A Dallas Suite

Chapter Forty Eight

I ran up the stairs as fast as I could. I checked my watch and still had almost two minutes before I had to be inside. I took a moment to breathe and compose myself. I still had no idea what I was walking into, but I tried to prepare for anything. Hopefully I wouldn't be shot as soon as I opened the door. I took one last deep breath and knocked.

"It's open," I heard Knight say from inside. What a casual response for the situation. If I wasn't possibly about to be killed, I would have laughed at how unexpected that response was.

I slowly pushed the door and looked inside. Jeff was standing beside the couch, directly across from the doorway. He had a gun in his hand. My gun. And it was pointed directly at my forehead.

"Come in John, and close the door behind you," he said behind a large smile. I did as he asked and shut the door behind me. "Come closer, John," he smiled larger now. I again did as he said and took a step closer.

He took a quick step towards and placed the end of the gun barrel against my forehead, right between my eyes. "You're dumber than I thought, John, coming in here alone."

I've seen my fair share of action movies. This is the moment the hero would pull some crazy stunt and grab the gun from the bad guy in before the bad guy knew what was happening. It didn't look like that in the real world. Jeff's finger was on the trigger. Even if I was able to grab it, there was a very real possibility that his finger would instinctively pull back on the trigger and I'd be dead. I had to have a different tactic.

"Come on, Jeff. You didn't walk me up here alone to end it like this. You have something to prove and you won't prove it by shooting an unarmed man," I started to say. I was unarmed, or at least I didn't have a weapon in my hands. I was afraid he'd be standing inside like he was, watching the door with his gun. If my gun had been drawn then he more than likely would have just shot me. I had to talk myself out of this one.

"You're pissed Jeff, which you should be. You had a plan and I ruined it. Sure you let me find out who you were. You made sure I found you out with your fourth kill, but you didn't expect me to piece together the rest of it so fast. You had more people to kill. That's why you went for Singleton out of order, to make sure you at least got your revenge before I caught you."

Jeff took a step back, but he didn't lower the gun from being pointed at my skull. "And here I am, Jeff. Standing right in front of you. What's wrong? Afraid to fight me without sneak attacking me?" I didn't know everything about him, yet, but I knew enough. I knew he had snapped. Losing his wife, his son and his career was the breaking point for him. That triggered his rage. Add that to the competitive A-type personality you absolutely had to have to become a Green Beret, I knew he'd take the bait and take the challenge. Or at least I hoped.

Then it happened, he gave me the split second opportunity I was waiting on. I watched the anger build on his face I challenged him. Then he turned, just slightly to throw the gun down on the table next to him. I guess he did want to fight. As soon as I saw his eyes break from my gaze, I lunged forward and hit him square on the left cheek as hard as I could. I put all of my body weight into it. It was a hard hit and landed perfectly where I wanted it to. He should have been knocked out cold and dropped like a rock.