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.”