Hunters

by Matt Rogers

  Slater nodded politely to her and smiled. He scoured her eyes for any discomfort. He couldn’t find any.

  He continued down the hall, found the door he was looking for, and stepped into the bathroom. He hovered there for a full minute without moving, then flushed and turned the tap on for ten seconds. When he came back out, he listened for the muted conversation floating out of the living/dining space. The four of them were busying themselves by the table, Violetta no doubt analysing the integrity of the forged passports.

  Slater thought about letting it go.

  But a thought had crossed his mind when he’d first met Jada.

  If you were her, what would you do?

  He moved to the door opposite the bathroom and silently tried the handle. Unlocked. He inched it open.

  A bedroom. A primary one, with the sheets ruffled and an assortment of vitamins in pillboxes on the nightstand. Not for guests.

  And Jada lived alone.

  He turned his emotions to stone, closed the door, and went back to the room she’d lied about.

  38

  Slater stepped up to the locked door, held his breath, attuned every finer sense to the air around him. He wasn’t psychic, but he’d developed an intuitive sense of danger. So far, there were no warning bells.

  He reached out slowly, hovering his fingers inches from the door knob.

  Still nothing.

  Jada’s husky voice called out from behind, closer this time. ‘What I tell you before?!’

  She’d moved away from the dining room table, into the kitchen, maybe ten feet away from him. Flustered by his disobedience.

  He clamped down on the doorknob, not hard, not soft.

  He gave it a slight rattle. Not enough power to shake the door, but enough to make his presence known. A tiny, subtle gesture that would put anyone on the other side in a heightened state, whereby they’d be forced to make a decision.

  Act or don’t act.

  Fifty-fifty.

  So much worse than if it were unambiguous.

  Slater sensed the tiniest perception of movement on the other side. It had a different energy to a civilian stirring. He heard no footsteps, no rush of a body charging at the door, but it was enough.

  He leapt away from the door and took two bounding paces. He burst into the kitchen and grabbed Jada by the back of the neck and spun her violently around. She was facing into the hallway with Slater’s SIG pressed to the side of her head when the door to the forbidden room burst open and a man stepped out, a black Glock 17 already raised and ready to fire.

  Had Slater not acted, they both would have shot each other when the door came open.

  A lose-lose.

  Jada spluttered, ‘I told you not to go in.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Slater growled. ‘He came out.’

  The man with the Glock was something to behold. Slater got the sense he was genetically disadvantaged — not very athletic, not very gifted — but he’d overcome those limitations with a sickening work ethic. Slater could see it in the obvious raw power. He was big and heavyset, even larger than King, only an inch or so taller but far wider. He looked like he weighed nearly two hundred and fifty pounds. All of it was pale muscle, like slabs of meat had been thrown onto his frame. Not exactly aesthetically pleasing, because of the genetic limitations, but all of it was efficient. His hands were larger than dinner plates, but he still had a finger poised inside the trigger guard, ready to fire at a moment’s notice. He had thin blonde hair and a fat face. His eyes were pure rage.

  Slater said, ‘You’re another gemstone?’

  The guy’s aim didn’t shift an inch. The barrel was locked on the side of Jada’s head, which Slater was keeping tight in front of him. There was only a sliver of his face visible behind the human shield. He had his SIG trained squarely on the big man’s forehead, using Jada’s shoulder as an elbow rest to stabilise his aim.

  The man smirked, a gesture somehow more furious. ‘You’re well-informed. Zircon.’

  ‘I’ll kill her, Zircon.’

  The smirk grew wider. ‘Okay.’

  Slater muttered in Jada’s ear. ‘Not very nice of you.’

  She rasped, ‘Y’all thought I’d side with you over my country?’

  ‘Quite the patriot,’ he said, his words dripping with sarcasm.

  ‘No, baby,’ she whispered, her composure remarkable given the fact she was being choked. ‘I’m an opportunist.’

  Zircon asked, ‘You two done?’

  Slater said, ‘You’re done, too. We’re leaving. This doesn’t need to be a firefight.’

  ‘Why doesn’t it?’

  ‘I have a hostage.’

  ‘You mustn’t have heard me before. You should kill her yourself. Save me the trouble.’

  Slater knew the truth. He was stalling for time. Jada was dispensable. The government owed her nothing. Even if they did, they wouldn’t hesitate to exterminate her.

  Behind Slater, he sensed King, Violetta, and Alexis bristle.

  Zircon cocked his head. ‘No? Okay.’

  He shot Jada in the face.

  The bullet went through her skull, exiting out the back of her head in grisly fashion. Thankfully she was five-three at best, and Slater stood up to his fullest height as soon as he sensed Zircon’s demeanour change, in sync with the fast-twitch muscles in the man’s trigger finger.

  The bullet lost some of its power tearing through Jada’s head.

  When it hit the top of Slater’s vest, it didn’t debilitate him, which it damn well would have if it had hit him at full force. Just because a bulletproof vest can stop a bullet doesn’t mean it nullifies the force of the impact. It can crack your chest, your ribs, rupture your stomach, give you internal bleeding.

  None of that happened.

  Slater returned fire twice, only milliseconds after Zircon fired. But the thud deep in his chest threw his aim off. Only by millimetres, but that’s enough. One of his rounds sliced through the soft skin on the side of Zircon’s neck and the other missed his scalp by a hair.

  Then he was gone, plunging back into the shadows from whence he’d emerged.

  Slater dropped Jada’s corpse unceremoniously and bolted towards the threat. He slowed as he reached the doorway and stepped inside with every sense firing, every detail clear as day to his overworked brain.

  It was a small empty room. No furniture, nothing.

  A door in the opposite wall lay half-open, still swinging from Zircon’s bulk thundering into it.

  He wasn’t here.

  He was somewhere in the house, but not here.

  Slater back-pedalled into the hallway and found King aiming his weapon with his good arm. Violetta had her gun in hand, but Alexis was motionless, the injury to her mid-section making her hesitate, freeze up in the heat of the moment.

  Slater said to King, ‘Get them out.’

  There was no hesitation.

  There couldn’t afford to be.

  King recognised his own limitations, realised it was the right call, and burst off the mark. He looped an arm around Alexis and thrust her toward the front door. Violetta followed hot on their heels. The house was now a death trap. They didn’t know the floor plan, didn’t know the nooks and crannies. Slater’s adrenaline had suppressed any post-concussion symptoms that might be lingering, so he was close to a hundred percent, at his full combative capacity. King certainly wasn’t, and that might prove to be a hindrance, so he’d prioritised the safety of others. For him, a selfless decision, considering he was more comfortable sacrificing his own life.

  Slater dropped to a crouch and aimed his SIG down the hallway, expecting Zircon to reappear at any moment.

  He didn’t.

  The house went horrendously quiet.

  Cat and mouse.

  Slater stalked into the hallway.

  The shadows enveloped him.

  39

  If Slater had learned anything from his career, it was that nothing compared to the experience of hunting an armed man in
total silence.

  If he stopped to truly think about it, it’d cripple him with nerves. One wrong step, one missed blind spot, and a bullet would rip his brain to shreds. So he didn’t stop to think about it. He fell back on his training, letting automatic instinct take over, because common sense would only demand that he flee.

  He probably should.

  But fuck that, he thought.

  He cleared the hallway, breezing past each doorway, making no more than a whisper of noise. He reached the end and came to a door, firmly closed. He paused and listened. Nothing.

  Then something.

  The slightest motion in his peripheral vision lit up every alarm in his head. He pivoted, aimed, and fired. Took a chunk out of the plaster wall. The sound was like a bomb in the empty house. His eardrums rang, his vision pulsed, and when the echo faded away there was nothing there.

  Had he imagined it?

  A big shape loomed out of another doorway, further down the hall, and the flash of a muzzle flare nearly blinded him. The sound blasted his eardrums at the same time as the bullet struck him in the mid-section. This time, there was no human skull to slow its stopping power. It slammed into his vest and knocked him back against the closed door at the end of the hall.

  That’s where uncanny reflexes saved his life.

  As soon as he registered the silhouette in a different doorway he knew he would be hit. If it struck a vital organ, he was dead, and there was nothing he could do about that. But if it didn’t, then he could return fire, no matter how badly it hurt. So he was ready. Ready when it hit him like a gut punch, knocking all the air out of him, and he returned fire as he was falling backward, already having factored in the shift in aim.

  Zircon wasn’t wearing a vest.

  Hubris.

  Slater’s bullet hit the man in the chest. Slater knew that much, even in the lowlight. There was the characteristic jolt to the torso, the spinning away, the small spray of blood.

  But Zircon was gone again.

  Rescuing himself from the inevitable follow-up shot.

  Slater fired it anyway, because he couldn’t slow his automatic mechanisms. It was an instinctual pop-pop. But his second bullet only shredded wood off the door frame.

  Silence settled over the house again.

  Slater had to be objective. Had to override the pain, tell himself the facts. You took the equivalent of a gut punch. You shot him in the chest. Be logical.

  Even though he couldn’t breathe, he went in for the kill.

  Zircon was weak now, recoiling, on the defensive. If Slater allowed him time to regroup, the operative might muster a second wind.

  Slater crept right up to the doorway.

  Pressed his back to the wall.

  He could see a sliver of the room. Not enough. There was a chest of drawers and a wardrobe and—

  Zircon bull rushed him.

  Which meant he was fatally wounded, and this was a last stand, but Slater knew instantly it was an effective one. The two-hundred-and-fifty pound man practically skidded through the doorway and clashed hard with Slater. He’d been right there on the other side of the same wall, biding his time, and now he barrelled through the doorway and crushed Slater chest-to-chest, trapping the SIG somewhere between them. Slater sensed his barrel wasn’t aimed all the way back at himself, so he pumped the trigger. The blast roared between their bodies, and the bullet smashed into Zircon’s ribcage, tearing muscle and shredding bone.

  But the big man didn’t go down.

  He used the time Slater had spent firing the shot to spin him around like he weighed nothing. Then he pinned his arms to his sides in a crushing bear hug and lifted him off his feet. Slater felt the man’s slick blood all across his back. He was bleeding heavily. But that didn’t stop him taking an athletic step to the right and swinging Slater into the wall.

  Slater hit it chest-first, caving the panel in, and his face bounced off the broken plaster. Nausea immediately swelled in him, his delicate nose flaring with agony.

  Zircon dropped him in a thunderous heap at his feet.

  Slater coughed blood and fished around for his SIG, his hands slapping the floor all around him.

  Zircon stamped a boot down on Slater’s forearm.

  Slater looked up at him. The big man was pouring blood. There were two entry wounds in his torso — one through the right side of his chest, and one through his ribs. He was a dead man walking.

  Just not yet.

  And that’s really all that mattered.

  Zircon saw the SIG, inches out of Slater’s reach, and grinned. His lips were bloody, yet Slater hadn’t struck him in the face. Internal bleeding. Another sign of imminent death.

  Still didn’t matter.

  As Zircon bent down with a wince and picked up the SIG he muttered through red teeth, ‘Where’s your other half?’

  King stepped into range and cracked him square in the forehead with a cocked elbow.

  It turned him off at the power switch.

  Zircon pitched backwards and hit the opposite wall across his upper back, tearing straight through it. He came to rest in a grotesque heap, half inside the wall, half out. Crimson everywhere. All over the walls, all over Zircon. He’d bleed out before he returned from consciousness.

  Game over.

  Slater blinked twice so he could focus on King standing over him.

  King had his SIG drawn, gripping it with his good hand. It was the same arm he’d used to throw the elbow.

  Slater’s eyes asked a silent question through his haze of pain.

  King turned and regarded Zircon with a disgusted grimace. The big man had already expired. Even on the floor, Slater could tell the lack of movement was permanent.

  ‘Would have been a waste of a bullet,’ King answered.

  He tucked the SIG away, pulled Slater to his feet, and helped him hobble away.

  They limped past Jada’s huge corpse on the kitchen floor.

  Slater said, ‘You can read people, huh?’

  40

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Alexis said as they sped away from Jada’s abode.

  King said, ‘What did it look like?’

  ‘So they’re pop-ups at some freak carnival now?’ Alexis asked. ‘They spring up from the ground when we least expect it?’

  King didn’t answer. He was wired, everything focused on suburbia flashing past out the windshield. Any hint of a pursuit, any inkling of backup, and he’d go at them like he was juiced to the gills. Realistically the hunters could blockade the exit to Vermillion Avenue, trapping them in the street. Its teardrop shape would help them bunker down for a firefight, but they knew nothing of the neighbourhood.

  They’d probably lose.

  Her foot all the way down on the gas, Violetta said, ‘Where’s the rest?’

  Slater moaned from the rear seats.

  Violetta glanced at King. ‘He’s bad.’

  Alexis shouted, ‘What do we do?!’

  King said, ‘Airport.’

  The four passports were scattered across his footwell. He’d collected them on the way out and thrown them into the Ford before he leapt in himself. Violetta hadn’t addressed it, too focused on getting a fast start, but now she said, ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘They have us,’ King snarled. ‘The estate, and now St. George. They’re closing in. We can’t go back to the safe house. At the very least they know what we’re driving.’

  ‘So we take the car they know we’re in straight to the nearest airport?’

  ‘No,’ King said. ‘Double back to Vegas. We’ll use McCarran International.’

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘They’re still spread out. Otherwise they would have surrounded the house. We wiped out a decent chunk of the SAC team at the estate, so right now it’s individual hunters winging it. Jada mustn’t have given them much time. When she called, Zircon was all they could get to Utah in time.’

  ‘None of that addresses the fact we’d be walking back into their hands
.’

  ‘Get Alonzo to dump false information into the feed. Get him to tell them we’ve been sighted on five separate roads around St. George. What little they have left in Vegas will be packed up and shot up I-15 to Utah.’

  ‘And the car?’

  ‘Pull over here.’

  ‘Jason—’

  ‘Do it.’

  She stamped on the brakes. Before the car had even slowed to a crawl he was out, shouldering his door open with his good arm, ignoring the jolt that transferred through to his left side. His soles caught traction on the asphalt and he used the running start to barrel up the driveway Violetta had stopped alongside.

  He intercepted the woman in her thirties as she was hauling grocery bags out of her trunk.

  The woman sensed the barrage of movement and spun just as he came up with his SIG, pressing it to her temple. She almost fainted at the touch of the cold steel on her skin.

  He said, ‘Don’t talk. Listen. I represent a faction of the Sinaloa cartel here in Utah. I own the local sheriff. I’m taking your ride. If I catch wind that you call the police anytime before midnight, I’ll come back and kill you and that small child I saw run inside just before. Do you think I’m lying?’

  Bone-chilling silence.

  He lowered his voice and said, ‘Answer.’

  ‘N-no,’ she stammered. ‘I don’t think you’re lying.’

  Her voice wavered up and down in octaves. Fear was making her heart thud triple-time. The small vein in the side of her neck pulsed.

  King said, ‘Midnight. Tonight. You report the theft, you get the insurance money, and I’m in the wind.’

  Her face twisted in anguish, and it made him hesitate.

  He asked, ‘Are you insured?’

  She nodded, and he realised it was just terror giving her strange facial expressions. He hadn’t held a civilian at gunpoint in quite some time. The messier details had faded into distant memories. Her fear brought them back.

  He said, ‘Say it back to me. Midnight. Tonight.’

  ‘Midnight,’ she said under her breath. ‘Tonight.’