The Silver Bear sbt-1

  The Silver Bear

  ( Silver Bear Thriller - 1 )

  Derek Haas

  A hitman isn't allowed to have a life... He calls himself Columbus. Some call him the Silver Bear. All know him as one of the deadliest assassins in the world. Now, as he tracks a powerful politician with presidential aspirations, the fragmented pieces of his own life begin to point to a terrible truth that will unmake everything he is, tear apart the shadowy, criminal world he rules-and put him right in the crosshairs.

  “Well written, fast-paced, and engaging, this debut thriller seamlessly interweaves scenes from the past with the present to give a thrilling account of a professional killer at his peak . . . The cross-country hunt is a fast read; fans of James Patterson and Jeffery Deaver will enjoy.”-Library Journal

  “[A] tight, swift debut thriller . . . reminiscent of The Manchurian Candidate . . . In chilling interior passages echoing The Day of the Jackal, the ‘bear’ explicates the cold-blooded methods that make him a top killer. All the while, Haas stokes sympathy for his antihero. Lean work, with every word counting and adding up to more than most authors land in twice the space.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “Engaging.”

  —Booklist

  "Sure to be the hit of the summer . . . examines the psychological intrigues of the chase and the hunt.”

  —Los Angeles Confidential

  “Derek Haas has produced a short, sharp, electric shock of a book.”

  —Mike Ripley, Shots Ezine

  “A thrilling page-turner—a cross between the Jason Bourne movies and the classic assassin film Léon.”

  —In Company magazine

  “A moody, gloomy, but curiously gripping tale.”

  —Literary Review

  For Chris, who pulled. And for Kristi, who pushed.

  CHAPTER 1

  THE last day of the cruelest month, and appropriately it rains. Not the spring rain of new life and rebirth, not for me. Death. In my life, always death. I am young; if you saw me on the street, you might think, “What a nice, clean-cut young man. I’ll bet he works in advertising or perhaps a nice accounting firm. I’ll bet he’s married and is just starting a family. I’ll bet his parents raised him well.” But you would be wrong. I am old in a thousand ways. I have seen things and done things that would make you rush instinctively to your child’s bedroom and hug him tight to your chest, breathing quick in short bursts like a misfiring engine, and repeat over and over, “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”

  I am a bad man. I do not have any friends. I do not speak to women or children for longer than is absolutely necessary. I groom myself to blend, like a chameleon darkening its pigment against the side of an oak tree. My hair is cut short, my eyes are hidden behind dark glasses, my dress would inspire a yawn from anyone who passed me in the street. I do not call attention to myself in any way.

  I have lived this way for as long as I can remember, although in truth it has only been ten years. The events of my life prior to that day, I have forgotten in all detail, although I do remember the pain. Joy and pain tend to make imprints on memory that do not dim, flecks of senses rather than images that resurrect themselves involuntarily and without warning. I have had precious little of the former and a lifetime of the latter. A week ago, I read a poll that reported ninety percent of people over the age of sixty would choose to be a teenager again if they could. If those same people could have experienced one day of my teenage years, not a single hand would be counted.

  The past does not interest me, though it is always there, just below the surface, like dangerous blurs and shapes an ocean swimmer senses in the deep. I am fond of the present. I am in command in the present. I am master of my own destiny in the present. If I choose, I can touch someone, or let someone touch me, but only in the present. Free will is a gift of the present; the only time I can choose to outwit God. The future, your fate, though, belongs to God. If you try to outsmart God in planning your fate, you are in for disappointment. He owns the future, and He loves O. Henry endings.

  The present is full of rain and bluster, and I hurry to close the door behind me as I duck into an indiscriminate warehouse alongside the Charles River. It has been a cold April, which many say indicates a long, hot summer approaching, but I do not make predictions. The warehouse is damp, and I can smell mildew, fresh-cut sawdust, and fear.

  People do not like to meet with me. Even those whom society considers dangerous are uneasy in my presence. They have heard stories about Singapore, Providence, and Brooklyn. About Washington, Baltimore, and Miami. About London, Bonn, and Dallas. They do not want to say something to make me uncomfortable or angry, and so they choose their words with precision. Fear is a feeling foreign to these types of men, and they do not like the way it settles in their stomach. They get me in and out as fast as they can and with very little negotiation.

  Presently, I am to meet with a black man named Archibald Grant. His given name is Cotton Grant, but he didn’t like the way “Cotton” made him sound like a Georgia hillbilly Negro, so he moved to Boston and started calling himself Archibald. He thought it made him sound aristocratic, like he came from prosperity, and he liked the way it sounded on a whore’s lips: “Archibald, slide on over here” in a soft falsetto. He does not know that I know about the name Cotton. In my experience, it is best to know every detail about those with whom you are meeting. A single mention of a surprising detail, a part of his life he thought was buried so deep as to never be found, can cause him to pause just long enough to make a difference. A pause is all I need most of the time.

  I walk through a hallway and am stopped at a large door by two towering black behemoths, each with necks the size of my waist. They look at me, and their eyes measure me. Clearly, they were expecting something different after all they’ve been told. I am used to this. I am used to the disappointment in some of their eyes as they think, “Give me ten minutes in a room with him and we’ll see what’s shakin’.” But I do not have an ego, and I avoid confrontations.

  “You be?” says the one on the right whose slouch makes the handle of his pistol crimp his shirt just enough to let me know it’s there.

  “Tell Archibald it’s Columbus.”

  He nods, backs through the door, while the other studies me with unintelligent eyes. He coughs and manages, “You Columbus?” as if in disbelief. Meaning it as a challenge.

  I ignore him, not moving a centimeter of my face, my stance, my posture. I am in the present. It is my time, and I own it.

  He does not know what to make of this, as he is not used to being ignored, has not been ignored all his life, as big as he is. But somewhere, a voice tells him maybe the stories he heard are true, maybe this Columbus is the badass motherfucker Archibald was talking about yesterday, maybe it’d be best to let the challenge hang out there and fade, the way a radio signal grows faint as a car drives further and further down the highway.

  He is relieved when the door opens and I am beckoned into the room.

  Archibald is behind a wooden desk; a single light bulb on a wire chain moves like a pendulum over his head. He is not a large man, a sharp contrast from the muscle he keeps around him. Short, well-dressed, with a fire in his eyes that matches the tip of the cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth. He is used to getting what he wants.

  He stands, and we shake hands with a light grip as though neither wants to make a commitment. I am offered the only other chair, and we sit deliberately at the same time.

  “I’m a middleman on this,” he says abruptly, so I’ll know this from the get-go. The cigarette bobs up and down like a metronome as he speaks.

  “I understand.”

  “This is a single. Eight we
eks out, like you say.”

  “Where?”

  “Outside L.A. At least, that’s where this cat’ll be at the time.”

  Archibald sits back in his chair and folds his hands on his stomach. He’s a businessman, talking business. He likes this role. It makes him think of the businessmen behind their desks in Atlanta where he used to go in and change out the trash baskets, replace the garbage with new dark plastic linings.

  I nod, only slightly. Archibald takes this as his cue to swivel in his chair and open a file door on the credenza matching his desk. From the cavity, he withdraws a briefcase, and we both know what’s inside. He slides it in my direction across the desk and waits.

  “Everything you requested’s in there, if you want to check it out,” he offers.

  “I know where to find you if it’s not.” It’s statements like these that can get people into trouble, because they can be interpreted several ways. Perhaps I am making a benign declaration, or possibly a stab at humor, or maybe a little bit of both. But in this business, more often than not, I am making a threat, and nobody likes to be threatened.

  He studies my face, his own expression stuck between a smirk and a frown, but whatever he is looking for, he doesn’t find it. He has little choice but to laugh it off so his muscle will understand I am not being disrespectful.

  “Heh-hah.” Only part of a laugh. “Yeah. That’s good. Well, it’s all there.”

  I help him out by taking the case off the desk, and he is happy to see me stand. This time, he does not offer his hand.

  I walk away from the desk, toward the door, case in hand, but his voice stops me. He can’t help himself, his curiosity wins over his cautiousness; he isn’t sure if he’ll ever see me again, and he has to know.

  “Did’ja really pop Corlazzi on that boat?”

  You’d be surprised how many times I get this one. Corlazzi was a Chicago underworld luminary responsible for much of the city’s butchery in the sixties and seventies, a man who redefined the mafia’s role when narcotics started to replace liquor as America’s drug of choice. He saw the future first, and deftly rose to prominence. As hated as he was feared, he had a paranoid streak that threatened his sanity. To ensure that he would reign to a ripe old age, he removed himself to a gigantic houseboat docked in the middle of Lake Michigan. It was armed to the teeth, and its only connection with land was through a speedboat manned by his son, Nicolas. Six years ago, he was found dead, a single bullet lodged in the aorta of his heart, though no one heard a shot and the man was behind locked doors with a bevy of guards posted outside.

  Now, I don’t have to answer this question. I can leave and let Archibald and his entourage wonder how a guy like me could possibly do the things attributed to the name Columbus. This is a tactic I’ve used in the past, when questions like his are posed. But, today, the last day of the cruelest month, I think differently. I have six eyes on me, and a man’s reputation can live for years on the witness of three black guys in a warehouse on the outskirts of Boston.

  I spin with a whirl part tornado and part grace, and before an inhale can become an exhale, I have a pistol up and raised in my hand. I squeeze the trigger in the same motion, and the cigarette jumps out of Archibald’s mouth and twirls like a baton through the air. The bullet plugs in the brick wall above the credenza as gravity takes the cigarette like a helicopter to a gentle landing on the cement floor. When the six eyes look up, I am gone.

  CHAPTER 2

  LATERAL bursts of wind prick the side of my face as I walk into my building. By the time I hear the story again, the scene in Archibald’s warehouse will have taken on Herculean proportions. There will have been ten guys, instead of three, all with their guns drawn and trained on me. Archibald will have insulted me by saying, “There’s your case, bitch,” or some other endearment. I will have danced around bullets, mowed down seven guys, and walked on water before the cigarette was shot out of Archibald’s mouth. Advertising doesn’t hold a candle to the underworld’s word of mouth.

  My apartment does not reflect the size of my bank account. It is eight hundred square feet, sparsely decorated, with only the furniture and appliances necessary to sustain me for a week, the longest I stay most of the time. I do not have a cleaning service, or take a newspaper, or own a mailbox. My landlord has never met me, but receives a payment for double rent in cash once a year. In return, he asks no questions.

  On my one table, I open the case carefully and spread its contents in neat stacks. Twenty dollars to a bill, a hundred bills to a band, five hundred bands in the case. This up front, triple when the job is complete. Underneath all of the money is a manila envelope. The money holds no allure for me. I am as immune to its siren’s song as if I had taken a vaccine. The envelope, however, is my addiction.

  I slide my finger under the seal and carefully open the flap, withdrawing its contents as though these pages are precious—brittle, breakable, vulnerable. This is what makes my breath catch, my heart spin, my stomach tighten. This is what keeps me looking for the next assignment, and the next, and the next—no matter what the cost to my conscience. This . . . the first look at the person I am going to kill.

  Twenty sheets of paper, two binders of photographs, a schedule map, an itinerary, and a copy of a Washington, D.C. driver’s license. I savor the first look at these items the way a hungry man savors the smell of steak. This mark will occupy my next eight weeks, and, though he doesn’t know it, these papers are the first lines written on his death certificate. The envelope is before me, the contents laid out next to the money on my table, the end of his life now a foregone conclusion, as certain as the rising sun.

  Quickly, I hold the first paper to the light that is snaking through my window, my eyes settling on the largest type, the name at the top of the page.

  And then a gasp, as though an invisible fist flies through the air and knocks the breath from my lungs.

  Can it be? Can someone have known, have somehow discovered my background and set this up as some sort of a joke? But . . . it is unthinkable. No one knows anything about my identity; no fingerprints, no calling card, no trace of my existence ever left carelessly at the scene of a killing. Nothing survives to link Columbus to that infant child taken from his mother’s arms by the “authorities” and rendered a ward of the state.

  ABE MANN. The name at the top of the sheet. Can this be a mere coincidence? Doubtful. My experience has proven to me time and time again that coincidence is a staple of fiction, but holds little authority in the real world. I open the binder, and my eyes absorb photograph after photograph. There is no mistake: this is the same Abe Mann who is currently Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America, the same Abe Mann who represents the seventh district of the state of New York, the same Abe Mann who will soon be launching his first bid for his party’s nomination for president. But none of these reasons caused the air to be sucked from my lungs. I have killed powerful men and relish the chance to do so again. There is more to the story of Abe Mann.

  Twenty-nine years ago, Abe Mann was a freshman congressman with a comfortable wife and a comfortable house and a comfortable reputation. He attended more sessions of congress than any other congressman, joined three committees and was invited to join three more, and was viewed as a rising star in his party, enjoying his share of air time on the Sunday morning political programs. He also enjoyed his share of whores.

  Abe was a big man. Six-foot-four, and a one-time college basketball star at Syracuse. He married an accountant’s daughter, and her frigid upbringing continued unabated to her marriage bed. He stopped loving her before their honeymoon ended, and had his first taste of a prostitute the Monday after they returned from Bermuda. His weekdays he spent at the state capitol as a district representative; his weekends he spent anywhere but home. For five years, he rarely slept in his own bed, and his wife kept her mouth sealed tight, fearful that intimate details of their marriage would end up sandwiched between the world report and the weekend wea
ther on the five o’clock news.

  Once elected to serve in the nation’s capital, Abe discovered a whole new level of prostitution. There were high-quality whores in New York, mind you, but even they paled in comparison to the women who serviced the leaders of this country. The best part was, he didn’t even have to make polite inquiries. He was approached before he was sworn in, approached the first night of his first trip to Washington after the election. A senator, a man he had seen only on television and whom he had never met in person, called him directly at his hotel room and asked if he would like to join him for a party. What an incredible time he had had that night. With the stakes higher, the women so young, so beautiful, and so willing, he had experienced a new ecstasy that still made his mind reel when he thought of it.

  Later that year, after he had settled, he grew fond of a hard-bodied black prostitute named Amanda B. Though she argued against it, he forced her to fuck him without a condom, satisfying his growing thirst for bigger and bigger thrills. For about six months, he fucked her in increasingly public locations, in increasingly dangerous positions, with increasingly animalistic ferocity. Each fix begat the next, and he needed stronger doses to satisfy his appetite.

  When she became pregnant, his world caved in. He crawled to her in tears, begging for forgiveness. She was not frightened of him until she saw this change. This change meant he was more dangerous than she had anticipated. She knew what would happen next: after the tears, after the self-flagellation, after the “why me?” and the self-loathing, he would turn. His internal remorse would eventually be directed outward; he would have been made to face his own weakness, and he would not like what he had seen. And so he would destroy that which made him feel helpless. Even in the altered state cocaine had made of her mind, Amanda B. knew this as surely as she knew anything.