Chris Carter: Gallery of the Dead

‘Now what?’ she asked.

‘Now I want you to get on the phone and call the rest of the investigative team. The team that were with you in Tucson. All three of them. Tell them that you have got a lead on a suspect, or anything you like, but be convincing, because you’ll only have one chance. Get them to come to you. You guys are about to storm the suspect’s hideout place.’

Left with no options, Agent Fisher had to do as she was told.

‘I’m impressed,’ the man said after she made all three calls. ‘You have actually figured out about the Optum platform.’

Agent Fisher squeezed her eyes tight in anger. To convince Hunter, Garcia and Agent Williams to come meet her, she had told them that Cyber Crime had managed to track the breach to the Optum platform. Now the killer knew the FBI knew about how he was gathering information about his victims. Even if she managed to get out of this, their only lead on how to actually track this killer down was now lost.

‘Anyway,’ the man continued. ‘Now we wait. Don’t worry. I’ll guide you through every single step. I’ll even tell you what to say, if the situation warrants it. And don’t try to do anything silly, because I have eyes everywhere. The entire ranch is covered in cameras and from where I am, I can control lights, doors, noises, anything I want. All you need to do is follow the script exactly how I tell you and little Heather here won’t have to worry about the big bad man.’

The man did guide Agent Fisher through absolutely every single step of the way, sometimes even telling her exactly what to say. He was also the one who had created the noise that had first startled Agent Williams. Through his cameras, he had watched as both agents approached and entered the first horse enclosure on the left. As Agent Williams moved to the internal door that linked enclosures one to two, the man ordered Agent Fisher to shoot her partner.

‘What?’ she had whispered back in a quiet voice that escaped her partner’s ears.

‘You heard it right, Special Agent Fisher. I want you to shoot him. Don’t hesitate. If you do, I swear I’ll start cutting your little girl. Shoot him. Shoot him NOW.’

‘I’m sorry, Larry. I’m so, so sorry.’

‘Sorry for what?’ Agent Williams had asked.

‘SHOOT HIM, or this little ugly bitch will start bleeding.’

‘For this.’ She squeezed the trigger twice.

‘OK, now get ready, because here come the other two.’

The man had watched as Hunter and Garcia exited the house and dashed toward the old stable building. He controlled the opening and closing of enclosure doors to give the impression that there was someone else in there with them. He also told Agent Fisher what to say when Hunter had suggested that she and Garcia team up to check the enclosures on the right.

‘OK,’ the man had said. ‘Let’s take out the guy on the right first. He has just entered the second enclosure. Go after him and shoot him dead. Shoot him three times, not two. Go... now.’

Once Agent Fisher had followed her orders, the man told her to run back to the first enclosure and wait.

On one of his monitors, the man watched as Hunter rushed out of the enclosures on the left, following the sound of the gunshots. When Hunter had entered the third enclosure, the man told Agent Fisher to also rush back into it and put on a good show, pretending she had just got there.

The man was pleasantly surprised with how good an actress Agent Fisher could be.

‘Don’t worry about finishing this one off,’ the man had said once Hunter had ordered Agent Fisher to stay with Garcia and call an ambulance. ‘He will bleed out anyway. Just let him suffer. Let’s go finish this. Let’s go take down this last one and I promise you, you will see your daughter again.’

The man observed as Hunter returned to the corridor between the two enclosures and slowly began moving forward.

‘OK,’ he said to Agent Fisher. ‘Move to the fourth enclosure. You’ll come out just behind him. Let’s go end this.’

The man listened as Agent Fisher told Hunter to drop his weapon and kick it toward her. When she told him that her daughter had been taken from her, the man’s eyes widened.

‘What are you doing, Special Agent Fisher? You better get back to the plan or your daughter dies.’

‘No,’ Agent Fisher had replied. ‘He deserves an explanation. They all did.’

The man thought about it for a split second. So what if she told him why she was doing what she was doing? He would die anyway.

‘OK, go ahead. Get it off your chest.’

As the man watched Hunter through the camera buttons on Agent Fisher’s coat, he got a bad feeling. There was something about the man he was watching that bothered him. To him, Hunter looked dangerous. A lot more dangerous than the other two. He decided it was time to end that game once and for all.

‘All right. That’s enough. I want you to shoot him. I want you to shoot him NOW, or I will rape this little bitch before I cut her, do you hear me? Shoot him. Shoot him NOW.’

BANG.

Hunter had no idea how many times Agent Fisher squeezed the trigger, but he only heard the first shot, and for some reason, that single blast sounded a lot louder than any gunshot he had ever heard, but still Hunter never closed his eyes. He would not give her or whomever it was that was watching them through the cameras the pleasure of seeing him flinch. Instead, Hunter looked straight into Agent Fisher’s eyes.

He saw the tears and the anguish in them. He saw the undying love of a mother who needed to protect her child. He saw the turmoil she was going through, the emptiness reflected from her soul. He also watched as her weapon hand was practically blown to pieces by the shotgun blast that came from her left.

A twelve-gauge shotgun cartridge releases tens of lead pellets. Upon exiting the gun barrel, the pellets spread out like a ‘ball of death’ traveling toward its target. That ball of death hit mainly Agent Fisher’s hand, nearly obliterating it, but some of the pellets did hit her arm, chest and stomach, causing blood, muscle and bone to splatter in all directions. Her gun was catapulted across the floor and her body dropped to the ground like an empty sack of potatoes.

Hunter’s eyes shot to his right and he saw Garcia standing there with smoke coming out of his shotgun. Hunter blinked twice to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

‘Fucking bitch,’ Garcia said, now looking at Hunter. ‘She shot me three times.’

He noticed the mesmerized look on Hunter’s face.

‘What, you think that when I went back to my car to pick up the Twins here that was the only thing I picked up?’ He shook his head, unzipped his jacket and used his knuckles to knock against the Kevlar vest underneath it. ‘Oh hell no. I also grabbed my second-best friend here — Mr. Not Today. There’s a reason I keep it in the boot of my car.’

‘But you’re bleeding,’ Hunter said.

‘One of her bullets grazed the inside of my left arm.’ Garcia lifted his arm to show the wound. ‘Hurts like a motherfucker.’

Hunter rushed to Agent Fisher’s body on the ground. She had fallen inside enclosure number four on the right, just by the door.

Garcia was right behind him. ‘Shall I shoot her again?’ he asked as he got to Hunter.

Hunter lifted a finger to his lips while shaking his head at Garcia. He then pointed at his ear and made a circular motion with his finger to indicate that there were others listening.

Garcia halted.

A few more gestures told Garcia that there were cameras around.

As Garcia took a step back and began scanning the walls inside the enclosure, this time for cameras, Hunter quickly checked Agent Fisher. She was still alive, but losing a lot of blood through the horrible wound on her right arm. Hunter took off his belt and used it as a tourniquet to reduce the bleeding before searching her pockets. He found the cellphone the man had sent her, but it was shot, completely destroyed by one of the shotgun pellets.