Silent Threat
Advance praise for Jeff Gunhus and Silent Threat
“Daddy issues? Silent Threat is the book for you. When CIA assassin Mara Roberts is tasked with taking out her hit man father, a passionate, powerful story unfolds—part thriller, part family saga—and all guns blazing. Gunhus’s gift of capturing the human spirit leaves you pondering the novel long after you whip past the final page. Unputdownable.”
—K. J. Howe, international bestselling author of Skyjack
SILENT THREAT
JEFF GUNHUS
KENSINGTON BOOKS
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Advance praise for Jeff Gunhus and Silent Threat
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
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
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2020 by Jeff Gunhus
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-2622-3 (ebook)
ISBN-10: 1-4967-2622-7 (ebook)
Kensington Electronic Edition: January 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2621-6
For Nicole
Always for you
Acknowledgments
Writing a novel is a solitary affair, but the work of bringing it into the world takes a team. When things go well, that team is filled with dedicated, talented people who have a real passion for publishing.
Things went very well for this book.
The first person on the team was my agent, Sarah Hershman. Entrepreneurs are my kind of people and Sarah has showcased all the attributes I love about them. Risk-taker, hard worker, a pro who gets things done without complaint or hesitation. Thanks for believing in my work and taking it out into the world.
Thank you to the entire team at Kensington. Steven Zacharius and Lynn Cully have created a wonderful environment where writers feel valued and respected. I couldn’t be happier with my new home. James Abbate was the first read of the book and became its first champion. John Scognamiglio used his experience, wisdom, and insight to help shepherd the project with great finesse. John and James, you have been the dream team and I’m thankful to you both.
Thank you to Kristine Noble for the beautiful cover. You taught me about the joy of thinking outside convention and seeking out originality. Tracy Marx provided the wonderful back cover copy which describes the book much better than I ever have. Carly Sommerstein’s powerful guidance of the project throughout production created a beautiful book to hold. Copy-editing and proofreading are talents from on high; Sheila Higgins and Emily Epstein White caught details and errors I’d looked at a hundred times and missed. Whatever errors might be left are mine alone. I’m so grateful for the contributions of these talented individuals.
I’m indebted to International Thriller Writers, especially the Thrillerfest held every year in New York. It was through that organization that I took a full-day class with the inimitable Steve Berry. They say it’s better not to meet your heroes, but Steve was the exception to that rule. The lessons that day informed my writing greatly and his support since then has meant everything. When I asked for a blurb for this book, he replied the same day saying it would be his honor. Steve is a class act and a hell of a writer.
Kimberly Howe, executive director of Thrillerfest and now bestselling author in her own right, is one of the nicest people I know. She makes Thrillerfest feel personal for each participant and she goes out of her way to make people feel welcome. If you haven’t been to Thrillerfest, go just to meet her.
Hank Phillipi Ryan taught me the generosity of writers when she spent the time to do a deep dive with me on the opening chapter of this book. It was made so much better with her insight.
Simon Gervais, a wonderfully talented thriller writer, used his real-world experience to give me feedback on the firepower in the book. It was made better with his help.
I’m indebted to so many other great writers I’ve met and learned from through ITW: Lee Child, David Morrell, Peter James, Gayle Lynds, Karin Slaughter, Robert Dugoni, to name a few.
James Patterson chose this novel as a finalist for a co-author competition through Masterclass. That early recognition helped spur me on to complete the novel and the insights in that class tightened my writing and taught me to ramp up the tension in my scenes.
My family. Everyone ought to have a cheerleader in their corner, it just makes life easier. I’m fortunate to have a boatload of them. Parents who encouraged my writing and reading from as early as I can remember. A creative brother who has the keenest creative eye I know. Five rowdy, rule-breaking, shenanigan-doing, feisty kids that provide the sound track to my life. And a singular point of calm and grace amid the whirlwind, my wife, Nicole. The best parts of my life have all had you in them.
And my readers. In today’s age when things seem to move so quickly and attention spans are measured in seconds on video clips, I’m so thankful to all of you who have committed so many hours to reading my novels. Time is a precious resource and I understand the level of trust you give me (or any author) when you pick up a book and dive in. I do my best to be worthy of your trust. I hope you end this novel feeling that your time was well spent and ready for the further adventures of Scott and Mara Roberts.
If you’re ever in Annapolis, cruise by City Dock Café or Old Fox Books. I’ll be the guy in the back with the huge headphones on, mainlining coffee, and banging away on the laptop. Come say hi. Maybe you’ll end up in the next book.
CHAPTER 1
Mara Roberts knew the Agency would try to kill her father the day he got out of prison; she just didn’t expect they’d ask her to be the one to do it.
Before she received the assignment, she would have bet even money he would survive whatever welcome party the CIA had planned for him. Too bad his odds had migrated down to zero now that the job was hers.
She sat in her rented Range Rover, waves of
Oklahoma heat shimmering off the parking lot blacktop, bending the prison chain-link fence into wavering lines. Coils of concertina wire topped the walls, razor blade edges glistening in the sun, each loop perfectly spaced. Just like inside the walls of the Cimarron Correctional Facility—orderly but lethal.
Behind the security gate was a low-slung building with a copper overhang at the entrance—more like a school administration office than a prison. The schematics she’d studied revealed the facility extended back into eight separate cell blocks. Each one housed more dangerous criminals than the previous one. She hoped they’d put her dad in the worst of the lot.
The car idled, both for the AC and in case she needed to adjust her plans and leave in a hurry. The few guards she saw moved slow and had dark sweat pits spreading under their arms and on their backs. She pegged them as complacent. Washed up. Bored. Just like she wanted. As she analyzed the prison’s weaknesses, she couldn’t help but wonder whether her dad had changed much since she’d seen him last.
Sure, he was past fifty now and, according to the photos in the briefing, finally starting to show his age. Wrinkles at his eyes. A close scalp shave, the kind favored by men fighting a losing battle with their hairline. He was still in shape, though. Surveillance camera footage showed a recent fistfight he’d had on the yard, started by some con paid off by the Agency. Obviously a new guy. Anyone who’d been there longer knew not to mess with the quiet guy with the broad shoulders.
The video showed her dad could still throw a punch, but the couple of jabs he took to his face also showed he’d lost a step or two. Yet, the old man still had skills. And she wasn’t about to underestimate her target. Hell, four years on the run and the last two months in prison might have even toughened the bastard up. If that was even possible. She wasn’t sure it was.
A routine face recognition search through the U.S. prison system by a junior analyst had turned him up. As she read the report, it made her laugh that assets all over the world were searching for him, and there he was serving time under an alias for manslaughter. Seems he took exception to a group of five young men roughing up a prostitute. Four of them ended up with broken bones and long hospital stays. The fifth wasn’t going to harass anyone ever again. It was just like her dad to risk blowing his cover to save someone. Typical Boy Scout bullshit.
She’d been raised on stories about him. Even in her macho world of counterintelligence they seemed outlandish. Insanely risky missions. Many of them unsanctioned. Succeeding against insurmountable odds. Like stuff out of bad action movies, and yet people swore to her the stories were true, that they’d seen him do these things with their own eyes. But they always whispered about him, as if just talking about the man and his exploits might suck them into the same darkness into which he disappeared. Still, even with what had happened, she always heard a grudging admiration as they told her about the exploits of the great Scott Francis Roberts, the father she barely knew. The man she was about to kill.
She looked at her watch. Fifteen minutes to go. When she was younger she might have pulled out the 9mm Glock automatic hidden under the seat and rechecked the magazine, or felt for the bulge of the knife strapped under her loose-fitting pant leg. Or pulled out the micro-Taser in her front pocket to make sure it still held a charge. But she wasn’t a newbie and this wasn’t her first rodeo, so instead she scanned the parking lot, looking for her shadow.
She knew there would be one; there always was on a job like this. A second operative ostensibly there for backup but really just an insurance policy for the higher-ups at Langley to make sure the job was done and done right. This operation was, after all, illegal. She was certain there were a lot of nervous suits back at Langley, waiting for confirmation that Roberts was dead. She just hoped that when the report came through it was the right Roberts.
It was protocol, sure, but having a shadow was demeaning. She tried not to think of it as an insult, but she couldn’t help feel a twinge of being babysat. As a game, and also to keep sharp, she always tried to spot the agent watching her. She was usually able to, not because they weren’t very good at their jobs, but because she was great at hers.
So far she hadn’t found him. And it probably was a him. While women had made strides in the Agency, field operatives with her particular skill set and job description tended to have a pair of balls swinging between their legs. Of course, most of her comrades thought she had a pair of huge ones herself. As much as she hated the association, based on her risk tolerance and her ability to piss off her bosses, she knew the word on her was that there was no doubt she was the daughter of field operative and world-class traitor Scott Roberts.
Ten minutes.
The parking lot was filled with passenger cars and minivans. What if the mission required her to break into the perimeter? She imagined a frontal attack with a full assault team like she’d been trained to do in the Marines. Or a covert entry via the supply chain like she’d been taught at the Farm. Finally, she considered diving from an airplane at 30,000 feet with a squirrel suit on and landing in the middle of the yard. That was what her dad would have done.
No, not her dad. She couldn’t think that way. Her target, nothing more.
Seven minutes.
She reached under her seat. Felt the Glock in its hiding place. She took a deep, steadying breath, hating the ice ball churning in her stomach.
“Get your shit together, Mara,” she muttered.
She tried to calm herself down by thinking of her little nephew, Joey. His mom, her brave sister, Lucy, had marched through her cancer endgame, from the first shock of the diagnosis, through the treatments, and finally, the closing pain-filled days. Mara had held Joey’s tiny hand as they lowered his mother’s casket into the ground next to his father’s grave. Only this time there was no military salute. No folded flag to commemorate the fallen. There was only a small group of quiet friends to mark bitter truth about the unpredictability of life. The boy had been quiet all day, holding it in. But once the casket started its descent into the ground, he’d lost it. As he wailed, calling out for his mom, Mara had wrapped him in her arms and whispered for the hundredth time that she’d take care of him. She’d told the Agency the next day that she wanted to transfer out of fieldwork and teach instead. They’d agreed, but then her dad was found. And they asked for one more job.
Five minutes.
She did another scan. Wait. That black pickup truck with a camper shell in the far back corner. The driver’s cab was empty, which was why she’d dismissed it earlier. This time she saw a round, reflective surface flash on the side of the camper shell, the right size to be a spotting scope. Her shadow. She smiled, pleased that she hadn’t lost her touch.
Three minutes.
She took a swig from a water bottle. Her initial request for a long-range shot had been denied. The powers-that-be didn’t want a hit in broad daylight in front of a maximum-security prison. There’d be video footage from five different angles, and it’d inevitably leak out to the public. That wasn’t good.
Still, it would have been a sure thing. When she’d pressed them on it, they’d come clean. It was the same reason they hadn’t killed him inside the prison. They wanted him dead, but they wanted her to question him first. Her instructions were to use their relationship to get him to talk, then incapacitate him and move to a black site to conduct more advanced questioning.
Once done, he was to be terminated. Under no circumstances was he to be killed prior to questioning, nor was he to be allowed to be brought into custody through regular channels. On these two last points, her instructions had been very clear.
The more she thought about it, the more she liked this approach. A head shot was too easy of an out for him. He deserved to suffer first. And suffering was something she was well trained at dispensing.
One minute.
She opened the door and stepped outside, leaving the car running. The heat was dry and oppressive, and it felt like all the moisture on her skin evaporated in seconds. She p
ut on her sunglasses, walked to the front of the car, leaned up against the hood, and crossed her arms. And waited.
Time.
* * *
Mara watched her dad scan the parking lot and then settle his eyes on her. He jerked back a little, a discreet movement, but enough that she saw it. At least he seemed surprised to see her. That was a good sign. Part of her had considered that a man like Scott Roberts likely had friends deep in the Agency, friends who didn’t believe the charges against him, friends who just might want to tip him off to the planned attempt on his life.
Not that it mattered. She felt confident in her training and her ability, regardless if he knew it was coming or not. She assumed at some point he would realize why she was there, or at least suspect it. All it meant was an adjustment in tactics. No big deal.
He walked toward her, still studying the parking lot. He wore a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt, probably the same outfit he’d been wearing the day he was processed into custody. His build looked good, like he’d taken advantage of the prison weight yard. She had to admit that even with his shaved head, his ice-cold blue eyes and strong jawline made him a hell of a good-looking guy. If grandpas were your thing.
Then again, the guy walking toward her hardly met the criteria to be called a grandpa. Biologically, sure. But he didn’t have any kind of relationship with Joey, not since going off the grid four years earlier. She felt a twinge of satisfaction at that. As far as five-year-old Joey knew, his grandpa had died in the same accident that killed his grandma, and Mara intended to keep it that way for as long as possible. There might be a time when she’d have to come clean, but that was a decade or two away as far as she was concerned. And even then she wondered why Joey needed to be burdened with the fact that his grandpa was not only responsible for his own wife’s death, but was a goddamn traitor as well.