The Hunted

by Alan Jacobson

  Cody handed him the pail he had been holding. Hung Jin removed the plastic lid and a bucketful of rats poured out, scurrying in a dozen different directions. “They’re attracted to their urine. And warm, dark places.” He smiled, then slammed the door behind him.

  Rats were everywhere. Some scurried into the corners, some ran onto Lauren’s lap, her shoulders, her head. She couldn’t take it, couldn’t hold her emotions in check anymore. She screamed a loud, shrill, desperate scream and couldn’t stop herself, and she screamed again. And again.

  And then one of the rats found a dark, warm hole and ran in.

  It had climbed up the bottom of her pant leg.

  24

  Scott Haviland was escorted through Mahogany Row to Director Knox’s office suite. He sat down in a chair and let his mind drift off as he stared out the large window to his left.

  Just then, Knox entered and moved behind his desk, followed by Liz Evanston. “Fine, tell them to make up the plaque and I’ll present it in a short ceremony.” Knox looked up and appeared to suddenly become aware of Haviland sitting there. “Please give us some time alone,” Knox said to Liz. Then, turning to Haviland, he said, “Report.”

  “Agent Waller’s been working with Payne. His days are divided into morning and evening sessions. He begins with tactical and skill-building reviews, such as target shooting, HRT situational exercises at Hogan’s, and policy and procedure briefings. So far Payne’s doing extremely well. Although his memory is still stunted, his instincts are intact, which is good. That would take a great deal longer to teach or relearn.”

  “My chief concern is his memory,” Knox said tersely.

  Haviland nodded. He had just received the doctor’s report indicating that all the diagnostic tests had come back normal, despite the evidence of significant blunt trauma to the back of Payne’s head. Haviland knew that Knox would focus on the doctor’s prognosis for memory recovery. The report concluded, excising out all the medical technobabble, that all they could do was wait and see.

  “I reviewed the doc’s report,” Haviland said. “It seems to me, when you get right down to it, that by labeling it postconcussion syndrome with atypical amnesia, or some such wording, the doctor wasn’t completely sure what the hell was going on.”

  Knox rose from his chair and walked to the window. “I’ve already arranged for a second opinion. I’ll make sure you’re fully briefed on the results.” He threw his arms behind his back and began to pace. “What kind of progress are you making with him on the Scarponi file?”

  “The evening sessions are consumed by a substantive and comprehensive review of all the reports Payne generated while undercover, as well as his follow-up notes. Every morning he’s up by five A. M. and at a terminal in the computer lab reviewing trial transcripts. If this plan fails, it won’t be because of a lack of effort on his part.”

  “I don’t intend for this plan to fail, Agent Haviland.”

  “Of course not, sir.”

  “But I am concerned about the time.”

  Haviland knew Knox was referring to the seven day deadline in the threat letter he had received. “We can go public tomorrow with news of his return and get a trial date set. Technically, he doesn’t have to be fully prepared until the day before trial.”

  Knox continued to pace. “I want him ready as soon as possible. I want to know for sure whether or not he’s going to be able to pull this off. If not, we’ll have to take a different tack. It would be a PR disaster if Payne’s amnesia leaks to the press. The media would have my ass.” He shook his head. “I need to know which way we’re going to go before we make anything public.” Knox stopped pacing and turned to face the window. “Thanks for your time, Agent.”

  “Understood, sir,” Haviland said to his director’s back. He knew that was his cue to leave.

  25

  Lauren fought to keep herself alert. As Hung Jin had predicted, she was growing weak from lack of food. She had difficulty keeping her mind focused, and very few body parts did not hurt.

  When Hung Jin had left, the rats had swarmed her, triggering a surge of adrenaline, an injection of pure liquid stress. Fear seeped from her pores. Sweat dripped from her skin. And her impassioned screams seemed to trigger the rats’ own fear mechanisms, sending them scurrying away from her into the dark corners of the cabin.

  The dark cabin. Though slits of light tore through cracks and gashes in the wall panels, she hadn’t seen sunlight in two days. As a psychologist, she was well aware of the depressive effects of darkness and its disorienting disruption of her body’s internal clock, or circadian rhythms. With no defined sense of time or place, and with her body strapped down like a suitcase to the roof of a car, the urge to panic was substantial.

  But Lauren knew she had to focus. She had a formidable enemy in Hung Jin; she did not need to make her own failings and anxieties his accomplice. She closed her eyes, calmed herself with a quick muscular relaxation exercise, and then began brainstorming ways of escaping.

  If she pulled on the ropes, they would tighten. If she yelled for help, no one but Cody would hear her. She had screamed earlier and no one had come to her aid. It hadn’t even fazed Hung Jin, so she knew she must be in a secluded location. The scent of pine and the muffling quiet of snow gave her the impression she was in the mountains somewhere. Wherever it was, she had been driven there. It was likely within a few hours of Placerville.

  No matter what course of action she took, she first had to stimulate the circulation in her numb feet and toes, hands and fingers. Slowly, she moved her ankles up and down as much as she could, hoping the minimal amount of movement would pump enough blood to have an effect. A moment later, she began feeling the fruits of her labor: not only was sensation returning, but, along with it, pain: she had apparently been abrading her scabbing ankle wound against the wooden leg of the chair.

  And then an idea began to form: by rubbing her wound repeatedly against the chair, she could make it bleed freely. She tightened her jaw and worked the cut. A couple of minutes later, her ankle was slippery and gliding in its duct tape sleeve.

  As she rubbed, she heard the creaking of the old, dry wood of the chair. Perhaps it was not as solid as Hung Jin had thought. With great pain, she sucked in as much breath as she could. She grunted and jerked her body to the left, attempting to tip the chair over. But the only thing she accomplished was tightening the rope around her torso. “Shit!” she gasped. She began to cry, the pressure against her chest permitting no more than a whimper from her cracked lips.

  But she could not give up.

  She craned her head left, looking for something that could help her. From what she could make out in the dim light, there was nothing of use. She then twisted her head as far right as she could, spying the outline of what appeared to be an old, cast-iron potbelly stove. A long flue rose from its rotund furnace, heading up toward the roof. She could make out a small crack of light around the seam where the flue collar penetrated the ceiling.

  Mustering all her remaining strength, she pushed down on the balls of her feet and rocked the chair slightly. Although it was only a small movement, it was a victory of sorts for her. It was a sign that she had control over something in this seemingly hopeless situation. She pushed and pulled her body backward, tilting the chair a couple of inches onto its hind legs before it leaned forward again, slapping back down to the ground.

  If she could only generate enough momentum to create a fulcrum with the rear legs, she could smash the brittle wood against the stove. She lifted the seat again with the balls of her feet and forcefully threw her torso back. The chair tilted and she felt the center of gravity shift.

  With the air just about gone from her lungs, she was heading backward, bracing as best she could for the impact.

  26

  Hung Jin walked into the Cybercafé wearing medium-size, metal-rimmed glasses, a short black beard, and a nondescript navy blue Nike ball cap. He sat down at one of the computer terminals, ordered a double espre
sso, and logged on to the Internet.

  When he had first received word that Harper Payne was in Colorado, all efforts were diverted to the grand snow-covered state. Now, as his anxious fingers played across the keyboard, he hoped to find messages of success from his colleagues. He entered the private chat room he had set up months ago as a means of secure communication and read through the posted messages. He gulped a mouthful of steaming liquid and resisted the overwhelming urge to smash the monitor in front of him.

  His men had thus far turned up nothing.

  It was now their appointed time to make contact and talk live amongst themselves—in code, of course. After identifying himself using predetermined phrases and receiving the proper counter responses, Hung Jin relayed the information Lauren Chambers had provided a short time ago. His comrades’ replies took time to decode, further testing his patience.

  But encrypted messages or not, their conclusion was clear: Lauren Chambers’s story was not valid. Excluding the possibility that Harper Payne had been buried by an avalanche—and there were no reports over the past several days of one having occurred—they insisted they had covered the most likely areas anyone could go cross-country skiing. No one they had visited had seen a male matching the photo they had shown around. None of the resorts or lodges had any record of him having checked in. There was no evidence of a male matching Payne’s description in any of the local hospitals. No cars had been rented in the name of Michael Chambers. And, perhaps the most telling fact of all, Harper Payne had never been a member of a fraternity while attending MIT.

  Regardless of what Lauren Chambers had told her captor under duress, Hung Jin’s men could not confirm that any of the information she had given him was true. He directed them to continue their search for Payne. He would provide further instructions shortly.

  In Hung Jin’s court of law—which was governed by his own warped sense of justice—the sentence for lying or withholding key information was death. Lauren Chambers was doing just that. Either one, it didn’t matter. As soon as he returned to the cabin, he would extract the truth from her. If Payne did not go to Colorado to go skiing, then he went there to hide. If Lauren Chambers knew where he was, she would’ve been smart to give it up sooner, rather than later. It would have been less painful for her that way.

  Hung Jin swallowed the remainder of the hot espresso in two gulps, then crushed the cardboard cup in his hand. He logged off and left an average tip for the waitress. Above all else, he did not want to stand out in any manner. On the slight chance law enforcement came snooping, he had covered his fingertips with an invisible polyurethane coating. He wanted no record, either physical or otherwise, that he was ever there.

  He left the cafe and marched through the snow toward his Lincoln Navigator, thinking of Lauren Chambers, tied up in the cabin, weak and out of her mind with fear.

  He couldn’t wait to see her again.

  27

  In Lauren’s mind, the chair was moving backward with all the acceleration of a tortoise leaving the starting line. In reality, it tipped over quite rapidly. With a thud, everything seemed to impact with the potbelly stove simultaneously: her head smashed against the flue and the seat back struck the main compartment.

  The chair’s spindly wooden slats split with a loud snap.

  In a heap, Lauren fell to the ground on her left side, momentarily stunned from the blow to her head. Aware of the noise her fall must have made, she immediately tried to free her hands, which were still securely fastened to the chair’s individual slats. Finding this more difficult than she had anticipated, Lauren refocused her efforts on the ropes binding her legs.

  She grimaced in pain as she slid her bloody right ankle along the shaft of the chair leg until it slipped off the end. She dropped her head back to the floor for a second, savoring the rare moment of triumph while she rested and gathered her strength. But she knew she did not have much time. She went back to work, quickly freeing her left ankle with her right foot.

  With both feet free, she rolled onto her knees and tried to lift her torso. But the center of gravity was all wrong, and with her hands still bound behind her, she was unable to gain the necessary leverage to pull her body up off the ground.

  Just then, the unmistakable thump of a car door slamming pounded against her ears.

  “Shit!”

  Still struggling to lift her body, she remembered the stories she had heard as a teenager of the frantic woman who had lifted a car to save her child trapped beneath the wreck. Lauren needed to summon such strength within herself. Lying on her left side, she pressed her head into the sand-covered wood floor and pulled with everything she had left.

  “Ahhh!” she yelled, a deep, guttural groan that helped focus her mind. She pried and yanked until suddenly her right arm popped free of the chair’s splintered back. Although her wrist was still fastened to one of the broken slats, she was able to use her hand to push against the floor as she pivoted on her head.

  She lifted her torso and sat upright, then brought her left hand to the front of her body. Seconds later, she maneuvered the wrist bindings off the slats, completely freeing herself of the encumbrance of the wood chair.

  She jumped to her feet—and almost ended up flat on her back. Her low blood pressure, combined with the lack of food, sent her head spinning. She threw her arms out to balance herself. As the dizziness cleared, she heard crunching in the snow outside the cabin. She darted toward the front door, where Hung Jin had left her Colt. She grabbed the weapon and brought the gun up, only to remember it was empty. But Hung Jin had only used one of the rounds; the rest he had dumped onto the ground. She scampered across the floor, her numb fingertips frantically coursing over the rough wood, searching for just one bullet.

  And then she found one. Kneeling on the floor, she flipped open the Colt’s cylinder. The crunching footsteps were getting louder. A whimper escaped her throat as she clumsily fumbled with the round before—finally—shoving it home. As she snapped the cylinder closed, the cabin door swung open.

  The bright gray glare was blinding. Still on her knees, she threw the gun up in front of her chest and yelled.

  Hung Jin swerved to catch the corner of the snow-covered side street that came upon him suddenly. The Navigator skidded and slid along the thick ice, but he regained control just short of the embankment. He continued on at a fast clip, faster than he should have been traveling on this road under such conditions. But at the moment all he could think about was the feel of Lauren’s supple neck writhing in his hands. In his mind, her eyes were bulging as he squeezed the life out of her.

  As usual, he did not expect law enforcement to be a problem. He knew how to stage the crime scene to make it appear as if something else had occurred. A suicide, a kinky sex session, a robbery gone bad. If the local authorities had enough brains to figure out what had really happened, they would probably still not think of reporting it to the feds. And without the FBI’s involvement, the locals would never make the connection to him.

  He knew another thing, too: he had to temper his anger so he could make one last attempt at extracting the information he needed from Lauren Chambers. Sometimes it was a delicate balance. Sometimes you needed to bring the subject to the brink of death before he fully realized his life was on the line. Sometimes you went too far, and if you couldn’t revive him in time, you lost out on a valuable opportunity. That’s why such an interrogation was more art than science. That’s why he was so good at what he did.

  He did not usually make mistakes.

  Cody’s jaw dropped as he took in the broken remnants of the chair, the blood on the floor, the scurrying rats as they searched for darkness and warmth. Just as quickly, the man’s lips curled into a smile as he started to reach behind his back with his right hand.

  “Stop,” Lauren yelled. “Keep your hands where I can see them!”

  “Or what?” Cody said, continuing to move his right hand to the back of his jeans. “You gonna shoot me? Bitches like you don’t have
the guts to kill.”

  Lauren pulled the trigger—and an empty chamber clicked.

  He laughed hard, a smoker’s raspy crackle gurgling in his throat. “Guess you proved me wrong, huh, darlin’?” He brought his Smith & Wesson nine-millimeter handgun forward and waved it at Lauren. “Too bad you ain’t got no fucking bullets.” He laughed again. “My boss would rather I didn’t kill you, least not yet.” He unzipped his pants and gyrated his hips. “But he didn’t say nothing about having a little fun while he’s gone.”

  He took a step toward her and Lauren began squeezing the trigger in rapid succession, the empty chambers firing in her mind like the hollow click of footsteps in an empty warehouse.

  “Stay back!” she said, still gripping her weapon.

  The metallic click-clunk of Cody chambering around took her breath away as she squeezed one last time. Finally, the bullet exploded from the Colt and hit her assailant between the eyes. His body hung there for a second, the dumbfounded look of a brain-dead animal settling across his face as he dropped to his knees and then fell forward, his head and torso landing in a bloody heap by her feet.

  Lauren sat there, panting hard. A chill blew in through the open cabin door and made her body convulse in a prolonged shiver. She threw her leg out and kicked at Cody’s dead hulk, then stood up and booted his gun into the far corner of the cabin.

  “This bitch has the guts, asshole. My daddy taught me to shoot to kill.”

  Another gust of wind blew against her face like a wake-up call, and she suddenly became aware of the dangers now facing her: Had anyone heard the gunshot? Did Hung Jin have any other accomplices? Was Hung Jin nearby? She needed to get out of there, and fast.

  Clothes.

  Keys.

  Car.

  Lauren bent down and yanked off Cody’s sneakers and socks. Attempting to forget for the moment where the clothing had come from, she slid the sweaty tube socks over her cold feet. The tennis shoes were a couple of inches too large, but she had little choice. Lauren tugged on the sleeves of Cody’s navy pea coat and pulled the jacket off his body. There was some blood spatter across the shoulders, but she didn’t care. What mattered now was survival.