He laid in his bunk, unable to sleep due to the eerie light shining upon his face from the porthole across from him. He went over the events that had led him here over and over in his mind…
Carter was escorted down a long, dark hall by two men in black suits, both at least a head taller than himself. He was only now understanding the gravity of the meeting he was about to undertake, and oddly he was also worried that he might be underdressed. They reached a door at the end of the hall, and forced him through, though they stayed behind and closed the door leaving Carter alone inside a rather large office. The room was dark except for a lit Christmas tree in the far corner of the room. One wall of windows displayed a breathtaking view of the city below.
"Evening, Mr. Daniels," beckoned a voice at the far end.
"Evening," said Carter.
"Why don't you take a seat, make yourself comfortable?"
Carter made his way to a leather chair that was sitting in front of a large desk close to the tree, as he got closer he could make out a figure sitting behind it, conveniently covered in darkness. He sat down and the figure began to speak.
"I'm hoping your Christmas is coming along joyously," spoke the figure.
"Not as well as yours, Mr. Hughes, I'm sure."
Then, acting as if on cue, the figure leans into the light.
"Please, call me Howard."
"As you wish," said Carter, slightly amused.
"Now let's get down to business. You undoubtedly know who I am, but you might be surprised to find out that I know a great deal about you, Mr. Daniels- excuse me, Carter," he said as Carter made a playful gesture.
Hughes opened a file on his desk and flipped through its contents.
"You performed over sixteen covert operations with the OSS during the war. Most of them concerning the assassinations of top military officers in Germany and Italy. I've heard you even came close to obtaining a premature victory for the Allies. May ask, what went wrong?"
"Hitler sneezed," he answered coolly.
"Indeed. I have called you here tonight to discuss a job opportunity for you, Carter. You can guess what it may involve."
"I'm retired," said Carter, "I don't kill people anymore."
"I'm aware that you retired at the end of the war to 'settle down'. I am also aware of how the government has screwed you over these past few years, constricting your earnings, forcing you and your family to live in that rusty old flat downtown, and work at a reeking fishery for a mere 3 dollars an hour. You're a goddamn hero, and you should be treated like one," Hughes finished as they stared at each other for a moment.
"It's a hard life. But I'd choose it a thousand times over having to decide whether the man at the end my gun live or dies," said Carter.
"Another thing I am also aware of, Carter, is that your daughter is about to lose her battle with tuberculosis."
These words seemed to have hit Carter like a train. He looked flushed and uneasy.
"That's right," he said finally.
"Carter, after this last job, not only will I see to it that little Gesibell gets the finest medical treatment this wonderful country can provide, but you'll be able move uptown into a penthouse where your beautiful wife will be comfortable, and get your children the top education they deserve. Best of all, you wont come home smelling rotten fish guts every night," he ended with a chuckle.
Carter pondered this for a few moments. It was his morals or the welfare of his family.
"I'm not going to be your go-to-guy every time you want someone dead, got it?" said Carter.
"Of course. I already have many other men at the ready to perform much more trivial operations. I'm a business man, but in my line of work you must be willing to get your hands dirty. I have chosen you above all others both because you are the best in your field, and because our target is one clever and slippery cod."
Hughes pulled out another file from a drawer in his desk and slid it over to Carter, who opened it to find an abundance of documents, photos, and newspaper clippings featuring a tall man with combed black hair and mustache.
"Andrew Ryan?" Carter spoke finally.
"I doubt you've heard of him before. He's been off the grid for some time now," Hughes said. "Ryan is a former friend of mine. We shared the same views, ideas, dreams. Ryan was a dreamer, yes. He dreamed of creating the perfect capitalist society, where the dreamer would not be held back by any higher powers. A utopia.
"He was a wealthy man, but no where near as blessed as myself unfortunately. Towards the end of the war he came to me with a proposition. He suggested that we actually create this society. I can remember his exact words: 'A city where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small.'
"I told him that I agreed with what he was trying to do, but that I could invest in something so risky, that I had my own image to think about. Of course then declared me a 'parasite' and stormed out of my office."
"Are you going to tell me why I have to kill this man?" Carter asked suddenly.
"In good time. I knew that would not be the last I would see of him. And sure enough a few months later, I was kidnapped by Ryan and a few of his hired goons. He forced me at gun point to wire almost 500 million dollars to one of his foreign accounts. After that I was drugged and I awoke to find myself in a hospital. I fired all of my security staff after that, seeing as Ryan was able to apprehend me so easily, and replaced them with the best bodyguards money can buy. You've met Hanz and Francis.
"We hunted for him for years, only able to find a few scraps of where he had been. It shouldn't be hard to find a so called 'bustling city'. Soon, we just decided to give up, it was just a waste of time. After the war I had made over three times as much as he had stolen from me.
"Eventually I just forgot about the whole incident, until 2 weeks ago. We had found a small bomb strapped to the underside of this very desk I am sitting behind. After my men diffused it we scoured the building for the culprit. We apprehended the bastard on his way out the front doors after being unable to provide any identification. After moment he panicked and pulled a gun on one of the guards, bad idea, they broke his arm before the pistol was halfway out of his pocket.
"I decided to interrogate him before we even contact the authorities. We found out that he had snuck in through one of the ally ways, he knocked a janitor unconscious as he was disposing of his trash in one of the bins. He came back in disguised as the janitor, and planted the bomb in my office while I was in a meeting.
"He gave us a name, but once we investigated it, there were never any records that he ever even existed. Finally I asked him just who the son of a bitch it was that had hired him. I couldn't believe my ears."
"Ryan," said Carter
"Precisely. He gave me all the details. Said Ryan wanted to thank me for my contribution to his masterpiece. Seeing as I was also the most significant contributor to the advancements of the so called 'parasites', he could not let me live."
"This is all for revenge?" Carter asked.
"Yes, of course that. But mainly to teach dear old Andrew a final lesson that- and all formalities aside," said Hughes, "you do not fuck with Howard Hughes."
After this Hughes snapped his fingers and the office door opened revealing the two men that had led him down the hall, which felt like so long ago. Carter knew this meant it was time for him to go. He stood up and Hughes spoke once more.
"My men will pick you up on December 26. I'd hate for you to miss Christmas with your family. Here," he smiled as he pulled a small stack of $100 bills out of his wallet and handed them to Carter. "Get your family something nice.
"Now before I'm briefed on the operations surrounding this mission, may I ask if Ryan succeeded in building this city?" Carter asked.
Oh yes, from what I've found out he has, and a thriving one at that," answered Hughes.
"Then how has a thriving city been hidden for so long?" Carter asked again.
"Well Carter, if I told you now before you were actually on your way to it, you'd think I was crazy for believing it even existed."
"I see," Carter said, looking puzzled, "well I guess I'll be off, then. Have a Merry Christmas.
"Yes, and a Merry Christmas to you, too. And afterwards, I look forward to you bringing me the head of Andrew Ryan."