As he reached for his phone, it rang.

One Hundred and One

This wasn’t the first time Hunter had stared down the barrel of a gun. It wasn’t the first time he’d been in a life or death situation either, but Ghost was too far away for Hunter to be able to get to him in time, and he was too close for Hunter to be able to dive away from the bullet.

This time there was no way out.

In that split second before Ghost squeezed the trigger, all Hunter could think of was how sorry he was for not being able to protect Taylor, and for not fulfilling the promise he’d made Jessica all those years ago while he held his fiancée’s mutilated body in his arms.

Despite what he was facing, Hunter didn’t close his eyes. He didn’t even blink. He would not give Ghost the satisfaction. His gaze stayed on Ghost’s face. And that was how he was able to see his head explode.

It was a perfect shot. The bullet hit Ghost on his left temple. Its hollow-point cavity was immediately filled with fluids and tissue, forcing it to mushroom as it began traveling past the cranium wall and across Ghost’s brain, savagely ripping apart everything in its path.

The mushroom effect of a hollow-point reduces the bullet’s velocity considerably, and in most cases there will be no exit wound. The bullet will generally lodge itself within its target. But again, at such close range, the power of a .45-caliber round was more than enough to propel the bullet all the way across Ghost’s shaved head.

When it occurs, the exit wound of a .45 mushroomed Civil Defense bullet is impressive. In Ghost’s case, it was the size of a grapefruit. Half of the right side of his face, from his ear to the top of his head, exploded out as if an alien being had hatched out of a large egg. Bone, blood, brain matter and skin splattered against the wall and the control console to his right, covering everything in a sticky, gooey red mess.

The terribly loud sound of the fired shot made Hunter jerk, but he still kept his eyes open. He saw the anger, the determination and the evil dissipate from Ghost’s eyes, before his whole body was basically lifted from the ground by the force of the shot’s impact. It slammed against the control console and flopped to the ground like an empty flour sack. A pool of blood quickly began to form around his head.

His gun also hit the console, but it slid away to the other side of the room, ending somewhere behind the cardboard boxes.

Hunter’s heart was racing like a Drag car. Adrenaline had flooded every vein in his body, making him shake. His gaze finally moved to Lucien. He could still see a thin plume of smoke traveling in the air from Lucien’s shot, but again, before Hunter could react, Lucien had already aimed Taylor’s gun at him.

‘Stay right where you are, Robert. I really don’t want to, but if need be, I’ll put a bullet right through your heart. And you know I mean it.’

Hunter stared at him, unable to hide his surprise for what he’d just done.

‘I’ve never liked him anyway,’ Lucien explained in his usual matter-of-fact manner. ‘He was just a dumb, sadistic kid with no purpose, who was traumatized when young, and because of that he loved torturing and killing people just for the fun of it.’

Coming from Lucien, Hunter found the comment very rich.

‘And he just outlived his usefulness,’ Lucien moved on, not even a pinch of remorse or pity in his tone. ‘Like all the previous ones. They all do eventually, so I just find myself a new little helper.’

Hunter’s focus was on Lucien’s gun.

‘Believe me if you like, but I had no intention of killing Agent Taylor, unless I absolutely had to, but unfortunately she touched on a very delicate subject when it came to Ghost. You see, he came from a very dysfunctional family. Both of his parents abused him physically and psychologically in ways that are hard for even me to imagine. They forced him to walk around the house naked all the time, and they made constant fun of him, especially of his manhood, calling him a series of derogative names. Would you like to guess one of them?’

Hunter breathed in. ‘Pencil-dick.’

Lucien nodded once. ‘That’s the one. Unfortunately, the same name Agent Taylor threw at him.’

For a deeply traumatized and disturbed person, a single word, a sound, a color, an image, a smell . . . a multitude of simple things can easily reopen a terribly painful wound. Usually the person’s reaction is highly unpredictable, but in the case of a violent person, violence is almost always present within the reaction. In the case of a psychopath like Ghost, that violent reaction is usually fatal.

‘When Ghost was seventeen years old,’ Lucien added, ‘he

finally had enough. He tied his father to a bed, castrated him, and left him to bleed to death. After that, he used a baseball bat to beat his mother’s head into a paste. He was too damaged. I knew I’d be getting rid of him soon anyway.’

Despite the bloody chaos of the control room, Hunter forced himself to think as clearly as he possibly could. His main concern came back to him, and he turned his head to look down the corridor behind him. His eyes caught a glimpse of Taylor’s body on the floor, and his heart sank yet again. He looked back at Lucien.

‘Let Madeleine go, Lucien,’ he said one more time. ‘Please. If you really want another victim, take me instead. She means nothing to you.’

‘True, and that’s exactly why I should kill her, Robert,’ Lucien said. ‘Because she means nothing to me. Now you were my best friend. We have some history. Why would I want to kill you instead of her?’

‘Because you already took half of my life when you took Jessica from me,’ Hunter replied. ‘And I know you don’t like to leave things half done.’

As much as Hunter tried to hide it, Lucien recognized real emotion in his voice.

‘So this is your chance, Lucien,’ Hunter continued. ‘Let her go and finish what you started with me, because if you don’t, I will kill you.’

Despite the seriousness of his words, Hunter spoke as if he were talking to someone inside a library, his voice quiet and steady.

‘OK,’ Lucien said, taking a step closer to the blood-covered control console, his weapon still targeting Hunter’s heart, ‘let’s see if you are a man of your word, Robert.’ He flicked a switch and the door at the end of the corridor swung open again.

Hunter turned and faced the hallway.

Madeleine immediately looked up. She looked even more petrified than before.

Hunter knew that she’d heard both shots, and they’d no doubt scared her imagination into fantasizing the worst as to what was happening outside and, worse, what would now happen to her.

She looked to be almost hyperventilating; right then, nothing in the world could make her stop shaking.

Lucien jerked his gun toward the hallway. ‘Let’s go join her, shall we? I have one last surprise for you.’

One Hundred and Two

Hunter had to step over Taylor’s body to reach the hallway. Lucien followed, but at a safe distance. There was no way Hunter could mount an attack before Lucien fired at least two shots at him.

As Hunter started down the corridor, Madeleine’s eyes met his and he could see only one thing in them – pure terror.

‘Please help me.’

This time Hunter could finally hear her. Her weak and quivering voice was drowning in fear.

‘Madeleine, please just stay calm,’ Hunter said in his most confident voice. ‘Everything will be just fine.’

Madeleine’s gaze moved past Hunter and found Lucien, and it was as if the monster that had been haunting her worst nightmares since she was a little girl had just materialized in front of her. Fear grew inside her like a hurricane, and she began screaming and wiggling her fragile body in the chair.