by E Y Mak
Russell looked past her. The driver’s side of the Mercedes was pinned against a cement wall. His door was jammed and deformed and the window had been knocked out. An elderly Chinese man had approached the vehicle from his end. The man took three steps back when their eyes met. Russell ignored him and craned his neck backward. He could see a twisted mess of black metal smoldering about twenty-five yards behind them in the narrow alley.
“The truck that hit us ricocheted into the other one,” Russell laughed morbidly.
Benita shook her head and brushed the hair from her face. “Okay, let’s see if we can get out of the car.”
Russell pulled at the inside handle on the passenger door. A metallic sound emanated from the hinge. Something in the doorframe had bent to prevent the door from opening smoothly. Russell leaned in and put his weight into it. It squealed and squeaked and then suddenly relented, dumping Russell into the street. He looked up and down the alley. He could see a crowd in the distance approaching them. Mong Kok tai tais armed with cell phone cameras.
They had to get out of here before they were surrounded.
He looked back in Ricardo’s direction. The Phineas agents were preoccupied with untangling themselves from the wreckage. One of the agents had blood streaming down his pale face. In the distance, Russell heard the sirens of incoming Hong Kong police cars.
And then he heard them.
The quiet but high-pitched whine of MSS drones. He looked up and saw three of them, just floating there, observing, feeding back to MSS everything that they were surveilling. Doing nothing more, but not needing to do anything more.
Russell ignored them, for now, and helped Benita out of the disabled vehicle. Despite all this, they were in the perfect place to disappear. They had crashed in a poorer part of Hong Kong, where the buildings were closer together and interconnected in makeshift, haphazard, and dangerous ways. But every room and hallway and building here had multiple entrances and exits.
Russell looked for, but could not find, his Glock, but saw his briefcase. With one hand, he grabbed it and with the other, he grabbed Benita’s hand. He shot a look at her—let’s move.
They rushed towards the closest building and found a door, an old green metal thing, significantly rusted in the humid Hong Kong weather. It was, miraculously, unlocked and they quickly ran in. Right before he closed the door, Russell looked back at the steaming twisted wreckage. A horde of camera phones capturing the spectacle. One drone had followed them to the door, but hovered about ten feet off the ground, not willing to follow them in. The other two were probably circulating high above, trying to get as good a chance as possible to try and catch them.
He also gave one last look at Ricardo. He was still inside the cabin of his vehicle, scowling upsidedown at Russell through seething teeth.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Somewhere near New York City
Candice had lost track of time trying to find a way to get out of her cell. She had managed to break off one of the ceiling fan blades by grabbing on with both hands and jumping off the table. She tried to use the blade to wedge the window boards open but gave up after fifteen minutes. She then dissembled the pull chain from the fan and used it to slowly work away at what she felt was a weak spot on one of the bars on the door. If she could just get rid of one bar, she was thin enough that she might just be able to slip through. But the chain broke before she made any meaningful progress.
It felt like hours later before she heard the distant jingle of a set of keys. She took in a long breath but began shivering uncontrollably. She heard the sound of a door creaking outside the hallway, then footsteps that approached and then stop outside the door. She listened to whoever it was set something down, perhaps on a table. She was sure that he had returned.
Then the Phantom flicked the light switch, and light engulfed the hallway, spilling into the cell dimly. Candice froze momentarily but recollected her senses, grabbing the ceiling fan blade and quietly crouching directly underneath the barred window on the door.
The Phantom was a confident man, however. He didn’t bother to check the cell. She first heard the sound of a faucet being turned on, about thirty seconds of splashing and then a metallic creak. The running water stopped.
Candice gripped the fan blade harder. The blade was narrower at the end that connected to the fixture, in a way that she could use the small end as a handle. Candice held it tight like a cricket bat.
After the water stopped running, she heard another door open, gentle rummaging and then the sound of a coat being hung. She then listened to the clanking of metal on wood and then footsteps approaching her cell door.
“Candice?” he rasped softly.
She held her breath, pinching herself to keep from giving away her position. From her viewpoint under the opening, she saw a face come in, look left and then right to the corners of the room.
Don’t look down.
He did not.
He stepped back. She heard the jangling of keys in a pocket, then the methodical spinning of a key in the lock. Candice used this noise to mask her waddling into the corner of the room beside the door.
Immediately after she had rolled to the side, the Phantom swung the door open angrily and rushed in. By then, Candice had already had the fan blade cocked back and gave it her hardest swing, channeling twenty years of baseball and another twelve hours of pent-up anger into one fluid swing to the Phantom’s left temple. He dropped to the floor.
Her assailant disabled, she stood near his prone body and gave him another two swift kicks to the side, then another to the head. She felt an odd squishiness as her foot met his face. She looked around quickly for something to tie him up. She found nothing. The chain from the ceiling fan was weak and, in any event, had been frayed beyond any practical use as a bind.
Adrenaline still burning through her, she jumped over the prone body and rushed out the door, and found herself in a second room. It was populated with a sink vanity and some shelves holding old paint cans and assorted jars. She rummaged through the vanity, finding about a dozen syringes and an equal number of small vials of some unmarked liquid.
She looked up from the sink. To her left was a closet and at the opposite end of the room was a staircase. Opening the closet, she found and opened a backpack, where she gathered an old cell phone, a long, thin metal wire, a bundle of zip ties and a change of clothes. She grabbed the cellphone and zip tie and walked back to where the Phantom’s prone body lay.
She kicked him violently in the face again.
No reaction.
Satisfied in his incapacity, she kneeled on the cold stone floor and pulled the zip tie taut around his wrists. It wasn’t quite what she was hoping for, but it would have to do for now. She took a deep breath and looked at his face. His eyes were closed, his face fixed in an ever-unchanging pattern. Even out cold, his face was so icy and stiff that his skin might have well been made of plastic.
She picked up the fan blade again and backed to the staircase, eyes locked continuously on the still body on the floor. Once she got to the base of the stairs, she turned around and rushed up to the door. She hoped upon hope that it would open, and it did.
She rushed out and found herself in a darkened hallway. The dust accumulated on the tables made it clear that whatever building this had been, it had long since been abandoned. A darkened exit sign was affixed to the wall above a set of double doors about twenty yards out. She ran towards the door but slowed when she saw the heavy chains and padlock wrapped around the handles, precluding any possibility of escape.
She turned around. The hallway was lined with lockers. An old school of some type. Another set of double doors was set at the other end of the hall. She walked to the second door. This time, the doors opened into a large gymnasium, empty but for a set of bleachers on the left wall. Another set of doors was on the far wall, and she saw the inviting peek of sunlight filtering out behind the boarded doors. She ran—the promise of freedom about forty paces away.
Suddenly, the hairs on the back of her neck curled up as she heard the sound of a door opening in the distance.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I wake up to the throbbing on the left side of my head. The girl had caught me unexpectedly. I feel the blood starting to drip down my left cheek.
She got you. Good. Are you going to take that?
I try to move my hands, but they are tied up. I feel rigid plastic digging into my wrists.
These can’t hold you down!
I put the loose end of the tie in my mouth and pull as hard as I can.
The tighter it is, the easier it is to break.
Satisfied that I have tightened it as much as I can, I raise my arms above my head, close my eyes and hold my breath as I swing my arms down, pulling them apart as they come down on my knees. I hear the snap of plastic breaking.
Thirty years of hunting, and not even one of my prey had figured out how to break out of these.
I dab a bit of the blood streaming down my cheek with my finger and have a taste. The coppery, warm liquid brings a smile to my lips. It has been a while since I’ve had the pleasure of a proper hunt.
Soon, this will no longer be business. It will be pleasure.
I stand up. First one hand, then a knee, and I am on two feet again. I had let my guard down for one brief moment, and she had gotten the upper hand.
Not again.
I look at the G-Shock. It’s been only ten minutes since I returned. She couldn’t have gotten far. I get up and stagger to the waiting room. She had found my stash but hadn’t seen the hidden compartment in my jacket holding my hunting knife. I pull the knife out and walk to the staircase.
I hear the sound of chains rattling in the distance. I know where she could be now.
She is nearby.
I do not care about the noise that I make. This is my domain. My home territory. The intentional darkness of the school excites me.
She is my prey.
As I walk out the door and into the hallway, a familiar squeak of the hinge emanates in the silence. I listen for movement. Silence. I turn to the most obvious point of escape—the gymnasium.
“Candice . . .” I whisper as I enter into the darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Candice worked her way alongside the cold cement wall, moving away from the chained door and back to the bleachers at the far end of the gymnasium. It would have to do. It was the only cover available in the entire room. With less than ten paces to the bleachers, she heard the hallway door open. She instinctively froze. Any movement she made now would stand out more than a dark shadow standing still in the corner.
The Phantom walked into the gym. He paused briefly, looking into the room, before slowly walking towards the chained door. He was about halfway into the gym before he stopped. He then turned, his body facing the bleachers, before exiting out the door he came in from.
Candice let out a gasp once the door closed behind him. She started another step forward when suddenly the door reopened and he popped his head back in to get one last glimpse of the room.
Candice hovered her foot in the air purposefully. Her heart beat uncontrollably. She saw his expressionless face lit by the dim light coming from the hallway. He saw him staring straight back at her.
Instead of advancing towards her, however, he closed the door. The sound of his loud footsteps receded into the distance, and then he was gone. She finished the final ten paces to the bleachers and hid, closing her eyes and collecting her thoughts.
She knew there were many older schools in the New York area, and she had no idea where she was. She squeezed her eyelids tighter, trying to sense something—an errant train whistle, a distinct odor—something that could help her figure out where she was.
The phone! She had his phone!
She dug into her pockets and felt around for the plastic contours of the old Nokia cell phone. Pulling it out, she powered on the device. The screen lit the underside of the bleacher and the familiar Verizon logo popped onto the screen. Unfortunately, the splash screen that appeared said “No carrier signal.”
She felt around the dark and made her way back to the hallway door, slowly feeling her way. She listened intently, ready for any sound of her captor. With her back against the wall, she peered around the corner of the window in the door and looked into an empty hallway. It was empty. The Phantom had disappeared.
Candice took another deep breath. She wanted to be ready at any time if she had to engage. She made her way back into the hallway, her back against the lockers. Candice zigzagged between various objects strewn throughout the corridor—a desk here, a chalkboard there, and a bunch of chairs—ducking behind each. She peered into one, two, then three classrooms, seeing nothing but boarded-up windows.
As she walked towards the fourth classroom, she heard something. It was the rumbling of distant traffic. She looked into the classroom and saw a brief whisper of light. She stopped and waited. After thirty seconds, she heard nothing.
She peered inside again. Sure enough, some of the boards were falling aside, and there was a gap in the boards large enough for her to fit through. There was even already a basketball-sized hole in the window. She tried the door handle. It turned. She softly turned the handle the rest of the way.
She scanned left and right and, spotting no one, entered the room and hurried to the window. The window was at ground level, and sunlight peeked through the tall blades of grass and weeds on the other side of the glass. She needed to enlarge the hole to escape. She knew that she only had a short opportunity to break it before the Phantom would hear the noise and come running.
Candice used the fan blade to chip away at the hole until it was large enough for her to fit through. She then reached up and climbed onto the sill. She tossed the fan blade through the opening and stuck her head through, gulping a lungful of fresh air. She squinted at the bright sun, but she could still make out a small service road run away from the building and connecting to a main road where, even from a distance, she could see light traffic.
Then all at once, the need to be free overtook her like a madness and she scrambled to get out, thrusting her torso through the hole and worming her arms out the opening. She struggled forward on the soft dirt and grass until she was mostly out of the building.
Suddenly, both her knees hit the ground as she felt a force smash against her feet. She grasped at the long weeds growing near the exit hole as she felt a strong hand began pulling her back into the academic prison.
She didn’t scream. Instead, Candice instinctively kicked backward and felt the grip on her leg weaken. She spun around, seeing the Phantom’s face in the dim shadows within the school. A sense of anger shot from the whites of his eyes and seethed from his clenched teeth. She met his anger with her other leg, stomping hard on his stiff face. Pain shot up her leg but, at the same time, he released his hold on her and fell back into the building.
Candice turned, scrambling to her knees again and began to run away from the building, favoring her right leg. After she had put another fifty yards between her and the school, she turned around and saw the Phantom. He was running, his face unmoving and his eyes fixed on her. His long legs were locked in a robotic stride. With her left leg weakened, he was quickly gaining on her.
Candice hobbled another fifty yards before she realized that there was no way she was going to outrun him. Candice spun around, putting the fan blade between herself and her opponent.
Seeing her stop to engage him, the Phantom slowed to a brisk jog. Once he was within ten yards, he slowed down further and continued walking towards her in a calmed, controlled pace. He was nearly within arm’s reach of her when he finally stopped. His eyes traveled—starting at her eyes and rolling down slowly to her thighs, then back up to meet her eyes once more. No smile. Nothing.
He was a tall, slender man, somewhere between six three to six and a half. He had short brown hair and a dimpled c
hin. The hunting knife in his hand glistened in the sun. Candice’s stomach clenched slightly. Guns had a chance of jamming or being out of ammunition or just plain missing. Knives didn’t.
“Candice, where do you think you are going?” he asked slowly.
“Stay back or you’ll get another good look at this blade again!” she threatened loudly. However, she knew that the fan blade wasn’t going to do as much damage as the knife in his hand. She knew that, and he knew that she knew that.
“I’ll take my chances,” he said as he approached. Candice stepped back to maintain the distance between them. He stopped and walked to her left. Candice matched and circled to her right.
This continued for a bit longer until suddenly the Phantom lunged forward, thrusting with his knife at her torso. Candice sideswept the thrust and then backed off again. He responded by swiping across her chest, which Candice parried with the metal fan blade.
Something is weird. He is not going for the kill.
“I haven’t had a fighter in a long time,” he said, licking his lips.
He’s enjoying this, she realized. I can take advantage of this.
They spent another five seconds circling and eying each other, both patient and not overcommitting. They were now two dueling professionals, both aware that the first misstep would have grave consequences.
“Why’d you kill Tim Butler?” she asked.
He responded with a silent stare.
If he wasn’t going for a kill, his knife was useless. She could ratchet up the aggression.
While circling, Candice broke the stalemate midstep and swung for the knife. He anticipated the swing and pulled his knife hand back, simultaneously punching forward with his free fist. He connected with her left shoulder, and she recoiled in pain, dropping the fan blade as she fell back onto the soft gravel.
Another weak thrust from the Phantom. Candice rolled to her side, deftly avoiding the blow. The Phantom continued the attack, swinging, swiping, and thrusting, but all weakly. Candice took advantage of his hesitance and crab-walked backward before finding her feet. The Phantom thrust towards her on the ground. He missed on his attack, lost his footing on the loose gravel, and fell to the ground. Candice kicked him, connecting with his left ear. He grunted and dropped the knife. Both got to their feet almost instantaneously.