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CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
“You know the most important skill in medicine?” Kallas asked as he held up what looked like a small remote control. “Improvisation.”
Then he pushed a button on the remote, casting the office into total darkness.
“Ryan,” Jessie called out as she reached for her gun, “he took a knife off his wall. He’s armed.”
“Got it. Stay quiet,” Ryan murmured from somewhere further to her left than he had been moments earlier.
Realizing he must have started moving the second the lights went out, she followed suit, shuffling to the right until she felt her arm brush the wall. As she tried to quiet the pounding rush of blood in her ears, she heard the snap from Ryan unholstering his weapon and she tried to do the same. But her fingers were clumsy and she couldn’t seem to get them to work properly.
She wanted to exhale to calm herself but knew that would alert Kallas, who had not made a sound since the lights went out, to her location. The only noise in the office was the soft whir of the air conditioning.
Then she had another idea. On the other side of her belt, she had a small torch flashlight that could be slid out of its holster silently. She managed to extricate it and placed her finger on the “on” button.
But she didn’t push yet as two problems became quickly apparent. First, she couldn’t warn Ryan about what she was about to do. And second, once she turned on the light, she’d be alerting Kallas to her location. Even if she managed to find him, he might be on her before she could do anything about it.
Any plan she was formulating flew out of her head when she heard the distinct sound of a knee cracking somewhere near Kallas’s desk. She ordered herself not to react audibly.
He doesn’t know where you are. If you move you might bump into something and expose yourself. Stay still. Stay alert.
Kallas must have realized he’d put himself at risk and stopped moving. Jessie strained her eyes, hoping that might help her adjust to the darkness. But it did no good. The curtains were drawn and the sun had already mostly set so there was no illumination from outside. Kallas, in anticipation of turning off the light, had shut off his computer screen so its glow didn’t reveal him. The only thing visible was the green light on the smoke alarm on the ceiling and it offered no help.
A moment later there was another sound, soft and whooshing, that she couldn’t identify. It came from somewhere in the middle of the office, less than ten feet from her. As she tried to determine what it was, she slid down the wall in a crouching position. Sensing something close to her, she carefully reached out and her fingertip touched a hard surface. It only took a moment to recall that it was a bookshelf that ran along a section of the wall she was pressed against.
And then it occurred to her. What she’d heard moments earlier was the sound of a large blade being unsheathed from its cover. Kallas was close and he was planning to make a move.
He knows this office better than we do. We have to change the dynamic or he’s going to gut us both.
Gripping the torch light, she decided the time had come to do something. She delicately felt around the bookshelf to her right until her fingers found a flat unoccupied spot on the top, about four feet off the floor. She stood up, placed the flashlight in that spot facing the direction where she’d heard Kallas unsheathe the knife, and counted silently to three. Then she pushed the “on” button. The click sounded like a thunderclap.
She took one large step back away from the bookshelf as the torch illuminated the middle of the room. Kallas wasn’t in the spotlight but she could hear him moving from somewhere nearby, fast approaching.
A second later, she saw him, advancing on the flashlight, his right arm raised with a long-bladed knife in his hand. Then the light was knocked to the floor as Kallas banged into the bookshelf. She heard the sound of the knife whipping through the air about three feet to her right, swinging wildly as he swiped at what he hoped was her.
The flashlight was now on the floor, facing the other direction, uselessly illuminating the bottom of the bookshelf. Jessie used the chaos to unsnap her holster and pull out her gun. Before she’d even removed it, she heard a deafening, violent thud and a pair of grunts that indicated that Ryan had tried to tackle Kallas.
The murkiness prevented her from doing anything with her gun, as firing it would be a literal shot in the dark. Instead, as she listened to the scrambling, she moved toward the door, feeling around for the light switch. Behind her, there was sickening thwack she couldn’t identify, followed by something even more troubling—the return of silence.
If Ryan had gotten the upper hand in the scuffle, he almost certainly would have said something by now. The lack of any noise was a bad sign. Trying to ignore it, she ran her hands all over the wall until she finally felt something. It was the light switch. She flicked it and the room was suddenly bathed in light.
She squinted as she adjusted, looking back in the direction where the fight had occurred as she re-gripped her gun. She took in the scene, processing everything all at once. Lying on the ground unconscious, about six feet from her, was Ryan. Just in front of him was Kallas, who was already leaping up toward her. He must have lost the knife because his hands were empty. She raised her weapon as she flicked off the safety. But before she could fire, he slammed into her, sending the gun flying and smashing her back against the door.
Jessie felt the wind escape her chest as she first collided with the wall and then fell to the ground with Kallas beside her. He appeared stunned. She tried to ignore her suddenly watering eyes and burning chest as she rolled away from the man, who was flailing about, trying to grasp her.
As she gasped for air and tried to regroup, she looked around for her gun. It was nowhere in sight. She glanced over at Ryan. He was breathing but blood was streaming down his forehead. She saw his gun resting underneath his stomach. Just beyond him was the knife.
She crawled in that direction as quickly as she could and was almost to Ryan when she felt a hand grip her ankle. Glancing back, she saw Kallas, now alert and with a nasty smirk on his face. With her free leg, she reared back and kicked, nailing him in the nose.
He yelped loudly but didn’t let go. She turned back around, trying to focus on her task. As she clawed at the carpet, Ryan’s gun only inches from her fingers, she felt Kallas’s other hand grab her calf. A half-second later he yanked back hard, ripping her away from Ryan and back toward him.
As she was pulled back, Jessie looked around desperately for anything to defend herself with. The only thing she saw was the small torch flashlight. It wasn’t much but she grabbed it anyway, gripping it tightly in her right hand.
Kallas was on top of her now and grabbed her, twisting her over onto her back. She looked up at him. His nose was bleeding from her kick and it had dripped down onto his formerly perfect white teeth. Still, he smiled malevolently.
“Maybe we should make our own video, Jessie,” he snarled as he pinned her hips down with his hands and knees. “The one with Missy was good. But I think I could poke a few more holes in you.”
“You recorded yourself killing her?” Jessie asked, in stunned disbelief.
