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Juliette couldn't suppress a flicker of nerves that ten wouldn't be enough, or that the killer would lay low for a while, and it would be a waste of manpower.
But then she shook her head. This man was increasing his interval of killing with a bloodthirsty ferocity. Knowing the police were on his trail wouldn't stop him from killing again and it might even encourage him to move faster.
"You will need to be dressed similarly to these two victims." Lucien flashed the images of the clothing onto the screen. "As you can see, we are looking for casual jeans, a brightly colored top, perhaps a dark jacket."
Moving forward, Juliette added, "It's possible that the right victim will attract his eye, so we need to try and be who he wants us to be."
Having gone past a high street clothing store to get the look she wanted, she was already dressed in clothing she thought would work - faded jeans, sneakers, a red top, and a soft, dark jacket. She was worried that the killer might recognize her, so she'd chosen a wig from the bunch of props that Lucien had obtained. For tonight, she was going to be a striking redhead, and she hoped the flaming hair might catch his eye.
"This killer is extremely dangerous," she said. "He acts fast and he uses lethal force. For this operation, if you see him, we need to use a code word so that the rest of the team is alerted."
She'd thought carefully about that. If the killer was watching his victim approach, the victim couldn't just start mumbling to herself that she thought she'd seen something.
"We are going to use the phrase, Comme c'est étrange," she said.
The English translation, "How strange," she thought was apt. If the killer was luring his victims in, they must have been intrigued enough to walk down that alleyway.
"If you see anything strange, any movement or attention-grabbing activity from inside one of the quieter, narrow streets, you look twice, you make sure to appear fascinated, and you say those words,” Lucien emphasized, as the assembled group nodded. “We will then send backup to your location as fast as possible. Do not get too close to this man. Try to delay, try to buy some time. And do not let him escape. If he runs, be ready to run after him, and make sure you see which way he turns.”
The air of determination in the room was palpable. They all knew what they had to do, and they all knew the risks. But they were ready to do whatever it took to catch this killer.
Juliette looked at the time which was ticking inexorably by. Now, it was after six p.m. and they needed to get into position, ready for the sting operation, which would kick off at six-thirty and would run until eleven p.m. Only when the streets were deserted, and they'd given the killer every chance to pounce, would the team stand down.
"Good luck everyone," Juliette said, as they all got up to leave. "Let's get out there and find him."
"Good luck to you, too," one of the women said.
Lucien and Wyatt, unable to provide themselves as bait, would be centrally situated with a team of three other armed police officers. They would be ready at a moment's notice, to rush to whichever site needed help, or whichever of the police officers had triggered the killer.
Juliette couldn't help thinking, as she walked out to the waiting car, that their police sting operation was like a miniature version of Paris itself. The arrondissements in Paris began from the center, with the first arrondissement, and then fanned out in a growing circle, in a clockwise direction. Like a curlicue, like a snail's shell. And their sting operation was basically that, in miniature. They had identified the central area of the arrondissement, and then they had fanned out around that, with five of them taking the inner circle and the rest on the outside. Given the vast web of streets, and the fact that the killer didn't stick to one arrondissement but overlapped in his kills, Juliette knew it wasn't an exact plan, and might not be precise enough. But it was the best they could do.
Was there something else significant about the mapping?
Something else was niggling at her mind, demanding attention, but at that moment, she didn’t have time to explore her idea further. Even so, it wouldn’t hurt to do some research. Perhaps, using her AI, Sierra could identify a pattern to the kills so far, that they hadn’t yet been able to see.
Turning off her earpiece, so the others wouldn't be distracted by the conversation, she picked up her phone and called Sierra.
"Hey, Juliette," Sierra answered.
"Sierra, I have an idea."
"What's that?"
"I was wondering if you could run a few AI algorithms on the location of the two kills, and if your software could pinpoint any spot where he's most likely to be? I've been trying to think of it but there are so many variables. It might just help us."
"You're right, it might," Sierra said. "Let me take a look. I've got a few different programs that I can run, and they'll look at different things. Geography, street location, latitude points, and also we could assume a fictitious headquarters for him and plot around that."
"That all sounds great," Juliette said, wishing she'd thought of this earlier because it sounded exciting. But hopefully, as Sierra worked, they could use her findings to get closer to him, if she did come up with an answer. And in the meantime, at least they had the wider area covered.
As she got into the car taking her and two others to their starting point, she felt a thrill of anticipation, a rush of adrenaline. This was it. This was the moment they had all been waiting for.
She checked her earpiece.
"All good? Can everyone hear me?" she asked.
There were replies from all ten of the other policewomen. Everyone was ready, everyone's equipment was working. This hastily cobbled together sting operation was working as well as it could, given the timeframe.
"Good luck. Remember your briefing, remember your routes," she said.
