The Preying Doctor by Nadia Siddiqui (most recommended books .TXT) 📗

advance that nobody seems to look at him. People ride busses because it’s cheap and usually because they want to be left alone. Nathan hasn’t ever been on a long bus ride in which he has spoken to another soul.

However, a plane would be nice every now and then.

He wouldn’t even be opposed to having a rental car situation. Something that would give him something to do other than sleep.

This mission the company has sent him on today doesn’t have too much information other than a string of deaths at a couple local hospitals. None of the victims have anything in common and they don’t have records. They are simply people who go into surgeries and then never come out again. More often than not they are unclaimed people without family that the hospital will mark as “John Doe” or “Jane Doe”. Which hits home for Nathan as that’s the only semblance of a history and personality that he can remember having.

After his last assignment, the company has offered him the first scrap on his long trail to possible retirement. Not that the end of his contract is anywhere in sight, but he has been allowed to know his real name. Dylan Ramsey. Nathan has tried to say it out loud a handful of times, but it doesn’t feel right on his tongue. It’s hard to know that he has a name other than the one he’s comfortable with. Nathan wears his “Doe” identification like a badge of honor. It’s a small elite group of task hunters like him. While this Ramsey person likely has had a family, or friends, or parents of some kind that might have once known him, Nathan doesn’t feel any attachment to it. Is that simply because he’s had that portion of his mind either wiped or locked away? Would he feel differently if he could remember even a small portion of that life? Would it make a difference? It’s the sort of throbbing ache that no amount of medication can help stem. The sort that builds until sunlight is no longer an option and he needs to sleep it off. Only Nathan doesn’t have that luxury. He doesn’t have the option of going to nap somewhere until he feels better. He should call the company and let them know that he’s feeling unwell to see if that will trade him any sort of leniency for any unforeseen setbacks that might occur due his change in physical health. Though likely they would just have him stop in to a contact somewhere and have them inject him with something that would assist in his ability to focus more properly.

When he steps off the bus, he wants to fall backward from the intensity of the sunlight outside. There will be a rental car waiting for him like there always is. It will sit somewhere that he can collect it and all of the information for the identity he’s supposed to be assuming will be placed in a duffle bag in the back of a locked truck. It will be an inconspicuous car, something small and slightly out of date. It will be the sort of car that nobody will look twice at because Nathan isn’t here to be noticed. He’s here for a mission and that mission only.

Until this point he hasn’t been offered a plethora of information as to the case he’s supposed to be solving, other than he’s not supposed to go to the hospital. Apparently, the place where the corrupted doctor works as well as the hospital that he rotates through are both state of the art. Both of them have top-of-the-range security systems in place that would record every inch of their interactions. While the company was perfectly capable of interceding the video logs it would be impossible to tell when things have been manipulated or changed if it were to go into a court situation, which still wouldn’t prove that anybody like Nathan had anything to do with it, but it could be a potential headache somewhere down the line.

So instead he is going to go another route. Finding the car in the otherwise abandoned parking lot is simple. It’s the only black car he can see including those of the employees. Nathan opens the truck and pulls out the sealed manila envelope from where it was tucked under the duffle bag and goes to the front to read the contents in the comfort of the air conditioning.

Though it’s harder to focus this time. It’s hard not to think about the location they have told him he’s from. It’s hard not to think of what it must look like and if that was why he’s never been on a mission to Muncie, Indiana. Have other Doe operatives been assigned there in his place? If he went there in person, would it feel familiar to him? Would he recognize it or, even more importantly, would somebody recognize him? Nathan’s never paused to think about the possible qualifications that the company has before selecting its operatives. What boxes would have been checked in his paperwork? Was he selected for service due to accomplishments or was it random?

Focus Nathan.

Nowhere he’s ever been has ever felt like home. Does he really want to imagine himself as one of those guys who lives in their hometowns their entire life? He doesn’t want to think that could possibly be true about him. Nathan doesn’t think he has ever been a sports guy. He’s slightly above average height and the sort of passing attractive that could make himself look very presentable should he need to draw that sort of attention to himself, but while dressed in average clothing he is exactly that, just average. He has good bone structure and a frame covered in enough muscles to make him lethal should the situation call for it. He doesn’t think that in any world he would be beefy enough to