The Desert Standoff

by Nadia Siddiqui

  BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  NADIA SIDDIQUI

  Nathan Doe Book 5

  The Desert Standoff

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 Nadia Siddiqui – All rights Reserved

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication / use of the trademarks is not authorized, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Thank you for buying

  Nadia Siddiqui’s eBook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content, and info on new releases and other great reads, sign up for the author’s newsletter here.

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  The story continues . . .

  About the Author

  Also By Nadia Siddiqui

  1

  Nathan

  N athan has never liked Las Vegas. Over the years that he has been working with the company he has been sent to many different places. It has forced him to realize that he doesn’t much care for the heat. While the cold has its own disadvantages, it doesn’t make him this level of miserable on his waiting periods in between cases.

  They have been sending him to fewer places as of late. Not that he minds so much. It’s mostly that he just has too long to think. He also knows that it’s far simpler for him to just do what he is told. That is how it has always worked with the company. He gets his orders, all of the information that he needs for a case as well as the transportation and the tools that he might need whenever he gets there. Nathan has a preset group of false identities that he is supposed to adhere to on his cases. They change depending on which one will work best for whatever situation it might be.

  The waiting time leaves a lot of room for his mind to wander, he guesses too much; he doesn’t focus on the things he needs to be focusing on. The feeling that he needs to find out who he was before he started to work for the company is growing with each passing day. They have given him some information; he knows what his name is. However, he has tried using it and it never feels right. Nathan is the name that the company gave him, and as strange as he knows it must be, he feels that it fits him better than simply using the birth name that he doesn’t feel any sort of attachment to. He has been told the town that he grew up in. He has gone to visit that town, but nothing there really felt like it was calling to him.

  The best he has been able to uncover is that whenever he agreed to work for the company, under whatever situation or circumstances that must have happened in, they wiped his memory in order to transform him into whatever human machine he needed to become. They twisted and shaped him into their design so that he could be the assassin they need him to be. They have never sent him on a mission in which the person he killed didn’t deserve it. Nathan can remember a time when that didn’t bother him. It is a recent change. He wonders if that might be why he is questioning so many things. Perhaps whatever conditioning they placed him under is starting to unravel. He suspects that this is because his time with the company is coming to a close. He thinks he must be near the end. However, he has never discussed this with them. A part of him thinks that one evening he will go to sleep Nathan Doe, a member of the Doe collective for the company, and whenever he wakes up, he will be in another place as his original self without any memory of the last twelve years of his life; though he thinks it is more likely still that he will simply go to sleep one night and then never awaken again. That it will just be done and then he will have finished his contract in that way.

  The not knowing is difficult to handle.

  It’s not like he can text them on the phone that he is issued. The only purpose it has ever served is to receive orders so that he knows where he is to go next. It hasn’t ever been purposed for anything else. He doesn’t think they would be likely to answer him even if he were to ask why things are changing. Once a year, Nathan has to report in for a physical and to his estimation he will be due for that shortly. Therefore he might ask them at that time.

  The case he is assigned to this time is mostly observation, a learning mission. The company has directed him to watch and learn as much about the target as possible. He is to report back with all of his findings. A simple task, but it is leaving him more bored than he knows how to process. Not to mention how familiar things are starting to feel.

  He is reminded of his early days with the company, as far back as he can remember. Nathan has been very fortunate in that his training has made his success rate very high. He has only failed to catch one of his marks, something that he blocks out of his memory as often as possible. He doesn’t like admitting that he has ever failed at anything. Never mind that case was one of the more violent of the ones he has been on. He was assigned to a fairly large town, known for its involvement with a drug and human trafficking ring. Known for the way that they kidnap young women and get them addicted to opioids or heroin and then pass them into sex trafficking to the point where they don’t even know the world around them. Nathan was happy to involve himself in bringing down anybody involved with such a horrible profession. Even here in Las Vegas, where he is now, they are known for raking in over a billion dollars in revenue from kidnapped and stolen young women who are forced to sell their bodies against their will. The case that he was assigned to in the past, whenever one of the women was no longer useful or she overdosed, or perhaps one of the men was a little too rough with them and it resulted in their deaths, they were outcast. Not in a normal way of course, but they were dragged out into the desert and left to be found by the authorities at a later time and date. The person that Nathan was contracted to catch at that time in the past was the man in charge of murdering the so-called “useless” women. He was known as “Spade” because of the playing cards that he always left with his victims. For so long, the police would speculate as to whether the numbers on the cards ever meant anything, if the face cards were useful; Nathan figured that the asshole was just burning through a deck of cards at random, and they were always normal cards so that it was impossible to trace their origins. The only significance the police had ever found was that they were all spades in one way or another.

  Nathan is watching his mark on this blistering day, sitting in his black car without air conditioning and thinking how miserable it is having to wait for one man to exit a courthouse. He just wants to be able to turn on the car once more and put himself out of his misery. He picks up the newspaper that is resting on the passenger seat of the car and positions himself sideways in the seat so that he can still look over the top of the paper while he is reading. He just cannot sit still any longer.

  The headline takes him by surprise. He can scarcely believe it. He’s used to the front page of any newspaper being graphic. Bad news sells, the more horrible the thing is the more likely that people are going to be interested in it. That is just a truth about humanity. So Nathan is prepared to read about whatever looting or kidnapping is the latest, but what he wasn’t ready for was the headline “Ace of Spades” to stick out at him so earl
y in the morning. His present tasks forgotten, Nathan pours over the article like he can’t control himself.

  The girl was found out in the pastures behind the old Harmon Dairy

  plant’s filtration tanks. While the police are reluctant to release

  too many details about the crimes this reporter has learned that

  the girl was raped post-mortem with an Ace of Spades playing card

  stuffed into her mouth. The station refused to comment on whether

  they believe this to be another act of the Spades killer from years

  past, though if patterns are to be repeated, we are likely to

  find another body within the next fortnight in a similar fashion.

  As most will remember about the Spades killer, he is infamous

  for his trademark cards left on all of his victims. These young women

  have usually been reported as missing or kidnapped,

  they can be from all around the States and are imported here through

  the rumored sex trafficking underbelly of Vegas. This reporter wants to

  know what the police are doing to help these young women.

  What efforts are being taken to ensure that our youth are safe and these

  types of markets are shut down?

  Nathan crumples the paper angrily in his hands, knowing that the reporter is at least correct about one thing, and that’s that there will be another body found soon. No doubt, the girl that is the next intended victim has already been kidnapped and is either already being tortured or will be soon. While the police never had any leads on the Spade killer, Nathan has looked him square in his face. They have faced off; they have dueled, and this time Nathan will win. That much he is sure of. He might have been too new to defeat him before, but now he is an experienced assassin and he is going to make that bastard pay for the evil that he does. Nathan can’t venture to guess as to why he has been in hiding for as long as he has, or perhaps he’s just been worlds more careful. Arrogantly, Nathan had fooled himself into thinking that the wounds he left on the other man resulted in his death. Apparently that wasn’t the case. The man’s reputation was so large that it is highly unlikely that anybody would dare attempt to imitate him. The likelihood of this being a copycat killer is slim to none. Larange isn’t going to get away from him so easily this time.

  Nathan knows what he must do. He cannot afford to think about the risks. This is a situation in which he must act first and ask questions second. He is going to have to use the connections he has made over the last handful of years in order to gain access into the seedy underbelly of Las Vegas. The sort of place that he absolutely never wants to be again, but he knows that he is going to have very little choice. This is something that he must do. He has to right this wrong. The company will not be forgiving of this action that he has to take. He cannot afford for them to find out about this and send somebody else to finish this case because he was unable to do it the first time; he must accomplish this. This young woman is dead because of him and only him. This young woman never should have died in this way, she shouldn’t have been abused in this way. He must atone for this.

  Nathan turns on his car, too angry to feel the cool rush of air coming in through the vents that, moments ago, was the only thing he wanted. He needs to go back to his room and get this started. He needs to finish this. Once and for all.

  2

  Natalie

  T his is exactly what she needs. The music is so loud in this club that she can feel the vibrations in her feet. The sound waves rattle up her high heels and through the bones in her legs until she can feel the beat pulsing in time with her heart. Liquor and adrenaline are coursing through her veins to the point where the lights that are strobing from the ceiling feel like they are taking up all of the empty spaces left in her body; at the same time, they are blurred and slanty looking as if her eyes are constantly half closed. Her cheeks ache from smiling so long. Her throat feels raw from screaming to the beat of the music during the sparse times that actual lyrics are interjected into the song. They probably wouldn’t make any sort of sense to her if she was still sober, but she is drunk enough not to bother caring where they are or what might happen tomorrow.

  The only thing that matters to her right now is that her hands are clasped happily in those of her best friend, Suzi, and that the pair of them are dancing in a contented, drunken mess in the middle of the dance floor. Their movements are awkward and clunky. They are bouncing around without much in the way of rhythm, but it is obvious that the pair of them are having far more fun than anybody else in the entire room.

  The club they have chosen is one of three that caters to the college crowd on the weekends. Oh, they are open the rest of the week days as well, but it isn’t nearly as much fun, and normally nobody even shows up. This club in particular has attempted to host all sorts of things during the week to make sure they have some sort of revenue coming in, but as this is hardly a party college that it chose to open up shop next to, usually the student body is far too studious to bother with it, though Natalie thinks that if Suzi could get away with it she would come here every night. It’s a shame she’s all awkward angles and elbows whenever she dances because she loves it so much. Suzi says that she should like to never have to do anything else at all if she could only just keep dancing. Honestly, Natalie thinks that if her friend was granted any wish in the whole wide world it would be that she could be a professional dancer. Suzi has never been the materialistic kind. She does what she likes, when she likes. She has always been a very warm and kind person. Natalie has known her for years now and can honestly say that she doesn’t think she’s ever seen her friend sitting totally still for any amount of time.

  Suzi is the classic girl next door type. She’s an excellent baker and puts her heart into everything. She is honest and open with her emotions. She doesn’t like to take no for an answer whenever she really finds something that she feels strongly about. She stands at about five foot four with a soft frame. She has long sandy blonde hair that falls in natural beach waves to her waist. She would never claim to be athletic and doesn’t really have the endurance to run for long periods of time. Her soft features mark her as a classical beauty. Natalie often took to making her dandelion crowns early in their friendship because they just looked like they suited a girl like Suzi. While she is clearly older now, she has a youthful beauty that just seems like it will pass the test of time. Natalie considers herself to be her friend's opposite in many ways. While she too has a rather pale complexion that is prone to burning violently with even the slightest sun exposure, Natalie looks like the glassy surface of a pond. Her hair is a dark ebony and her cheeks and lips a constant flushed pink. She is slightly taller than Suzi in that she stands at five foot five but looks like she could knock somebody out with a correctly aimed punch. She gives off the air that she can hold her own. Somebody with a scrappier background despite the fact that her first glance impression is that she is made of glass.

  They are an unlikely pairing, though tonight, with Natalie wearing almost head to toe items from Suzi’s closet, they seem to make more sense. Natalie would never purchase anything this tight for herself. It’s rare that she allows herself to be in a vulnerable position. She’s a natural protector so being drunk at the same time as her friend, instead of attempting to just chaperone, marks tonight as a very important celebration indeed. Normally she’s not the outgoing type, but both girls have allowed all of the handsome men to purchase them drinks over the course of the evening without much thought. Normally they are more careful. Perhaps they should have been so tonight. Consequences of tomorrow or anything that exists out of the moment that they are presently in doesn’t even register to them. Not tonight. Not when tonight is so special.

  Besides, tonight is ladies’ night and they are getting everything so cheaply. Everything has worked out perfectly. Natalie had asked Suzi over and over again if she wanted to have a party for her birthday but she insisted that no, this was exac
tly what she wanted. Over and over again. Which is why Natalie agreed to let her get all dressed up in the first place. She let Suzi give her a total makeover and when Suzi said that she wanted to dance, Natalie let her. So here they are, intoxicated on cheap bay breezes and existing like they are the only two in the world. Naturally, Suzi attracts a lot of male attention, and Natalie is only too happy to stomp on their feet until they go away. Tonight, Suzi isn’t even fighting her on it. Even more special than just her birthday or the fact that she is finally nineteen years old and about to be finished with freshman year, this is the first of the many birthdays that Suzi has had since knowing Natalie that she has been able to be present for. This is the first time that they are allowed to celebrate this happy day together and on the proper day.

  No more attempting to sneak out and getting caught. No more having early or late parties or secretive gift exchanges between the two of them. No more of Natalie’s mother “accidentally” drinking too much and forcing Natalie to take care of her or swallowing too many pills so that Natalie has to spend the whole night in the emergency room with her while she is getting her stomach pumped. No more having to work the late-night shift in an effort to save up for college so that she can get the hell out of that house. That’s over now. It’s over and the two of them are free.

  “I need another drink!” Suzi calls to Natalie, screaming over the thunder of the music and pointing to her throat.

  “Me too!” Natalie nods, and the pair of them head off the crowded dance floor and over to the bar. Suzi smiles brightly at the man that the two girls squeeze past, batting her eyelashes in apology with a faux sheepish grin as they jostle him in his seat. The bartender rolls his eyes and grins, his elbows resting on the counter as he addresses Suzi as if Natalie doesn’t even exist.