Ten minutes later, Brock and Russell met Gillian and the team outside Trent's address. It was an old two-story house surrounded by a large garden, with a neat lawn to the street. The other three sides of the property were flanked by tall, old trees. Wilson joined them too. Four cruisers and two ambulances blocked the street, and all around, they could spot neighbors peeping from behind closed curtains.
Gillian showed Brock, Russell and Wilson a blueprint of the house on her tablet.
"Front and back door," she said. "There's an outside trapdoor to the basement on the right side."
Brock turned to Wilson. "Remember he's holding a woman captive, and may not turn himself in. We need to be quick and effective."
Wilson nodded and hurried to instruct the uniforms, as Gillian waved at her team to come closer. Brock felt awkward for a heartbeat, giving them orders instead of her. "Schwarz, Bellison, you take the back. Coleman, you take the basement with Gillian and Morris. Miles, you and I are taking the front with Wilson."
They spread out without a word. Brock checked his Glock, waiting for Wilson, then led him and Aldana to the front door, followed by a bunch of uniforms. Wilson banged on the door and Brock thundered, "STEPHEN TRENT! FBI!" Nobody came to the door, so they breached it.
The locals pursed their noses as soon as they came in. Brock couldn't but sympathize. Yeah, the stench was choking. There was a dead body in there somewhere. A not-recent-at-all dead body. He had them spread out to check the ground floor.
The stink wasn't as strong at the back side of the house, but it was anyway notorious. The group coming in that way grimaced as they spread out.
Aldana met Ron and Hank by the stairs and they headed to the upper floor with a few uniforms, guns drawn.
Outside, Gillian and Russell grabbed each a handle of the double trap door. Fred stood right before it, Glock aiming down, and nodded. They yanked it open, revealing a narrow, steep flight of stairs to the basement. Fred went down the first, flashlight on; the other two followed.
Aldana, Ron and Hank checked every room on their way to the master bedroom, at the end of the hall. The source of the stench was in there. They pushed the door open and couldn't help pursing their faces at the insane buzz of flies and the squirming crowd of maggots, crawling all over the dead body of a big woman.
"Hi, Mom," Hank grunted.
Brock finished checking the ground floor. There were no traces of Trent, so he sent Wilson to keep the lot surrounded, while he registered again that part of the house.
As Gillian, Russell and Fred tiptoed down the stairs, they noticed the cracks and interference over the radio. By the time they reached the last step, they couldn't hear the others anymore. Something was jamming their radio frequency. Down there, they were completely isolated.
The basement opened under the whole house, and it was a maze of steel shelves overflowing with boxes and dusty objects. Gillian, Russell and Fred took each a narrow aisle.
They were halfway down the aisles between shelves when they heard the murmur from the end of the room. It was a woman crying. They hurried to come out of the line of shelves and met three yards away from the wall. Then they heard a broken voice cry for help, and a weak pounding on wood.
"There!" Gillian pointed her flashlight at an improvised line of boards closing one of the corners. "She's in there!"
But before they could even try a step in that direction, Trent roared from behind the last row of shelves and jumped on them, throwing Russell down. All they got to see of him was that he was naked, huge, and possessed by a berserker rage.