Predatory Game (34 page)

His radio crackled, jerking him to attention. Suddenly he turned and sprinted right toward her. Saber held her breath and waited. A foot came down inches from her head, another barely missed her hand. Then he was over the top of her and running for the back door. She heard his footsteps pounding up the stairs and the back door slamming.

Jesse.
They’d found Jesse. Shaking, she lay there, her face buried in the crook of her arm, her heart thundering right along with the weather. She tasted fear in her mouth. It didn’t matter that she’d told herself he was lethal—he was in a wheelchair. What could he possibly do against anyone? He was trapped in the basement. Alone. Vulnerable. And she’d just left him. What had she been thinking?

Saber pushed up off the ground and ran back to get Patsy. Her vision blurred, but whether it was from the rain or tears, she couldn’t be certain.

J
ess sat in silence, breathing deep, trying to keep rage from exploding. Patsy—tortured because of him. Saber—suffering because of him. Damn whoever was behind this, because he simply wasn’t going to stand for it. Let them come. He prayed for them to come. He was a spiritual man, and if he was condemned to hell for what he was about to do, so be it. He’d go and gladly, because this was unacceptable to him.

“Come on.” He whispered the words softly.
Come on.
Whispered the words in his mind, sent them out into the universe to urge his enemies to find him. As if in answer, the door to the basement was flung open.

Come on, you bastard. Walk on in. Let’s do it.

He stayed very still, watching as the man crept down the stairs, gun in his hand, his gaze sweeping left to right as he quartered the basement. As he descended, the light from above faded and the man reached for the flashlight at his belt. Jess threw the knife he had strapped to his leg, as accurate as always, so that the man fell hard, gun clattering and head thumping as he slid the rest of the way down the stairs.

Jess pushed the chair close enough to check his pulse. Finding him dead, he snagged the man’s arm and began to drag the body away from the bottom of the stairs. It wasn’t easy maneuvering his chair while trying to keep hold of the body, but he needed it out of sight fast. The open door, silence, and the smell of blood would lure the others in. As long as they wanted him alive, he had a chance—more than a chance. He’d kill them all, because no matter what else happened, he wasn’t going to let them get their hands on the women.

After retrieving the dead man’s gun, he parked the wheelchair in the alcove where the heater was located and placed the gun on a shelf facing the stairs. He slipped from his chair and lifted the dead man into it. For the first time in a long while, he was thankful he was physically enhanced. As much as he worked out, he doubted he would have been strong enough to put a fully grown man into his wheelchair from the floor, but with the strength Whitney had given him, he easily lifted the body. He’d already picked out the safest place in the room, the darkest spot with the most cover.

He’d baited the trap, now he had to wait until they took it. The devil liked to make a man sweat, sending him images of Saber and Patsy in the hands of madmen. They were dead just for what they’d done to Patsy. He’d hunt them down one by one if he had to. And Saber…She’d suffered for him. He wasn’t going to forget that look in her eyes when she’d known she was going to have to kill again.

The sound of the rain beat down steadily and the seconds crawled by. He heard the first soft footfall and then a second one.

“Henry? You down there?”

Jess remained silent, knowing the men wouldn’t fail to smell blood. The open door was an invitation. He remained still, patient. He heard a whispered consultation. He simply lay there waiting. They would come because they had to. They had gone to the trouble of torturing Patsy for information. They would surely want him.

A figure appeared in the doorway, stepped hastily to the side in a crouch, sweeping the basement with a flashlight. Jess concentrated on the gun he’d left on the shelf. It rose in the air, levitating just about the height of a man’s chest before firing. The flash was bright in the room, and the flashlight clattered to the ground. The man holding it clutched his stinging hand and swore as the room once again was plunged into darkness.

“Calhoun. We know you’re in there. Come out into the open and drop your weapon.” The voice came from outside the room.

Jess glanced at his watch. Saber and Patsy should be clear of the house. If he made a mistake, both should still be fine. He tested his control, felt the concrete under him shift slightly. The walls shimmered uneasily for just a moment. The stairs creaked.

“Calhoun, don’t make this hard on yourself. Ben just came in and we’ve got your sister.”

Your sister. Not both women. Saber would never allow them to take Patsy from her. If they had captured Patsy, they’d have taken Saber as well. They were lying. Even with logic telling him both women were safe, his heart still stuttered. He felt the floor quiver, always a problem when he was upset. Control was of vital importance when you could shake apart a house.

“Calhoun. Let’s just talk.”

The first man, already inside, began to make a cautious move to find cover. The gun hovering over the shelf fired a second warning shot, and the man brought up his gun and sprayed the basement with bullets.

“Stop! What the fuck is wrong with you, Stan? We need him alive.”

The gun fell silent, although Jess could hear harsh breathing. The man giving orders stepped to the door’s edge and flashed a light over the basement. He caught the splash of blood and the shadowy figure of the man in the wheelchair. Swearing, he tried for a better angle.

“I think you killed him, Stan.”

“He was shooting at me. What the hell was I supposed to do, Bob?” Stan felt around for his flashlight. “The damn thing’s dead. He put a bullet in it.”

The two men remained where they were, observing what they could see of the body, taking care not to expose themselves to further gunfire. Jess had positioned the chair so only a part of it could be seen from the door, the rest hidden by the alcove. He remained silent. There was a third man still alive, and Jess willed him to enter the basement. He couldn’t attack until the man was inside, but he remained stubbornly cautious.

“Get your ass moving, Specialist,” the one near the doorway urged. “And you’d better hope you didn’t kill the bastard. I’ll cover you.”

Jess felt the beginnings of a smile. Yeah, dark hair in the doorway had it right. He was a bastard. He lived for this.

“Hooah, Sergeant.” Stan started down the stairs and the second man moved onto the landing. His gun was steady on the body slumped in the wheelchair. Jess remained still, silently urging the third man to join the party. For a moment it looked as if it wouldn’t happen.

“Keep the talk down until we have the bastard,” another voice snapped.

Bob moved completely to one side, giving the other man, who was obviously in charge, the better position. Immediately he stepped inside the room as well, shifting to the left of his partner.

The door to the basement slammed closed behind them, plunging the room into darkness. The two men closest tried to open it, pounding and rattling the doorknob, swearing and kicking at it, but the door held fast.

The stairs and landing began to shake, gathering momentum until nails and screws began to pop out of the frame and drop to the floor. There were shouts. Stan fired his gun, the sound deafening in the small space. The flash blinded everyone even more.

“It’s an earthquake,” Bob yelled. “You’re going to shoot one of us, Stan. Just hang on until it’s over.”

The shaking grew worse until the boards on the landing and stairs began to break apart. Stan yelled hoarsely as he fell and the two other men followed, one grabbing at the rail and swinging by his arm before dropping to the floor below.

“Son of bitch. Son of a bitch.” Stan scuttled across the cement toward the wheelchair, his gun aimed at the dead man’s head.

“It’s a fucking earthquake, Stan,” Bob shouted again.

“This is no earthquake,” the one in charge snarled.

“It’s him, Bob, you moron. It’s
him.
I told you it was true. I’m killing the son of a bitch.” Stan pulled the trigger several times, the bullets tearing into the body in the wheelchair. The body jerked with the force of the impact and the dead man slumped over, sliding down in spite of the belt holding him to the chair.

Stan crawled closer, moving around the protruding wall housing the hot water heater. Jess rolled swiftly into position, each move already mapped out in his head. His arm slipped around Stan’s throat and clamped down hard in a half nelson. Stan thrashed wildly. He was a big man and his feet drummed on the concrete as he tried desperately to break the stranglehold Jess had on him.

“Stan! What the hell? Get a light, Ben. We need a light,” Bob shouted.

There was an audible crack and Stan’s feet went still. Silence settled into the room. There was only the sound of heavy breathing as the two intruders fought for air, adrenaline rushing through their veins.

“Stan?” Bob said again, this time his voice low, a conspirator’s whisper. “Answer me.”

“Get over there and check it out,” Ben said in an undertone.

“Screw that. We need a light.”

“Yeah, you find one. I dropped mine when your little earthquake took out the staircase.” Ben’s voice dripped sarcasm.

There was another silence. Bob sank down onto the floor, his back to the wall. His eyes were beginning to adjust again to the dark as dawn crept over the horizon. He could just make out the shadow of Stan’s body lying on the floor beside the wheelchair and another body slumped in the chair. “I think they’re both dead.”

“Check.”

“You want me to check?”

“Damn straight. Check so we can figure out how to get the hell out of here.”

Bob lifted his gun and fired a round into the head of the man in the wheelchair. “I’m not taking any chances. If he was faking, he’s dead now. Cover me, Ben, just in case.” Bob began to crawl toward Stan, keeping a careful eye on the motionless man in the wheelchair.

Jess concentrated on the lightbulb Saber had unscrewed. The moment Bob was beside Stan, where he could have reached out and touched Jess, the bulb spun back into place, flooding the room with blinding light. Jess kept his eyes closed until the bulb reversed direction and the light went out after one flash. He was on Bob instantly, catching his head in his hands and twisting violently. Again there was a satisfying crack and Jess was back in the shadows.

Silence reigned. Ben sighed and pushed with his heels, sliding his body into the rubble left from the staircase. He crouched underneath what was left of the landing.

“So it’s true. You are one of them.” He shoved his gun into a shoulder harness and reached for a pack of cigarettes. “Don’t kill me until I have a last smoke.” He lifted his hands into the air, showing the pack and lighter.

“Go ahead.” Jess’s disembodied voice bounced off the walls coming from every direction.

“You’re pissed about your sister.”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

The lighter flared and Ben bent his head toward the flame. “I can’t blame you. It’s a job, you know, nothing personal.” The lighter snapped off and the end of the cigarette glowed red.

“You tell yourself that.”

“You gonna kill me?”

“What do you think? You tortured her. You were going to rape and kill her. You’re a dead man.”

“I figured as much.”

Jess watched Ben take a strong pull of the cigarette. He wasn’t going down easy. He was trying to buy himself time to think his way out of the mess he was in. If he could locate Jess’s actual position, the man thought he’d have a chance. “Are you going to tell me who sent you after me?” He’d help the man buy time while he bought information.

“I don’t think so.” Ben took another drag of the cigarette, pulled it from his mouth and stared at the red tip. “Sooner or later they’re going to get you, and there’s some satisfaction in that.” He toed open the door to the gas water heater and flicked his cigarette toward it.

Jess had been waiting for a move and he stopped the cigarette in midair, let it drop, tip down, and mash itself on the concrete.

“That was no earthquake.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“You’re the real fucking thing.”

Ben’s gun swept up and he sprayed the basement with bullets in an up-and-down pattern going across the room. His finger remained steady on the trigger even when the gun began to shake in his hand, began to put pressure on his wrist, turning slowly, inevitably, inch by slow inch toward his own body. He broke out in a sweat, his heart thundering in his ears, fighting with every bit of strength he had, but he couldn’t stop the turn or remove his finger from the trigger. He heard himself scream as the bullets tore into his body, one after the other, ripping through him.

“Yeah. I’m the fucking real thing and that’s for what you did to my sister, you son of a bitch. It might not have been personal to you, but it was very personal to me.”

The words were low, whispered in Ben’s left ear as he fell back. He turned his head and stared into cold, merciless eyes. Jess lay stretched out on the floor beside him, only inches away, his face set in implacable lines. Everything blurred. He heard the gun clatter against the cement, and his hand flopped onto his chest. He couldn’t feel it and his vision grew dark. He coughed. Gurgled. Spat. Ben tried to lift his hand, but he couldn’t tell where it was. He died, staring at Jess’s uncompromising and very unsympathetic gaze.

Jess shifted into a sitting position. “You didn’t suffer nearly enough for what you did to Patsy,” he told the dead man. “And I’m going to find out who sent you and rip his heart out. But meanwhile…”

He trailed off and looked around him. He was going to have a hell of time getting out of the basement now. Cursing, he made his way to the wheelchair, using his hands to walk. Dumping the body, he wiped the blood from the seat and back as best he could. Flicking a quick glance toward the light fixture, he waited until the bulb screwed itself back in, and light flooded the basement once again.