The Suppressor
Erik Carter
Copyright © 2021 by Erik Carter
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
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Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Pensacola, Florida
The 1990s
The man was out there, somewhere, hidden in the shadows and completely silent.
And the man was on the hunt.
Clayton Glover, the prey, squeezed himself tighter against the uneven surface, trying to match the silence of the predator. He inched his face toward the corner, stole a glance.
Nothing.
Just deep darkness pierced by crisscrossed streams of faint light that came in through the warehouse’s banks of windows, dust particles dancing within. Row after row of pallet racks, their skeletal steel uprights and beams climbing high above him into the darkness. Boxes and tubes and machinery and tools lined the shelves, all of it macabre and shadowy.
He ducked back into his position of safety, chest heaving. He let his head fall back against the stack of plastic bags behind him, which were full of coarse gravel. The plastic was cold against his sweaty hair. The stones poked at his scalp. He took in choppy breaths, willing them to be quieter, willing himself to shut the hell up.
All of this was happening because of Glover’s decision to follow Burton.
Glover wasn’t smart enough to be a leader, but he knew whom to follow. People like Lukas Burton—a winner, a born commander. He was the sort of man who could lead a guy like Glover to success, wealth, safety.
But if Burton was so damn great, why was Glover being hunted down now in a darkened warehouse?
And who the hell was the man hunting him?
Prior to the confrontation in the parking lot a few minutes earlier—when Glover had told the man Burton’s secret, before he’d managed to escape—Glover had never seen the man before, this large, cruel-looking individual with sculpted features, dark hair, and cold eyes.
He took another look into the warehouse. Still nothing. But how could—
There!
A flash.
The movement had come at the nearest window.
A reflection.
Something moving. Fast. he had just enough time to turn and find the fist hurtling toward his face.
Pain exploded in his eye socket, a burning wave that surged through the back of his head, up his nose, down his throat.
He stumbled back, took a blind swing, and a powerful hand clasped down upon his forearm and twisted. Glover’s feet were swept from beneath him, and he was thrown.
He landed hard on the floor several feet away with an impact that sent another pulse of pain through him, this one rattling his bones, erupting in his shoulder.
He slid along the polished concrete, bashed into something wooden. His eyes strained to open. Jagged boards surrounded him, the shattered remains of a pallet.
A moment of nothing. He breathed.
And then a shadow moved in front of him, the dark man loping forward, pistol in hand.
Glover grabbed one of the broken deck boards and swung just as the man reached him.
In a blur of movement, the man caught the board—caught it—and brought Glover’s swing to a dead stop.
After another streaking motion, the board was wrenched from Glover’s grip and the man threw it into the darkness. It clattered, the racket echoing off distant walls.
The man stood above him and aimed his Beretta 92FS at Glover’s chest. A silencer extended the pistol’s length.
Glover kicked feebly at the concrete, but there was nowhere to go.
“No! Shit! Please! I … I told you everything!” He shielded his face, his chest.
But the man’s face said he wouldn’t fire.
Not yet, anyway.
The look wasn’t there, that look in the eyes that said a person was prepared to take a life. Glover had been around violence his entire adulthood. This guy—whoever the monster was—had a reason for pinning Glover down like this. He wanted to squeeze more information out of him.
“Talk,” the man said, the first time he’d spoken. Minutes earlier, in the parking lot, the man had said nothing. He hadn’t needed to. The beating he’d given Glover was enough to get him to spill his guts.
Glover gasped.
The man’s voice…
It was a growl. Something at the same time mechanical and of the earth—deep in its bowels, forced up between layers of rock and lava.
The man brought the gun down, taking his aim off Glover’s chest and to his knee.
Talk, or you’ll never walk right again.
Glover’s arms pulled in tighter over his face. “I swear to God! I told you everything!”
He really had told the man everything. There was nothing left to share.
The dark eyes continued to stare down upon him. The pistol’s suppressed barrel didn’t waver.
Glover’s hands quivered in front of his face. He peered through his fingers, making eye contact with the man, a human connection, a plea.
The man’s expression changed. But not in the way Glover had hoped.
The look was there now, in the monster’s eyes, a veil of subtle changes to the muscles in his face. He bore the countenance of a man ready to go the full distance, to end someone’s life.
The desire to kill.
“Whoa, man!” Glover said. “I gave you what you want. I swear that’s all I know! Let me go.”
Glover’s heart pounded. His eyes moistened.
Why? Why was this happening?
This wasn’t how things worked. There were codes to be followed. Glover had snitched. And therefore the man was supposed to let him go. That’s how
