Marked Man II - 02 Read Online Free PDF

let out a very loud “ho-ly-shit.”
     
    Eventually Solomon got what he wanted, but only because Judge Moore ordered that the court room be cleared of everyone except the defendant and the attorneys. He shut down the proceedings and vowed to resume the trial another day when more facts had come to light regarding the fate of the witness. 
     
    Bollier left feeling light-headed but defiant. For her trouble she would more than likely be barred from returning to watch the trial unfold, but it felt worth it. If the Russians were going to break every rule then to hell with the rules. Three months had passed of watching, waiting, and letting the gears of justice grind forward. And for what? Because Shirokov was simply willing to go further the case was hanging on the edge of a cliff.
     
    The state could write all the laws, and hire all the cops and agents to enforce them, but at the end of the day the real power lied in violence. Violence got things done. Violence got results. Gandhi could have gone on a hunger strike for a thousand years and India would still be under British rule if others hadn’t taken up the sword in support of the cause. The abolitionists could have protested and petitioned until they were blue in the face but the slaves would not have been freed without the help of violence.
     
    Thinking like this made Bollier feel ashamed. She had been such a bright idealist at one time. She resented Shirokov and the other Russians for this most of all. It was worse than killing her partner, or kidnapping her, or threatening her life through her oldest friends. The Russians had changed the very way she thought about the world, and that violation was the most upsetting of all.
     
    The guilt in turn made Bollier angry. For three months she had been playing by the rules, holding the leash on a far more effective weapon. When Bollier got home she poured herself a double whiskey neat. She stood by the tall window overlooking 8th avenue for a long time, sipping and watching a sweltering summer day turn to a beautiful summer evening, and feeling bitter she could not enjoy it. When the last of the drink was gone she picked up her phone and dialed the most recent burner number for Jordan Ross.
     
    It was time to get back to violence.
     
    ...
     
     
    Jordan Ross met the detective on Weehawken Street by the old hotel as planned. They walked north along the Lincoln Highway with a mostly-unobstructed view of the Hudson River. Kayakers paddled by in twos and threes, merrily stroking their way along with the current. Jordan watched them somewhat wistfully and tried to remember the last time that he’d done anything active for the sheer fun of it.
     
    He was an intimidating physical specimen. Fifteen years as a green beret Jordan Ross was a precision instrument, but now he was even stronger, faster, and more toned than the prime of his youth in the army. Jordan Ross would have preferred a tight, light t-shirt to show off his relatively new physique, but he went with a loose fitted long-sleeved polyester number instead. The heat was cruel but there was no hiding a .38 in a pair of running shorts and a t-shirt. He never left the condo without it now.
     
    Detective Bollier had mostly followed the same principle for several months, but before driving to meet Jordan Ross she decided that if she was going to be shot so be it, it would be less painful than melting in a solar flare. She was trim and relieved that she still fit into her short-cut jeans from college. An NYPD detective’s badge was strung around her bare neck on a lanyard.
     
    They found a bench and sat down to talk. Both of them were wearing aviator sunglasses as they surveyed the glare of the river. After Bollier filled Jordan in on how the case against Shirokov was proceeding, there was a tense silence. Jordan was the first to break it.
     
    “I told you we should have just killed him.”
     
    “I know you did. You don’t have to say that I told you