The Hunted Read online

  “I was hoping to get this done sooner.”

  “I understand. I could call you if we have a cancellation, or I could call one of our other recommended dentists and see if they can fit you in sooner.” She winked at him as her smile grew into something sly. “Don’t worry, we really do recommend these others dentists. We’re not getting kickbacks or anything.”

  “I don’t want to put you out.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m happy to do it.” She proceeded to busy herself looking through her desk drawers. “Now if I can only find where that list is.” She explained to Willis how she’d only been working there for four weeks and she still sometimes forgot where things were.

  Willis leaned in, smiled sympathetically. “How do you like it here?”

  “Oh, I love it.” Hartman looked around the waiting room. A middle-aged woman was reading a fashion magazine while her teenage daughter was plugged into an iPod and skimming through the latest issue of People. The mother was eavesdropping but trying not to show it. The daughter was oblivious. Hartman lowered her voice to a soft whisper and added, “This job was a lifesaver. I was out of work for four months before Dr. Shulman gave me this chance. I am so grateful to him, especially with the job environment we have these days.”

  “I hear you,” Willis said and in equally low voice. “I was out of work for eleven months and it was brutal.”

  Empathy flooded her eyes and she lay a delicate hand on Willis’s arm. The gesture was mostly out of sympathy, and maybe at a subconscious level, some flirting. “You were able to find something too then?” she asked.

  Willis nodded.

  Hartman gave herself a what-a-dope smile as she remembered where the list was kept and dug it out of a file cabinet. She was about to start making calls, but Willis stopped her. “You don’t have to do that,” he said. “Maybe if you could make a copy for me instead? I’ll make the calls later.”

  She nodded okay and went to the copy machine. She was dressed conservatively for the office in a skirt and blouse. A petite and slender build, but very attractive. All Willis could think about as he looked at her was what it would be like with her dead weight on his shoulders as he carried her up four flights of stairs to the roof. The moment before she turned back to him the grimness disappeared from his face and he was again smiling amiably at her. He pointed out the framed photo on her desk and asked whether that was her son, knowing already that it was.

  “The love of my life,” she said, her smile turning into something very genuine. “That’s my son Jack. I know I was only out of work for four months and a lot of people out there have had it a lot worse, but he’s still what kept me going.”

  Willis nodded as he took the list from her and as he left the office those whispers gnawing at him only got louder.

  ##

  Willis didn’t kill Melanie Hartman that night. Instead he decided to put her under surveillance and look for any evidence that could convince him that she was an insurgent. Most of the time, he brought the bull terrier with him. The dog provided good cover, especially since there was no empty location near her apartment for him to camp out in. When he was outside trailing her, all eyes of any passerby would go to the dog instead of him. On the fifth day of trailing her, he found a story in the newspaper about Foley’s body being found in the trunk of his car. The police spokesman speculated that the murder was most likely the result of a road rage incident, which was what Willis had expected. There was nothing mentioned about a dog taken from Foley’s house. It was also somewhat surprising to Willis how little space had been given to the murder. Or maybe not so surprising given how the murder rate had been creeping up in Boston over the last two years, which left Foley competing against a number of other equally violent deaths.

  Barry also called him during his fifth day of surveillance to ask why the assignment hadn’t been completed yet. Willis explained that it was because The Factory had to mark the death as suicide. “That complicates the matter,” he said. “She’s got a ten year-old son living with her so it’s got to be done quietly. If her balcony was on the other side of the building, it would be easy. I could toss her off and she’d land on concrete. But with the shrubs underneath her balcony to provide a soft landing, I don’t think the coroner would buy that her neck was broken by the fall.”

  Willis was able to go into the details that he did because he knew he was talking over a secured line, and with the level of encryption being used no one would’ve been able to eavesdrop. When Barry responded, it was only with a minimal effort to hide his exasperation.

  “It’s precisely because of her ten year-old son that I thought this would be a trivial assignment for you,” he said with a voice that bordered on becoming a whine. “I would have to think that with the right persuasion you’d have her willingly swallowing a handful of pills.”

  “And what persuasion would that be?”

  “Must I be this blunt? That if she doesn’t do as you’re demanding you’ll cripple her son, or worse.”

  “That wouldn’t work,” Willis said. “I thought of that also, but if she’s an insurgent hell-bent on seeing this country go down in flames, why would she care one bit about what I might do to her son?”

  There was a pause from Barry before he admitted in a stilted voice that that might be true. “A pity that you won’t be earning your bonus. That makes three assignments in a row now. Twelve thousand dollars.” Another pause, then, “You will be taking care of this by your deadline?”

  “Yeah.”

  Barry ended the call. Over the next week Willis maintained his surveillance and saw no evidence that Melanie Hartman was anything other than what she appeared to be, which was a very pretty thirty-two year-old woman whose life revolved around work and her son. During that week several new violent home invasion murders seemed to occupy the media’s attention and there was very little else in the newspapers about Foley, and nothing about him on the TV news. Also no mention about a stolen dog. Either the police were keeping that to themselves or they just didn’t know about it.

  On the last day of his deadline Barry called again to find out why the target hadn’t been dealt with yet. There was no exasperation in his voice, only a polite iciness. Willis hesitated before telling Barry that he didn’t believe Melanie Hartman was an insurgent.

  “Is that so?”

  “Yeah,” Willis said. “You made a mistake with her.”

  “We don’t make mistakes, Willis.”

  There was no misunderstanding the threat in Barry’s voice. He was giving Willis one last chance to back down and take care of the matter, or there would be severe consequences.

  “I’ve been watching the target almost two weeks,” Willis said. “I’m convinced she is what she appears to be. A young woman who puts in ten hours a day at her job, and lives for her son. She’s not part of any conspiracy or terrorist organization. You need to double-check her status.”

  There was dead silence from Barry. Then, “Where is she employed?”

  Willis gave him the name and address of the dental office where Melanie Hartman worked. Barry told him that he’d check this out himself.

  “Don’t do anything until you hear back from me,” Barry warned before ending the call.

  One day later Barry called back to tell him that a mistake had been made.

  “How the hell did that happen?” Willis demanded.

  “It’s interesting that you would ask that,” Barry said. “We’re fighting a war, and as you know collateral damage happens. If you had answered your psychological profile answers honestly then this wouldn’t matter to you. You fudged on your answers, didn’t you, Willis?”

  “No. But I take pride in my work, and if I’m spending time and putting myself at risk to take out a target, I want it to be a real target.”

  “Hmm,” Barry mused in a way that made Willis think of a pudgy cat purring as it lay on a satin pillow. “Interesting. To answer your question, Willis, the insurgency has been feeding us misinformation.
Most of it we’ve been able to weed out. This little bit of misdirection slipped through. It’s good that you caught it because it would’ve exposed one of our inside agents if you hadn’t. Still, all of us need to accept that collateral damage is inevitable. Any future assignments, just do them and don’t waste time investigating the target. We don’t have time for that. The war we’re fighting is too important. Do we understand each other?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Check the bulletin board. Your next assignment has been added. Get it done quickly, earn your bonus, then take your three weeks off and relax. You’re going to be busy when you get back. From the reports I’m getting, this war we’re fighting is getting uglier by the day.”

  Chapter 11

  After getting off the phone with Barry, Willis logged onto the Factory’s bulletin board so he could get the details for his next assignment. He wasn’t planning on doing anything about it yet—he had other things in mind, but he knew The Factory would be monitoring for when he checked in.

  Willis’s next target was his age and looked quite a bit like him. A grim smile compressed his lips as he read through the particulars. He knew the age and physical similarities weren’t purely a coincidence—that The Factory picked out this target special for him to send him a not-so-subtle message. That unless Willis got on the ball, he could just as easily be a target himself for another field agent. The target was named Steve Taggert and was marked for murder, and the dossier mentioned a nearby vacant house that was available to use for surveillance purposes. This vacant house was a Colonial, and Willis would be able to watch from the second floor and pick off Taggert with a rifle shot when he left his house, just as a field agent would be able to watch for Willis from the woods surrounding his house and pick him off when he left.

  Willis had earlier bought a bag of pig ears, and Bowser was laying on the floor a few feet from Willis while he busily chewed up one of them. “Boy, what do you think?” Willis asked him. The dog interrupted his chewing for a moment to look at Willis. He let out a satisfied grunt, and then was back to working on that ear.

  “Yeah, I agree,” Willis said. “They’re not out there yet. Might not be a bad idea for us to find a new place, huh?” The dog was too busy tearing apart his pig ear to grunt back an answer.

  Willis found a cabin two towns away that he could rent by the week. He paid cash for one week in advance and brought only Bowser, a small suitcase packed with a week’s worth of clothing, as well as a nine millimeter automatic with three extra clips and a pair of binoculars. He left his Factory badge back in his house.

  The next morning Willis withdrew an amount in cash that wouldn’t draw suspicion from anyone expecting him to be going on a three-week vacation. After watching Melanie Hartman for the past two weeks, he was able to bump into her at the small diner several blocks from where she worked and where she had lunch most days—usually a garden salad, although sometimes she’d have a scoop of tuna salad added to it. Hartman recognized him immediately and offered a bright smile while Willis feigned surprise and wrinkled his forehead as he slowly pretended to place where he knew her from. Then snapping his fingers he mentioned that she was the one who helped him out finding a dentist. Flashing an easygoing smile he asked if he could join her at her table. She hesitated only briefly while she considered this, then told him she’d be happy to have the company.

  “So you were able to find someone?” she asked.

  “With your help, yeah.”

  “No cavities?”

  “Not a one.”

  “Even better!”

  Willis noted how beautiful her smile was and how it showed just as brightly in her eyes. Completely genuine. He knew there was some interest on her part, and if his situation were different the interest would be mutual. An uneasiness twisted in his stomach as he realized how close he had come to wiping out that smile for all time, but he made sure to keep that hidden and only show a relaxed expression.

  “Lunch will be on me, okay?” Willis said. “It’s the least I can do for helping me out the way you did. That was very nice of you, by the way.”

  She was going to protest, but saw it wouldn’t do any good and instead went along with it in a good-natured way. “Who am I to tell a good-looking guy he can’t buy me lunch,” she said blushing slightly. Willis grinned then. Not a fake one, but the first real one he had shown since joining The Factory. He liked the way she looked when she blushed, maybe even more than the way she did when she smiled. Her blush deepened. A waitress came over and Willis ordered a burger and coffee while Melanie Hartman ordered an iced tea and a garden salad, probably skipping the tuna salad to keep the cost down for Willis. After the waitress left, she asked whether he worked nearby.

  “Nope. I came here on a business assignment.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Sort of a corporate troubleshooting position.” He waved it away. “Not all that interesting, but it was all I could find after my sales job was eliminated. Those eleven months I spent looking for work were brutal.”

  “I know. I was only out of work for four months, but those four months were miserable. I was so worried that I wouldn’t find a job, especially with all the stories out there about people being out of work for years. If it wasn’t for my son, Jack, I don’t think I would’ve made it. Jack was what kept me fighting to find something.” Her smile weakened and a moistness showed in her eyes. “I broke down and cried when Dr. Shulman offered me that job.”

  Willis nodded grimly. “What did you use to do?” he asked. He already had a good idea since he had seen the textbooks when he searched her apartment, but he showed the proper amount of surprise and interest when she told him she used to do something very different.

  “My degree is in biotechnology,” she said, her smile weakening even more and turning into something bleak. “Four years for my bachelor’s degree, another two years for my master’s. I was working for a lab in Cambridge doing some advanced research, but they, like a lot of the labs that used to be here, decided it would be cheaper to do their research and development in India or Russia. I’m not complaining, though. You play the cards you’re dealt. All I want now is to be able to take care of my son.”

  The waitress came back with their beverages. Willis watched as the waitress walked away, then he let some anger show in his eyes as he shook his head.

  “I wouldn’t blame you one bit if you did complain,” Willis said. “People have a right to be angry. Jobs being wiped out left and right and a national unemployment rate of thirteen percent, all while the top one tenth of one percent in this country getting wealthier and wealthier. When I was out of work, I had a group contact me. Real revolutionary stuff. Burning down the country so we could start over, stuff like that. I had my moments where I seriously considered joining up.” Willis looked away as he took a sip of his coffee, then gazed back to her. He asked whether anything like that had happened to her.

  “No, thank God,” she said. “Not that I blame you for briefly considering it. I can understand the anger out there, but it doesn’t do any good. We need to be constructive and work together and not tear this country apart.” Her smile turned apologetic. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be preachy. But at least things seem to be turning in the right direction. I read this morning that the unemployment rate has dropped to twelve point six percent, so at least we’re seeing some progress.”

  Willis had wanted to talk with her to find out whether the insurgency had tried contacting her. He wanted to know whether the insurgency had fed The Factory inside agent Hartman’s name as Barry claimed, or whether this had been a major league screw-up on The Factory’s part. When Hartman mentioned how the unemployment rate had fallen four tenths of a percent, something clicked in his mind. Something that had been vague suddenly became clear. He understood then why the unemployment rate had fallen and what his role had been. He understood why Hartman had originally been his target, and why she was later removed.

  Early on Willis didn’t
consciously pay much attention to the targets he was being assigned. They were all loners; either single men or divorced, mostly all of them living in either shabby apartments or rundown houses. It made sense to Willis that these were men whose anger could lead them to joining the insurgency. Later, he started realizing that many of his targets were unemployed, and he assumed that was because that was who the insurgency were actively recruiting. Men who would be angry and depressed and would have little to lose in seeing this country go down in flames. At some point Willis started to have his doubts and was searching for proof of this insurgency and his target’s connection to it. With his last few assignments, all of this was at a conscious level, but it must have also been there at a subconscious level for a while now. Maybe even from the beginning.

  Willis changed the conversation to a lighter topic, and while he maintained a pleasant exterior, in his mind’s eye he was actively clicking through all twenty-five targets that he had taken out, trying to remember everything he could about their dossiers and his surveillance of them. They all could’ve been unemployed. He couldn’t say for sure since he wasn’t paying attention to that early on, and some of his assignments were completed quickly with little surveillance. As he sat talking with Melanie Hartman his mind flipped through his assignments as if it were a rolodex and he became convinced that not only were they all unemployed, but that they had to have been that way for a while. That was why they all seemed so shabby, except maybe Foley. And that was why they were made his targets.

  Their food was brought over. Willis barely tasted his hamburger as he ate it and continued his conversation with Hartman, all the while his mind racing on other issues. When their lunch reached its normal conclusion, Hartman remarked how she needed to head back to work. Willis nodded, exchanged some final pleasantries with her, and acted dense when she hinted about how she wouldn’t mind having company on the two block walk back to her office. Under different circumstances Willis would’ve taken her up on it, but with the way things were he was going to need to keep far away from her and her son. It was a shame. He liked her and found himself attracted to her.