Rogue by J. B. Turner

Author:J. B. Turner [Turner, J. B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542048385
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2018-06-06T16:00:00+00:00

Thirty-Two

One day out

It was the dead of night and Nathan Stone was wide awake. He was lying in the dark on the wooden floor of the cottage living room, smoking a cigarette. He couldn’t sleep. He took a long drag on the Winston, feeling faintly annoyed by the pale-orange glow it emitted. He closed his eyes as the smoke filled his lungs.

He felt himself begin to fall into a dark cavern. Falling. Deeper and deeper he fell. He loved the sensation of not being in control. He was exhilarated. High.

His stomach fluttered as he came to a stop.

Stone opened his eyes and adjusted to the near-total darkness. A feeling of calm washed over him.

His mind flashed back to the sessions with the facility psychologist. He knew he was being observed. His body language. His speech patterns. His eye contact. His demeanor. He was being judged. But he was also being retrained. Reprogrammed. Subtly.

Planting trigger words in his brain. He knew what they were doing. And he liked it. But there was so much more.

Stone’s personality had been broken down years before. And in its place a new personality had emerged.

It had taken years.

The repetitive messages. The trigger words. The phrases. Reordering his thoughts. Before, there had just been emptiness. Now there was a pulsating array of terrifying emotions ripping through him. He liked it. And had grown to love it.

He could function in the real world. As long as he was kept apart.

The drugs kept him on edge. Steroids laced with amphetamine, he’d been told. He could go for days without sleep. He didn’t know hunger. At times, though, he felt like he was going to be consumed by rage.

He would stare at himself in the mirror.

Staring back at him were his father’s dead eyes. Uncaring. Blank. Terrifying. He had replaced his father. Supplanted him. And become him.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt the rage growing again.

They knew what they were doing.

Stone knew he would be returning to the familiar world of assassination. He dragged hard on his cigarette and leaned over to crush it out in the ashtray. His thoughts turned to his sister. Stuck in a mental hospital. Probably getting tucked into bed the way she used to tuck him in when he was a boy. He imagined her humming a tune. A tune he could never remember the name of. It had echoed in his mind through the years. The same one she had hummed to him when he was scared. He thought he heard a door creaking. But it was only in his head.

Then in his mind’s eye he was staring at his father again. Cold black eyes looking down at him.

His cell phone vibrated on the wooden floor. The caller ID lit up in a cold blue light. He picked it up and saw it was his handler.

“Nathan, we’ve got a problem.”

Stone’s senses switched on. “What kinda problem?”

“Motion sensors have picked up movement to the rear of your property. Infrared sensors show a young woman two hundred yards away.

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