Hollow World (14 page)

17

Jeremy was briefing Eduardo near the front of the park, when suddenly he received a strange, hurried call from Holloway. He hadn’t expected the old man to call for at least an hour.
Something must be wrong,
he thought.

“Jeremy, listen to me closely. Scrap everything for the day. Circumstances have changed,” Holloway ordered, almost frantically.

“Everything? What do you mean? What’s changed?” Jeremy asked, sensing a strange and unfamiliar emotion coloring his employer’s words. Was it fear?

“I tire of these games. This place is far too cheerful. It grates on my nerves. This detective is not worth our time. I was wrong in my initial evaluation. I am ready to leave. I’m forwarding a new plan to your PDA. Set it up, make sure it is executed and then regroup with me and we will leave—sans one worthless detective and his far-too-optimistic and aggravating family. These Walker ladies are proving to be more trouble than they are worth.”

Jeremy thought he heard the elderly man sigh. How strange that he would be this off-put by them so shortly after defending them against Jeremy the previous night.

“What are you trying to say, boss—are you giving up?” Jeremy asked, confused as to why they needed to change a perfectly good, ingenious trial in favor of something new—Jeremy hadn’t even known there
was
an alternative trial until now. Many months of meticulous planning and deep research had gone into this operation; Holloway
never
made incorrect evaluations, especially after so much work gathering data on a target. Jeremy’s mind began to race with possibilities, sure that Holloway wasn’t being straight with him.

“I am not
giving up
, Jeremy! I am trying to say that, this time, it’s a no go. I was wrong about this detective. He is unworthy. He has no chance. He will most certainly fail—I have no doubt. Therefore, we are wasting our time here and I cannot stand to be in this horrid place for another minute.”

Jeremy knew, right then, that something was absolutely wrong. In no conceivable way had their research, planning or experience ever once implied that this detective was unworthy. He seemed the complete opposite—Jeremy had never seen a challenger quite like him.

“Then why change anything at all?” Jeremy asked, testing the waters. “
Let
him fail. This plan is flawless.”

“When I give you an order, Jeremy, you carry it out—regardless of whether you
agree
with it or not!” Holloway nearly yelled the last part, giving Jeremy further evidence that something had gone wrong with their plan. It seemed Holloway was attempting to end this quickly and make a hasty exit for some reason that he wasn’t apt to share.

“Fine,” Jeremy agreed, grudgingly. “Why don’t I just take care of this asshole and then we can get out of here? I can take him out in fifteen minutes. We can be at the airport by one.”

“We can’t simply kill him ourselves. It is not how we operate. He must fail the trials. This is how it has always been and will remain to be. The document should now be in your email. Check it, execute it, and call me when it’s done.”

With that, Holloway severed the connection, leaving Jeremy alone with his thoughts.

•••

Who the fuck does Spencer Holloway think he is?
Jeremy thought, making his way toward the Hub, dodging numerous guests as he picked his way down Main Street. Jeremy stewed over this new development and the resulting conversation. What could Holloway have been thinking? What could possibly have gone wrong? Sure, Jeremy was hired muscle, but he wasn’t
brainless
. Did Holloway think of himself as some sort of king? Sure, the guy was smart and filthy
fucking rich, but he was still a human being and Jeremy fumed over the way he’d been repeatedly talked down to.

Sometimes it seemed as if Holloway had forgotten that Jeremy could think for himself. He couldn’t seem to remember that Jeremy was a sentient being and thought of him as a tool, most times treating him as such. Usually, it was a simple case of Holloway looking down on Jeremy and sending him on menial tasks. This was one of those occasions, but the implications of his employer’s current lapse in judgment seemed direr than ever before. Jeremy thought that he had heard the haunting tinge of fear somewhere in the old man’s venomous words, but what could have scared Spencer Holloway enough to have made him act so rashly?

It didn’t take Jeremy long to realize that only one thing could strike any amount of fear into Spencer Holloway—defeat. Never had Jeremy seen the old man lose at anything. The aging genius had always emerged victorious—and not just by a fraction. Spencer Holloway utterly
destroyed
all opponents. Not satisfied with simply winning, he
ruined
these poor souls, eventually allowing them to die by their own hand during one of the trials—but not before fully realizing that they were inferior to Holloway in every way. Could Holloway be afraid that the detective was going to beat him?

The entire time that Jeremy had worked for Holloway, he’d known not only that the old bastard was out of his mind and
beyond
super-genius, but also that he was bat-shit crazy. The guy spent obscene amounts of money challenging really smart people to ridiculous trials—sometimes against their will. The craziest part about it all was that the old man wasn’t setting up these challenges for entertainment; he was actively looking for someone to
beat
him.

Initially, it had seemed to Jeremy that Holloway thought he was some sort of god and that he searched for these challengers in a “nobody could possibly defeat me” vulgar display of power. Recently, that line of thinking had begun to change as he’d watched Holloway while various people passed their early trials—he had seemed genuinely happy for these people. Still, everybody eventually failed and the old man seemed to glean just as much joy from their failures as their successes. All of these occurrences had compounded themselves inside Jeremy’s mind, never quite allowing him to get a clear picture of who his boss really was.

Maybe that’s what crazy really means,
he thought.
You can usually understand a person after watching them for long enough, but maybe the crazy people are the ones who can never be understood, because something inside them is broken and there is no sense to be found.

Jeremy had always had a strange feeling that once a challenger finally beat Holloway, his life would be forfeit—as though the old man wouldn’t be able to carry on after such a monumental defeat. Could it be possible that Holloway sensed the end nearing and feared his inevitable downfall, even though he’d been searching for it for so long? Jeremy had always found it ridiculous and pointless how the old man had challenged so many people searching for the one person could
beat
him. Regardless, he had kept his mouth shut because he enjoyed the work and he was paid more than enough money to put those concerns well out of his mind. He’d always known that Holloway couldn’t possibly win forever and he’d wondered what it would be like when the old man finally met his match.

Jeremy thought back to the previous day, when he’d come face-to-face with Detective Charlie Walker in Epcot’s aquarium. He had evaluated the detective upon first glance and was surprised that he’d found the man to be more impressive than any specimen that Holloway had pitted him against in the past. Walker was athletically built, clearly strong, but not massive or overtly muscular. Jeremy had been confident that he could easily best the detective in a physical confrontation. Strangely, this thought did not reassure him as thoroughly as it should have, for Jeremy had learned the value of a cunning mind.

There was something else about the young officer that was unsettling to Jeremy and he’d been unable to shake the feeling or to identify it entirely. The detective had a relaxed yet calculating stare that unnerved him, almost as if he could see deep inside someone with ease and read their thoughts like a book. Jeremy had seen the detective give
him
the once-over and was sure that the man had learned a great many details that weren’t readily apparent to Jeremy himself. There was a confidence in the way the detective stood and spoke—shoulders back, hands held in loose fists at his sides, words deliberate and clear—that made Jeremy feel like a smaller man. Jeremy was never uneasy around Holloway’s targets, but for the first time, he felt his usual confidence waning when Walker had been near.

It was simple enough for Jeremy to see why Holloway had feared the detective—if that was indeed the case. Jeremy, while not feeling
physically
threatened by Walker, felt apprehension at the thought of having him as an adversary. He was most definitely intimidating, especially to someone in Jeremy’s field of work. Couple this with the young detective’s legendary track record as an absolute bloodhound and you had the real-world equivalent of a superhero. This was definitely Holloway’s most capable and worthy opponent to date. There could be no doubt about that.

Jeremy was enraged. Holloway had turned into a coward precisely when he had found a challenger worthy of him. He was sure that whatever new plan Holloway had sent to his PDA was an unwinnable, impossible scenario—a trap that would give Walker the illusion of hope where there was none and then it would kill him. He opened the email application and deleted the message from Holloway without reading it.

In the past, the old man had had a few close calls with challengers and Jeremy had decided that if the outlook ever seemed too grim for his boss, he would intervene and make damned sure that Holloway emerged victorious.

What if the detective somehow found a way to pass the impossible test? What then? Did they simply flee for their lives and hope he never tracked them down? No, Walker and his family knew names. They knew faces. There was no way Jeremy could leave this to chance. There wasn’t an opportunity to cut their losses and run if Holloway’s new plan fell through. Jeremy would be damned if he let Charlie Walker put down
two
Holloways in his lifetime.

Fuck that.

Jeremy decided to take matters into his own hands, as he’d imagined so many times in the past that he would one day be forced to do. He felt the comforting weight of the suppressed .22 caliber pistol in the shoulder-rig under his arm, beneath his hooded sweatshirt. This weapon’s suppressed report was no louder than a small balloon pop and was more than deadly enough in the close quarters in which Jeremy did most of his wetwork. A pair of .22 caliber rounds fired with Jeremy’s surgically precise aim into the back of Walker’s head at close range would finish the detective off as effectively as a shotgun slug.

Jeremy had lost sight of the detective nearly an hour earlier in Tomorrowland—leaving while Walker had been sitting on a bench, texting—and had made his way to the front of the park before the call had come in. Now, Jeremy intended to reacquire a visual on Walker, tail him until he made his way into any secluded area, eliminate him quickly and quietly, and make a swift exit before anyone could be the wiser.

Using a GPS tracker, he followed a small beacon marking the location of Walker’s Blackberry. Eventually, he stopped outside a place called Casey’s Corner at the end of Main Street and leaned against a pillar. The GPS indicated that the detective was inside an ice cream shop across the street. Jeremy finally laid eyes on Walker as he exited the building. Jeremy watched from fifty yards as Walker stepped aside and held the door open, allowing an attractive, dark-haired woman in an out-of-place canvas jacket to exit. She turned to face Walker and said a few words—most likely thanking him for holding the door.

What the hell’s with the coat?
Jeremy thought.
It’s like ninety out here. Whatever.

He never thought about the woman again after she disappeared into the crowd and his view of her ass had been interrupted.

For a while, Jeremy tailed Walker, eventually ending up near a restroom in Tomorrowland. To Jeremy’s surprise, no guests were milling about outside the facility for at least thirty yards. The detective entered the restroom calmly, casually and without looking back—he suspected nothing. Jeremy laughed aloud at his good fortune. This was turning out to be one of the easiest hits he’d ever performed. The detective had actually
cornered
himself
in a secluded area of the park that was devoid of people. It was as perfect a location as he could ever hope to find.

Jeremy waited for a few moments to give Walker time to start doing his business before he made his move, making it that much easier to catch him off guard. To pass the time, he thought about Walker’s unreasonably beautiful wife and the things he would do to her before putting a bullet in her head, followed by those two know-it-all brats of theirs. He smiled, thinking about how fantastic a day he was about to have. First, he’d execute a famous detective in The Most Magical Place on Earth and then he’d have his way with the detective’s Victoria’s Secret model wife, kill her and then fly off into the sunset on Holloway’s private jet.