The Suppressor Erik Carter (books suggested by bill gates TXT) đ
- Author: Erik Carter
Book online «The Suppressor Erik Carter (books suggested by bill gates TXT) đ». Author Erik Carter
Falcon laughed heartily, hands on his knees. After a moment of this, he straightened up and took the mirror from Jake, placed it back on top of the monitor. He returned his hands to his pockets.
âSo with your new, completely unrecognizable face, weâre gonna leave you right where you are, in Pensacola. Assets are spread throughout the country, regionally, and weâve needed someone in Florida for some time. Weâve stretched our Atlanta Asset really thin for several years. Youâre gonna be our Florida man.â He laughed. âYouâve heard about that, right? The whole âFlorida Manâ thing?â
Jake nodded.
Of course he had.
Florida was a quirky place that attracted a lot of quirky people. As such, the âFlorida Manâ phenomenon had arisenâa preponderance of whacky headlines, rather embarrassing to residents of the Sunshine State, that were then collected and shared nationally and internationally.
Florida Man Tackles Gator to Regain Stolen Can of Beer
Florida Man Attempts Robbery Using Green Plastic Water Gun
Florida Man Backs Trailer Into Police Headquarters
Falcon had started chuckling again. The guy sure did laugh a lot.
âYouâll cover most Florida assignments. But that doesnât mean youâll always be in the sand and sun. Weâll need you elsewhere, as needs demand. So you might be in Tampa for a week. Then the Keys for a month or two. Then you might find yourself in the middle of Montana for a while. Make sense?â
Jake nodded.
âAnd before you get any bright ideas about taking advantage of our generosity and making a run for the border or something, do know that weâre always watching you. We are the Watchers, after all. Thereâs a GPS dot in your arm.â
Jake looked at the small bandage on his forearm.
Ah. Mystery solved.
âNow, itâs a tradition of ours to let Assets choose their new first name,â Falcon said. âWhatâll yours be?â
Jake thought.
And a name immediately came to his mind.
A word.
âSilence,â Jake said.
Falcon pursed his lips, clicked his teeth. âSilence? What the hell kind of name is that? Maybe Ryan? Sam? Gordon?â
C.C. in the ocean, to her knees, the waves tossing the bottom of her sarong, beckoning him toward her, the water, so warm.
Quiet, sheâd said. Be here. With me. In this moment. Right now. This moment. Silence.
Jake swallowed.
âSilence,â he said again.
Falcon shrugged. âSilence it is.â He sighed, stroked his mustache. âYouâre not gonna be a problem child for me, are you? I put my neck out to bring you in. All right, all right. I usually throw some mundane, standard last name to go with the first name a new Asset chooses. Letâs call youâŠâ
He trailed off and looked toward the drop tile ceiling. His mustache twisted as he thought.
âJones. Silence Jones.â
Silence Jones.
It had a ring to it.
âYouâll be Asset 23. Or, A-23.â
C.C. would have been alarmed. Among her many esoteric interests was numerology, and a few months ago sheâd told him about the 23 Enigma, a phenomenon that suggested the number twenty-three had a negative aura.
A cursed pair of digitsâŠ
That was a hell of a number to be assigned as an assassin with a short life-expectancy.
âI also have the great honor of bestowing codenames,â Falcon said. âYou know, typical tough-sounding things, like sports teams or fighter pilot call signs. âShark.â âMaddog.ââ His eyes twinkled with a thought. âAnd since youâre gonna call yourself Silence, your codename will be Suppressor.â
He grinned broadly.
âSilencer. Suppressor. Get it? Eh? Eh?â
Yes, yes. Another name for a gunâs silencer was a suppressor.
Amusing, but not as hilarious as Falcon seemed to think.
âHereâs our offer,â Falcon continued. âYou killed four men. Join us as an Asset, or go to prison. Simple as that. The offer is provisional upon passing your training, of course, as well as successful completion of your first assignment. And, because Iâm such a generous fella, Iâll sweeten the deal even moreâyour first assignment will be finishing what you started: we need you to eliminate Lukas Burton.
âThis is your last chance to bail, no strings attached. Do you accept our offer?â
The man in the hospital bed, the man who been Jake Rowe, the man who was now in a strange, momentary limbo between identities, considered the proposal.
They wanted him to be an assassin.
Could he do that?
Could he be a killer?
Immediately his mind offered hesitancy, put a wall in front of him, reminded him that he didnât even kill spiders he found in his living room.
But then he thought of the Watchersâ mission that Falcon had just described. Benevolent killings. Righting wrongs.
He thought of people heâd encountered during his one year as a police officer. Bastards whoâd gotten away with rotten, horrible things. People who couldnât be touched, even when they looked you in the eye and told you without telling you that theyâd done it.
Thatâs right, theyâd say with a cold expression, pinched eyebrows, a cocky grin. I did it, and thereâs nothing you can do about it.
C.C. had once told him her view on sponsored killings, a view that had surprised him. Murder, sheâd said, was supposedly the most irrefutable, universally accepted offense among all cultures of humanity. And yet all nations went to war. And many nations had policies of capital punishment. One personâs justified killing was another personâs murder, and the definition wasnât as clear-cut as people would hope, C.C. had said.
He leaned his face toward his tethered hand and ran his fingers along his cheek, felt the sharp ridge of that prominent cheekbone once more. This face wasnât his. But, then, the name wasnât his either. Silence Jones. This future, also, wasnât his, a future without C.C.
The old face, the prior name, the future with C.C.âall of that had been Zack Rowe.
If he was a new person, then he could take on a new life.
He could become a righteous assassin.
And, besides, they were giving him his chance to finish off Burton.
With resources and support.
He looked at Falcon. Swallowed.
âLetâs do it.â
Falcon grinned.
âWelcome aboard, Silence Jones.â
Chapter Fifty
Laswell paused, giving Briggs a chance to digest all that had been said. The point in the story at which heâd initiated the new
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