Page 156 of Random in Death
He slid a hand into the right pocket of his trench. The first syringe, the one filled with his own formula, one he’d termed Compliance.
He imagined trademarking it one day.
It would make her, obviously, compliant, open to suggestion, malleable, a bit sleepy.
This time, he’d coated the needle with a numbing agent. She’d feel a prick, of course, but little more than that.
Then his formula would do the rest.
He nudged off the safety on the needle, and approached her.
Eve spent the flight working on the logistics of the operation.
“You’ve got copies of his face and the sketch where he’s wearing the wig. He’ll be wearing it. Black baggies, black Kick Its, probably a black tee. The trench, as we didn’t find it at the residence.
“Ditch the ties. Not you, Jenkinson. Yours makes you look right at home at a carnival. Peabody, lose the jacket. Your shirt’s long enough to cover your sidearm. You’re with McNab. He always looks at home at a carnival.”
Though she didn’t like knowing she stood over sky, she stood, pointed to the screen and its image of the park.
“Santiago, Carmichael, take the north side. Jenkinson, Reineke, take the east, and try to look less like cops. Peabody, McNab, the south. Feeney, do the crisscross, and Roarke and I will go straight down the middle heading west. Skip the kiddie area. He isn’t interested in that.”
“Two minutes,” Roarke called out.
“You’ve got earbuds, use them. Keep in contact. The locals should be in place, along the beachfront, entrances, exits. Remember, he’s armed. The syringe is lethal.”
She sat, strapped in. “McNab, any more on the journal?”
“There’s a hell of a lot of crazy and ugly, LT, and whoever prosecutes this is going to do cartwheels, but he doesn’t say where, the exact location in the park. Just how he’s going to start off his senior year with—he writes—metaphorically, a bang. And how he’ll enjoy the screams as he ejaculates into a female. He actually writes like that. It’s whack.”
She felt the copter’s descent in her gut.
“Pattern here is to write the details afterward, like a report. I’m back to last March when he goes off bragging about successfully creating a formula. He calls it Compliance. Here’s a quote.
“‘The popular term is date-rape drug, but rape is a lie perpetuated by women in their endless quest to emasculate men, to deny us our rights.’ It’s how he thinks,” McNab concluded.
“He can spend the rest of his life thinking like that, in a cage where his ‘rights’ will be severely limited.”
She glanced toward the front and saw the lights, the iconic wheel turning, flashing, with the buildings spearing up ahead, the sand and water spreading behind.
Then the water came very, very close, so she turned her head and just let herself breathe through the beach landing.
Glad that part was over, she unstrapped, stood.
“We’re go. Let’s find the fucker, save the girl.”
While they worked their way to the entrance with its big, grinning-face logo, she coordinated with the local cops. For now, she wanted them as backup only. She already had ten cops and a consultant going in.
Enough, she thought, to cover the park, and maybe not get made as cops too quickly. The locals covered the beach areas, the ins and outs.
“Have to cover the beaches, the city areas in case he plans to lure her out. But he’s inside.”
The two cops on the entrance nodded her in.
“He wouldn’t do this on one of the exterior rides.” Roarke took her hand as he spoke, then just smiled as she started to tug it free. “Try to look less like a cop,” he reminded her.
“Right.”
“But we have dark rides as well.”