she did as she was told. “Just tell me what you felt when you saw John walk into the meeting this afternoon.” Her face got grave, “Fear!” He sat back in his chair and looked hard at her. He could see that she had goose bumps on her bare arms. Her dark black hair was pulled into a ponytail, keeping it out of her face. He looked into her brown eyes, and he could see that there was true fear. He leaned forward, his eyebrows wrinkled, his hands folded in front of him on his desk. “What made you afraid of John?” She looked over at one of the boards with photographs on it. “I don’t know, sir. There was just something about him that made my skin crawl. I have seen him before like a face in the crowd at a crime scene. Not as an investigator but as a…spectator.”

Steve looked down at his desk and then back at her face, “Are you asking me or telling me?” She shook hard like she had had a shiver go up her spine and then said, “It’s probably just me, sir. Not to be gross, but it’s getting close to that time of the month. It’s probably just hormones.” He smiled, “It’s not gross, Janet, and those feelings are important. I’m sure there’s nothing to it, but if you think of anything else with regard to Detective Swenson you come and talk to me about it. Okay?” She smiled and nodded in agreement. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have some phone calls to make.” She excused herself, and Steve picked up the phone and called home. He got the answering machine. “Hi honey, it’s me. Looks like it’s going to be another late night. I know I promised that we would go out tonight, but I have to ask for a raincheck. I’ll call you later.”

After he hung up, his office phone rang and he answered thinking it was his wife. Instead, it was Jim’s voice on the other end of the line. “Can you work tonight?” Steve sighed, “Yea…I just left Molly a message that I had a late night ahead of me. What’s up?” “I’ve been thinking about our conversation this afternoon with John, and I think that the kid has some really good points. I also think he schooled you on the Basin Killer if he’s right and the guy is Black. I want to compare case files and see if we can get John to meet us at Santiago’s later tonight to see what he sees in the files.” Steve was tapping a pen on his desk, “Yea…whatever. You call John. I have to meet with my staff over the autopsy reports that we received on the two most recent killings. By the way did you get the reports?” There was a moment of silence, and he heard the rustle of papers. “Yea, I’ve got them right here.” “So what do you think about the findings?” He heard more fumbling, so he told Jim to forget about it and just read the reports to him.

“Both victims were alive the entire time. The ligature marks on the victims’ hands and feet were actually overlaid.” “Huh?” “The victims were restrained by their hands and feet for most of the torture, but the sick bastard used tourniquets to keep the bleeding down while he cut them up with a chainsaw. The coroner’s report says that both of the victims were not only alive while he cut them up, they we conscious.” “Ow! This guy is traveling into a whole new area of twisted.” “Traveling? This guy has just stamped his passport with the blood from these two sadistic killings. John’s right; he likes this, and he needs more and more brutality to get his thrills. Where he has gone months and even years between killings, I think we’re going to see weeks or even days now.” Jim growled into the phone, “We have to find this fuck…I’ll call John and see if we can meet tonight. What time?” Steve looked at his watch. It was just five p.m. “Let’s try for eight. I’d like to get home before morning and spend a little time with my wife.” There was a laugh. “That’s why I’m a confirmed bachelor.” “No,” Steve laughed, “you’re single because no woman can stand to be around you for more than ten minutes… and you were married before.” “Yea, but you know how that turned out.” There was a laugh. “Well, Jim, in her defense, you were home for nearly a year after the shooting. You drove her to try and stab you.” They both laughed, and Jim said he would call John and then call him back.

Francis woke to see the faint light of sunset not three feet from him. He was lying on the floor of the container, the wire still wrapped around his body. He was in agony and called out, “Hey…Hey…Is there anyone out there? I need help…I’m hurt.” He saw a shadow pass outside the container and then heard a cell phone ring. He could hear clipped and hushed tones as he lay on the floor waiting for help. A few seconds later the door swung open, and The Eagle stepped in dressed in a white jumpsuit with a big smile on his face.

Steve’s cell phone rang as he was talking to his staff about the autopsy report. He saw that it was Molly, so he excused himself and stepped out into the hall. “Hi sweetheart. Did you get my message?” “Yes, Steve, I got it. Honey can’t you break away for just a few hours, so we can have dinner? I haven’t seen you in the daylight in nearly a month. I’ll make it worth your while!” Her voice got sexy and sultry on the other end of the line. “Baby, I know you will. Jim and I are going to meet tonight to go over the Basin River Killer’s profile. He has a new kid who works homicide for the LAPD. I met him today, and he has an uncanny sense of awareness. I think he could really help us in redoing the profile.” “What time are you getting together?” “I don’t know for sure. Jim’s calling the kid to see if we can meet at eight.” “I’ll make you a deal. If you can’t meet at eight, you can meet me at Bella Donna at seven for dinner, then I will take you home and curl your toes and you can curl mine. And I promise to let you go at midnight to meet with the guys.” A smile grew across his face and he said, “Deal! I’ll call you as soon as I hear from Jim.