Blowback (The Silencer Series Book 4) Read online

  Lawson pulled the picture up on her laptop and spun it around so Davenport could see.

  “That’s him,” he said softly, a little stunned.

  “Yes, so I’m heading down there tomorrow to talk with their police commissioner and see what they’ve got on him so far,” Lawson said. “Maybe I can get a read on his behavior and pinpoint where we might find him.”

  “And your goal is to what? Take him out, have a conversation with him, what?”

  “I’d like a chance to talk to him first.”

  It was not the answer Davenport wanted to hear. A displeased look came over his face, still believing taking Smith out was the only option. Mostly because it would look bad on him to bring back an agent who he tried to eliminate. He was worried. If Smith was brought back, Davenport would look even worse in the eyes of his superiors, and who knows, maybe even get demoted, or lose control of the Centurion Project. He wasn’t about to take a chance and let that happen.

  “Can we have the room please?” Davenport asked the analysts.

  Fulton and Rogers looked to Lawson, knowing there was about to be a major disagreement. Since they knew she was technically in charge of the assignment at the moment, they wanted to clear it with her first. She nodded at them to do as he asked and the two analysts went back to their own workstations.

  “What exactly do you think you’re doing?” Davenport asked tersely.

  “I think we’ve already had this discussion before. I’m cleaning up your mess.”

  “I know what you’re doing. You think if you can somehow bring Smith in you’ll be a conquering hero, the white knight, or the cowboy riding into town, saving the girl, then rides back out the next day in a blaze of glory. It doesn’t always work so easy.”

  “Why exactly are you afraid of me trying to bring him back?” Lawson said. “Afraid of how it’s gonna affect your reputation? Or maybe, you’ll have to answer more questions from the higher-ups on why you seemingly gave up looking for him? Or is it something else?”

  “None of the above. I’m just trying to help you. I know this assignment is a big step up for you and you’re being looked at for future promotions,” Davenport said. “I’d hate to think you blew your big chance on some wishful thinking or some grand delusion you may have.”

  “So, you’re just looking out for me?”

  “Men like Smith cannot be rehabilitated or brought back or reconditioned. His trust is broken. Whether that’s our fault isn’t relevant. You want to play the good guy and make it seem like you can do something nobody else could.”

  “And your point?” Lawson asked, not believing a word he was saying.

  “You need to be realistic. If you get close enough to talk to Smith, then you’re close enough for him to put a bullet in your head. And that’s the most likely scenario. If he even gets so much as a sniff of one of us nearby, his first action isn’t going to be waving at you, or asking how you’re doing. His first action is going to be trying to put a bullet between your eyes. And you might want to think about that possibility.”

  Davenport turned and left her office to go back to his as he contemplated his next move. Though Lawson knew most of what Davenport was telling her was fluff, there was one thing he said which did make sense. It was how she was going to get close enough to talk to Smith. He was right, Smith would come up shooting as soon as he knew the CIA was near him. Though she’d eventually have to figure out the answer to a tricky question, the more pressing concern was just finding him to begin with. Once Davenport got back to his office, he immediately gave his secretary a new task.

  “I want you to give me a list of the closest available agents we have who are not currently on assignment,” Davenport said.

  “When do you need it by?”

  “Within the hour. Drop everything else and get me those names as soon as possible. I may need one of them for a very urgent job.”

  “I’ll get right on it.”

  Davenport went into his office and tried to get some work done, though he quickly gave up on trying to do anything. No matter what he tried to do, his mind wound up thinking about Lawson and Smith. Knowing that Lawson wasn’t going to abandon her attempt in trying to recruit Smith once again back into the organization, Davenport was hellbent on making sure she wasn’t successful. Whatever it took, he was going to make sure she failed. His secretary got back to him half an hour later, bringing a list of names into his office and setting them down on his desk.

  “We have two agents here in New York,” she said before leaving.

  “Perfect. Thank you.”

  Once his secretary left, Davenport perused the list a little more closely. It not only had the names of the ten closest agents, it also mentioned their strengths and weaknesses in a little spreadsheet. After looking at it for a few minutes, Davenport selected the agent he thought was best suited for the job and called his number.

  “Agent 23, I have a new assignment for you. It’s completely off the books, there won’t be a record of it anywhere,” Davenport said.

  “What is it?”

  “You’re getting two targets. I’m sending a picture of each of them to your e-mail,” he said, bringing up the pictures of Smith and Lawson on his computer screen.

  “What do you want done with them?”

  “Eliminate them. Both of them.”

  “Where will I find them?”

  “Philadelphia. I want you to be there by the morning,” Davenport said. “I want you to stay there until the job is done. I don’t care how long it takes.”

  “Does it matter who gets it first?”

  “Take Smith out first. He’s the more dangerous of the two. Once he’s out of the way, she won’t be much trouble.”

  9

  As she promised, Lawson drove down to Philadelphia the following morning and was accompanied by three other agents. It was a little after 9am, and her first stop, was police department headquarters. Commissioner Boyle cleared a few minutes from his busy schedule to accommodate the CIA officials. He was under no obligation to work with them, since they had no official capacity within the United States, but he figured if he did them a favor, there might come a time when he could seek a return on the favor. It may or have been wishful thinking since the CIA was extremely guarded with their information no matter who the inquisitor was, but Boyle figured it was worth the chance. Joining the commissioner in his meeting with his guests from the CIA was Deputy Commissioner Devron King, Boyle’s right-hand man.

  After a brief introduction and some small talk, Boyle handed Lawson the file they’d accumulated on Smith, the man Philadelphia knew as The Silencer. Lawson eagerly read the contents of the file, trying to gain any insight she could into how he was picking his victims or what part of the city Smith was likely to be found in. She had short bursts of conversation with her guests as she read the file, trying not to get too distracted so it would make her lose focus on what she was reading.

  “Just from what I’m seeing, there doesn’t appear to be any similarities to any of these cases which would seem like they’re related in any way,” Lawson said, frustrated there wasn’t an obvious lead to be had.

  “Now you see the problem we’ve been facing for the past several years,” Boyle said. “He leaves behind no traces, no evidence of any kind, nothing helpful to us.”

  “Then how do you attribute all these cases to him?”

  “Witnesses at the scene,” King said. “All the people interviewed at the scenes of these crimes described seeing the same man, similar build, same type of clothing. It’s why we’re fairly certain everything in this folder is his work. Stopping rape victims, robberies, possible murders, assaults, you name it, he’s been there.”

  “How do you account for how he’s been at the scene just before these crimes have happened?” Lawson said.

  “We can’t.” Boyle shook his head. “We just don’t know.”

  “There has to be a way he’s getting there ahead of time. It can’t just be luck.”

>   “We agree. We just haven’t figured out how he’s doing it yet.”

  “He must have help,” Lawson said. “He can’t be working alone. There has got to be another guy. Or girl. I mean, someone has to be feeding him this information somehow.”

  “The only thing we can come up with is he’s got some kind of underground network informing him of impending crimes. How it works exactly, we have no idea.”

  “Any idea of who he might be working with? He can’t be doing this all himself.”

  King threw his arms up, indicating their lack of knowledge on the subject. “It’s a little perplexing. The fact all his targets are criminals, it’s kind of strange if he’d be working with other criminals to make it happen.”

  “Maybe whoever he’s working with isn’t a criminal. At least not in the way we’d view them. Looking through these cases, it doesn’t seem like he sticks to any one area specifically.”

  “He’s been all over this city,” Boyle said. “Northeast, south, west, downtown, there isn’t an inch of this city he hasn’t covered.”

  “Have you gotten any tips worth acting on since you went public the other day?” Lawson said, trying to flesh out the little information she had to go o.

  “Nothing worth mentioning,” King said. “At least not concerning him.”

  “What do you mean?” Lawson asked.

  “Well, over the past few years where we can definitely pinpoint he’s been here, the number of anonymous tips we’ve received has tripled. Not necessarily about The Silencer, but about crimes in general. And many of them have been preemptive in nature.”

  “That’s a little strange. How do you account for it?”

  “We can’t. We don’t know how it’s related, or even if it’s related at all. It’s just kind of an interesting sidebar.”

  “I have to admit our main goal in having the press conference wasn’t exactly getting any type of information leading to his capture or anything,” Boyle said. “We didn’t expect anything of that nature to come from it.”

  “Then what was the reason behind it?”

  “Our chief principle behind it was to bring him out into the light. A man like him works in the shadows. Our goal was to hopefully shine some light on him so his profile is raised to the point where it’s uncomfortable for him to work here. Hopefully he’d pick up and leave and go on to a new city.”

  “So, you have no expectations of help from the media and the public?”

  “I think I explained to you yesterday about the debate The Silencer has caused within my own department,” the commissioner said.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, double that with the media and the public,” Boyle said. “They view him as a modern-day Wyatt Earp, riding into town, cleaning it up, killing all the bad guys by whatever means necessary. The public will be absolutely no help. They love the guy. They view him as doing what the police won’t do.”

  “Media too?”

  “He’s regular headlines for them. They wouldn’t like to see him go away anytime soon. He helps sells papers. They cater to what the public wants. While there’s a few who don’t agree with his frontier style of justice, there’s just as many if not more who agree that he’s more adept at taking out the trash than we are.”

  “Has he ever targeted an innocent person that you can tell?” Lawson asked.

  “As far as we can tell, he’s never hurt anyone who did not have a criminal record,” Boyle said. “And we’re not talking criminal records as minor as jaywalking or loitering or something. He targets hardened criminals, those with murder, assault, armed robbery, crimes against children, against the elderly, gang bangers, you name it, he’s nailed them.”

  “What about these last two you think he killed? I thought one of them had no record.”

  “He didn’t. But we found incriminating text messages on his phone he’d exchanged with the other guy indicating he had some severe mental issues. He didn’t have a record yet, but it looks like he was heading that way. He just hadn’t been caught in the act.”

  “I can see why your department is split on him,” Lawson said.

  “Split is a bit of an exaggeration,” King said. “There’s probably more who view him as an asset and appreciate all the help he gives us as opposed to those who think otherwise. He’s a very polarizing subject amongst us, as well as the entire city. Look, there’s no doubt, while this guy’s been here, crime has gone up. But there’s also no doubt the number of dangerous criminals on the street have gone down. In saying that, while this guy appears to know his craft, and appears to be on our side, he’s also sprung up a bunch of wannabees. Guys who don’t really have any idea what they’re doing.”

  “You mean copycats?”

  “Exactly. There’s been at least ten people we’ve identified as being disciples of his, not that he’s endorsed them, but who apparently idolize him and what he seems to stand for.”

  “It’s bound to happen,” Lawson said.

  “No doubt. But these copycats are dangerous. Half of them don’t have the skills to do what he does and wind up dead themselves. The others are too dangerous to have a gun in their hands and target just about anything that moves, good, bad, or indifferent. So, it’s not necessarily just him that’s the problem. It’s everything he represents. If it was just him, maybe we wouldn’t be having this discussion today. But you just can’t have a bunch of people running around the streets extracting their own brand of justice,” King said, he seemed exasperated at the whole situation.

  “Now, we’ve been very forthcoming and honest with you in regard to what we know and what we have,” Boyle said. “I’d appreciate some honesty in return as to how you know this man as well as anything else you can tell us. Legally, you’re not even supposed to be here, so you technically can’t even operate within this city without someone in my department leading the charge.”

  “OK. I can’t tell you everything,” Lawson said. “But I’ll tell you what I can.”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “I don’t know what name he’s using now, but when he worked for us, he used John Smith. That’s what he’s known as.”

  Boyle rolled his eyes, knowing it wasn’t likely to be the man’s real name either.

  “He worked in foreign intelligence in secret black ops projects which required certain skills,” Lawson said, continuing the briefing.

  “I can imagine what those skills were,” Boyle said.

  “Something happened, something went wrong, something that shouldn’t have, and he himself was targeted based on false information. He dropped off the grid and has been missing ever since.”

  “And what made him pick here to set up business?”

  “We have no idea. I just took over the investigation to find him within the past week. I got information indicating he may have been in a major city on the east coast, then one of my analysts caught wind of your press conference and saw the picture you released of him, and here we are.”

  “So, what exactly do you presume on doing?” the commissioner said.

  “Well, as you said, we can’t legally act here without your knowledge and consent,” Lawson said. “But you obviously have a problem on your hands regarding him and we believe we can help you with it. With your permission, we’d like to stay here indefinitely and conduct operations with the intention of finding him.”

  “And when you find him?”

  “I would like to take him into custody and transport him back to one of our facilities.”

  “And what if he doesn’t want to go?”

  “Well, hopefully it won’t come to that.”

  Boyle sat back in his seat, leaning against the brown leather lined chair, thinking about his options. He looked up at his deputy commissioner as he thought.

  “How long do you intend to stay here?”

  “However long it takes. Hopefully a few days, maybe a few weeks,” Lawson said. “But if we need to stay longer, we will. We’re not leaving here without him. Unless w
e have evidence he’s gone somewhere else, in which case we’ll obviously follow him.”

  “I’ll give you permission and authority to stay and work here under one condition.”

  “Which is?”

  “I need updates every day from you about your operations. I don’t want any of my officers walking into a potential war zone because you found him, cornered him, and neglected to inform,” Boyle said.

  “I can agree to that.”

  “Would you need any further help from me?”

  “No, I don’t think so. If we could get a copy of these files it’s about the only thing we really need. It’ll help in trying to map things out.”

  Boyle handed the file to his deputy commissioner and said to make a copy of everything in it to help the government agents in their quest.

  “One last thing, it’s kind of interesting. Not only have crimes gone up, but also way more preemptive tips have come in. Do you think there’s a correlation there?” Lawson said.

  Boyle threw his hands up. “Who knows? We haven’t ruled it out but we have nothing to indicate it’s related. Why would it be?”

  “Well, if he’s only targeted the so called bad guys, and he gets wind of crimes about to happen and he can’t get there, perhaps he phones it in.”

  “Well the increase isn’t on the phone hotline,” Boyle said. “It’s anonymous emails coming through our system. It’s skyrocketed.”

  “Any chance you tried to trace where those emails came from?”

  “Well, the tips are routinely analyzed and matched against IP addresses from any prior messages, just to make sure we’re not getting fake tips from the same address all the time.”

  “I take it you got nothing from them?”

  “Well, some IP addresses show up a few times, but that’s to be expected if it’s from a higher crime neighborhood, or someone who’s extra vigilant. But nothing extraordinary. So, if he’s part of the increased volume of tips, we don’t have any evidence to implicate him.”

  “Hmm. Well it was just a thought.”

  “Well if that’s all we can do for you then I wish you luck and hopefully a quick resolution.” Boyle reached out to shake hands.