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

He stepped beside Jake, pointed at the word Specialists in his diagram.

“Next we have Specialists. The lifeblood of the Watchers and by far the greatest in numbers. Some work in government; some are in the private sector. These are the weapons-providers, the bankers who funnel our funds into secret accounts, the attorneys who find the loopholes we need, the logistics professionals who’ll provide your housing and transportation.

“But most importantly, among the Specialists are the investigators, the ones who scour through countless records and reports to find people who have escaped the justice they deserve, the people we eliminate.

“Now that brings us to the lowest rung, the bottom of the barrel, the low-end of the pecking order. The Assets. You.”

Falcon grinned and tapped his finger on Assets, way on the bottom of the page.

“Notice that while both Specialists and Assets fall directly below Prefects, I’ve put Assets well below Specialists. Should you choose to accept our offer, you won’t report to the Specialists, but they’ll be your superiors. Don’t forget that.

“Assets are the ones who get their hands dirty. All of the fact-finding and resource-management of the Specialists; all of the leadership of the Prefects; all of the decision-making from the Captains … eventually it all boils down to field work carried out by assassins. We call you Assets because, I’ll be frank, you don’t have a high survival rate. You folks are tools used to get the job done. If you live, super!, but statistically speaking, the odds aren’t great.”

Wonderful, Jake thought.

“Unlike Specialists, Prefects, and Captains, who’ve all been selected for high moral character, Assets have been rescued. They’re people who became violent criminals—typically murderers like you—but did so for righteous reasons.

“When we find a person like this, we have a decision to make: Was the person fully justified? Or was their crime so violent that it skirted the line between righteous and wicked?

“If we decide the crime was fully justified—say, a woman who killed her husband after he beat their daughter to death—we hook the person up with a new identity, a new life, and set them free. We call this a Benevolent Cause, a BC. Kind of the reverse of what we normally do, in that we’re getting someone out of their punishment.

“But if the crime was particularly brutal, it’s not right to just set the person free. In this case, we do one of three things: we let the system have them, we arrange alternate justice, or we offer them a path to freedom in the form of joining us as an assassin.”

Falcon stopped then. His perpetual grin went away, and his face became as serious as Jake had yet seen it.

“You murdered four people. Over several hours. Yes, they took your girl, and of course I sympathize. Had you blasted a guy in the heat of the moment, I absolutely would have made you a Benevolent Cause, put you in witness protection, gotten you a new start somewhere else in the country.

“But you just kept on killing. And killing … and killing. And you were a cop, man! That’s why we’re offering you this opportunity. Join us as an Asset—or we’ll leave you to your fate, which, by the way, is grim. Remember what I told you the first time we met? Life in prison or the electric chair, no doubt about it.”

Jake didn’t reply.

“As an Asset, we’ll give you a new identity, just like we do for BCs,” Falcon continued. “Typically we move Assets across the country, far away from where anyone would ever recognize them. But we had a unique opportunity with you. Burton’s guys really tore the shit out of your face. Just really destroyed you. So when the plastic surgeon put you back together—that would be one of the Specialists we just talked about—he reconstructed you into a whole new man.” He chuckled. “The doc’s a big shot out in Beverly Hills. You got some world-class work done and didn’t even know it.”

He took the mirror from the top of the monitor. Paused.

“This is going to be startling. You’re a new person. You need to be prepared.”

Jake nodded.

Falcon brought the mirror closer, turned it to face him.

And Jake gasped.

Falcon was right. Nothing could prepare him for this.

He breathed rapidly. His heart instantly jackhammered. And for some reason, he crawled back in the bed, as if he could escape the reflection.

“Calm,” Falcon said. All trace of that consistent smug, coy quality of his was gone. This was a man well trained in mediation. “Deep breaths. Calm. Calm.”

Jake’s feet kicked at the mattress as he pushed away from the mirror.

This wasn’t him in the mirror. And yet, as he moved, the reflection moved with him, this face of sharp angles, bulging cheekbones, a prominent jawline, square chin. His nose was smaller, straighter. His lips were much fuller and more full of color, and overall his mouth was narrower.

“Calm,” Falcon said. “Breathe.”

Jake complied, took a deep breath.

Falcon extended the mirror toward him, offering it. He gave an encouraging nod.

Jake squeezed the shake from his fingers and took the mirror.

He turned his face, studied it. While his forehead and the area between his eyebrows were perfectly smooth with no lines to indicate a furrow, he still looked rather pouty, like this new face was going to be stuck on a permanent state of brood. Like a Calvin Klein underwear model.

His hand was still shaking, but his heartbeat had slowed.

He sighed.

Well, he did wear Calvin Klein underwear. Perhaps it was fitting.

Wait.

The mole.

He ran his fingers along the right corner of his jaw. Smooth skin interrupted only by his stubble.

At least they got rid of the damn mole.

“Ol’ Sawbones really went to town on you, didn’t he?” Falcon said, smug once more. “I think he really enjoyed himself. Probably the first time he’s ever had a clean slate like this. I mean, your face was pretty much hamburger when we found you. Doc turned you into some sort