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

Silence glanced at his watch.

Only three more hours.

And Silence had nothing to help him figure out what was going to happen. No additional intel. No contacts to reach out to. No stacks of research materials. The only tool available to Silence that evening was his own mind.

Mrs. Enfield had gone quiet again. Finally she said, “Why don’t you talk?”

“You know.”

“Because of the pain. Yes, I know why you say so few words. What I’m asking is why don’t you talk? You say so little with those few words you speak. This ... event you mentioned, the thing that happened to you—why not share it with someone, maybe an old, blind widow with no kids, no family, not much longer for this world. You’ll feel better. Come, now, share with me.”

Cecilia. 

C.C. 

A pool of blood filled with long, dark hair. 

Body still warm, getting colder.

“It was … very bad,” Silence said.

Mrs. Enfield smiled painfully. “On your time, son. On your time.” She held up the pear. “Did you rinse it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs. Enfield nodded and took a bite, then used the pear to make a sweeping gesture at the neighborhood before them. “How did you end up here, Silence?”

Silence looked beyond the porch. Directly across from them was a house he’d learned was built in the ’20s, though the average person wouldn’t know it to look at it, so thorough were the updates. A two-story addition was in the back, and through the windows there were glimpses of high-end furnishings and a happy family in the living room, a conversation full of laughter.

Beside that was the street’s largest house, two stories of modern design—sharp angles, towering windows.

On the corner was another newer house, more traditional, smaller and a bit more modest.

The street was empty but for a woman pushing a baby carriage and talking on a cellular phone. Her conversation was as pleasant, as laughter-filled as that of the family beyond the window on the other side of the street.

“Lucked out,” Silence said.

But he said it figuratively. It hadn’t been luck that had brought him there. It hadn’t been luck that stole C.C. from him, that stole his voice, his name, his future, and his past.

Cruelty had done it.

Cruelty had beaten C.C. to a bloody mess.

Cruelty had murdered her.

And every bit of that cruelty, all the reasons for Silence’s new, destroyed life, were connected to Lukas Burton.

Silence considered once more that he had only one tool that night—his own mind—with which to find Burton.

And stop him.

Chapter Three

A thousand miles away.

Virginia. Somewhere in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, the National Capital Region.

A windowless office, smaller than a child’s bedroom. White walls with copious scuff marks, particularly around the vinyl base molding. The desk was metal and also less than gently used.

It was a room treated with careless disregard, like an unloved, long-suffering rental car, one of many such nondescript offices in a cluster of glass office buildings surrounding an artificially green pond with a fountain in the center. A business park, conveniently located off the interstate highway.

Far away from any governmental facility.

It was the latest of their meeting places. A six-month lease under the name Clocktower Enterprises, LLC. They didn’t stay anywhere for long.

The seat facing the desk was hard, small, and the cushion was less a pancake than it was a crepe, covered with soiled red cloth that felt like burlap. Tony Laswell shifted again, recrossing his legs, taking the pressure off his left ass cheek and putting it on the right.

As he looked at the older man sitting on the other side of the desk—in the slightly posher yet equally budget-friendly swivel desk chair—he considered clearing his throat, obnoxiously, overtly.

But he didn’t need to, because finally Briggs responded. “And when did we get this intel, Falcon?”

Ugh. Falcon. Briggs was insistent on using their codenames, even when it was just the two of them. Briggs got frustrated when Laswell called him by his real name and furious if Laswell addressed him by the title he used in the outside world.

Still, Laswell suspected this was less about sticking to protocol as it was a power trip on Briggs’s part. After all, the guy had named himself Jupiter, as in the Roman king of gods.

Ego, ego, ego.

Laswell checked his watch. “An hour ago, Jupiter,” he said, giving the name a two-handed shove of annoyed sarcasm. “He squeezed the information out of Glover then put a pair of bullets between his eyes.”

Briggs nodded, ran a hand through his bone white hair, and steepled his fingers beneath his nose, squinting slightly. He looked to the side, as though through a window, a spot on the wall where a window might be in a grander office.

Shit. Another one of Briggs’s pauses.

Laswell crossed his legs again. A futile attempt. His entire rear end and his lower back were tingling, falling asleep. If Briggs didn’t stop mulling things over so much, Laswell was going to get permanent nerve damage; he just knew it.

But that’s how Patrick Briggs acted within this organization. Deep. Reflective. Pensive. Out in the real world, Briggs also had to make monumental, life-and-death decisions. Those decisions, however, were seen in the light of day. They were filtered through public scrutiny. Here, Briggs didn’t have the resources he had out there, nor did he have large numbers of associates with whom to share both ideas and accountability.

And for some reason, this made Briggs move slowly.

Very, very slowly.

Thank god Laswell had a flight to catch. Otherwise, this could last all night.

He drummed his fingers on his watch face, willing time to move faster.

Finally, Briggs took his hands from beneath his nose, placed them on his lap. Still looking out the phantom window, he spoke. “And all we have is a time, no location?”

“That’s correct, sir. 2000 Central Time, 2100 here.”

Briggs eased back a French cuff, glanced at his Rolex, grunted. “If Burton is as big of a threat as we’re thinking, our new man has about three hours to stop a catastrophe.” Another pause, a