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

“Why would Jake Rowe be planning on killing Burton here with all these witnesses? Makes no sense. Unless our guy wants to get arrested.”

“The note said 8 p.m.,” Tanner said. “Half an hour after Tristán’s start time. The festival happens once a year, and this is the night Jake goes for his revenge? No, I don’t believe in coincidences. It’ll happen here.”

But as Tanner gave it some more thought, he hated to admit that Pace could be right. The fed had asked another good question—why the hell had Jake chosen tonight?

For a moment, Tanner’s mind mulled over Jake’s great sense of decency and honor. Pace had sarcastically implied that Jake wrote the note because he wanted to be arrested. But maybe the sarcasm was misplaced. Maybe Jake had such a sense of honor that he really did want to be arrested after he completed his revenge.

It made sense, and for a moment, Tanner was starting to believe it. Until he spotted something.

In the distance.

Of course…

His lips parted.

“What is it?” Pace said.

Tanner didn’t reply, just twisted around to the backseat. He grabbed the emergency light, slapped it on the dash, flicked it on, and smashed the horn, swerving past the creeping car in front of him.

Chapter Sixty-Eight

The briefcase in Burton’s hand felt empty.

It was anything but.

The items inside were feather-light, though their symbolic weight was ponderous.

In his other hand was something quite weighty. It was a Maglite—a heavy-duty, anodized aluminum flashlight that, when loaded with big, heavy batteries, became quite substantial. He would need it momentarily.

He was walking through the Port of Pensacola, having gotten access through his special friend who he was about to meet at the shipping containers. An ugly, dreary day had turned into a smoldering beauty of a sunset, which cast a rich aureate glow on everything and gave the utilitarian environment an unduly magnificent aura.

He gave nods to the workers. Some of them in jeans and dingy sweatshirts; others in coveralls. Worker bees, toiling while others partied a few blocks over; rough men with rough stares.

Which made Burton wonder about his old man, Jacques Sollier. Were the ports in Europe—where Jacques spent so much of his time—as rough around the edges as those in the States? Probably not. Everything was classier in Europe—the people, the culture, the quality of life. Burton was often envious of his father, this man he never knew, this man who’d lived the good life in Europe. He imagined Jacques spending an afternoon at a street-side café in Paris, or maybe taking a cruise through the Grecian isles.

And Burton was stuck in America.

Specifically, he was stuck here. Burton had made a name for himself in Pensacola. He had one of the nicest houses on the beach; he drove expensive cars; his name was spoken with reverence among the criminal element. But he was still in Pensacola. Like he’d always been. His entire life.

Was he really so different from the dock workers he’d just scorned?

Unworthiness fell upon him then, thick and heavy, like a dense fog. It did that sometimes.

But, as always, he shook it off, literally, a quick side to side of his head.

He’d have none of that dreary nonsense. Not tonight. Not at his moment of greatness.

He was getting out of this. He would earn a more prosperous, more erudite life. And eventually he would surpass Jacques Sollier. It would take time, but Burton would always have the satisfaction of knowing that he’d reached his dream life through sheer grit.

That dream life was achingly close now, drawing closer with each step he took through the port. Things were escalating, evolving.

Forward, forward, forward.

Progress, progress, progress.

There was a rumble overhead, something the uninitiated might mistake for thunder, a harbinger of rain that would spoil the nearby festival.

But Burton knew better. It wasn’t thunder.

He smirked.

And waited for it.

The sound grew louder. Louder. Until it became a scream.

Six F/A-18 combat jets roared overhead in a tight delta formation, perfectly spaced, contrails streaming behind them in the blazing purple-and-orange sunset. The roaring sound sliced through the sky with a warbling, almost straining quality, as though a demon had ripped a hole in the heavens and strained to tear it asunder. The formation banked to the west, heading back to the Naval Air Station.

There was an eruption of distance-muted cheering from the crowd gathered on Palafox. The Tristán Festival had officially begun.

Which meant Burton had exactly half an hour before his designated meeting time.

He spotted his destination ahead: the large shipping containers.

Which meant he was one step closer to his goal.

Almost there.

He smiled.

He stepped into one of the aisles in the grid-style arrangement of the massive containers, and immediately the environment became darker. A press of the Maglite’s rubber button, and a sphere of clean light joined the faint illumination trickling into the aisle. He went past a half dozen containers before the beam of his flashlight illuminated the stencil-painted serial number he was looking for—CG247.

Here he would wait.

He turned the Maglite off and pressed the button on the side of his watch. The tiny light inside showed the time as 7:32.

Twenty-eight minutes until a new and better life. Then—

He hopped back, heart pounding.

Someone else was there, a few feet away.

A figure half consumed in the shadows next to the container. A tall man wearing all black and pointing a silenced Beretta in Burton’s direction.

The man’s height. His proportions. It was Pete Hudson.

Burton gasped.

The man stepped out of the shadows, and Burton felt both silly and relieved, despite the pistol pointed at him. It wasn’t Pete Hudson. It was someone he’d never seen before. The man had a carved, angular face. Brown eyes. Dark straight hair, strands falling to his cheeks.

A hitman.

Someone had hired this gun, and Burton’s mind instantly went to Glover, which would explain why Burton hadn’t heard from Glover all day, not since he went out to buy some more pussy.

That piece of shit.

Burton never should have trusted the white trash troll. When this was over, he’d track Glover down and have