Vince Flynn: American Assassin

Lewis detested such poor craftsmanship, but nonetheless made no attempt to add a personal touch to this office. His private office was in the District and every square inch of it had been meticulously decorated. With what he charged for an hour of therapy he could not only afford the fine trappings, but even more, his clients expected it. In a rather short period of time he had built up a very profitable practice. His patient list was a virtual who’s who of Washington ’s power elite. Lobbyists, lawyers, and CEOs made up the bulk of his business. He treated only a smattering of politicians, but dozens of women who were married to powerful senators and congressmen came to see him every week and poured their hearts and minds out. If he were unscrupulous he’d be able to use that information to his benefit, but he had never been tempted.

The thirty-six-year-old Lewis had both the passion and the natural inclination for his work. He had obtained an undergraduate degree in economics and math from Pomona College and a graduate degree in clinical psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. The latter was paid for by the government, which required him to serve four years in the army upon graduating. That stint in the army more than anything was what pulled Lewis into this current situation, in a windowless, crappy office on a base that very few people even knew existed. It seemed he had a knack for spotting mental deficiencies, which when he was in the army was something that greatly interested at least one flag officer and a couple of colonels down at Fort Bragg. He’d spent three years helping the Joint Special Operations Command tighten up their selection process and develop a new system for game theory.

Lewis took a moment to collect his thoughts and figure out how the call would affect his evening. The camp had a bachelors’ quarters of sorts for the various employees and consultants who traveled back and forth to D.C. When a new class was on the post he normally stayed one or two nights a week so he could observe how they interacted. He had planned on staying the evening and spending some time with one of the recruits who was showing some troublesome signs, but the phone call was more pressing.

Lewis looked down at his World War II Elgin A-11 U.S. military watch. His father had given it to him on his deathbed three years earlier. Lewis had replaced the worn strap and kept the watch in near-perfect shape. It was seven-fourteen in the evening. Nothing on his desk was that urgent, and besides, it was a perfect evening to get out on the open road and clear his mind. He collected the two open files and spun his chair around to face a gray metal safe, which was already open. Lewis placed the files in the proper slot, closed the safe, and spun the dial. He left the office door open, as there was nothing other than the contents of the safe that needed to be protected.

His motorcycle was parked in the first space in front of the building. Lewis took off his sport coat and tie and carefully folded and placed them on the seat. He unlocked one of the saddlebags of the BMW 1200 motorcycle and retrieved a gray and black leather riding jacket and pair of chaps. He never rode his bike without them. Even with the thermometer pushing ninety degrees. Imprinted on his brain was the road rash a friend had received when he’d been forced to lay his bike down on a hot California afternoon. The jacket and tie were placed in the saddlebag and he put on his gray helmet. The motorcycle hummed to life and Lewis climbed on. Sixty seconds later he tipped his visor at the sentry standing post at the main gate and blew past him. A minute after that he was rocketing up the entrance ramp onto Interstate 64 and on his way north. The drive would take a bit more than an hour, which Lewis didn’t mind in the least.

No phones, no one knocking on his door wanting him to listen to his problems. Lewis was finding it increasingly difficult to find the time to clear his mind and focus on the task at hand. A big green sign informed him how many miles he had to travel to reach Richmond, but he barely noticed. He was already thinking of their new recruit. That had to be why she had called. Lewis set the cruise control at 70 mph, adjusted himself on the seat, and checked his mirrors. He considered how much work he had put into this one candidate. The man was as close to perfect as anyone they’d come across in the almost two years he’d been working on the program. Lewis leaned into a turn and wondered if it was possible for Hurley to run the kid out in one afternoon. Unfortunately, he knew the answer to that question, because he’d seen him do it on more than one occasion.

IT was a moonless night sky and all but a few of the exterior lights were off so as to not attract bugs. The mutts had just finished their run and another hundred up-downs and a few more exercises designed to fatigue little-used muscles and maybe get one or more of them to quit so they could get down to the serious stuff. Unfortunately, all seven were now filing into the barn in a manner not much different than that of cows returning from a day grazing in the pasture. Their heads were down, their pace was slow, and their footing unsure, and fortunately the arguing was over. The only thing they could think about at the moment was sleep.

Hurley took a sip of bourbon and looked out across the lawn. Despite the fact that it was his seventh in the past three hours, he was not drunk. When it came to booze, and a lot of other things, the spook had the constitution of a man three times his size. Tonight, however, his normally unshakable confidence was a little wobbly. Hurley was feeling a nagging indecision that to the average person was a daily occurrence, but to a headstrong, decisive man like him was rare. The shiner on his eye and his throbbing headache were nothing more than a nagging physical symptom. A few more glasses of Maker’s Mark and they would be thoroughly dulled.

The problem was between his ears-a crack in his psyche that had put him in a rarely visited but increasingly familiar place. It was gnawing at the back of his head, trying to crawl into his brain stem and take him down. The signs were all there: tight chest, quick breath, a sudden desire to get the hell out of Dodge and go somewhere, anywhere but here. For a man who was used to being in control, used to being right all the time, it was the most unwelcome feeling he could imagine. He’d rather get kicked in the head until he was knocked unconscious than try to wrestle with this crap.

The fix, Hurley knew, involved something he still wasn’t used to. He’d spent years burying his problems, patching them, hiding them under anything he could find. His job was too important, there were too many enemies to confront and not enough men willing to do it. There was too much to do, the stakes were too high for him to sit around and feel sorry for himself. He was after all a product of the Cold War. While the children of the sixties cut loose and got in touch, Hurley cut throats and got as out of touch with his feelings as was possible. He darted around Europe in the late fifties and early sixties and then Southeast Asia in the midsixties. The seventies brought him to South America, the early eighties to Central America, and then finally, for the biggest shit show of all, he landed in the Middle East. The entire thing was a gigantic multidimensional chess match with the Soviets, a continuation of what had happened at the end of World War I and then the aftermath of World War II.

Getting in touch with his thoughts or feelings, or whatever they were, was not something Hurley relished. There was right and there was wrong, and in between an abyss filled with society’s whiners, people who had inherited the luxury of safety and freedom, while having done nothing to earn it. He had never heard these opinions pass the lips of his mother or father. They didn’t have to. He was born during the Depression, but they had lived through it. They’d moved from Chicago to Bowling Green, Kentucky, with their five kids, to escape the long food lines and massive unemployment of the inner city. Hurley had come of age not knowing any better. His lot in life seemed just as good as the next kid’s. He’d taken that stoic demeanor and joined the army. After serving his stint, he enrolled at Virginia Tech on the GI Bill and graduated with decent marks. That final spring a man from the federal government who was extremely interested in his military record and asked him if he’d like to see the world. Asked him if he’d like to make a difference. Hurley bit.