The Hunted (6 page)

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?”

“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.