The Suppressor by Erik Carter (best free novels .txt) 📗

“No,” Tanner said. “He’s still out there. Somewhere. I can feel it.”

Chapter Forty-Eight

Burton strolled through the large office suite that the Farone family had secretly maintained for many years. It was so secretive that most non-family members of the organization—even high-ranking individuals like himself—never knew of its existence.

But Burton had a way of rooting out the truth.

The facility was no longer a secret to him.

It was his.

Whereas the other, well-known location printed counterfeit cash, this one produced more elaborate documents—driver’s licenses, social security cards, birth and death certificates.

And passports, Burton’s chief interest in the place.

White walls. Drapes that were permanently down, tacked to the bottoms of the windows. A drop tile ceiling with rows of fluorescent lights.

The floor was filled not with cubicles and desks and swivel office chairs but with large plotters—elaborate, expensive devices used for sophisticated printing jobs, some of them humming, some of them screeching, the sounds melding into a surprisingly comforting din.

A chemical scent perfumed the air, and it was also surprisingly pleasant. Maybe this was simply a case of association—perhaps Burton had grown to associate the tangy scent of ink with his upcoming successes.

Success aside, since Burton took over the press some weeks back, there had been copious hurdles to overcome at the converted office space. To gain his power, he’d had to kill off most of the Farone contingent in one fell swoop—that fateful night when he’d made his arrangement with the Rojas. In the process, though, he’d also killed off most, if not all, of the people who knew how to operate this facility.

And it was a challenge to get his guys to figure them out. First, they weren’t the smartest of fellas. Second, Pete Hudson and Christie had killed off all but one of his original lieutenants, leaving only Glover. And third, the new underlings he’d brought on were idiots.

He stepped behind one of them, a scrawny, a white trash-looking guy in a threadbare, yellow-stained T-shirt. His name was Maxwell.

Burton silently held out a hand; he didn’t need to say anything. Maxwell handed him a passport.

They’d used Glover’s photo on the test run. Next to Glover’s image on the inside of the passport was the biographical information. He was listed as Reagan, Ronald, and his address was 123 Fake Street.

Burton turned the document over in his hand, squinting at it.

They were getting closer. But they weren’t quite there.

His cellular phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket, flipped it open.

“Burton.”

It was his most important client, the one whose need for the passports was most pressing.

Burton looked at the passport in his hand as he replied, turning it over, studying it. “Wonderful to hear from you, my friend. Yes, certainly we’re getting closer. The fonts are flawless, as is the ink match. We’re very close on the security features, which I know was your primary worry. At the moment, the issue slowing us down is the covers.”

He closed the passport, ran his thumb across the cover’s blue texture. Too smooth. It needed to be slightly rougher.

His client expressed concern about the timeliness of the order.

“Don’t fret. We’re still figuring these machines out, but it’ll get done in time. I’ve got some real quick learners working for me.”

He looked at Maxwell as he said that, whose dull-looking face was again squinting at the screen.

Never hurts to stretch the truth a tad, he thought.

But despite some of his more lackluster talent, Burton wasn’t lying when he said the order would be ready on time. Burton knew how to persuade people.

His client asked if there was anything else that might impede progress.

“Nothing will get in the way,” Burton said. “The only distraction left for us here is a few remaining Farone-faithful, a couple pods of them still embedded in the region.”

He grinned at the thought of slaughtering them.

“But I’m tying up those loose ends very soon.”

Chapter Forty-Nine

Jake hadn’t realized he’d woken up.

But somehow, as his senses returned, he found himself propped up in the bed, pillows behind his back, looking about the small dark room, at all the medical machinery. For how long? He’d simply faded back into existence, which made him suspect that they—whoever “they” were—had brought him out of sedation again.

He glanced at the plastic handcuffs binding his arms to the bed’s handrails and saw that both arms were now free of bandages, except for a tiny, fresh-looking patch of gauze on his right arm, about two inches squared. His arm hair had been shaved and was growing back in.

Gone, too, was the cast on his left forearm. He pressed the forearm’s bulge of muscle into the handrail, and, as he expected, it was doughy from atrophy. Curious, he also pressed his right forearm into the opposite handrail. While it wasn’t pure mush like the left, it had also gone soft. He’d been in this bed for some time.

The only remaining bandages were in a small mound taped to his right shoulder. If the dressings had been removed from his upper body, then maybe…

He bent at the waist and leaned his face toward one of his restrained hands, touched his cheek.

Yes, his face was now bandage-free as well. His fingers explored. Scratchy stubble, but only a couple day’s worth. Someone had been shaving him. The skin surrounding the stubble was smooth and supple, almost rubbery.

He traced along his cheekbone, which bulged from his face. Must have lost a lot of weight for the bone to protrude so severely. It felt strange, foreign.

He reclined again, and this brought a tiny ache from his right arm. He looked. The pain had come from the patch of gauze midway up the inside of his right forearm.

Light flooded the room, and he squinted. The mustached man entered, closed the door behind him. He stopped at the foot of the bed, put his hands in the pockets of his suit pants, and gave a big smile.

“Welcome back, Mr. Rowe. I hope you’re feeling well, all things considered. Have you tried to speak?”

Jake shook his head.

“Try now.”

As Jake