Thriller: Stories to Keep You Up All Night

Jacobs didn't answer.

Fletcher whispered something in Jacobs's ear. He looked terrified.

"After you planted the transmitter, the bounty hunters were to move in and take care of Fletcher," Jacobs said, his voice quivering. "They wanted me to take you out on the boat under the guise of meeting up with Lee at the operations house. You were supposed to disappear, out here in the water. The sharks were going to take care of you. No bodies, no evidence, no case."

"And where were you going?" Fletcher said. "Costa Rica."

"With how much money?"

A pause, then Jacobs said, "Seven million."

"It seems the price on my head has gone up," Fletcher said, gri

"I worked as a handler for informants."

"He's being modest," Fletcher said. "Special Agent Jacobs was the handler for two very powerful figureheads inside the Irish mafia. In exchange for lucrative payoffs, Jacobs ran interference so these two men could continue committing extortion, money laundering and murder. When his superiors got wind of what was going on, these two men suddenly disappeared. Any idea what happened to them?"

"I was cleared on those charges," Jacobs said.

"You were never indicted because the president stepped in and invoked executive privilege in order to protect a member of his high-ranking staff-a member who once worked as your boss in Boston. The corruption went well beyond Jacobs, and the president wanted it kept quiet. How many people died to protect your secrets, Special Agent Jacobs? How many people did you kill?"

Jacobs didn't answer.

"It doesn't matter. I think we've heard enough." Fletcher taped Jacobs's mouth shut.

Then Marlena watched as Fletcher dragged Jacobs, kicking and screaming, to the back part of the boat. The idea flashed through her mind: Jacobs alone in the water, screaming out in pain and horror as the sharks ripped him apart. No part of her rose up in protest or tried to push the thought away.

Jacobs was pi

"Do you want me to cut him loose before I toss him overboard?" Fletcher asked her.

Marlena didn't answer, aware of the intense feeling building inside her, the one she had when holding things like the postcards and the sweater.

"What would your mother want you to do?" Fletcher asked.

Marlena thought of her mother alone in that terrible moment, a woman who worked as a janitor and wanted nothing more out of life than to be a good mother to her two children, now forced to make a decision between jumping to her death and being burned alive.

She spotted a bright light on the horizon. The light belonged to a boat.

"That would be my ride," Fletcher said. "What's your answer?" She wanted Jacobs to suffer. But giving the order to do it was something else entirely.

"I want to bring him in," Marlena said.

"At the moment, you have no direct proof of his involvement with the bounty hunters. Jean Paul Rousseau is not a stupid man. And despite his rather apish appearance, I'm willing to bet Jacobs covered his tracks just as well. It will be your word against his. I don't have to remind you how those cases turn out, especially since Jacobs has co

"I'll work the evidence."

"I doubt you'll find any."

"I'll take my chances."

"Your choice." Fletcher released Jacobs. "Turn around, Mar-lena, and I'll untie your hands."

The boat that pulled alongside them was a cigarette boat, a bullet-shaped race boat designed for incredible speed. Standing behind the wheel was a pale man with a shaved head and an odd-looking nose-Jonathan Prince.

"Malcolm," Prince said. "We need to get moving."

She recognized the voice as the one she had spoken to earlier on the cell phone.

"You had this whole thing pla

"I needed to move you to safety, and the only way to do it was to get you on the boat, away from the club." Marlena felt Fletcher's breath against her ear. "Those postcards and whatever other items you've bought since your mother's death? I suggest you bury them."

Her hands were cut free.

"I'll leave Jacobs tied up, in case you change your mind. Good luck, Marlena."

The cigarette boat roared away. She got to work untying the rope around her ankles. She didn't rush. She knew there was no way she could catch up to Fletcher.

During the commotion, Jacobs had managed to rub off part of the duct tape from the corner of his mouth. "I have an account set up here on the island," he mumbled. "I'll transfer the money to you. All I need is a laptop. You let me go, and I'll disappear. You'll never see me again."

Marlena didn't answer.

"Seven million," Jacobs said. "That kind of money can buy you a lot of things."

But it can't buy me what I need, Marlena thought, and went to start the boat.

"Wait, let's talk about this," Jacobs said. "We can come to some sort of agreement."

Marlena drove toward the bright lights of the island. She heard Jacobs screaming over the roar of the engines and wind, pleading with her to make a deal. Marlena drove faster and thought of her mother falling through the sky and tried hard not to dwell on the limitations of justice.

De

Both a literary and suspense novelist, De

Lynds also published literary novels and short stories. Five were honored in Best American Short Stories. Then, in the late 1980s and into the 1990s, he pioneered the detective form again, writing books in both third and first person and lacing them with short stories, techniques which today's writers employ regularly.

"Powerful and memorable, [these works] indicate Collins has embarked on a new course after some 60 books," wrote critic Richard C. Carpenter in Twentieth Century Crime and Mystery Writers. "Truly, he is a writer to be reckoned with." Of his most recent short story collection, Fortune's World, the Los Angeles Times commented, "To spin tales as intriguing and thought provoking as these for three decades is a remarkable enough achievement. Even more remarkable is the sustained quality… It takes style to bring that off. Bravery, too, of course."

Iconoclastic, witty and generous, sadly Lynds died August 19, 2005, at the age of eighty-one. Several of his short stories will be published posthumously, including the one here, Success of a Mission. This story was first published in 1968. Since then, it has been nominated for several awards and anthologized. The story is still relevant today in both its triumph and its tragedy.