Silencer

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PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF CAMPBELL ARMSTRONG

“Campbell Armstrong is thriller writing's best-kept secret.” —
The Sunday Times

“Armstrong is among the most intriguing of blockbuster writers … near to unputdownable.” —
GQ

“While touching on suspense with a skill to please hard-core thriller addicts, he manages to please people who … warm to readable novels of substance.” —
Daily Mail

“Armstrong's skill is not just an eye for a criminally good tale but a passion for the people that will populate it.” —
The Scotsman

“Subtle and marvelous … This is a dazzling book.” —
The Daily Telegraph
on
Agents of Darkness

“A consummate psychological thriller … Without doubt, Armstrong is now in the front rank of thriller writers.” —
Books
on
Heat

“Armstrong has outdone both Frederick Forsyth and Ken Follett.” —James Patterson on
Jig

“A full throttle adventure thriller.” —
The Guardian
on
Mambo

“A wonderful puzzle that keeps us guessing right to the end.” —
Publishers Weekly
on
Mazurka

Silencer

Campbell Armstrong

This novel went through the careful editorial hands of the following people: Marianne Velmans, Alison Tulett, Leda DeForge and my wife Rebecca. I'm deeply grateful for their counsel and advice.

1

At an intersection in the middle of nowhere a stop sign appears in the headlights, and Reuben Galindez thinks, OK, this is heebie-jeebies time, I had enough, and he opens the passenger door and steps out onto the narrow blacktop.

‘What the fuck?' the bearded guy at the wheel says.

‘I changed my mind,' Galindez says.

‘You
what
?'

‘I been thinking. I ain't stacking groceries in some supermarket in Scranton or whatever you got in mind. I don't need that shit.'

The guy on the back seat, the guy with silver-yellow sideburns, leans forward and says, ‘Let me remind you, Reuben. You signed on the dotted line. This ain't something where you got the option of changing your mind and strolling the hell away.'

‘Watch me,' Galindez says and he slams the door and begins to walk down the blacktop, thinking he'll hitch a ride as soon as a vehicle comes along this lonely road, which may take some time out here, granted, but no way is he going back inside the van with the tinted windows. No way is he stacking shelves or installing cable TV in Queens or
anything
like that. Four weeks he's been locked up in the safe house in Phoenix, climbing walls. Closing his eyes nights and seeing the flowery pattern of wallpaper behind his lids. Trapping cockroaches in beer bottles and suffocating the fuckers just for the sport. Watching TV, spinning through the channels until you're brain-dead. Four draggy weeks waiting for ‘arrangements' to be made, and that's enough. Imagine living the rest of your life restricted. It ain't for me, thanks all the same.

‘Reuben!'

Galindez looks back. The guy with the beard is outside the van now. ‘You made a deal, Reuben. You can't just
walk.
'

Galindez calls back. ‘Whatcha gonna do? Sue me?' He laughs, eh-eh-eh, turns and keeps on walking, the darkness of trees pressing in on him from either side of the road. This is the sticks, he thinks, but he couldn't hack sitting in that van a second longer, had to get out. His patience was stretched to breaking point and a voice he associates with the willies was rising inside his head.

‘Reuben! Get your fat ass back here!'

Galindez glances round again. ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.'

‘This ain't smart, Reuben.'

Galindez pays no attention. It's a free country. You're at liberty to change your mind. OK, he signed some documents, so what? You scribble your john hancock on a few papers, that means chickenshit to him.

He's 50 yards from the van and the bearded guy is still calling. ‘Hey! Reuben! This is a real dumb fuck thing you're doing!'

Just keep walking, Galindez thinks. Keep cruising. Sooner or later they're gonna get tired shouting and they'll drive away, and then somebody's gonna come along and you'll hitch back to civilization. Happy days.

‘
Reuben
!'

Galindez hears a faint breeze whisper in the trees. He doesn't look round. Screw them. Screw their documents and their promises, you got a life all your own to live.

The sound of gunfire freezes him. A single crack gouges the blacktop near his feet, and suddenly the night's filled with birds panicked out of trees and some scared furry four-legged thing dashes in front of him. He turns his face and there's a second shot that whizzes somewhere to his right and it's like the darkness is punctured and leaking air, and his heart is hot and thudding. This is some kinda joke, he thinks. But he's stunned and confused by the
fact
of gunfire because by rights –
by rights
– he ought to be able to stroll away, if that's what he wants to do, and fuck the agreement, which was only paper anyhow. And these guys – they shouldn't be
shooting
at him.

‘
Just walk back, Reuben
,' the bearded guy shouts.

Galindez doesn't move. Walk back, he thinks. Yeah, right. Walk back to what exactly?

Another shot and the air around him fractures, and this time Galindez blinks at the flash of light and thinks, I've been hit. Dreamtime. Except it's no dream, it's no little carnival of the mind, because there's a pain in his arm and he feels blood against his skin. Jesus fucking Christ, he thinks. I'm shot. It ain't supposed to be this way. The world's all upside down and I'm bleeding.

‘
The next one goes in the brainbox, Reuben
!'

They're going to
kill
you, Galindez thinks, and it's like a light going on inside the open refrigerator of his head. They're going to murder you just because you don't want to be a member of their goddam club. You did them a good turn, you paid your dues, but now you want out – only they won't let you. You're in, the door's bolted, and that's that.

Fuck them! Fuck Scranton, Queens, wherever!

Under a moon fogged by cloud, he suddenly runs down among the trees, crashing between trunks and overhanging branches, and there's blood streaming down his arm but this is no time to think Band Aid. This is a time for running and running and if you bleed, you bleed, and so what.

He's overweight and his flabby pecs bounce and his lungs don't know what to do with all this clean, up-country air. He's a city guy and a chain-smoker, but these are minor inconveniences, because the only goddam thing that matters is getting away. He hears a small voice inside his head urgently repeating the phrase, Chug, chug, keep going. Down through the trees and don't stop.

Branches whip at his body and exposed roots curl raggedly underfoot and a few more spooked birds flap blackly on huge wings out of nowhere. But chug chug, you keep going.

Thinking, It ain't supposed to be like this.

His head's like an overheated radiator. Gotta stop a moment. Gasping for air, sweating, he leans against a tree, face down. He's wheezing like a busted accordion. Gotta move. Gotta keep moving.

‘
Hey, Galindez
!'

The voice is what, 20, 30 yards away? Too close.

Then there's the second guy's voice. ‘This is plain stupid,
asshole
!'

Thirty yards. You can't gauge distances in these woods, not after a lifetime spent measuring everything in terms of city blocks. Go three blocks west, two blocks north. But here it's different, no stars and the moon shrouded in the sky.

Galindez pushes himself away from the tree. Chug chug. Running. Arm going numb. For all he knows he could be chasing round in circles, clattering through fern and undergrowth and getting nowhere. And there's a funny taste in his mouth – which is fear. Bone-dry, metallic, like powdered rust in his throat.

And then next thing there's a flashlight scanning the trees and he ducks his head low, but his yellow silk shirt might as well be a beacon out here in the woods. He hears a gunshot and it echoes –
boomoomoom
– and he drops down on all fours and crawls through fern and fallen branches.

Another sound reaches him. Water. Fast-flowing. So, there's a river nearby and he thinks, If I can reach it I can float away. Downstream and outta sight.

The beam of the flashlight illuminates branches all around him. He hears the two guys clumping towards him, twigs snapping.

Galindez crawls towards the sound of the water. Sharp things snag his shirt and lacerate his body.

The flashlight is 10 yards from where he's crawling. He tries to make himself smaller, hunches his body, hauls in the band of blubber and just concentrates on believing he's a whippet of a guy who's in a hurry to reach the water. He also tries to divert himself with pleasing thoughts: playing the slots at the casino on the Gila Reservation, screwing some plump, nut-brown Indian chick in a trailer smelling of joss-sticks and maybe a little reefer.

Who's he kidding? This is life and death. This is all about survival.

Gunfire again. It blasts through the trees with a noise like a nuclear weapon, and there's a sizzle of red-hot light on the edge of his vision. The water. Get to the goddam
water
. Submerge yourself and hold your breath and let the currents sweep you away from these armed maniacs behind you.

Suddenly
holy shit
! – no more trees.

Suddenly a smooth pebbled shore and a suggestion of white water frothing through the darkness.

Big Problem. He's exposed now and the yellow shirt's like a goddam distress rocket. He pads over the slick pebbles, grunting, scrambling. Get to the water, the goddam water.