The Suppressor

by Erik Carter

  They wanted him to be an assassin.

  Could he do that?

  Could he be a killer?

  Immediately his mind offered hesitancy, put a wall in front of him, reminded him that he didn’t even kill spiders he found in his living room.

  But then he thought of the Watchers’ mission that Falcon had just described. Benevolent killings. Righting wrongs.

  He thought of people he’d encountered during his one year as a police officer. Bastards who’d gotten away with rotten, horrible things. People who couldn’t be touched, even when they looked you in the eye and told you without telling you that they’d done it.

  That’s right, they’d say with a cold expression, pinched eyebrows, a cocky grin. I did it, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

  C.C. had once told him her view on sponsored killings, a view that had surprised him. Murder, she’d said, was supposedly the most irrefutable, universally accepted offense among all cultures of humanity. And yet all nations went to war. And many nations had policies of capital punishment. One person’s justified killing was another person’s murder, and the definition wasn’t as clear-cut as people would hope, C.C. had said.

  He leaned his face toward his tethered hand and ran his fingers along his cheek, felt the sharp ridge of that prominent cheekbone once more. This face wasn’t his. But, then, the name wasn’t his either. Silence Jones. This future, also, wasn’t his, a future without C.C.

  The old face, the prior name, the future with C.C.—all of that had been Zack Rowe.

  If he was a new person, then he could take on a new life.

  He could become a righteous assassin.

  And, besides, they were giving him his chance to finish off Burton.

  With resources and support.

  He looked at Falcon. Swallowed.

  “Let’s do it.”

  Falcon grinned.

  “Welcome aboard, Silence Jones.”

  Chapter Fifty

  Laswell paused, giving Briggs a chance to digest all that had been said. The point in the story at which he’d initiated the new Asset—Welcome aboard, Silence Jones—had seemed like a natural stopping point.

  He just hoped Briggs wouldn’t take too long processing the information. The old guy had gone back to staring at the wall.

  And the cheap chair was still putting Laswell’s ass to sleep.

  As Briggs pulsed his templed fingers, which were under his chin, propping up his face, Laswell thought again about the moment he welcomed Silence aboard.

  He’d again been impressed with the character of the man that he’d chosen as the new Asset. Silence hadn’t celebrated, nor did he have any sort of downtrodden look on his face. He just stared back at Laswell, accepting his new future without emotion.

  Earlier, Laswell had told Briggs about Silence’s training with Nakiri, so now Briggs was completely up to speed. In theory, this meant that Laswell might have to wait indefinitely in the torture chair until Briggs finished processing and broke his wall-stare.

  Fortunately, Laswell had an excuse to get out of there. He had a plane to catch.

  He checked his watch.

  “Well, sir, now that you’re all caught up, I gotta get my ass on a plane to meet up with our new Asset in Pensacola.”

  Briggs looked away from the wall, his bright blue eyes zoning in on Laswell. “Your Florida man only has a few hours left to avert a disaster.”

  Laswell didn’t respond. Briggs hadn’t asked a question, after all.

  Briggs sighed, then stood up.

  Laswell followed suit. He stretched his arms over his head, then poked at both of his butt cheeks. Nothing. Completely asleep. Dead to the world.

  Wonderful.

  And now he was about to set the ass back down for a couple more hours for the flight to Pensacola. Fortunately he was flying private. Maybe the high-end accommodations would help to wake his butt up. Literally.

  Briggs stretched as well, then walked around the desk, past Laswell. As they left the small office, Briggs flipped off the lights and locked the door.

  The hallway had thin, matted carpet and flickering lights in the ceiling. All the other doors were shut except for one at the end, which was cracked open. There was the muffled voice of a man talking about stock prices.

  “You’d better be right about Silence Jones,” Briggs said as they headed for the elevator.

  “I am.”

  Laswell knew he was right.

  It wasn’t Silence’s experience and certainly not his training that made Laswell so confident. It was his grit. Silence’s X factor, the same quality that Jake Rowe’s lieutenant at the Pensacola Police Department had seen in him.

  It was the quality that had led an unassuming, older, first-year police officer, former teacher to dispatch of four hardened criminals in a single night.

  Yes, Silence Jones would be a quality Asset.

  “Your drink, Mr. Beaty.”

  Laswell had been resting his eyes. He blinked them open, smiled at the flight attendant—who wore a navy blue skirt suit, a scarf around her neck, and a gleaming smile—and took the tumbler from her, cupping the paper napkin to the bottom.

  He had the rear of the Learjet all to himself, and the private airline—SkyTrail Aviation—was pampering him. They knew him as Humphrey Beaty, CFO of Clocktower Enterprises, LLC.

  He eased back into the leather seat, which was soft, plush, gently used. Yes, this seat was much kinder to his ass than the chair back in Virginia. There was life in his cheeks again.

  He took a sip of scotch and thought back to when Silence joined up a few weeks ago. Now Laswell was going to rendezvous with the guy once more in Pensacola. Prefects almost never went into the field. For Laswell, this was only the second time.

  But this was not a normal assignment—both in how it was being handled and, more importantly, with the implications of its successful completion.

  And as much confidence as Laswell had in the new Asset—all that bravado he’d given Briggs about sensing Silence’s good qualities, his ability to dispatch of people easily, learning the skills of a killer in one night—this was still jeopardizing Laswell’s own position. Everything in the Watchers was based on trust, and that trust came from a place just below a person’s ethical standards. Silence Jones was a gamble for Laswell. But Laswell could feel it. Feel it in his bones. This man was an Asset, through and through.

  Nonetheless, Suppressor had pushed the limits of his first assignment. He’d been tasked with settling Lukas Burton weeks ago, but the man was still alive.

  There was no time left. The ticking clock was about to stop ticking. It was only a matter of hours until Burton was to make his move. And while Suppressor hadn’t deduced exactly what Burton was up to, he had determined that it held critical national security implications.

  Which meant the nation’s safety rested in the hands of one untested Asset.

  Laswell took another sip.

  A generous one.

  He placed the tumbler in the cupholder. The ice cubes rattled against the glass.

  His mind drifted back once more to when he welcomed Silence Jones to the Watchers—and how he’d immediately introduced Silence to his trainer.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Laswell winked at the man in the hospital bed before him, the man who had just become Silence Jones, Suppressor, Asset 23.

  “And now, Mr. Jones, I’d like you to meet your new best friend for the next few weeks. Asset 17. Name of Nakiri.”

  He leaned back and opened the door, motioned for the person waiting around the corner, and allowed her to step past him and into the room.

  Suppressor’s growly voice let out a single word of surprise. “Christie?”

  He immediately recoiled, eyes squinting, brow furrowing.

  Laswell shook his head. That damn throat was gonna be a constant problem for Suppressor. Laswell wished he’d brought some cough drops for the guy.

  Nakiri went to the bed.

  “Holy sh
it. They did a hell of a job on you, Rowe.” Her eyes roamed over him, going lustful. “You went from David Schwimmer handsome to Johnny Depp hot.”

  “You can forget the name Jake Rowe,” Laswell said. “Nakiri, meet Silence Jones.”

  Nakiri blinked twice. “Silence? You named yourself Silence?”

  Laswell answered for him. “Mmm-hmm. But you’ll know him as Suppressor.” He turned to the bed. “And you’ll know her as Nakiri. You’ve no need for her name, just her codename.”

  Nakiri’s eyes gave a dark sparkle as she grinned at her new protege. “We’re going to have a lot of fun training, Suppressor.”

  Suppressor tilted his head, eyes narrowing to cautious slits, as though confused by Nakiri’s stony countenance.

  But Laswell understood. He knew exactly where Nakiri’s dark revelry was coming from.

  He cut in before she could say anything else. “And after that, you’ll start your first assignment, your trial run.”

  Nakiri cleared her throat. Obnoxiously.

  Laswell glanced at her, then back to Suppressor. “Correction: you’ll finish the assignment that Nakiri started. Clearly her cover was blown when she started shooting people at Lukas Burton’s place. You have a new face, an inside understanding of Burton, and a strong desire to eliminate him. You’ll be finishing the Pensacola assignment.”

  Nakiri shot Suppressor a frigid glare.

  “But don’t think that we’re simply giving you a chance to finish your revenge,” Laswell continued. “Burton’s goal is a lot bigger than we originally thought. Huge.” He waved a hand at Nakiri. “Get him up to speed.”

  She bristled, doing little to conceal it. While Nakiri wasn’t the most difficult Asset he’d ever commanded, she was at the apex of the list. Copious spirit. Ponderous pride. And this situation bruised that pride a deep shade of purple.

  She retrieved a file folder from the canvas messenger bag she was carrying and took out the photos she’d shown Laswell earlier in the day, those of Keith Sutton. One was a security photo of the lean, baby-faced man in his corporeal state; the other showed his bullet-riddled corpse after the police fished it out of Pensacola Bay.

  “This is the man I told you about back at Burton’s beach house,” Nakiri said to Suppressor. “Keith Sutton, the guy who tried to buy arms with counterfeit bills in Boston, found a couple days later bobbing in the water outside Pensacola like a bloated human buoy. Originally we thought Sutton was just your average workaday thug, but since you’ve been asleep, we’ve discovered he has more significant criminal ties than the Farones and Burton’s new gang.

  “He worked for a criminal syndicate out of Warsaw with connections all over the globe—Europe, China, the Middle East. Wanted by Interpol, the EU, several individual nations. Why he’d gotten his counterfeit cash from Burton and not someone more established, we’re not sure. But Burton’s counterfeiting operations are expanding. He’s printing documents worth a hell of a lot more than paper money—passports, birth certificates, death certificates, forged contracts.”

  Laswell stepped beside her. “Which means we need to move even faster than originally thought. Because whatever Burton is doing, it’s escalating rapidly. Not only has he upped his game with counterfeiting, but he’s consolidating power. He’s having his second-in-command, Clayton Glover, wipe out all the low-level groups that had ties to the Farones. Now there are only two more contingents remaining in the Pensacola region. We don’t know where they’re hiding, but we believe Burton does, and intel says he’s closing on those groups tonight. Once he’s eliminated them, there will be no one left to challenge his power.”

  Suppressor swallowed, a pronounced movement. The new Asset was adapting quickly, learning how to lubricate his rotten throat.

  “And then?” Suppressor said.

  “Then he moves onto his ultimate goal, whatever he’s doing with all his sophisticated counterfeiting,” Laswell said. “Burton’s meticulous about covering his tracks, but our Specialists are just as meticulous. We’ve been able to glean some particulars. Whatever Burton’s planning, it’s huge, and it’s happening in approximately five weeks. Which means we need to get you back to Florida with some time to spare; which further means that your training will be only three weeks. Fast and brutal. All while you’re still recovering.”

  Nakiri rapped a knuckle on the bed’s handrail.

  “Fun and excitement await you, cupcake.” She gave Suppressor another devilish grin. “Let’s begin.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Glover waved a hand, and four men moved out of the trees and toward the house.

  This was great. Simply amazing. The power, prestige, and respect he’d wanted and deserved for so long.

  It was all because he’d chosen to follow Lukas Burton, the smartest decision he’d ever made.

  Everything was changing for Glover. Changing fast. Even his clothing, of which Burton had given him advice. He wore an expensive pair of gray pants and a striped, button-up shirt. He’d rolled the sleeves up. Uber cool. He felt sharp and intelligent and powerful.

  Before him was a two-story, old-fashioned house. Something very Southern looking, which seemed appropriate, as it was on the outskirts of Biloxi.

  He watched.

  There was a pause. A breeze teased the branch in front of him.

  And then shots from the building, cracking through the night. Little blasts of light in the windows.

  Glover smiled.

  And quickly the smile dropped.

  Because someone ran from the house into the small wooded area to the side. It wasn’t one of his men.

  Glover gave it a moment. None of his men emerged from the house.

  Shit.

  Evidently he was still going to have to do some dirty work from time to time. That was fine by him. He would’ve missed it, anyway.

  He took out his gun and ran to the edge of the trees. Stopped. Listened.

  Rustling leaves. Footsteps, getting away. There was an open parking lot on the other side of the copse. No time for stealth, so Glover just crashed right into the trees. The man was before him, almost to the parking lot and its lights.

  Glover raised his gun and put two rounds into his back. The man fell into a pile of branches and leaves, a crunching sound that registered surprisingly loudly after the bark of the gunshots.

  More footsteps, coming from the house. He turned.

  It was his men, scrambling for the car.

  Then distant sirens.

  He pivoted, about to dart to the car, and felt something on his shin, looked down.

  His nice pants had ripped. A one-inch tear at the cuff.

  “Damn.”

  Later, he had the same group of three men with him. They’d become his personal squad, another sign of his growing prestige, his upward mobility.

  Not bad.

  The last scraggly stronghold for the Farone family was a mobile home in the woods outside of Crestview, Florida. How ironic. The great legacy, the legends, the mansion, the Italian-American heritage—all of it coming to a close outside a ratty trailer in the woods in rural Florida.

  His men had the final guy pinned against a tree, squirming, sweating through a wrinkly dress shirt that stunk of days of life on the run.

  Glover stepped up to him. “How many more Farone men are left?”

  “Just me. I swear,” the man said, shaking. “You’ve killed them all.”

  Glover shook his head. “Not all.”

  He put a gun to the man’s forehead and fired.

  His men hooped and hollered, but Glover remained resolute. The leader. The mature one. The one in control.

  The man slid butt-first down the tree trunk. A wide path of blood chased after him.

  Glover took his cellular phone from his pocket and dialed Burton.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  He watched from his bed as Falcon slipped out of the door, shutting it behind him.

  That left just him and Christie.

  Or Nakiri, rath
er.

  She drummed her fingers on the bed’s handrail, giving him another one of those mysterious smiles. “Are you ready to begin, Silence?”

  Silence.

  A foreign sensation breezed over him. Silence Jones. That was his name now.

  He’d have to get used to it.

  He nodded.

  Nakiri said, “Eight-zero-six-four-five-four-one-six-two-nine.”

  What the hell?

  Silence raised an eyebrow at her.

  “I’m going to say the number again, and you’re going to repeat it to me. Eight-zero-six-four-five-four-one-six-two-nine.”

  She hadn’t said it blazingly fast, but certainly too quickly to remember.

  He strained. “Eight-zero-six…”

  Nothing. He shook his head and swallowed. The syllables had hurt.

  Nakiri scowled at him. “Wrong.”

  She took her hand off the handrail and closed it over the bandages on his shoulder.

  And squeezed.

  Hard.

  Pain rippled through him like an electric current, past his shoulder, through his chest, into his arms and legs. Whatever wound remained under those bandages was far from healed. His wrists snapped into the plastic handcuffs. And he screamed, which brought reciprocal pain from his throat, horrible and hot.

  She released the pressure, but kept her hand on his shoulder.

  “Eight-zero-six-four-five-four-one-six-two-nine. Repeat it.”

  “Eight-zero.” He swallowed. “Six-four…”

  He trailed off.

  “Wrong.”

  She squeezed.

  Silence screamed again at the wave of pain, wrists yanking the plastic handcuffs tight, but he bit his lip to keep the sound in his chest, below his awful throat.

  Nakiri smiled. “Adaptation. No scream means less pain. I like it. Now, come on. You gotta be able to do this. You can’t rely on that silly notebook. No crutches for Assets.”

  She motioned toward his PenPal, sitting on the monitor beside them.