Hard Vengeance (A Jon Reznick Thriller)

by J. B. Turner

  At first, Ford had been content just to be alive after his encounter with Reznick. To have survived. But over time, he began to nurse his grievances. He’d suffered, thinking what he could have been. To have a name that would live on for a thousand years. In history books. On the internet. And whatever invention followed. The name Adam Ford would have lived on. But he’d been thwarted by his nemesis. Jon Reznick.

  Ford was now ready to avenge that wrong. Reznick had eluded him for too long. That was about to end. He knew Reznick was still on the island. He had followed the SUVs that had taken Reznick and his daughter to the police station. A guy like that wouldn’t be going anywhere. Not until he had tracked down who had caused Meyerstein’s death. What bothered Ford was that he hadn’t seen Reznick in or around Cala San Vicente for a day or so. But he was around. Somewhere.

  Ford sipped his wine, savoring the taste—and the game that was in full swing. He enjoyed pressing buttons. Manipulating people. Most of the time they didn’t know they were being manipulated.

  This was Ford’s most elaborate game so far. And he had never felt so crazy. So alive. So emboldened. He was really on the cusp of something huge. It was like fireworks going off in his head, ricocheting around his brain. Exploding his thoughts. Detonating life-changing grief for Reznick.

  He laughed softly.

  Reznick’s major weak spot was that he cared. Deep down, the cold-blooded assassin had not only a soul, but a heart. Which meant if he thought he could help those he cared about, Reznick would go to their aid, no matter the personal cost.

  Ford had exploited Reznick’s Achilles’ heel, first by killing Meyerstein, then by targeting Lauren. Reznick had seemed invincible when he’d been sent to stop Ford all those years ago. But now Ford knew he could be gotten at. And Ford would get him. All in good time.

  Not long now, he thought, scanning the villa’s surveillance footage on the laptop. He reached again for his glass of wine, the laughter from the pool filling his head until he thought it might burst.

  Thirty-Seven

  The call came just after midnight.

  Reznick snapped his fingers as Jeremiah Johnston and another Agency operative put on headphones. A silence fell over the top-floor room of the townhouse in Puerto Pollensa. The plan was underway. Someone had called Lauren’s number, and the call was coming through on the specially encrypted cell phone.

  “Hey, Lauren.” The voice on the line was a whisper.

  Reznick knew it was Ford. Had to be.

  “How you feeling? Feeling sore? I know I am. Bad luck with that hit-and-run.”

  Reznick listened but said nothing.

  “What’s wrong, Lauren? Why aren’t you speaking? I was so looking forward to hearing that voice of yours. So cultured. So sweet. I’ve been looking out for you. Can’t see you or your dad anywhere.”

  Reznick closed his eyes and said nothing.

  “I want to speak to your dad, Lauren, the tough guy. Can you put him on?”

  Johnston turned a laptop and pointed to a GPS location. They had him.

  Reznick nodded, stomach tightening.

  “I would’ve thought Daddy would be close. You like your dad, Lauren? He seems really uptight to me.”

  Reznick sighed. “I think you have the wrong number, pal.”

  “Well, well, well, I was beginning to wonder when we would speak again, Jon. I have to be frank. I’ve missed our talks, haven’t you?”

  “Not really.”

  Ford laughed long and hard, clearly enjoying causing discomfort. “You see, I love that sense of humor. Self-deprecating, low-key, downbeat. Am I right?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Small talk not your thing, huh? I don’t blame you. It’s a drag, right?”

  “If you say so.”

  “You know, I’ve been following your career for quite a while. Well, I say career, but maybe that’s not the right word. Can’t really call assassination a career. Or can you? These days, who knows, right? The world we grew up in is so different now. The old certainties have gone. Christianity. Capitalism. Family. It’s all in crisis, or so they say. No one believes anymore. I think it was G. K. Chesterton who said it best.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “You should read his stuff.”

  Reznick sighed. He was at the mercy of a cocky smart-ass who was milking every moment for his own gratification.

  “He said, ‘The first effect of not believing in God is to believe in anything.’”

  Reznick wanted nothing more than to hang up on this fucker, but he looked across at Johnston, who was nodding, wanting the conversation to continue so the teams en route could get to the GPS location before the call ended.

  “When Martha was blown to pieces, Jon, did you turn to God? Did you beseech him, wondering how he could have allowed such an abomination to happen?”

  “I’ll tell you what I turned to. An old biblical quote. ‘An eye for an eye.’”

  “So, you are a believer, Jon. That surprises me. It’s all rather touching and wonderful that a man like yourself could still believe in God.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “Not quite yet. Tell me, where is Lauren? I had been so looking forward to speaking to that daughter of yours. Is she still in the hospital? Hopefully she pulled through. Beautiful girl you have there. They don’t make them like that anymore, do they?”

  Johnston was tapping his keyboard, sending out instructions to the CIA guys who were closing in on Ford’s location along with the Civil Guard. His sidekick left the room as Johnston gave the thumbs-up sign. But Reznick knew it was best to keep Ford talking, distracted.

  “I’m sorry, who am I speaking to?” Reznick said.

  Ford laughed. “Very droll, Jon. I like that. I’m not going to give you my name. At least not now. Maybe in a few moments.”

  “You want to get to the point?”

  “It hurts, doesn’t it? The loss of Meyerstein.”

  Reznick felt as if his guts were being ripped out. Knowing Martha Meyerstein was alive had been the best moment of the last week. But he also knew she wasn’t out of the woods yet.

  “I know how much you cared for her. I can only imagine the depths of despair you’re feeling. But guess what. It’s payback time, that’s what this is.”

  “Payback? What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “You know—even if you don’t realize it yet. I was going to be fucking immortal. But you, you stopped me. I wanted to kill that degenerate president. And my name would’ve lived forever. But you, faithful American servant Jon Reznick, decided you, along with your friend Martha Meyerstein, would intervene. You have no idea how much that hurt me, Jon. The depths of despair I felt.”

  “Adam Ford, right? I didn’t take you for a narcissist. You learn something new every day, I guess.”

  “Don’t try teasing me, Jon. I don’t like being teased.”

  “I thought you drowned, you sick bastard.”

  “I almost did. I really almost did. But I managed to disappear only yards from you, underwater, hidden from sight. I eventually swam farther from shore. And by the time I reached the surface, I was hidden by rocks and trees.”

  “You got lucky. But luck eventually runs out.”

  “I’m still in the game, Jon. Very much still in the game. And I nurse my grudges for a long, very long time,” he said. “Now you’re starting to feel the pain I felt and still feel. The pain at what should have been mine—immortality. Snatched from me, but by who? A nobody. A dirt-poor nobody. But I’ve been watching what you’ve been up to from afar, Jon. I can’t believe you were fucking an FBI assistant director. I mean, that’s crazy, Jon. What were you thinking?”

  “Listen, you fucking psychopath, I will find you. And I will kill you.”

  “You’ll never find me, Reznick. You’re too fucking dumb.”

  “You want to meet up and discuss this further, man to man?”

  Ford laughed hard. “You haven’t lost that special way you have. Did
they teach you that along with the rest of the Delta clowns?”

  “When we meet, and trust me, we will meet, I will destroy you. And I’ll enjoy doing it.”

  A sigh reverberated on the line. “This may be a bit above your head, but are you familiar with the Apollonian and Dionysian philosophical concept?”

  Reznick said nothing.

  “Apollo and Dionysus were sons of Zeus in Greek mythology. Apollo reminds me of you—rational, believes in order, prudence, and restraint. Whereas Dionysus is just a bit like me, don’t you think?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Or is it that I’m a bit like him? Why is that? Dionysus is all about chaos, destruction, irrationality, and, of course, the pleasures of the flesh. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

  “Not really.”

  “The struggle to become who we really are. The two sides, in a fight to the death to see who will triumph. It’s all about who we want to be. You want to be, well, just as you are. The heroic deeds. Doing the right thing. You represent that side of the human psyche. I represent the other. You represent the pure. You want order. But me? I want to do whatever the fuck I want. And I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks about that.”

  “You need to see a shrink, pal.”

  The guy roared with laughter. “You think so? You don’t like me talking about you, do you? Does it make you feel vulnerable? But I’ll tell you what you do like. You’re not so dissimilar to me. You like killing, Jon, don’t you? They trained you well. But I think there’s a bit more to you than that.”

  Reznick looked over at Johnston, who gestured that he should keep Ford talking.

  “You know what was great about setting up this operation? Knowing the delayed pleasure I was going to get. Knowing what lay down the tracks for me. The surge of excitement knowing the beautiful, talented Martha Meyerstein was going to be blown to bits. The same hands you had touched: Severed. Gone. Dead. How did that feel to you?”

  Reznick got to his feet and began to pace the room.

  “I take it from your silence that I’m getting under your skin, Jon. You see, it was you that got under my skin first. And now? Well, this is going to play out like a nice slow-motion car crash. Except I’m the one who’s going to decide how and when to strike.”

  Reznick looked at Johnston, who was moving his hands like he was stretching out some dough. Keep him talking. Reznick rolled his eyes. “Know what I don’t understand?”

  “What’s that, tough guy?”

  “Why you don’t just come after me now. I’m here on the island.”

  “And so am I. Like I said, I will choose the place and the time. Not you, Apollo.” A raucous laugh. “I’m sorry, Jon, relax. We’re going to have fun. Speaking of which, why aren’t you on Instagram? I would’ve thought that would be a great way to keep in touch with your daughter.”

  Reznick suppressed a growl. He knew the sick bastard was just trying to get inside his head. But he was succeeding.

  “Know what’s so great about social media, Jon? I’ve got to be honest, I’m a bit behind the curve on this. I know young people are very savvy with regards to this new digital world. But you know what’s really cool? It’s that nothing is real. Fascinating stuff.”

  Reznick looked across at Johnston, who gave a thumbs-up sign. They had Ford. Finally. They would apprehend him, maybe in a matter of minutes. Reznick’s only regret was that he wouldn’t be the one to neutralize the twisted fuck.

  The cell phone he was speaking on pinged, indicating he had a message.

  “You’ll want to open that, Jon. It’s interesting stuff.”

  Reznick looked at Johnston, who nodded. He opened the message. It showed screenshots of his daughter’s Instagram page. Lauren was wearing a bikini on a vacation to Miami Beach with her college friends.

  “I’ve got to give you some credit,” Ford said. “Compared to those skanky friends of hers, she is beautifully turned out. Nice bit of breeding. I guess your late wife’s genes were strong. Very attractive, I would gather. But Jon, seriously, if I had a daughter, I would be very concerned about how skimpy that bikini is. Aren’t you? I mean, it leaves nothing to the imagination.”

  Reznick turned away from Johnston’s gaze. “I cannot wait until the moment I have you in my sights. Then we’re going to see a very different side of things.”

  “Idle threats, Jon? That’s so unbecoming. You know, maybe you can help me out here. I was thinking about Meyerstein just before I called. And I believe I have some pictures of her in a bathing suit taken poolside, Palm Beach. You wanna see what she looks like?”

  “Do you know how tragic you sound?”

  “Oh, Jon, you disappoint me. I would’ve thought a man like you, a man of the world, would enjoy perusing such pictures. She was a real beauty. Pity what happened. Boom!” Ford laughed. He sounded like a jackal on the savanna. Crazed by the sun. By the taste of blood. Feeding on bones.

  Reznick took a few moments to compose himself. “What happened to the Hippocratic oath, Adam?”

  Ford laughed again, this time louder. “How very touching that some people still attach value to physicians. Medical ethics? Well, it’s been revised for the modern age. Nowadays, doctors are supposed to pledge to uphold the humanitarian goals of their profession through the Declaration of Geneva, if you must know. Frankly, it’s all bullshit.”

  “Is it?”

  “I know what you’re doing, Jon. You’re keeping me talking, aren’t you?”

  Reznick closed his eyes.

  “You see, I’m smart. Guys like you will never find me. I’m one step ahead.”

  “You’re going to rot in hell.”

  “We’ll see about that, Jonny boy. Night night.”

  Thirty-Eight

  Ford felt omnipotent, laptop on the table in front of him. He was sitting on his penthouse terrace at the boutique hotel in sleepy Port de Sóller, headphones on. The sound of Bach’s monumental Cello Suite no. 1 in G Major filling his head. His mind. His soul. He felt a frenzied excitement building within him.

  The conversation with Reznick had gone well.

  Ford sensed he was pulling Reznick in. He felt it in his bones. He had him. He was reeling the fucker in. He scanned his laptop. The real-time footage from the surveillance cameras covering his modernist villa high up in the hills was pin sharp. He watched half a dozen vehicles slowly approaching. He panned left and right. He clicked to bring up the cameras at the rear of the property. He scanned the screen. The rear-door camera showed two men with guns approaching, the villa’s security lights activated. Come to Daddy.

  He tapped a couple of keys, panning the camera to the periphery. The night vision image showed an algae-green figure talking into a headset.

  Ford smiled. Don’t be afraid, little ones. Uncle Adam doesn’t bite. Well, not much. He laughed. His dark thoughts were congealing again. Like old blood. Come on. Another yard. See what’s in my home, why don’t you.

  He clicked on a rear-view camera overlooking the floodlit pool.

  Ford saw a smartly dressed white man directing a Spanish cop to move in the direction of the pool changing room. The guy had to be FBI. Maybe CIA. Ford watched, intrigued, as the cop headed down the steps that led to the basement.

  The music filled his head and he closed his eyes, feeling the euphoric aural pleasures of Bach course through his black soul. A strange sensation was beginning to stir within him. Was it joy? Well, maybe not much. Just enough to distinguish it from the blind fury he worked hard to conceal so much of the time.

  Ford looked at the real-time images and smiled. His head was swimming with new, fresh ideas. He was on the cusp of another major step toward his end goal. A slow march to the vengeance he would wreak. The blood would spill. And he would laugh. The laugh of the damned. The mad. Who cared? It would all soon be over. He would have the last laugh.

  He watched the footage from the rear property camera.

  The men were using sledgehammers to smash the back door
. He clicked on the front-door cameras. A two-man team was drilling into the front door.

  And all the time he, Adam Ford, was thirty-seven miles away, having the time of his life. Watching. Waiting.

  What a time to be alive.

  Thirty-Nine

  Reznick stared at the computer screen showing real-time footage from the body camera of a CIA operative. The guy was headed through the basement as part of a classified joint US-Spanish task force to apprehend Ford. They had quickly tracked down his location via the GPS from his cell phone signal. It had shown the signal was coming from a huge villa high up in the hills above Cala San Vicente. But the apparent ease with which they had located Ford sowed seeds of doubt in Reznick’s mind.

  Had a guy like Ford not foreseen that they would have tracked down the cell phone signal eventually? It didn’t make much sense to Reznick. Ford was smart. As it stood, the villa surrounded and the task force closing in, no way in or out, this was just way too easy.

  He watched as the front-door lock was drilled and the door pushed open. Then the CIA operative began a sweep through the sleek house. Massive pieces of modern art on the whitewashed walls, minimalist vibe. When the ground floor was secured, the guy headed up the stairs. Three other Spanish police officers were ahead of him. Blank looks and shrugs.

  “Someone lives there,” Johnston said. “We’ll find him. The fucker might be in the closet. Maybe even catch him in bed with his goddamn pants down.”

  Reznick stared at the screen. “Something doesn’t feel right about this.”

  Johnston looked up from the monitor. “What do you mean? This is the place.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “The GPS showed this was the location.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “It’s possible. But this has been verified. Trust me, he’s there. Somewhere on that property.”

  Reznick sensed something was wrong. Badly wrong. “Are we absolutely sure this is the location?”