Hollow World (17 page)

20

Blood dripped steadily into the toilet, rhythmically alternating between hitting porcelain and water. Pain dominated Jeremy’s world. Stars danced in the periphery of his vision. Nausea overwhelmed him. And there was something else too. The left side of his face felt unnaturally tight and hot.

Still, Jeremy O’Neill shows weakness to no man.

Defiantly, he spat a sizable amount of bloody saliva into the water that was inches from his face.

“You hit like a bitch. That all you got, Walker?” he challenged, though his words were hard to form and his mouth difficult to move.

“We’ll see,” came the calm and measured reply from the man he couldn’t see. He felt the cold steel barrel of a suppressed pistol digging hard into his scalp. Son of a bitch.

“Well,” Jeremy began, “we’ve both got things to do. So why don’t you just tell me what it is you want so we can both head our separate ways?”

“What I want,” Walker paused for dramatic effect, “is my family back. But that’s not why you and I are here.”

“Then why are we here?”

“You were going to kill me just now, Jeremy. I want to know why?”

Somehow, Walker had learned his real name. Jeremy couldn’t understand how he could have possibly come across that information, since he carried no identification of any kind and his phone held no clues as to his identity. Walker definitely had something up his sleeve, but Jeremy hadn’t yet decided whether that should worry him or not.

“Can’t a guy just take a piss without this kind of harassment?”

“Don’t bullshit me. You follow me in here, carrying this serious hardware—this can’t be a coincidence. So let me ask you again: why are you here to kill me? Did Holloway send you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jeremy lied, hoping it would piss off the detective. “I just had a few too many Dole Whips this morning and I—”

Jeremy froze as he heard the sound of his own knife opening—that telltale, solid
clack
of the wickedly sharp blade snapping into position.

“Okay,” was all Walker said before Jeremy felt the barrel of the pistol pull away from his head. He heard Walker moving around, but was stuck in a position where he couldn’t see anything. Could Walker really be that crazy? Would he truly torture a man in a public restroom? Jeremy had no idea. He had no family—nobody that he cared for more than himself. Suddenly, the feared killer became fully aware that he had no idea to what lengths a normal man could be pushed in order to save the ones he loved. He felt the first pangs of fear surge through him.

Jeremy had been in many confrontations in his life—more than he could count or even recall. He knew what signs to look for when an opponent was about to attack. He also knew the truth behind most people’s misconceptions regarding physical confrontations. You didn’t have to worry about the massive, raging, angry guy, stomping around and yelling; they were transparent and predictable. You could read their every intention like a picture book and act accordingly. The ones you had to worry about were the sleepers. The calm ones were always the most trouble.
Always
. The cool, collected manner in which these unpredictable opponents usually conducted themselves made Jeremy have a healthy and useful respect for their kind. And never before had Jeremy encountered so calm and calculating an individual as Charlie Walker. It was a scary thought, almost as if the mind of Spencer Holloway were placed in the capable body of an athlete—a deadly combination. Jeremy began to sweat. He struggled against his bonds to no avail.

“I’m a good guy, Jeremy,” Walker informed him calmly, still moving around unseen. “You can talk to me.”

“Fuck you,” Jeremy shouted, but with much less conviction than he’d intended. He mentally chided himself for this display of weakness, sure that the detective had picked up on the initial note of fear that had crept into his tone.

Unexpectedly, Jeremy felt the cold steel of the knife pressing against the inside of his wrist. He braced himself for the inevitable. It wasn’t the pain that worried him; the knife was so sharp that there would be little or no pain. What worried him was the rapid blood loss and swift death that would surely follow any slash to so vulnerable an area. Instead, he realized that it wasn’t the razor-sharp edge of the blade that pressed against his skin, but the flat, blunt side. With one smooth stroke, Walker cut away the nylon riot cuffs that bound him.

With a confident strength, Walker lifted Jeremy to his feet and turned him around, shoving him into a seated position on top of the toilet. His head smacked solidly against the wall but he couldn’t feel it. He closed his eyes, feeling instead a grinding sensation beneath his left eye—a feeling of bone grating against bone.
Yep
,
he thought,
the fucker broke my cheekbone. Fantastic.

Opening his eyes weakly, Jeremy got his first real glimpse of Walker. A much different man stood before him than the one he’d seen less than twenty-four hours earlier in the aquarium. This Charlie Walker was much more intimidating than his past self. His unmasked confidence worried Jeremy. The .22 was tucked into the waistband of his shorts, and he stood with his back to Jeremy for a moment, almost as if taunting the beaten man to try his luck at taking the weapon.

When Walker turned around to face Jeremy, he held the Halo in front of him. Instead of impulsively leaping forward and cutting Jeremy’s throat, the detective calmly and slowly pulled on the spring-loaded rod that would retract the knife blade. Clicking the safety catch on, Walker stuck the knife in his pocket.

Jeremy didn’t want to look into the man’s eyes—it was too much for him to bear, and he liked none of what he saw there. The detective was a haunted man. His eyes shone with a darkness and a ferocity that Jeremy had never before seen in anyone. There was pain there, but also hope—and determination. The determination was what worried Jeremy above all else. He knew that Walker would do anything to rescue his family—including carving off parts of Jeremy that he was literally and figuratively attached to. He felt his resolve breaking and he hated himself for it. Walker knelt before him—a better angle for looking Jeremy directly in his eyes.

“What?” Jeremy asked defiantly, even though he felt his walls of rebellion crumbling under Walker’s icy stare. He found it hard to hold the detective’s gaze.

Walker said nothing; he simply knelt there, staring up into the bigger man’s eyes. That worried Jeremy deeply. The tables had turned. He was essentially unarmed, in front of a dangerous prisoner whose bonds he had just cut. Jeremy was free to attack him at any point in time—and Walker didn’t seem worried about that one bit. It was either a crazy man or a confident man who could remain in such a position without worry. Jeremy finally knew that the detective was not crazy.

After what seemed like an eternity, the detective spoke.

“Talk to me,” he said simply, gently and quietly. No creative threats of violence. No dramatic brandishing of any weapon. No fist crashing into Jeremy’s ruined face a second time. Just “Talk to me.” It was enough.

And talk he did.

•••

Jeremy was ashamed. He had poured out everything that there was to know. The truth was: he was not ready to die. His imagination raced with rational and irrationally creative scenarios, in all of which the detective found some new way of torturing and killing the infamous assassin. Jeremy knew, deep down, that Walker would never do any of these things—he was, like he’d said, a good guy—but something in the man’s stare promised possibilities far worse than mere torture and death. It was a hard truth to admit but Jeremy did not want to cross this detective again. His chance of survival greatly increased with absolute compliance, so compliance it was.

He told Walker everything there was to know about Holloway, in as few words as possible. He told him what the original plan was, and that it had been canceled. He told him that he’d ignored the new plan in favor of killing the detective himself, and he also told him his reasons for doing so. Jeremy even went so far as to give Walker his take on the scenario; that he figured Holloway had secretly begun to fear the detective and that he was attempting to cut and run. Most importantly, he told Walker where his family was being held.

“They’re in a suite in Bay Lake Tower. Not far from here. You know the place?”

“Well enough,” he stated.

Jeremy told Walker the room number.

“But you can’t just walk in and get them,” he added.

“And why not?”

“Because Holloway has the hotel and its grounds under surveillance by an entire team. If you even so much as ride past in a bus, one of our guys will know and Holloway will kill your family.”

“There’s no way around this?” Walker asked, the gears clearly turning in his mind.

“None that I know of,” Jeremy stated, honestly. “Even
I
couldn’t get them out. Holloway’s in the room next door. He would kill us all. They’re not to leave the room until you either win or lose—well, that
was
the plan, anyway.”

“Damn it.” Walker shook his head and looked at the floor. “How many men do you have with you? Total.”

“Including me and the old man? Fourteen.”

“Where are they positioned?”

“He’s got four guys in Bay Lake Tower but they’re always on the move with no concrete patrol. The rest are somewhere else—and I’m being honest when I tell you that I don’t know where. Holloway doesn’t tell me and I don’t ask.”

Jeremy watched as Walker processed this information. He was silent for a few moments, thinking everything over. After a few moments, he reached into his pocket and for a split second Jeremy thought he was going for the knife again. Instead, he held up a silver key.

“What do you know about this?” he asked, his eyes looking up and practically boring holes into Jeremy’s.

“Oh, the key…”

Jeremy fidgeted uncomfortably.

“It’s to a door in Space Mountain. Holloway mentioned it was his grand finale. What did he mean?”

Jeremy hesitated before answering, trying to decide whether telling Walker the truth or lying to him would upset him more.

“That’s part of his final test for you. Or it
was
. I don’t know anymore. He’s, uh…he’s got something planned for tonight.”

“What?” Walker prodded, impatiently. “What was this test?”

“He meant to test you with much bigger consequences than just the lives of your family.”

“Quit fucking around! Tell me already,” Walker demanded, his face suddenly inches away from Jeremy’s and his fist knotted into the man’s shirt.

Jeremy decided to tell him directly, since there was no sense in sugarcoating it. “He’s got a bomb on one of the coaster’s structural supports, set to detonate at nine tonight should you fail any of his tests. It’s only on one of the tracks, it’s not big and the blast itself won’t kill anybody.”

“So?”

“So, after it goes off, the tracks will separate and point in a new direction.”

“And?”

Jeremy sighed, swallowed, his eyes downcast. He couldn’t bring himself to face Walker for the next part.

“And the cars on the tracks will fall directly into the queue at the busiest time of the night.”

21

This was an entirely new game. Not only did the lives of his family hinge on his success, but now the lives of countless men, women and children would end if he couldn’t find a way to prevent this unreal disaster in time. Holloway had changed his plan after implementing the explosive and Charlie had no idea whether he had since disarmed the bomb or simply abandoned it, leaving it to explode when the timer ran out. Hundreds of innocent lives depended on him. He could not fail them.

It took him a few minutes to come to terms with this shocking realization, but finally he stood and checked his watch. He had only a couple of minutes left before he needed to signal Victoria. Quickly, he pulled the syringe from his pocket and turned to face Jeremy.

“I assume you recognize this,” he said, showing Jeremy the small instrument; the barrel filled with a dark amber fluid.

Jeremy remained silent, but his eyelids seemed to grow heavy with defeat—he knew that he had no further part to play in this drama. He smiled, sadly.

“It probably looks a lot like the ones you assholes must have used on my wife and daughters last night. Anyway, this one’s meant for you. I trust you’re not going to fight me on this?”

Jeremy cocked his head to the side to allow Charlie to give him the injection. Wasting no time, Charlie stuck him roughly with the needle and depressed the plunger hard. It must have hurt, but the big man betrayed nothing and within seconds was slumped against the wall.

Quickly, Charlie hurried out of the stall and grabbed a paper towel. Stepping outside, pretending to dry his hands, Charlie hoped that Victoria saw the signal. After a four-count, he returned to the restroom to wait for Victoria’s response. While he’d been outside, the area had still been mysteriously clear, but he’d seen nobody preventing guests from entering; they’d simply stayed away. These CIA spooks were scary good. He made a mental note never to underestimate a Company man.

After just a few seconds, Charlie heard heavy footsteps entering the restroom mixed with what sounded like heavy wheels rolling over the tile. When he looked up, he saw a gigantic man of Pacific Island descent wheeling in a large trash cart piled high with black bags. Admittedly, the cart was the most bizarre part of the scene, since you rarely or never saw them in the park due to the underground AVAC trash disposal system.

The man behind the cart was impressive, to say the least. Charlie stood a solid six foot tall, but this man must have been six-five, minimum. He was one of the most heavily muscled people that Charlie had ever seen. He guessed that the man weighed roughly three-hundred pounds—without an ounce of fat. He wore a dark gray T-shirt under a flamboyant green Hawaiian shirt that fit him extremely tightly over his massively muscled arms. Charlie noticed that the shirt was unbuttoned, hanging loose to accommodate his shoulder holster. His arms were almost fully covered by intricate tattoos. When Charlie looked up at his face, though, he saw nothing but kindness and warmth. The man smiled at him from beneath his close-cropped black Mohawk.

“Detective Walker?” he asked, smile plastered on his face.

“That’s me. You one of Victoria’s guys?”

“Yep. Name’s Kalani. Good to meet you, braddah. Heard a lot about you.” Kalani offered his hand and Charlie shook it, finding it surprisingly gentle.

“You must be the team’s muscle,” Charlie implied, jokingly.

“Nah, I’m a scientist. Computers and crap,” Kalani shot back, followed by a big, booming laugh. He slapped Charlie on the back and stepped past him, headed for the back of the room. “So where’s this big, scary Jeremy
moke
, eh—he somewhere back here?” he asked, pointing toward the handicap stall then quickly poking his head into the others to make sure they were empty.

“Yeah—in the handicap stall,” Charlie agreed with a nod, watching the big man struggle to fit into the small space.

“Good God,
haole
!
You really fucked this big-timer up, didn’t you?” Kalani asked rhetorically, with a sharp whistle of appreciation. He leaned his head out of the stall, “What’d you hit him with, a wooden bat?”

Charlie smirked, holding up his bruised right hand. Kalani’s eyes widened and he smiled.

“Much respect for you, braddah. Remind me not to get on your bad side,” he offered with another quick flash of a smile, disappearing back into the stall. “Would you mind grabbing those trash bags out of that cart, detective?”

“As long as you promise to call me Charlie from now on.”

“You drive a hard bargain,
haole
. But you got a deal,” he said, chuckling to himself.

Charlie grabbed the trash bags and threw them on the ground just as Kalani approached, dragging Jeremy’s unconscious form by the leg as if he weighed nothing. Kalani leaned over the side of the cart to check that it was empty and, once satisfied, lifted Jeremy like a ragdoll and tossed him haphazardly inside. Without even a second glance at the unconscious man, Kalani started piling the trash bags on top of him. Charlie decided to help.

“So, Charlie, you get some good information out of him?” Kalani asked.

“I got info,” he acknowledged. “But none of it is good.”

“No worries, braddah. We’re going to get your girls back.”

“That’s the least of our worries right now, Kalani.”

“Is it that bad?” asked the big man with genuine concern on his face.

“It’s worse,” Charlie admitted, truthfully. Kalani lowered his eyes and respectfully decided not to say anything. “So what’s the plan? Are we going to meet with Victoria?”

“Yep. My partner, McCoy, is outside. He’ll take out the trash while you and I go see Victoria and the rest of X-ray Team.”

Charlie nodded. “How many of you are there?” he asked.

“Me, Victoria, McCoy, Mason and Jen-Jen. So, uh…five.”

“Thought you were the scientist?” Charlie joked, razzing him on the slow count.

“I do not consider math a science,” he stated as he threw the last of the trash bags into the cart.

“Six of us against fourteen of them. I don’t like those odds,” Charlie told him.

“Six of us equals sixty
of them,” stated Kalani, confidently. “I love those odds.”

Charlie couldn’t argue with that logic. If the rest of the team were as capable as Kalani seemed to be—and Victoria definitely was—then Holloway’s men had their work cut out.

Charlie followed as Kalani wheeled the large cart out of the restrooms. Guests were beginning to return to the area and it looked as if nothing strange had occurred—as if this piece of Tomorrowland had been vacant merely by chance. It was bizarre, but effective and it spoke to the level of orchestration and skill displayed by Victoria’s clandestine unit.

A short, well-built, red-haired man with a thick beard, who was no doubt McCoy, stood just outside the entrance to the restroom. He was dressed similarly to Kalani—unbuttoned shirt, shoulder rig and loose cargo shorts—but his shirt was a more modest dark brown. He nodded to the pair of them and took over the cart without a word, swiftly pushing it away until he rounded a corner and disappeared from view.

“McCoy’s a quiet character, eh?” Charlie asked as he walked casually through the park with Kalani.

“He sure don’t talk much,” Kalani agreed. “But he’s a good guy and he’s always got my back in a fight.”

Just then, a detail struck Charlie that he couldn’t help but remark upon.

“Kalani, what if Holloway’s got his men in the park watching me?”

“No doubt he does. But it would be hard for them to believe you were getting help from a big-ass Hawaiian scientist like me. I’m just too good looking for them to think I’m anything but a cool cat on vacation. Hell, they can think whatever they want. It doesn’t matter.”

Charlie laughed at Kalani’s jokes, but the thought of being watched as he trudged along with a CIA operative made him uneasy. Still, there was nothing he could do about it, so he shelved the thought and walked on with his new companion. After a while, Charlie found himself following Kalani into the Liberty Tree Tavern.

The restaurant was a colonial-style eatery that reminded Charlie of the Mel Gibson movie
The Patriot
. The atmosphere was quiet and private, and Kalani led him to a table in a dim corner where Victoria sat with two other members of her team. Kalani pulled out a chair and lazily threw himself down before kicking the final chair toward Charlie.

“Take a load off, braddah. Meet the family,” he said.

Charlie took his seat and looked around at the others. To the left of Victoria sat a rail-thin man named Mason that had slicked back hair and thick-rimmed glasses of a Hubble telescope prescription. He nodded politely but nervously as he was introduced to Charlie.

On the other side of Victoria sat a woman who looked more like she belonged on a beach volleyball team rather than a highly specialized team of CIA operatives. She was very attractive, with golden blonde hair and a deep almond tan. She was almost the polar opposite of Victoria and her raven black hair and ghostly pale skin. Charlie assumed that this was Jen-Jen.

The blonde offered her hand and Charlie gently shook it. “Jennifer Jennings,” she stated. “My parents had a sense of humor. But these idiots call me Jen-Jen, which I guess is okay by me.”

“And what should I call you?” Charlie asked, releasing her hand.

“Anything you want…” she replied, alluringly.

“Stow it, Jen-Jen. This one’s happily married,” Victoria said, backhanding the blonde lightly on the shoulder. Jen-Jen looked mildly disappointed. “So, Charlie, now that you’ve met my weird little family, we can get to work. What did we learn from Jeremy?”

Kalani cut in, “We learned that this
haole
has one wicked
right hook! You should see the other guy. Look at this monster’s hand!” He grabbed Charlie’s battered right hand from the table and shook it at the rest of his team. Victoria and Mason looked impressed. Jen-Jen looked infatuated. Charlie felt self-conscious.

“Thank you, Kalani, but I meant what did we learn about the situation?” Victoria said, smiling at the massive Hawaiian.

Charlie laughed as he heard Kalani mumble in mock-sadness under his breath, “That
was
part of the situation.”

Charlie recounted the conversation he’d had with Jeremy in the restroom, finally revealing the existence of the key and the location of the door that it unlocks. He expected his revelation to be earthshattering, but it surprised no one at the table. Mason even looked a tiny bit excited.

“This doesn’t surprise you?” Charlie asked, trying to mask his own emotions so that he wouldn’t be the odd man out.

“Bombs never really surprise us,” Victoria claimed. “In a post-9/11 world, assholes with bombs are as common as assholes with guns or assholes with knives. We see them all the time. In fact, we see them so much, that Mason’s main role is being a walking Bombcyclopedia. He knows all there is to know and if someone can build it, he can disarm it.”

That explains why he looks so damn excited by a bomb in a fucking theme park,
Charlie thought. “So what’s the plan?” he asked.

“First—give me that key you found.”

Charlie took the key out of his pocket and tossed it to Victoria. She caught it and inspected it closely, turning it over in her hands. After a short while, she spoke.

“This key is not for the door you saw in the picture.”

“What?”

“Who’s the famous super-detective here, you or me?” she joked. “From what you’ve told me, that door has an exit sign above it—what does that tell us?”

“Damn,” Charlie said, recognizing his own ignorance. “It tells us that we’re looking at an emergency exit.”