“I’m going to give you both a choice. You can walk away now and continue on with your lives. Maybe I have a hostage under this counter that I’m going to carve up the second you walk out that door, and maybe I don’t. Maybe you can catch me and make a name for yourselves, or maybe you’ll die trying. There’s no way you can know for sure, but that’s the beauty of it, isn’t it? There’s no meaning. Good doesn’t triumph over evil. There’s just random chance and death. You were the unlucky ones who got the call tonight. The gentleman down the aisle was the unlucky one who was working the station tonight. We like to walk around and think of ourselves as being so damn evolved, so much better and more intelligent than all of the other wildlife. But you know what?”
Ackerman looked at the two men as if he was a hungry animal and they were his next meal. He lowered his voice. “In the end, no matter how many delusions of grandeur we blind ourselves with, we are all either hunters or the hunted, predators or prey. Life is just one big game, gentlemen. The winners survive and the losers rot. The choices we make determine our fate. So . . . make your choice.”
Jim stood at rigid attention, entranced by the madman behind the counter. Ackerman had recited the speech with passion, as if the killer were a politician rallying the constituency behind some noble cause. He had never seen a man with two guns pointed at his face remain so impassive. There was no fear in him. Fear to Ackerman seemed as alien a concept as an airplane to a Neanderthal. More than that, it appeared as if the man felt in complete control of the situation.
Despite the gun in his hand, the realization of that fact made Jim feel defenseless.
Tom’s voice cracked and contained a noticeable tremor. “There is no hostage,” he said. “There were no other cars out front. Now, you put your hands where I can see them, or I swear to God in heaven, I will put a bullet right between your eyes.”
Jim wasn’t convinced by Tom’s statement, and neither did it seem to influence Ackerman. He knew that Ackerman would have most likely stashed his own car in back, in order to keep up the appearance of being the attendant. If some woman had stopped and come across the killer, he would have moved her car to the back with his own. The possibility that Ackerman had brought the hostage with him in his own car also occurred to him.
He wasn’t sure whether his partner had overlooked those scenarios, or if Tom’s actions merely represented a desperate attempt to end the situation. Either way, he knew it wouldn’t work. Ackerman wouldn’t allow this to end without things getting messy. He could see that much in the killer’s eyes.
Ackerman sighed. “Well, darling, they apparently don’t believe you’re real. Why don’t you scream for them?”
With Ackerman’s last word, the front of the counter exploded outward, sending pieces of wooden shrapnel in all directions. The shotgun blast tore into Tom’s left side, sending a spray of blood into Jim’s face and dropping Tom onto the linoleum.
Jim dove into the closest aisle. An instant after he was clear, the end cap display of Dorito chips erupted from a second blast.
He regained his feet and fired two shots in quick succession around the corner. He barely had time to see his shots strike the counter when the shotgun answered, sending him back to cover.
He could hear Tom crying and cursing. His gun must have been lost in the confusion, he thought. And Tom must have been half delirious with pain since he wasn’t even attempting to find cover. Jim knew that his partner wouldn’t survive if he didn’t immediately end the confrontation and get help.
“Trooper down. Send medical,” he said into his portable packset radio. He didn’t bother to announce his name or location. The radio carried a unique code that dispatch would identify while the GPS in the patrol car would alert backup units of their position.
But, unless he acted now, he also knew that he and Tom would be dead by the time backup arrived.
He tried to stay focused, but he couldn’t keep his thoughts from wandering onto his wife and daughter. Will I see them again? Will I get to watch my daughter grow up? He thought of brushing the golden, curly locks of hair away from her face and kissing her on the forehead. He thought of the way her eyes lit up with awe and wonder as she sat on his lap and listened to him read.
He thought of his wife kissing him good-bye and telling him to be careful. He thought of holding her, skin against skin, and running his fingers through her raven black hair.
I have to be strong. I have to make it home to them. He tried to tell himself that he would see them again, but somehow he knew better. At that moment, he would have given anything for one more chance to hold them.
The smell of gunpowder mixed with the aromas of scented cleaning fluids attacked his senses and made him feel lightheaded. It was that or the adrenaline. Either way, he felt as if he was in a washing machine on spin cycle. He tried to get himself under control, but he was terrified beyond reason. He had no idea of what to do next.
He knew that he wouldn’t survive a frontal assault against the shotgun, so he decided his best option would be to move around to the back of the aisles and perhaps catch Ackerman off guard. Plus, the greater the distance, the more advantage his 9mm would have over the less accurate shotgun.
Moving as quietly as possible, he made his way down the aisle. Reaching the opposite end cap, he peered around the corner into the next row.
All clear.
He dashed to the next end cap.