I had no other choice; I was going to lie about it.

“People are on their way to help me right now. There's no way you'll get out of this.”

I tried as hard as I could not to show the fear and doubt which was probably sketched across my face. This was my last hope; if my charade was seen through I'd probably rot here forever.

The truth was I was trapped in the basement of a well trained professional assassin, Arbius. I was alone, and he was armed. I had been armed, but after a little shuffle a bit earlier, my gun lay on the ground, just out of reach. Nobody was on their way to help me, either. I had come here on my own accord, lying to the other agents saying that I went to go see a movie. It would be at least three hours before anyone found it strange that I wasn't at home. By then, I'd be nothing more then a corpse.

So, you're probably wondering why I came here by myself, and how I got trapped. Well, we've been tracking this guy for about a year now. Every time I think we finally have him, he turns out to be one step ahead of us; we think there's a Benedict Arnold amongst us. So, when there was word that he was in the area, I took it upon myself to track him down. I've found where he's staying and have been staking out the past two or three weeks. I wasn't going to let him get away: so my only choice was to get in and arrest him myself. Or at least try to.

So today, I made sure he was home alone. I watched, and when I was sure he was in the basement, a place where he could not easily escape from, I sneaked in through a small window on the ground. My entrance, however did not go as smoothly as planned. He ended up hearing me coming, and by the time I was in, he was a few feet away, gun drawn. I managed to distract him long enough to throw a punch, but he kept his grip on the gun. He eventually fought back, neither of us using our
guns until absolutely necessary, which brings us to the situation at hand: me standing here alone with a gun pointed at me in an assassins basement, lying through my teeth so I can buy time to even think of a possible way out of this mess.

“It doesn't matter if the whole U.S. Army is on their way,” he replied sarcastically. “It will only take a few minutes to kill you.”

I cursed him in my head, yet I still wouldn't show how scared I was. Then I realized something: he had such a perfect chance, yet he hadn't shot me yet. What was going on? I shrugged it off for now though; the only important thing was survival, at the moment.

Slowly, I raised my hands in surrender. “Okay, okay,” I said slowly. “You win.”

He grinned, and even began to laugh. Then I smiled, too. I had finally found a charade that worked. Catching him off guard, I dropped to the ground and did a log roll over to my gun. I quickly raised it and shot, the bullet whizzing inches away from his head. It was enough to confuse him though, and I ceased the moment to sprint behind some junk he had stored in his basement. Being in the basement was a lot different then observing it from the outside. I mean sure, I got a glimpse of it from my binoculars, but not in great detail. Now, looking inside, I realized this was so big I'd probably need a map to get around. For one thing, it was not finished. The basement was dark, dusty, and musty. The walls and floor were cement, they were a boring dark gray in the dim light of the bare light bulbs dangling from the ceiling every here and there. That was, if you could even call it a ceiling. It was merely a few wooden planks running across the top of the basement, holding the insulation up. As for furniture, the basement was lacking in that, too. It seemed more like a storage place, there were boxes galore. It kind of reminded me of that scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Except, instead of in neat rows throughout the basement, someone had took stacks of boxes about five boxes high and spread them out in a maze-like structure. I wondered what this man could possibly have down here. Though, since this man was secretive enough to have been able to evade the federal authorities for so long, and was, according to our records, a very wealthy man, I wouldn't be surprised if this basement actually did hold the Ark of the Covenant.

No matter what was in these boxes, I was grateful of it. They had just saved my life! I immediately pulled out my cellphone. If I started talking, he would know what I was up to and kill me before I could finish. So, I sent a text message to some of the other agents, just simply giving the address and saying “help.” Thank God for technology, I thought to myself. I don't think I had ever seen my fingers move faster then that in my entire life.

I still wasn't out of this yet, though. Why hadn't he come and killed me? He was playing mind games, and it was working. For all I knew, he was waiting right next to the rummage, waiting for me to come out so he could shoot me as soon as I left my hiding spot. Or, he was just slowly making his way over to kill me. To the righte side, I shot a bullet. While he was hopefully distracted and looking to the where the bullet hit, I sprinted out to the left. I ducked behind a different pile of boxes. Maybe he hadn't seen me. If all went well, he could hide here until some backup came and got me out of this mess. We could take him, two on one.

Time passed achingly slow. I checked my watch. I had been behind the box for a half an hour.
I sighed aloud, something I instantly regretted. That sigh could have given away my position.

Of course, about 30 seconds later, the I felt the cold steel of Arbius's gun against my neck.

“Get up, kiddo. You're in trouble now.”

I slowly got up, holding my hands up in surrender, except this time it was genuine. Then I felt the barrel jammed into my neck.

“Leave your gun here. You won't be needing that.”

I placed my gun on one of his boxes. Following his orders I went up against the wall, my hands up. With the gun still pointed at me, he moved all of the boxes around us against the wall. With no place left for me to hide, he walked up to me.

“I would have shot you earlier, but I still have some questions for you.”

So that's why he hadn't killed me. He just wanted to know some information.

“First, though,” he said with one of his sickening smiles, “this is for that little game of hide and seek.” Then he lifted his arm back and punched me square in the stomach. I clutched my stomach, and as the pain ran through my body, I fell to the floor.

“Get up!” he screamed. He lifted his leg back to kick me, but then we heard a noise. Someone was coming through the same window I went through. Their entrance went the same as mine did, giving them away immediately. Slowly we looked in their direction.

I smiled. “Told you someone was on their way.”

Agent Nouveau, walked over to us. He was younger then me, about twenty five. He had only been working with us for about a year.

I got up. “Nouveau! Thank you so much. Not only did you just save my life, you also helped capture one of the most wanted assassins.”

Arbius suddenly began to smile, and then he started laughing maniacally.

“Glad to see you're getting a good laugh outta this, buddy,” I said angrily. “You could've won
and walked out of this with your life. Then you got too cocky.” I turned to Nouveau. “All right, this guy isn't gonna go willingly. My gun's not on me, and I don't want to leave you alone with this creep. So, it's up to you now. Kill the enemy, Nouveau.”

Arbius still smilingly, turned to him. “You heard him. 'Kill the enemy, Nouveau.'” Then he broke out into a fit of laughter again

Nouveau took out his gun. He leveled it at point blank range. He aimed it carefully, he wanted to make sure that this bullet would kill on the spot. Then he fired his gun.

At me.