Gallery of the Dead

by Chris Carter

  ‘What’s going on?’ Garcia asked.

  ‘Hold on,’ Hunter replied, his attention fixed on his cellphone, waiting for it to beep announcing a new text message. It did ten seconds later.

  A minute after that, Hunter was on the phone to Adrian Kennedy again.

  Ninety-Seven

  Through one of his monitors, the man watched as Garcia suddenly appeared to Agent Fisher’s left and, quick as a flash, pulled the trigger on his sawn-off double-barreled shotgun.

  ‘NO!’ the man screamed, his voice resonating against empty walls, but it was already too late. The shot hit Agent Fisher with utmost precision, sending a crimson mist up in the air and the agent to the ground. Immediately, all the monitors that were broadcasting the images picked up by the camera buttons on Agent Fisher’s leather coat went blank. His audio feed also died instantly.

  ‘Shit!’

  The man knew that the cellphone in her pocket had been hit.

  He checked his other monitor for the images coming from the cameras inside the stables. Agent Fisher had fallen inside horse enclosure number four on the right, just by the door, but the camera for that enclosure was directly above that same door, which meant that she had fallen in a blind spot. With no eyes on her, the man couldn’t tell if she was still alive or not. All he could see, from one of the cameras on the corridor, was the edge of her feet, and they weren’t moving.

  Then, all of a sudden he saw Garcia look up at the camera above the door and reach for it.

  He’d been made. That was unfortunate, but instead of being angry, the man smiled at himself. It didn’t matter if they found the cameras, the phone, the leather coat, or anything else. He was already counting on that happening. Maybe not this soon, but he knew that they would eventually find them. Still, it didn’t matter because none of it was traceable. The cameras hadn’t been bought in a shop. He had put them together himself from parts bought from a variety of different outlets. The jacket he had purchased in a goodwill shop. There was nothing in that ranch that would give the FBI any clues to who he was or how to find him. He now knew that the FBI knew about his Optum platform breach, but he was a computer whiz, and he knew that there was no way they could trace any of those breaches back to him.

  It was a pity that his little game had ended this way and so soon, but it had certainly been fun.

  The man switched off all the monitors and sat back on his chair. He felt tired, exhausted even. He hadn’t slept in fifty-one hours, and now that his revenge against Special Agent Fisher was complete, the fatigue hit him like a plane crash. He decided that he would rest for a little before returning to the girl. He had no use for her anymore. The girl had no mother. Even if Special Agent Erica Fisher survived, she would spend the rest of her life in prison. He might as well end the little girl’s misery.

  Maybe he would be merciful one more time.

  Ninety-Eight

  It’s astonishing how light and darkness can completely alter one’s perception of time. Take, for example, every casino in the United States. The intensity of the lighting in their gambling floors is controlled and constant – twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week – just the right balance of brightness and colors so as not to overexpose and tire the human eye. Consequently, gamblers often lose track of time. What to them might feel like an afternoon spent at the tables, turns out to be a day and a half.

  Heather Fisher was being subjected to the exact same experience, but in total darkness and without the luxuries of a Las Vegas gambling floor. Her notion of time had left her long ago.

  After the man had allowed her to speak to her mother on the phone, he had put her in that dark room and Heather had waited and waited and waited. Her mother had said that she was coming to pick her up, but she still hadn’t turned up. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, Heather had cried herself to sleep.

  The girl missed her mother dearly, but what had really made her sad was the fact that she had been unable to go to the park after school to meet the boy. She really liked him. He was just like her, different, but they understood each other and they always laughed together. She liked that very much. She liked when he sat next to her, when he held her hand, when he smiled at her, and she had felt the warmest of feelings inside when he kissed her cheek last Friday.

  The man had taken away her cellphone, so she had no way of telling the boy that she couldn’t be there. She was terrified that the boy wouldn’t want to go to the park to see her anymore. That he wouldn’t want to sit next to her again, or smile at her, or hold her hand.

  Why was that man so mean? She had never done anything to him.

  When Heather woke up again, the room was as dark as it had always been. She felt hungry, thirsty and cold, and the mattress she was lying on felt like it was made out of cement. Every muscle in her body hurt, especially the ones on her neck. As she sat up, blood throbbed in her ears, making her feel dizzy. Her clothes felt soaking wet and they didn’t smell so good. She really didn’t like that.

  Tears welled up in the girl’s eyes again. She couldn’t understand what was happening to her. Why was she in that room? Who was that man? Why did she have to sit in the dark? And why didn’t her mother come pick her up like she said she would? Her mother never lied to her.

  Then a new thought came to the girl. Maybe the man was the boy’s father. Maybe he had found out that his son, Thomas, was meeting her at the park after school and he didn’t want that, he didn’t want his son sitting next to her, or smiling at her, or holding her hand. The man didn’t want that because she was different. But Thomas was also different and she really, really liked him. If she could, she would sit next to him every day.

  Heather closed her eyes and the tears became sobs. She cried for a long while before she heard footsteps approaching from outside the small room. She quickly wiped the tears from her eyes and jumped to her feet.

  ‘Mommy?’ she called, feeling her way in the darkness toward the door. ‘Mommy, I’m here.’

  Heather heard a key being inserted into the door lock. It turned once, twice, three times.

  ‘Mommy?’

  The door was finally pulled open and light spilled into the room from the corridor outside. Heather blinked, turning her face away from the door. The sudden bright light hurt her eyes.

  ‘Mommy?’ she called one more time.

  ‘No,’ the man replied, his voice firm and strong. He used the remote control in his left hand to switch on the lights inside the room.

  Heather blinked a few more times before her vision finally could handle the brightness.

  The man stepped into the room and allowed the door to close silently behind him.

  Heather shivered.

  ‘Mommy isn’t coming for you.’ The man returned the remote control to his trouser pocket, from where he retrieved a pair of latex gloves. ‘Nobody is ever coming for you . . . Except me.’

  Ninety-Nine

  The FBI Special Weapons and Tactics team convoy was made up of three black SUVs. There were five specially trained assault agents in each vehicle. The team leader was Special Agent Trevor Richardson, an ex-military black-ops officer with over seventeen years’ experience in covert operations. His team was the best the FBI had to offer and they were all pumped up and ready to strike.

  The address they had took them to a very quiet street on the outskirts of Chula Vista, the second largest city in the San Diego metropolitan area, Southern California. There were only three houses on the street, all of them back from the road and far enough from each other for one to be able to throw a loud party without ever bothering the neighbors. The specific house they were after was by far the largest one on the street, tucked away right at the top of the hill. The team had already acquired the architectural blueprints for the property. It showed a massive two-story building with six bedrooms upstairs, all of them en suites and three of them very oddly shaped. Downstairs there was a large kitchen, a dining room, a living room, a study and an extra room that could be absolute
ly anything – a games room, a projection room, a lab, a gallery . . . whatever the owner had decided to make of it, really. The basement was enormous and though they knew of its existence, its layout was a complete mystery to the team.

  From the outside, the house was also the most imposing on the street, with a large, very well-cared-for front garden and a driveway that ended in a wide cobblestone courtyard, with a three-car garage to its right. The car parked in front of one of the three garage doors was an Infinity QX80 – the exact vehicle they were looking for.

  The car and the house were registered to Arthur Weber, a thirty-four-year-old computer whiz and entrepreneur who, at the age of twenty-five, had become a millionaire several times over, thanks to the success of his mobile applications company – Walking Gadgets. He had sold the company two and a half years ago for an absolute fortune and since then, at least according to what the team was able to gather in such a short time, had become somewhat of a recluse, withdrawing from social life almost completely. Mr. Weber had never been married, had no children and no siblings. His mother had raised him alone, as his father had walked away from them even before he was born.

  The sun was about forty minutes away from rising when the three FBI SUVs pulled up outside the gates of Mr. Weber’s house.

  ‘OK, everybody, listen up,’ Agent Richardson said, as all fifteen agents gathered around in a circle. ‘As I’ve explained before, we’re splitting into three teams – Alpha, Beta and Gamma. Gamma team will enter the house and immediately proceed upstairs. Beta team will take the ground floor and Alpha team will venture into the unknown that is the basement. I will be leading Alpha team. Collins will head Beta team and Gomez Gamma team.’ Richardson checked his watch. ‘The sun will be up in just over thirty minutes and I want this all wrapped up by then.’

  ‘Roger that, sir,’ fourteen voices said in unison.

  ‘Now here’s the deal,’ Agent Richardson continued. ‘Whoever this guy is, he has no clue we’re coming for him this morning, so surprise is on our side here and we want to keep it that way. No loud noises. Once inside, hand signals only between team members. Team leaders will maintain minimum radio contact. The point to remember is that if this is our guy, he’s responsible for at least five deaths, one of them a fellow agent. He’s smart and very resourceful, but the good thing is, he shouldn’t be carrying a weapon. The bad thing is, like I’ve said before, he’s got a little girl hostage, who he might be keeping in the house. We have no real intel on that and for that reason, I want all of you to be on your toes. The girl’s name is Heather. She’s fourteen years old. She has Down syndrome and she’s the daughter of an FBI special agent.’ He lifted up a tablet, on its screen a portrait photograph of Heather. ‘This is her and she’s our priority today; is that understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘The idea is to take Arthur Weber alive, so deadly force is to be used only if absolutely necessary, but if that necessity shows its ugly face, I want you to drop him without hesitation.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  Agent Richardson looked around his elite squad of men – fourteen ‘don’t fuck with me’ badasses whom he would trust with his life.

  ‘All right,’ he said in conclusion. ‘Once in there watch your six and cover every corner. Lock and load, Godspeed and let’s go get this sonofabitch.’

  One Hundred

  All three teams moved fast and stealthily, easily clearing the gates and the front lawn in absolutely no time at all. The FBI had already been in contact with the alarm company that serviced Arthur Weber’s house and the whole system had been switched off without the owner’s knowledge, so no one had to worry about bypassing circuits or disconnecting wires.

  As they approached the house, Alpha team rounded it to the back door, while Beta and Gamma teams stayed with the front one.

  ‘Beta and Gamma teams in position, over,’ came the announcement from the Beta team leader over their headsets.

  ‘All right,’ Agent Richardson replied, nodding at the team agent who had slid a fiber-optic tube under the back door. The tube was connected to a five-inch monitor screen.

  ‘Clear,’ the agent said, nodding back at Agent Richardson before moving to the door locks.

  ‘Alpha team is also in position, over,’ Agent Richardson replied.

  ‘Done,’ the agent said, as he finished picking the locks.

  ‘Back door is breached,’ Agent Richardson said into his microphone. ‘We’re going in, over.’

  ‘Front door is breached,’ came the reply from Beta team leader. ‘We’re going in, over and out.’

  Wearing the latest technology night-vision goggles, all three teams entered the house from both doors, cruising through rooms they knew only from a floor plan like ghosts through a cemetery.

  Gamma team rushed through the front door and reached the stairwell that led to the house’s second floor in three seconds flat. A second later the entire team was upstairs.

  Beta team followed Gamma team in, beginning their sweep of the ground floor through the entry foyer, before moving on to the living room.

  Alpha team entered the house through the kitchen. The door that led them to the basement was identified on the blueprint and sat next to a large double-door fridge on the south wall.

  ‘It’s unlocked,’ the first Alpha team agent who got to the door hand-signaled his team leader.

  He’s probably downstairs, Agent Richardson thought, and signaled the rest of the team to proceed in two-by-two cover formation. He would take point.

  The door led to a wide concrete stairwell. There was a light bulb above their heads, just past the door, but it was switched off. Agent Richardson hand-signaled his team that they were moving down to the next door at the bottom. In between the first and second doors there were twelve steps.

  The door at the bottom was also unlocked. There was no light from the other side. Another signal told the agent behind Richardson to push the door open while the rest of the team stormed into the next room. Fingers counted down from three . . . two . . . one.

  The team thundered through the door and into a wide room where the wall across from them was lined with wooden shelves. Those had been divided into separate, different-sized compartments, each holding a clear glass jar. A laboratory-like smell lingered in the air.

  What the actual fuck? Agent Richardson thought, as the entire team focused their attention on the contents of the jars.

  The team cleared the room and moved to the second door – also unlocked. It dropped them in a corridor where the walls were cinderblock, the floor concrete and the ceiling white, with long strip lights. These were on.

  To prevent the team from going blind, their night-vision goggles immediately adapted to the new light. Still, the team quickly removed them.

  The corridor was straight for about ten yards before bending left.

  The team moved silently and cautiously.

  ‘This is Gamma team leader,’ Agent Richardson heard the voice come through his headset. ‘Upstairs is clear. Neither of the subjects is up here, but we did find a control room of sorts. There’s a makeshift control desk and no less than ten monitors. We did try switching them on in case they could give us an idea of where the girl is located, but all we got were snowing screens. If they were receiving images from broadcasting cameras anywhere, it’s all been disconnected. There’s also a board covered in schematics of what looks to be plans for remotely activated engines and light switches. According to the schematics, the engines are to be placed on sliding doors somewhere, so they can be opened or closed remotely, so be extra vigilant, over.’

  ‘Roger that, Gamma team,’ Richardson replied. ‘We suspect the subject, at least one of them, might be down here in the basement. Secure that control room and those schematics and await further instructions, over.’

  ‘Roger that. Do you need any help down there? Over.’

  ‘That’s a negative, Gamma leader. Over and out.’

  As Alpha team rounded the corri
dor corner, they saw two doors, both of them on the wall to their left. There was light seeping from under the first door. The same wasn’t true for the second one.

  Richardson hand-signaled his team that they would storm through the first door. Once again the team got ready.

  One of Alpha team’s agents placed his back against the wall to the right of the door and very carefully tried the handle. A couple of seconds later, while keeping the handle all the way down, he nodded at Agent Richardson, indicating that the door was unlocked.

  Up came the finger count.

  Three . . .

  Two . . .

  One . . .

  The agent with his back to the wall swung the door open in one very smooth movement. A millisecond later, the other four members of Alpha team blasted through into the room beyond.

  One Hundred and One

  ‘Mommy isn’t coming for you,’ the man had said as he returned the remote control to his trouser pocket and began gloving his hands. ‘Nobody is ever coming for you . . . Except me.’

  Maybe it was the sincerity in the man’s tone of voice, or maybe it was because the girl sensed danger in every word he spoke, but as he got to her and placed a hand on her left shoulder, the girl lost control. The fear that had begun as butterflies in her stomach rapidly spread throughout the rest of her body, manifesting itself in irrepressible shudders, forcing the tears that had welled up in her eyes to finally roll down her cheeks.

  Without being able to move, frozen in place from pure fear, the girl wet herself.

  The man looked back at her in disgust. As he circled around the girl, positioning himself directly behind her, the door to the small room they were in was pushed open and, in a blink of an eye, five FBI agents stormed in.

  Despite how shocked the man was, he was able still to quickly slide his hand from the girl’s shoulder to her neck and bring her close against his body.

  ‘Don’t move!’ five different voices shouted at the same time. The aims of five different assault rifles targeting the same two-square inch spot over the man’s chest.