The Suppressor by Erik Carter (good books to read for beginners .txt) 📕

Across his deep porch, down the steps, onto the sidewalk.

The Mercury Sable that had been his ride for two weeks since returning to Pensacola—compliments of the Watchers—was parked in the drive between his house and Mrs. Enfield’s. He rushed toward it, checked his watch.

7:06.

It would take him about five minutes to get to the docks. He had time. Plenty of time. But Nakiri had taught him that there was never enough time, so he would need to—

“Hey!”

A figure stalked toward him, from the street. Arms at mid-chest level, holding a sawed-off shotgun.

Doughty.

Silence’s immediate reaction wasn’t panic or shock or even dread.

It was frustration.

He’d just figured out the connection, how to stop a terrorist plot against the nation; how to complete his first Watchers assignment, securing a future for himself in this new identity he’d obtained; how to get his revenge against the man who murdered his fiancée and destroyed his life.

And now he was being confronted by a damn street thug.

But quickly those thoughts were replaced by a more rational, primal sense of urgency. He was in danger. Doughty had caught Silence completely off-guard. No time to go for the Beretta. If he did, this guy would cut him down.

He put his hands up.

“You made me look like a fool, old man!”

Doughty continued toward him, steps long and purposeful, crunching in the gravel. His lower lip trembled. His eyebrows were a V.

A small voice came from the side. “Silence? What’s going on?”

Mrs. Enfield, a few feet away, her wrinkled hands clasping her porch’s railing, white eyes blinking rapidly.

Shit.

“Step back, ma’am,” Silence said.

A slice in his throat. He swallowed.

Doughty glanced over, sneering. “Well, hey there, Granny. I’ll get to you when I’m done with your boyfriend here.”

He looked back to Silence, kept pressing forward.

“You done messed up bad, old man. I killed a dude two years ago. Got away with it, too. And I’m not afraid to take another.”

The determination in Doughty’s eyes was as genuine as the shotgun in his hands. Silence had destroyed the punk’s pride earlier, and for a man like this, a man of pure ego, that was tantamount to kicking him in the nuts.

This was a dangerous situation.

But Silence had learned how to stay cool under unexpected pressure. One day during training, Nakiri had shown up two hours early, unannounced—she’d barged into his room and fired three rounds from her pistol into the small stretch of linoleum flooring between his bed and the medical equipment. The sound had been deafening, and the glint in her eye made him certain she’d lost her mind and was going to kill him. He’d jumped back so quickly, the IV ripped from his arm.

Be prepared for anything, she’d said with a maniacal grin as she holstered her Beretta. Never flinch. Don’t be rattled.

Months before that, C.C. had given him similar, albeit gentler, advice. A torrent of duties in his undercover assignment had overwhelmed him, many of the duties dangerous and testing his moral limits. She’d given him a quote: If you remain calm in the midst of great chaos, it is the surest guarantee it will eventually subside.

He’d asked if that quote was from the Dalai Lama. Or Deepak Chopra, perhaps. Nope. An actress. Julie Andrews. Insight comes from a wide variety of sources, she’d told him.

With the wisdom he’d gained from rage-filled Nakiri and peaceful C.C.—by way of Julie Andrews—a gun-toting punk who just crawled out of an El Camino was a threat but nothing to get rattled about.

He kept his gaze locked on Doughty, who was within feet.

He studied the eyes. Doughty meant business. Silence was good at reading people, but he’d slightly underestimated this guy earlier—Doughty may have been undertrained, but he wasn’t lacking in carry-through.

“I’m not afraid to blast you right here, right now,” he said, and Silence believed him. He stopped walking, within a couple feet, close enough that Silence could see the saw-blade markings on the lip of the shotgun’s barrel. “And you think that—”

A flash of Silence’s hand.

Mrs. Enfield screamed.

Again, Silence had moved without knowing. The cold steel of the shortened barrel was in his hand, and without pause, his fist flew toward Doughty, cracking him across the jaw with a wet crunch.

Doughty crumbled, torso twisted, face in the gravel.

Silence tossed the shotgun into the bushes beside his house, crouched, reached for the worn pattern in the back pocket of Doughty’s jeans—the bulge of a wallet.

The wallet was even more worn-out than the jeans, its leather slick and corners rounded. It was jammed with candy bar wrappers, credits cards, receipts, but only a few greenbacks.

He removed the driver’s license.

MANUEL DOUGHTY

455 PREVUE AVENUE

APT 302

MOBILE, ALABAMA

Still crouched, Silence leaned into Doughty’s groaning face, put the license an inch in front of his eyes.

“Keeping this.” He swallowed. “Know where you live.” He swallowed. “Don’t come back here.”

Doughty’s eyes snapped open. He bolted up. A fist caught Silence on the jaw.

Mrs. Enfield screamed again.

Silence shuffled in the gravel and fell to his back.

Doughty jumped on him, and, as before, Silence flushed with frustration, but not fear. The man’s weight felt like nothing as Silence caught him by the shoulders and slammed him back to the ground.

Doughty’s arm went up, a pathetic attempt at a strike. Silence twisted the arm behind his back.

Doughty yelped.

Keeping Doughty’s wrists in his hand, Silence slid over, stones grinding his knees through his jeans. He straddled the other man and pressed his face into the gravel as he pulled the arm farther and farther back. Popping noises. Tendons, cartilage beginning to tear.

He heard Mrs. Enfield. Muffled, distant.

Silence envisioned what could have happened if he’d not been there. The old, blind woman in fear. Or hurt. Or dead. In a huge puddle of her blood.

C.C. in a pile of her blood. Dead. Because of men like this, like this piece of human filth that Silence was pressing into the earth, this piece of shit.

He could rid the world of this waste, rub it out of this reality. For Mrs. Enfield. For