Written in Blood

by Carter Chris

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Not thirty-three . . . I’m on floor . . . thirty-four.’

  Hunter aimed the phone in his hand at the number on the wall by the door – 34.

  Seventy-Four

  Hunter paused by the door that connected the stairs to the thirty-fourth floor. His chest was heaving so heavily, he actually thought that a heart attack was on its way. He coughed again. This time he tasted bile in his mouth.

  ‘Are you all right, Detective?’ the Werewolf asked. ‘You don’t sound too good.’

  ‘Never better,’ Hunter replied, spit flying from his mouth. He finally found the strength to push open the door and step onto the landing on floor thirty-four. ‘So . . . I’m here . . .’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes . . . floor thirty-four . . .’

  ‘But you didn’t make it in time, Detective.’

  ‘C’mon . . .’ Hunter pleaded, oxygen at last traveling a little more freely into his nostrils. ‘I’m here.’

  ‘Here where?’

  ‘On the thirty-fourth floor.’

  ‘OK, but are you anywhere near room 3452?’

  Hunter had been so concerned with getting to the thirty-fourth floor of the hotel that he had forgotten that he also needed to get to a specific room. He lifted his head to look down the long and brightly lit corridor that ran left and right from where he was standing. Both sides seemed to go on forever before rounding the corner. His eyes moved to the plate on the wall that indicated which rooms were to which side. Room 3452 was to his left. He took in another lung full of air and took off down the corridor, as fast as his aching legs could move.

  Guest rooms lined both sides of the corridor. The first room Hunter passed on his right was numbered 3426. Room 3452 was not that far ahead.

  ‘You’re running again, Detective?’

  It took Hunter just a few seconds to reach room 3452.

  ‘I’m here. Look,’ Hunter said, aiming the phone at the number on the door. ‘Room thirty-four fifty-two. I’m here.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that,’ the Werewolf said. ‘But like I’ve said, you didn’t make it in time. You do remember rule number two, don’t you, Detective Hunter? “If you are even a second late accomplishing any of the tasks you are given, the thieving bitch dies.” And by my watch, you were late.’

  ‘C’mon,’ Hunter pleaded again. ‘No one would’ve made it from the market here and then up sixty-eight flights of stairs in twelve minutes. That was an impossible task.’

  ‘You’re wrong, Detective. That was in no way an impossible task. I can think of a handful of guys that would’ve made it there with time to spare.’

  Hunter refilled his lungs with air.

  ‘Let me guess . . .’ he said, and almost stopped himself, but he figured that right then, he didn’t really have much to lose. ‘You’re talking about some of your buddies from the military.’

  The Werewolf paused and even through the small screen on the smartphone in his hand, Hunter could see the focus in the killer’s eyes intensify.

  Hunter wondered if he had made a fatal mistake.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ the Werewolf said after several long silent seconds. ‘And yes, some of my buddies from the military would’ve accomplished that task in ten minutes or less. So you’ve failed, Detective Hunter. The bitch has to die.’

  ‘If you kill her, you’re never going to see this diary again. Do you understand me?’

  ‘Are you threatening me, Detective?’

  ‘It’s not a threat. It’s reality. You want the diary. We want the girl. It’s a simple exchange. I’m here now, just outside room thirty-four fifty-two. So let’s cut the crap and do this.’

  Right at that moment, from the corner of his eye, Hunter saw the first two-man-strong team emerge from the same stairwell door that he had come through moments earlier. An instant later, a second team appeared, this time coming out of the elevator. With the same hand that was holding the diary, Hunter used his right index finger to signal both teams that they should stand down. The Werewolf wasn’t an idiot. He wouldn’t have boxed himself inside a room on the thirty-fourth floor of a hotel. Behind that door, Hunter would probably find his next task.

  ‘You’re right, Detective,’ the Werewolf finally replied. ‘I do want my diary back. And since you didn’t give up on the stairs when the time was up, since you pushed yourself to complete the task despite everything, I will cut the crap. Let’s do this.’ A new pause, this time a little longer. ‘To the right of room 3452 there is an unnumbered door. Do you see it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s unlocked. I want you to open it. Keep the camera aimed at your actions.’

  Hunter aimed the phone at the unnumbered door, extended his hand and twisted the doorknob. The door opened inwards.

  ‘Good,’ the Werewolf told him. ‘The light switch is to the right of the door.’

  Hunter reached for it and switched it on. He found himself staring into a medium-sized room where three large laundry trolleys took most of the space inside. All three trolleys were empty.

  ‘This is the floor’s laundry room,’ the Werewolf informed Hunter. ‘On the far wall you’ll see a large hatch. That’s the laundry chute. Open it and drop the diary down it. Do it now.’

  ‘Shit!’ Hunter heard Agent Shaffer’s voice in his ear. ‘He’s down in the fucking laundry room. All teams get to the laundry room NOW.’

  Clever misdirection, Hunter thought.

  ‘Now, Detective,’ the Werewolf commanded again.

  ‘How about Angela?’ Hunter asked. ‘The deal was the diary for Angela.’

  ‘The deal also was for you to accomplish every task in the time given. We’re not having a discussion, Detective. The diary in the chute and you’ll get the girl. You have my word. Otherwise, I promise you that you’ll get a new piece of that little bitch delivered to your door every day for the next two months, do you hear me? You’ve got three seconds. One . . . two . . .’

  Hunter had no way of stalling anymore. He would not risk Angela’s life for the diary, plus, he did have a contingency plan in place. He rushed over to the wall hatch, opened it and dropped the diary down the chute.

  ‘Nice doing business with you, Detective Hunter,’ the Werewolf said before terminating the call.

  Seventy-Five

  ‘Shit!’

  Through their radios, all three two-man SWAT teams heard their leader, Agent Terrance Shaffer, shout the expletive.

  ‘He’s down in the fucking laundry room. All teams get to the laundry room – NOW.’

  The three SIS teams got the exact same order from their leader, Agent Trevor Silva. The problem was, two of the six teams had positioned themselves by the elevator and the stairs on the thirty-fourth floor. One other team had positioned itself one floor below and another one floor above, in case the Werewolf had some crazy escape plan in mind. The final two teams were downstairs, guarding the front and back exits to the hotel.

  The laundry room for the Westin Bonaventure Hotel was located on sublevel one. It would take the four teams on floors thirty-three, thirty-four and thirty-five way too long to get down to the basement. The two teams on the ground floor stood the best chance, and as they received the command from their leaders, all four agents rushed through the large and luxuriously decorated lobby in the direction of the stairwell, but they only managed to travel a total of five paces before they were interrupted by the screaming sound of a fire alarm.

  The reception lobby was reasonably busy at that time of the day. There were guests arriving and checking in, guests checking out, guests trying to ask for directions or information and people just sitting around, chatting.

  In the busy lobby, the fire alarm immediately caused a cacophony of movement just about everywhere. All of the guests began looking around in wonder, their hands going up in the air to indicate that they didn’t really know what was going on. At first, the staff mimicked the guests’ movement – wondering stares and confused looks – but in mere se
conds, as they all realized that what was happening wasn’t a drill, training kicked in. The bellboys, the concierges, the receptionists, the security guards, the hotel manager . . . all of them began rushing around, trying to coordinate the guests into exiting the building in an orderly fashion. To avoid a bottle-neck at the hotel doors, the porters held them all wide open while the guests, some of them dragging their cases with them, flooded through.

  That initial operation – guests who were already in the lobby – ran considerably smoothly, but still to come were the guests who had been inside their rooms. Out of the 1,358 rooms inside the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, 1,202 were taken. Out of the 135 suites, 101 were taken. Not all guests were in their rooms at that time, but the ones that were, were enough to fill a medium-sized concert hall.

  Within fifteen seconds of the alarm going off, the long corridors in every single floor became a busy highway of guests dressed in all different sorts of clothes. Their concerned voices also joined forces with the loud alarm and, just like that, the entire building became a beehive of buzzing and somewhat anxious noise.

  Though they knew they had no chance of getting to the laundry room fast enough, the four teams on floors thirty-three, thirty-four and thirty-five rushed to the stairwell, only to find a traffic jam of guests.

  Fire regulations in California specified that elevators are not to be used during a fire evacuation – stairs only – and so the Westin Bonaventure Hotel fire alarm was programmed to automatically deactivate all the elevators.

  Back down in the reception lobby, as they tried to rush into the hotel to reach the stairwell access door, the two ground-level teams were greeted by a wall of people traveling in the opposite direction. The more people they got past, the more people they encountered, as new guests started pouring into the lobby from the floors above.

  ‘The target could be anyone exiting the hotel right now,’ SWAT Agent Karl Hudson, leader of one of the two teams, said into his radio.

  ‘And that’s why we have a tracker hidden inside the diary that he’s now carrying,’ Agent Shaffer replied into Agent Hudson’s ear. ‘I’m coming into the lobby right now with the tracker app.’

  Agent Hudson and his team partner immediately turned around to check the lobby’s main entrance.

  Standing six-foot four inches tall, Agent Shaffer towered above most of the guests trying to exit the hotel. Garcia, who was six-foot two, was right next to him. It took the two-man SWAT team no time at all to spot them. Right on their heels was SIS Agent Trevor Silva. The second two-man team on the ground floor belonged to him.

  All seven of them met by the long reception desk.

  ‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ a short and plump man said, as he emerged from behind the counter. ‘Could you please make your way outside the building. The fire assembly point is just across the road, by the Enterprise car park.’ He indicated with his right hand. The badge on his suit jacket read ‘Luis Tornado, Concierge’.

  ‘LAPD,’ Garcia said, displaying his badge. He thought about telling the concierge that the alarm was actually a diversion, created by the person they were after, but he quickly thought better of it. Instead, all he said was: ‘We’re staying.’

  All six other members of the police group looked at the hotel employee sternly.

  ‘Suit yourselves,’ he said, lifting both of his hands and quickly turning to assist others.

  The lobby was starting to look like Walmart on a Black Friday, as more and more guests emerged from the stairwells.

  Agents Silva and Shaffer placed their tablets on the reception counter to check the progress of the blinking red dot.

  There was no red dot at all on the map.

  ‘Where the fuck is it?’ Agent Silva asked. ‘Is this shit working?’ His eyes sought Garcia’s.

  ‘Maybe he’s still down in sublevel one,’ Garcia replied. ‘It’s not a very strong tracker. It won’t transmit from underground.’

  ‘So let’s go down and box him in,’ Agent Shaffer suggested. ‘You two.’ He pointed at his two SIS agents. ‘You go . . .’ But before he was able to say anything else, a red dot suddenly appeared on the electronic map and started blinking.

  Seventy-Six

  ‘What’s going on?’ All seven in the group heard Hunter’s voice come loud and clear through their earpieces. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘The tracker just began transmitting,’ Garcia told his partner.

  ‘OK, and where in the hotel is he?’

  Garcia joined the rest of the group, as everyone attentively stared at the map on the tablets’ screen.

  ‘He’s not in the hotel.’ This time the answer came from Agent Silva. ‘Not anymore. He’s just exited it, using a staff exit somewhere at the back of the hotel.’

  They all exchanged concerned looks.

  ‘He’s on South Flower Street,’ Agent Shaffer told Hunter. ‘Same entrance you used.’

  Another exchange of looks, only this time a little more urgent.

  A split second later, all seven of them took off as fast as they could toward the hotel second entrance, the one that faced South Flower Street. The congestion of bodies in the hotel lobby was a problem and they dealt with it the only way they could – like a wide receiver going for a touchdown, pushing and shoving guests out of their way. It took them around forty seconds to make it to the door.

  ‘Where?’ Garcia asked, as they finally got outside.

  Agents Shaffer and Silva consulted their maps. As they did, the expressions on their faces became anxious.

  ‘He’s on West Fourth Street,’ Agent Shaffer announced. ‘It looks like he’s rounding the hotel, all the way to the main entrance on the other side.’

  ‘He’s going to join the crowd of guests,’ Garcia said, figuring out the Werewolf’s plan. ‘What better way to disappear than among so many bodies?’

  They could all hear the sound of fire engines somewhere in the distance.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Agent Silva said, leading the group on a hectic sprint up to West Fourth Street, then left for an entire block. As they got to the corner of West Fourth and South Figueroa, they checked their maps again.

  ‘You’re right,’ Agent Shaffer addressed Garcia. ‘He’s crossed the road and joined the crowd.’

  ‘Let’s split up and flank him,’ Agent Silva suggested, before turning to address his agents. ‘You two come with me.’ He faced Agent Shaffer. ‘We’ll go down South Figueroa and approach from the left. You guys cross right here and take the right. That will give him only two escape routes – he either crosses the road again, coming back to the hotel main entrance, or he enters the Enterprise building across the road. Either way we’ve got him.’

  ‘Roger that,’ Agent Shaffer replied before getting on his radio again. ‘Teams one and two, where are you?’

  ‘We’re coming down as fast as we can.’ The reply came back immediately. ‘But the stairs are mayhem.’

  Agent Shaffer could hear the buzzing of voices coming through his agent’s radio.

  ‘We’re on floor thirteen,’ the agent informed his leader.

  ‘Do better,’ Agent Shaffer replied. ‘I need you guys down here pronto.’

  Agent Silva and his SIS two-man team had already crossed South Figueroa Street and were approaching the crowd from the other side.

  Agent Shaffer had another look at the map. ‘Let’s go,’ he commanded, leading Garcia and his two-man team across the road.

  The crowd standing in front of the Enterprise building was a large one, getting larger by the second, as more and more guests exited the hotel and crossed the road.

  The fire engines were getting closer.

  ‘So where is he?’ Garcia asked.

  Agent Shaffer checked the map. ‘He’s smart. He got himself right in the middle of the crowd.’

  ‘Let’s move,’ Garcia said.

  All four of them began making their way through.

  ‘How close are you?’ everyone heard Agent Silva ask though their earpieces.

 
; ‘We’re about forty yards from the target,’ Agent Shaffer replied. ‘How about you?’

  ‘We’re a little closer – about twenty-five yards.’

  ‘OK,’ Garcia took over. ‘Get to about ten yards and hold. Spread your team up to block his escape routes in case he tries to run. We’ll approach from this side to make the arrest.’

  ‘Please let me face him,’ Agent Silva asked. ‘He killed two of my men.’

  ‘This isn’t a revenge exercise,’ Garcia replied, his tone solid. ‘This is still a UVC Unit investigation. We’re making the arrest. Hold at ten yards and spread your team to block his escape routes, is that understood?’

  ‘Understood.’ Agent Silva didn’t sound pleased.

  Garcia and the three SWAT agents continued to make progress through the crowd.

  Thirty yards.

  Twenty yards.

  Ten yards.

  ‘We’re in position,’ Agent Silva’s voice came through in their ears.

  Five yards.

  They checked the map on the tablet one more time. The red dot was blinking just ahead of Garcia, in a straight line.

  ‘I can’t see any smoke,’ said a short woman in a white bathrobe, who was standing to Garcia’s right. ‘If there’s a fire, where’s the smoke?’

  Garcia disregarded the woman and took another step forward. There was no mistaking who they were looking for. Standing in the middle of the crowd, looking back at the hotel, was a broad-shouldered, six-foot-three man. His physique could’ve belonged to a professional boxer. The man had a worried look on his face. His eyes kept on scanning the crowd anxiously. The man was wearing blue jeans, a black T-shirt and an LA Dodgers baseball jacket. Hanging from his shoulder and by the right side of his hip was a small black and white gym bag.

  Agent Shaffer ordered his men to go left and right, creating a circle around their target.

  Garcia’s right hand moved to the inside of his jacket. He unclipped his gun holster and allowed his fingers to wrap around the grip of his Sig Sauer X-Five Legion 9mm pistol. He thumbed the safety, but kept the weapon hidden under his jacket. He took another step forward and that was when he and the target locked eyes for just an instant. The man narrowed his eyes at Garcia, as if he had somehow recognized him.