The Suppressor

by Erik Carter

  There was that mischievous twinkle in Falcon’s eyes again. He looked at Silence.

  “We’re getting you back to Florida. Two weeks from today, we know where you can find Glover. Until then, we’ll move you into your new house, and you’re to proceed with the assignment. Understood?”

  Silence nodded.

  Nakiri bounced in her chair. “Oh, yippee! Dummy’s about to be sent off on his very first assignment. My heart overflows.” She wiped away a fake tear. “That would be the assignment you stole from me, Falcon.”

  Silence was impressed with how cool Falcon was remaining, how impassive in the face of Nakiri’s overt insubordination. He didn’t scowl or frown or even issue one of his trademark smartass smiles. He just stared back at her.

  “I have one more assignment, then I’m out,” Nakiri continued. “But, by all means, take your sweet time arranging it, leave me dangling as long as possible while you coddle the rookie.”

  She bolted up, the chair legs screeching on the old flooring.

  “When you have a new assignment for me, you just let me know.”

  She whipped around, headed for the door.

  “Oh, I have an assignment for you,” Falcon said.

  Nakiri halted. Turned on her heel. A pause. Then she took a couple cautious steps back toward the table.

  “You do?” A quivering smile came to her lips.

  “Well, not so much an assignment as a bit of consultant work,” Falcon said. He flicked his eyes in Silence’s direction. “You’re going with him.”

  “What?”

  “He’s only had three weeks of training. He needs support and a watchful eye. From his teacher.” Without turning around, he pointed to the window behind him, toward the idling vehicle. “The Caddie’s waiting to take you both to the airport.”

  Nakiri stormed around the table, heels snapping tiles, stopping inches from Falcon.

  “You…” she said and trailed off. When she continued, her voice was quieter. And it cracked. “You are an asshole.”

  Nakiri’s chest heaved. She stared down at Falcon, and her lower lip moved as though she was about to say something else. No words came out. A moment passed. Then she spun around and stormed to the door.

  She glared at Silence as she breezed past him.

  The door heaved open so hard the doorknob punched through the drywall.

  And she was gone.

  Falcon turned to Silence with that smile of his, shrugged.

  “You kids have fun,” he said.

  Chapter Sixty

  Two weeks later.

  Glover was giddy with anticipation as he sat in the leather seat of his Acura. He shifted anxiously. His pants were getting uncomfortable.

  He drummed his fingers on the leather-wrapped steering wheel of the brand-new vehicle and wondered who they might be providing tonight. Candy or Tiffany or Tina? Candy was his favorite, and he liked the wordplay that came with her name. She really was a tasty treat.

  This was yet another perk of his continued ascendency. A massive perk. The one time he’d done something like this in his previous life, before meeting Burton, the chick had horrible acne, sunken eyes, and a bony figure—a damn crackhead. Glover had been certain she was diseased, but he’d proceeded anyway and spent a few fretful months wondering what if.

  This, though … this was a whole different world, the difference between McDonald’s and a five-star steakhouse.

  He looked out the window.

  Well, it wasn’t all glamorous, not the environment, anyway. There was an empty parking lot, and beyond was the warehouse, closed for the weekend—a well-kept and clean place, if not blandly utilitarian. By contrast, the surrounding neighborhood was urban waste. Shitty houses. Litter-speckled gutters.

  It wasn’t the most inviting of environments, and it certainly wasn’t sexy, but this was the sort of place you had to go sometimes for this sort of thing. No matter how sophisticated.

  There was a rap of a knuckle on the passenger window, and he turned, smiling.

  The smile dropped.

  A man’s torso, on the other side of the window, face hidden by the car’s roof.

  What the hell?

  Every other time, the handler would sit in a car parked down the street and let the girl out. She would then take the sidewalk to the Acura, give a quick tap to the passenger-side window, and get in. A safe and secure transaction, assuring both his safety and that of Candy or Tiffany or Tina.

  He hadn’t dealt directly with any of the handlers since first setting up this arrangement. This initial transaction had occurred at an upscale cocktail lounge, not in a car parked by a warehouse in this gross part of town.

  Glover growled, and he tried to maintain his professional countenance as he pressed the window button and leaned across the center console.

  The man wasn’t the one he’d met at the cocktail lounge, nor was he Ramone or Gus, the other two guys who sometimes dropped off the girls. This man was quite tall, well over six feet, with chiseled features, olive skin, and dark, choppy hair with bangs falling into his eyes.

  “Who the hell are you?” Glover said.

  The man raised a pistol and pointed it through the window.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Nakiri sighed out her frustration.

  Why was she here?

  She was in a rented Honda Civic, a block away from the action, in a cruddy industrial area of town on an equally cruddy, gray day.

  If she had to come back to Florida, it could at least be sunny. Gah! The sun was out, like, ninety percent of the time in Pensacola this time of year.

  There weren’t even any palm trees in sight. It was just a rundown, decrepit, could-be-anywhere part of the city.

  Worst of all, she was here as a babysitter.

  Falcon had betrayed her. Humiliated her. Not only was this Pensacola job to have been her final assignment that would have completed her debt, but now she was being forced to watch as someone else—a complete rookie, hardly trained—took over. She just had to sit here and watch, making her not an assassin but a glorified nanny. That big son of a bitch down the street was costing her in more ways than she had ever considered.

  And now she watched as the lumbering doofus kept his Beretta pointed through the open passenger window of Clayton Glover’s Acura.

  Suppressor hadn’t said anything; he’d just pulled out his suppressed pistol as soon as Glover had rolled down the window. That much was good. She’d taught him the power of intimidation, and with his destroyed voice and big frame, he was naturally intimidating. She told him to use his devil voice sparingly, at choice moments.

  Of course, since speaking was painful for him, he was quick to agree to this tactic.

  But now, at his first real-world encounter, he’d been quiet for some time. Just staring at Glover with Glover staring back, confused. Yes, it was a good idea to use the voice sparingly, to create dramatic pauses, to create a sense of fear and confusion.

  But this was just getting awkward…

  What the hell was he doing?

  Gun still aimed at Glover, Suppressor reached into his pocket.

  The notebook.

  The nasty, bloodstained, water-warped notebook.

  Oh, for shit’s sake.

  “Don’t use that stupid notebook, dummy,” she muttered. “Use that growly monster voice of yours.”

  Still, she was impressed with how quickly Suppressor had taken action. He must have written a note for Glover in the few moments before he approached the Acura. This showed a modicum of resourcefulness.

  She’d taught him to adapt to the needs of a situation.

  A tiny smile tempted her lips, but she rejected it.

  Don’t go getting proud of yourself, Nakiri.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Silence looked down, for a split second, to his PenPal notebook, the note he’d prepared for Glover.

  In that fraction of a moment, there was movement—a streak from the driver’s seat—and Glover scrambled
out of the car.

  Silence considered blasting him right there, before Glover cleared the doorjamb, but he remembered what he’d been told—that he had to get information out of Glover before eliminating him.

  Glover scrambled over the short, brick wall into the empty parking lot of the warehouse beyond. He sprinted, his squat, powerful legs propelling him forward. Silence had always thought Glover a brave man, if nothing more.

  Now he was showing true cowardice.

  Silence sprinted around the Acura’s hood, to the wall, over it, and into the parking lot behind Glover.

  Black asphalt, clean and relatively new, with bright white stripes and yellow rubber parking blocks. The hard pavement pounded through the soles of his shoes. He would need to remember to wear thicker soles in the field.

  Glover headed for the warehouse, but even though his legs were pumping like pistons in a straining engine, Silence’s long gait closed the gap rapidly.

  Glover stole a glance over his shoulder. Sweat-sheened forehead. Panic in his eyes. His combed-back, blond hair had lost its style, flopping in this face.

  The other man’s thudding footsteps were loud and clear in Silence’s ears as he drew nearer. A couple feet away. He reached out. His fingers tickled the edge of Glover’s gray dress shirt. He clenched, got a fistful of cloth.

  And came to a sudden stop.

  Silence’s shoes scraped to a halt, and with one solid tug he yanked Glover back.

  Forward momentum brought Glover’s legs out from under him, still kicking. For a moment, Glover was horizontal, floating a couple feet above the blacktop.

  And then he came crashing onto his back.

  A wail wheezed from Glover’s mouth.

  Then Silence was upon him, on his knees, pounding away at Glover’s face.

  He hadn’t planned on immediately beating Glover, but there had been a quick flash across his mind, something that propelled him into immediate action. His mission and the need to complete his first Watcher’s assignment vanished from existence.

  Glover’s fist smashing into C.C.’s jaw. He’d gotten the most time during the beating, the benefits of being Burton’s second-in-command.

  Silence hurled his right fist.

  Crack!

  Glover’s mouth snapped shut, and when it reopened, his lips were bubbly red. Silence threw a left. Then a right. Glover’s head was a toy ball rolling back and forth on the blacktop.

  He could destroy Glover’s face. It was already swelling, contused. He could destroy it like Glover had helped to destroy C.C.’s face, like he’d help to destroy Jake Rowe’s face.

  But Silence had made a promise.

  To the Watchers.

  They’d given him a second chance at life.

  He stopped.

  Glover sputtered. Looked up at Silence. Bloodshot eyes.

  “Who…” He coughed. A bloody bubble popped at the corner of his mouth. “Who are you?”

  Silence didn’t reply.

  “You’re here about Burton, aren’t you?”

  Silence nodded. The note he’d prepared had demanded that Glover tell him what Burton was up to, but apparently he wouldn’t need the note.

  Interesting.

  Nakiri was really onto something about the whole intimidation thing. Evidently a man got really intimidated when you beat the shit out of him.

  Silence would remember that.

  “I’ll tell you … I’ll tell you everything. Okay?”

  Silence nodded.

  “Burton’s been printing passports for weeks. And he’s getting them to his buyer tonight. I don’t know the location. I swear I don’t. All I know is the time: eight o’clock. I don’t know the specific client either, just that the guy’s working with terrorist cells out of the Middle East.”

  Terrorist cells…

  Just hearing the words made Silence pull back, stunned. He knew Burton had large ambitions, but what Glover had just said could mean only one thing: Burton was helping terrorists get into the United States.

  The implications were staggering, and—

  A flash of movement from the ground.

  Glover swept his leg, knocking Silence’s feet out from under him. Silence fell backward, hit the ground hard, on his back.

  Silence cursed himself. During training, Nakiri had hounded him mercilessly about his tendency to leave himself open to leg sweeps.

  Don’t forget your feet, dummy.

  Yet here he was, moments into his first field experience, already on his back.

  Shuffling sounds in front of him. Then footsteps, at a run.

  Silence rolled to the side, looked across the parking lot. Glover was getting away, headed for the warehouse again.

  Silence scrambled to his feet, bolted off.

  Ahead, Glover threw open a dark red metal door and rushed into the warehouse. Through the now open doorway, Silence could see darkness, no lights on.

  As he ran the last few feet, Silence pulled out his Beretta again, cleared the threshold, and entered.

  Towering walls of pallet racks—loaded with boxes and crates and plastic-wrapped machinery—seemingly endless as they faded away into the darkness at the back of the building. Steel uprights stretched to a high ceiling. A path cut through the center of the space.

  Countless places Glover could be, a million nooks and crannies from which he could jump out.

  Silence thought back to Nakiri’s lessons on stealth. This was one of the skills he’d taken to most readily, which had come as a surprise to her—and to Silence himself—because of his size.

  Though the rows of massive, round lights floating high above him were unlit, some of the ambient, gloomy light from the outside oozed in through the windows—big grids of opaque glass and iron muntins. The light came in as hazy streaks, sparkling with dust particles, illuminating a box of nails here, a pallet full of laminate flooring there.

  Silence clung along the edge of the aisle, turned a corner, cleared both sides of the row. Nothing. Just a tower of cardboard boxes and a cluster of steel drums.

  He proceeded to the next row.

  And heard something.

  A tiny scratch.

  His hearing seemed to have been enhanced since he’d been forced into quietude, a heightened sense picking up the slack for a weakened one—like blind Mrs. Enfield’s ability to see without seeing.

  The noise had come from another row up, around a corner loaded with pallets full of plastic bags of coarse gravel.

  He slipped into a shadow, turned the corner.

  And there he was.

  Glover cowered with his back against a stack of gravel bags. His eyes flicked toward Silence, and Silence perceived movement in his hands, the earliest stages of an attack.

  Silence literally beat him to the punch.

  More of Nakiri’s training sizzled through his brain, a newly subconscious impulse.

  His fingers tightened, and his fist swung faster than his brain recognized, cracking across Glover’s cheek.

  The noise it made was revolting.

  Bizarre.

  Wet and hollow, punctuated by a small, almost delicate crack that Silence felt through his knuckles. He’d chipped the corner of Glover’s cheekbone.

  Glover stumbled back, eyes pinched shut, swung blindly. Silence easily dodged the blow.

  He clasped his hand around Glover’s forearm and twisted hard while at the same time getting his leg behind Glover’s knees. Glover’s feet flew up, and with a shove, Silence sent him flying down the aisle.

  Glover struck the polished concrete hard and slid several feet back, bashed into an old, discarded pallet that exploded with the impact. Pieces of wood clattered on the ground.

  Silence lunged toward him, closing the distance.

  A flash of movement. A streak of wood.

  And Silence felt something in his palm.

  Another reaction so fast Silence didn’t perceive it. Glover had swung a broken piece of the pallet, and Silence had somehow caught it.

>   He remembered how, earlier, he’d disarmed Doughty, the primary street thug outside Mrs. Enfield’s house, how he hadn’t even realized what he’d done. It was like that again.

  Another instinctive, instantaneous, unfelt action, and the board was torn from Glover’s hand. Silence threw it into the darkness. A moment later came the echoing racket of it landing somewhere in the distance.

  Silence aimed his Beretta at Glover’s chest.

  Glover’s boots scratched at the floor as he pushed himself farther back into the destroyed remains of the pallet. His shaking arms shielded his face.

  “No! Shit! Please! I … I told you everything!”

  Had he? Had Glover really told him everything he knew?

  Silence wasn’t so sure.

  He thought again of the street thugs who had been harassing Mrs. Enfield. Lee, the young one, the blind follower. Silence had made good use of his destroyed voice by saying one word to Lee, a single syllable that could get other people to do the talking for him.

  He said it again.

  “Talk.”

  Glover’s mouth fell open, and he gasped. His eyes bulged as a look of disbelief fell over him, as though Silence’s peculiar growling voice was inconceivable.

  And while the voice had clearly intimidated Glover, Silence’s command to Talk had simply made the man cower more. Maybe sometimes Silence was going to need to add a little extra incentive to his one-syllable command.

  He aimed the Beretta lower, at Glover’s knee: crystal-clear non-verbal communication.

  Glover kicked hard at the floor, pressing himself further into the broken boards. “I swear to God! I told you everything!”

  Okay. Silence believed him. There was sincerity in his fear. Silence had siphoned every bit of useful information from Glover.

  Time to switch gears. His work for the Watchers was done.

  Now, a little me time.

  It was time to kill another one of C.C.’s murderers.

  Glover had kicked C.C. while she was on the floor. He’d turned it into a dance. Hands on his hips. Legs flailing. Laughing.