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

Both of the Lincoln’s front windows were down, and the fed had his stupid arm dangling outside as he looked into the port, drumming his fingers on the nice, freshly waxed paint. Every now and then, Tanner could hear the man’s class ring tapping against his Lincoln.

Tanner’s teeth ground together.

“Burton’s meeting with international terrorists,” he said. “He won’t be going to the airport, not with the security, especially on the night of a popular festival with people flying in from out of state and from other countries. I’ve called in units to both here and the airport, just in case, but this is where we’ll find him—the port.”

The sounds of the festival carried over from a few blocks away. The air wasn’t too warm, but it was thick and made his skin moist. They drove through the various buildings and patches of light. Tall metal things—spires and round tubes with pipes and electrical cords coming out of them.

“What exactly are we looking for?” Pace said as he continued to stare out the window.

Tanner’s teeth clenched harder. He really wanted to tell this guy to shut up.

But before he could, he saw something. Motion at the cargo containers in the back corner.

He pointed. “There!”

In one of the aisles between the containers, two figures were silhouetted against the orangish glow of light. One of the men stood over the other, who was lying on the rain-slicked ground. Something was going down. Something bad.

They were just shadowy figures in the dark distance, but Tanner recognized them. He’d been studying them both for months.

The man standing was Lukas Burton.

And the man on the ground, the larger silhouette, was someone Tanner would recognize anywhere.

“Shit. It’s Jake,” Tanner said. “Doesn’t look like his revenge turned out the way he’d hoped.”

He flipped on the emergency light and floored the gas.

Chapter Seventy-One

“Plastic surgery?” Burton said as he stared down at Hudson. “Is that it?”

Hudson nodded.

“Well, damn, you sure got your money’s worth, Pete.”

He cocked his head as a realization came to him.

“Why do I keep calling you Pete? I’m guessing ‘Pete Hudson’ was an alias, because you’re clearly no more a car thief than you are a federal agent. You’re a pro. An assassin. Are you working for one of my father’s old enemies? Have you come to kill Jacques Sollier’s son?”

No reply.

“I’m following in the old man’s footsteps,” he said, gesturing to the port surrounding them. “But I never even got to know the guy. Jacques met my mother here, at this port. This is where she worked.”

He snickered and looked off, into the port. Memories of his mother working at the very place he was standing reminded him that he’d never left Pensacola. Unworthiness fell over him again. Momentarily. Then he straightened his back, remembered the bigger goal.

And returned his attention to the man on the ground.

This assassin was deadly, the sort you didn’t turn your back on for a moment.

Burton continued. “He knocked her up and left, sent money every six months. Only visited twice before my mother was killed. No one ever figured out whether the murder was random or connected to Jacques. Regardless, from then on, I was on my own.

“I don’t remember my first meeting with my father. I was only five. But I clearly recall the second visit, when I was eight, about a year before my mom died. Big guy. He had this sort of dignified power to him—the way he dressed and carried himself. Different from the Americans I was used to. Classy. He took me to a park, asked me about my studies, fed me at a fancy French restaurant downtown, taught me the history of a few buildings, and had me back to Mom before dinnertime. Last time I ever saw him. He was killed, too, a few years later.

“I was in and out of foster homes. Got in some trouble. Got arrested a few times. Then a chance meeting with Joey Farone changed my life. At a fruit market, of all places. He saw the potential in me, took me in as a ward for my last year of legal childhood. From then on, I was with the Farones, and I had a real poppa. Then you came in, posing as a car thief, and won the favor of my new father—and his beautiful daughter—in a few months!”

Burton stopped. He felt out of control. That wouldn’t do. He was always composed. He took a deep breath before he continued.

“Whatever you were doing embedded with the Farones, you had us all fooled. Who are you?”

Still no reply.

Burton felt the corners of his standard grin twitch, ready to curl into a scowl. He took out his Smith.

“You’ll forgive me for wanting to know a man’s name before I blast him to Hell. What’s your name?”

The man squinted those dark eyes at him, and his face screwed tight, eyebrows lowering. He locked eyes with Burton.

“Silence Jones.”

Burton felt the gun dip in his hand. He gasped.

That voice…

So bizarre. Unnatural. Deep, crackling, and growly. Macabre and wicked. Inhuman—not so much animalistic as it was mechanical.

The voice jolted Burton back a couple inches. He reaffirmed his grip on the Smith, brought it back up.

He realized his smile was gone. Revealing his shock. Lessening his dominance. So he smiled again.

“Well, Mr. Silence Jones, you’ve stolen so much from me—my poppa, his daughter, my funds in New Orleans, and the passports tonight, my chance at something bigger. It’s finally time to even the score.”

He pulled back the hammer.

Chapter Seventy-Two

On a normal evening, Laswell would be enjoying his time at Pensacola Bayfront Auditorium.

It was a massive, squarish arena-style building—maybe fifty feet tall, brick, windowless, and with a gabled roof, built at the end of a pier, surrounded on three sides by Pensacola Bay. Gentle nighttime waves twinkled with city light as they lapped against the pier’s concrete wall.

But while Laswell leaned against the decorative fence at the quiet walkway surrounding the building, he wasn’t enjoying the splendid sights or the