Killer Within

by Jeff Gunhus

  Arnie walked up behind her, two wine glasses in one hand and a bottle in the other. “It’s a great vantage point. I believe in being able to see what’s coming before it arrives.”

  “We should see a good storm come in tonight.”

  “Yes, I saw the warnings just in time.”

  Arnie’s tone was flat, somehow just a bit off. It reminded Allison of the moment on the catamaran after she had saved Jason when, just for a moment, she’d thought she had seen a darkness inside Arnie Milhouse peek out from behind the good-guy persona. She was glad Richard had talked her into bringing the gun.

  She nodded to the wine bottle. “Are you going to pour that or is the plan to just stare at it?”

  “Of course. It’s a pinot noir from a small boutique vineyard in California. It has an excellent bouquet with a strong finish.”

  “You’re a wine connoisseur too?”

  Arnie broke out into a wide grin. “Actually, that’s just what it says on the back of the bottle. I just liked the anchor on the label. Let’s see if it’s any good.”

  And, just like that, dark Arnie was gone and charming Arnie was back. Allison watched him fumble through uncorking the wine and found herself hoping that her instincts were wrong and that he wasn’t the monster she suspected him to be.

  While he poured the wine, she took further stock of her surroundings. The furniture was an eclectic mix of traditional and modern pieces that somehow worked perfectly together. The artwork was bold but tasteful. But these observations were secondary to where Allison’s trained eye fell. She quickly memorized the floor plan, cataloged the exits, and picked out potential weapons she could use in case of a struggle.

  “Here you go,” Arnie said, holding a wine glass toward her. Allison took it as he held up his own glass for a toast. “Here’s to chance encounters.”

  “To chance.” Allison touched her glass to Arnie’s and took a sip. Even though she was tense and focused on the business at hand, she had to admit it was a damn good wine. She made a show of checking out the furnishings and artwork in the room. “Impressive. Did you do all this yourself?”

  “Are you kidding? Left on my own, this place would probably look like a downscale Motel 6. I paid an interior designer a hefty sum to spend my money.”

  “She was worth it.”

  “No one is worth what she charged,” Arnie said with a smile. “But Jason likes it, so I didn’t mind.”

  “Speaking of Jason, where is he?”

  “Over at a friend’s house. I thought it’d be nice to have the place to ourselves for the night. No distractions.”

  There was an awkward silence as the implication of her spending the night hung in the air. Allison decided not to relieve the tension with a joke but instead smiled and turned toward the windows, taking a drink of her wine. She let the pinot rest in her mouth for a second, savoring the taste, then swallowed it down.

  She soaked in the beauty of the view. The container ship made its way steadily up the Bay, its wake extending back a half mile. A dark band of clouds gathered on the western horizon, ready to come gusting down from the Allegheny Mountains and rip across the Chesapeake. Already lightning strikes forked from the sky and struck land in the distance.

  “Looks like it’s going to be quite a storm,” Allison said.

  “Nothing we can’t handle. The trick is to be ready for anything.”

  Allison looked back at the container ship. It looked blurry. She squinted, trying to clear her vision. Arnie noticed.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, it’s just . . .” Allison took a step forward to balance herself as a wave of vertigo gripped her. Arnie grabbed her arm.

  “Easy there,” Arnie said, guiding her toward the couch. She let him lead the way, shaking her head as if that would set the tilting world right side up. Muffled alarm bells sounded in the back of her mind, but she couldn’t quite sort out what they meant. She stumbled and spilled her glass of wine on the carpet.

  The wine. There was something wrong with the wine.

  But the thought flitted away before fully forming. She heard her own voice but it sounded far away. “I . . . I’m sorry . . . all over your nice carpet . . .” She fell again and Arnie caught her.

  “Careful, I don’t want you to hurt yourself,” Arnie said. He leaned in and whispered into her ear. “Because tonight, that’s my job.”

  The alarm bells rang through the cloudiness in her mind and screamed at her—

  He drugged you.

  Do something or you’re dead.

  She reached for her ankle. If she could just get to her gun, she’d survive. She thought she was moving with blinding speed, but part of her drugged mind knew she was actually in slow motion, barely able to coordinate her movements.

  Finally, she reached her ankle. There wasn’t anything there. Her gun was in her purse. She blinked hard and looked for it, but found Arnie’s face leering at her instead. He held up the gun from her purse and waved his finger from side to side.

  Get out of here, Allison. Run, goddammit.

  Summoning everything she had, she lunged forward, took one step, and lost her balance. Her legs buckled and she hit the floor.

  Sprawled there, unable to move, she shouted into the microphone sewn into the right side of her dress. At least, she tried to shout. But even though her lips moved, she realized she couldn’t be sure she was making any sound at all.

  Whether aloud or only in her mind, she repeated the two words over and over.

  Richard . . . help . . .

  Richard . . . help . . .

  Richard . . .

  CHAPTER 42

  . . . pounded on the outside of the communications van. They’d lost the signal ten minutes ago, and the techs still couldn’t give him a straight answer for why the FBI’s best equipment had just stopped working.

  They floated ideas, from a simple malfunction to a blocking device to the field agent disabling the device on purpose. Bottom line was that they didn’t have a fucking clue.

  Richard knew he should call it. Send in the local PD he had assembled in support. God, he regretted the phone call he had just made to Mason, but the director had demanded to be briefed in real-time on this case. Mason had shared his opinion that Richard give Allison time. It was against every protocol the FBI had in place for field operations, and as SAC it was his call to make.

  But he hadn’t climbed this far up the food chain by being a fool.

  Mason’s opinion was as good as a direct order. And a special agent foolish enough to think otherwise would find himself out of the ladder-climbing business and in the shit assignments business in a hurry.

  Five minutes.

  He would give her five minutes to make contact or he would go in, whether Mason wanted him to or not.

  The pit in his stomach told him he was making a bad call for all the wrong reasons. He climbed back into the communications van to see if his idiot techs had any good news for him.

  CHAPTER 43

  A stab of pain tore through Allison’s body. It started in her chest and shot out her arms and down her legs. She jerked her head up, gasping for air. Every muscle in her body flexed at once. Her back arched and rope dug into her skin. The realization came to her hard and quick.

  Jesus Christ, I’m being electrocuted.

  No sooner had the thought materialized than the current passing through her body disappeared, and she slumped forward in the chair, panting for breath. Her heart pounded so hard that she thought she might be going into cardiac arrest.

  She strained against the ropes tying her to the chair, desperate to orient herself to her surroundings. Concrete walls. A musty smell in the air. She was in a basement. A table directly in front of her had a small television set on it. It didn’t make any sense. One minute she had been talking to Arnie, looking at the view, when
. . .

  She froze. It wasn’t that she saw him. Rather, she felt him standing immediately behind her.

  “How long have I been out?” she asked.

  “Not that long,” Arnie replied. “I had to wake you up once I found this.”

  His hand reached from behind her head and held up a tiny electronic device between his thumb and forefinger.

  “I almost missed it. You guys are good.”

  “Then you know they’re already on their way,” Allison said, her heart still pounding in her chest. “We can roll this back. Let me go and you can just walk away.”

  Arnie smiled as he walked around her chair. The facade he usually wore around her was gone; his face and eyes bore the signs of mania she’d seen in the images of so many killers she had studied.

  “You can walk out of here, Arnie. Think of Jason.”

  Arnie reached out and slowly slid the strap off her shoulder. Allison felt her skin prickle where his hand brushed against her skin.

  “They’re going to be here soon,” she whispered, hardly able to breathe.

  Arnie slid his hand down her neck and placed it on her chest. He stared blankly into her face as he held his position for several long seconds. Finally, he removed his hand.

  “Your heart is reacting to the adrenaline shot I gave you to counteract the drug. I wasn’t sure how much to give you to bring you out of it. I hope I didn’t overdo it.”

  “Arnie, I’m a special agent with the FBI. I have backup all around the property. They listened to us the entire time. No way you’re getting out of here.”

  Arnie rolled the tiny microphone between his fingers and then tossed it on the floor. “The thing is, I have toys of my own just in case. A signal scrambler, for example. They haven’t heard a thing since you’ve been here.”

  Allison struggled against the ropes holding her. She knew it was futile, but she had to try and buy more time. Arnie crossed to the wall and flipped a light switch. Electricity poured into her body from the wire contacts attached to each of her hands. It was a small jolt, but Allison got the message: if you don’t listen, you will be punished.

  “Standard operating procedure,” Allison said when she got her breath back. “The minute they lost contact with me, they started to move in.”

  Arnie picked up a remote control and turned on the television. The screen showed an image of the road outside Arnie’s property. Empty. Arnie pressed button after button, showing different parts of the property. There was no one coming.

  Allison choked down a surge of panic. Why weren’t they coming? She tried to remain calm in front of Arnie, not wanting to give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing how scared she was.

  “Yes, I was surprised too,” Arnie said. “Then I saw this.”

  He clicked the button one more time and it showed a long view of the main entrance road. Arnie pointed to a little blotch on the screen far down the road. He toggled another button on the remote, and the camera zoomed in on that part of the image. “Wait for it,” Arnie said. “Wait for it.”

  Slowly, the white communications van with two police cruisers parked behind it came into view. “Not very much backup,” Arnie said. “Seems not everyone is taking this very seriously. Should I feel insulted?”

  “They’ll still come eventually. If you stay, you’re going to die. Is that what you want?”

  “I’m glad you asked that question,” Arnie replied. “Because you know what I really want?”

  He waited for Allison to ask him, but she was done with the games. She just stared at him.

  “I’ll tell you,” Arnie continued. “I want you to use this phone to call the special agent in that van and tell him exactly what’s written on this card.”

  He held it up to Allison for her to see. She read through it quickly and broke out into a harsh laugh. “You know I won’t do that.”

  “Oh, I think you will.”

  Arnie pressed another button on the remote and the screen changed to a bedroom scene. In the center of the screen was Charlie, arms and legs tied to an old-fashioned wooden chair. His face was a bloody and swollen pulp, so battered that Allison almost didn’t recognize him at first. His body shook and, even without sound, she could tell he was sobbing. There was a car battery on a table next to him, and two cables snaked their way across the floor and disappeared under his shirt. Thick bands of tape wrapped around his chest to hold them in place.

  Jesus. A pain gripped her chest, her breathing reduced to short, ragged gasps. She yanked and jerked against her bindings. A futile effort, full of rage and anger. When she stopped, she was breathing even harder. “Let him go,” she barely managed to say. “He has nothing to do with any of this.”

  Arnie pulled a transmitter from his pocket and pushed a button. Allison watched the TV screen in horror as Charlie’s body twitched and jerked. His mouth was open, screaming, but she didn’t hear a sound. Which meant either Charlie was in a different location or the basement was soundproof. Arnie kept the button pressed and Charlie continued to flail around.

  “Stop! You’re killing him!” Allison cried.

  “Are you ready to make the phone call?” Arnie asked calmly.

  Charlie was only here because of her. Deep inside, she knew both of them were as good as dead, but she had to try. She nodded to Arnie, and he let go of the button. Charlie sagged forward in his chair, moving just enough that Allison could see he was still alive.

  Arnie held the phone in front of Allison, ready to dial for her.

  “Deviate from the script I wrote by one word, and I’ll cut off both of his arms while you watch. Understand?” Allison nodded. “Good. Fifteen seconds into the call, poor Charlie gets the juice.” He held up the transmitter for emphasis. “And he keeps getting it until you get off the phone.”

  “You’re a sadistic asshole.”

  Arnie grinned. “You have no idea.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Richard was just about done waiting. His self-imposed twenty-minute mark had passed five minutes ago and still nothing. Every second that ticked by ratcheted up the guilt he felt for not moving in right away. The techs were out of options, even though they were still going through the motions of adjusting their equipment.

  “To hell with this,” he muttered to no one in particular. “We’re going in.”

  He pushed open the back of the van and waved to the police officers milling around their cars. As he did, his phone rang. It was a Maryland number he didn’t recognize. He almost slid it back into his pocket, but the caller ID showed it came from the immediate area.

  “Hello?” he said into the phone.

  “Richard, it’s me.”

  “Jesus, Allison, what the hell—”

  “No time,” Allison’s voice came across rushed and breathless. “My phone doesn’t work out here. I’m guessing my mic doesn’t either.”

  “Yeah, we lost you when you went inside.”

  “I think it’s some kind of electronic jammer. I used this landline to make contact.”

  “Come out, now! Make any excuse; just get the hell out.”

  “I’ve got it under control. I’ll contact you again. He’s coming. Got to go.”

  Click.

  Richard almost threw his phone into the empty field next to the van.

  “Goddammit, Allison!”

  He looked up and saw the police officers watching him carefully. He smiled and waved at them, all the while steaming at Allison’s maverick behavior. Some things never changed. He just hoped it wasn’t going to get her killed someday.

  CHAPTER 45

  Allison watched Arnie put the phone in his pocket along with the transmitter. The entire call had taken less than fifteen seconds. Charlie remained hunched over in the TV image, unaware how close he had just come to another electric shock. Allison racked her brain on how she was going to get out of the
mess she was in. There hadn’t been any time to somehow alert Richard that things were not well. Usually, there were code words to use when speaking under duress, but Arnie must have known that.

  An hour. She had to survive the next hour before she’d have another chance. She watched Arnie open a case on a side table and realized staying alive was going to be no easy task. Inside the case, lined up perfectly in a molded spot for each piece, was a set of silver-plated surgical instruments. He passed his hands over the tools slowly, his fingers lingering on each piece. Arnie’s expression showed he was a million miles away, a slight smile on his lips, as he reverently looked over his hacksaw, his scalpel, his suturing hooks.

  Based on that expression, Allison doubted she would make it the next hour. She had to think of something and she had to do it quickly.

  She looked around the room, desperate for anything that might give her an out. The possible solution came from the unlikeliest of sources. It was a long shot, but it was all that she had. An expression from her father reared up in her mind. The chances are between slim and none, and slim just left the building.

  But she pushed the thought aside. With no other options, she grasped onto the small glimmer of hope she had spotted and used it to focus her attention. If it were going to work, it would need all of her effort plus some good old-fashioned luck thrown into the mix. One thing she knew for certain. If it didn’t work, both she and Charlie were as good as dead. And that thought just pissed her off.

  CHAPTER 46

  Arnie loved this part. The foreplay right before the main attraction. The anticipation. The infinite universe of possibilities. Once he started, once he chose which FBI profile to mimic, then the choices narrowed. After he cut into flesh and chiseled through bone, the choices narrowed even more. Then there was the delicate dance between his fun and the moment where his subject lost consciousness. The game didn’t end there, but without the reaction of a live subject, it became a butcher’s job. But he had grown to like that part too.