by Mike Ryan
The kid nodded, “Yeah.”
“Go on, get out of here.”
Recker wasn’t sure if his little talk would really do any good, or whether it would just fall on deaf ears, but at least he tried to help a young kid out. He showed a little compassion, which should’ve made Jones happy. He looked through the one open window and saw the kid fly out of the house and down the street. He wanted to make sure he didn’t misjudge the kid and just send him downstairs and allow him to wait for Recker as he descended the stairs, giving him some free shots at him. Knowing there was nobody left in the house alive, Recker started looking around the house, going through each room for clues as to Jeremiah’s whereabouts. He knew he didn’t have a lot of time though, as he figured somebody would’ve reported the shots by now, and possibly the dead bodies if someone saw the activities on the front porch. He assumed the police would be there within a few minutes so he only quickly looked through each room in the obvious spots to see if something was lying around in plain sight. Once he was satisfied there wasn’t anything to find, and as he thought he was running out of time, he started to leave. He walked out the front door and stood on the porch, looking up and down the street for signs of the police. Surprisingly, there was nothing coming yet. He stood between two of the dead bodies and looked down at them.
“I’m surprised you guys fell for that,” Recker said, referring to the note trick they fell for.
As he walked down the steps, he heard sirens in the background. He assumed the police were on their way. Recker turned the corner at the front of the property and started walking down the sidewalk. Within another minute, a few police cruisers came driving by him. Recker turned his head away from the street and coughed to hide his face from the officers driving by. Once he got to his car, he sat there for a while and watched the police activity at the house. He also called Jones to let him know to scratch another one off the list.
“I take it there were no problems?” Jones asked.
“I guess it depends on what you define as a problem. It was nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“I almost hesitate to ask, but I guess I should, how many bodies should I be aware of?”
“Uhh, let’s see…uhh, four.”
“You can’t remember? Do you need some extra time to think about it?”
“No, it was four,” Recker said. “Well, it was actually five. But I only killed four.”
“Oh, you let one get away. You must be losing your touch,” Jones said sarcastically.
“No, I’m not losing my touch. One was a kid, probably fifteen or sixteen. I gave him a little speech, then sent him packing.”
“Well, it was very sporting of you.”
“I don’t know about that. I just hope it did the kid some good and I never have to see him again. I let him off with a warning. Hopefully it’ll be enough.”
“Well, you gave him a second chance. That’s more than some people get. The rest will be on him. I hope he takes it.”
“Yeah.” Recker sighed. “I guess it’s on to the next address.”
“Why don’t you come back to the office and recharge for a bit?” Jones asked, not wanting Recker to overexert himself.
“I’m OK.”
“Mike, you can’t wage a war and win it in one day. You’ve taken out eight of his men, stormed two of his meeting spots, you’ve sent him a message. If you keep going from house to house, eventually they’ll be waiting for you. And they’ll be shooting first.”
Though Recker didn’t want to admit it, he thought Jones might have had a point. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”
“We’ve already crossed two off the list. Let’s see how it shakes out before we make our next move,” Jones said. “Maybe he’ll do something crazy or desperate in response and make him play right into our hands.
“It might be wishful thinking, but OK, we’ll give it a try.”
13
By the time Recker had gotten back to the office, it was well after dinner. Though he agreed with Jones’ premise of waiting to see if Jeremiah would make a move, he still was a little amped up and was ready for another battle immediately. He drove around for a while, hoping something else would come up he could deal with right away. Part of why he was so anxious to keep moving was that he knew what an inconvenience it was to Mia, having a death threat hanging over her head, and hiding out in a strange office indefinitely. He wanted to try and simplify her life as quickly as possible, even though he knew it wasn’t likely to end this war right away. But Jones was right, he couldn’t keep barging through every front door he came across. Eventually they’d be waiting for him and wouldn’t fall for anything in his bag of tricks, they’d simply shoot first before he had a chance to open his mouth.
As soon as Recker entered the office, Mia ran over to him and hugged him. She wanted to give him a kiss, but figured she’d save it for another time, when there wasn’t as much going on. She didn’t want to overwhelm him with personal stuff when she knew he had other things on his mind.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Mia said.
“And in one piece,” Jones said.
“Just another day at the office.” Recker shrugged it off.
“Did you eat yet?” Mia asked.
“No. Haven’t had time.”
“We haven’t either. I’ll fix us some sandwiches.”
Mia went to the refrigerator and got out the lunch meat to make the three of them dinner. Recker was starting to feel some exhaustion from the day’s events. He sat down on the couch and looked up at the ceiling and tried to wind down a little. It was tough for him to block everything out of his mind though, and replayed his last two stops in his head a few times. He looked over at Mia and was thinking about how well she seemed to be handling everything. She didn’t give any outward signs of worry about herself. He admired her for how strong she seemed to be. Not a lot of people would act as calm as she was.
After they ate dinner, they sat around and started making plans for the following day. They still had a bunch of addresses for Recker to check out, though Jones wasn’t sure it was such a good idea anymore. After what happened today, there was no way Jeremiah’s men wouldn’t be waiting for Recker to strike at any of the locations. Jones didn’t feel it was even remotely possible Recker would have the same success as he did.
“After what happened today, do you really believe you’re going to find anything at any of these locations?” Jones asked, holding the paper up that had the addresses on it.
“Maybe not. That doesn’t mean it won’t be worthwhile though.”
“I guess it would depend on what we’re talking about. Are we talking about trying to find Jeremiah and ending this as quickly as possible? Or are we talking about finding as many of his men as possible and killing all of them along the way? Which is it?”
“A little bit of both maybe,” Recker said.
“Mike, this isn’t a both situation. Finding and eliminating Jeremiah should be the only consideration. With him, it ends. It’s not about killing his soldiers,” Jones said. “Once he’s gone, they will no longer be a threat. They won’t go against you without his orders.”
“That’s kind of a big assumption, don’t you think?”
“No, I don’t. I think it’s a reasonable assumption. You don’t need to wage war against everybody. Just one man.”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
“And what do you think will happen if you go to one of these houses and they are waiting for you? Instead of four or five guys, they lure you in, and inside they have twenty guys. What then?”
“Then I’ll deal with it.”
“You’re not invincible. What do you think will happen if you get yourself killed?”
“I guess I’ll be dead.”
“And Mia? What do you think will happen to her if you’re gone?”
Recker looked at her, getting a warm smile from her in return. “You sure like to hit below the belt.”
“Sometimes it’s what’s necess
ary to bring people to their knees and make them realize what’s at stake and what’s important,” Jones said.
“Can I put my two cents in?” Mia asked, putting her hand up.
“Of course,” Recker said, although he had a pretty good idea which side of the fence she’d fall on.
“I agree with David. There’s no way they won’t have some type of trap set for you at these other places.”
“And do you have another suggestion?”
“Didn’t Tyrell mention something about Jeremiah going to nightclubs?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Wouldn’t it be a better plan to try and take him out there instead?”
“Do you realize how tall a task that will be?” Recker asked.
“How many nightclubs can there be?”
“In Philadelphia? Hundreds.”
“Really?” Mia asked obviously not a member of the nightclub scene. “I thought there was maybe twenty or so.”
“No. There’s no way of knowing right now what club’s he likes to go to or what night he goes,” Recker said.
“But Mia may be on to something,” Jones said. “Just hitting these houses on this list isn’t going to accomplish anything, other than satisfying your thirst for blood. You’re not going to find anything leading to Jeremiah in any of these places and the odds of you getting any of his men to talk or give him up are beyond…well, let’s just say you’ll have a better chance with a snowball you know where.”
“OK. Even if I agree to forego the rest of this list, how are we gonna find out which nightclub he goes to?”
“Most nightclubs have security cameras, do they not?” Jones asked.
“Yeah.”
Jones tilted his face and looked at him with his eyebrow raised. He waited for Recker to catch up.
“And you can hack into them,” Recker said, finally getting up to speed.
“Once I get into their systems, I can start running facial recognition software over the past few weeks until we see which clubs he goes to. Maybe we can find a pattern. Maybe he rotates between a few clubs in particular.”
“Plus, it’ll keep him off balance,” Mia said. “He’ll be so worried and focused on you hitting these other houses that you’ll throw him off when you don’t show up.”
Recker smiled at her, thinking she was a quick student. “You’re learning quickly.”
“I have the best teachers.”
After they finished eating, Jones immediately got to work, trying to hack into every nightclub security system that he came across. He was sure he would be able to find Jeremiah somewhere. It just might take some time to comb through all that footage. Once he was able to pull up footage from the first club, Recker and Mia started looking through the videos.
“How easy is it going to be to spot him?” Mia asked, not quite sure how the system worked.
“Well, there’s several different ways to program the software,” Jones said, explaining the intricacies of his system. “We can program it to run itself completely in search of an exact match based on the information I give it. In that case, we simply sit back and wait for it to beep when it’s finished.”
“That’s easy enough.”
“But, considering the complexity and urgency of this situation, I’ve loosened the parameters somewhat.”
“How so?”
“It’s possible he knows how to avoid cameras, or block them out, or have them disabled. So in this case, I’ve programmed it to look for even partial matches, that way we can sort out one way or another whether it’s him. So you may get several false positives,” Jones said.
“It’s also possible he has so many people around him that a camera doesn’t get a good shot of his face,” Recker said. “Maybe it only gets a partial look at his face.”
“Yes. In any case, the software will beep and pull up the pictures of the subject in question. Then it’s up to us to quantify whether it’s really him or just a lookalike.”
“Gotcha,” Mia said. “How long will all this take?”
“With the amount of clubs in this city? Probably days, maybe a week. It really depends on how much footage we go through” Jones said. “It will go faster with all three of us looking. If it was just me, as it usually is, it would most likely take longer.”
“How far back did you set it?” Recker asked.
“A month. I assume that will be more than enough time. If he hasn’t been there in a month then it’s most likely not a regular stop for him.”
They spent the rest of the night combing through security footage from a couple different nightclubs. There were a couple of partial matches that the system flagged, though after closer inspection, it was determined that it wasn’t Jeremiah. After four hours of looking at a computer screen, Jones needed a break and got up to turn the TV on.
“Problem?” Recker asked.
“Just stretching my legs a little,” Jones said.
“Two clubs down, two hundred more to go.”
“I suppose we’ll get there in time.”
As Jones sat down on the couch, his eyes glued to the television screen, Recker could see that there was something playing he was interested in. Wondering what was fascinating him so much, Recker also stopped what he was doing so he could watch.
“Wanna clue me in as to what you’re looking for?” Recker asked.
“News is coming on.”
“So?”
“I want to see how your exploits from earlier are covered,” Jones said.
“Oh,” Recker said, not seeming the least bit interested.
Though Jones always seemed to care how the media painted The Silencer, or what they said about him, Recker never seemed to care one way or the other. He figured no matter what they said, it wouldn’t change what he did or how he operated. Regardless of anything they ever said about him, it never bothered him if they said something bad, or made him feel better if they heaped praise, so what was the point in listening?
“Why do you bother with that stuff?” Recker asked.
“It never hurts to be informed.”
“You already are. I informed you about it earlier.”
Within a few minutes, the two scenes where Recker left the dead bodies flashed across the screen, drawing Jones’ attention even closer. Mia also stopped what she was doing and got up, moving to the couch. Recker sighed, knowing no more work was getting done for the moment since everyone seemed to be more focused on the TV. Jones turned up the volume so they could hear the reporter speak.
“Earlier today, spurred on by a 911 call, police arrived at this scene,” the reporter said, looking and pointing back to the former auto garage. “Inside, they found the bodies of four men, all of whom have direct gang ties, and were pronounced dead at the scene. It is not believed the 911 call came from any of the dead men, and may have been the shooter. Though the motive of the shooting remains unclear at this time, there is a report The Silencer may have been involved, though that is unsubstantiated at this time.”
The reporter then turned it over to another reporter who was at the row home in West Philly. Jones looked over at Recker, who still seemed underwhelmed with everything and simply shrugged back at him.
“And we’re here in West Philadelphia at this row home,” the man said, turning toward the house. “The second major shooting of the day occurred here just a couple of hours after the one on sixty-second street, and also involved gang members. Police arrived at the boarded-up home, which appears to be a place that they conducted business activity inside, and found the bodies of four more gang related men, three of whom were found on the porch. There’s no immediate word from the police on a possible motive, but nearby witnesses reported seeing a man walk out of the home immediately after the shooting. He was wearing a trench coat, and according to those witnesses, bore a striking resemblance to the man the media, and public, have affectionately called The Silencer. I should also point out another person was seen running from the house after the shooting, before The Si
lencer came out, if it was him, and witnesses have described this person as a kid, most likely a teenager. Theories abound within the neighborhood that The Silencer didn’t want to shoot a kid and showed mercy on him by letting him leave unharmed.”
“At least they threw in the good part,” Recker said with a smile.
“So, to summarize, two crime scenes, a couple hours apart, eight men killed with gang ties, to the same gang it should be pointed out, and it appears…I stress appears, to be the work of The Silencer, though there is no official word that is the case,” the reporter said, smiling, almost looking happy about it. “And we’ll throw it back to you, Jim. The Silencer, he’s out and about and looking like a one-man task force.”
Nobody said another word as Jones got up and turned the TV off. For the amount of damage Recker inflicted, it was about as positive a news report as they could’ve made. It almost made him out to be a hero. No major surprise though, as the media and newspapers had usually talked about him in a positive way. There was only a few news anchors or reporters who talked of him as a negative for the city. Most seemed to enjoy covering stories The Silencer was reported to be involved in. He was kind of like a modern-day Robin Hood, only he wasn’t stealing money for the poor. Instead, he was defending the innocent and killing the guilty.
“A one-man task force,” Jones said, though not to anyone in particular as he walked back to the couch.
“You almost sound disappointed,” Recker said. “Would you have rather they called me the face of evil? Or maybe the devil reincarnated?”
“On the contrary, it was a most enjoyable telecast of your exploits. Almost clapping at your daring escapades. Seemed the only thing missing was the standing ovation.”
“Then why do you seem so annoyed by it? You almost seem like you would have wished they tore me apart or something.”
“No, it’s not that. I don’t even know if I can quantify the meaning behind it. It just seems like they’re beginning to glorify you. It’s almost as if the reasons behind the killings don’t matter, or the fact people are being hurt or killed, it’s almost like it’s the backstory. The headline is The Silencer strikes again.”
