The Assassin (Max Doerr Book 1) Read online

  THE ASSASSIN (Max Doerr Book 1)

  A Novel By

  Jay Deb

  https://www.facebook.com/AuthorJayDeb

  Other books by the author: THE SCIENTIST (Max Doerr Book 2)

  CONTRIVED

  This book is a work of fiction. All events described in this book are fictional and imagined by the author. All characters are fictional and are born out of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is merely a coincidence.

  Copyright 2013 by Jayanta Deb

  All rights reserved. Neither this book nor any of its parts can be reproduced without written consent from the author. Any use whatsoever without permission is against the law and punishable.

  Reading level: 18 and above.

  Dedicated to my mom.

  Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t - Shakespeare.

  Contents

  Prologue

  BOOK 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  BOOK 2

  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

  Epilogue

  About the author

  An Excerpt from THE SCIENTIST

  Here are some reader comments left at amazon.com about this book:

  “ACTION PACKED, FAST PACED, SUSPENSE FILLED READ!”

  “I loved reading this book, The Assassin! A lot of drama and suspense. Looking forward to the next book coming soon.”

  “I liked the main character a great deal and I liked how the author kept the action moving throughout the door.”

  “This is a well written novel. At one time we would have imagined this all as far fetched. But alas in our world now this all sounds pretty real. Very interesting read.”

  “I really enjoyed this book. I have never read this author before, great. It certainly provided food for thought regarding the operations of the CIA.”

  “Terrific read--love the action.”

  “Gripping thriller.”

  Prologue

  Billy’s father had told him that his 3.1 GPA was not good enough, so he was studying hard. He was staying at his dad’s apartment during the summertime, when college was out. Earlier in the day, his stepmom and dad had left for the Caribbean, for a long-awaited vacation. His stepmom had asked him if he wanted to go with them, but he knew that the expected answer was no.

  Billy sat on a chair in front of a square table, a small lamp illuminating his ten-by-ten room. Billy focused on his accounting book; the image of a bright future danced in his eyes. He liked to read aloud, record it on his iPhone and listen to it later while waiting at the subway or elsewhere. He drew the book closer and immersed his mind in it.

  Billy’s iPhone rang; it was his girlfriend calling. He chatted with her for a while; time seemed to fly whenever he talked to her.

  Billy was distracted by a cracking noise. It came from the balcony door.

  “I gotta go,” Billy said and hung up.

  Normally he kept that balcony door open, as this part of the city was considered to be pretty safe. But that day he had closed and locked it, so he ignored the sound and continued with his studying. And then he heard the noise again. There was a stray black kitty that used to scratch on the door occasionally. It must be the cat, Billy thought.

  When he heard the noise the third time, he decided to check it out. He stood up, stretched his arms, and walked over to the balcony door. He unlocked it and, with one swing, opened it and stuck out his head to see if the kitty was still there. There was no feline in sight. Sighing, he closed the door and placed his fingers on the lock, ready to shut it. And that was when it happened.

  The door slid open like a lightning. Shocked, Billy raised his hand. A man extended his muscular hands from outside, trying to grab Billy’s throat. But Billy was no weak man. At the young age of nineteen, his body was grown and strong from playing basketball every week, with his dad and his friends. He tilted backward and leaned to the right, pulling the door handle hard. But the muscular man had sharp instincts too. The man quickly extended his left foot to block the closing door. He placed his left hand on the frame and pushed, to make just enough room to slide his body inside, as Billy took two steps back and shouted, “Who are you?”

  Ignoring the question, the man, who was at least six feet tall with broad shoulders, lunged at Billy, and a scuffle followed. Billy had large muscles, but he was no match for the assailant. The man threw him on the floor with a thudding noise, sat on Billy’s chest and started sinking his strong fingers into Billy’s throat.

  Struggling to take in air, Billy was suffocating as the man’s fingers tightened further. Billy felt a rush of energy to his hands and feet and pulled up his legs with lightning speed, wrapping them around the man’s neck and throwing him off. The man fell to the floor. With his knees pressed on the man’s belly, Billy had the man cornered. “Who are you? Why are you here?”

  “Where is your father?” the man asked.

  “My dad? He’s in the Caribbean,” Billy’s hands loosened, unknowingly.

  The man quickly sat up, and Billy’s knees fell from the man’s chest. The man threw a quick jab to Billy’s left cheek, throwing Billy on the floor; Billy’s feet brushed the side of his bed, and his head fell on the carpet, barely a foot from the leg of the table.

  The man moved swiftly and climbed on Billy’s chest and held him down by the throat. He pulled out a six-inch boning knife. With one hand, the man pinned Billy’s forehead to the floor. Billy grabbed the man’s arm and tried to keep the knife away, but the effort proved futile as the man’s knife closed in on Billy’s throat and started sinking into the soft flesh under his chin.

  Feeling the sharp pain, Billy gave one last push. But the man was strong like an ox, and he sank his knife further down. Billy felt the warm blood dripping down his neck. The light seemed to get dimmer and dimmer, and finally, everything was dark.

  Minutes later, Billy lay dead on the carpet. The blood dripped from both sides of his throat to the carpet that he had vacuumed only hours earlier. His shirt was bloody, one leg folded and the other one straight; his limp left hand lay on his chest and the other arm on the carpet. The honk of a passing by vehicle could be heard loud and clear through the open balcony door.

  The assailant pulled out a piece of cloth and wiped the blood from his hands and the knife. He tucked the knife back inside his pocket, pulled out a white rubber glove and put it on his right hand. He walked out of the bedroom after turning the lights off. He opened the apartment’s front door, and after cautiously closing it, he hurried to the elevator.

  BOOK 1

  Chapter 1

  THE SUN SMILED above and bathed the entire beach in bright white light. Max Doerr sauntered along the warm waters of Playa Juanillo Beach with his wife, Gayle, hand in hand. His gaze moved from the soothing blue water to the palm trees, to the three kids who were building a sand castle. Doerr worked as an editor at a newspaper office in New York, and Gayle worked at the IT department of a large bank, which demanded long hours, sometimes working through nights, but the money was good. This vacation was a long-sought break from staring at a computer for both of them.

 
; Doerr gently passed his hand over her auburn hair and rested his arm on her freckled shoulder. She was short compared to his six-feet four-inch, muscle-stuffed physique.

  It was the first day of their first vacation since their honeymoon last year. Doerr could hardly believe it had been over a year already. It seemed just the other day when he had kissed her in front of everyone, including his teenage son, Billy. Doerr had been married before – it ended a long time ago when his wife had died, and he had become a widower and a single father.

  Though it was love at first sight for Doerr, the timing of his marriage to Gayle could not have been better. They had been dating for two years, and Billy had been about to start college. Billy should have started his college a little earlier, had he not lost some time to drugs and subsequent therapy. Doerr had blamed his old job for Billy’s behavior, but he was happy now, as the bad habits had passed, and his son was set to earn a college degree.

  At thirty-three, Gayle was five years younger than Doerr, and it was her first marriage. It was not that she hadn’t had suitors, but her overprotective mom had nixed quite a few.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Doerr said to his wife as they continued to walk and soak their feet in the salty ocean water.

  “It’s marvelous.” She pointed her fingers forward. “I like those hay huts. Let’s check them out. What do you think is going on there?”

  “They sell lemonade, beads, shells, all sorts of things. They try to rob you, honestly.” He turned to her and smiled. “There are at least fifteen huts after that one.”

  “You’ve been here before?”

  “No.” He turned away from her. That was a lie.

  “Then how do you know that?”

  “I checked up on the net,” Doerr said.

  “Really?” Her face was incredulous. “Sometimes you say things that just don’t make any sense.”

  “I’ve never been here before,” he lied and looked away again. He had never been good at telling lies.

  He had been here before. He knew the blue water, the white sand, and those huts. As the sand climbed on his toes and was eventually washed away by the persistent water, they seemed to know him too. He had been here on a job, eight years back. But he could not tell any of that to Gayle. His heart ached, and he wanted to pour out all his secrets to her. But she was someone who could hardly keep a secret. And if not anyone else, she would certainly divulge everything to her mom, who he disliked.

  He took her hand and continued to walk silently.

  A few minutes later, Gayle checked out each of those shops. They enjoyed some sugary lemonade as their skins tanned. She bought three necklaces made of shells and two large conchs – all for forty dollars.

  “I told you they would rob you,” Doerr said.

  “Oh, come on. We’re not coming here every day.” She held out one necklace. “This one is for Billy’s girlfriend.”

  He took the necklace, held her around her waist and kissed her, then started walking back toward the hotel.

  Three hours later they were back at their hotel room. Gayle stepped out of her bikini, ready to head for the bathroom. Doerr took a peek at her smooth, exposed back as he half-watched the news on the TV. He wished the next six days of their vacation in Punta Cana would pass as happily as this one.

  She entered the bathroom, and Doerr could hear the water gushing through the plumbing. As he watched TV, he thought about his editing job at the newspaper, a job he loathed.

  He kept watching the news as it started raining outside. It’s odd to rain here at this time of year, he thought.

  Minutes later, Gayle came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a single white towel. “Go take a shower,” she said in a commanding voice.

  He turned the TV off and stood up. “Thank God we hit the beach early.” He pointed outside.

  “I hope the rain stops soon. I want to go to JellyFish restaurant.”

  “I hope so too,” he said.

  He rose grudgingly from the bed and headed for the bathroom as she started applying gel to her hair.

  GAYLE REMOVED HER towel and started dressing. When she was finished, she took out the five pairs of shoes she had brought. She placed them on the floor and was weighing up which ones best matched her dress when the phone rang. She picked it up, wondering who it could be.

  “Can I talk to Mr. Max Doerr?” a male voice at the other end asked.

  “He’s in the bathroom. Can I take a message? I’m his wife.”

  “Oh, good. I’m from the NYPD, Nineteenth Precinct.” The officer paused. “I’m afraid I have some very bad news.”

  “What? What’s happened?”

  The man at the other end cleared his throat and then said, “Ma’am, Mr. Doerr’s son, Billy, has been murdered.”

  DOERR LIKED LONG, hot showers. They relaxed his muscles, massaged his skin and refreshed his mind. He was in the shower for almost thirty minutes. When he was finally done, he pulled on the same shorts he had worn before and came out of the bathroom. He expected Gayle to be all dressed up. Instead, he found her sitting on the bed, hands clasped together on her lap; her face was ghostly pale.

  “What’s happened?” he asked. “Aren’t we going?”

  She said nothing.

  He moved closer and put his hand on her shoulder. “Aren’t we going, dear?”

  “Max, sit down.” She pointed to the bed. “Something terrible has happened.”

  WHEN DOERR ARRIVED back in New York, Billy's body had already been removed from the apartment. Doerr went straight from the airport to the morgue; the ride was surreal and seemed to take forever. He arrived at the ghastly scene at one a.m.

  The sheet over Billy’s dead body was squeaky clean. When the official pulled the sheet off, Doerr felt as if all hopes in his life had drowned. A terrible ringing noise hit his ears, and he fainted, almost falling to the ground. One official, a burly man, grabbed him; the man seemed to be used to that kind of reaction.

  “Are you okay?” the man asked.

  Only hours before, Doerr had received the macabre news. It seemed that his worst fear had just come to his door, knocked hard and woke him up from a dream. He looked at his son’s bloodless face, and floods of tears wanted to erupt from his eyes. But he controlled himself and said, “Yes.”

  “Now, Mr. Doerr.” The official looked straight at Doerr’s eyes. “I know this is a hard time for you. But I have to ask you, officially. Is this the body of your son, Billy Doerr?”

  “Yes,” Doerr said. But to him it felt like someone else just said that affirmative word. His throat was dry, and a stream of grief ran from his throat to the center of his chest. He clenched his fists hard, wishing he was holding the murderer’s throat.

  IN NEW YORK City, the majority of people finished work between five and six p.m. To beat the subway rush, some folks made arrangements with their bosses to leave early, some stayed late. Doerr stayed late, but for a different reason. He was an editor at a newspaper, and as news came in throughout the day, most of the editing work was done during the late hours. Though he hated his job, he felt he had a responsibility to the readers.

  It was eight thirty p.m. when he finished editing the piece he was working on at the computer. It was a story about how an eight-year-old boy had been killed in Brooklyn while his mother had gone to pick up a few grocery items. Doerr decided to review his work. As he neared the end of the story, two teardrops fell on the table. The remorse filled him, thinking that if he had not gone on holiday two weeks ago, maybe Billy would be alive today. Maybe.

  He clicked on the print icon on his monitor and collected the paper from the printer. He walked to Carl’s office, where his boss sat facing a laptop on the right edge of the table. He wore a pair of metal-rimmed reading glasses, and more than a hundred books filled the rack behind him. Newspapers from the last few days lay strewn on the table. Carl raised his face from the computer and turned to face Doerr.

  “I can’t do this report.” Doerr threw down the printout of th
e draft copy he had just written. “Give it to someone else, please.” Doerr turned to leave.

  “Darn it, Max.” Carl looked at Doerr over his reading glasses. “I have no one else. The other editor was laid off two months back.”

  “Why can’t we report more positive stories? I’m sick and tired of writing these ghastly tales.”

  “What kind of positive reports are you talking about?” Carl asked and took his glasses off and blew air on them.

  “Positive things, like advances in medical fields.” Doerr took a step toward Carl. “The new way of doing surgery that the Mayo Clinic has invented, which reduces the recovery period for a special type of neck surgery from three months to one month. Why can’t we report more on the new genetic therapy invented for HIV? I sent you the report. Just check your email.”

  “I saw those. But you know as well as I do that these murder stories are what sells the newspaper.” Carl sat up straight in his chair. “Who will read fucking boring reports from Mayo or NIH or CDC? Mother goes to supermarket, comes back and finds her son murdered. Complains about authorities. The congressman dude says blah, blah, blah. Put that fucking news on the front page and boom!” Carl clapped his hands. “We sell ten thousand more newspapers. That’s how we run this damn business, Max. Otherwise, very soon we’ll go under, just like the others – kicked down by the darn Internet news sites.”

  Doerr knew Carl was right. The business had to be financially viable first. But he was sick of the smell of death all around, and he stood his ground. “From now on, no more than one murder story per week for me. You got that? Otherwise, I quit.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Carl said and pointed his finger to the paper that Doerr had just thrown on his table. “Now read that report again, polish it up and send me the soft copy in twenty minutes. I can’t wait any longer.”

  “That’s all you are going to get.” Doerr took a step forward and tapped his finger on the piece of paper. “Give me some other report, and I will edit it.” Doerr started walking away.