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

send an electric quiver through his face, an instant headache.

Burton shrieked and dropped back. The grip on Silence’s neck loosened.

That was all the space that Silence needed.

He shoved Burton back and rolled to his feet, a crouched position, his boots digging into the pavement. Burton looked up at him.

And Silence’s foot thudded into the bloody shoulder.

Burton screamed again, shrill echoes shuddering through the alleys of shipping containers.

What else had Nakiri said?

Speed and power, dummy. Get rid of that energy you worked so hard to build. Give it to the scumbag.

He squared a fist, swung it down to Burton’s face, a blur of speed and a flawless transfer of massive energy.

Burton’s nose snapped. His eyes rolled back, cheeks slackened.

Silence grabbed a handful of Burton’s hair and smashed his head into the concrete. A glob of blood shot from the corner of his mouth.

He gripped the hair tighter, and dragged Burton back to the shipping container. Adding his second hand to the hair, he reared back, and threw Burton face-first into the wall.

Bang!

The container thundered louder than when they’d both smashed into it moments earlier. Its sides shook. Burton slid down the corrugated wall, leaving a streak of blood dripping down the rusty metal.

He was a tangled pile. His face was all bumpy mounds of flesh. Purples and reds and one swollen-shut eye. The other eye blinked, looked up at Silence. Sputtering breaths.

Silence remembered C.C.’s mangled, dead face. Half a face. Burton had stolen the rest of it, left it as flaps of skin.

He thought of his own ruined face. Falcon had told him that Burton and his men had turned him into “hamburger.”

Doughty’s face. The street thug who had been harassing Mrs. Enfield. Silence had smashed that face into the ground, much as he’d just done to Burton.

But he’d halted abruptly.

Mrs. Enfield had come up behind him, put her wrinkled hand on his shoulder, told him to stop.

Silence had then added mercy to his assassin’s toolbox, juxtaposing the Nakiri mainstays like stealth and intimidation.

Mercy.

He looked at Burton.

And his mind went to another image: Jake Rowe, in Burton’s living room, just before he was forced to watch the video of C.C.’s murder. Jake had thought about how his predicament—tied to a chair, surrounded by thugs, tortured—bore similarities to a typical Hollywood action movie.

Burton stared back at Silence with his one functioning eye.

In a typical action movie, this would be the point where the good guy would show mercy on the villain, the man he’s been seeking revenge on the entire film. He would let the bad guy go. Then the bad guy would reveal a hidden weapon, and the good guy would defend himself, killing the villain. Our hero would get his revenge but keep his honor.

Whenever Silence saw a revenge film with this sort of climax, he felt unsatisfied. Cheated. That type of ending was a copout.

In his new career as an assassin, Silence would need to know when a situation called for mercy.

But this was not one of those situations.

Burton continued to sputter, blinking rapidly now.

Still conscious.

Good.

Silence stepped to where his Beretta had disappeared and found it in the shadows, resting against a container wall.

He picked it up, went back to Burton, watched the man putter for another moment or two.

Closed his eyes.

C.C., smiling at him from her spot on her favorite sofa in the library, book in hand.

Eyes open.

A one-second meditation.

He raised his gun.

And fired.

Two rounds to the forehead. A double tap.

In a typical action movie, the good guy would be overwhelmed with emotion at this moment. The soundtrack would swell to a thunderous crescendo.

But for Silence, his immediate reaction was anticipation of a delayed reaction. He knew the impact would come later, some time when he wasn’t expecting it. For now, he was numb.

Just a simple thought.

Eight down; none to go.

It’s done.

There was a flash of light, sudden and bright enough to make him jump. He looked up.

Bright blue, strobing.

A cop light.

An unmarked car approached, fast, turning a corner, the light pulsing out of its windshield.

For just a moment, he saw Tanner behind the wheel.

Headlights swung in his direction.

Silence threw a hand over his face and sprinted off.

Chapter Seventy-Four

“You’re gonna lose him!” Pace shouted.

“Shut up!” Tanner said as he swung the Lincoln back around, toward the front of the port.

But Pace was right. The tall silhouette had disappeared in between the shipping containers, and as they’d drawn closer, it had run past them, through a patch of shadows and into the belly of the port.

Finding Jake in this industrial maze would be next to impossible. But that didn’t matter. All Tanner needed to do was head for the gate. Jake would be going toward the exit, of course, and there was only one way out.

The blue light flashed off the windshield in front of him, as the Lincoln’s tires squealed. Tanner gritted his teeth, not so much in determination but at the thought of the damage to the tires. Brand-new Dunlops. He’d just had them installed last week. Martha would flip her lid if he ruined them in one night.

Hell with it.

He yanked the wheel hard, and the Dunlops screeched louder. The tangy smell of burnt rubber filled the cabin.

Jake Rowe was meeting a pair of handcuffs tonight.

A good man whom Tanner had trusted and taken under his wing.

And who then became a murderer.

With all the conflicting emotions running through Tanner’s head, they all led back to one nice, logical conclusion: catch Jake Rowe.

That was the great thing about logic: it always trumps emotion.

The Lincoln’s engine howled as they drove past an administration office on one side and a fenced-in area of barrels to the right.

But no sign of Jake.

Tanner slowed slightly, and he braced for another sarcastic comment from the passenger seat. Instead, Pace shouted, “There!”

Tanner followed Pace’s finger. The shadows ahead. The tall figure of Jake Rowe, sprinting with all he had.

He was only yards from the exit.

Tanner floored the gas again. A chirp from the Dunlops.

At the gate, the guard emerged from his shack,