The Ghost Hunter: A Detective Ryan Jones Novel

By Chris Adams

Detective Jones is lured back from retirement to help stop the former CIA assassin known as the Ghost from terrorizing the Governor of Texas. As details emerge of the assassin's motives the conspiracies begin to unfold about the CIA and their involvement in the case. The mystery of who is ultimately responsible for the terror campaign against the Governor only thickens at every turn.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543914719

Chris Adams

Chris Adams is IIS Program Manager for Microsoft. Chris spends his time building and reviewing technical content for IIS, working with IIS Most Valuable Professionals (MVP), and spear-heading programs to best reach customers for the IIS team. Chris was formally a Microsoft Product Support Services (PSS) engineer, technical lead, and supportability lead for the IIS product and has deep, technical experience in the usage and functionality of IIS 4.0, 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, and 7.0. Chris is currently Microsoft certified as a MCP, MCSA, and MCSE.

Book preview

Author

Prologue

As the brand new black AMG Mercedes Benz pulls up to the curb the driver turns, looking over his right shoulder and offers his assistance to the newly famous actor. The driver knows the actor will have to fight his way through the growing crowd of paparazzi. The driver, a former NFL linebacker, has been working for the movie studio for several years now, doubling as both a driver and bodyguard for their most significant stars. His passenger today is not really a new actor. But with only a couple of films under his belt he was lucky enough to just get cast in a three-movie deal based on a comic book about an aquatic superhero. His newfound fame as a mega star is the reason he is now facing the crush of photo hounds who have staked out his apartment building. 

The actor, a young man named Jason is six foot four inches tall. He weighs a little over two hundred forty pounds and is built very similar to the former linebacker turned driver in the front seat. Jason tells his driver, as he grabs the door handle to climb out of the backseat of the five hundred thousand dollar car, Thanks, but I will be okay. I guess I need to get used to this happening from now on.

Jason pulls the hood of his jacket over his head to shield himself from some of the paparazzi as he climbs out of the car in front of his apartment building. As the shutterbugs begin snapping hundreds of photos of him on his short walk. A few scream out his name, trying to get him to throw a glance in their direction, since a full face shot sells for more than double the price of a profile view. 

As the driver observes Jason disappear into the building he sends a quick text, He is on his way. While the crowd is focused on the actor, the driver bends and cracks the burner phone in two. Opening the driver’s door, he tosses one half of the phone under the driver’s side front tire, backing over the screen portion while pulling away from the curb. The driver tells himself, That was a quick and easy five hundred dollars he made for simply sending a text. At the first stop light the driver dumps the second piece out the vehicle’s window.

Jason hastily walks through the revolving front door of his apartment building, as the security guard at the front desk says a quick hello. Jason is returning from three days in Austin where he attended the premiere party and local media tour for his most recent project in which he portrayed a district attorney turned Texas governor in a serial killer movie. Pulling the hood from his head, Jason hits the elevator up button to catch a ride to his seventh floor apartment. He tells himself it’s time to start looking for a house now that he has finally signed the new three-movie deal. 

***

Alone on the elevator, Jason lets himself begin to fantasize about the prospect of moving into a Hollywood Hill’s mansion. Making a living off his good looks is finally starting to pay off. Deep in his daydreams about how he’ll spend the twenty million dollars he’s guaranteed for the upcoming superhero movie, he almost fails to exit the elevator on his floor. 

He continues the daydream on his impending wealth as he walks down the hallway to his apartment. He unlocks the front door and enters his dark apartment. Once the door closes, Jason realizes the apartment is pitch black, and he tries to remember if he somehow forgot to turn on the kitchen light when he left, like he usually does when he travels. 

Jason drops his duffel bag on the floor just inside the door. The apartment is pitch black in complete darkness. He cautiously walks the ten steps towards the kitchen area so to not trip on anything. As soon as he feels the texture of the flooring change under his shoes, from carpet to tile, he reaches for the light switch on the half wall to his right. Before his hand hits the light switch, the hairs on the back of his neck rise as he hears a voice over his shoulder telling him, Go ahead and leave the light off. 

Fear instantly grips Jason between the shoulder blades and spreads throughout his body as he recognizes the man’s voice as one he’s heard before. Even though he’s only heard this voice on one prior occasion, and although the call only lasted a mere twenty seconds, the voice will stick with him forever. He remembers the call vividly due to the chilling words spoken to him when he was given a certain task to perform. He was provided with a very specific threat that he was expected to deliver.

Jason is unsure how the unknown man got his phone number and even more scared of how the owner of the voice got into his apartment. Jason asks himself why didn’t the guard at the front desk warn him that someone was up here waiting for him. Jason asks the voice, How did you get in here? What do you want? As if reading his mind, the voice simply replies, No one knows I’m here. Not even the clueless security guard in the front lobby.

You know exactly why I’m here. I gave you a straightforward task, I told you the last time we spoke that I expected you to deliver my employer’s message to the governor. 

I, I never had the chance to speak with him. It was a huge premiere party, I wasn’t able to get close to the Governor anytime during the party. Jason stammers trying to convince the voice. Do not lie to me. The voice replies back to Jason. In a tone not loud enough to be considered yelling, but brash enough to let Jason know this was a grave error on his part. I saw you talking to the Governor several times, I even know you sat next to him during the dinner. I gave you specific instructions to tell the Governor he needs to back off on his border patrols. My employer expected you to deliver this message.

You failed in your first attempt to deliver the message, so now you will help my employer deliver a much stronger message to the Governor. The voice says as he swings a two foot long machete into the back of Jason’s neck cutting his head off with one fluid stroke.

One

The Ghost

Hiding in the shadows across the quad, I see the light turn on through the window of the girl’s dorm room. Her shadow crosses the sheer white window shades as she heads towards the hallway door in order to take her shower in the 4th floor female community bathroom. I think back to last night as I snuck into her room and stood over her sleeping body watching her dream, I caught myself contemplating whether I should just take her right then and there. But I knew I had to stick to the schedule. I can’t allow myself to be reckless. Not that I have ever let myself ignore any assigned tasks. 

I remain in the shadows while I discreetly watch her walk across the campus. I confirm her routine has not varied from day to day. She awakes at precisely six am every morning. A bit unusual for most first year college students, but her father drilled into her for her entire adolescent life the importance of hard work and rising early to get a jump start on each day. She attacks her course work with a fervor unseen in most scholars, much less that of a first year college student. Her determination, her grit, or whatever you want to call it is actually quite inspiring. Too bad my employer has alternative plans for her soon to be extremely short future. 

Her dorm room is located on the 4th floor of the Blanton Residence hall on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin. She lives in the honors housing, of course. As the valedictorian of her prep school graduate class she decided to focus on medicine as her field of University study. 

Her roommate Katie spent last night, as most other nights, at her boyfriend’s apartment. Not that my quarry seems to mind, she has always been seen as more of a recluse than a social butterfly, unlike her roommate. Odd that this is how she is perceived, as she is actually very outgoing and quite open once she gets to know others. She and Katie are becoming good friends, but, while her roommate focuses on enjoying college to its fullest, she seems to always be more concerned with schoolwork than with the other experiences gained as a first year college student. She has not rushed a sorority, she does not go to the dorm parties, and hell, she hasn’t even gone to a UT football game. That in and of itself is almost considered sacrilege here in Austin. 

She is now walking across the street, as she heads towards the Moffett Molecular Biology building. Every morning at precisely eight am she leaves her dorm building and heads to the Moffett building so she can find a quiet corner to sit and study for two hours until she has to leave for her ten o’clock class. 

I’ve spent the last two weeks watching her daily routine. That and the humdrum actions of her invisible bodyguard. While he believes he’s invisible, staying in the shadows observing her and those she interacts with in order to make sure she stays safe, I was able to spot him within the first five minutes of my initial scouting of this mark. 

He has zero knowledge of my existence. He has no awareness of the impending danger facing both the girl and his own life. While I’ve already determined how I’ll eliminate him from the picture, I am still trying to decide the best way to inconspicuously get her across a campus of more than sixty thousand students, plus faculty, and into my vehicle without being noticed. My assignment was very clear. I am to kidnap the young girl, keep her alive and smuggle her to my employer’s estate just south of Sabinas Hidalgo in Nuevo Leon, one of the thirty-two federal states of Mexico, without anyone becoming aware of her disappearance until a few days after she is under my employers control. 

For this to happen, I‘ve determined that tomorrow, Friday afternoon will be my best option. Her last class ends at two o’clock. After which she usually returns to the lab to study until six when the building closes down for the weekend. Her roommate Katie is leaving Friday morning and heading to Dallas for the weekend with her boyfriend and more than half of the university’s student body to watch the annual Texas versus Oklahoma Red River classic football game. I will eliminate the girl’s bodyguard in the morning shortly after he makes his daily report to his boss on the well being of his daughter. 

Two

She is only a few years younger than my daughter would be had my enemies not mercilessly murdered her almost two decades ago. But to me she is simply a job, the means to an end. I refuse to see her as anything but the task at hand and in this case the payout on this task is ten million dollars.   

In Europe I am considered a Mechanic, in Latin America I’m called a Sicario, but all over the world I am simply known as the Ghost. How I got here is really a story for another time. As for the why I am here, well let’s just say the ten million dollars got my attention. The real reason I’m here is repayment for a debt that’s been owed for far too long. Over the years that I’ve been working as a hired assassin, I have been on the payroll of governments, of mobsters, and of many of the most unsavory groups across the globe. But, I’m only employed by one cartel. No mater the alliance between the cartels against the United States, there are no boundaries to be crossed amongst cartels when it comes to my particular skill set. 

I’ve been known as the Ghost for years. It’s the moniker originally given to me by MI6. It was then adopted by Mossad and even numerous United States agencies; both those known by their three letter initials and those other US agencies that technically don’t exist. My birth name no longer exists. I was pronounced dead back in 2004. I’ve been only known as the Ghost since then, but as I mentioned earlier, another story for another time. 

I like to consider myself as a freelance problem solver. I show no emotion. I block all thoughts of right or wrong. What I do is simply a way of life. I get paid quite handsomely to do what others will not. While normally my job is to find a way to dispose of someone, in many cases I’m hired to make it look like an accident, and more often than not, I’m asked to make it look overtly violent and public to make sure the message was understood. Most of the murders I’m contracted to commit are ones that allow me to take out the trash. I have killed world leaders at the direction of the CIA, as well as MI6. On one occasion I even ended the life of a United States Senate Majority Leader at the direction of Mossad. 

Even though I’m American, I work for the highest bidder. Sometimes I work for my government and sometimes others employ me. I refuse to assist terrorists, no matter the price, as it was one of their organizations that killed my wife and daughter. I originally joined the CIA to hunt and kill these terrorists. After personally eliminating some of the highest members of the Al Qaeda organization, I began to be tasked by the CIA with other targets ultimately leading me to expand my contact list of employers. 

My former CIA handler, Kerry Craig, first introduced me to my current employer almost fifteen years ago. Back then the CIA thought it would be beneficial to their interests to have me assist with a certain cartel takeover. Thus allowing my current employer to, shall we say, assume control of his competitor’s organization. 

In this instance I’ve been asked to simply bring the young girl to my employer. I was not told why. My forced lack of emotions towards the missions I accept tells me that I honestly do not want to know. However I do have my suspicions of what my employer’s ultimate intentions are with the young girl.

Rhiannon is her name. I’ve been hired to bring her to his estate alive, but, not necessarily in one piece. She is the daughter of the most influential man in Colombia. Her father is the brother and the most trusted advisor to the newly elected President of Colombia. 

Colombia continues to be the world leader in drug manufacturing. However, the newly elected President of Colombia has vowed to eliminate the drug cartels from his country. He promises to restore the country to become an honest and prosperous land. My employer is currently the head of the largest Mexican cartel and he’s sworn to eliminate this threat to his main source of income. More than ninety percent of the cocaine my employer sells in the United States originates in Colombia. This source of cocaine accounts for over four billion in annual revenue to my employer. 

Even though my employer has not shared his plans and I refuse to ask, I honestly have no doubts about his plans for young Rhiannon. I am positive it involves something along the lines of sending pieces of the President’s niece’s body home, little by little, until the Colombian President either steps down or agrees to accept the bribes my employer has offered him on multiple occasions. Bribes that were meant to persuade him to back off on the cartels, their drug manufacturing, and their distribution facilities in his country. 

Three

Jones

As I lay there in my king sized bed, contemplating what’s now become of my life. I’m still frequently jolted awake in a cold sweat shouting out at the killer, unsure if my partner Jim or I would actually make it out of that warehouse alive. Waking up without an alarm clock every morning before five is somehow refreshing now that I don’t have to be awake that early. 

I continue to think about the upcoming day and of when I’ll have to get up and drag the kids out of bed to get ready for school, which is always a morning adventure. How many times will I have to tell Cooper, my middle son to get out of bed before he actually stumbles his way into the shower? 

My semi retirement has become somewhat comfortable. I no longer desire days of chasing down leads and hunting the vilest humans known to mankind. More oftentimes, I do catch myself missing the adrenaline rush however. My last two cases were serial child killers, albeit two years apart in their crimes. It feels as though these cases took decades off of my life. 

I guess I better shed a little more light on what is going on. My name is Ryan Jones and I am a semi-retired homicide detective. More often than not I am a hunter of killers. My most recent case, the last case, is the one that brought me to this point in my life, where I now spend the majority of my days just puttering around my garage.  Nowadays the most stressful part of my day is my hour at the gym trying to get my body back into shape. My shoulder is still recovering from the two gunshots I suffered during the culmination of that last case. My psyche, my mental well-being, are another problem altogether, I’ve currently chosen to just ignore the questions I would consistently ask myself about my actions, which are the constant mental reminders about the sins of my past. 

My partner Jim and I spent over a year tracking down a child murderer terrorizing the Dallas area. The killer would kidnap, torture and murder young children while taunting his victim’s parents by leaving the bodies where the family would easily discover them. He held to a set schedule and sequence of kidnapping, torturing and finally murdering the children. With each kidnapping he would send me pieces of the child as a warning to me, as a challenge to me, taunting me to catch him within the next twenty-four hours. In the five instances when we failed, the girl’s bodies were discovered within thirty-six hours after receipt of the packages he mailed to me. 

Once we ultimately determined the suspect’s identity, I became exceedingly obsessed with saving the young girl he was holding captive before he completed his terror filled cycle. The lengths I went to in order to locate his last victim and to bring her home safe was something I may never psychologically recover from. I broke the laws of both God and man, physically and mentally torturing that monster in order to save a child. I tell myself that the ends justified the means, but that does little to improve my psyche. The more I tortured the suspected murderer, the more I could feel myself falling uncontrollably down a rabbit hole, unable to stop, unable to pull back and see this monster for what he really was, a human being. As it happens the young girl I saved by torturing that monster was the niece of our former governor. 

I used my newfound relationship with the Governor to transfer out of the hustle and bustle of Dallas to a precinct in Central Texas. We settled in Round Rock, in order to escape the big city horrors and to try and forget the lines I crossed to save the Governor’s niece Lizzy. My mind tries to hold me accountable for those horrors by refusing to let me forget and constantly reminding me almost every time I close my eyes. 

Just as things were finally starting to develop into a somewhat normal routine again, a copycat killer started taunting me. Set on revenge for her brother John, the Dallas killer I tortured and slaughtered in order to bring Lizzy home safe. After finally stopping the copycat killer, I decided to walk away and take a much-needed break from law enforcement.

That last case not only had me focused on the hunt for a serial child killer, it exposed a deep level of corruption by the Governor and his office. Due to the Governor’s involvement and the depravity the case exposed, the story was picked up by Hollywood and developed into a movie. 

The movie advance Jim and I received for telling our story allows each of us to live comfortably in retirement. My wife Cori still works while Jim has now married and also relocated to Round Rock. Albeit retired, Jim and I occasionally still do some consulting work for the Round Rock police department’s homicide division. 

I take a deep breath as I lay watching the clock approach six. I decide to go ahead and get up and start moving. Throwing on my shorts and heading to the bathroom to brush my teeth while Cori is finishing up her shower. I tell Cori I’m going for my morning run as I throw on a t-shirt and my running shoes.  Heading downstairs I grab my wireless Beats headphones and activate the Bluetooth connection to my iPhone while hitting play on my music app. 

Completing the five-mile run in just under an hour, I slow to a walk the last half a block to my house. Turning off my music as I hit the front door, I hope to hear Jamie in the kitchen eating his breakfast, and Cooper in the shower. My oldest son Austen is now off to college in his freshman year, I hope he is waking up in time to make his eight a.m. class. 

As Jamie finishes breakfast, I remind him to brush his teeth as I open the garage to get his bike ready for his ride down the street towards his fifth grade elementary school. Telling Jamie to have a great day and kissing Cori goodbye as she leaves for work, I head upstairs to take a shower and get my day started. I anticipate the new brakes to be delivered on the Fifty-Six Chevy Bel-Air I’m restoring with the challenge it will be getting the partially remodeled car up and running. 

Four

My scalding hot shower finished, I continue to stand in the bathroom, a towel wrapped around my waist as I stare at my reflection in the mirror. The grey in my hair is more pronounced than a few short months ago, the salt in the salt and pepper of the two-day stubble on my face has a lot more salt than pepper these days. The scar tissue on my left shoulder is tightening and requires me to stretch out the muscles not to mention I have to continuously put lotion on the skin to keep it from drying out and splitting open. The doctors all told me it will eventually heal back to normal, but until then, I need to take it easy and take extra care of the scar tissue. 

The first bullet hit the right edge of my Kevlar vest, going straight through my shoulder exiting my back just a fraction from my scapula. The second gunshot actually occurred when the killer I was chasing had me pinned down on the ground, taunting me as she put the barrel of her gun into the open wound and pulled the trigger a second time. While her shot expanded the hole and tore more tissue and muscles, the heat of the guns proximity into the open wound helped to cauterize some of the muscle tissue and ultimately helped reduce the bleeding. 

BZZZZ. The buzzing of my phone brings me back to reality. I look down at the screen and see the new text message from Jim. He’s asking me if we are still on for tacos this morning. I text back I’ll see him in fifteen minutes at Danny T’s. 

After double-checking to make sure I locked the front door I walk across the front yard towards the driveway and climb into my truck. Issued by the state of Texas, the truck is a fully loaded Ford F-150 4x4, with red & blue emergency lights hidden in the front grill, the front and rear bumpers and within the headlights for when I have to rush to a crime scene. The truck also includes integrated Wi-Fi and a state issued computer system linked directly into state and federal databases for quick access.

As I pull my truck into the parking lot, I see Jim climbing out of his customized 1970 Chevy Nova he recently finished restoring in our garage. Linda, recognizing our cars pulling into the lot, tells the kitchen to start our order. Knowing we always order the same thing. I now have Jim hooked on the chorizo and egg tacos I’m addicted to. 

Walking into the restaurant, we grab two coffee cups from the counter and pour ourselves some before heading over to our usual corner table. The regulars have kept our table open, meaning that Jim and I have officially been accepted into their quasi-social group. Most of the retirees we share breakfast with are regaled with our stories of police work. 

Jim has started playing golf with some of the Danny T’s guys each morning. New to the sport he has grown to love it but struggles to improve. I keep telling him if he wants to lower his golf score he just needs to just play fewer holes. 

Close to finishing breakfast, Jim is heading out to play nine holes of golf before meeting me at the garage. In the meantime I’m going to head over to the parts store on RM 620 to get some new spark plugs for the engine I’m installing in my classic Chevy and to check if the new brake pads I ordered have arrived. Standing in the parking lot of Danny T’s, Jim and I discuss plans for the day. Since we are both owners of the garage, and we work together consulting for the police department, we try to keep each other appraised of our locations. Being partners for over ten years has ingrained this ritual into our daily conversations. 

I remind Jim that I plan on heading over to the Round Rock precinct after a stop at the parts store. He knows the intention of my visit is to discuss a side project we’ve kicked around with the Captain to get his thoughts on our idea. Do you want me to meet you at the precinct so we can talk to Captain Williams together? Jim asks me. I tell him I’m good to meet with the Captain on my own. Plus I know Captain Williams doesn’t like people dropping in unannounced. I’m pushing my luck going on my own