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

He blinked.

Which made him realize he’d lost track of whether his eyes were open. It was that dark. And relaxing.

Still, it wasn’t working.

Where was the transcendental experience?

Ugh. He wanted to climb out. This was silly. Ridiculous. And also dangerous, given the seriousness of the situation, which sent a flood of panic over him.

C.C. would tell him to relax, to breathe, to give it a chance to work.

He took a deep breath. Diaphragmatic.

That’s what he was supposed to do, anyway, to get this thing to work—in the pod, one is supposed to focus on one’s breathing and stop thinking.

He couldn’t stop thinking. It wasn’t in his nature, and his entire purpose of doing this float was to think his way through his problem.

Burton.

There was something to all of this that Silence was missing. But what? 8 p.m. tonight. That was the time Glover had given, the time that Burton was to meet with an unknown connection, someone with incredible power. A meeting that had devastating ramifications.

But why?

Why were they meeting?

His eyes opened. They’d been closed, and he didn’t realize it. He didn’t see the ceiling above him, but he knew it was there.

He wasn’t in a sensory-free environment. He was in a damn plastic bubble in one of his bedrooms, the one with a half-finished wall.

He was in a twenty-five-thousand-dollar bubble.

This was silly.

Valuable time was ticking away.

This wasn’t working.

Dammit!

No transcendental experience. No hallucinations. No out-of-body clarity to help him reach his conclusion.

Nothing.

What would C.C. think?

He blinked.

C.C.

He saw her.

Smiling. Looking up from a book. On one of the sofas in the library. Her spot. Shapely legs crossed in front of her. Her favorite blanket—a gray-and-blue quilt—tucked under her arm.

She fell from the sofa.

Onto the hardwood floor.

And rolled twice. Stopped. Her face was gone. Blood and tissue. The area where her mouth should be opened up. And the monster version of C.C. screamed.

Jake screamed too.

Jake, not Silence.

He ran toward her, his feet thudding on the floor, never gaining, treading in place as she grew farther and farther away. Smaller. Disappearing down a wooden tunnel that stretched farther and farther before him. She was a red blur. Then a dot on the horizon. Gone.

He reached, couldn’t grab her.

Silence’s eyes opened.

He gasped.

His legs twitched, which brought movement back to the water, making him bob again. His left shoulder gently brushed the wall.

This thing actually works.

But he needed to refocus, to come back to the assignment. He was Silence, not Jake. And he had to stop Burton. Not just for revenge, not just for C.C.

Massive ramifications. Countless lives at risk.

Focus.

Burton. Focus on Burton

Where had he left off?

Before he could answer himself, his eyes were closed again, and he slipped into another memory. His last moments in Virginia. After all his hard work—Training complete.

He was back in that dreary little room as he received the details of his first assignment, just before he returned to Florida and killed Clayton Glover.

Chapter Fifty-Nine

The room was filthy.

A kitchenette on the lefthand side revealed its previous identity as a break room—battered cabinetry with drooping doors; a teetering refrigerator, whose doors dangled as much as those of the cabinets; a cobweb-coated stainless-steel sink.

Silence was alone, at the long table in the center of the room. He’d found one of the cleanest chairs, but he’d still had to wipe away dust and chunks of ceiling tile.

The decayed quasi-neighborhood was visible through the grimy window. A man prodded a shopping cart along the far sidewalk, the only sign of life. The sky was a lighter gray than it had been, and a bright spot at its peak showed the sun’s location. The temperature had risen a couple degrees in recent days.

A late model Cadillac sat near the sidewalk that led to the building, the subdued sunlight glistening off its immaculate black shine. The windows were tinted pitch-black. Vapor puffed from its exhaust tips.

Falcon burst through the door in the back of the room, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. He came to an abrupt stop, scowled, and gave the small room a visual sweep.

“She’s late. Dammit, Nakiri.” He groaned, and his shoulders dropped an inch. “She’s one of my problem children. You seem pretty bullheaded yourself. You gonna give me troubles too?”

Probably, Silence thought.

But he said nothing. He wasn’t gonna lie, but more importantly, he didn’t want to speak. Overall, his throat was improving, but it had good days and bad days. Today was a bad day.

Falcon strolled around the table, his shoes crunching the rotten linoleum. He stopped for a moment to look through the window at the urban wasteland, then flopped his briefcase on the table, pulled out the chair across from Silence, and wiped it clear of debris.

Silence glanced at Falcon’s suit—dark blue, pinstriped. There was no way that perfunctory chair-cleaning was going to keep the dust off that expensive wool.

Falcon saw something in his expression and gave his customary grin, the corner of his mouth lifting both his mustache and the unlit cigarette.

“I know what you’re thinking: why the hell do the Watchers keep such a shithole place? As you could see from the medical facility below ground, we’re not short on funds. But we have to keep up appearances if we’re going to remain hidden in plain sight.” He pointed to the window, the rough neighborhood beyond. “It’s not always glamorous.”

He pointed to the cigarette.

“You mind?”

Silence shook his head, but he minded. Smoke bothered him.

Falcon reached into his pocket and took out a cheap gas station lighter. A couple flicks, and the end of the cigarette glowed orange. He smiled with genuine contentment as he inhaled.

Suddenly switching gears, he pivoted forward, clicked open his briefcase, and retrieved a holstered pistol. He shoved it across the table in Silence’s direction.

Silence stopped it with a palm, popped the gun from its holster, examined.

“Your new buddy,” Laswell said and took a drag from his Marlboro. “Beretta 92FS, 9 mm, standard Asset sidearm. Fifteen and one with the standard mag; up to thirty-two and one with high-capacity. Open-slide. Short-recoil. And, naturally,