by Mike Ryan
Lethal Force
Mike Ryan
www.mikeryanbooks.com
Copyright © 2019 by Mike Ryan
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
About the Author
Also by Mike Ryan
1
Recker left the office to go home, already knowing he was in for a rough night. Mia was taking another nurse’s shift, on top of her own, so she was working a double, and wouldn’t get done until around seven in the morning. Anytime Mia wasn’t there at night, Recker seemed to have a tougher time of it. Not only did he have a harder time getting to sleep without her being next to him, it seemed his dreams were even worse when she wasn’t there. Maybe it was just because she had a way of calming him down after he woke up from what seemed like a nightly occurrence and knowing she wouldn’t be there this time was stoking his fears even worse than usual.
Recker’s fears were rightly founded, as even though he put his head down on a pillow at eleven o’clock, he didn’t drift off to sleep until about two. He tossed and turned, unable to turn his mind off from thinking horrible thoughts. And it was another rough one for him once his eyes closed for good. The nightmares started only a few minutes after falling asleep.
Recker walked into the cafeteria at the hospital, sitting at his usual table as he waited for Mia to come down from the pediatric wing. Almost immediately after sitting down, he saw her beautiful face walk in. Recker stood up and kissed his black-haired beauty once she got to the table.
“So, what’s this about?” Mia asked. “What’s the big emergency that couldn’t wait until I got home?”
“I just had to call you and let you know.”
“Know what?”
“I think I’m done with it all.”
“You are?”
“Yeah,” Recker said. “I’m just done. I’m tired. The constant danger, the injuries, the physical toll, the mental damage, I just can’t do it anymore.”
“Stop. Don’t talk like that. You know you don’t mean it. It’s just the dreams that are doing it to you.”
“No, I’m really serious. I’m not sure I wanna do this anymore.”
“It’s just the dreams playing tricks with your mind, Mike.”
“This isn’t a dream talking. It’s how I really feel. I just wanna rest. For good.”
“You can’t rest. If you rest, you’ll die. You need this to keep going.”
“All I need is you,” Recker said. “This is what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it? For me to give it all up?”
“What would David and Chris say?”
“They’ll understand. They’ll keep going. They’ll do what needs to be done.”
“It’s not that easy, Mike.”
“Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Because you don’t really mean it. It’s just the dreams talking.”
“Stop saying that. It’s not.”
“But it is,” Mia said. “You know it is. Just listen to yourself. The real you would never talk like that.”
“I’ve changed.”
“Men like you don’t change so easily.”
“I don’t understand why you’re saying this. I thought you’d be happy.”
“Mike, I need you to wake up now.”
“What? Why?”
“Because if this dream continues, I’m going to die.”
“What? No!”
“You can’t stop it, Mike.”
Recker immediately started looking around frantically, searching for the first sign of trouble. There was none to be found though.
“I can stop it. I can stop everything.”
“You’re not superhuman, Mike. You can’t save everyone. Not even me.”
“Stop talking like that.”
“You know why you keep having these dreams, don’t you?”
“No, why?”
“Because you’re afraid of losing me. You know, deep down inside, that as long as you do what you do, eventually one of us is going to be ripped away from the other. You know that’s true.”
“No, it’s not.”
Mia put her hand on Recker’s face and smiled. “You know it is. Denying it isn’t helping you. It’s only prolonging your torture.”
“I’m not going to lose you.”
“Mike, it’s already predetermined. My fate was sealed the moment you walked into my life. There’s nothing you can do to prevent it.”
“I can. I promise you that won’t happen.”
Mia sighed and shook her head, knowing how stubborn he could be. “You keep having these dreams because you know with each passing day, the odds are only increasing that one day, one of us won’t be here any longer. We’ll never grow old together. That’s just not how it works for men like you. You go down in a blaze of glory, not in a nursing home.”
“That’s why I’m quitting.”
“You’ll never quit. It’s just not in you. Everything’s in your head right now. Your dreams are simply your fears for the future, what you know is likely to be true. You’ll probably always have them. They’re not going to stop anytime soon.”
“I promise you that’s not how we’ll end up. It’s not how you’ll end up. I won’t let that happen.”
“It’s too late, Mike. It’s already begun.”
“What has?”
Mia turned her head, looking back to the cafeteria entrance doors. Recker’s eyes glanced over to them as well. They saw Haley walking in, followed closely by Jones.
Mia turned back to Recker and smiled. “There they are.”
Recker looked confused. “Why are they here? I didn’t tell them to come.”
“You still don’t get it, do you? It’s just part of the dream.”
As Haley and Jones approached the table, Recker and Mia stood up.
“What are you guys doing here?” Recker asked.
“We’re here because of you,” Jones replied.
“I don’t understand. What’s that mean?”
“It means you’re done. You really thought you could just walk away from us and not have any consequences?”
“You guys can do the job without me,” Recker said.
“Nobody walks away from us.”
“Just listen to them, dear,” Mia said, putting her hand on her boyfriend’s face again.
“It’s time to end this,” Haley said.
“End what?”
“You need to come back to us without having all these other things to worry about.”
Recker looked like he still didn’t understand. Mia turned back around to face her friends. Haley pulled a gun and pointed it at her.
“I’m ready,” Mia said.
“What?” Recker said. “What’s going on?”
“This has to end,” Haley said, holding his arm straighter, getting ready to fire.
Recker could
n’t believe what was about to happen. “No, wait!”
Haley fired two times, both bullets entering Mia’s midsection. Blood rolled down out of the corner of her mouth as she held her stomach. She smiled at Recker.
“I love you. But this is how it ends for us.”
Mia slumped down to the ground as Recker looked on in horror. He looked at his friends, who were simply smiling at him, seemingly pleased with their despicable actions. Recker then flopped down to the ground and held Mia in his arms as the last breath of life faded out of her.
Recker sat up like he’d been shot out of a cannon, breathing as heavy as if he’d just run a marathon. He looked down at Mia’s spot beside him and put his hand on her pillow. He then leaned back, letting his head rest against the wall behind him. He closed his eyes for a moment.
“It was just a dream,” he whispered.
Recker looked at the clock and saw it was only two-thirty. He reached over to the end table and grabbed his phone. He scrolled down to Mia’s number and was about to call her, just wanting to hear her voice for a minute or two, but then put his phone back. If he called for no reason, she was bound to know something was up, and would likely guess at the culprit. He didn’t want her worrying about him while she was at the hospital. Instead, Recker slouched back down onto his back, then rolled onto his side as he contemplated whether he even wanted to try and fall back asleep again. At this point, he’d rather be tired than have to relive the same nightmares in his head over and over again.
Eventually, Recker did fall back asleep again, though it took him another hour to do so. He was planning on having breakfast waiting for Mia when she got in since she’d done it for him so many times, not that he planned on anything special, just bacon and eggs, but he was so tired, he slept through his alarm. He did wake up, though, at the sound of keys wiggling and the front door opening. Recker jumped out of bed and went into the living room, him and Mia locking eyes as soon as he appeared in the frame of the door. They both immediately went to each other and embraced, each of them happy to have the other in their arms.
“I was planning on having breakfast ready for you,” Recker said. “I overslept a little bit.”
“That’s sweet of you, thank you.”
“Just sit down and I’ll make something for you.”
“No, that’s all right, really… I’m not really hungry.”
“Are you sure? It’s no trouble.”
Mia kissed him on the lips. “Positive. Thank you for the offer, but I’m really just tired more than anything.”
“How’d your night go?”
“Long. It was so busy, and we were already shorthanded. It felt like everyone in the world had a baby in the last twenty-four hours. How ‘bout you? How was your night?”
“Fine.”
“Manage all right without me?” Mia asked.
“It was a struggle.”
“You look tired.”
“I kept waking up. Probably ‘cause you weren’t next to me.”
Mia smiled, though she knew that wasn’t the reason. She could guess what his issue was. “You had another one, didn’t you?”
“I don’t really wanna talk about it. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? It might do you good to get it out of your system.”
“No, I’m fine. Really. You’re tired anyway. The last thing you need right now is for me to throw some more of my issues on you.”
“You know there’s nothing else in the world that’s more important to me than you are. Tired or not, I’m here.”
“I know you are. But I want you to be selfish and take care of yourself for a change. We can always talk about it later.”
“OK. What time do you have to leave?”
“Maybe an hour or so.”
“You know what I would really like?” Mia asked.
“What’s that?”
“For us to just lie down in bed and hold each other until you leave.”
Recker smiled at her. “I think we could arrange that.”
Recker and Mia went to their bedroom and snuggled each other underneath the sheets. As Recker held her, his mind went back to his dream, seeing her killed right in front of him. He closed his eyes, trying to shut it off, though it was no use. It kept replaying in his mind over and over again. Here he was holding this beautiful woman in his arms, and all he could think about was bad thoughts. He just wanted a positive image entering his mind for a change.
“You guys got anything interesting going on today?” Mia said groggily, sounding like she was about to drift off to sleep.
“Uhh, no, I don’t think so. At least nothing I’m aware of. Never know how the day will unfold though.”
There was silence for another minute, and though Recker wasn’t a big small-talker, he actually preferred it in this instance if it helped to prevent him from what he was previously thinking.
“Hey, if I happen to fall asleep before you go, wake me up before you leave, OK?” Mia said.
“I’m not gonna wake you up. You need to sleep.”
“Would you at least kiss me then?”
“There’s nothing I would like better.” There was silence for another minute. “You think you’re gonna sleep the day away?”
There was no reply though. Recker tilted his head away and looked at his girlfriend’s face, thinking she looked like an angel when she was sleeping. His thoughts then turned to what Mia said in his dream, about them being one day closer to one of them being ripped away from the other. He hoped this wouldn’t be that day.
2
Recker got to the office, and as often as the case was, Jones and Haley were already there waiting for him. Recker didn’t even try to beat them in anymore. It was a useless endeavor. He just wasn’t making it there first, or even second on most days. Jones gave Recker a sharp eye when he walked in, then looked at his watch.
“It looks as though you’ve seen better days already,” Jones said. “And it’s only nine o’clock.”
“You sleep at all?” Haley asked.
“I got a few minutes here and there,” Recker answered.
“You’ve looked tired lately,” Jones said. “You’re not getting enough sleep.”
“I’m fine.”
“Perhaps, but, is there something troubling you that’s preventing you from sleeping?”
“It’s nothing. I’m just having one of those stretches that everybody gets from time to time when they have trouble falling asleep.”
Haley rubbed the stubble on his face, thinking back to a conversation he had with Mia about dreams. He wondered if he should bring it up, knowing he wasn’t likely to get the truth anyway, and that it might rub his partner the wrong way. But Haley also thought that if he mentioned it, maybe Recker would know that he knew, and maybe it would be enough to springboard a conversation between the two of them about it. Haley also would have nightmares from time to time, and judging by Recker’s appearance lately, and by Mia’s conversation, that it was probably worse than anything he’d ever experienced. Haley suspected it was a daily, or at least fairly regular occurrence.
Haley suspected that every operative that had ever been overseas on multiple missions, who’d done some of the things they’d done, would have nightmares sometimes. He just figured it went along with the job. One of the perils of doing the work that they’d done… is that it never really leaves you. Even when it’s finished. It always remained in the mind and in the soul. For him, Haley figured he had a bad nightmare about once a month. There didn’t seem to be any trigger for it that he could tell. Sometimes it was after a case, sometimes it was in the middle of a dry spell, it didn’t seem to matter. He couldn’t figure out a cause. It just happened. And as he looked at Recker, there was a man who was carrying around a load with him. He didn’t talk about it with Jones, and he wasn’t sure if Jones noticed the same things he did, but he could see it on Recker’s face, his body language, the way he stood, the way he moved, everything about him. It was a man who seemed tired. T
ired of whatever images were flashing around in that head of his.
“Having bad nightmares or anything?” Haley asked, blurting it out.
Jones stopped typing and looked at Recker, wondering if maybe Haley had hit on something.
Recker didn’t like being the center of attention and wanted to get this line of questioning over with so they could start their real business. His eyes glanced over between his two friends, without moving his head at all. “No, why?”
“Just asking. Thought maybe that’s why you weren’t sleeping.”
Recker shook his head. “I’m good. Like I said, just one of those stretches. I’m sure I’ll get back to normal soon.”
“OK,” Haley said, not wanting to press him too much on it. Recker was the type of man that the more you dug into him on something, the more he would draw away. That was the last thing anyone needed.
“Now that we’re done with the couch and therapy session, maybe we can get back to work now?” Recker asked.
“Excellent idea,” Jones said.
“Anything on the agenda?”
“If it happens as I think it will happen, we will probably have a situation come down later today.”
“Why? What’s up?”
“We picked up some texts and voicemails between several individuals that I’m putting up on the big screen now.”
Recker and Haley walked over to the fifty-inch monitor hanging on the wall, standing inches away from it as Jones started putting his information on it. Pictures of eight men appeared on the screen.
“Pleasant-looking bunch, aren’t they?” Haley said.
“Pleasant indeed,” Jones replied. “In this case, the looks match the men.”
“Bad guys I take it?” Recker asked.
