Reckoning (An American Ghost Thriller Book 2)

by J. B. Turner

  OTHER TITLES BY J. B. TURNER

  American Ghost Series

  Rogue

  Jon Reznick Series

  Hard Road

  Hard Kill

  Hard Wired

  Hard Way

  Hard Fall

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by J. B. Turner

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503947979

  ISBN-10: 1503947971

  Cover design by @blacksheep-uk.com

  For my late father

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-One

  Sixty-Two

  Sixty-Three

  Sixty-Four

  Sixty-Five

  Sixty-Six

  Sixty-Seven

  Sixty-Eight

  Sixty-Nine

  Seventy

  Seventy-One

  Seventy-Two

  Seventy-Three

  Seventy-Four

  Seventy-Five

  Seventy-Six

  Seventy-Seven

  Seventy-Eight

  Seventy-Nine

  Eighty

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  One

  The Florida sky had begun to darken.

  Nathan Stone was sitting on the balcony of his fleabag motel, dragging hard on a cigarette. He kept the military-grade binoculars trained on the relaxation area of the psychiatric hospital in the distance. The last remnants of the morning sun glinted off the razor wire that topped the chain-link fence as storm clouds rolled in from the Everglades.

  Nathan scanned the area again. He still couldn’t see his sister. She was usually seated on one of the benches, her art materials spread out. But today her usual place was empty.

  Nathan checked his watch. It was 1009 hours. She was now nine minutes late. It wasn’t like her. She loved her time outside.

  He put down the binoculars on the small table and crushed his cigarette in the ashtray.

  Nathan yawned. He had just returned to the motel room after a short vacation in the Keys.

  It had felt good to kick back. Fishing out in Florida Bay, drinking a beer, enjoying the bloodred sunsets. Hauling in the marlin. Building campfires on beaches. The silence. The stillness. The solitude. The smell of the fresh salty air on his face as his boat sped through the waves. He was free again. The tension had begun to lift. He had even managed to spend a couple days down in Cudjoe Key. Shades on all the time, baseball cap pulled low.

  The sound of rattling from the faulty air-conditioning unit in his room snapped him out of his reverie.

  Nathan knew the motel room was crummy. It had, however, served a crucial purpose. It had been his hideaway since he had returned to the States six weeks earlier using a fake ID and passport. The motel’s location meant he was close to his sister. And the fake ID meant he wouldn’t be found.

  Nathan knew they would be after him. The operation in Scotland had gone south big-time. What had started off as a straightforward hit on a senator had turned into a full-blown shitstorm where he had become the hunted rather than the hunter. He learned that the shadowy organization that hired him, the Commission, had compiled a kill list of leading politicians and business people they deemed to be working against America’s national interest. And he had passed that list on to a leading journalist, Mark Mahoney, at the New York Times. But he had no idea what had come of that information. He hadn’t kept a copy of the list. He’d just passed on the encrypted details.

  Nathan’s thoughts again returned to his sister’s whereabouts. A sense of foreboding washed over him. Had something happened to her? Had she been moved while he was away? It was possible, he supposed.

  The thought alarmed him. He loved his sister. She was all he had. His mind flashed back to his childhood. When they were growing up on the Bowery, on the Lower East Side, their alcoholic father had beaten them till they were black and blue. That was until his sister stabbed him to death.

  Nathan was still haunted by his death. Even after all these years: the look in his father’s eyes as she plunged the scissors in time and time again.

  But Helen had saved him. He owed her. She had been incarcerated in the psychiatric hospital for decades. He made sure she got moved to the state-of-the-art facility in Florida City, on the outskirts of Homestead.

  He could rest easy knowing she was in a safe, nurturing environment, unlike the hell they’d endured as kids.

  The minutes dragged, and still no sign of Helen. “Fuck,” he said.

  It was perfectly possible his sister had just been transferred. But he knew any change wasn’t good for her.

  She liked certainty. Routine. The same private room. The same sense of familiar surroundings. The same smells. The same sounds from the games room. But most of all, her room. Her space. Her sanctuary.

  His cell phone rang, jolting Nathan out of his contemplation. “Yeah.”

  He was met with silence. But he could sense someone on the other end. Eventually, a familiar voice spoke. “It’s been quite some time. We’ve been watching you.”

  They’d found him. The people he’d done wet jobs for. And then he’d turned on them. Somehow they’d found him. Not good.

  “We’re watching you now, Nathan. That is your real name, isn’t it, Nathan?”

  Nathan picked up the binoculars again and looked over toward the hospital. Where exactly were they watching him from?

  “Does that surprise you? You see, we could delete you anytime we want, Nathan.
You know that, don’t you?”

  Nathan said nothing.

  “I’m going to be frank, Nathan. I like you. Always have. Admire you even. And your work. But you’ve got to look at things from our side. Have you considered the cost of the loss of that carefully constructed facility in Scotland you burned to the ground? Do you know the cost of giving you a new face? A new identity? I’ll give you a clue . . . millions. Tens of millions. A lot of money, right? That’s a big investment. And the money men want their pound of flesh.”

  Nathan stared through the binoculars at the sun-scorched yard.

  The man sighed. “You’re not saying much, Nathan. Why is that, I wonder?”

  “Where’s my sister?”

  “Ah . . . I was wondering when you were going to ask about that. Yeah, your sister. Very trusting. Very sweet.”

  “What do you want?”

  A long sigh. “What do I want? I want a lot of things, Nathan. I want us to get back to the way things were before. Before everything got so fucked up.”

  “You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know what happened.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. I know what happened. And I know you thought we double-crossed you.”

  “You sent out a team to kill me.”

  “But they never—”

  “Only because I killed them first.”

  “I think we need to build up some trust, don’t you?”

  “What trust?”

  “Well, I know where your sister is. And I know where she’s being held. And I give you my word she won’t be harmed . . . That is unless . . .” The man let the words hang in the air.

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless you don’t do exactly what we ask you to do.”

  Nathan felt his stomach tighten. They had all the cards.

  “So now we’ve established some ground rules, I think we’re making progress already, don’t you?”

  “Go to hell!”

  “Not yet. Plenty of time for that. Nathan, you know what we can do. We know where you live. We know what you are. We know you kill people.”

  “You wanna get to the point?”

  “This is how it’s going to work. You need to get on the expressway and drive to Miami Homestead airport, nice and close. Four miles northwest of downtown Homestead.”

  “Why?”

  “Love that curiosity, Nathan. Why? You’ll see.”

  Two

  The Gulfstream’s engine was turning as Nathan climbed the steps, shirt sticking to his back. He boarded the plane. The cool air of the cabin was a welcome relief. He was shown to a leather seat by the rear left window. A stewardess handed him a bottle of Evian water and some sandwiches. He strapped himself in, and the plane took off into the pale-blue sky. Down below, the lush expanse of the Everglades stretched out as far as the eye could see.

  The plane climbed high through the storm clouds over Florida until they were at cruising speed. He wondered what the hell awaited him. Where exactly were they taking him?

  His thoughts turned to his sister. He felt sick that she was at someone else’s mercy. She needed him. And he wasn’t there for her.

  Nathan’s mind raced ahead, imagining the worst possible scenarios for his sister. She was gentle and kind, despite her one act of extreme violence as a frightened child. She’d pay the price for that psychotic episode for the rest of her natural life.

  He thought of his own situation. The one crumb of comfort was that if they wanted him dead, they could easily have him killed. So they obviously needed him. But for what exactly?

  He didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  Twenty minutes after takeoff, the phone on his armrest rang.

  “Are we comfortable, Nathan?” The voice of the same man.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “I thought I made myself clear.”

  Nathan said nothing.

  “Payback. Pure and simple. You destroyed all our work, so now you owe us. And what better way to pay back that significant debt than to come work for us? At least for a time.”

  “What do you want?”

  “You’re going to do a job. And everyone’s gonna be happy.”

  “What about my sister? How do I know she’s still alive?”

  “You don’t.”

  Nathan said nothing.

  “You’ve got to trust us. Do you understand?”

  “I need to know Helen’s still alive.”

  “You will.”

  Nathan stared at the bottle of water and the sandwich.

  “See, we’re not so bad.”

  The guy was obviously watching him from a remote location via onboard surveillance cameras. In real time.

  “We’ve always liked you, Stone. Even after you underwent that major surgery and came back a different person. No one knows you like we do. We know what triggers you. We know what infuriates you. And sure, we know this whole thing will be maddening to you, but you have to look at it from our point of view.”

  “And what exactly is your point of view?”

  “You went rogue in Scotland. Killed several highly valued operatives. People who understood the meaning of sacrifice. But you decided to wipe them all out. Destroy all their work.”

  Nathan sighed.

  “That’s not how it fucking works. But you know that, don’t you? You know the rules of this game. This business we’re in. You kill people as and when required. And I respect that. But we all work within set rules. We have to, don’t we?”

  Nathan closed his eyes for a few moments.

  “Relax. I appreciate this must be a lot to take in.”

  “Where are we headed?”

  Silence.

  “I said, Where are we headed?”

  “I heard you, Stone.”

  “Is it somewhere on American soil?”

  “Maybe.”

  Nathan didn’t respond to the man teasing him.

  “You’ve shown us how devastating you can be, Nathan. And you’ve got me to thank for saving your life. You owe me.”

  “I don’t owe you anything.”

  “But that’s where you’re wrong, Nathan. I spoke up for you when some other people—people who run the show—wanted you neutralized for what you did in Scotland. They haven’t forgotten. And they sure as hell haven’t forgiven. But I persuaded them to give you one last chance. I said, ‘Stone is the best there is. And we’d be idiots to throw him to the wolves, and for what?’ I told them, ‘Stone can do a job for us. He’s useful.’”

  Nathan cleared his throat. “Are you finished?”

  “Yes, I am. Take it easy, Stone. Eat up. And try and get some sleep. We’ll speak again in a few hours.”

  Three

  Mark Mahoney looked up from his laptop. He stared out the window and across the downtown Toronto skyline, far from home. He was working out of the New York Times’s Canadian bureau. He loved his job. But he sorely missed his family and Manhattan. He longed to see them. It was months since he’d been home.

  He missed his apartment in Chelsea. He missed the walks in Central Park. The High Line. He missed the energy. He missed everything about his hometown.

  Mahoney had been in Canada for nearly three months, working on a secret investigation known only to the paper’s editor and the publisher. Even the journalists in the Toronto bureau didn’t know what he was investigating. They’d been told he just wanted a change of scene. He enjoyed Toronto. It was a nice city. But it wasn’t home. He missed the familiarity of New York like crazy. He missed Bryant Park. He missed Mets games. He missed drinks with colleagues after work. He missed going to concerts at Madison Square Garden. He missed the Village. And the general craziness and unexpectedness of Manhattan.

  The one saving grace was that his investigation was making progress. He’d made a few crucial contacts in Canada. It was taking time. It was a slow-burn job, the kind the Times did so well. Getting underneath a story. Peeling back the layers to reveal something else. Something more importa
nt.

  His cell phone rang, interrupting his thoughts.

  Mahoney picked up. “Yeah.”

  “Is this Mark Mahoney, of the New York Times?”

  “Yes, who’s this?”

  “I was given your number, Mr. Mahoney.”

  Mahoney leaned back in his seat. He wondered if it was a new source for the story he was working on. “Call me Mark.”

  “Very well, Mark.”

  “So how can I help?”

  “A friend of mine spoke to me about a week ago, told me you were asking a few questions.”

  Mahoney nodded. “Can you be a little bit more specific?”

  A beat. “He works for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.”

  Mahoney sat up and scribbled the words down in shorthand. “Sir, I know and speak regularly to numerous sources across North America and Europe. What do you want to discuss?”

  “I work for the same organization. And I believe I might have something you were asking about.”

  Mahoney sensed the guy wanted to open up. “Can you be more specific?”

  A silence stretched between them for a few moments. “My job covers foreign intelligence and security intelligence. More and more of my time is taken up with security intelligence.”

  “So we’re talking potential terrorism and espionage going on within Canada.”

  “Correct. But what I think might interest you covers both these areas of responsibility.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  “I think so.”

  “Would you be willing to meet with me?”

  A beat. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “When and where?”

  “Let’s take this one step at a time.”

  “When and where?”

  “Within the next forty-eight hours.”

  The line went dead.

  Four

  Nathan was blindfolded just before the Gulfstream landed. When he was finally told to remove it, he looked out and saw a small airstrip in the middle of what looked like a forest.

  Nathan stepped down off the plane, breathed in the cold air. He was met by two guys dressed in thick coats, jeans, and sneakers. Then he was shown inside a modern facility, where his fingerprints were taken and retina scanned and photographed, side, front, and rear.

  He was shown down to a basement area, down a corridor, and through some secure doors. Then he was shown into a huge room with a desk and a chair.