The TAKEN! Series - Books 13-16 (Taken! Box Set Book 4)

by Remington Kane

  “What’s your name?” Jessica asked.

  “You can call me Overseer,”

  Lawson let out a sigh.

  “His name is Wally,”

  Wally sent him a hard stare. He was about forty, and with his delicate frame, oversized glasses, and bow tie, he looked like the poster boy for a nerd recruitment center.

  “Would you like me to tell the doctor your real name as well, Thomas?”

  “No,” Lawson said, as Jessica stared at him.

  “Your real name isn’t Thomas Lawson?”

  “The Thomas part is right, as for the last name, perhaps I’ll tell you someday,”

  Jessica stared at him a moment longer and then turned back to Wally.

  “What does this ‘Gauntlet’ consist of?”

  “It’s two parts, the first part is simple, and fun too, your husband just has to be the last man standing in a paintball match.”

  “Paintball? Against how many men?”

  “Ten men, and each of them will be trying their best to add some color to that pretty white outfit he’s wearing.”

  “What happens if he gets hit?”

  “It’s game over,”

  “Ten against one are very unfair odds.”

  “That’s why less than one percent make it through,”

  “What’s part two?”

  “Part two is an obstacle course, it’s a duplicate of ‘Nasty Nick’, the Special Forces obstacle course, you know, climbing and swinging from ropes, crawling through tunnels, that sort of thing. I get tired just watching the men go through it.”

  “How many complete the obstacle course?”

  “Every winner of the paintball contest has made it through the obstacle course, but out of the over one-thousand men that have faced the paintball challenge, only seven have passed it. Ten against one are overwhelming odds, yes, but this challenge was created for the elite of the elite, and quite frankly, I don’t know why Thomas is wasting our time with a civilian.”

  “I already told you, Wally, the man is gifted,” Lawson said.

  “We’ll see,” Wally said, and then he tapped the shoulder of a man in uniform who was sitting at the control panel for the monitors.

  “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  ***

  He was standing at the entrance to the arena when one of the soldiers handed him an all-white paint gun and a white mask to protect his face. Earlier, he had been walked through the basics of the arena’s design and also the paint gun’s operation, and knew that it held two-hundred balls filled with white paint.

  The gun was actually shaped like a rifle, and had been referred to as a “paintball marker” by the man who had walked him through the basics of its design.

  The rules were simple. He would be facing ten opponents clad all in black across a field laden with logs and barrels and walls also painted black, atop a black surface. The ten men would be firing red paint at him, and any direct hit he took would end the contest, conversely, once he marked a man with white paint, they too were done.

  The only white objects inside the arena would be the clothing and equipment he possessed, and the men would be coming at him from across the three-hundred foot long field.

  Once he entered the arena, he had sixty seconds to hide and find cover, then, the door on the opposite end of the field opened and the hunt was on.

  The odds were daunting, but he had survived worse odds against men who actually wished him dead, and he knew that it was brains that separated winners from losers far more often than brawn. If such were not the case, then all men would be brutes and dullards.

  The soldier wished him luck, the door slid aside, and he entered the room, walked six paces, turned, and fired at the door he had just entered through.

  ***

  In the control room, Wally leaned down and stared at the monitors.

  “What the hell is he doing, trying to escape? Those paintballs won’t penetrate the door.”

  Jessica grinned.

  “He’s marking it, turning it white, and now there are two things in the room that are white.”

  “That’s... that’s, um, never been tried before, and it will fail. I mean how long will that fool anyone?”

  “Long enough would be my guess,” Jessica said.

  ***

  After marking the door with gobs of paint, he dropped the gun and went to work smearing it, and soon it took on the general outline of a man. Once done, he scooped up the paint gun and ran as fast as he could towards the other end of the arena.

  He had been counting down in his head and guessed that he had twelve seconds left until the door on the opposite end opened and unleashed his opponents. He covered two-hundred and eighty feet and then went into a slide that placed him behind a black wall that was waist high, and within instants, the door slid aside and out they came, firing in all directions.

  They had expected an ambush, had seen that tactic tried many times before, and knew to come out firing. When the first man spotted the white shape a football field away, he pointed at it while giving a shout, and the group ran towards it en masse, like bulls chasing a red cape.

  He lay on his stomach behind the wall with his rifle held up and ready, but dared not peek out to get a look, because even an inch of exposed white fabric would doom him.

  He heard the pack of men approaching, grow louder, and then the sudden cry of dismay as they came even with his position, and one or more of them realized that what they were running towards was not a man, but a painted ghost.

  He placed three fingers in the trigger guard just as they came to a skidding halt in front of him and to the right, and used the three fingers to alternatingly squeeze the trigger on the gun, as if he were a virtuoso playing keys on a piano.

  Tac, Tac, Tac, Tac, Tac, Tac, Tac, Tac, Tac, Tac, Tac, Tac, Tac, Tac, Tac, Tac,

  The motorized hopper atop the gun fed paintballs at twenty per second and before the men could fire back, or even turn around, he had fired off nearly forty white balls at their backs.

  Two men returned fire, but he had already rolled away to his left, and then a voice came over a loudspeaker.

  “The contest is ended, white wins.”

  He stood, removed his face mask, and saw the other men do the same, while one of them shouted at him, while pointing at the paint smeared on the door.

  “That should be against the rules!”

  He ignored the man. It wasn’t against the rules. The rules stated that he would lose if marked by red paint, and although his gloves were sticky with the substance, it was all white and devoid of hue.

  He had won, they had lost, and there was no sense moaning about what should or shouldn’t be.

  The loudspeaker crackled again and Wally’s voice came over it.

  “That wasn’t against the rules, Marco, but you might want to remember it for your playbook.”

  The men grumbled, sent dirty looks, and then headed for the door that they had entered through, as he strode back towards the other end.

  Minutes later, he was back in his street clothes, and as he opened the door of his dressing room, he saw Jessica smiling with pride.

  “That was brilliant, and, according to Wally here, you set a new record by about ten minutes.”

  He looked at Lawson.

  “There’s an obstacle course next, take me to it.”

  “You’re allowed an hour to rest.”

  “I don’t want to rest. I want to finish this and get on with my life.”

  Jessica moved closer.

  “This is pointless, isn’t it?”

  “Not if you still want me to go through with it.”

  She looked down at the floor, and then up into his eyes again.

  “No, you’re right; this is meaningless, like a game of sorts.”

  “Yes.”

  Lawson spoke to Wally.

  “We’ll be leaving, but I thank you for the hospitality,”

  Wally frowned.

  “He exposed a wea
kness in our combat test, I’ll give you that, but I still say that he would have failed the obstacle course.”

  He stared at the man.

  “What’s the difference between success and failure on the obstacle course?”

  “Well, if you succeed, you’ll gain a sense of pride, and for as long as you live you’ll know that you were a somebody.”

  He took Jessica by the hand.

  “I got both those things the day I married this woman.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Chicago, Illinois

  Summer once again sparkled beneath the bright stage lights of The Jerry Schneider Show, as she walked out on stage wearing a short green dress the color of her eyes, along with a pair of red stiletto pumps that accentuated her flaming red hair. Todd was with her this time, and he followed his wife’s lead, and waved and smiled at the audience.

  After playing to the crowd, Summer kissed Schneider on the cheek and settled beside him as Todd sat to her right.

  When the applause settled, Schneider asked his first question.

  “Summer, has there been any sign of Numerical since he made that insane attempt at killing those college students?”

  “No, Jerry, the gutless worm has apparently crawled back into his hole.”

  “A gutless worm? That’s a harsh insult, and more than fitting, but aren’t you afraid that you’ll make him angry?”

  “I couldn’t care less if he gets angry. The man is not only a coward, but an incompetent coward, if he were to come after me, he’d probably shoot his own foot off.”

  Schneider opened his mouth in an exaggerated display of surprise while looking directly at the audience, just as he had rehearsed earlier. The TV host had been a failed actor in his youth, and his theatrical skills had not improved with the passage of time.

  “Summer, you might want to dial it back a few notches. Take it from someone who knows what it’s like to be stalked by a whack job. You do not want Numerical coming after you because of something you might say that upsets him.”

  It was Summer’s turn to play to the audience, and she did so, by looking at them and rolling her eyes.

  “Please, I’m not afraid of the coward, Jerry. He’s obviously not much of a man anyway, what real man needs a knife to get laid?” Summer giggled. “Maybe we should rename Numerical, Little Henry, I mean, if the man needs a knife to get some, it must be pretty small, am I right or not?”

  The audience hooted, howled, and laughed it up, some, because they thought Summer’s remarks were humorous, but most were just doing what the blinking amber signs above the stage instructed them to do, which was to Hoot, Howl, and Laugh It Up.

  When the signs went out, the audience calmed down, and Jerry Schneider was actually wringing his hands as a way of conveying that he was worried.

  “Oh, oh Summer, I certainly hope that this guy Numerical isn’t watching the show, or that he hears about it, because if he does, well, let me just say that I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes... although, those are very nice shoes. Are those Ferragamo’s?”

  In rehearsal, this was the part where Summer was to stand up in a rush and point directly at the camera, however, Schneider’s impromptu remark about her shoes put her off her timing, still, she stood a moment later and spoke, as Todd stood behind her.

  “Are you watching this, Numerical? I hope so, and I issue this challenge. I dare you to kill me, do you hear me little boy, you useless worm, I, a member of the FBI Numerical Task Force, dare you to come and kill me.”

  The electronic signs blinked the words, ooh and aah, and the audience obeyed, as Jerry Schneider pressed his hands against the sides of his head in a display of disbelief.

  He stood and went to Summer, then, he raised a hand to quiet the audience.

  “I cannot believe you just did that. Now he has to come after you, and soon, or everyone will know he’s a coward like you say.”

  “He is a coward, and I won’t be hiding from him either. Numerical, I give you one week to kill me, one week, and then I’ll come back on The Jerry Schneider Show and laugh at you some more, you pathetic loser.”

  ***

  Inside her office in DC, Robyn Dyer stared at her TV screen as her face reddened. She was holding her phone in her right hand, and Russ Smith was on the other end. He had called and informed Robyn that Summer and Todd Gray were on the Schneider show.

  Robyn heard Smith’s voice calling to her, and she placed the phone back at her ear.

  “I’m here, Russ, and can you believe the stupidity of this woman?”

  “Stupid is right, but done is done, so what are we going to do now? Given Numerical’s psychological profile, he’ll likely try to kill her, and probably her husband as well, just for good measure.”

  Robyn realized that Smith was right, and that Summer had definitely made herself and Todd targets. It was also not lost on Robyn that Summer had insured a continuing involvement in the Numerical investigation by doing so.

  She stared at the television screen, at Summer’s smug face, and a plan formed in her mind.

  “Russ?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I know it’s primarily a political term, but are you familiar with the phrase, ‘Useful Idiots?’”

  “I see where you’re going; you want to use the Grays as bait, right?”

  “They’ve turned themselves into bait, and so we might as well use it to our advantage. Call everyone on the task force and tell them we’re meeting in Chicago, and with a little luck, Numerical will be ours in a matter of days.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Numerical was breathing heavily as he pulled his fist away from the flat screen television he had just destroyed with a savage punch.

  The screen was cracked and there was a deep indentation in the spot where Summer Gray’s smiling face had been.

  He hadn’t watched the show live, but saw the headline on the Internet and sent the YouTube video of the show’s highlights to his TV. When Summer dared him to kill her, actually dared him on national TV, he lost it, and sent his fist flying.

  That red-headed whore! First Cassandra Carson sets a trap for me and later nearly kills me, and now this, and oh yes, let’s not forget that bitch of a security guard that ruined my fun. A ten-dollar an hour security guard for God’s sake. Women, useless women every one of them, and now this red-headed harlot has the gall to not only dare me to kill her, but to question my manhood as well. I’ll kill her all right, her, Cassandra, the security guard, and Elena Colt and Jessica White for good measure, I’ll kill every last one of the bitches.

  Numerical plopped back onto his sofa and tried to calm down, and as he did so, he heard his laptop make a beep, informing him that he had a new email message.

  It was from Prophet.

  You do realize that the FBI will use this Summer Gray moron to set a trap for you, don’t you?

  Of course he realized it, but he had also been dared, and by a woman no less. Numerical’s ego could not let something like that go unchallenged.

  Another beep, and another email from Prophet,

  A week from now, you’ll either be the laughing stock of the country, or, if you’re stupid enough to try to kill Summer Gray, you’ll be captured. Either outcome will make me happy, good luck, Little Henry.

  Numerical ignored Prophet’s attempt at making him angry by repeating Summer’s taunt, and sent no reply back, he was already busy thinking of ways to kill Summer Gray.

  CHAPTER 38

  Days later, at an FBI safe house just outside Chicago, Summer Gray defended her actions to Robyn, and Russ Smith.

  “It’s not stupid! My plan is brilliant and you’re just jealous because you didn’t think of it yourself, Dyer. Numerical has to make a move before I go back on the show in a few days, and when he does, we’ll have him.”

  “What happens after the deadline is over?” Smith asked.

  “What?”

  “Let’s say the week goes by, Numerical ignores you, and you go back on the show and make more no
ise, what then?”

  Summer’s face screwed up in confusion.

  “He can’t ignore me. I dared him on TV in front of the world; he has to come after me, or the agent you have pretending to be me, that Agent Meadows, I saw that video you showed of her going into my hotel, and she may look like me, but her hips are much wider.”

  Robyn and Smith shared a look, and afterwards, Robyn spoke to Summer.

  “Fortunately, Jessica White agrees with you, not about Agent Meadows’ hips, but about Numerical finding your dare to be irresistible. She also warned me that he knows it’s a trap, and that he’ll try something unconventional to get to you.”

  Summer’s face clouded.

  “Unconventional? What’s that mean? Is he going to try to blow us up the way he did that house months ago?”

  “It might mean that, but we have bomb-sniffing dogs and bomb technicians going over every potential place he might strike, such as the hotel and Schneider’s studio.”

  “What about here?” Todd said, he was lying on the sofa and had been playing a game on his phone.

  “This house was checked before we moved you in here, also, Mr. Gray, I’ll need to take your phones when I go.”

  Todd glared up at her.

  “What do you need my phone for?”

  “It’s a security measure. Guests of the safe house aren’t allowed phones, weapons, or Internet access.”

  Summer pouted as she placed her hands on her hips.

  “You think we’re stupid enough to tell anyone where we are?”

  “I do think you’re that stupid, yes, if you weren’t, we wouldn’t be here.”

  Todd rose from the sofa and stood over Robyn. He was a tall man and the top of her head was level with his chest.

  “You don’t want to be calling us stupid, it’s not healthy.”

  If Robyn felt even a flicker of fear, she didn’t show it, but simply held out her hand.

  “Give me your phone.”

  Todd glared at her some more, saw it had no effect, and then glowered at Smith, who did show a reaction; Russ Smith appeared bored.