The Hunted Read online

  The Hunted

  by Dave Zeltserman

  Kindle Edition Copyright ©2012 by Dave Zeltserman

  All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law, or in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  First eBook Edition: 2012

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, companies, institutions, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  www.davezeltserman.com

  Zeltserman, Dave

  The Hunted: #1 in The Hunted novella series by Dave Zeltserman

  Cover design by Jeroen ten Berge

  Published in the United States of America

  A Top Suspense Group Author

  www.topsuspense.com

  Praise for Dave Zeltserman

  “Small Crimes and Pariah are as nasty and clever as noir can get…[Outsourced] a dark gem of a story…a macabre delight to read”

  —NPR, Fresh Air

  "Zeltserman is the author of increasingly accomplished crime novels, distinguished by spare and crisp prose, believable dialogue, imaginative plot twists and tightly wound characters who don't wear out their welcome."

  —Newsday

  "Superb mix of humor and horror...Zeltserman orchestrates events perfectly...Readers will keep turning pages to see how the ambiguous plot resolves."

  —Publishers Weekly

  "Harrowing. Zeltserman colors it black with the best of them."

  —Kirkus Reviews

  "Crime writer Zeltserman has produced a nail-biter...The narrative is straightforward and gritty, reminiscent of works of Dashiell Hammett...gripping and actually 'horrifying,' this title is recommended for horror fans and readers who may relish unpleasant surprises."

  —Library Journal

  “There's a new name to add to the pantheon of the sons and daughters of Cain: Dave Zeltserman. His new novel, Small Crimes, is ingeniously twisted and imbued with a glossy coating of black humor… The plot of Small Crimes ricochets out from [its] claustrophobic opening, and it's a thing of sordid beauty.”

  —Maureen Corrigan for NPR’s Best Books of 2008

  "[Small Crimes] deserves comparison with the best of James Ellroy."

  —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  "A strong piece of work, lean and spare, but muscular where a noir novel should be."

  —The Boston Globe

  "Not only does the novel have clean, simple prose, ample suspense and twists, and a fast-paced plot--standard fare; it also offers brilliant psychological insight into tortured souls, and on a deeper level, it is a moralistic tale about how small crimes beget larger ones."

  —Bookmarks Magazine

  "Small Crimes proves a deft entry in the tradition that goes back to Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me, James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice and Charles Willeford’s High Priest of California — small masterpieces celebrating the psychopath as a grinning archetype, as American as apple pie."

  —Sun-Sentinel

  “What a sick puppy of a writer Dave Zeltserman is!...a doozy of a doom-laden crime story that not only makes merry with the justice system, but also satirizes those bottom feeders in the publishing industry who would sign Osama bin Laden to a six-figure contract for his memoirs, if only they could figure out which cave to send their lawyers into...I'd say Zeltserman can't top Pariah for its sheer diabolical inventiveness, but he probably will. And given that the corrupting vision of his work is so powerful, I ought to know better than to read the next novel he writes. But I probably will anyway.”

  —The Washington Post

  “Pariah is sure to catapult Zeltserman head and shoulders above other Boston authors. This is not only a great crime book, but a gripping read that will crossover to allow greater exposure for this rising talent.”

  —BOOKGASM.com

  "This novel [Killer] is everything hard-boiled fiction should be - compact, direct and disciplined, and concerned with humans rather than stereotypes. It is also, for all its violent subject matter, a quietly told story, which makes its tension all the more intense"

  —Mat Coward, Morning Star

  "DAVE Zeltserman is one of the new, highly original voices in crime fiction, his writing spare, disciplined and concrete. His plots are as original as anyone writing hard-boiled fiction with an attractive noir edge, and always grimly entertaining.”

  —The Australian

  "I've been crazy about Dave Zeltserman's books since the beginning; Fast Lane was an early Hardboiled Pick. His trilogy of Small Crimes, Pariah, and Killer should be indispensable to the reading list of any follower of modern noir fiction. This latest book [Outsource] simply kicks ass and is one of the most fun and twisted reads I've had in ages.”

  —Patrick Millikin, Poisoned Pen Bookstore

  “It's the kind of book that is going to spoil whatever I read next, as it's going to be found wanting compared to this. This is a book that anyone with even the slightest interest in the crime or thriller genres simply must get their hands on, as it's bound to have a huge impact on you."

  —The Bookbag

  The Hunted Novella Series

  The Hunted

  The Dame

  Other Books by Dave Zeltserman

  Monster: A Novel of Frankenstein

  The Caretaker of Lorne Field

  A Killer’s Essence

  21 Tales

  Small Crimes

  Pariah

  Killer

  Outsourced

  Julius Katz and Archie

  Julius Katz Mysteries

  Blood Crimes

  Dying Memories

  Bad Karma

  Bad Thoughts

  Fast Lane

  Chapter 1

  Dan Willis watched through a pair of binoculars as his target left his house through a side door to collect the morning newspaper. The target was one Brian Schoefield. Age thirty-seven, average height, and carrying an extra sixty pounds that made him appear soft with fat sausage-like arms and legs. He wore a bathrobe and slippers, both worn and tattered, and Willis could make out that Schoefield also wore a stained tee shirt under his robe. Probably boxers, too, but that was only a guess on Willis’s part. Overall, Schoefield had a pasty look about him.

  It was nine-fifty in the morning. Schoefield stopped to squint at the sun before moving cautiously to where his newspaper had been tossed. It was almost as if he knew he was being watched. Willis doubted that. More likely his target had just woken up. That was evident not only from his pasty look, but from the way the little hair Schoefield had left on his scalp was sticking up in disarray as if he had just rolled out of bed, which only added to his overall sloppy appearance.

  Willis sat in a house three addresses down on the opposite side of the street. The house had been foreclosed four months earlier and still lay vacant. Like most of the houses on the street, it was mostly a dump. A small two bedroom Cape style house that needed a lot of work, although not as much as Schoefield’s house seemed to need, at least from the outside. Willis guessed the bank would probably end up knocking this one down and building something bigger. That was probably the fate of most of the houses on the street.

  With the blind down and open only a crack, Willis wouldn’t be able to be seen in the second floor bedroom where he was camped out. He’d arrived at six AM bringing with him a folding chair, a thermos of
coffee and a bag of donuts, and waited patiently since for his target to show. Half of the coffee had been drunk, and three of the donuts eaten. He knew he should’ve brought healthier food, that the donuts would only make him sluggish and slow him down later, although that wouldn’t matter. Today was only for surveillance.

  If this assignment had been marked as a homicide, Willis would’ve been done already. From this distance he would’ve had no problem putting a bullet through Schoefield’s skull. But Schoefield had been marked for an accidental death. Those were trickier, which meant that this assignment was going to take more time and require more surveillance. Suicides were even trickier. Natural causes were the easiest. With the drugs he had access to, Willis could usually get those assignments done within a day. He preferred them and not just because of the four thousand dollar bonus he would receive for jobs done in less than a week. With natural deaths, he could usually inject his targets while they were sleeping and they’d never have to know they were being terminated. Even though his targets were enemies of the state, Willis preferred peaceful deaths. He derived no pleasure from the fear and pain that he would force some of his targets to suffer.

  Schoefield hesitated for a moment to look around before he reached down to pick up the newspaper. The actions of a guilty conscience, Willis thought, his lips pressing into a grim smile. Once Schoefield had his paper, he moved back to his house and disappeared inside. Only then did Willis allow himself the luxury to move from his post so he could stretch out his legs and arms, all of which were stiff from his almost four hours of silent vigil.

  Dan Willis was forty-two. Six foot two inches, a hundred and ninety pounds, he had a rangy build with long and muscular arms corded with thick veins, his powerful hands even more so. His face was long, rough-hewn; his eyes slate gray and heavily lidded, his nose thick and revealing several bumps and bends as a lifelong reminder from his amateur boxing days when he was teenager. Willis’s hair was still mostly black, peppered only slightly with gray, and was kept short. While he had shaved earlier that morning, he was someone who would never look clean-shaven. Even at this early hour he already had a pronounced five o’clock shadow. He wasn’t what anyone would consider handsome but he never had any trouble with the ladies, at least before he took this job with The Factory. Since then, he hadn’t had much interest. The last time he’d been with a woman was thirteen months ago.

  After allowing himself the luxury of stretching for as much as sixty seconds, Willis returned back to his chair to continue his surveillance.

  Chapter 2

  Dan Willis joined the U.S. Army after finishing high school and was assigned to Military Intelligence. While he didn’t kill anyone directly, he knew his actions contributed to dozens of Iraqi hostile deaths, if not more, during the first Gulf War. After three tours, he decided the army wasn’t for him, and when he left it was with the rank of Sergeant, although he probably would’ve made Staff Sergeant if he had signed up for another tour. He next tried college, and after two years decided that wasn’t for him either. Without too much difficulty, he found a job as a salesman for a liquor distributor in his home town of Akron, Ohio, and discovered that he was good at it. He easily developed a good rapport with his customers who were buyers for liquor stores, bars and restaurants, and he did well. The life appealed to him. He made decent money, met interesting characters, as well as plenty of attractive women to flirt with and some to have affairs with, and he made sure none of these ended badly. After fourteen years with his sales still going strong, his supervisor called him in to tell him he was out of a job. The powers that be decided that they were going to automate customer ordering through their website, and so they were going to let their sales force go.

  “You’re making a mistake,” Willis said. “My customers like me, and without me pushing our brands you’re going to see orders drop by at least a third, and probably more than that.”

  His supervisor was named Tony Manzoni. A thick bull of a man who ignored the smoking ban in the workplace and always kept a lit stogie between his lips. He grunted out in agreement.

  “You’re preaching to the choir,” Manzoni said. “But it ain’t my call.”

  Willis nodded, understanding that Manzoni’s hands were tied. “You got anything for me?” he asked. “Delivery, maybe something in the office?”

  Manzoni shook his head slowly, ash dropping off the tip of his cigar. “Nothing. I’m sorry, Willis. But I got to let all you guys go. Brass ain’t giving me any options here.”

  At first Willis wasn’t concerned. With his rep he was mostly convinced he’d get another job with a competing distributor, but this was late 2012 and with the national employment holding steady at ten percent for over four years, and which would soon be rising to thirteen percent, he found this wasn’t the case. Worse, it seemed to be a growing trend with many of these distributors to axe their sales force in favor of automating orders online. Willis spent his first month contacting distributors throughout the country without any luck. While he would’ve liked to have stayed in Akron where he had built up solid contacts, what really mattered to him was finding a job. In a way he was lucky. He had never married, his expenses were low, and he had saved some money. After three months of striking out with other distributors and seeing his funds shrink, he realized he was going to have to get a job in another industry but still held out hope that he’d be able to transfer his sales experience and line something up. With each successive month of unemployment he felt less sure of that. After eleven months of being out of work and piling up debts that he knew he’d never get out from under, he considered either suicide or robbing banks, and was torn over which one. That was when he got a call from The Factory. He didn’t know it was The Factory calling. Hell, like just about everyone else he had never heard of them, so how could he have known it was them? He’d only learn that much later. The man calling identified himself as Colonel Jay T. Richardson, and asked whether Willis still considered himself a patriot.

  “I see you’re an ex-Army guy,” Richardson said with a heavy Southern drawl which Willis couldn’t quite place. Maybe South Carolina. Maybe West Virginia. “According to your records you served two years in the Gulf where you did a fine job defending your country. My question to you, Mr. Willis, is whether you’d still be willing to do the hard work necessary for your country’s sake?”

  “Why are you asking me that?”

  “’Cause, Mr. Willis, our country needs men like you right now, and if you’re willing, we’d sure like to discuss the matter with you.”

  Richardson refused to talk more about what the job entailed, but Willis agreed to be flown down to Virginia and be interviewed. Richardson transferred the call to his secretary who then filled Willis in on the details. The interview process would be a five-day ordeal and Willis was not allowed to mention the interview to anyone, was not to bring a cell phone with him and, further, was not to bring any device that provided GPS tracking—that he’d be searched and if he violated these terms he’d be sent back home. Willis agreed to this, and the secretary booked him on a flight leaving the next morning.

  When Willis arrived at Norfolk International Airport in Virginia, he was met at the gate, then taken to a room where they searched him as they’d promised. After that they put him in a van filled with other candidates and whose windows had been blacked out so they couldn’t be seen out of. The candidates had been warned not to talk to each other, that if they did they’d be disqualified, and so for the three and a half hour van ride they all sat quietly without a single word being spoken. When they arrived they were taken for physicals and fitness tests. A few of the candidates washed out during this process. After that they were separated, and Willis was taken for a psychological evaluation.

  With the questions they were asking, Willis figured out quickly that what they were really after was knowing how he’d react if he’d have to take a life or see people die, so he lied and gave them the answers that he knew they were after, which were basically mak
ing him look like a cold-blooded sociopath. He must’ve passed their psychological evaluation, because next came the lie detector test. Willis knew that for the most part they didn’t care about his answers and were after whether they could get a clear true-false reading from him. If the polygraph results were fuzzy, he’d be eliminated from further consideration. Of course, if he revealed something alarming to them he’d also be eliminated, but what they really wanted to know was whether they’d be able to plug him in at any time in the future and be guaranteed an accurate reading. Willis was able to relax enough to pass this test. Once the polygraph test finished, he was done with his second day of testing.

  Starting on day three was what Willis could only figure was an IQ test. For two days they threw problems and puzzles at him, and put him under severe time pressure to solve them, often with a lot of background noise and other distractions. It was tiring, but Willis held up during the testing, and must’ve passed because they didn’t send him home at the end of day four. It was on day five that he met with Colonel Jay T. Richardson. Up until this point nobody had told him what the job was that he was interviewing for. He had his ideas, but they were only guesses.

  Richardson was in his sixties. Built like a fireplug, he had thick silver hair cut like a bristle brush and a red face that wrinkled like a beagle’s when he smiled or scowled. At first he sat scowling at Willis, and kept that up for a good minute before signaling for Willis to take a seat. The two men were alone with Richardson seated behind his desk. Willis took the chair across from him.