The Hunted Read online

  This was more than stupid. If the police discovered Foley had a bull terrier then the dog could end up leading them straight to Willis. If anything about that was reported on the news, Willis would find a place to dump the dog. But the police might hold that information back, and still be looking for the bull terrier as a way to find Foley’s murderer. If the police caught Willis with Foley’s dog, what could he tell them? That Foley sold the dog to him? Maybe, but it was still stupid and sentimental of him to be doing what he was doing, and if The Factory ever found out about it they’d terminate him on the spot for his stupidity and recklessness.

  Willis grimaced severely as he tried to understand why he was taking the chance he was with absolutely nothing to gain from it. He noticed the bull terrier staring at him with an accusatory look, as if he suspected what Willis did to his owner. Willis turned his grimace to the dog, and the dog looked away.

  Chapter 8

  Later Willis reported to Barry how he handled the assignment and that it might be a few days or longer before the police discovered the corpse. During his report Barry remained quiet, and he let the silence build for a half a minute after Willis finished before commenting how it seemed as if Willis had chosen an odd way to complete his assignment.

  “Interesting,” Barry said, as if he were musing over the issue, although at the same time letting some annoyance slip through. “You have your target living alone on the end of a cul-de-sac bordering woods. I would’ve thought a home invasion gone bad would’ve been a more natural way to do this job. Or perhaps you could’ve simply hidden in the woods with a rifle. Very interesting that you would choose this riskier method with potentially more exposure.”

  “I thought killing him as a result of a road rage incident would be more believable to the police,” Willis said flatly. “A home invasion wouldn’t have made much sense to the police, nor an execution-style murder.”

  “Oh come now. A home invasion could’ve been looked at by the police as the perps picking the wrong home, possibly mistaking the target’s home for that of a drug dealer. And nothing at all wrong either if the police had been led into thinking it was a paid hit.”

  “I thought a road rage killing made more sense,” Willis said stubbornly.

  Barry must’ve been running a stress analysis test on Willis’s answers, and was satisfied enough with the apparent truthfulness of them to let the matter drop. He asked instead whether the target had said anything to Willis while Willis was beating him to death. Barry had to be suspicious of that. Maybe he later discovered his screw-up of how Willis and Foley were in the same van together when they were taken to The Factory interview and training center. But he also had to be thinking that if Willis’s plan was to torture Foley to extract information from him, it would’ve made more sense to do a home invasion and have the time and privacy to get whatever information he wanted.

  “Nothing consequential,” Willis said. “He didn’t have much time to say anything. I shattered his jaw with my first strike so he wouldn’t be able to shout for help.” Willis paused, then added, “I recognized him. I think he might’ve recognized me also.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My target was in the same van as me when we were driven from Norfolk International Airport to The Factory headquarters.”

  There was an orchestrated pause from Barry before he mentioned that some sort of mistake had been made. While his voice implied the right tone of irritation and surprise, he was lying.

  “You shouldn’t have been assigned to him,” Barry said. “I’ll look into how that happened.” Another long pause. Then Barry asked, “You weren’t interested in questioning your target about that?”

  “Not particularly. Should I have been? The way I figured it he was an insurgent who almost infiltrated The Factory.”

  “That’s true,” Barry confided. “He washed out during the interview process for other reasons. We didn’t learn about his connection with the insurgency until recently.”

  “It’s a good thing he washed out then.”

  “Good thing is right.” Barry was satisfied enough with Willis’s answers to let the matter drop. He told Willis the bulletin board had already been updated with his next target, and when he finished this one he could have three weeks off for vacation. “I’d have to think some extra cash would come in handy for whatever trip you have planned. So let’s see that you get your bonus for this assignment, okay, Willis?” Barry added as he tried to keep his voice pleasant. He ended the call before Willis had a chance to answer him.

  The dog was lying on his side by Willis’s feet, an eye fixed on Willis. Willis reached down to scratch the dog behind his ear and the dog consented to let him do it. The fur was coarse like a brush bristle, the skull as hard as a brick. From his conversation with Barry, Willis felt certain that The Factory had no idea that Foley had had a dog. The dog let out a little pig-like grunt and rolled over onto his back, offering Willis his chest, and Willis complied by scratching it. He had returned home five hours earlier, and for most of that time the dog had a miserable time adjusting to his new surroundings. He was unable to lie quietly and got up every few minutes so he could whimper or let out some of his pig-like noises, then he’d walk to the door and scratch it. Willis had tried feeding him, but the dog had no appetite. He also tried driving the dog three towns over to a woodsy area to take him for a walk, but the dog only plopped himself down on the ground and moped. When Willis was a liquor salesman in Akron, he lived in a small apartment. Once he was hired by The Factory and he understood what his job was going to be, he decided to rent a house in a rural area where he wouldn’t have neighbors snooping around or prying into his business. There wasn’t another house within a quarter of a mile of where he was living, but even so, he wasn’t going to take the dog for walks near his house, at least not until he knew it was safe and the police weren’t broadcasting that they were looking for a man with a white bull terrier. Better to drive to that remote woods area.

  While Willis expected the dog to be moping for a while, he was glad to see that it was beginning to accept its situation. When Willis stopped scratching the dog’s belly, the dog flipped himself to his feet and scampered over to his food dish. After a couple of snorts he began eating his food with only a minor reluctance.

  “I’m going to have to call you something other than dog,” Willis said. He tried to think what name to give the animal. He’d never had any pet before and it always seemed odd to him when pet owners gave their animals human names. “How about Bowser?” Willis asked.

  The dog lifted his bullet-shaped head from the now empty dish and made another of his pig-like grunts, which as far as Willis was concerned settled the matter.

  Willis thought about turning on the computer and seeing who his next target was going to be, but decided that could wait.

  Chapter 9

  Willis felt a sense of unease as he read about his next target, Melanie Hartman. She was thirty-two and pretty, even though from her driver’s license photo she looked like someone who got very uncomfortable in front of a camera. All of Willis’s previous targets had been men, and the idea of killing a woman bothered him. He knew it shouldn’t matter. A traitor’s a traitor regardless of the person’s sex. If a woman joined the insurgency and was actively working to destroy this country, then she should pay the same price as any of her male counterparts. But one of the things about this target that made Willis especially uneasy was that while she was divorced, she lived with her ten year-old son, and there was nothing about her sharing custody. It was possible the boy’s father was completely out of the picture and that after the assignment was completed the boy would be left orphaned.

  Willis steeled himself as he studied her picture. If this woman was willing to join the insurgency then her son would be better off orphaned than living with her. So he’ll terminate his first female target. Over time he’ll get used to the idea just as he’s been able to do with his other targets. He’d better since he doubted that Mela
nie Hartman would be his only female target. The Factory must do this intentionally. Desensitize male field workers like himself with male targets before giving them a woman. It made sense that there would be an equal number of women in the insurgency. Willis accepted that this was probably bothering him more than it should have thanks to a poor night of sleeping, which left him feeling lousy. He’d already drunk two cups of black coffee loaded with sugar, and this hadn’t done much yet to remove the fuzziness wrapping his brain.

  His poor night of sleeping had nothing to do with feeling any guilt over killing Foley, although Foley was indirectly the cause of it. He had let the bull terrier spend the night in his bedroom. He didn’t like the idea of crating the dog as Foley had done; besides, he knew if he did that the dog would’ve been whimpering all night. So instead, every ten minutes or so the dog got up groaning like an old man before circling the room and plopping down again. This kept up until four in the morning, and it was only after that that Willis was able to fall into a deep sleep. Forty minutes later he woke up with Bowser’s snout inches from his face, the dog’s eyes fixed on him as he lay next to Willis. Willis decided that that would be it for trying to sleep and he rolled out of bed, slipped on some clothes, and then took Bowser three towns over to the woods for a walk.

  It was now six in the morning and Willis was back home and working on another cup of black coffee as he stared at the driver’s license photo of his next target. Brown eyes, brown hair, a cute slightly upturned nose with freckles dotting it, and an awkwardly shy smile. There were other aspects of the job other than his target’s sex that bothered him. The Factory had marked her for suicide, so either he’d have to get to her when the son wasn’t home or he’d have to do the job quietly. While The Factory had lax rules about collateral damage, Willis wasn’t about to take out a ten year-old boy.

  If the woman was normal, Willis would be able to break in there late at night and threaten to hurt her son unless she wrote out a suicide note and swallowed the pills he handed her, but if someone is not only willing but actively working to see this country go down in flames, why would she care about her child? This would have to be done differently, and even the surveillance options for this job were lousy. She lived in a large apartment building with an underground garage, and no building or apartment vacancies nearby for him to use—at least none reported in The Factory’s one-page dossier. There wasn’t even a nearby diner or coffee shop for him to camp out in.

  Willis had enough of staring at the computer screen. He exited The Factory’s bulletin board, then turned his frown to Bowser, who was lying by his feet.

  “Time to earn the food I’ve been feeding you,” he muttered.

  ##

  He had Bowser on a leash as he walked around Melanie Hartman’s neighborhood. He wouldn’t be able to do this for long without drawing attention, but he got lucky and spotted her as she drove an older model Honda Civic out from under the garage parking lot. He pulled out a pair of field glasses and memorized the license plate. The Factory’s dossier had gotten both the car and license plate wrong. They had her in a newer model Saab.

  Hartman had her son in the passenger seat when she left, or at least Willis assumed it was her son since The Factory hadn’t provided a photo of the boy. He had no idea how long she’d be gone. Maybe she was driving her kid to school and would be back shortly afterwards, or maybe she’d be heading off to work after she dropped him off. If she returned back to the apartment, the job could become very easy as Willis would have a chance to be with her alone up there. He took Bowser back to his car and left him in the backseat gnawing on a thick rawhide bone. The dog was adapting quicker than Willis could’ve hoped for. At least one thing was going right.

  The apartment building Hartman lived in must’ve been built in the seventies. Seven floors, concrete, kind of an eyesore of a building, although each unit seemed to have its own balcony. The building didn’t have much for security. No surveillance cameras, no concierge or anyone on duty. The back door was easy to break into. Willis moved quickly up the fire stairs and to the third floor where Hartman lived. He didn’t pass anyone on the stairs since if they were going down to the garage they would’ve used the elevator instead.

  The lock on Hartman’s door was a cheap one, and Willis was able to pick it in seconds and get into her apartment without being seen. Willis had hoped that the balcony could be used for her suicide but as he looked out the blinds he saw that there were large hedges below that would break her fall. If her balcony was on the other side of the building as half of them were, she would have had a concrete landing. It would raise suspicions if Willis broke her neck before throwing her off of it. The apartment just wasn’t high enough, not with the hedges underneath to provide a cushioning. He’d have to check later whether the fire stairs led to the roof. If they did, he could toss her body from there to the concrete side of the building.

  Willis moved quickly to search the apartment. If Hartman returned while he was there, he’d have no choice but to try to make her suicide look like she had slashed her wrists, which would be tricky, at best. He’d have to overpower her without leaving any other marks or bruises on her body. And he’d have to shut her up before she’d be able to scream. Damn Factory and their suicides!

  He started in the kitchen first. His stomach seized up as he looked at a photo of her and her son attached by a magnet to the refrigerator. It was a recent photo, and in it she’s crouching behind her son, her chin almost resting on his shoulder as she’s holding him around his chest and grinning broadly, all the while looking like every other loving and doting mother. He didn’t get why someone like her would join the insurgency. Didn’t she have any clue what she’d be doing to her son? Willis forced himself to memorize that photo. He needed to know what her son looked like. Before leaving the kitchen he found a pay stub which had her work address on it. He searched the rest of her mail but found nothing incriminating.

  The apartment was made up of a room that served as both a living room and dining area, a galley kitchen outfitted with its original appliances and cabinets from the seventies, and two bedrooms, with hers being only a little larger than her son’s. Her bedroom was neat and nothing in it to indicate she was an insurgent or had much of a personal life. In the back of a closet that held a surprisingly small number of clothes and shoes, he found a two-drawer file cabinet. He shuffled through the folders quickly but found nothing other than typical household papers, and nothing about her ex-husband or about her collecting any child support or alimony.

  Her son’s room was much messier and looked typical for what you’d expect for a ten year-old’s room with comic books scattered about, and the walls decorated with sports and action-movie posters. He gave it a quick search. He checked his watch and saw that he’d been in the apartment a little over twenty minutes. It was time to get out of there. The one thing he noticed that was missing from the apartment was any sort of computer, but that didn’t mean much. She could have a smart phone for connecting to the Internet and staying connected to the insurgency that way.

  Willis listened by the front door, and when he felt certain that there was no one out in the hallway, he left the apartment and then went quickly to the fire staircase. From there he went up to the top and saw that he’d be able to have access to the roof. The door was locked, but the lock wouldn’t be much of a challenge for him. He now knew how Melanie Hartman would die. He’d wait until three in the morning to sneak back into the building, then get into her apartment, break her neck before she ever woke up, carry her up to the roof, then throw her over so she’d land on the concrete. It wouldn’t be that hard carrying her dead body to the roof. According to her driver’s license, she was only five foot two inches and a hundred and five pounds. He’d be able to put her over his shoulders and climb those four flights easy enough. The police would probably wonder why she committed suicide, but there wouldn’t be any forensic evidence to contradict it.

  Willis made his way down the fire staircase
and out of the building without running into anyone. When he got back to his car, Bowser was still gnawing away at his rawhide bone, but he stopped to give Willis an incriminating look.

  “I’m only doing my job,” Willis muttered as a way of apology.

  Chapter 10

  Willis couldn’t leave it alone. He had the job figured out so it would be able to be done with little risk, but a thought nagged at him. When he left Melanie Hartman’s building he took Bowser for a long walk in a woodsy area, but he couldn’t quiet that whisper that was nagging at him. After he brought Bowser back to his house, he drove to the dental office where Melanie Hartman worked as a receptionist. She was sitting up front and as Willis approached her, she smiled cheerfully at him. Up close she was much prettier than she’d been in her photo; her large brown eyes sparkling brightly, her smile anything but awkward, and those freckles dotting her nose gave her a clean-cut, wholesome look like those girls they used to use in those old Ivory soap commercials. But hell, the former and now deceased porn star, Marilyn Chambers, had once been one of those Ivory soap girls, so what was the point of putting any importance on that? Willis told her he’d like to make an appointment to get his teeth cleaned, keeping his own voice as friendly and as at ease as if the two of them were long time acquaintances.

  After a few questions, such as whether he was a new patient and if he was experiencing any pain, Hartman consulted a scheduling book. As she flipped through it, her brow furrowed and she bit her bottom lip in a way that made Willis’s nagging whisper all that much louder. “Dr. Shulman’s schedule is pretty full right now,” she said apologetically. “His first opening isn’t until a week from next Friday. Eleven o’clock. Would that be okay?”