by Matt Rogers
Out loud, he said, ‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’
Because, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he needed every scrap of information he could get before he set off. And he wouldn’t get there by acting hostile. He estimated the gap between Ruby and the hotel door and contemplated doing it by force. She was a trained assassin, but there were no weapons in the room, and he outweighed her by fifty pounds. He powerlifted regularly, with a deadlift maximum a shade over six hundred pounds.
He could pin her down with ease.
He could get the information out of her, by any means necessary.
And then what? She would feed him bullshit under duress, just as everyone did. He would accomplish nothing. She would probably send him to Slovenia in pursuit of a hidden facility he knew nothing about. She had him.
And she noticed him plotting.
A semi-automatic pistol appeared in her hands, practically out of thin air. She’d drawn it from the back of her waistband, but the Heckler & Koch SFP9 stared him right in the face with such speed that for a moment he reconsidered whether she was human or not. He looked down the barrel, contemplating whether he would even register the sight of the gun firing before the bullet blew his brain to shreds.
She said, ‘Don’t try a fucking thing.’
‘Calm down,’ he said, still seated on the edge of the bed.
‘Don’t tell me to calm down, you piece of shit. I can read you like a book.’
‘Can you?’
‘You need what’s in my head. You’re highly trained and highly motivated. I’m the only thing between you and this little girl. That’ll twist your perception of things. You might think it’s the right move to try and take me hostage. I’d advise you that’s a terrible move, but you probably know that.’
‘I’m not armed,’ Slater said.
‘It’d be dumb if you weren’t.’
‘Then I’m dumb. How’d you get that in here?’
‘I’ve got an equipment stash in Quibdó. I went out to get it. When you were asleep. I assume you did the same while I was gone.’
‘I slept.’
‘Then you really are an idiot.’
‘I told you. I’m retired. I don’t do this shit anymore.’
‘You should still have a vested interest in staying alive.’
‘I do. I had the option. I chose not to take that avenue.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘I trust you.’
He stared at the gaping maw of death in the form of the SFP9. Not concerned. He’d looked down enough gun barrels for it to barely faze him anymore. He looked past it, to the woman holding the weapon. Her finger on the trigger. Ready to shoot without a moment’s hesitation. Just like he would be, in her position. Cold and remorseless when the job required it.
She said, ‘You shouldn’t.’
‘But I do.’
‘You don’t know anything about me.’
‘I know enough.’
She lowered the gun.
48
‘Five minutes,’ she said. ‘That’s all I’ll give you.’
‘And I know my boundaries. I know you hold the Lynx program close to your chest. I know you don’t want anyone to disrupt it. But right now there’s a nine-year-old girl who might be in it, who didn’t get there on her own. It’s my fault she’s in it, if she is. I handed her to the man who runs it.’
‘Williams is a good man.’
‘And sometimes good men do bad things for what they think are the right reasons.’
She paused. Breaking it down. Running it through her head. Weighing it up.
Paying it consideration that belied her age.
She was twenty-two going on fifty. Intellectually, at least. A smart strong girl who took no shit from anyone. And right now Slater was beyond vulnerable. His life was in her hands. All the standard precautions had run through his mind the moment he’d met her. He’d disregarded them. He figured in this case, it was better to sacrifice control.
He hoped like hell the gambit would pay off.
Because he was telling the truth.
There was no backup plan.
She said, ‘I’m not giving you anything to do with the program. Or Williams. I assume you have no way of contacting him.’
‘I just need to talk to him. Please.’
‘No. He’s like my real father. You understand? You’ll never get that out of me.’
‘Then tell me more about your biological father.’
‘Why?’
Slater shrugged. ‘I’m not going to get through to you. I can tell that already. Not a chance. Your mind’s bulletproof. But you said I had five minutes. So humour me. You interest me. I want to know more about what makes you tick. Your background. Why it all went the way it did. Your dad. Who is he?’
‘I should be gone.’
‘Five minutes. You promised. I’m unarmed. You owe me that much.’
‘Frank.’
‘That’s his name?’
‘Frank Nazarian, if you want to be anal about it.’
‘I didn’t need the full name.’
‘That’s what I call him. His full name. Cause he’s not my dad. He’s just a guy that did a terrible job raising me.’
‘Nazarian.’ Slater rolled the surname over his tongue.
Ruby said, ‘I’m Armenian.’
‘I like it.’
‘I don’t like him. Why do you want to know about him?’
‘You said five minutes. You didn’t put a restriction on what I could ask. Apart from the Lynx program.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘What was so bad about him?’
‘The typical ex-military type. Strict. Regimented. Took no shit. Didn’t understand how to be a parent. And I was moody and hormonal and mad at life in general. Not a great mix.’
‘You said he wasn’t abusive.’
‘No. Of course not.’
‘I just fail to see…’
‘I made a mistake, okay?’ Ruby snapped. ‘I shouldn’t have left. I should have recognised what I had — a nice life in a nice suburb with a decent family, all things considered. But things got blown way out of proportion, as they always do when you’re a teenager, and I ran away. Williams was my dad’s old military buddy. Frank retired, and Williams kept climbing his way up through the ranks. I ran to him for counsel and he seemed to take my grievances seriously. I don’t think he ever liked my dad all that much, either. Didn’t think he was fit to be a parent. Williams said there was a retreat I could go to for a while, in…’
She cut herself off abruptly.
Slater raised an eyebrow.
‘You almost got me,’ she said, managing a wry smile. ‘He said there was a retreat. I could stay a while. See how I liked it. Then I ended up liking it a lot, so I committed to the program. Signed myself up for life. What else was I going to do?’
‘You really think you had a choice?’ Slater said.
He didn’t care about offending her now. He knew it was the most he would get out of her.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I was old enough to make my own decisions.’
‘Right. What about your dad?’
‘He knows I’m alive. I get in touch every now and then. Let him know I’m doing well.’
‘Does he know about—?’
‘Of course not,’ she snapped.
‘Does he still talk to Williams?’
‘Of course not.’
Falling on desperation, he said, ‘Ruby, I’m going to need more than this.’
‘No.’
‘This little girl means more to me than you realise.’
‘I realise. But that puts the program in danger, and I just won’t do it.’
You’re a twenty-two year old brainwashed minion, Slater thought.
He said, ‘Okay.’
She cocked her head. ‘That’s it?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Is this the part where I turn to leave and you try to tackle me into the doorfra
me?’
‘No.’
‘That’s what I’d do, if I were you.’
‘I’m not going to try anything.’
‘There isn’t much space between us. You could probably make it in time. You’re fast enough. I saw you in the jungle. And you’re powerful. You could probably take me right through the wall. Use me as a battering ram. Break a few of my bones along the way. Fuck me up real bad. Then I’d have to answer your questions. I’m sure you know “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Everyone breaks after a while. I just want you to know that I know you’re thinking about it. So please don’t try it. Because I don’t want to shoot you.’
‘I’m not moving,’ he said.
She lowered the gun. ‘You’re really telling the truth, aren’t you?’
‘As much as it might surprise you, I don’t want to hurt you.’
‘You think you could?’
‘I’m not going down that line of conversation.’
‘You probably could,’ she admitted. ‘If you set your mind to it. You’ve probably got ten years of experience on me.’
‘I’m not moving,’ he repeated. ‘You’re high on adrenalin. You’re overthinking everything. Just leave.’
‘Don’t come after me.’
‘I won’t.’
‘I’m sorry about this little girl. I hope she’s in a foster home. But even if she’s in the program, it might not be such a bad thing. Hell of a lot better than some of the homes I’ve heard of. She might go on to do great things.’
‘Thanks for the input. Please leave.’
She paused. She hadn’t been anticipating this kind of compliance. The gun quivered in her palm. She was more than ready to use it. She must have spent most of the morning talking herself into a sociopathic state, detaching her emotions as best she could. Firmly prepared to kill the only man who had everything in common with her. That took a unique subset of skills rarely found in the general population.
An emotionless assassin, struggling with her career choice.
And now she’d spent all that time postulating how she would put a bullet in him when he lunged at her. It wasn’t happening. An anticlimax in every sense of the word.
She nodded, still unsure. ‘I hope your retirement goes well.’
‘I’m doing fine.’
‘Okay.’
‘Thanks for the evening.’
A half-smile crossed her lips. She blew him a kiss.
Then she disappeared through the open door.
49
He didn’t give chase.
What was the point?
He already had everything he needed.
He sat, and he thought long and hard about the direction his life was about to take. He considered the goodwill Russell Williams had shown in Macau, making the effort to seek him out and let him know the United States government was no longer interested in pursuing him for supposed crimes against his country.
He and his colleague Jason King had been cleared of all wrongdoing. No-one was hunting him. He no longer had to check over his shoulder every five seconds. He could get off the bed and resume something that constituted a normal life. He had four hundred million dollars in discrete funds and no responsibility whatsoever.
And by all accounts Williams was a good man. He’d acted quickly and decisively in Yemen to foil a biological terror plot, and Slater’s judgment had told him to trust the man. With little alternatives in sight and the underlying knowledge that she couldn’t stay with him, Slater had handed Shien over with the understanding she would be looked after.
But he remembered what he’d said to Ruby.
Sometimes good men do bad things for what they think are the right reasons.
Maybe Williams thought he was taking care of her. Training her for years, raising her in a secret government program, honing her mind and body to retaliate violently against anyone who wronged her. Maybe he thought that would shape her into a strong, powerful woman. Like it had for Ruby.
Maybe he thought, even if Slater found out about the Lynx program, he wouldn’t find anything morally reprehensible about it at all.
Maybe he thought Slater would be happy for Shien.
It all made too much sense.
So Slater got off the bed. He waited a few minutes in silence to compensate for Ruby’s paranoia. He knew she might loiter in the lobby or in the shadows of a nearby alleyway, her brain still convincing her the world was against her. He’d occupied a similar mindset earlier in his career. Back when everything was new and terrifying and overwhelming from a sensory standpoint.
Now, nothing meant anything.
The last night of his life — before the pleasant hedonistic detour — had been a horror show. At least from an objective standpoint. The jungle, the pain, the closeness to death, the wild array of sensations. But he’d already almost forgotten it.
That’s what your life is.
He gave it enough time to make sure he wouldn’t run into her and then left the room, tucking his phone, wallet, and passport into his pockets on his way out. He closed the door behind him and rode the elevator down to the lobby, deep in thought all the way to the ground floor. There were a couple of civilians in the cable car with him — tourists, by the look of it — but he barely paid them any attention. He briefly considered his lack of situational awareness, so he flashed a glance at them to make sure neither were planted by one of his numerous enemies to slit his throat on the way to the lobby. They both returned his stare, equally disinterested.
He faced forward, and went back to introspection.
He knew he would never see Ruby again. She would vanish into the labyrinth of the government underworld, a space so vast he knew he would never get to the bottom of it if he tried. Thankfully he’d never had issue with the secrecy during the time he was employed, but if he’d ever become stubborn about the lack of information they fed him he probably would have been locked in a room and provided with complimentary enhanced interrogation techniques until he became compliant again.
So he would never know how deep the rabbit hole went, and Ruby was just a single cog in a vastly larger machine. He gave up ever finding out more about her. She was a whirlwind, and it was best for both of them if they never crossed paths again.
But now he had a choice to make.
He had no way of contacting Russell Williams, who was practically a ghost. Black Force no longer existed, with that particular division disintegrating into parts swallowed up by the murky secret world. Positions would have changed, certain key staff would have remained behind, and all record of its existence would have been destroyed.
So that avenue was a dead end.
And he had no idea about the rest of it.
Which left him in a uniquely difficult position. He had certain skills and experiences imprinted on his brain, taught over a decade of involvement with state-of-the-art government training facilities, but they’d all been mobile outfits. They’d never surrounded him with tangible physical locations. Such was the nature of a Black Force operative. He’d been destined to do that forever until fate intervened when he’d been sent after Jason King in Corsica.
So that was that. No way to get in touch with his old superiors. He didn’t even know who they were. Lars Crawford had handled the bulk of his operational career, and King had killed the man in Australia. All ties were severed. For good reason.
And now he needed to jump straight back in with both feet if he wanted to follow this to its conclusion.
He couldn’t make the same call he’d made in Yemen. He was persona non grata to the U.S. government. They would shut him down faster than he could say his name. He no longer belonged to that outfit. His past mistakes were forgiven, and all knowledge of his existence had been eradicated.
An outcast in every sense of the word.
The elevator doors whispered open and he made his way over to a new worker manning the reception desk. He checked out of his room, thanked the middle-aged woman for his stay, and headed for
the street, moving fast.
There was no sign of Ruby.
True to her word, she was gone.
He didn’t quite know how to feel about it.
Who she was, and the division that had shaped her into what she was, occupied a complex moral grey zone he had no intention of diving into just yet. Whether the program was justified by the greater good was none of his concern. He’d ducked out of the secret world for a reason. It posed these problems daily. He couldn’t destabilise the entire government underworld on his own.
But he could rescue one little girl from its tendrils.
One girl he’d promised a bright future to.
One girl who had to make her own choices about where she wanted her life to go.
But he needed somewhere to start. If he stepped back and analysed the big picture it would overwhelm him.
First things first.
Find a way to reach Williams.
He pulled out his phone, navigated to an app, and booked a series of civilian flights that dumped him in the location he deemed prudent to start.
New York City.
50
Quibdó to Medellin.
Medellin to New York.
After a lengthy wait at El Caraño and an extended layover in Medellin, he finally touched down on home soil on a dreary and grey morning at 8:05am local time. The plane rattled and shook in the turbulence when it bounced down onto one of John F. Kennedy International Airport’s many runways. Slater opened his eyes when he sensed wheels on tarmac and tuned out the noise of a small child screaming three rows behind him.
He’d been retired for nearly a year now, but he still wasn’t used to normality. The commercial flight was populated by the usual mix of solo travellers, businessmen, families, backpackers, and tourists from abroad. They all fussed over their plastic trays and complained about plane food and stressed over whether they’d be the first to get their luggage from the overhead compartments when the seatbelt signs flickered off. Even before the plane taxied to a halt, Slater sensed unrest in the cabin. Passengers were ready to burst out of their seats. There would be no holding back when the floodgates opened.
