The Hunted (3 page)

“I’m being cautious with it,” Willis said, keeping his own voice flat. “If you had marked him as a homicide, it would’ve already been done.”

“But you will make your deadline?”

“I’ll make it.”

“Good. Make sure you do.”

Willis knew that if he failed to, he’d get a reprimand, and while they had never told him this directly, he was pretty sure that The Factory only allowed their field workers one reprimand.

Barry was about to end the call when Willis asked whether Schoefield could be a mistake.

“We don’t make mistakes,” Barry said, coldly.

“He doesn’t seem like he’s one of them.”

“None of them are going to seem like they’re one of them. That’s the point. You’ve been through the training, you should know that, Willis.” There was a long pause before Barry asked whether Willis had broken protocol with his latest target, a distinctive chill now in his voice.

“Of course not,” Willis said. He knew Barry was recording the conversation so he could run it through voice stress analysis software as a way to perform a crude lie detector test, but Willis had taken the precaution ten months earlier of loading voice stress analysis software on his laptop and training himself to lie effectively, and it turned out to be not nearly as hard as he would’ve thought.

“See that you get this assignment done on time,” Barry said curtly, then ended the call. If Barry’s own voice stress analysis software showed that Willis was possibly lying, Willis would be receiving another phone call and there would be more questions.

Chapter 5

Thursday evening at eight-thirty Schoefield sat alone at the bar watching the Red Sox game while Willis watched him from across the street as he stood hidden in the shadows of an empty storefront’s doorway. Schoefield had been sitting alone in the bar for almost an hour, still nursing the same beer he bought when he first showed up. This was the last day of Willis’s deadline. He checked the time, left the doorway, headed to the bar and took a barstool so there was one empty one between him and Schoefield. There were seven other people scattered around at tables and a couple sitting at the other end of the bar, but that was it outside of Schoefield, a bored and sullen-looking waitress and the bartender. While being seen in a public place with a target was frowned upon by The Factory, it was allowed if it was deemed necessary for the job.

Willis ordered a beer and grabbed a handful of peanuts from a bowl. When the Red Sox third baseman booted a ball he should’ve made a play on, Willis made a wisecrack and with a tight grin etched on his face shook his head with disgust, shooting Schoefield a ‘what are you gonna do’ kind of look. When Willis was a kid he was a Cleveland Indians fan, but it had been a long time since he cared about baseball, and he certainly couldn’t care less about the Red Sox, but he could play the part of a long-suffering fan. Schoefield murmured out something in agreement, but kept his focus on the TV. After some more well-timed wisecracks and banter on Willis’s part, Schoefield loosened up a bit and joined in. Willis held out his hand and introduced himself to Schoefield giving him a fake name while Schoefield gave him his real name.

Willis moved over to the barstool next to Schoefield and bought his new buddy a beer, which was going to be the first of eight beers he was going to be buying Schoefield, and there would also be five shots of whiskey. Willis made sure to keep himself at half the number of drinks he was buying Schoefield. At first Schoefield nursed the drinks Willis bought him, but as Willis egged him into making drinking bets on the game, Schoefield was soon pouring the booze down. At first their conversation was kept superficially on the Red Sox and other Boston sports teams, which while Willis had no interest in he could fake well enough, but after an hour or so of free beers and shots of whiskey, Schoefield needed only minor prodding from Willis to recite his life story; the number of times his heart had been broken by different girls, his fifteen years working as a computer programmer, and how recently he’d been laid off when his company decided to transfer the work to an outsourcing firm in Pakistan. At that point, bitterness had crept deep into Schoefield’s voice, and his mouth contorted as if he had bit into an overly sour lemon.

“All of us became disposable,” he said, somewhat slurring his words. “They could get the work done for thirty cents on the dollar for what they were paying us.” He muttered into his beer, “They just threw us away.”

“Bastards,” Willis said.

Schoefield nodded dully. “It’s the way this country’s been going. The rich just keep getting richer while the rest of us keep getting more and more fucked.” He paused for a moment before adding, “There’s going to have to be a change.” Another long pause, then barely a whisper, “If I had a rocket launcher.”

“What?”

“If I had a rocket launcher. Some son of a bitch would die.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

Schoefield smiled broadly, the sheen glazing his eyes showing that he was drunk. “Never mind,” he said. “Just reciting from an old Bruce Cockburn song. But fuck, a lot of truth in that old song.”

That was what Willis needed to hear. It took almost two hours of loosening Schoefield up with booze, but he finally got what he needed. He looked at Schoefield sitting hunched on his barstool feeling sorry for himself as he rolled an empty beer mug between his two chubby hands and stared blankly with eyes that held nothing but contempt.

“You need some cheering up,” Willis offered. “Why don’t we both get laid? That should cheer me up, and I’m guessing it would sure the fuck cheer you up too. What do you say?”

A nasty glint broke through Schoefield’s glazed eyes as he smiled thinly at Willis. “I don’t swing that way,” he said. “Sorry if I gave you the wrong impression.”

“I don’t either, you dummy,” Willis said. “I’m talking about leaving this dump and finding us a couple of willing ladies. What do you say?”

Schoefield thought about it, but shook his head. “I’m not exactly the type that any girl wants to have a one-night stand with,” he admitted, his smile turning glum.

“Don’t worry about it,” Willis said with a wink. “The place I’m thinking about, we’ll have no problem finding ladies raring to go. And nice ones, too. I’ll be able to hook you up. Guaranteed. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Willis paid up his tab, then signaled for Schoefield to follow him. Schoefield didn’t seem entirely convinced that Willis would be able to follow through as promised and find a girl willing to spend the night with him, but the prospect of it was too enticing for him not to try. He stumbled on after Willis. When they got outside, Willis told Schoefield he’d better drive. Schoefield smiling dumbly pointed out that they were standing right in front of his car, which of course was no surprise to Willis. He handed his keys to Willis who got behind the wheel while Schoefield plopped himself down into the passenger seat.

Willis drove three towns over to a more industrial area. A darker, seedier area. Schoefield didn’t seem to notice, and instead spent the time telling Willis more stories of his failed love life and how badly he always struck out in the past at bars and nightclubs, with the obvious eagerness building in him that this night would be different. Willis didn’t bother responding, nor even listening anymore. Schoefield’s voice had become little more than a mosquito’s hum as far as he was concerned. The time for talking was done. Schoefield had nothing left to say that he cared to hear.

When Willis pulled over, it was an area where he had busted the streetlights earlier that morning. There was barely enough light from the moon for them to see where they were going. Willis pointed out the steep cement steps they needed to go down to get to the street below them. “The club is down there,” he said. “Parking over there is impossible, but easy enough up here.”

That made enough sense to Schoefield not to argue the point, and Willis let him lead the way. When they got to the stairs, Willis picked up the brick that he had left there when he had broken the streetlights. He held it in his right hand, but before he used it he asked Schoefield why he sold out his country.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Schoefield started, his voice surly, argumentative, like every other drunk who wants to pick a fight. Willis didn’t need to hear his answer. He had already heard enough earlier to satisfy him. He hit Schoefield with the brick hard enough to cave his skull in, and watched as Schoefield’s body crumpled forward and tumbled down the cement steps. There was no reason for Willis to check that his target was dead, not with the way Schoefield’s body lay positioned at the bottom of the steps.

Still carrying the brick, Willis went back to Schoefield’s car to wipe off any fingerprints and to leave Schoefield’s keys in the ignition. He waited until he walked three blocks away before he dumped the brick he’d used into a sewer. Five blocks away he found the car that he earlier had arranged to be there. He waited until he was driving out of that area before calling Barry and leaving a message that Schoefield had gotten drunk and ended up stumbling and falling down a staircase, with cause of death being either a caved in skull or a broken neck. That any autopsy done would confirm that finding. Willis knew from his training at The Factory that they wouldn’t be able to distinguish that the damage done to Schoefield’s skull wasn’t caused by the cement steps.

Before Willis arrived back at his apartment, Barry called him to tell him about his next assignment.

“I was hoping to put in for a vacation,” Willis said. “I could use some R and R.”

“No rest for the weary,” Barry said coldly. “It can’t be helped. This is a war we’re fighting, Willis.” His tone turned conspiratorial as he added, “And we both know you took almost two weeks off with this last one.” The line appeared to go dead for a long moment, long enough that Willis thought he had lost the connection, but Barry came back and told him he could have his vacation after he finished two more assignments. “But try not to slack on these, okay?”

Barry ended the call without another word or giving Willis any details on his next assignment. He wouldn’t have to. The next one would be on a secure message board. The Factory didn’t want any paper trails, so Willis would have to memorize the details from the message board. It would be against Factory protocols for him to print it out or write any of it down. After Willis would disconnect from the message board, the information regarding his assignment would disappear into the ether. The Factory made damn sure none of this could get back to them. Willis couldn’t much blame them. If he ever screwed up one of these assignments and was caught by the police, he’d be on his own.

Chapter 6

Willis took the next four days off anyway. His next assignment had been marked as a murder. After he checked the satellite photos of the target’s home using Google Earth, he felt confident that he’d be able to get the job done in less than a week despite taking four days off so he’d still be able to earn his bonus and keep Barry off his back.

He decided to spend those four days at the beach, but the problem was he couldn’t relax, not with the assignment hanging over his head, and also not while expecting Barry to call to break his balls. He knew his badge had a tracking chip implanted in it and that Barry had to have the GPS coordinates of where he was. But if Barry were to call him to complain, he’d be giving away that fact, which he probably wouldn’t want to do. Besides, unless he had another field agent watching the target, he’d have to accept Willis’s explanation that he had only followed the target to this beach resort as part of his surveillance.

Each of those four days at the ocean turned out to be joyless days. He was too anxious to do something as simple as lie back and enjoy the sun, and his mind raced too much to make sense of the paperback book he tried reading. Even the sight of all the young girls in bikinis did nothing for him. This bothered him more than anything else. Ever since getting involved with The Factory, he’d lost all interest there. His second night playing hooky, he went to a strip club, and again found nothing of interest. Surrounded by naked, gyrating women, and not even a stirring. It worried him for most of his time while at the club until he decided to put it out of his mind.

He felt a sense of relief after ending his unofficial four day vacation, and he spent the next morning hidden in the woods across from his target’s home. He found a spot about a hundred yards away where he could rest the rifle barrel against a log and have a clear view of the target’s front door. With a dark blanket underneath him and branches covering him, he was well camouflaged, and as soon as his target stepped outside, Willis would be able to track him through his rifle’s scope and explode his target’s head the same as if it were a pumpkin. This assignment would be quick and easy. One rifle shot and he would be done.

Willis had been maintaining his vigil since five AM. At six-thirty his target emerged from the house wearing a tee shirt, shorts and running shoes, and scooting out with him was a mostly white bull terrier with a few smudges of black on its ears. As the dog stepped outside, it sniffed a couple of times in Willis’s direction and then scampered off towards him. Probably thinking the dog was running off after an animal, the target shouted at his dog, directing the bull terrier to get back to him. After a few reluctant growls, the dog scampered back to his owner’s side.

None of this was why Willis had relaxed the pressure he’d been applying to the trigger. A thought had been gnawing at the back of his mind, something he couldn’t quite get a firm grip on, and as he had lined up his target in the rifle scope, he realized what it was. When he had earlier seen his target’s photo, the man had seemed vaguely familiar, and now Willis knew why. The target had been one of the candidates that had ridden in the van with Willis when he was driven to the Factory for his interview. He didn’t remember seeing him afterwards. The target certainly hadn’t been part of Willis’s silent training squad. Since talking wasn’t allowed among the candidates, Willis hadn’t earlier heard the target’s name or anything about him.