Chapter Twenty-Six. Otter chewed his fingernails when he was nervous

Otter chewed his fingernails when he was nervous. He had gnawed his left thumb nearly raw waiting for Hunter, wondering where she had gone. What’s she up to?

The bunker went dark.

Shit. He waited for his eyes to adjust. They didn’t. He couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. Shit, shit, SHIT. He had his flashlight in his hand before he realized he couldn’t use it. It would make him an instant target.

But he didn’t put it away. The feel of it comforted him. As he listened for any sound from outside the pantry door, he tried to imagine Hunter’s next move. He knew she had extraordinary eyesight, but he didn’t believe anyone could see in this darkness. That meant she was either operating completely blind or, more likely, she had some sort of newfangled equipment to help her see in the pitch-black. She’d always been big on the latest high-tech gizmos and gadgets.

He cursed her under his breath as he considered his options. The pantry now felt more like a snare than a sanctuary. Although on second thought, maybe there’s something in here I can use. He fumbled for the doorknob and pulled the door shut as quietly as he could. He turned on the flashlight and scanned the shelves along the walls. Using the flashlight was an enormous risk. But he couldn’t just wait for Hunter to find him.

His thin lips curled into a wry grin. He snatched a few items from the shelves and cut the light. After laying his trap, he opened the door a few inches to where it had been previously. Otter held his breath and waited, listening at the crack. It won’t be long now.

Kat snuck back into the living room, pausing to ease the door closed behind her. She breathed deeply, sniffing the air. Listening. She crept noiselessly to the wall to her immediate right and then slowly forward to the corner with the desk. She traced the wall with her left hand and held the gun in her right. Her fingers skimmed across the security monitors as she came upon them and turned the corner. She paused and listened again for another minute. Though she sensed no one within several feet of her, Kat’s instinct told her to proceed slowly.

She continued her silent trek along the wall toward the bedroom door. She slowed when she approached the space where she knew her cello case would be and stepped around it. She paused and listened at the threshold of the bedroom, then stepped inside and navigated the perimeter of that room, stopping periodically to focus her senses on her immediate surroundings. She moved around the bed, finding the chair and table with remembered ease. She’d blindly traveled the route from bed to bathroom often in the middle of the night, so that leg of her journey was familiar.

She examined the bathroom in the same methodical way, following the wall, making periodic stops with her senses scanning for the intruder. Then she was out in the living room again, moving along the wall with the bookcases. She paused to listen outside the weapons room. There still had been no sound in the bunker. If the intruder hadn’t changed locations when the lights went out, then he had to be in the pantry.

Kat left the wall and crossed the center of the living room, giving the pantry door a wide berth. She found the kitchen counter with her outstretched left hand and used it as her tactile guidepost, drawing her along past the sink and the stove to the refrigerator, which stood just outside the pantry door.

She and Otter were now just a few feet apart. Kat stood with her back pressed against the fridge, her senses expanding into the space around her, probing silently. She held her gun at the ready, fingertip caressing the trigger.

Kat’s sixth sense had already told her the intruder was very near, but it was her keen sense of smell that gave her the first solid evidence of the man who had invaded her sanctuary. When she detected a slightly sour aroma only inches away, she knew she had him. Even the pros perspired.

She knew he was waiting on the other side of the door.

She crept three feet to her right and threw herself forward, hitting the door with her right shoulder with unbelievable force. She felt the impact of the door slamming against the intruder’s body just before she lost her footing and went down hard. Her Glock flew from her hand.

When the door slammed into him, Otter was propelled backward--hard, into the wall of shelves behind him. He got the wind knocked out of him but good, and he lost his gun and flashlight. The shelves collapsed, spilling their contents on and around him. The commotion was deafening. A heavy jar glanced off his head.

He lay on the cement floor where he landed, struggling to breathe. His need for air overtook everything else.

His hand went to his forehead where the jar had impacted. The skin was unbroken, but a lump had already started to form. His movement shifted the shelving piled on top of him. The noise was loud in his ears, and he suddenly felt extremely vulnerable. He froze and listened intently. He could hear Hunter’s labored breathing several feet away.

Otter took a second to regroup. He seemed to be in one piece, but Hunter sounded injured. This could be his only chance to overpower her.

Otter threw off the boards and cans and groped around on the floor, searching for his gun and his flashlight. He found nothing but packets of grains, cans of vegetables, boxes of pasta. He paused after several seconds of searching to listen. He could no longer hear her heavy gasps for breath or anything else. He didn’t know where she was.

Silence.

Shit.

Kat was already trying to analyze what it was the intruder had put on the floor even as her legs went out from under her. Some sort of dried beans or peas, maybe, she thought, her arms pin wheeling as she careened sideways. Her rib cage slammed into the sharp corner of a shelf. She landed on her back and doubled up against the sharp pain in her side. It was hard to breathe. Each expansion of her lungs brought new pain.

She knew that the intruder had obviously gone down as well, but the resulting cacophony had died. All was quiet now except for Kat’s raspy gulps for air.

Another flurry of sounds erupted from the corner where the man had fallen. Cans clattered against each other. One rolled across the floor in her direction. He was searching for something, probably a gun. Protect Jake, her instincts whispered. Kat would deal with the pain later. Now she had to survive.

She rose to a crouch. She reached around her with both hands, feeling for a weapon, as she fought to quiet her breathing.

She scuttled crablike several feet to the left without making a sound, picking up several cans along the way. She cradled them in her left arm while her right swept outward in search of her gun. The intruder had gone quiet.

Kat hefted a can in her right hand and waited, holding her breath, extending her hearing until she heard a faint sound. A whisper--maybe the intruder’s clothes or his breathing. It didn’t really matter. She lobbed the can as hard as she could directly at the noise.

She was rewarded by a satisfying thunk that was immediately followed by a muttered curse. Then all was silent again. She lobbed a second can at the same spot. Another thunk. Then shuffling noises as her target attempted to evade further attack. Kat smiled. She fired another can at the retreating sounds, eliciting another thwack of impact and another curse, this one louder than the first.

She heard him grappling around for something to throw back at her, so she was flat on the floor at least a second or two before the first can came her way. It sailed far above her and three feet to her right. More followed, thrown in a random pattern of rage. Kat was glad for the clatter. It masked her own search for her Glock. She crawled a couple of feet more to her left until she was against a wall. She ransacked the lower shelves for more ammunition.

Her hands found more cans and jars. She focused on her adversary’s noisy effort to return fire. She rocketed a steady stream of cans and bottles at the spot. Most hit their target.

The man tried hard to be quiet under her assault, but he apparently couldn’t help the occasional grunt of pain when something hit a particularly vulnerable spot.

Kat adjusted her aim accordingly.

She began creeping closer to his position. She inched her way along the wall, grabbing items off the shelves, keeping up her incessant barrage. Once in a while she would hear something sail by her ear and crash against the wall behind her, but the intruder was now spending more time protecting himself than trying to retaliate.

Otter was in trouble, and he knew it. Several of the damn cans had hit him pretty squarely in the head. One opened up a gash above his eye. And the last one had hit him hard in his lower abdomen as he’d been trying to retreat, shuffling backward on his rear end. Just a few inches lower, he gulped as he crouched in the corner, trying to shield both his face and groin from further assault. He knew she was closing in. But she wasn’t hitting him with every single throw, so he knew Hunter was operating blind too. There might still be a chance he’d come out of this.

He knew he had to make a move. In desperation, Otter fell to his hands and knees, searching wildly around him, heedless of the noise. The floor here was sticky. He smelled maple syrup and the stench of dead fish. He felt something cold and metallic in the pool of syrupy goo. His hand closed around his.38.

Even as another can hit him in the shoulder, Otter smiled. He pointed the gun in Hunter’s direction. He cocked it and pulled the trigger.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-30