by David Archer
Sam pushed the door open and stepped into the warehouse, looking around as he did so. There were no obvious hiding places, but he was sure Unger was watching him as he moved slowly and cautiously over to where Karen was tied to the big executive's chair. When he came into view, she gave him a look that was seething with anger, and he knew it was because he hadn't let her know the truth. If he had, they might have had a chance to nail Unger while he was setting up this trap, and at the least there would be people on her team who would have some idea of what must have happened to her.
He didn't have time to apologize, and doubted she'd listen to it if he did. He nodded to let her know he saw her there, and kept his eyes moving around the room.
“So, you decided to change the rules again? Why is Karen here? I thought this was supposed to be just you and me?”
“The game, Sam, the game is between you and me,” Unger said. “The prize, now, that's where Detective Parks comes in, and I'm afraid you put her into the pot when you told her about our little meeting this morning. I couldn't risk letting her get people around us, not even late, because that might tip the odds in your favor. If the game is going to be fair, Sam, it has to be fair to both sides, won't you agree with that?”
Sam reached towards Karen's face, intending to pull away the duct tape that covered her mouth. He was sure he wouldn't like what she had to say, but he thought she'd at least appreciate the gesture.
BOOM! A single shot echoed through the room, and a bullet struck the floor beside Sam's left foot. He hadn't seen the flash, but the sound had without doubt come from his right, and he spun to try to get a shot off.
There was no sign of Unger, nothing he could see that afforded him a target. He was about to turn back to Karen when Unger spoke again, but his voice came from farther away.
“No touchee, Sam,” Unger said. “Try to release her again, and she's dead. That's the only warning I'm giving you, got that? Now, move away from her, and let's get on with this.”
Sam moved away from Karen, looking in the direction he thought Unger's voice had come from. “You want to get on with it, fine,” he called out. “Step out and let's do it. Tell you what, I'll even up the odds a bit. Are you watching?” He thumbed the magazine release button on his pistol, and caught the mag with his other hand as it dropped out of the grip. “You've got one round in the chamber, and so do I. We can do this duel-style, if you want; step out here and we'll both fire on the count of three.” He slipped the magazine into the pocket of his vest as he spoke.
There was silence for a moment, and then Unger laughed again.
“Sam, you're something,” he said. “I didn't actually expect you to be willing to face me in a duel, and frankly, I'm not willing to face you in one. The game isn't going to be that simple, I'm afraid. What I've got in mind is a bit more suspenseful, a bit more exciting. After all, since this is going to be the end of one of us, we ought to get as much of a thrill from it as we possibly can, right?”
Sam heard a sound off to his left, and when he spun to look, he saw a door swinging shut. He stared at it, because Unger's voice was still coming from his right.
“Here's what I've got in mind, Sam. You come find me. If you can find me before I make my way back to where you are right now, then there's a good chance you can keep me from killing Detective Parks. If not, then she is going to die, and then—then I'll face you in that showdown. That is, provided you don't make a mistake while you're hunting me and give me the chance to take you down. In that case, I'll leave the Detective alive, you have my word on that. I'll even make an anonymous call to make sure someone finds her later today. Those are the rules of the game, Sam. Ready to play?”
Sam looked at Karen, and saw that most of the anger was gone from her eyes. He smiled at her, and her eyes tried to smile back.
He called out, “I'm ready, you sick son of a bitch! Let's play!”
The lights went out. Sam dived onto the floor to his right, rolling past the chair in which Karen was sitting, and coming to a stop on his knees with his gun aimed toward the door that he'd seen closing. Suddenly the lights came back on, and Sam was up and moving instantly, making his way toward that door. He got to it and looked carefully through the glass window before he pushed it open and went through it.
He was in another hallway, one that led toward the offices of the building. He could go either to his right, or to his left. If he went left, there was another hallway that went off of this one, making a right turn to go toward the very front of the building.
He went right, moving stealthily and watching each and every door he passed along the way. Most of them were open, so he looked inside quickly, then cleared each room, the way he'd been taught in the academy, before moving on to the next one.
He came to the last door and found it to be an entrance to another hallway. There were no lights on down this one, which made him wonder if Unger had gone the other way, but his gut was making him think this was the way to go, so he moved into it. He'd taken a few steps when he heard Unger's voice again, this time coming through the intercom system of the building.
“Very good, Sam,” Unger said. “You've got good instincts. You've got me cut off at the moment, but there are three ways out of this section, and unless you’re very lucky, you won't know which one I'll choose. One of them will lead me back to where the Detective is waiting to learn how good a player you are, but the other two will take me into other sections, where I'll have to work a little harder. Which way do you want to block, Sam? Let's see if you can figure out which one is the right one to give your friend a few more minutes of life.”
Sam stared around himself, trying desperately to remember the blueprints Herman had showed him an hour earlier, but all he could see was a short hall that led to a flight of steps. He started to turn away and head further down the hall when a feeling hit him, and he suddenly went to the stairs and looked up. There was no wall at the top of the stairs, and he realized that it would look straight down into the center of the warehouse, and right at where Karen was sitting. If he'd gone the other way, Unger could have gone right up those steps and fired once, and Karen Parks would be dead.
“Bravo!” Unger called. “Excellent move, Sam. Now I've got to take one of the other two ways, so you need to find out which one I choose. If you pick right, then you might get a shot at me; choose wrong, though, and I might get one at you. Your move, Sam!”
Sam heard a click as a door closed somewhere below him, and hurried back down the stairs. The click had seemed to come from his right, but he wasn't sure; the wall to his right might have created an echo reflection, throwing him off. He reached into his pants pocket and took out a coin, then flipped it down the hall to his left and listened as it hit the floor.
It echoed, reflecting off the wall to his right just as he'd thought. He turned to his left and moved as quickly as he could, coming to a pair of doors that were directly across from one another. The one to his left seemed to lead back to the center of the warehouse, but when he glanced through the window on it, he saw that it went into a room that had no other exits. He turned and went through the one on the right, ignoring the common sense that said it was leading him away from Karen.
He came to a hallway that crossed the one he was in, and stopped just short so he could snap his head around and look each way. He looked first to his left, and saw that it led straight to the equipment maintenance room he'd seen on the blueprints, so he looked right.
Unger was standing there, his big pistol aimed right at Sam, and it went off as Sam snatched his head back. The slug hit the wall beside him and sent shrapnel of drywall and wood flying at him, but he had ducked away just in time for it to miss the chance to do him any serious injury. He bounced back instantly into the hall and aimed his Glock, but Unger was gone, and this time there was only one way he could have turned. Sam hurried, limping as fast as he could, to the door he had to have gone through, and caught a glimpse of Unger moving through a door on the other side of the room.<
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Sam didn't follow, but instead turned and went back the way he'd come. His gambit paid off, as he saw Unger's shadow hit the floor in front of him. Sam raised the Glock and when the man himself ran across the hall, he fired, and heard Unger let out a shriek of pain as he fell forward.
Sam snatched the magazine out of his pocket and slammed it home, and then worked the slide to chamber another round. He dropped the magazine out again and put it back into his pocket, continuing the game with a single chambered round, but when he swung around the corner, he saw that Unger was up and gone.
There was a streak of fresh blood on the floor, though, so the shot had been good. He'd hit Unger, and like a wounded animal, the pain and blood loss should begin to slow him, make him erratic and less sensible.
Unfortunately, it could also make him even more dangerous. Sam hurried forward, peeking around the next corner that led toward the warehouse. When he saw no sign of Unger, he sped around it, still hobbling as quickly as his bad hip could bear.
He came to another intersection, looking around the corner again. There were drops of blood, here and there, some of them fairly large, which told Sam that he had hit a spot that had arterial blood; the larger spots were from the spurting that comes from the heart pumping and arterial constriction that aids in blood flow, while the smaller ones were drops that fell between spurts.
Unger was hurt, but the blood loss wasn't so great that it was likely to be fatal, or even debilitating. Sam could follow the trail, but Unger would be expecting him. He made sure to snap his head around every corner and look before stepping out.
“Unger,” he yelled, “you're hit. It's just a matter of time, now. See the big spots of blood? Those are arterial blood spurts, and they mean you're bleeding out, slowly. We both know you can't go and get medical help, so why not give up now? The cops would arrest you, but they'd have to take you to a doctor, too.”
Unger's voice came through the intercom again, and Sam realized he must be wearing a microphone and transmitter that he'd wired into it. “Sam, I'm not an idiot, and I don't appreciate being talked to as if I were one. I'm not bleeding so badly that I'm in any danger, so don't try to bluff me into a surrender. All you'll do with talk like that is piss me off.” He laughed, but there was a cough at the end of it, and Sam thought maybe he'd hit a lung. “Besides, we had a deal, remember? Only one of us leaves here alive? I'm moving in a pattern that will take me back to the Detective, Sam, and might even give me another shot at you. Are you ready?”
Sam sighed. “Bring it on, Unger. I'm ready to blow you away and get this over with.”
“Ah, bravado! I like that! Do you know, Sam, you are not the first I've hunted this way? I've played this game a half dozen times. I've chosen different people to bring into a similar scenario, gave them a gun and turned them loose, then hunted them down. It's far more satisfying than just stalking them, because they have the chance to fight back—though you're the first who has managed to wound me. Only one or two of the others ever even got a shot off, before I killed them. I'm nearing a passage that will let me get past you, if you’re not careful, Sam. Detective Parks will be so disappointed if you don't stop me, you know.”
Sam was trying to recall the blueprints, and he thought he knew the passage Unger was talking about. It would be part of the same one that the shooter who got him that day had come through, and Sam felt a small tremor go through him as he entered the hall that would lead him to it, but he didn't slow or hesitate. He moved into it and followed it to the end, where he hoped he might actually be a step ahead of the killer.
He looked around the corner and saw nothing but a windowless doorway at the end. There was no light, and he couldn't see any blood; he didn't know whether Unger was ahead of him, now, or behind him, and it was an important question. If he was ahead, Sam would be walking into a trap if he went through that door; if he was behind, then Sam would need to walk backwards as he went to it. Either way, he was exposed and vulnerable from one direction or the other.
He sighed and eased himself around the corner into the passage, then put his back against the wall and moved slowly along it as he approached the door. He kept his head moving, turning one way, then the other, watching for any sign of movement from either direction, ready to fire as soon as it came.
He's got me rubberneckin', Sam thought, almost laughing at the old term. He hadn’t actually heard it used in years, but whipping his head back and forth made him think of the old Elvis song, and he had to force himself not to laugh at the absurdity of even thinking of such things in a life-or-death situation like this one.
He took another step and his foot slipped; he looked down and could barely make out a smear that he was sure was blood. That meant Unger had made it through the door ahead of him, and would probably be waiting when he opened the door to step through. He moved silently across the passage to the other side, then got down low, crouching as far as he could without sending his hip into spasms of pain.
He reached out and put his hand on the door, then suddenly shoved it hard, throwing it open. As soon as it swung wide, a shot rang out, and he saw the flash of Unger's muzzle, so he fired back directly at it. He heard a loud thwack, and Unger screamed again, and Sam was up instantly, slamming the magazine into the gun and jacking the slide to chamber another round. This time he didn't even bother to drop the magazine out, but fired again in the same direction, then rushed through the doorway to where he expected to find Unger laying on the floor.
There was no one there, and Sam ducked quickly. Another shot came from off to his left, along the path that led back to the main area of the warehouse, but this time he didn't see anything. He stood up and went in the direction of the shot as fast as he could move, hoping with every step to trip over Unger's body, but when he got to the door at the end, the one that led back towards Karen, he still hadn't encountered an obstacle, so he threw it open and hurried through it.
Unger was limping ahead of him, loading his gun as he moved, and getting closer and closer to where Karen sat in the chair, still bound and unable to move. As Sam watched, Unger flipped the barrel up and raised the gun, aiming at Karen's head, and Sam pointed his gun and fired, pulling the trigger again and again until he saw Unger fall.
He hobbled closer, and saw that Unger was still breathing. The big man rolled onto his back, his gun still in his hand, and tried to raise it to aim at Sam, but he was hit in that arm as well as several times in his chest and back, and he didn't have the strength to lift it. He got his arm up a few inches, and then the gun fell from his fingers to the floor, and Sam kicked it away.
The big man lay there for a moment, then he looked up at Sam. “I guess—I guess you win,” he said. “Go ahead, then—finish the game.”
Sam looked down at him and aimed his gun at Unger's head. The killer stared right into his eyes, as Sam's finger tightened on the trigger. All he had to do was squeeze a little tighter, just another half ounce of pressure, and Unger would be dead. His gun was lying there beside him, still loaded, so he could claim the shot was fully justified...
And then Sam lowered the gun. “No,” he said. “You're not gonna drag me down to your level. I'm not giving you an easy out, Unger. You're going to pay for every single one of the lives you took, and the people you terrorized.” He took his phone out of his pocket and dialed 911.
“This is Sam Prichard. I have a wounded murder suspect at forty-seven nineteen North Division Street. I need police and an ambulance as fast as possible.”
He hung up the phone and turned to release Karen. As soon as he had her hands free, she slapped him across the face.
“That,” she said, “is for not telling me the truth about when you were meeting Unger. Later, I'll thank you for saving my life, but for right now, Sam Prichard, I'm so pissed at you I could just about rip your face off! Now, give me your phone!”
Sam handed it to her, and she dialed her assistant, Brenner, while he looked Unger over and applied pressure on what seemed the most
dangerous of his wounds, the one in his arm. The other rounds had hit what Sam thought were non-vital areas, and he made himself a promise to spend more time at the firing range.
An ambulance and three squad cars arrived within minutes, and the paramedics got Unger stabilized, then transported him to the hospital. Karen sent three officers along as escorts, to make sure he didn't get away, though it was doubtful he could possibly have managed to get up or move on his own. He had lost a considerable amount of blood, and had lost consciousness by the time he was loaded up and hauled away.
* * * * *
Sam sat at the interview table as Karen and Brenner grilled him for more than four hours. Because he had, in fact, managed to save her life, Karen decided against making any charges against Sam, and even modified her own report to say that Sam had called her early that morning to say he was going to meet Unger at the warehouse, but that Unger had abducted her at gunpoint as she was getting into her car to head downtown and start getting a team together to go and take him down. When Brenner started to object, she looked at him and said, “Let me tell you something, Brenner. Sam Prichard is a better cop than any dozen of you so-called detectives that they're promoting these days. He's saved my ass more times than I can count, so if I have to lie to save his, then I'll do it. And if you dare to contradict me, I flat-out guarantee you that I've got enough pull to make sure you're directing traffic before the day is out, because you know what? I've saved the ass of several of our superior officers, and they don't forget, either! So shut up and write your report to agree with mine!”
Brenner shut up and did as he was told.
Sam was allowed to leave the police department administration building around noon, after he and Karen had made sure that their statements matched and they'd each memorized the points they might be questioned on. He got a ride back to where he'd left the truck, then headed straight for the hospital to see Indie.