Hard Target (The Silencer Series Book 3) Read online

  “John Glenn Columbus International Airport.”

  “When?”

  “9:30 tomorrow morning,” Jones answered.

  “I’ll have to try and get him before he gets there. Too many cameras at the airport.”

  “I don’t know if you’ll be able to get there in time unless you leave right this second. Or, perhaps it’d be better to get him once he arrives in New York. It would be easier to get lost in the crowd there.”

  “More of a spotlight too. There’s a heightened sense of something happening in New York. It’s more laid back down in Ohio, smaller airport, I think that’s the better play.”

  “You have to leave immediately then to give yourself enough time to make it,” Jones told him.

  Recker didn’t have the luxury of thinking about it for too much longer. If he intended on killing Edwards before he left Ohio, he had to leave now. But it also presented an additional complication. It wasn’t enough for Recker just to kill his target. He didn’t want to just size him up through the scope of a sniper rifle and pull the trigger. It just wasn’t enough for Edwards to be dead. Recker wanted to do it up close. He needed to do it up close. He wanted Edwards to know who was killing him. Recker concluded that if he couldn’t look Edwards in the eyes as he was killing him, he’d rather pass on the opportunity and wait for another chance somewhere down the road. He thought that was the only way he’d get closure.

  After taking just a minute to think about it, Recker decided now was the time. He didn’t want to waste any more time doing the thing that had consumed his thoughts for too long. He quickly grabbed his duffel bag and went to his gun cabinet, putting a few weapons inside to take on his journey. Before leaving, he left a few last minute instructions for his partner.

  “If anything comes up, I don’t care how urgent it is, you wait until I get back,” Recker told him.

  “And what if Mia somehow gets involved in another issue?”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s over with.”

  “Just throwing it out there,” Jones said.

  “I’m serious. Whatever it is, let it ride until I return. If Mia decides to play Sherlock Holmes again for some reason, you bring her back here and lock her in,” Recker said, only half kidding.

  “That would be interesting.”

  Recker raised his eyebrows and pointed at his friend. “I mean it.”

  Jones put his hand up to prevent the lecture from continuing. “You have my word. No secret missions, no anything until you return.”

  “I’ll call you when I get there.”

  Recker rushed out the door and down the back steps of the office, scurrying to his car. To make it down to Ohio by the time Edwards flight took off, he knew he’d have to step on the gas pedal. About three hours into his drive, his phone started ringing. Looking at the caller ID, it was Mia. He debated about whether he wanted to answer it at the moment, but then he thought that was something he’d done too often with her. Instead of tackling the issue head on, he skirted around it, hoping it’d just somehow go away so he wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore. But he didn’t want to do that anymore. He owed it himself, and more importantly, he owed it to Mia to not dance around the subject of their relationship and feelings. Recker then used his hands-free device to answer the call.

  “Hey,” Recker greeted.

  “Hey,” she somberly returned the greeting. “Umm, I just got done work and just wanted to talk about a few things if you have the time.”

  “Uhh, yeah, sure.”

  “You’re not too busy or anything?”

  “No. Just driving right now.”

  “Oh. Where you going?” Mia wondered.

  “I’m just on my way to Ohio.”

  “Is that where you were going before my little mishap?”

  “Yeah. With everything that went down I had to race back here and I never got to finish what I was working on,” Recker answered.

  “Oh. I’m sorry about that.”

  “You don’t have to apologize.”

  “Yeah, I do. That’s, umm, kind of one of the reasons I wanted to call you. I just wanted to say I’m sorry about…everything.”

  “Mia, it’s fine.”

  “No, I mean, you were right. With everything that we talked about earlier, I never really got to say what I wanted to say to you.”

  “Nothing else needs to be said,” Recker told her.

  “Yeah it does. I just wanted to say thank you,” she said, wiping her eyes as her emotions started tugging at her. “I shouldn’t have been doing what I was doing. You were right. I should’ve left it to you or waited for you. I didn’t have any clue what was really going on and I should’ve listened to you. I was wrong.”

  “You wanted answers and you weren’t getting any. I understand how frustrating that is.”

  “That guy that set us free, you sent him there, didn’t you?” Mia guessed.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Because you were away and worried you couldn’t get to us in time. So you protected us the only way you could. He’s that crime boss that you mentioned before to me, isn’t he?”

  “That’s Vincent, yes.”

  “Did you have to make some sort of deal with him?”

  “Everything turned out fine. You don’t have to worry about it.”

  “If you had to do something unethical or that you didn’t want to do because of my stupidity…”

  “Mia, it’s fine,” Recker repeated. “Honest, I didn’t have to ki…everything worked out.”

  “How long are you gonna be gone this time?”

  “Well, as long as you and David stay out of trouble, just a day or two,” Recker laughed.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “That’s all I can ask.”

  “OK, well, I guess have a good trip.”

  “Was there something else?” Recker asked, getting the feeling that she had other things on her mind.

  “Well, I kind of wanted to go over what we talked about earlier, but since you’re driving and all, I guess it can wait.”

  “We can talk about it now if you want. It’ll help me pass the time.”

  “Oh. OK. Well, I’m sorry if I acted like a little school girl at the hospital,” Mia said.

  “You didn’t.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe. But I thought a lot about it and I’m not gonna try and force you or push you into anything you’re not comfortable with. You obviously have your reasons for whatever you decide and I’ll just have to deal with it. I know I’ll probably never be able to fully understand things that have happened in your life before you met me.”

  “I never wanted to hurt you. I tried my best to keep you at a distance because I never wanted to have this conversation with you,” Recker replied. “That’s probably my fault for trying to have it both ways.”

  “What do you mean, both ways?”

  “I wanted you close, but not too close. I wanted you in my life but I just didn’t do enough to make you think things would never go further with us.”

  “Yeah, you did. I just ignored the signs and figured I could break you down eventually.”

  “Well, you’re a hard person to push away. It’s not easy resisting someone like you, you know. Some guy’s gonna be extremely lucky to have you. In another life, maybe it would’ve been me. It just can’t be in this one.”

  “I know,” she sorrowfully responded, barely audible.

  “But, umm…if it’s too much,” Recker sighed. “If it’s too much or too hard to continue seeing me or anything and you wanna take a break or something, then, uhh, I’ll understand.”

  “Umm, I dunno, uhh, let’s just see how it goes.”

  “So I guess we’re good then?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, we are. We’re good,” Mia said. “So maybe we’ll talk again when you get back.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  Once the conversation ended, Recker just tossed his hand-free device on the passenger seat, clearly annoyed. He started t
alking to himself out loud.

  “When it came to handing out the good things in life, I clearly drew the short straw. Someone up there decided I wasn’t worthy of having anything good in my life for too long.”

  Recker allowed himself to get caught up in self pity for a little while as he continued his trek to Ohio. He never was one to get lost in regrets or what-ifs or wonder what might have been if things had went down different in his life. Mostly because he was basically a realist at heart. He knew that sometimes, people just got dealt a harder set of cards to deal with in life and there was no rhyme or reason to it. That’s just the way it was. He never wondered before what his life would be like if he never joined the CIA or enrolled into the black ops program. But after thinking about what he lost with Carrie, and what he’d never get to have with Mia, for the first time, he started thinking about what his life would’ve been like if he was someone else.

  Of course, he knew that by doing so, he likely never would’ve even met Carrie or Mia if he never joined the CIA. Everything he had done in his life had a direct impact on meeting the both of them. If he hadn’t, the loss he felt with Carrie would never have been burned into his memory. And Mia wouldn’t be the situation that it was. But he allowed himself to envision what life could’ve been like if he’d have met each of those women under different circumstances, if he wasn’t the man that he was. With Carrie, he could picture himself as a family man. He saw himself coming home from work and having her there with a couple of kids running around the house. When his thoughts turned to Mia, he pictured the two of them just doing couple things, going on dates and having romantic dinners. There was a small piece of him, just for a few minutes, who wished he was someone else.

  After allowing himself to dream for an hour or two about what might have or could have been, Recker finally shook free of those thoughts. It was nice while it lasted though and made the drive seem that much quicker. With those tempting thoughts now out of his system, he turned his attention back to his target. He started to envision different scenarios on how his altercation with Edwards would go down.

  Recker made great time in getting back into the state, much quicker than he did the first time around. It only took him a little under thirteen hours to get there this time. As he made his way toward the Edwards home, he was a little concerned that he wasn’t going to arrive before his target left for the airport. Since it was past 7am, he called Jones to see if he could help in locating him to save time.

  “David, just got here, are you able to verify if he’s still at home or if he left yet?” Recker wondered.

  “Well, I could, but not in the timeframe that you need. It’s gonna take longer than you have time for. You might be better off just heading to the airport and waiting for him there.”

  Recker sighed, not getting the answer that he wanted. “I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that.”

  “Are you going to back off?”

  “No. I’ll make it work.”

  “OK. I’ll do my best to start checking the airport cameras and see if I can locate whether he’s there yet.”

  “All right. I’ll put the comm in. Let me know.”

  Recker headed straight for the airport, hoping he’d get there before Edwards did. Once his subject checked in, and he was surrounded by a bunch of people, killing him might not be an option. And he was too close now to have to put it off one more time. Seeing that it was just a couple minutes before 7:30, and most people checked in about two hours before their flight, Recker thought he might’ve made it just in time. Before getting out of the car, he put on a blank baseball type hat, cinching it down near his eyes. He swiftly walked into the airport and immediately grabbed a newspaper in case he needed to use it as cover.

  “Michael, it doesn’t appear that he’s there yet,” Jones said.

  Recker buried his head into his arm, pretending he was wiping his face to conceal him talking. “Are you sure?”

  “Well, all I needed to scan was the entrance cameras. I was able to hack into them rather quickly.”

  “How far back did you check?”

  “I went back to 6am,” Jones answered. “I didn’t see anyone that looked like him come in yet.”

  “That means he should be here any minute.”

  “In theory.”

  “What, you think he might not show?”

  “I don’t know. Until it happens it’s never a sure thing, is it?”

  Recker found a wall to lean against as he anxiously awaited for his foe to arrive. He opened up the paper to pretend he was reading it, instead peering over the top of it as he watched people enter through the front doors. After ten minutes went by, he started to get a little nervous that his target was even coming. Had Edwards got last minute orders to change flights or not even go at all? He figured he’d wait another hour for him then he’d drive back out to his house and see if he was still there. If he wasn’t in either spot, then Recker would have to regroup and come up with another plan. He was praying that it wouldn’t come to that though. He was ready for it to be over now.

  Luckily for Recker, if he did say a prayer, it was answered. His attention perked up at 7:50 when he saw Edwards strutting through the door. With a small bag that he was wheeling behind him, he had a confident look and walk about him, like he had no worries in the world. That was about to change if Recker had his way. He briefly replayed their conversation in his mind one more time as he watched him walk by. Recker tugged his hat down even further to prevent him from being recognized. Edwards had an arrogant look on his face in Recker’s mind. Of course, that could’ve just been because he hated the guy.

  “Jones, he’s here,” Recker told him. “I’ll contact you when it’s over.”

  “Please be careful,” Jones responded.

  Recker started following his target as he watched Edwards stop at the Starbucks. Keeping his head down to conceal his face, he took up a new position as he kept close tabs on Edwards. After his target got his coffee, he started on the move again. Before heading to the gate, Edwards made his way to the bathroom as he made a last minute stop. Sensing that it was the best opportunity that he was going to get, Recker also made a beeline for the restroom. He cautiously opened the door, just in case Edwards had spotted him and was trying to lure him in to turn the tables on him. Luckily for Recker, he hadn’t.

  Edwards was at the urinal, coffee still in hand, with his back turned to the door. Recker easily could’ve shot him and be done with it, but it just wasn’t good enough. Recker quickly knelt and looked underneath the stalls to see if anyone else was there. Seeing that they were alone, Recker walked back to the door and quietly locked it. He went over to the sink and turned the water on, pretending to wash his hands. After a minute, Edwards had finished his business and walked over to the sink. He set his coffee down on the side of the sink, not having any clue as to the identity of the man standing next to him. He turned the water on and started washing his hands, giving Recker the opportunity he was waiting for.

  Recker quickly turned toward his target and put his hand on the coffee, feeling how hot it was and flipping the lid off, all within a second or two. He threw the hot coffee directly into Edwards’ face, temporarily stunning him as he dabbed at his eyes. Recker grabbed the back of Edwards’ head and forcefully slammed it into the sink, knocking Edwards to the ground. A big welt immediately started showing on Edwards forehead as Recker gave him a hard kick to the face, bloodying the man’s nose. Recker then picked him up and threw him into the stall door, Edwards bursting through it as his head hit the bottom of the toilet. Edwards was dazed and confused and already in a lot of pain, unable to recognize who his attacker was. Recker gave his victim another stomp to the face, making sure he couldn’t get up before he unleashed some more punishment. He then straddled Edwards’ body and started raining down punches in a furious manner. Alternating between his left and right hands, Recker’s knuckles quickly became bloodied as he opened up cuts on Edwards’ face.

  After a couple o
f minutes, Recker stopped, taking a few moments to calm himself so Edwards could finally see who his assailant was. With cuts above both of his eyes, nose, forehead, and lip, Edwards could barely open his eyes wide enough to see out of them. But Recker tried to make it easier for him, taking off his baseball hat and tossing it on the ground. Edwards tried to make a smile and let out as much of a laugh as he could, though it caused him to start coughing up some blood. Recognizing Recker immediately, he knew he was done for. Edwards stumbled his way through a few words before his time was up.

  “I knew we’d have this day at some point,” Edwards said, coughing. “Didn’t figure it’d go down quite like this though.”

  “Funny how things look from different perspectives,” Recker replied. “Cause this is how I always thought it would go.”

  “Don’t suppose begging would help?”

  “Nope.”

  Edwards smiled again, hoping to torment his attacker one last time. “You know, thinking back, I so enjoyed killing her.”

  That was enough for Recker. He didn’t want to hear anymore. He took out his gun from the back of his pants and pointed it at his soon to be victim. Before pulling the trigger, he had some final words of his own.

  “You know, talking about different perspectives, it’s funny how things work out,” Recker told him. “I could’ve done this yesterday at your house in front of your wife and son.”

  Recker had almost an evil smile attached to his lips as he saw the worried look on Edwards’ face. He now realized that Recker knew where he and his family lived and worried for their safety. He worried that Recker would do to his family, what Edwards initiated with him.

  “Please, not them,” Edwards pleaded.

  Recker let out a laugh and pulled the trigger of his gun, hitting the front of Edwards’ thigh with his shot. Edwards screamed out in anger, wondering what Recker was waiting for in finishing him off.

  “Torment me all you want, just don’t kill them. I beg you,” Edwards pleaded again.

  “I’m not like you,” Recker responded. “I don’t enjoy killing. Not even you.”

  Recker then fired three more shots in succession, all hitting his fallen target square in his chest, instantly snuffing out whatever life remained in his helpless body. He remained standing over the dead body for another minute, just staring at the carnage that he’d just unleashed upon him. With it now over with, Recker knew he couldn’t stay there any longer. Sooner or later, someone else would try coming in, and with the door locked, might inquire to someone who worked there why it wasn’t open. Recker looked down and grabbed his hat, pulling it back down over his eyes as he tucked his gun away in his pants again. He exited the restroom, standing on the outside of the door for a few moments to make sure nobody else entered already. He needed to make sure he had enough time to get away. After thirty seconds elapsed without anyone coming near it, Recker quickly hurried away toward the entrance. With his hat securely pulled down near his eyes, he kept his head looking toward the floor to prevent the cameras from getting a good shot of his face.