The Recruiter

by Dan Ames

  THE RECRUITER

  A Ray Mitchell Thriller

  Dan Ames

  A USA TODAY BESTSELLING BOOK

  Book One in The JACK REACHER Cases

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  Contents

  THE RECRUITER

  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

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Epilogue

  Also by Dan Ames

  About the Author

  ©2019 Dan Ames

  THE RECRUITER 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, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the author.

  All rights reserved.

  THE RECRUITER

  A Ray Mitchell Thriller

  by

  Dan Ames

  “Every man contains all the horrors of mankind.

  And each man adds a new wing to the museum.”

  -Henry Miller, Black Spring

  Chapter 1

  The killer pulls his white Ford Taurus rental car along the curb next to a Chinese restaurant, a few blocks past San Diego’s gay district and just before the first house of a quiet residential neighborhood. The kind of area where retirees sit in darkened living rooms, alternately watching television and any activity outside, ready to change channels or call the police, depending upon what action unfolds in either arena.

  He shuts the car off and places the keys in his pocket, then walks up to the corner and turns right, toward the neon signs, loud music, and sidewalks crowded with men.

  The air is warm but dry with a soft breeze that stirs the palm trees. A full moon hangs overhead, bathing the gaudy strip ahead in an eerie glow.

  He tells himself that he can stop. That he can go right back to his car, climb in, and drive away. That doing this…thing…will put him on a road with no way to turn back.

  He walks by a clothing store and catches his reflection in the window. He’s tall and lean, with dark hair and a face that looks carved, with sharp edges and angles. In his blue jeans and denim jacket, he looks rugged. Capable.

  His name is Samuel, and he keeps walking.

  He has thought about this moment. From the very second the great injustice transpired, he has gone over it and over it in his mind. It’s all about goals. Deciding what’s important. What you want to achieve, and then putting together a plan and systematic steps to achieve those goals. There are many options. But this is the most direct, and therefore the best approach of them all.

  It’s also the most dangerous, with the greatest chance of backfiring.

  At one point in his life, he was committed to a goal and never thought he’d fold…but he shakes that thought away. He is still committed to that goal. Now more than fucking ever. What he does know is that he will not be stopped. The part of his life that was ripped away needs to be put back. He isn’t whole. Until things are made right, he simply cannot exist in this state.

  Samuel knows what he’s looking for. He peers into the first place, The Cock and Bull, and sees that it isn’t right. It’s not crowded, there’s no loud music, nothing going on. Just a few middle-aged men sitting around an oval bar in a faint haze of cigarette smoke. He walks on, staring straight ahead. Several men pass him, staring intently, but he doesn’t look at them. He passes several more bars, but one glance into each tells him to keep moving.

  Up ahead, he can see a small group of men milling around an entrance that’s lit by a strobe light; swirling dots of color shower the men and the sidewalk. A pounding bass thumps the air around them. Samuel walks closer and can see a sign that reads: M&M. Beneath the sign is a vintage advertising banner that says “M&M’s melt in your mouth, not in your hands!”

  A low whistle sounds from the group, and the men turn as one to face Samuel. He ignores them and walks through the door. A muscular bouncer in a wife-beater T-shirt tells him there’s a five-dollar cover. Samuel pays the man and walks inside.

  It smells like a normal bar to Samuel, except maybe the scent of cologne is stronger. An empty stage sits at one end of the bar. The rest of the place is dominated by a circular bar with clusters of tables flanking it.

  Samuel walks past the bar toward the jukebox. It’s belting out a Doors song, something about a soul kitchen. He sees the sign for restrooms, an M&M with nuts, and follows it down a short hallway to a cheap pine door. He pushes in and walks briskly past the two urinals for the stalls. There are three smaller stalls, with a bigger handicapped one at the end.

  He pushes open the first stall and looks. It’s empty. He scans the floor, but it’s clean. The door swings shut, and Samuel pushes open the second door. It’s empty as well. He checks the third and finds the same result.

  He puts his h
and on the fourth door when he hears the sound of flesh smacking flesh. A soft groan comes from the stall. Samuel bends down and looks under the door. Two pairs of feet are facing the same way, partially obscured by pants and belts. One pair are topsiders, the other wingtips.

  Samuel goes back into the third stall and sits down on the toilet. He waits. The lovemaking sounds continue. He looks at the graffiti on the metal stall wall. “Jeremy’s the best!” Phone numbers. Crude drawings of male genitalia. A note: “My mother made me gay!” Followed by a witty rejoinder: “Will she make me a sweater?”

  The sounds in the stall next to him intensify, filling the small room. A deep moan fills the space, and the sound stops. After several moments, Samuel hears the snap of plastic, and then pants and zippers being pulled up.

  The men shuffle to the door and suddenly the sound of the jukebox fills the bathroom. The door shuts, and the room is quiet again. Samuel moves quickly. He leaves the third stall, enters the fourth, and pulls the door shut behind him. From the front pocket of his denim jacket, he pulls a pair of surgical gloves and slips them on. From the other pocket, he pulls a plastic baggie.

  Samuel looks around the toilet for the used condom and spies it on the right side, beneath the toilet dispenser.

  He picks it up, careful to grasp it at the top ring, and slides it into the plastic baggie, then places the baggie into a pocket, strips off the plastic gloves, and drops them in the wastebasket on the way out. He’ll need another pair for the next phase of the operation, but that’s okay.

  He has several more in the car.

  Chapter 2

  He stands on the threshold of his destiny.

  The streaking rays of sunset have faded completely from the sky. Reflections from the bonfire light the side of his face, shading the dark hollows.

  Coronado, California, sits behind him. Home to the North Island Naval Station and the infamous Navy BUD/S program: Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. It is to this small island just off the coast of San Diego that young men volunteer to become Navy SEALs, knowing that in order to accomplish that feat, they must first pass the BUD/S program. They’ve heard the statistics—that over ninety percent of them won’t make it. That people have died during this training.

  But on this night, Saturday night, they are not worried. They are drinking, celebrating, preparing.

  Phase One of the SEAL training begins on Monday. This Saturday night party is a tradition, meant to punctuate the recruits’ last night of freedom before they turn their lives over to the BUD/S instructors.

  Samuel looks west, out into the ocean. Behind him, the others are drinking, talking with slurred voices, dealing with their fears and anxieties the only way they know how: mainly, to deny them. But Samuel Ackerman is not in denial. He knows what’s at stake. Ever since his father told him he’d been a frogman for the Navy—the same group that later became the SEALs—it has been Samuel’s dream. To be the most complete, most highly trained, most physically fit warrior in the world: a Navy SEAL.

  Samuel takes a drink from the can of Budweiser. His free hand, the right one, goes to his face, and he rubs a spot just above his right eye. Whenever he thinks of his father, he does this. It is the very spot where the old man’s boot crunched his skull—but Samuel doesn’t want to think about that now.

  Samuel sits down abruptly and takes off his shoes and socks. He scoops up the can of Budweiser and takes a long drink. He walks forward, into the water. Southern California or not, the water is cold. It is something the BUD/S instructors are acutely aware of and use to their advantage at every moment. It is the cold mainly, along with the sleep deprivation, that causes so many to drop out, to ring the infamous bell that will be within reach at all times. When a recruit rings the bell, it means he quits. He is given a hot meal and a warm bed.

  Samuel will not ring the bell.

  He stands there, his feet sinking into the rough textured sand, feels his toes descend. The water is cold, and he knows that at some point he’ll be linked arm in arm with other recruits at some ungodly hour of the morning, sitting in the surf as wave after wave of ice-cold water smashes into them. It’s called Hell Week, and it’s when the majority of recruits drop out of the voluntary training program.

  He looks into the water at its murky depths. It will be settled there, he thinks. Despite the running. The pushups. Carrying the boats on their heads. The complete sleep deprivation. The BUD/S instructors with their relentless taunting, pushing, deriding.

  The water is where it will be decided. It is the water that washes away the will. That erodes the desire. That softens the heart.

  Samuel is glad. He is good in the water, has been all his life.

  He spits into the ocean and drinks the rest of his beer in one long swallow. He looks off across the water at the dark horizon.

  His destiny is there.

  Waiting.

  Chapter 3

  Samuel drives along the row of bars a block from the naval base.

  The sidewalks are crowded with sailors, their girlfriends or girlfriends-to-be. Occasionally, groups of men can be seen leaving one bar and walking into the next one. They are drunk, alive, and ready to make the most of their time away from base.

  Samuel drives for two blocks before he sees The Outer Bank, a clapboard tavern painted blue with a life ring and a pelican affixed over the front door. He drives past and circles the parking lot, looking for a black Chevy truck with the Navy SEAL bumper sticker.

  He sees it and goes past, taking a parking spot at the other end of the lot that affords him privacy and an unobstructed view of the Chevy. He puts his car in park and shuts it off. The engine ticks.

  Samuel turns the ignition far enough to work the electrical systems, and he rolls down the driver’s side window.

  A gust of cool ocean air invades the car’s space, and Samuel breathes deeply.

  Any thoughts of turning back are gone now.

  From beneath the front seat of the Taurus, Samuel pulls a nylon scabbard. It’s big, nearly a foot long, and heavy, weighing a couple of pounds. Samuel holds it tenderly before popping the clasp and sliding out the knife.

  Someone shouts and he glances up. A group of sailors crosses the parking lot at the opposite end of the parking lot. They won’t see him.

  Samuel turns his attention back to the knife. It glistens in the moonlight, and he is tempted to test the edge, but he doesn’t—he knows it’s razor sharp. He worked with it into the small hours of the morning last night to get it so that it would cut like a razor.

  He slides the knife back into the scabbard and stows it beneath the seat. Samuel glances at the Chevy, sees it sitting, quietly waiting for its owner to return.

  At the thought of the truck’s owner, Samuel instantly begins going over his plan one more time. Has he forgotten anything? Is there some minor flaw that he’ll realize at this late moment which will cause him to abort? The machinations go through his mind quickly. He looks at it from every conceivable angle. There are places things can go wrong, definitely. But if things fall into place, he is prepared to move.

  It is a good plan. It is the tactical part that pleases him the most. The other part, the slaking of his thirst for revenge, is just an added bonus.

  And the bastard who had hounded him from BUD/S training.

  Nevens.

  Chapter 4

  It is Hell Week, and his strength is gone. Not ebbing. Not dissipating. It is gone.

  His muscles have gone from rock hard to soft rubber. He is surprised that they even have the strength to hold his bones together. He is exhausted to the core of his being. Everything he sees, hears, and feels is distorted by bone-numbing fatigue. He has never been this tired.

  Samuel figures he has run at least a hundred miles. He’s been in the water so long that he can’t remember not being wet. And cold. The cold is the worst.

  The recruits have been divided into six-man boat crews. Samuel’s crew is one of the worst and has been singled out by BUD/S Instruc
tor Nevens, a narrow-waisted, broad-shouldered man, whose face has taken on a nightmarish quality to Samuel.

  The boat teams have been ordered to carry their boats up and down a series of hills. Samuel is in agony. The boat feels as if it’s on his shoulders alone. He grits his teeth. The burning in his shoulders and chest is intense. There is yelling, and Samuel pumps his legs as they try to climb the hill. The man in front of Samuel trips and falls. The boat sags perilously before the recruit scrambles back to his feet.