Nameless: Season Two by Dean Koontz

Author:Dean Koontz
Language: eng
Format: epub

9

In the interest of leaving behind minimal evidence at the end of a mission, those who prepared Nameless for this new life obliterated his fingerprints with lightly applied acids and several treatments with a CO2 laser. He has been allowed to remember this because it gives him peace of mind.

The previous day, when he took the offered Scotch from Carter Halley-Foster in the lawyer’s office, he hadn’t given a thought to how the smooth Steuben glass, rather than one of cut crystal, was ideal for capturing prints.

It’s surprising that an attorney discussing an investment in an enterprise no more consequential than a puppy mill would attempt to obtain fingerprints and thereby confirm the identity of the man with whom he is negotiating. It is especially puzzling when the attorney and his client are under the protection of the state’s most powerful politician and therefore have long been confident that they have nothing to fear. Such an extreme level of suspicion and security suggests there must be something more to Benthon’s operation than Nameless—or Ace of Diamonds—understands.

When a man presses a gun to your head, he has already committed a felony. Lucius Benthon is guilty of another felony when he comes face-to-face with his captive and bluntly declares, “We have a lot of questions, Mr. Thornton, and if you won’t talk, then we’ll cut the answers out of you.” In such circumstances, only a fool clings to the belief that he will save himself by being entirely forthcoming, and Nameless is no fool.

This one will be easy. My Christmas gift to you.

The snub-nosed revolver is holstered in the small of his back, the most inconspicuous place to carry it, and the pepper spray is in his right pants pocket. If he reaches for either, the gunman behind him, Harry, will club him to the ground before he can get a weapon. However, even as Benthon is speaking, Nameless sees four things about the situation that are to his advantage. First, the gun is pressed to his head rather than to his back; setting aside the point-blank issue, the skull is a smaller target than the torso. Second, Benthon is less than three feet away and in the line of fire, which is likely to cause the gunman to check his impulse to pull the trigger. Third, they want to keep him alive to interrogate him. Fourth, in his current mood—alone, convinced he deserves loneliness, aware of the bleak future toward which the nation is swiftly moving—he is surely more ready to die than they are.

The moment the words “we’ll cut the answers out of you” are spoken, Nameless clears his throat and spits a generous gob in Benthon’s face, which not only surprises the gentleman farmer but also startles Harry, who instinctively raises the weapon to strike the offender on the head. The instant the muzzle is no longer pressed to his skull, Nameless steps into Benthon, seizes the lapels of his camel-hair coat, and rushes him backward into a table on which stands a cage housing a Labrador retriever.

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