Jack Hunter: CIA Assassin Origin Story Read online

  Jack Hunter

  Origin Story

  Rawlin Cash

  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

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  One

  On Sixteenth Street Northwest, two blocks from the White House and three from the Washington Post building, sits the sumptuous Neo-Renaissance style Saint Royal hotel. It’s the type of hotel where ushers in black coats and top hats take your umbrella when you walk through the rotating brass doors. They ask you, by name, if they can get you your favorite drink or your preferred brand of cigar, which they’re required to remember from your guest file. In the bar, if you’re so inclined, you can sit on an aged leather chair by an open log fire and sip a Hennessy Ellipse cognac, served from a Baccarat crystal bottle. A shot of the liquor costs more than a night in the hotel’s presidential suite, but if you’re ordering it, you’re not picking up your own tab.

  This is Washington DC, the capital of the richest and most powerful nation ever to plant its flag on the map. In one year, the economy churns through twenty trillion dollars. Entire districts are home to lobbyists whose only job is to exert influence on elected officials. That’s not to say there are no honest politicians. It’s certainly not to say there aren’t thousands of public servants who dedicate their lives to the hallowed institutions of the nation.

  But only a willful idiot would say there’s no rot in the system. And those who know the system best, know that from the top down, it’s rotten to the core.

  The Saint Royal has a private entrance on K Street, specifically for four-thousand-dollar-a-night call girls to come and go as they please. The entire staff are required to sign non-disclosure agreements, backed by jail time. The last time a DC cop had the gall to cross the threshold, he lost his job and benefits one month before retirement.

  The Saudi government keeps a permanent suite on the top floor and members of the royal family make frequent visits.

  A man in his early sixties, a little overweight, thin white hair, expensive suit, leaned back in his chair in the lobby bar and exhaled a gray-blue smoke. He was enjoying a Cohiba Behike, one of just four thousand ever made, and sipping a cognac. Yes, that cognac, and no, he wasn’t picking up his own tab.

  This bill would be courtesy of Johnny Q. Taxpayer, who would also be paying for the twenty-two-year-old, five-foot-eleven, undocumented Ukrainian in 8-inch stilettos and a Chanel dress who was already waiting in his suite.

  Gabriel Dayton was celebrating. It was a private ritual he repeated on the same day every year, in this hotel, in this bar. It was here, five years earlier, that he found out he was going to become President of the United States.

  He’d already made a fortune as a lobbyist. He had numerous high-profile clients, and the biggest of them all, the cream of the crop, was the Saudi royal family. The Saudis spent more money lobbying Washington than any other interest group in the world, and every penny of it was funneled through Dayton’s firm.

  Dayton reminisced, going over every detail of that meeting five years ago as if it had been his first ever sexual encounter. In fact, sitting there now just thinking about it gave him a raging hard-on.

  He’d entered the hotel and taken this very seat. It was the best seat in the place, close to the fire, by the window, a portrait of George Washington on the wall overhead. The man who showed up to the meeting was unknown to Dayton. He introduced himself as Jamal Al-Wahad. Dayton later found out he was the son of one of the Saudi king’s cousins. He had a reputation for ruthlessness, a habit of killing his opponents’ children. Once, he’d gone so far as to have an unborn child pulled from the womb of its mother. The incident caused an uproar among Saudi elites, but it only heightened Al-Wahad’s reputation as a man who meant what he said. And during that meeting with Dayton, he meant every word.

  The proof was in the pudding. Everything he said would happen, had. Exactly as he’d said it would.

  First, Dayton retired from his firm to announce his candidacy for congress in Virginia’s tenth district, the wealthiest congressional district in the country. His campaign was so well funded it had its own hangar at Leesburg airport housing five Airbus twin-engine helicopters with interiors designed by Mercedes Benz.

  His opponent, a thirty-three-year-old single-mother from Chantilly, an elementary school teacher extremely popular in the district’s numerous wealthy suburbs, was expected to win by a landslide. At the last minute, she pulled out of the race when her three children were brutally murdered in a freak home invasion. Dayton took the seat by default. The home invasion was never solved.

  A year later, he was appointed to the House Armed Services Committee after the Saudis requested he be their handler in the purchase of twelve F-22 Raptor fighter jets. The Saudis had made a number of carefully disguised campaign contributions to overcome the export ban on the F-22. The ban was supposed to safeguard US technological superiority. Once on the Armed Services Committee, Dayton’s real work began, feeding classified military information back to the Saudis while pushing for top-secret advanced weapons technologies to be sold to them. Having Dayton in their pocket gave the Saudis a huge advantage when dealing with congressional oversight committees. He was the reason they now had some of the most advanced weapons systems in existence, systems that even the US’s closest Nato allies were still years from acquiring.

  When he was president, they’d gain access to the experimental technologies that even the US’s own military couldn’t pursue due to budgetary constraints. The Saudis, in effect, would have the most advanced military in the world. It might not be the largest, but pound for pound, it would be the most high-tech. Courtesy of their man in the White House, Gabriel Dayton.

  Not that anyone would ever know.

  Dayton looked out the window at the evening traffic, the plebs rushing home to the suburbs after a long day in their cubicles, and held up his glass to the bartender. A moment later, it was topped up with another two ounces of the liquor, which added to his tab more than the average federal employee earned in a week.

  He was getting drunk.

  He deserved it.

  After all, he’d just announced his presidential campaign to a small group of donors, journalists and business interests on the steps of the Capitol. This was how it began. While he didn’t hold nearly as much cachet with voters as some of the other candidates from his own party, the Saudis assured him he’d win the primary.

  “It was arranged,” was all they’d said.

  After the home invasion they’d pulled off in his first congressional race, he had no reason to doubt their methods. Everything they said, would happen.

  And they were saying he’d be president in two years.

  Across the street, on the roof of the lobbyist firm that ironically he’d once owned, the firm where he’d charged up to twenty thousand dollars an hour to represent the House of Saud, was a CIA trained marksman.

  The shooter, out in the cool fall air, no cognac, no log fire, was smiling. He had something much more reassuring. He had a view down the matte, twenty-five inch long custom-twist Schneider barrel of an M40A5 sniper rifle. Through his Schmidt and Bender Police Marksman II scope, he could have counted the cubes of ice in Dayton’s crystal glass. He could make out individual hairs in the man’s white
beard. He could see that an inch of ash was about to fall from the tip of the Cohiba onto his perfectly pressed shirt. He inhaled and could almost smell the smoke.

  With the stock of the rifle nestled against his shoulder, he couldn’t have been more relaxed.

  Sniper school spent a lot of time teaching him to master his nerves, to breathe steady, to slow his pulse.

  He was a model student. His pulse was in the forties. A civilian doctor might have worried it was too low.

  And he was going to relish the shot.

  This was personal.

  He adjusted his aim, minutely, from Dayton’s nostril to his eye.

  He touched the trigger.

  The window of the hotel bar shattered, Dayton’s face exploded, and the shooter was dismantling the gun and packing it in its case, all in the same moment. By the time the waiter reached Dayton’s body, the shooter was in a service elevator. By the time the girl at the concierge desk dialed 911, he was on the street.

  He walked to Lafayette Square and put his rifle bag in the back of a garbage truck that was turning onto Pennsylvania. Then he was in the washroom of a Starbucks where he’d stashed a camel colored overcoat, a white shirt, and a pair of dress shoes.

  Back on the street, he put his discarded clothes in a street garbage can and turned back in the direction of Lafayette Square.

  He’d just remembered there was a very good cigar bar there, in a townhouse basement beneath a private library owned by the Smithsonian, and he had a sudden, strong craving for a very expensive Cohiba.

  Two

  One month earlier.

  Hunter let out a long, steady breath and took aim. The wolf was five-hundred yards distant, her silhouette clear against the dark sky, her breath billowing in the icy air. It was a good shot. He touched the trigger of the old rifle, his father’s thirty-ought-six, and closed his eyes. For a second he held his breath, feeling the stillness of the air. Two days he’d tracked the animal, back and forth across the river tributaries, cursing the range of the wolf, the coldness of the water, the cheapness of his foreign-made boots.

  He opened one eye and saw the wolf looking straight at him. It was as if she knew.

  Wolves know things men don’t, he’d been taught. He’d seen it himself.

  Did she know it had been wrong to pull down those hikers?

  Had they done something to provoke her?

  Whatever the answer, Hunter knew the only guilty one here was him. He’d kill this creature, collect his proof, hike back to his vehicle, get paid.

  A small victory in the eternal battle of man versus beast. Good versus evil. Victor versus vanquished. The problem was, he didn’t know which side he was on.

  He let off the bullet.

  The wolf’s head rose, her ears pricked, and then she yelped and fell. The soft, lead-tipped bullet did it’s job instantly.

  Hunter sighed.

  Farther down the valley he’d seen armor piercing shell casings. He knew why they were used. To cut clear through the body, make the animal suffer, bleed out slow. In the name of sport.

  If there was any guilt in this country, it wasn’t the wolf’s.

  Six hours later he was back at his truck. He followed the logging road as far as the highway and tried the radio. Country music.

  At the first town he stopped for gas and bought a cup of gas station coffee and a doughnut that had been flown in from another part of the country in a plastic wrapper. He drove on, drinking the black coffee and eating the doughnut as the sun struggled to rise above the mountains. It was eight in the morning by the time he reached Fairbanks.

  Their apartment was in a squat, brick building on a wide street between a Salvation Army and a McDonald’s. He went through the drive-thru and bought a breakfast sandwich and more coffee.

  Ordinarily, his breakfast would be waiting for him when he got home, but Chianne was down in Washington State visiting her sister. She’d brought their five-year-old daughter along for the trip.

  He parked the truck, gathered his gear, and spilled hot coffee on his hand as he carried it all up the steps to the front door. When he got inside, the first thing he noticed was the flashing number on the answering machine. Nine was as high as it went.

  The image of his wife and daughter shot across his eyes as he picked up the receiver.

  “Jack Hunter. This is officer Dana Lawson at the Forks police department. Forks, Washington. If you could give me a call back at your earliest convenience I’d be most grateful.”

  Hunter skipped through three or four messages like that. There was also one from the Alaska State Troopers office in Fairbanks. He wrote down the number for the Alaska office to save the long-distance charges and made the call. He knew he was about to get some very bad news.

  “My name is Jack Hunter. I got a call from you folks.”

  “Yes, Mr. Hunter. Please hold.”

  The lady who picked up the phone was soft-spoken. Apologetic. Hunter forced himself to remain silent as she ran through her name, her rank, the information that had come in from Washington.

  “Sir,” she said, “I’m afraid your wife and daughter are missing.”

  “Missing?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s been over twenty-four hours now.”

  “Who reported them missing?”

  “Your wife’s sister in Forks. Were you aware that’s where your wife was?”

  “She flew down a few days ago for a visit.” Hunter paused, and then added, “With our little girl. School’s out so,” his words trailed off.

  “From what I gather, they were walking from your wife’s sister’s trailer on the outskirts of Forks to a local grocery store.”

  “They were walking along the side of the road?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “No accidents?”

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  “No car accidents, I mean.”

  “None that have been reported, sir.”

  Hunter felt dizzy. He leaned his back to the wall to steady himself and then slumped down the length of it until his ass hit the floor. There was a period of silence before he spoke.

  “You know what they say about that place?” he said.

  “I’ve heard the reports, yes, sir.”

  “My wife’s Indian. The kid’s Indian.”

  “I’m very sorry, Mr. Hunter. The police in Washington are on this, I assure you.”

  “Are they?”

  The officer paused. Then said, “I’m very sorry.”

  Hunter hung up the phone and looked up the number of the Fairbanks airport. There was a flight to Seattle in four hours and he got a ticket. Then he walked through his and Chianne’s bedroom to the bathroom. He got out of his dirty hunting clothes and stepped into the shower. He stood still while the hot water ran over his body.

  He dressed in jeans and a checkered shirt, put on his boots, threw another shirt and some underwear in a bag along with some toiletries, and grabbed his parka.

  The radio was still on in the truck and he didn’t turn it off. He didn’t notice it playing. He parked at the airport and checked in for his flight. He was three hours early and sat at the gate, waiting.

  Three

  Dana Lawson shook her head as she sat in line at the drive-thru. She’d promised herself she’d start packing a lunch. A salad, an apple, a sandwich made with brown bread and real cheese. All this fast food, combined with the seat she parked herself in at the station for eight to ten hours a day, was starting to show.

  She was twenty-seven, unmarried, she couldn’t afford to let herself go. Not yet at least. Give it another few years, she thought.

  Both her sisters were thin. They were both married too. A fact she was reminded of every Sunday at family dinner at her mother’s house.

  She’d had a tough morning. Another disappearance. An Indian woman, but a child this time too. A five-year-old. She’d spent the morning leaving messages for the poor husband up in Alaska. He’d be tearing his hair out, all alone up there, far away, unable to do j
ack shit about any of it.

  “Order please.”

  “Yes, I’ll take the cheeseburger.”

  “Fries?”

  “Fries and a coke. No, water.”

  “Drive on up.”

  She picked up her lunch and drove the cruiser back to the station. She left the keys in it and went inside.

  “Alaska called back,” the receptionist, Marlene, said.

  “The husband?”

  “No, the police. They reached the husband.”

  Dana gave Marlene a thin smile. “Poor bastard,” she said.

  Back at her desk she continued filling out the paperwork. The fact that a child was involved this time put the pressure on. Also, the victims being from out of state meant she really had to have her documents in order. Those creeps from the federal building in Seattle would be on this one for sure.

  “What time did the sister first call?” she said to Marlene.

  “That was Sue’s shift. Let me check.”

  Dana sighed. This was the third time since she’d joined the force a year ago that an Indian woman had gone missing along that stretch of highway. The issue went back decades but seemed to have come to an end for a few years. Then, last year, the disappearances started up again.

  It wasn’t just the crimes themselves that got under Dana’s skin. It was the way they were handled. The hushed phone calls. The stone-walling. The federal agents who seemed to be more concerned with watching the local cops than getting to the bottom of the case.

  She was still writing her report when Charlene clocked out.

  “Don’t stay here all night, Dana,” she said on her way out the door.

  Dana got up to put on a fresh pot of coffee when she saw a man stepping out of a taxi in the parking lot. He was tall, athletic, the way he moved reminded her of some sort of predator on the discovery channel stalking prey. The stubble, the thick winter coat, the boots, she suddenly realized he was the husband from Alaska. A cold breeze rushed in with him.