Contract: Contract, #1

Jackson Beck/Jack the Bear: Hitter

Donald Cody/Donnie the Blade/Jonas Kleid: Hitter

David Rickard M.D.: Handler for Jack the Bear

Susan Camp/Heather/Emily Kleid: Rogue Target

Paige Inman/Peregrine: Hitter

Sherry Beck: Wife to Jackson Beck

Philip Beck: Eldest son of Jackson and Sherry Beck

Kent Beck: Youngest son of Jackson and Sherry Beck

Pamela Rickard: Wife to David Rickard

Ben: Tagger/Hitter

Groove: Hitter

Country Boy: Spook

Four Eyes: Hitter

Clock: Hitter

Miser: Hitter

Frames: Hitter

Big Eye: Hitter

Silverback: Hitter

Gary Yeary: Tagger

Clock: Hitter

Miser: Hitter

Hitter: Contract Assassin

Handler: Contact supervision for Hitters

Tagger: Surveillance Teams/Drivers/Cleanup Crew/Computer Tech

Targ: Target/Mark

Spook: Spy/Infiltrator

The silence is what kills you. You know, that point while you're lying there on your belly, pronated, breathing, and the only thing that you hear is...you. In those two seconds it takes to line up the crosshairs on the center mass, check your wind, hear the words send it from my spotter, and pull the trigger. Yep, those two seconds of silence is more like a week. Control the breathing, control the heart rate, make sure you don't have a tickle in your throat, ignore the fact that you've got to pee and have needed to for the last three hours, then...squeeze that trigger. There are times I miss having that spotter, though.

When you hear that sharp crack, see the flash from the barrel and then, sometimes even the look of surprise on the Target’s face, then they collapse like a wet dishrag, it quickly brings you back to reality. It's time to move after the shot. Have to get your gear, and yourself, out of there, but not too quickly. Too much movement will give away your position. Not enough will get you caught only a few yards from where you started.

Methodical movement with purpose my instructor called it. How would the enemy take it if a bunch of weeds just jumped up and took off running? Not well it seems. They like to put as many bullet holes in those running weeds as they can.

But the days of the Target shooting back are over for the most part. When I joined and became a Marine, I took a battery of tests that showed that I had a high aptitude for retaining information, great eyesight, excellent hearing and something in my psyche that would allow me to...not care about the things I had done.

Something that would make me not regret anybody that I maimed or killed. I was then taken aside, trained differently after boot camp and loaned out to any number of agencies that may need some clandestine mission completed. I was trained to shoot, long-range, short-range and with anything from a sling-shot to a .50 caliber rifle. I was trained in close quarters combat, hand-to-hand, or knife or ink pen or shoe string, it didn't matter if it has an edge or a point I can use it to cut or stab. My fists, elbows, feet, knees, and shins were beaten and abused so much they became like iron. I was taught to use poisons, gases, and liquids, all to my advantage. Chemistry was a huge part of the training. Psychological warfare was always fun too, but that's not something I get to do much anymore. I never was one for the torture, though, I was trained in it, yes, but the screaming was unbearable, I just wanted them to be quiet and would finish them before I got the information I needed.

Now, I get the phone call or text message on a secure phone, kiss the wife and kids goodbye for the night and drive to meet my Handler wherever he has been instructed to fly out of from. It works out so well- I don't miss work, nobody ever suspects what I do, and if there is some type of trouble, there's a trained team of men to come get me and lay waste to the other guys. They aren’t precision marksmen or precision killers. They take care of the bulk stuff, but only, and it’s a rare only if needed.

No, they’re not always bad guys that I kill, just the person that has a contract on them. And no, I'm not a sadist. I'm not some serial killer either. Sadists' kill indiscriminately and serials kill because mommy didn't change their diapers often enough. I do it for the money and because I'm damn good at it. I have no emotional attachment to the Targs and I don't take away any keepsakes from the mission. That's what gets them caught. That's stupid.

The way it works is this: somebody gets a call Hey, I need this guy gone from my life or something like that. Enough money is placed on the table then the plan goes into effect. The Targ is placed under surveillance for a few days by a crew of three to five men until a pattern can be distinguished and that's when my Handler gets a call. He calls me and we meet and fly out to where I'm to perform my duties.

Sometimes it's supposed to be messy so it looks like a crime scene, sometimes it’s a hunting accident, sometimes it’s supposed to be an animal attack (harder to pull off than you'd think too), natural causes where I'd use poisons or medications that are extremely hard to trace. Then, I pack up, come home and go about my day as I normally would. I never take down a Targ in my hometown, I never go to the same place twice in a month. Those are a partial list of the way this works and believe me, it's a long list of rules.

In my everyday life, I'm a computer repair specialist for a university. Yeah, I'm the IT guy, the computer geek, the one that you don't know is an IT guy till your computer crashes, then I'm your hero for a few minutes. Otherwise, I just blend into the background. While I was in the Marines, I learned to shoot, fight and take apart computers from inside the programming.

I have a wife and two kids. I sleep very well at night too. I'm not any different from anybody else during the time the public can see me. When the sun goes down, I pack up and head out if the call comes. And the calls do come in. Usually about two or three a week. I'll bet you never thought there were that many people that died that often by another person’s hand, much less the same persons hand. I'm paid very well for my services. There may be a hundred or so of us out there, were not all active at the same time either. About half at a time. I have gone as long as three months without killing anybody.

I can take it or leave it. I'm contracted to do this for ten years. If I do it longer I get more money, there's not a shorter time period. I have been trained by the best, military and CIA. I do my part in training others too. After ten years we can retire and take our money and walk away, some stay and double the money. We can recognize each other by our signet rings with a distinguishing color and symbol on them. I've met a few retirees.

There are dire consequences to messing up too. One and you’re told not to do it again. Two and you’re reprimanded. Three and you’re made an example of. I've been at this for eight years and have seen two examples be made. Messy business that. Always comes from internally too. We have to kill one of our own. Of course, the families never know that it was us and they are always well compensated. The Company isn't as cold hearted at they may sound. Sometimes it’s even quick and painless.

Our Handlers range from doctors to lawyers to businessmen. They take excellent care of us and deserve whatever they get as compensation too. My name is Jackson by the way. Jackson Beck. Friends (the few I let in) call me Jack. I have a nickname like all killers. I am The Bear. Yeah, that's right, Jack The Bear Beck. Don't make fun, I'm two-hundred-fifty pounds of scary sonofabitch...when I want to be. The times that make me want to be are paid for, though.

The day he decided that he would cross the bank and steal money from an account was the first day of the last of his life. The account was on hold for a teenager that wasn't old enough to get it. A trust that was set up by his grandfather many years ago. All he needed was a measly million for a small time and he could put it back. That is if he hadn't had the market fall out after he invested it. Then, two more million to keep him afloat. It might have worked too if the kid hadn't turned twenty-one before he could get it back in the account.

Getting fired and threatened with prison wasn't enough. He still had a little over a hundred grand that he hadn't blown on some next big thing. He could go to Mexico and live like a king for the rest of his life. Hell, he was only thirty-two, if he lived to be seventy he would still have money the day he died.

And those were the thoughts he laughed about while he packed his bags. Then he heard the creaky floorboard in the kitchen. That sound shouldn't have happened. He didn't have a dog or a cat. He reached around his bedroom door and grabbed the aluminum softball bat he'd used every spring when he played ball with the banks team. He starts down the hall slowly. Checking around every corner. Poking his head around the door frame of the kitchen he readied the bat for a strong swing and stepped in...to find nothing. The room was lit by the quad lights from the ceiling fan and was completely empty. Breathing a sigh of relief, he rested the bat on his shoulder. Went to the fridge and pulled out a cold beer, twisted the lid, took a long draw off of it, then started back down the hall to the bedroom to finish

packing.

As he pulled the zipper shut, he spun and grabbed for his beer that he'd set on the dresser. It wasn't there. The sweat ring a cold bottle that's sat too long was there, but no bottle. Sitting on the edge of the bed and looking around the room wondering where he'd placed the bottle he kept thinking that he knew he'd left that bottle on the dresser. Oh well, he thought, it’s almost empty anyway, I'll just go get another one on my way to the cab.

As he pulled the bag off the bed and started through the doorway, he got a creepy feeling that somebody was watching him. He stopped in his tracks, looked down the hall, nothing. He shrugged and started down the hall stopping in the living room to deposit the bag. Grabbed his blazer, checked the inner pocket for the one-way ticket to Mexico, there it is; touching it he knows this is his literal ticket to freedom.

Two steps later he was staring at a large person with no face. So close he could feel the breath coming from the nostrils of the unknown person all over his face. Terror struck, he tried to say something. No real words came out. No scream either. Probably because of the tight grip placed on his throat, but only with the thumb and middle finger. He was hit so hard and so fast that he was knocked directly off his feet, the first part of his body to hit the floor was the back of his head. He was stunned by the scare, then the strike, then the fall and the whack to his head. Now he's completely in pain and a little cross-eyed. He also noticed something else odd. He couldn't breathe! There was no airflow down his trachea and into his lungs. It was like something was blocking it. Then he remembered that person that led to this. Then he could see that person standing over him saying something, what?

What was he saying?

The growl in his voice made it seem important.

What was he saying?

Things then started to get fuzzy and dark around the edges.

What was he saying?

My throat hurts bad.

My head is killing me.

What did he say?

Darker.

Why is my beer sitting on the coffee table, I wasn't in here?

What does this guy want from me?

Darker.

My head hurts.

Where is my blazer?

Darker.

What did he...?

This guy never had a chance. No good lock on either door. No alarm system. A smaller house than I would have expected for a banker. The neighbors don't seem to care about anything going on around his house. They probably weren't real close. My Tagger parked me a couple of blocks away, I walked the two blocks looking like a guy out for a stroll as the sun went down. Arriving at the house I noted an out building that my surveillance guys said would be there, the lock was already popped prior to me getting there by the team. I cracked the door and slid in, pulled a recycled paper grocery carrier out of my pocket, took off my clothes down to the cotton/nylon body suit, pulled on a pair of thin-soled shoes, leather gloves and a full face hood that allows me to see out but hides my features. Then I slide back out of the building and head across the back lawn, seeing the Targ in his bedroom window and thinking to myself that I want the snipe shot for this idiot instead of this quiet way. Who leaves their blinds open when they are about to go on the run? If you're running from something, don't you think they'll have a guy waiting in the wings to blow your brains all over the wall? Oh well, not my problem. So I open the door with the key the team has made beforehand and ease it back shut as I get inside. I took three steps and sped up and moved to the laundry room outside the kitchen and to the left down the hall because I stepped on a loose floorboard and made a noise that surprised me.

After his search and finding himself alone I moved down the hallway and stood in his doorway while he packed the rest of his bag. I reached over and grabbed his almost empty beer and moved back down the hallway and placed it on the coffee table in the living room. Then I hear him coming down the hallway, as he sets his bag down in the living room, turns and is staring at me. I don't know what went through his mind, but it couldn't have been good. I took two fingers, the horseshoe and put my full body weight behind it and hit him in the throat and followed him down to the floor. The kinetic energy from the strike and hitting his head on the floor knocked him unconscious for about three seconds. He woke up suddenly, eyes crossed, and started to shift them from right to left and for a second they focused on something in the living room. I never took my eyes off him. I asked him where he thought he was going, why was he was taking money that wasn't his, I then asked him if his head hurt. His light went out about five seconds after he woke up. I released my grip from his throat, pulled off my glove and checked his carotid pulse, it was absent.

I made my call to the team. They were there in about five minutes. They knocked on the back door, I let them in. They came in wearing paper coveralls, masks, gloves, and booties. They raised the body, aligned a rope around the areas that my hand had been in the horseshoe arrangement I'd used to take the life out of him. I crushed his trachea and kept my thumb and fingertips on the carotid arteries so the blood would slow to the brain and the air couldn't get in the lungs, therein stopping the brain from getting the nutrients it needed to survive. He knew what was going on for a couple of seconds.  Sometimes I wonder, what they think in that last knowing minute. Then the thought passes and I move on. Some would call that funny, some would call that morbid. I call it my life. The noose is tightened correctly then a nice solid beam is found to run the rope around. This one needed to look like a suicide for the awful thing he'd done to that young boy’s trust fund and now he wouldn't get to pay off the education that he'd worked so hard to get and start doing his part for the medical community.

The Targs name was Ned Cotter. He was 32. He didn't have any family or close friends, just some acquaintances he'd gathered over the years. He wouldn't be missed much. The funeral would be small and quiet. Then he'd be forgotten. I'm not going to miss him. That cokehead kid's not going to get his money either so he can snort it away. And that's just...awful.

I moved back out to the out building and put my clothes back on and walk the two blocks back to my Tagger. We go to the airport and get into the G-5 and start the flight back home. I was debriefed on my technique and what I saw; afterward, I was allowed to head to the lounge area of the jet. That's where my Handler is waiting with a big cigar and glass of ten-year-old scotch. David Rickard is a damn fine doctor, and an even better Handler and an excellent friend; my best friend. He asked me if he could get me a drink. I just nod in the affirmative. He knows me pretty well so he hands me an ice cold Coors Light, I crack the top and plop down in the seat. I smile and take a big draw off the beer.

How'd it go, he asks?

As per usual I answer.

So why do you seem down?  He's needling, it’s his job to dig into my psyche and make sure I'm not cracking.

I don't know Dave, there are days when I look back at all the things I've done with all this and wonder if any of it made a difference in somebody's life somewhere along the line. Then there are the days that I look back and wonder if the island I’ve bought with the money that I've earned is going to be big enough.  Then I chuckle to myself and he knows that I'm joking the entire time. I know that no matter what I do there's no care whatsoever in my mind about whether I made a difference or not.

During the flight home we sat and talked, Dave is a wise man. Seen many things and done a few too. As far as killing anybody, nah. Not intentionally anyway. Maybe in his practice, but not by his hand, at least since ‘Nam. He has been there for me for several years and gotten to know me on every level. My family and his know each other. Our kids play together, our wives shop together. Neither of our wives knows exactly what we do, but they have suspicions. They can't go with us and actually see what we do so it’s kind of difficult for them. I personally think that the fact that neither of them has to worry about money, ever, is a huge deterrent to out-and-out asking where we go and why.

I finish my beer, Dave asks if I'm ready. I answer in the affirmative; he pulls out a small vial and a disposable syringe. He injects two milliliters of air into the vial and draws out two milliliters of Midazolam. Then cleans an area on my right deltoid muscle, injects the medication into the muscle and withdraws the needle. We talk for about five more minutes and I slowly start to drift off, as I do I head back to the bed cabin of the gorgeous jet we occupy. Shut my door and lay down on my bunk. Remembering...nothing, where am I? What were we doing? Kansas, were we in Kansas? Yeah, maybe we were. Then, black.

Waking up four hours later in the G-5 I rolled over and grabbed the bottle of cool water by my bed and quickly swished it around in my mouth. The taste after the Midazolam is awful, I hate it. I'm so hyped up after a killing I can't rest. Dave gives me the hypnotic medication and I drift off to dreamland. Well, not actually dreamland because there are no dreams. I do wake up well rested and ready to start the day. I'm heading to work directly after the flight so I really need to be chipper-ish and up-and-about for the workplace hijinks people play with their PC's. So it’s off to the shower after saying goodbye to Dave, and I'm headed to work.

Checking in at the boss's desk at the university to let him know I'm headed off to the coffee pot and going to get my first assignments of the day from the secretary. The day is going to be boring. That's a given. I get my Post-it’s from Diane, get my little tool kit and I'm off.

First guy of the day, Bob, he always has too many browsers open at one time, some of them have spyware that he doesn't know about and suddenly his computer is locked up and I have no idea why?

Oh, but I do, Bob likes to shop online with Craig’s List, Amazon, Ebay and a few others that I don't care to mention but he also has a butt-load of work to do and I need to get him cleared up so he can get to it.

After twenty minutes of fiddling with the computer, as he calls it, I have it fixed, gently warn him that the boss is going see the report I file and that he needs to stay off the websites. He does this about once a week. Suddenly I'm his hero like I said.

Check my text messages, second floor, power outage. Upstairs, it's not a complete outage, just the hardware. Great. Got that figured out by flipping a switch, now I have to go through the re-boot process and see what got lost and help them recover it. That should tie me up till around lunch.

The money has never been as important as the feeling of superiority. He has done this Hitter thing since he was twenty-one; he's thirty-nine now. He's felt like the little peon's that have crossed his path were sub-humans and didn't deserve the air they got to breathe. This particular cockroach piece of shit thought that he could get away with raping little boys. Well, today he would get a chance to repent his sins as Donald Donnie the Blade Cody let him confess his improprieties. After sneaking into Fredric O'Shanna's office that everybody had left after work and dear old Freddie decided to stay and get some work done.

Fredric came to after a short nap via a synaptic overload from a military grade taser stuck to his neck. For some reason, his neck hurt, and he couldn’t move his arms or legs. What the hell is this? What’s wrong with me? Suddenly realizing he'd seen a dark-haired man with a beard just before passing out he started violently and sat upright. Well, as upright as he could be tied to a chair, a metal chair from the waiting room down the hallway. How did that get into my office? Why can't I open my mouth? It’s taped shut? What the hell?

Donnie was sitting in a large comfy swivel chair behind the Targ. Old Freddie didn't know what hit him when he came down the hall from the file room and took two steps into his office when Donnie stuck the taser to the back of his neck and watched him tense, then fall to the ground and twitch a bit. That made him laugh. Not much made him laugh anymore, other people’s pain seemed to do it, though.

This particular Targ has touched and molested so many little boys the company decided to have him put down. There was no explanation to it other than that. Just a call from Donnie's Handler and trip to Minsk.

Freddie was beginning to panic, he wanted free, couldn't get that way because of the wire ties on his wrists and ankles. Donnie stood, walked around the molester so quietly he never knew what hit him when Donnie backhanded him in the cheek spinning his head so violently that he thought he'd put him out again. Luckily he hadn’t, Freddie just groaned. Raised his head and looked up at Cody holding the sharpest looking dagger type blade he'd ever seen and started to scream. It did no good to let it out because the tape over his mouth just made the noise come from his throat. A growl that remarkable showed only terror on Freddie's face.

Donnie wasted no time, he asked Freddie if he'd had fun touching the boys? As he pushed the blade of the dagger between the molesters left kneecap and knee joint, slowly. Then through the

scream/growling, he pulled another, thinner dagger and smiled. Then inserted it under the left collarbone from the front, angled it up and brought the point through the skin next to the trapezius muscle and allowed it to touch the man’s ear. As Freddie passed out from the pain, Donnie took his seat again and picked up his PSP and started playing some generic racing game he'd found.

Slowly Freddie woke up, bleeding from the painful wounds that Donnie had inflicted. Then he remembered what had been happening and began to scream/growl again alerting Donnie that he was ready for more. Wishing now that his mind didn't let him drift into that masochistic world that he loved so much, where the boys were easy to bring in with candy, the promise of a bicycle or getting them to help him carry groceries up to his apartment. He couldn't help it. The lure of their smell, the softness of their skin, good God why?  If he could have just said no to that little voice in the back of his head telling him just one more, it won't hurt anybody. Except the boys. The Filipino boys were his favorite, but if he couldn't get away to fly out there, he would play the game here at home and bring them to his

bedroom.

Why is it getting harder to breath?

Why is there a knife blade in my chest?

My eye hurts, why can't I see out of it?

Why is this man hurting me?

I didn't do anything to him?

Is he one of the boys' fathers?

Oh my God, is he here to kill me?

I think he is.

My lap is wet, why?

Oh God! There’s a dick on my leg! Whose is that?

What happened?

I hurt so bad!

Why me?

What did I do to him?

Why is he laughing?

I still can’t breathe good.

I can feel my pulse in my shoulders, why is it so slow?

Sure is getting dark in here.

He's giggling, I wonder why.

Can't breathe.

Dark in here.

Donnie heard him stir, pulled the next blade from his kit and pushed it slowly through the man’s chest on the right side between the third and fourth