Hunter's Games (6 page)

“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
P
ellaggio, 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.

“Who is?” she asks.

He looks at me momentarily.

“The terrorist, ma’am.”

Chambers looks at me and I smile.

“What are we waiting for?” I ask. “Let’s go and say Hi.”

5.

15:26

CHAMBERS WALKS OUT of the room in a hurry, leaving Johnson in the doorway.

“Follow me,” he says.

He disappears, so Josh and I head out of the door and down the corridor after him. Halfway down on the right, it branches out into an open plan area full of desks and phones and FBI agents busying themselves with their work. We carry on as the corridor doglegs to the left. We come out into another office space, slightly smaller than the one we just past. On the left hand side of the room are a couple of desks with chairs either side. On each desk are laptops and telephones. The furniture looks like an IKEA clearance sale. It’s all standard with a beech wood finish. The carpet is a navy blue and the fluorescent lights on the tiled ceiling overhead are buzzing away happily. The FBI agents in here stop and stare at us as we walk in.

Have you ever seen those old western movies, where the hero walks into a bar and the music stops and everyone turns to look at them? The hustle and bustle, the chatter, and the piano all goes quiet to the point where you can hear a mouse fart. And they all take a simultaneous breath in…

It’s like that.

Josh looks at me and smiles. I simply shake my head and continue across the floor, toward a conference room in the far right corner that I can see Chambers entering.

Inside, there’s a large table in the middle with several chairs along both sides. Agent Wallis is standing over by a large television screen on the back wall with a phone to his ear and his hand over the mouthpiece. In the center of the table is a black speakerphone system used for teleconferences. Chambers is standing near it on the opposite side of the table to the door, leaning over it and resting on both hands.

She looks at me as I walk in. Johnson stays at the door, turning to face the other agents and giving them instructions. I guess they’ll be recording and tracing the call.

She points to the chairs then puts her finger to her lips. Josh and I sit down and observe. She looks over at Agent Wallis, who gives her the thumbs-up.

“This is Agent Chambers,” she says out loud. “Who am I speaking to?”

After a few moments of silence, the same low, distorted voice I heard a few minutes ago comes on the line.

“Have you done as I asked?” the voice says.

“If you mean, have we managed to apprehend Adrian Hell, then yes, I have. I guess I should thank you for the tip-off?”

“Put him on the phone.”

“I can’t do that until you give me something. I want to work
with
you to resolve this, not against you. Can you tell me your name?”

There’s silence again. Everyone in the room exchanges tense and worried looks.

“Call me… The Shark. Now put him on the phone. I know he’s listening.”

Agent Chambers looks at me and shrugs, gesturing with her hand, giving me the go-ahead to talk. I look at Josh for any last words of wisdom before I open my mouth and cause mayhem. He holds his hands up in resignation.