Hunter: A Thriller (40 page)

She saw him wink at her, then turn to face this new enemy: a malignant Goliath who had shattered lives here, in the homeland he’d so deeply loved and gallantly defended. She saw him for what he always had been: a shadow soldier, performing unsung a sacred duty that had been abdicated by those hired and sworn to perform it.

She knew then that, whatever happened now, he had always deserved her trust and loyalty. And she was honored to have lived to have his love, if only for weeks—and if only for a few minutes more.

“I love you, Dylan Hunter,” she said.

He did not turn; he continued to face the monster across the room; but he seemed to stand taller, and she heard him reply:

“I love you, Annie Woods.”

*

He watched the slow sneer form on the Target’s face across the kitchen.

“Oh—silly me! I should have known,” the Target said. He swung out his gorilla arms in wide circles, loosening his shoulders, the blades glinting beneath the lights. “So you’ve come to rescue your lady love. Mr. Hunter, you’ve just doubled my pleasure.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts.”

He was no longer distracted by fear or fury. He had climbed to that cold Olympian summit, the place where he always went at these moments, where he could look down at the Target with chill, clinical detachment.

The Target stood beside the island, grinning arrogantly, whirling the knives before him in a blinding fog of motion, trying to reduce him to cringing, terrified paralysis.

But he had analyzed this Target’s vulnerabilities, and he knew how to strike them. For his apparent strengths—his menacing size, his intimidating bravado, his lust to overpower—masked the pathetic reality. Like all sociopaths, this one had an eggshell ego. Like those bullies so long ago, on the playground of his childhood, this Target’s unquenchable craving for power over others was a measure of his utter sense of impotence. His desperate quest to demonstrate his power to himself and others was proof that he didn’t have it.

Hunter had that knowledge. And it was his first weapon.

“Are you having fun way over there, Mr.
Wulfe
?” he mocked.

He watched the arrogant grin erode into an angry grimace.
Wulfe
stepped out in front of the island, moving the knives around more deliberately, his feet sliding into patterns and then setting into a stance that revealed martial arts training.

Good to know.

Time to employ his other weapon. A weapon he had mastered.

Deception.

Don’t reveal your own martial arts expertise. Let him think you’re no threat.

Hunter took a step forward. Stood casually, hands down at his sides.

He saw the Target’s faint smile in response. He’s thinking,
This will be too easy.

Now goad him some more.

“You’re boring me, Mr.
Wulfe
.”

Saw the anger blaze in his eyes.

Now, combine mockery
with
deception.

Hunter turned to the side, swinging his right arm behind him.

“See? I’ll fight you with one arm behind my back.”

Watched the anger in the eyes boil over into rage, uncontrollable—and uncontrolled.

The Target lunged toward him, technique forgotten, one knife drawn back to deliver a spear thrust, the other raised to slash down on him.

Deception.

In one motion, Hunter drew the combat knife from its sheath on the belt at his back, leaped to the right to avoid the onrushing Target, and slashed down on the spearing forearm.

That knife fell from the Target’s nerveless fingers.

Hunter turned to press the attack from behind, but the Target’s own combat reflexes took over, and he spun to face him again.

Now positioned between Hunter and the women.

Not good.

Deception.

Hunter feinted his own lunge, forcing the surprised Target to recoil a step, but instead he leaped to his side, then two quick steps past him toward the women, then pivoting to face him.

Again between them and the Target.

Mock him. Goad him. Use details from his file....

“What’s the matter,
Addie
,” he said. “Did I give you a boo-boo?”

The Target glanced at his left sleeve, shock in his eyes. A slash across the red flannel was turning a deeper shade, and crimson drops fell from the tips of fingers that now dangled uselessly.

Then his eyes narrowed. He danced back into the center of the room, retreating.

“Again, Mr. Hunter, well played. I believe I underestimated you. As I did your little whore there,” he said, nodding toward Annie. “But you will find that I never make the same mistake twice.”

Hunter knew that he’d lost the initial advantage of surprise. But now the Target was injured and his confidence rattled.

Time to finish this.

He danced out to meet him.

They moved from side to side, warily now, jockeying for position and advantage, looking for openings and mistakes to exploit.

Goad him some more.

“Does
Addie
want
Mommy
to come kiss his boo-boo and make it better?”

Watched the anger flare.

But then die. Saw the Target’s eyes grow cold.

Sociopath or not, he had been well-trained. That training was now in control.

He realized he’d lost a psychological weapon, too.

Now it was just a matter of skill. And determination.

He flipped his knife from his right hand to his left, feinted a thrust and snapped it back.

The Target slashed at it, hitting empty air.

He’d hoped for that, and lunged in again, stabbing the tip toward the Target’s exposed chest.

Then everything went wrong.

The Target had anticipated too. Astonishingly quick, he hopped back onto his left foot and leaned away from the blade while snapping a cobra-fast kick with his right, into his left forearm.

Into the still-healing tendons from the dog bite.

The combat knife sailed across the room, clattering off the wall and onto the floor.

He was now exposed, wide open to the Target’s blade.

“Dylan!”

The natural impulse was to jump back. But in an instant calculation born of years of combat training and experience—and before the Target could straighten and recover his two-footed balance, then move in for the kill—he continued his forward momentum instead, rushing into him, seizing him and propelling him backward into a crashing impact against the island. Their bodies fell onto its top, spilling everything onto the floor.

His body was now pressed down upon the Target’s atop the island, their faces inches apart, eye to eye. He looked down into the blank gray depths, sensing fear.

Then something else.

Suddenly he felt searing pain in his left thigh. His breath left him as the agony coursed through him. A look of triumph blazed in the Target’s eyes.

He had to stop a second thrust.

He snapped his forehead down hard, a stunning blow against the bridge of the
the
Target’s nose. Then again, a crunching smash against his mouth.

Then pushed back, feeling the blade tear out of his leg.

“Dylan!”

Someone’s voice again, far away.

He heard the Target’s bellows of pain but he was dealing with his own. He hopped back, mostly on his right leg, empty-handed, needing to play for time, now, trying to recover his advantage.

Then felt the pulsing in his left thigh, the hot spurts soaking the inside of his jeans, and he knew that time was one thing he wouldn’t have.

He looked up. All the deadly kitchen utensils were scattered around the island, behind the Target.

Who raised himself from the top of the island, his useless left hand pawing at his nose and mouth. His nose was bleeding profusely, his lips a crushed pulp. He spat a bloody mess and Hunter heard the rattle of teeth hitting the floor.

Hunter’s left leg and hand were out of commission.

His right hand was empty.

Only one good leg.

And he started to feel dizzy.

“Dylan!”
Another scream.

Annie....

What could he do?

Do what you know best.

Deception.

He staggered back, hopping on his right leg, leaving a trail of blood from his left along the floor. Then stopped. Stood there, tottering. A crimson puddle formed on the floor around his left foot.

He looked at the Target. Saw his eyes follow the smear of blood from the island, across the polished wood floor, to the rapidly growing pool at his feet.

Then Hunter’s left leg buckled beneath him, and he sagged to the floor.

He was sitting, now. Only his upper body and right knee remained upright. He leaned against the raised thigh, his right hand clasping his ankle to keep from falling over.

He was getting dizzier. He knew he was bleeding out.

He raised his head.

He saw that the Target knew it, too. He leaned back against the island on unsteady legs, but his bloodied mouth bore a twisted grin.

Waiting now for him to bleed to death.

Goad him
.

“You should see what I did to you, you puke,” Hunter said. “I really did a number on that ugly face of yours.”

Saw the grin vanish.

Hurry....

“What’s the matter, you pussy? Afraid to finish me? I figured you were going to kick the crap out of me.”

The Target’s eyes, so long dead, came to life. Even across the room, he could see the towering rage building in them.

“Dylan!”

“Where are your balls,
Wulfe
?”

The Target approached him, now, stumbling, still half-stunned, with one immobilized arm, but on two powerful legs and with a long knife in his perfectly good right hand. Coming to finish him.

Deception.

“So go ahead, you worthless piece of shit. Come and stomp me.”

“Dylan! Dylan!”

Hunter clung to the cold, high place.

Hurry....

The Target loomed above him. His face was a ghastly red mask. Savage hatred burned in the once-dead eyes. He paused, weaving slightly.