by Heskett, Jim
Captive Target
Six Assassins Book 4
Jim Heskett
Nick Thacker
Turtleshell Press
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
Notes for “A History of the Denver Assassins Club”
Get the Next Book Now
A NOTE TO READERS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Chapter One
EMBER
WEEK FOUR - DAY ONE
Ember Clarke first decided to hide her twin Nighthawk Enforcer pistols in the glove box, but she thought better of it. Sitting outside her boyfriend/quasi-boyfriend Zach Bennett’s apartment building in Fort Collins, she didn’t know how this meeting would conclude. If she talked to him and they decided to go somewhere together, she didn’t want him popping open the glove box on a tissue hunt and stumbling on her guns.
A month into their relationship, Ember still had not found a way to explain to him her real name, let alone her actual occupation. Or her undercover occupation.
Her uncertainty about this visit came from a couple of reasons. One, she was in the fourth week of her trial by combat, on the first day. This meant somewhere out there in the greater Denver metro, an assassin from either the Five Points, Golden, or Boulder Branch had been assigned to find her and kill her. Any time she was in the same room with Zach, she was putting his life in danger, as well. Same went for anyone else who happened to occupy her airspace.
And two, she didn’t know if she could call Zach her boyfriend. They had spent plenty of quality time together over the last three weeks, including multiple makeout sessions that had danced on the border of something more serious. But he had grown distant over the previous few days. That's why she had planned to ambush him at his apartment. Not because she was feeling insecure about their relationship, but because she was concerned about him.
At least, that’s what she was telling herself.
Two weeks ago, on a hiking date, Zach had talked about trying to research the company he worked for and being shut down and then kicked out of the library.
Of course, Ember knew a little more than Zach had said, but not much. She'd known Zach's name and the potential danger he faced for months now. But, maybe it was more severe than she had thought. Maybe Ember hadn't wanted to see how close Zach was to real peril.
She decided on tucking her pistols up under the steering wheel column. This car had an excellent spot to stash things. The steering column hidey-hole was a solid choice for parked cars. Not so much for vehicles in motion.
She checked her unkempt hair and minimal makeup in the rearview and then left the car, feeling her heart race for reasons she couldn’t quite list. Also, the late October chill gripped her. Much too cold for this time of year. Only a few more days until Halloween, until November, until winter came to Colorado.
She ascended the stairs and marched down the hall, then rapped her knuckles on his door. Almost a full minute went by. Then, she heard shuffling. The door pulled back and there he stood, wearing blue boxer shorts and a black t-shirt. He had toned but pale runner's legs, flat hair, and bleary eyes. He did not look his best.
Still, a smile crossed her face at the sight of him. “Did I wake you?”
“Uh, yes. What are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting you this morning.”
Ember frowned. “That sounds like you’re not happy to see me.”
"No, no, of course I am. I'd kiss you, but I probably have horrible morning breath. Come in."
She stepped inside and put her arms around him. She leaned right to avoid his stinky mouth but did give him a little bite on the earlobe. "Hey, sexy."
He hugged her back and then held her at arm’s length. “I didn’t know you knew where I lived.”
“I do. I mean, obviously. But we talked about it.”
He raised an eyebrow. “We did?”
“Yes, we did. You don’t sound too convinced, though. Do you think I’ve been camped out in front of your apartment, wearing an adult diaper, waiting for a chance to see you?”
Zach shrugged without any hint of humor and waved a hand toward his living room. “No. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“My dad used to say that the problem with men and women is that men only say exactly what they mean, but everything women say means something else.”
“Yeah,” Zach said. “My dad used to say that women are like a puzzle you have to solve, but you don't have all the pieces."
“He sounded like quite the feminist.”
Zach made a flat hmm sound. “Have a seat. You have a nasty cut on your nose, there.”
Her hand instinctively went to her face. An excuse came to mind fast, which was better than telling Zach she had jumped out of a second-story window yesterday. “Patch of ice in a parking lot got the best of me.”
She looked around and noted the sparse furniture and lack of wall decorations. She guessed from the hallway with the multiple doors in the back that it was a two-bedroom place, but it did not feel like two people lived here. “Seems kinda empty.”
He walked into the kitchen and nodded at her over the half-wall to the living room. After he'd splashed some sink water on his face, he said, "Yeah, well, my roommate moved out. Pretty suddenly, which sucks big-time. Rent is due in a couple of days, and the landlord has a no-tolerance policy. I didn't think Alec was the sort of person to leave me all high and dry, but there are a lot of strange things in my life lately."
He took a couple of energy drinks from the fridge and held up in her direction. Ember shook her head. She didn’t know people still consumed those things.
“If you need money…”
He made a face as he returned one of the tallboy energy sodas back into the fridge, that reactionary man-pride sort of thing Ember had seen so many times in her life before. “Thanks, but that’s not necessary.”
She didn’t want to emasculate him by pushing the point, but she didn’t come here to placate him, either. Last week, Zach had been distant and vague and uncommunicative, and Ember had decided she wouldn’t enable it anymore.
She pointed at the couch. “Come. Sit.”
Zach put up no argument as he nestled next to her on the couch. “I was thinking about the game truth or dare. Why do they make you choose between truth or dare before telling you what you’re about to face? Seems a much better way to play would be to tell you the truth question you'd have to answer and also give you the details of the dare alternative up front, and then make you choose between those two uncomfortable options. Like the lesser of two evils. The f
un of the game would be having to make that difficult decision in the moment.”
Ember shrugged and didn’t have any comment about this, so Zach asked, “What’s up?”
“You need to talk to me. I know something is going on with you. And I know it has to do with your work at the lab.”
At the word lab, Zach ducked his head and scowled. “I didn’t want to bother you with it. I didn’t want to involve you. I talked to my roommate about it, and a day later, he showed up with a black eye and a moving van. I haven’t seen him since. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see the connection.”
Ember took his hand and laced her fingers inside his. “Talk to me. I’m not scared of anyone giving me a black eye.”
“I believe it.” Zach paused to blow out a big sigh, which ended with a shudder. “I’m in a world of trouble.”
“Go ahead. Tell me everything.”
“The lab is owned by a company called Firedrake. I told you that already. They are part of this network of companies with Drache, Draconis, and a bunch of others. The Firedrake exec, Thomas Milligan, has been trying to get me to move to California to work for him. And, I’ve been saying no. At first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to commit to moving and accepting a job somewhere else. I don’t know how that works… like, what happens if I get there and I hate it? Move back? Stay in Sacramento and find somewhere else to work? Right now, it’s past the drop date for all my classes, so if I take off to accept a job, that’s a semester full of F’s. That screws up my financial aid.”
Ember nodded, squeezed his hand, and said nothing.
“But then,” Zach said, “it changed. He was nice at first. All full of flattery and showing me pictures of redwood trees, saying shit like, ‘This could be your backyard.’ Thomas eventually got tired of me saying no. Weird things started happening. Threatening things. Then something insane happened a couple weeks ago when he dropped a folder full of child pornography in my kitchen.”
“Holy shit. You’re sure it was Firedrake that did it?”
Zach nodded. “It has to be. It happened right after I conducted research about them at the library. And Thomas didn’t confirm it, but he didn’t exactly deny it, either.”
“What do they want?”
“He told me about this ‘failsafe project’ thing the company is doing. Something about a virus inside a bacteria, which I didn’t even know was possible. I mean, I wrote a paper about a theoretical approach, but…”
“But it was theoretical.”
“Right, exactly,” Zach said. “I don’t really understand all of it, but it sounds like a secret government project or something. Very secret. It sounds like they'll do whatever they have to do to keep it quiet." His eyes flicked up to hers. "His bodyguard wears a gun all the time. Just a couple days ago, Thomas gave me an ultimatum. I said no, and he told me I have a couple of days to change my mind."
He paused, swallowing, then met her eyes. “I’m freaked out, Ember. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.”
“I didn’t know it was this bad. Maybe you should run. Just hide out for a bit.”
“What?”
She dug into her purse. "I kind of had a feeling something like this was going on." She pulled out a brand-new flip phone in a plastic case, along with a roll of cash. A thousand dollars wrapped up with a rubber band. "Take this phone. Leave your main phone here in the apartment. Your laptop, too. Pocket the cash and check into a motel, and then hunker down.” She took a pen and wrote on the back of a gas station receipt from her purse, then handed it to him. "Go to this motel, so I'll know where you are. I might have a busy week, but I'll check in on you."
He gave her a strange look as he accepted the phone. “How do you know how to do all this? And why do you walk around with a burner phone in your purse?”
She waved off the question. "It's not important. If these people are as bad as you say they are, you can't be here anymore. Don't sit around somewhere they can get to you. Please. Use only libraries and internet cafes to get internet access for now."
“Internet cafe? I don’t know if I've ever seen one of those in America.”
Ember tilted her head back and forth. “Yeah, to be honest, I haven’t either. They’re all over Europe. Not in Denver, though.”
He turned the money roll over and over in his hands. “Thank you. I don’t know if I can accept this.”
“You have to. Stop being a big, dumb man for once.”
Zach spread a grim smile. “Should I grunt like a chimp?”
“Zach, please. Let me help you.”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes. A sad scowl darkened his face as he stared at the money.
Chapter Two
EMBER
The back door to the Boulder Branch Post Office stuck a little after Ember swiped her keycard against the back panel. She tugged on it, and it wanted to open, but it wouldn't give way. The magnets or whatever in the door didn't want to let go. She'd never had a problem with the Post Office's secret entrance before, but this was typical of the sort of month she was having.
Ember released her grip, took a breath, and then swiped her card again. This time, the door lock mechanism consented without argument, and the door swung open. She stepped inside to warm and dry air, a nice change from the cold and wet outside. A heavy coating last night had left the gray morning chilly and covered in chunky snow. Fall and winter precipitation in Colorado usually arrived light and fluffy, sparkling and crisp. Spring snow was often a wet mess of heavy slush. The seasons seemed to have reversed themselves.
Plus, with all the new college kids in Boulder from all over the world, many of them had never driven in weather like this before. Always dangerous to be out and about on the roads during the first snows of the season.
Down the hall, Ember pivoted into the third door on the left, a conference room her mentor Fagan had reserved for this morning. Another war room strategy heading into week four of her trial by combat discipline, or a debrief of last week. She didn’t know.
When she entered the room and saw Fagan and Gabe seated at the conference table, a smile curled her lips. “Morning, my people. I would have brought bagels, but I didn’t. So, there’s that.”
Gabe stood and crossed the room to hug her. It took her a little by surprise, but she allowed it to happen. Ember could feel the tension in his limbs as he pulled her close to his frame. Her tendency was to say something snarky and judgey to deflect attention, but she knew this about herself and wanted to change it.
“I’m so sorry,” her young recruit said. “It’s my fault he got you.”
Only two days ago, Ember had been snatched and briefly held by the Highlands Branch assassin Quinn. Gabe had been late meeting her there, and he had therefore not been able to provide her the backup she’d needed. Their careful plan had fallen apart.
Also, he hadn’t been able to explain why he had been late.
Often, Gabe reminded Ember of her little brother. She couldn’t remember now if she had ever told Gabe about that or not. Maybe after this whole thing was over, she would sit Gabe down and tell him the story about her brother’s death and how it had propelled her on this current path.
“Doesn’t matter now,” Ember said. “I don’t hold it against you. What matters now is how we move forward. The world doesn’t stop for mistakes, so I won’t, either.”
Lower lip pushed out, Gabe nodded. “Thank you. I’m not going to let it happen again. That’s a promise.”
“If you two are done,” Fagan said, dabbing a napkin to her lips on the burned half of her face, “we have things to discuss. Not only your trial by combat.”
"Get off me, creep," Ember said, grinning as she pushed Gabe away and had a seat at the table. "What's on your mind, boss lady?"
Ember’s mentor leaned over the table, hands crossed, dead eye still in its burned socket. “First, Gabe’s membership test.”
The kid took his seat as his frown flattened out, and a hopeful look lightened his face. He placed a not
ebook and a pen out in front of him, which Ember thought was adorable. Just like an eager student on the first day of school.
“Yes?” Ember said.
“Because you’re busy with this black spot business, I thought I would handle managing Gabe’s membership test. I know you’re his mentor, but I’m his… grand-mentor, so it seems fitting. One more thing off your plate.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea.” Ember looked to Gabe. “You okay with that?” When he nodded, Ember said to Fagan, “Good with me. What’s next on the agenda?”
“This week’s trial by combat. I want to assign a team of people to work on it.”
“To work on what, exactly?”
“Finding out who has you this week, so you’re not blindsided when this person comes for you. You’ve gotten by on your skills and a modicum of luck so far, but we have to assume that each assassin is learning from the mistakes of the previous weeks. So, I want you to have operational support.”
Ember shook her head. “I don’t want that help. Over the last three weeks, five people in the Branch have died because of me. Sarah, Hank, Bryan, Charlie, and Conner. No more.”
Fagan leveled a gnarled finger at Ember. “Conner died because he tried to kill President Wellner and got himself caught. He had a misguided personal revenge mission. That has nothing to do with you.”
