Hunter's Games

by James P. Sumner

  “It's good to see you too,” I say, smiling. “How did you get here so fast?”

  “I was in the area,” he replies, dismissively. “What happened, Adrian?”

  “I was walking out of City Hall on the phone to you when they swarmed at me from out of nowhere. They knew exactly who I was and where I’d be, I'm sure of that much.”

  “And again, what possessed you to beat up an FBI agent?”

  I look down and sigh, feeling like a guilty child being given the ‘we’re not angry, just disappointed’ speech by their parents.

  “I hit the agent trying to bring me in for questioning because he said for me to come along quietly, or else.”

  “He used those exact words?”

  “Yup.”

  Josh is quiet for a moment. “Fair enough,” he says with a dismissive shrug. “All things being considered, the guy’s lucky you didn’t kill him…”

  We both fall silent for a moment, before bursting out laughing.

  “It’s good to see you, Boss,” he says.

  “Likewise,” I say. “How did you know to come here?”

  “You know I don’t like giving away trade secrets, Boss. Don’t ask me that.”

  “Josh...”

  I stare at him until he can't hold my gaze any longer. He looks down at the table, lost in some inner turmoil, like a magician asked to reveal how he does a particular trick.

  “Just because I’m handcuffed, it doesn’t mean I won’t kick your ass,” I continue.

  “Alright, fine,” he says with a reluctant sigh. “Typically, I'm never more than a couple of hours away from you when you’re on a job. I have a little Winnebago which I’ve kitted out as my own little mobile command center. Ever since Philly, I’ve tried to stay close when you’re working... y'know, just in case you need any back up or anything.”

  I stare at the wall just behind Josh, my mind flashing back to Philadelphia, eight years ago. Finding my wife and daughter murdered in our family home. The result of a drug kingpin called Wilson Trent taking revenge on me for unknowingly killing his son.

  I re-focus my gaze on Josh and smile. This guy is the closest thing I have to family. He’s always had my back, and he’s the only person other than me, that I trust with my life. But right now, I can only think about one thing.

  “You have a Winnebago?” I ask, failing suppress a laugh.

  “Ah, screw you—I like it, and it beats having to stay in all the crappy motels you sleep in.”

  We laugh together again, for a brief moment, before addressing the current predicament I’m in.

  “So what’s the score here?” he asks.

  “No idea,” I say, quite honestly. “They have my background up until I moved to Philly—they know my real name and apparently, along with every other acronym, know what I do for a living. I think the Secretary of Defense may have started talking after last year.”

  “Oh, how thoughtful of him… prick!”

  “Exactly. But apparently, the FBI wants my help with something.”

  “Okay, well let’s just see what they have to say. The way I see it, if we can do them a favor, it'll buy us a free pass this time and we can get out of here and lie low for a couple of weeks.”

  That’s why we work so well together—I’m the impulsive, violent, loud-mouthed, borderline-sociopathic member of the team; Josh is the calm, patient, sensible one. Together, we’re unstoppable.

  “Sounds like a plan,” I agree.

  Josh stands and walks over to the door. He opens it, sticks his head out, and says something I can’t quite hear. A moment later, Special Agents Wallis and Johnson come back into the room.

  Josh closes the door behind them and stands behind me. Agent Johnson sits down opposite me, with Agent Wallis standing behind him. I look up and notice the red light is back on the CCTV camera.

  “Are you going to formally charge my client?” asks Josh, back in character as the tough, British lawyer.

  Agent Johnson glances behind him then looks at me.

  “Despite the circumstances surrounding his arrest, we don't intend to press charges following Mr. Hell’s assault of an FBI agent at this time.”

  “Good, then you can take the restraints off him.”

  Wallis steps forward and produces a key from his pocket. He unlocks the handcuffs, allowing me to pull my hands free. I massage each wrist in turn, getting the blood flowing back to them.

  “Thanks,” I say. “So, you were about to ask me for help?”

  “Reluctantly, yes, we were,” replies Johnson.

  “So, go ahead.”

  “Are you aware of the recent terrorist attacks that have taken place in this city in the last seventy-two hours?”

  “Attacks?” I say. “I’ve not heard of anything, no. I only arrived in town yesterday afternoon, and I’m not one to follow the news.”

  Agent Wallis steps toward the table with another folder in his hand. This one he opens and turns around for me to read through.

  “Yesterday morning, a bomb went off in a restaurant in Chinatown,” he explains. “There were over fifty casualties, with a further twelve fatalities.”

  “Oh, wait—I think I saw this on the news. There was a TV with it on in the place I ate yesterday when I arrived here. Looked pretty bad…”

  I skim through the folder. It contains lots of photographs, both black and white and color, taken at the scene. It looks like total carnage—worse than the TV had said. Bodies and body parts littered the remains of the annihilated restaurant, and the street outside. There’s a report attached which seems to detail witness statements and forensic information, but I don’t bother reading it.

  “Jesus,” I say quietly.

  I close the folder and pass it over my shoulder to Josh, who takes it and starts flicking through.

  “Two days ago,” continues Wallis. “There was a seemingly random sniper attack outside the Trans-America Pyramid, with two people being shot dead from roughly seven hundred yards away.”

  “Seemingly random?” asks Josh.

  “I’ll get to that,” he says. “Both victims were shot through their right eye. Whoever pulled the trigger was exceptionally talented.”

  I wouldn’t say they were exceptional… Seven hundred yards is a good distance, sure, but it’s not earth shattering. Any half-decent sniper with six months of military training could hit a target at that distance. Admittedly, getting them in the right eye is a little more impressive, but it’s still no cause for concern.

  “So, you think there’s a link between the two attacks?” I ask.

  Before either of them have chance to answer, the door opens and a woman walks in. She’s an average height, maybe five-six, and is wearing a gray trouser suit and black heels. When she speaks, her voice is a perfect blend of icy authority and warm comfort.

  “I’ll take it from here,” she announces.

  Agents Wallis and Johnson excuse themselves and leave the room. She sits down opposite me and regards me silently for a moment before speaking. Her jacket’s open and I can see her gun strapped to a shoulder holster over her white blouse.

  “I’m Senior Special Agent Grace Chambers,” she says, staring at me with steel-gray eyes that look out of place on her otherwise welcoming and friendly face. “I’m well aware of who you are and what you do for a living.” She glances up at Josh. “Both of you.”

  I raise an eyebrow at her. She’s very well informed, that’s for sure. Apparently, more so than her colleagues are, if she knows who Josh is.

  “You’re here because we need your help with an ongoing investigation. I believe the other agents gave you the details of what we have so far?”

  I nod. “I’ve seen the photos and heard the details,” I say. “I still don’t know what any of it has to do with me. How could I possibly help?”

  “These attacks weren’t random. They were meticulously planned with one purpose in mind.”

  “Which is?”

  “To send a message to you, Adrian He
ll.”

  I stay silent, but my mind is racing. Josh stands and starts pacing around behind me. I look up at him and see the same look of concern on his face. My face betrays nothing, but this has left me speechless and confused. I’m wracking my brain trying to think of anyone who could hold this much of a grudge against me, and have the means to execute a plan of this magnitude.

  After a few seconds, I realize my approach was futile—that list is extensive to say the very least. I re-focused my attention on Agent Chambers.

  “What makes you think they’re trying to send a message to me?” I ask.

  “Each crime scene has a clue—a message—that leads to you, apparently. We haven’t had time to piece everything together since we received the phone call,” replies Chambers. “We were too busy trying to find you.”

  “What phone call?” asks Josh.

  “We received an anonymous phone call yesterday morning, which is how we knew where to find you, Adrian.”

  “Can we hear it?” I ask.

  “I don’t see why not,” she says, before looking at the mirrored wall.

  She makes a circular motion in the air with her right index finger, and a crackling sound comes on over a speaker system in the room, followed by the phone call.

  The caller’s using a device to mask the sound of their voice, so they sound very low and digitally distorted to a point.

  “This is a message for Senior Special Agent Grace Chambers of the FBI. The attacks on this city over the last two days were my doing. I wanted to get your attention. I trust I’ve succeeded? We both want the same thing, Agent Chambers. We both want Adrian Hell. I know the FBI, along with every other government agency in this country, knows who he is. I want him to suffer, and I want him to die by my hand. These attacks are for him. I’ve left a message for him at each scene—a little game for us to play. We shall see if he’s smart enough to figure out who I am. And I have many more of these messages that I’m prepared to send. If you want the attacks to stop, you will detain him for me. I’ll know when you have. Then you will stay out of my way. If you want to catch him, he’ll be coming out of your City Hall tomorrow morning. I’ll be in touch.”

  The line clicks dead. I look at Chambers, who’s staring at me, watching me with a professional curiosity as I listen to the recording. Her eyes ask a million questions of me all at once.

  I don’t know what to think. My first impression is they sound like a complete psychopath. Maybe even a serial killer. And what do they want with me? I’m not being funny, but it could any one of literally hundreds of people who would gladly see me dead, so running through my job history won’t do me any good.

  I stand up and pace around the room for a moment, trying to focus my mind. There has to be something… some detail that I’m missing that will help me.

  “Any ideas?” I ask Josh.

  He shakes his head. “It could be anyone—pretty much the entire world hates you.”

  “Only the people who know me,” I shrug, before turning to Agent Chambers. “You said there were clues at the crime scenes that lead to me?”

  “You heard the same recording we did,” she says. “We’re working on the evidence we have at the moment. This is why we wanted you here. Aside from keeping you out of the line of fire, we were hoping you’d help us find out who this person is, so we can stop him.”

  “Show me the evidence,” says Josh, sitting down in the chair I’ve been keeping warm for the past couple of hours.

  Chambers opens the folder that Agent Wallis had brought in and flicks to the back, spinning it round to face him. Josh starts scanning through the reports and photographs.

  It’s really quite amazing watching him work. Normally, I just call him and ask him something, and then he'll call me back a few minutes later to tell me the answer. I have no idea how he manages to do even half the shit I ask of him. The guy’s a genius. But actually seeing him go to work on something is incredible to watch. He looks at each page, each photo, nodding to himself periodically when he finds something I imagine everyone else has missed.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Chambers looking at me looking at Josh. I don’t think she finds me attractive or anything like that, thank God—you saw what I was like with the secretary this morning… I just think she’s trying to figure out the dynamic between the pair of us.

  “I travel a lot with work,” I say to her, unprompted. “Josh typically handles the logistics and administrative side of my day-to-day life.”

  “Whatever,” says Josh, without looking up from the reports. “If I could wipe your arse down the phone, you’d make me do that as well.”

  I smile at Chambers, who shakes her head in disbelief.

  “It’s hard to believe you are what the rumor mill says you are,” she says to me. “If there was a shred of evidence in existence to prosecute you with, then every agency in the US would be fighting to arrest you. And here I am, sat with the pair of you and you’re both coming across as nothing more than a clueless comedy double act.”

  She’s half-laughing as she speaks, so I’m sure how much of that is derogatory and how much is a polite observation. But it makes Josh stop reading his report.

  “Clueless?” he says to her, clearly offended. His British accent always makes him sound that little bit more confrontational than he probably means to be during an argument. “You think we’re clueless? Tell me, how many people have you got working on this?” He gestures to the report.

  “We’ve got a task force set up consisting of four of our best agents, who are currently analyzing the data,” she says, somewhat proudly.

  “Well, let me save you the trouble,” he replies, standing up. “The shootings are the most obvious message. Both victims, like Adrian, are white men in their early forties. The first victim is Alan Holding; the second is Aaron Henderson. The obvious link to Adrian? Both he and the victims have the initials A.H. But I’m sure you’ve already figured that out?”

  Chambers frowns, but remains silent. I’m not sure whether she’s dubious of Josh’s analysis, or quietly pissed off that he’s figured that out in less than three minutes. It’s hilarious! I lean against the back wall and cross my arms, enjoying the show.

  “But that’s not all. The less obvious link, looking at both their financial statements, is that they both donated a modest sum every month to a charity called Guardian Angels. The link to Adrian being, angels are found in Heaven. As in, Heaven’s Valley.”

  Even I’m speechless at that level of deductive reasoning!

  “The bomb at the restaurant earlier today is a bit trickier,” he continues. “And working with Adrian is the only way you’d pick up on the link. You reported a poker chip from The Dunes casino found at the scene. That’s the message.”

  Josh turns to me.

  “Adrian, The Dunes casino was in Las Vegas up until '93, when it was demolished to make way for another larger, more impressive, structure.”

  I have no idea what he’s talking about. Clearly seeing the blank look on my face, he smiles sympathetically.

  “It was knocked down so they could build The Bellagio,” he explains.

  I stand up straight and stroke my chin. How does that relate to me personally? I think about the other clues. They were cryptic and obscure, but once you understood them, the meaning was obvious. So I need to think of the most obvious reference to something relating to me…

  Bellagio… Bellagio…

  Then it hits me.

  “Well, that sounds an awful lot like Pellaggio, doesn’t it?” I say.

  “Bingo,” says Josh, turning back to Agent Chambers, who’s still watching us with fascination. “Whoever this is, the beef they have with Adrian has something to do with what happened in Heaven’s Valley, Nevada, twelve months ago.”

  Saying it out loud makes it hit home a lot harder. There’s only one person I can think of with the ability to carry out this level of vendetta against me, and who knows the full extent of my involvement in what happened
in Heaven’s Valley. Only one person unaccounted for in the aftermath. One of only two names on my own personal hit list.

  Clara Fox.

  “You boys ever thought of a job as FBI agents?” asks Agent Chambers, seemingly impressed. “If what you say is right, then we can start to put together a profile of our terrorist and hopefully track them down before they take any more innocent lives.”

  “It might not be as easy as that,” I say. “If it’s who I think it is, they’re a stone-cold killer. Highly trained in the art of espionage and deception and being invisible. You won’t get to them unless they want you to.”

  “And what have you done to him to make him this mad, dare I ask?”

  “Her. Not him.”

  “You think this is a woman?” she asks in disbelief.

  Josh looks at me with something akin to fear in his eyes, knowing what I’m thinking probably before I do.

  “Adrian, if this is Clara, you need to tread carefully. Think about where we are, alright?”

  I nod.

  “Agent Chambers, am I under arrest?”

  “At this moment in time, no, you’re not,” she says.

  “Then I need to leave, right now.”

  “I’m afraid that’s out of the question. You're still in our custody for questioning, and we have twenty-four hours before we legally have to charge you with something and place you under arrest. You can't just leave. You heard the phone call. They’re coming for you, Adrian. I can’t just let you back out on the streets alone—I’d be putting you at risk. Not to mention any collateral damage that could potentially cause harm to the people of this city. Whoever’s behind this has already shown they have no regard for the consequences of their actions.”

  “Why, Grace, I never knew you cared so much...”

  I smile, but she remains stoic in her opposition of my request.

  “I will not put any more people at risk until we know more about who we’re dealing with and what their plans are.”

  There’s a knock at the door and Agent Johnson enters. He looks flustered and out of breath.

  “Ma’am, they’re on the phone right now, asking for you,” he says.