Into The Fire: A Nick Hunter Novel (A Nick Hunter Thriller Book 1) Read online

  Into the Fire

  A Nick Hunter Novel

  Vallon Grey

  Into the Fire

  A Nick Hunter Novel

  Copyright © 2022 by Vallon Grey

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise – without prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are 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.

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  Contents

  1. Prologue

  2. Chapter 1

  3. Chapter 2

  4. Chapter 3

  5. Chapter 4

  6. Chapter 5

  7. Chapter 6

  8. Chapter 7

  9. Chapter 8

  10. Chapter 9

  11. Chapter 10

  12. Epilogue

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  About the Author

  Prologue

  “Name?”

  “Logan Pierce.”

  “Designation?”

  “Special Ops - Delta.”

  “Rank?”

  “Sergeant First Class.”

  “Serial Number?”

  “17-485-290.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Pierce, it all checks out. Very impressive, I have to say. Light weapons and explosives specialist. Second-degree black belt Krav Maga. Covert operations, including extractions and wet work. Quite the world traveler, I see. You’ve been in some pretty hostile areas.”

  “Not by choice, but yes, never a boring day.”

  “So, Mr. Pierce, why do you want to join our program, and how did you hear about it? We haven’t exactly put an ad in the papers.”

  Logan ignored the sarcasm. “My grandfather thought it would be a good idea. He said I’d pretty much accomplished everything I could with my skill set and challenged me to go higher.”

  “Your grandfather? Yes, I’ve heard of him. Government man all his life. One of the good ones who truly loved and served his country. He recently retired, didn’t he?”

  “That’s right,” Logan answered. “He wants to spend more time with his grandchildren, my brother’s kids.”

  “Very well,” the man answered. “I’m not sure how much your grandfather has told you about this operation. We’re quite new and only just starting to enlist certain types of soldiers, and you do fit our requirements. At this point, I cannot divulge our exact field of operations, but you do need to know that they will be covert. In the interest of protecting our operations, and protecting those who will become part of the team, every enlistee will receive a new identity. Your past will essentially be erased, and who you were will no longer exist. As far as anyone knows, the Logan Pierce standing here will cease to exist. Are you okay with that?”

  Logan’s mind wandered briefly. He had been following the news lately. CNN had first reported the fiasco in Gatlinburg, where he had taken care of the guys from the Sapzurro Cartel. Now, the FBI was looking for the party responsible for the killings. As of last night, CNN had reported that the feds had narrowed their investigation to one or two ‘persons of interest’ based on the evidence they had found, and the testimony of the last member of the cartel who had lived through the ordeal. The man had later died in hospital, but not before describing his assailant. CNN had reported that the FBI believed it would only be a few more weeks before they had their man. The thought of joining a clandestine agency and being given a brand-new identity was more than he could have asked for. To have his past erased? He may as well have won the lottery. His grandfather must have had some idea, pointing him in this direction

  “Yes, sir. I’m good with that.”

  “Says here, you also don’t have any close family. A definite plus for someone joining this program.”

  “No family sir. None close anyway. I haven’t seen my brother for years, and we are both much happier that way. I am in touch with my grandfather, but he’s the one who encouraged me to come here.”

  No family, he thought. Not anymore. The void in his heart still ached with the loss of Naomi, just three months before. Yes, there was closure, but that didn’t take the pain away. Time heals all wounds, they say. He doubted that. She would be in his memory, always.

  “Read these, then sign them.” The officer put several forms in front of him, and Logan started reading.

  “There’s a problem, sir.”

  “What?”

  “The memory engramming. His brain’s gone into some form of shock. He’s slipping into a coma.”

  “And… final result? Will the engrams take?”

  “Ahh… we think so, but his mind is fragmenting. He’ll likely come out of the coma with massive retrograde amnesia. He won’t know who he is. His whole past will just be a blank to him.”

  “Did he sign the waiver?”

  “Sir, he’s your grandson! We’re talking his whole identity!”

  “Did he or did he not sign the waiver?”

  “He did, sir.”

  “Then, continue. I’ll deal with the consequences.”

  Chapter 1

  He arrived twenty minutes early to grab a coffee and check out the area for the rendezvous. It was still early in the morning and the train station was quite busy with commuters. Good. More people meant it was easier to come and go unnoticed. As he put his wallet back in his pocket, he looked at his driver's license once again, as if every time he glanced at it, it was a new experience. ‘Nick Hunter’ it said. It looked like him, alright, he’d seen himself often enough in the mirror to know that. Something in the back of his mind, though, made him wonder if that was really him? Who was he, really? His memory had never recovered from the three-month coma, and probably never would. That’s what they’d told him.

  He snapped himself out of his reverie and glanced at his watch. Five more minutes. He’d practiced these rendezvous until they’d become routine. This was how Splinter communicated, whatever Splinter was. He’d get his instructions for his assignment, a manila envelope with a new ID for that mission, credit cards, a new mobile phone. At times, Splinter would give him a key to a post office box in the city where he was headed. At other times, a special delivery would come to the room in the hotel he was staying at. The contents, the folders, were the same, but the delivery methods changed. That made sense to him. There was no point getting careless and creating a pattern that could be discovered.

  His phone beeped. The text simply read, ‘now’. He looked up, spotting the contact. As yesterday’s encrypted email had described him, he was wearing dark blue slacks and a black turtleneck. Nick slipped his wallet and phone into a thin cardboard folder and started walking forward, the folder in his left hand. As they walked past, neither looking at each other, his left hand brushed the man’s right. The folder was taken from him, and a small metal object passed over. He clenched his fist around it, feeling the shape of the locker key. Now he was no longer Nick Hunter, that identity was being taken away. Whoever, whatever he was about to become, the details would be in the locker this key unlocked.

  The lockers were busy. There were lot
s of people around still stuffing gym bags away before heading to work or leaving heavy bags before they spent a day sightseeing. Nick found the locker matching the number on the key and opened it. Inside was a duffle bag, and sitting on top, keys to a Honda Pilot SUV that would be his ride for this mission. He shouldered the bag and slipped the keys into his pocket. Going through the bag in public would make him stand out. There would always be time for that later.

  It was easy to find the car, as it was the only SUV in the parking lot. Charcoal gray, it was a vehicle that would blend in without drawing attention. Once seated comfortably in the SUV, he opened the bag to retrieve his new ID and mobile phone. On a piece of paper atop a manila folder were the words, ‘Hotel Metro – Harry Gordon - 10:00 am check in’. He double-checked the name against his new passport; yes, Harry Gordon, though the face was his. That would do, for now, the rest of the material he’d look over once he’d checked in.

  The Metro had a room waiting for Harry Gordon. A small suite, not outrageous, but more comfortable than a single room. He walked the room carefully, making sure nothing seemed out of place. It was unlikely that anyone would know he was coming or realize that Harry Gordon hadn’t existed until a very short time ago, but good field-craft required a certain degree of informed paranoia.

  Satisfied, he sat on the sofa and opened the bag, pulling out the manila envelope. Another photo ID was on top, he put that to one side and concentrated on his instructions. These, complete with photos of the key players and details of his contact, were typed simply and clearly on a single sheet of paper. Splinter had already set up much of the groundwork, including shipping some material to a holding warehouse on the other side of town. He read the page once and carefully studied the images. Confident that the information was securely lodged in his brain, he turned to the second sheet. Also simple and clear, it listed the materials in the car and how to use them. He nodded, his mind putting together the instructions and the tools. Two more pieces of paper he put in his pocket.

  The rest of the bag was filled with clothes and toiletries. Mostly, they were for looks, the typical things that you'd find in a traveler's bag, but some would be useful later. He grabbed the toiletries and the two typed pages of instructions and went to the suite's bathroom.

  The papers went into the toilet bowl. There was a slight hissing noise and the faint tang of a chemical smell. He flushed. Splinter had access to a number of interesting materials. In this case, the paper was chemically impregnated to react with water. Both ink and paper would fall apart when damp. There was no way his instructions could be reassembled.

  There was no point sitting around. He headed out of the room.

  Chapter 2

  275 East St. wasn’t anywhere near as impressive as the Metro Hotel. It was a rundown tenement building with dirty brick walls and several broken windows. At a guess, Nick would have dated the building from the very early years of the previous century. Nick had expected things to look rough, but the grim faces of the three men sitting on the front steps gave him pause. Their eyes were vacant, empty of hope, yet somehow the look they gave him made it clear they blamed him for their life.

  His vision changed, yanking him away from the city street.

  Similar eyes. The man stares at him with a mixture of contempt and emptiness. His long beard is rough and unkempt. His clothes haven’t been washed in weeks by the look of them.

  He speaks Arabic. “No one cares. You all fight over oil and land. We are left to suffer, and no one cares.”

  Nick shook his head, pushing the image away. A memory? Something from a movie? He didn’t know, but, for a moment, it had felt so real. He’d felt the heat, the sand underfoot.

  Focus, he told himself. The doctors had said that memories might resurface. He’d hoped they’d tell him more about his past, but that had been such a depressing image, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know any more.

  He mounted the steps, ignoring the stares, and headed inside. A dark and graffiti-filled stairwell led him to the next floor. The corridor on the second floor was at least clean and free from trash, but it had clearly seen no maintenance for years.

  At the door to apartment 204, he stopped and knocked.

  “Who’s there?” a woman’s voice asked from inside.

  “A friend of your husband’s,” he replied.

  That wasn’t true, of course. He had no friends. He knew almost no one, and yet he never felt bothered by that knowledge. He suspected feeling like that might be odd, but it made no difference to his mission, so he ignored the worrying thoughts in the back of his mind.

  “You’re a bit late then,” the woman replied through the door.

  “My name is Harry Gordon,” he said through the door.

  There was a pause, and then the voice asked again, “Who?”

  “Harry Gordon,” he repeated. “You might be expecting me.”

  The door opened a crack, revealing a thin face with sad brown eyes. “You’re Gordon?”

  “I am.” He wondered if he was lying, but that was his name for the next few days, so probably not. “May I come in?”

  The door opened wider, and the woman ushered him in. He walked into the apartment and raised his eyebrows. While everything he’d seen so far had suggested the area was rundown, the apartment itself was clean and well, if cheaply, decorated. The furniture was showing its age, but it had been well looked after.

  The woman, in her mid-thirties and haggard looking, checked the corridor one more time and closed the door behind her. “Have a seat Mr. Gordon.”

  He found a spot on an old but comfortable-looking sofa. The woman sat across from him, her legs crossed, her fingers drumming nervously on her knee. She seemed unsure what to say.

  “You know why I’m here?” he asked, breaking the silence.

  “Sort of,” she replied. “My uncle told me you might be coming.”

  “Your uncle is...?” he asked, curious as to who had contacted Splinter, or even knew how.

  “He was in the military, worked in intelligence," she said. "He told me he was going to talk to some old contacts. He said, if he was successful, I'd be visited by a man called Harry Gordon."

  Military connections. Nick felt something there, some sense of camaraderie. Had he served in the military? Had he known her uncle? That wasn’t important right now. Right now, he had a job to do.

  “Before I start,” he said to her. “I’d like to hear, in your words, why your uncle might have approached someone.”

  She sighed. “From the beginning?”

  He nodded. “I know it’s hard, but if you could.”

  “This whole area.” She waved a hand in the air in a gesture that Nick assumed was intended to take in the whole eight blocks around them. “Was originally deeded to the city by a wealthy nineteenth-century industrialist. It was passed to the city, in perpetuity, as housing and business opportunities for the ‘lesser off’ in society. Apparently, the old man had made his fortune off the backs of his workers and had something of a death-bed epiphany.”

  Nick nodded, encouraging her to continue. He’d already known the background, but confirmation, particularly from a close source, was always good to have.

  “The area became home to first and second-generation immigrant families,” she continued. “Effectively, on the basis of what the old man had put in his will, it was all rent-controlled. The families that came here weren’t wealthy, but over time we built a community here. Those that succeeded... well they left. See, the city was never really happy with us, they never worried about policing the area much, or keeping up infrastructure. They did the minimum they could get away with. We made do, though, policed ourselves, helped each other out.”

  “Problem is.” She paused, sighing. “Problem is, the value of all this land went up, of course. Developers want to get their hands on it, and while there’s people living here, they can’t. That’s in the original deeds. Things got out of control once Councilor Thompson got elected. He wants us out, all of us.
He tried convincing us, held a pack of public meetings, and when that failed, he let loose his ‘insurance’ teams.”

  “Insurance?” Nick asked.

  “Suddenly, there’s a lot of unexplained fires in businesses round here. Local fire department always takes a while to get to us, we’re not that important to them. By the time they do, the business will be gutted. Next thing you know, there’s a woman coming round to the local businesses demanding ‘fire insurance’. She’s got some toughs with her, boys from somewhere else in the city. She tried the same with my husband’s auto-workshop. If you pay her, the rates go up, and you’re driven out of business ‘cos you can’t afford them in the end. If you don’t pay her, your business burns down, and you’re out of business. She’s driving people from here, killing them.”

  “Killing?” Nick asked, trying to get a picture of what was happening from her perspective.

  She drew in a deep breath. “Some have died in the fires. Others, like... like my husband, saw no way out for themselves or their families. They... they... put an end to their own suffering.”

  Nick nodded again, his face grim. “I’m very sorry, I truly am. Can I ask you just one question?”

  She sniffed and nodded.

  “Why not simply vote Thompson out in the next election?”

  She gave him a mirthless grin. “I never met anyone who voted for Thompson. Somehow, when they do the counts, he has the votes. I don’t know where they’re coming from.”

  Everything fitted with the information that had come with his instructions, though Nick could feel anger churning in him. Nick’s fist clenched. He forced it to relax, to maintain the calm demeanor he was supposed to project on these missions.

  “Mrs. Pope, I will do my best to deal with this problem. I will need your help, though. Can you get a few people together to move some stuff for me? I’ll provide cash to pay for their services, truck rental, and the like.”