The good doctor in question waited for him at the door of her practice and smiled broadly in a way that made her cheeks flush and her eyes light up.
He wasn't sure if it was a well-practiced smile for all her patients or if she was genuinely happy to see him.
Instincts suggested it was the latter.
Either one was suspicious enough for him to not trust her. It was better to be wary until he had his signed discharge in hand.
Nevertheless, he faked a smile as well.
"Dr. Bedford, it’s nice to see you again." Taylor shook her hand.
"It’s nice to see you again too, Taylor," she replied and grasped his hand firmly. "You know you can call me Jane, right?"
"I don't think I will, Doc, but thanks anyway," he replied affably. There were some relationships that should be kept professional. He was still the patient here, after all.
"Please, follow me into my office," she said and guided him through the first two rooms and away from the secretary, who eyed him curiously, until they reached the larger office in the back.
He sat across from her and simply allowed the silence to wash over him. Some people felt uncomfortable with silences. Not him.
Taylor could stand to not speak or listen to anything someone had to say, especially when he was about sixty percent sure that what came from their mouth was bullshit. It was a distraction from what he really needed to pay attention to.
The doctor was uncomfortable with the silence. She shifted in her seat a few times and tapped something into her tablet before she turned her attention to the man seated across from her.
"Well, what do you want to talk about today, Taylor?" she finally asked, a hint of desperation in her voice. "The hour is yours, as you already know."
"Well, fuck me, Doc," he said and shrugged. "The weather? Maybe sports?"
"The weather has been nice this week," Bedford said, her head tilted although he couldn’t read her expression. "And the Redskins are looking at making a championship run this season."
"Not if my Packers have anything to say about it," he replied. "Our wide receiver corps will be hard to stop, and you know that the Pack is a factory for Hall of Fame quarterbacks."
"I don't really want to talk about sports, Taylor."
"I thought you said the hour was mine." He chuckled and rubbed his cheek idly. He liked having a beard. It made him look like a biker and he decided he liked the look. Maybe he should actually get a motorcycle to complete it.
"I'm not here to talk about sports, Taylor," she repeated. "I thought we had real breakthroughs in your therapy over the past few weeks. I do care about your progress."
"I'm fine," he said for what felt like the hundredth time during the therapy journey. "I've told people that for the past five weeks and yet, no one believes me."
"Because you went through a genuinely traumatic experience and there were very real signs that you weren't dealing with it," she said and leaned forward. "For one thing, if you're as fine as you say you are, why do you fill the prescriptions I give you? Why do you arrive at my office at the correct time—on the dot, I might add—every Tuesday and Thursday for our sessions?"
"Because I'm taking everything seriously," Taylor replied. "It's the only way I'll get my pension. I may be thought of as a loose cannon but I'm not stupid. I want to leave here without any ties holding me back from my future."
"Right." The doctor leaned back in her chair. "What kind of future do you see for yourself? Where do you want to go once I sign off that you have completed these mandated therapy sessions?"
He followed her example and leaned back into his seat. Finally, she’d raised a topic he was willing to talk to her about.
"Well, I thought of moving to Vegas. You know, where the business laws are loose and the women are looser."
"Do you want to start a business?" she asked. "That sounds exciting. What kind of business?"
"I've learned numerous skills along the road," he explained. "I've worked with combat suits and mech suits for the duration of my tours, topped off with a degree in engineering, and I'd like to invest that knowledge into building and repairing the same. It's a niche market, I know, but there aren't many businesses here in the States that do it. Since this is where most of the parts and pieces come from, I'm sure I could undercut the prices of the companies running things in the Zoo. I have seed money to get me started, but I won't want to invest all of it so I'll probably take out a loan. Thanks to my work in the Zoo, my credit score is fantastic, so I think it would be a great start to my life as a civilian."
Bedford’s eyes were open, her mouth slack for a moment before she closed it and smoothed her features. “"Well…” It was the longest he had spoken to her in any of their sessions. “Wow, it sounds like you've put considerable thought into this."
"It's my life." He smiled. "Who else will think about it but me?"
She nodded, shook her head, and retrieved a sheet of paper which she quickly initialed in a few places before she added her full signature at the bottom. "I don't want you to think that I approve of how well you hide your emotions, Taylor, but…I have the feeling you'll be able to process them better without being forced to talk to a therapist."
"That's really insightful of you, Doc." He stared at the paperwork that would officially release him from the therapy and let him go about his life. "So…does this mean you're not my therapist anymore? That I'm not your client?"
"Patient," she corrected him, nodding as if to herself. "But…yes."
"So, if I were to ask you out for a drink tonight when you're finished working here, your answer would be yes, correct?" he asked.
Her eyebrows raised sharply. "I… Well, I'd have to think about it."
"How much is there to think about, Doc?" he asked and leaned forward. "I can't imagine there are many guys who like to date someone as smart as you. Dumbasses like to pretend their partners are dumb and weak. It helps them to get a hard-on. You know I'm not like that. It seems like we could both use a drink."
She regarded him with a somewhat bemused expression. "It sounds like you've put a fair amount of thought into this."
He shrugged. "It's my life, Doc. And yours too."
"Pick me up here at seven.” She smiled. “I'll need to go home and change first."
"That sounds like a plan," he said, stood quickly, and took her hand in a firm shake. "And I think this will be the first time you and I actually look forward to seeing each other."
"Well, I have looked forward to seeing you over the past few weeks," she admitted.
"I know," he replied smoothly. "That's why I asked."
He tucked the release paper into his coat pocket and headed to the door, tipped an imaginary hat to the secretary on his way out, and whistled what he thought was a jolly tune to cement the impression of a normal man who was pleased with the outcome.
As soon as he was out the door, he stopped as the weight of it seemed to collapse on top of him. The breathlessness that had plagued him since he'd left the Zoo had returned to remind him of the way he woke up some nights gasping for breath and thinking those damned vines had crawled around his neck and squeezed tighter than a constrictor.
It lasted until he reached his car, where he sat in the driver's seat, grasped the steering wheel, and stared blankly into space while he counted the beats of his bounding heart.
That was a way to calm oneself down, right?
The seconds passed slowly, and he gradually relaxed with the tick of each one. His hands were still shaking but he took the vial of pills from the glove box of the rental car he'd used during his time there, took the two prescribed pills, and washed them down with a bottle of lukewarm water he had in the cupholder.
The doctor’s question about the meds returned to startle him. She had a point, and he decided it was time to look at weaning himself off them. Once he set his plans in motion, he’d have enough to occupy him and feed his soul to give him what he needed to hurdle this last obstacle.
"
You're fine," he mumbled to himself in the rear-view mirror as he started the car. "You're fine, kid."
Niki sighed softly and stared at what felt like a mile's length of paperwork she needed to review. They had told her that taking responsibility for this part of the job would do wonders for her career.
Having her own taskforce was like putting rocket boots on her promotional track.
They had also mentioned there would be mountains of paperwork—the kind that consisted of actual paper. She could type at one hundred and ten words per minute when she was in the groove, but actual writing? On paper? That sucked far more.
But still, it was something that needed to be done if she wanted to climb the ladder.
"Good morning, Special Agent Niki Banks," chimed a soft, feminine voice from her computer.
She tensed, closed her eyes, and clutched the pen in her hands a little tighter. "Goddammit, Desk. When will you ever learn to stop startling the hell out of me? Can't you simply pop up on the desktop or something?"
"I've tried that for the past five minutes with no response," the AI replied.
She turned to look at her computer screen. Sure enough, there were fifteen unanswered messages.
"Damn, you got me there," she admitted. "How can I help you?"
"I've been alerted to the recent availability of one of the prime candidates for your CA task-force. The agent opened the file of the man she was talking about that had been attached to one of the messages.
"Oh, right, I remember him," she said and studied the man's bright red hair and beard, his powerful build, and the vibrant green eyes, along with the half-smirk he seemed to have in all his official pictures. "Yeah, I guess eighty-three stints in the Zoo does make one a prime candidate for the CA position, but… Have you looked at his psych record?"
"He's been signed off by his civilian medical adviser," Desk pointed out. "He's cleared for this kind of duty."
"Yeah, well, pardon me for not taking the word of a government-paid shrink," she said. "There's so much shit they don't look for in these kinds of people, and I have to pick up after them."
"Forgive me for saying this, but I do think McFadden is a prime candidate to bring my operational capabilities into the field." There was a measure of insistence in her tone. "You have said you'd like someone else to manage your freelancers on this. That is the reason I was brought on board."
"I don't know," she grumbled, folded her arms, and flicked her dark hair back so it wouldn’t cover her eyes. "He's volatile."
"Which of your freelancers aren't?" the AI challenged.
She paused and grimaced. "You got me there, I guess. I'll need to clear it with him, of course, but if McFadden is on board, he's all yours."
"I appreciate the vote of confidence," Desk replied and cut the line.
"It makes sense that he's the one you'd choose," she whispered under her breath.
Chapter Three
There were a handful of things a guy usually looked for in his truck.
The first was what was important for most vehicles, really—the power of the engine. Some people looked for the kind of gas mileage that would last them for a long time between filled tanks, and Taylor could see why that was a priority. Others would want the kind of engine that would make impressive noise and generally make them look like an ass to everyone and anyone they encountered. Of course, those cretins also always seemed to generate plumes of black smoke which they thought, for some reason, was super-cool.
Taylor didn't think of himself as belonging to any of those categories. He liked having a powerful engine but leaned toward the hybrid type in which the well-built engines were the kind that, while not quite electric, were still efficient enough with combustibles to make them last a while. He'd selected a truck that was known for its efficiency and long-lasting engine and fitted it out in the way he had been taught to do all his life.
With a dad who ran a mechanic shop outside of Madison, Wisconsin, he had grown up around cars and their paraphernalia and so knew what to buy, what was needed, and what wasn't.
A powerful engine was necessary, especially in light of what he carried in the back. The vehicle had been purchased on a police auction and subsequently adapted into a masterpiece of raw power. It had taken him considerable time to tweak it the way he wanted it, but the end result was totally worth it.
Admittedly, painting it black wouldn't be the best choice in the middle of the Nevada desert, but that was based more on his personal aesthetic preferences. He was a metal-head to his core, and there was nothing he owned that wouldn't be painted as black as his soul.
A couple of his buddies—the few who were still alive—questioned his decision to relocate to Vegas. Their opinion was that the only people who lived there were the kinds who were either gorged from or sucked dry by the casinos that made up most of the state's economy. Given that he had no intention to be a go-go dancer or a professional loser on the casino floor, no one thought he should start his new life there.
With that said, when it was pointed out that the business licensing laws had intentionally been kept loose in the state for the past solid hundred years, they admitted that it wasn't a terrible place to set up a new and budding business.
Besides, Taylor had seen the kind of shit that happened in the Sahara. He wouldn't say the shit still terrified him—aside from the dreams that appeared out of nowhere when he least expected them—but the shit was still terrifying as an overall reality.
People who thought otherwise were ignorant. Given how quickly the Zoo had spread in the Sahara, he could only imagine how rampantly it could expand in areas that were already lush with vegetation and populated by towns and cities as a handy larder for biomass.
While he knew it was contained by the ongoing wall construction, he had no real confidence that humanity would be able to halt its progress indefinitely. He’d seen the kinds of unbelievable things the Zoo was able to create and manage and had to concede that maybe, just maybe, it would come up with a way to break free of the constraints humanity struggle to impose on it.
If that ever happened and the alien jungle invaded Earth with a vengeance, he wanted a solid chunk of desert between him and any impending Armageddon that might head his way. He wasn't sure what he would do if the shit ever hit the fan, but it was better to have a buffer—and hopefully a little time to prepare or whatever—than not, right?
Besides, there was business to be had. The most common complaint he'd heard from his merc friends had been about how they hated the fact that the larger corporations ran a veritable monopoly on repairs to the suits used in the Zoo, as well as keeping all the skilled mechanics out there under their employ. They needed someone who would work for them and Taylor was willing to be that someone.
He accepted that the larger companies wouldn't like him to impinge on their business like that, but it was part of the reason why he chose to set up shop in the States. The Zoo had no monopoly laws, but the country did.
Those would protect him from outright retaliation. He hoped. Well, that was the plan, anyway.
Things were looking up. Taylor felt good about his life as he drove along the highways toward Sin City. He didn't trust the radios in the area very much and relied on the head-banging repertoire provided by his own playlist that currently delivered Five Finger Death Punch's iteration of “Rock Bottom.”
"I refuse…to be your type…have you lost your goddamn motherfucking mind?"
While he had never been the greatest of singers, when you sang the death growls that were typical of his kind of music, being skilled wasn't really a criterion. Especially when he did so in his car and Taylor had turned the music up so loud he could only feel himself sing.
It did make his throat hurt after a while, but it was still a great song to head-bang to while on a long, boring drive.
The motions weren’t too enthusiastic, of course. He was driving and while he had better instincts and reflexes than most when it came to operating heavy machinery and the vehic
le did most of the driving anyway at this point, he was still transporting close to a million dollars’ worth of equipment in the back of the vehicle.
There were his tools, of course, collected during his time at the Zoo—the kind that made working with the suits and mechs used in the jungle easy. Well, they were used outside of the Zoo too, he reminded himself.
Reports of private armies marching around the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and even South America using the shiny new mech suits flowed in.
On top of that, he had the one he'd used in the Zoo himself. He had purchased his own rather than rely on those in stock for the military men and women who went in.
The load included two extras he had used for parts initially but had since rebuilt to perfect condition. The three were easily the most costly pieces of tech he had ever owned and would likely be the most expensive he would ever own.
He’d scavenged the two from the Zoo itself under the salvage rule—basically, this meant that anything you found was yours if you could retrieve it. His suit had been acquired at a ridiculously low price from the widow of one of the mercs who had accompanied him on a trip in. He’d suggested payment terms with a hefty deposit, but the woman had simply wanted to get rid of it.
She’d assured him that the pension payout was sufficient blood money.
None of the companies in the US would ever confess to selling to drug lords and oil barons and Sheikhs, but no one denied that billions of dollars were in it for them if they put their morals aside for a while and “lost track” of one or two shipments. He didn’t really want to explore the kind of financial finagles that obscured those deals from both the government and the public.
It wasn't the kind of shit that made the newspapers—at least until there were pictures of war-torn areas where men in power suits towered over destroyed villages that stood in the way of a new oil pipeline.
People simply didn't care until that kind of tragedy occurred. Then, they were all over it.
Hired Killer (Cryptid Assassin Book 1) Page 3