The Caller

Ninety-One

Without being able to turn around to face Holden, Hunter knew that his only chance was to play the odds... and he had to play them blind.

For the past five minutes he’d been listening attentively to Holden’s voice, searching for any sort of oscillation in it, waiting and hoping that the odds would tip his way, even if only for a split second.

Teary eyes, tired arms.

Once again, keeping his head completely still, Hunter’s eyes moved left. Seven feet to the nearest shelving unit — way too far for him to make it... or was it?

From that distance, with his full attention on his target and his gun aimed and ready, Holden just couldn’t miss. Hunter was well aware of that, but teary eyes and tired arms would never add up to full attention and aimed and ready. If Hunter was playing the odds, he had to do it now.

Holden hadn’t noticed it, but Hunter had already repositioned his feet. Both of them were now slightly facing left, with his right heel about an inch off the ground, ready for the explosive movement. In the blink of an eye, his right leg pushed forward with all its strength and Hunter’s body shot left; but instead of running, he threw himself on to the floor and rolled away as fast as he could.

BOOM.

BOOM.

Inside a confined space like Holden’s basement, a three fifty-seven Magnum sounded like an amplified cannon, the defining sound reverberating off the walls in all directions, but Hunter had read the odds like a pro. Revisiting the accident in the way Holden had just done had overwhelmed him with emotions. Tears had indeed come to his eyes, blurring his vision. To compensate for the weight of his gun and to release some of the muscle tension, his weapon arm and his trigger finger had also relaxed a couple of notches. The result had been an attention-lacking, poorly aimed first shot. By the time Holden’s mind got back to business and he squeezed the second round, Hunter had almost disappeared behind the shelving unit.

The second bullet missed Hunter by just a fraction, exploding against the concrete floor and sending dust and cement pieces flying up in the air.

As Hunter made it to the temporary safety of the shelving unit, he immediately got to his feet; but, as he looked up, desolation hit him. All he seemed to have done was delay the inevitable. Without being able to turn his head to have a proper look, Hunter’s assessment of his escape route had been limited by what he could see from rotating his eyeballs as far left as they would go. Now that he could see clearly, there was no escape route.

Hunter had thrown himself into a makeshift corridor. To one side he had a brick wall, to the other, solid shelving units with no break in between them. The only way Hunter could get out of that corridor was if he ran all the way to the end of it and ducked behind the last unit again, but that was way too far. There was no way he could make it there before Holden rounded the first unit and fired another shot at him, and this time, Hunter wasn’t so sure Holden would miss.

Think, damnit, think.

Hunter did the only thing he could do. He played the odds again.

Holden had done exactly what Hunter had expected him to do — he had run forward, towards the shelving unit that Hunter had ducked behind, gun poised, ready to blast another shot at him. Hunter, on the other hand, didn’t do the expected. He didn’t run down the makeshift corridor towards the last unit. He did the exact opposite. He ran back to where he had just come from.

Hunter’s timing couldn’t have been more perfect. As Holden began rounding the shelving unit, expecting Hunter to be running scared towards the other end of the room, Hunter collided with Holden’s six-foot-one frame with maximum force. The difference was, Holden wasn’t expecting it — Hunter was.

Hunter had thrown himself forward headfirst, which hit Holden square in the chest. Reflexively, Holden’s finger squeezed the trigger on his weapon, but the impact had been so brutal that he was hurled back several feet. His gun hand moved up and the shot went astray, hitting the ceiling. As he fell backwards, he lost his grip on his gun, which hit the floor and disappeared under a shelving unit. Gasping for air and with pain already burning through his ribs, Holden landed on his back awkwardly, crashing hard against the concrete floor. At that exact moment, Hunter and Holden’s eyes met and for a heartbeat everything switched to slow motion. Hunter saw the ugly scar on Holden’s chin contort out of shape and he paused. He hadn’t seen it before. How could he never have seen it before? The thick scar traversed Holden’s entire chin, from the left edge of his lip, across his jaw and cheek, disappearing just under his right ear.

It was then that Hunter realized why the image of Holden’s eyes had come back to him so vividly back in his office — Hunter had never seen Nicholas Holden’s face in full. They had only met a few times, all of them at crime scenes. With a nose mask always covering the bottom half of his face and the hood of his Tyvek coverall always pulled tight over his head, all Hunter had ever seen of Holden’s face were his eyes.

By the time Holden realized what had happened, it was too late... for him at least.

With one giant step, Hunter was already over him. All it took was one well-placed hit to Holden’s left temple.

Lights out.