by Matt Rogers
Diamond went out cold.
Three hundred pounds collapsed backwards into the mud, arms outstretched as if spreading them wide for the heavens.
It would have made quite the poignant sight if King hadn’t jumped on the unconscious body, cocked his right elbow, and smashed it down into Diamond’s unprotected throat until the man’s windpipe was nothing more than a crushed, broken mess.
Not a pretty or noble death.
Few are.
King knelt over the corpse, lactic acid swelling across his upper chain of muscles. He sweated freely despite the downpour. At least the hard rain washed the blood off his nose, his mouth, his jaw. He couldn’t feel his fingers. Dark, insidious pain began to creep into his left arm.
He fell off the body, landing on his rear, splashing more mud over the both of them.
He sat there panting until Violetta ran to him and threw her arms around his shoulders from behind.
She breathed in his ear, ‘You okay?’
Obviously he wasn’t, but he knew what she meant.
Are your wounds fatal?
Are you going to die?
Despite the tremendous mental willpower it took, he clambered to his feet. He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep himself upright, but he wanted to show a display of solidarity. Take the fear out of her. If she spent too much of the pregnancy enveloped with tension, there was the possibility of adverse consequences to the child.
He stood to his fullest height, swayed, and smiled down at her.
From the grimace on her face he knew it wasn’t a good look.
He mumbled, ‘That better be the last of them.’
She nodded.
He said, ‘Did you see where that full mag landed?’
She nodded again.
He handed her Diamond’s empty MEU(SOC) which he’d fished off the muddy ground. She took it, ran to where Diamond had thrown away the spare seven-round magazine, and retrieved it from the mud. King didn’t move. He didn’t think he could.
When she jogged back, he let her take some of his weight and she helped him hobble away through the ruins.
63
What happens now?
The question lingered in the air.
The first hunter said, ‘Now I walk away.’
Slater said, ‘Do you?’
Antônia sobbed into the mud. Alexis was nowhere to be seen. Slater hoped she’d stayed put. He couldn’t afford to turn his head and find out.
The first hunter was silent. His aim was rigid, still locked on the side of Antônia’s skull as she rasped for breath on all fours. She sounded close to death, but Slater knew she was only winded. The urge to panic when you can’t fetch an inhale is overwhelmingly intense. She was deep in its clutches now. One of the hunters must have struck her in the solar plexus before she fled toward the ruins.
Slater said, ‘You got a name?’
He felt the squat neck tighten as the man smirked. ‘Opal.’
‘I mean a real name.’
Now Opal laughed. ‘Kane Broome. You think this emotional shit’s going to work on me? Oh, Mr. Slater, please, you’ve made me see the light! I have a real name! It’s Kane! How could I ever have lost my humanity?’
Slater stiffened at the jester act in such a tense standoff.
Above all else, Opal was composed.
The hunter switched tones, snarling. ‘This is what’s going to happen. You don’t want to see your traitorous bitch ally dead in that puddle, so I’m going to step away from your rifle now, and I’m not going to take my aim off her. I suggest you take a look at my finger on the trigger. It’s resting on it. An ounce of pressure and she goes bye-bye. An ounce. Okay, ready? Three, two, one…’
He didn’t give Slater time to respond. He moved to the side. Slater pivoted to keep his aim on Opal, but he didn’t follow him. A step misplaced and Antônia was dead. She’d risked everything to help them. She’d earned his loyalty.
The other hunter was still frozen, unblinking, as he stared at Slater.
The tension was unbearable.
Opal moved diagonally backwards away from Slater until he stood shoulder to shoulder with his partner. Then the unnamed hunter’s gun came up, slowly, inch by inch, so Slater didn’t get overzealous and mow them down in a stream of gunfire. Now both guns were aimed at Antônia, both men’s fingers millimetres from their respective triggers. They both retreated like that, stepping back foot by foot into the tree line.
Opal said, ‘Don’t do it.’
His voice floated to Slater’s ears.
Opal said, ‘I’m just as good of a shot as you. You get brave, she’s dead.’
For the first time, his partner spoke. His voice was cold and soft, but somehow Slater still heard every distinct word.
The unnamed hunter said, ‘We’ll get you, William. Sooner or later.’
His voice was hypnotic.
The hunters vanished into the jungle.
Without turning around, Slater said, ‘Alexis, help her.’
The whole time he’d heard Antônia struggling for breath, her airways constricted, choking on her own blood and saliva.
There was a frantic rustle as Alexis burst from the bushes. She’d stayed put the whole time, maintaining discipline.
I love you, he thought.
Then he sprinted for the tree line, his Kalashnikov still raised.
Opal and his partner were gone.
They’d vanished into the woods, returning to the shadows.
Slater retreated, and didn’t lower his aim until he was back alongside Antônia and Alexis, out of range of a long shot from the M45 pistol. Only then did he drop his guard. Antônia was on her knees, panting. Alexis had wiped the blood and mud from her face, exposing the pale skin underneath. She looked like she was seconds from passing out.
She hunched forward in the muck and vomited, then gasped with relief.
She could breathe again.
Slater hauled her to her feet, handed her to Alexis, and guided them deep into the archaeological site, putting buildings between them and the jungle. They rounded the corner of a set of preserved ruins and came face to face with two shadowy figures.
Slater’s heart dropped and he whipped the Kalashnikov up.
It was King and Violetta.
She had her arms around his mid-section, supporting his considerable weight. His glassy eyes stared vacantly. He was bloodied, bruised, swollen.
Just because they were allies instead of hunters, the dread didn’t leave Slater. He soaked in the damage done to his brother-in-arms and a lump formed in his throat.
He said, ‘What happened?’
King smiled with delirium, his teeth crimson. ‘I got one.’
Slater soaked it in.
Then he said, ‘So there’s only two left.’
Alexis said, ‘We need to go. Now.’
64
As they all headed for the other side of the archaeological site, they filled each other in.
King told them everything he’d been through, still in a semi-conscious haze. Each sentence was punctuated by sharp winces as he fought his own internal battle to hold himself together. He left no detail out.
The giant Diamond lumbering out of the tree line.
‘You’re out, right?’
Then the fight.
Slater said, ‘Matches what Spinel did in Vegas.’
King couldn’t quite put it together. Pain dominated his senses, clouding his critical thinking. ‘Huh?’
‘He attacked me with his bare hands,’ Slater said. ‘Didn’t pull his piece. Didn’t want the murkiness of a gunfight, potshotting each other from behind cover. Maybe Diamond swayed him into his way of thinking, or vice versa. When else would they get the opportunity to face opposition like us? They wanted the test. The purity of hand-to-hand.’
Violetta said, ‘Well, they got it.’
Her words carried weight.
She’d seen what King had done.
The violence he’d unleashed.
<
br /> Slater took a deep breath. ‘So there’s two left. And I know their faces.’
They made it to the western edge of the site, to another tree line far from where they’d first entered Joya de Cerén. Alexis and Violetta supported most of King’s weight as Antônia swept the forest ahead with the AK-47 Alexis had handed her. Its curved magazine was full. In the confrontation with Opal and Topaz, Slater hadn’t expended a single round. Slater himself brandished the MEU(SOC) taken off Diamond’s corpse. He preferred it to the bulkier rifle, so he’d given Antônia the Kalashnikov. The pistol was chambered with seven .45 ACP rounds.
Rounds the dead idiot Diamond should have used, whether it made a difference to the end result or not.
‘I think there’s a road through here,’ Antônia said.
She and Slater covered the vulnerable trio from behind, practically shoulder-to-shoulder. She was hurt from Opal’s punishment, but she’d pulled herself together as soon as she’d caught her breath. Superficial injuries were one thing; a lack of air was another. She was almost fully functional.
When they made it to an asphalt road winding through the countryside near Joya de Cerén, they all spotted a car screaming toward them.
Slater went to raise the MEU(SOC), every sense firing.
Antônia put a hand on his arm, lowering his aim. ‘It’s not them. It looks like site security. I’d wager the ruins are owned and protected by the State.’
Sure enough, the vehicle — another old pickup truck with a government logo on the side — skidded to a halt on the road before them.
A well-intentioned but foolish employee in a khaki uniform leapt out of the driver’s seat before he’d spotted the guns.
Responding to the cacophony of noise from the archaeological site.
‘¿Qué—?’ he began in Spanish, then saw Antônia’s Kalashnikov and froze.
Slater sighed. Raised his MEU(SOC) and pointed it at the man’s centre mass. ‘Just stay there. Don’t move.’
His words were understandable even if the man didn’t speak a lick of English.
Alexis and Violetta helped King into the back seat, then climbed in themselves. Antônia got behind the wheel. Slater kept his aim on the now-soaked security guard until all his companions were in the vehicle, then jumped in the passenger seat.
‘Sorry,’ he said to the guy. ‘The State will buy you a new one.’
He slammed the door.
Antônia floored it away, leaving the guard statuesque in the middle of the road, frozen in the storm.
65
They were ten miles out from Santa Ana when King first vocalised his pain.
He moaned under his breath.
Until then, his eyes had remained shut, his face contorting as each bump in the road drilled into his destroyed body. Slater sat in nauseating silence, aware how bad it must be if it generated that sort of reaction out of Jason King.
Finally, it became too much, and the noise escaped his lips.
Violetta pulled him tighter into her embrace, trying to dissipate much of the bumping and rattling, but it was futile.
Antônia shook her head and unzipped a wide leather pouch in the utility belt at her waist. She pulled out an unmarked bottle of pills and tossed them over her shoulder, into Violetta’s lap behind her.
Violetta said, ‘What are they?’
‘OxyContin. He needs it.’
Slater glanced sideways at Antônia. ‘You use them for pain?’
‘Something like that,’ she mumbled, unwilling to go into the details.
He didn’t respond, but he knew what she meant.
The dark side of addiction — a realm he was all too familiar with.
King grunted again, eyes forced shut. His face was pale.
Antônia looked in the rear-view mirror. ‘What are you waiting for?’
Violetta looked unsure, hesitant.
Slater twisted in his seat and stared at her until she lifted her gaze to meet his.
He said, ‘It’s okay. He’s not me.’
Violetta nodded her understanding.
Slater’s hardline abstinence toward drugs of any kind was entirely because he couldn’t control himself. When he did anything, he was all-in, whether it be physical training or the consumption of substances. He’d gone cold turkey sober from everything back when he first met Alexis, sick of training like a demon all day only to drink like a demon all night.
Alexis said, ‘What if we get ambushed again?’
‘We won’t,’ Antônia said, her tone determined. ‘I swear on my life, I’ll make you all invisible.’
She’d evidently assumed personal responsibility for the mess at Joya de Cerén.
‘But if we do,’ Alexis said, forcing the issue, ‘we’ll need Jason coherent.’
Slater asked, ‘You think he’ll be more useful without painkillers in him? Look at him.’
They were so fixated on the conversation, they didn’t realise King was smiling with his eyes closed, exposing crimson-stained teeth.
Violetta said, ‘What is it?’
He murmured, ‘You don’t think I can handle a couple more Oxys?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Antônia, what dosage are these?’
‘Ten milligrams. Give him two.’
‘Three,’ King mumbled.
‘Two,’ Violetta said. ‘You need another one later, you take it.’
He conceded. She shook two small white pills into her palm and pressed them through his lips. He swallowed them dry with a single gulp. Then he lapsed into stoic silence, waiting for them to kick in.
Slater turned his attention to Antônia. ‘You okay?’
‘My nose is broken.’
‘Join the club.’
Along with King and Slater’s swollen noses, now there were more people in the car with cracked septums than without.
He said, ‘How’s your chest?’
‘My windpipe’s killing me,’ she said. ‘I think I did internal damage trying to get my breath back. But I’ll be fine.’
‘What happened?’
She sighed. ‘I was buried under some foliage. Had my knife and my piece on me. But, like I said, I’m from Alonzo’s side of the secret world. Clearly I know nothing about the other side. I thought I could handle myself. Then that Opal guy was right on top of me, and I didn’t even realise until he stood on me, flipped me over, put a gun in my face. They disarmed me, went to shoot me. I guess I accepted it. I think I closed my eyes, but it’s hard to remember. Then he hit me in the face, broke my nose, and before I realised what was happening the other one front-kicked me in the chest. I thought he’d stopped my heart. I couldn’t breathe. Opal shoved me toward the ruins and told me to run. Told me to scream, or he’d shoot me. I would have shouted regardless. I was trying to get my breath back…’
She trailed off, trying to hold it together.
He could see how the recitation affected her. She was rattled to the core. Her life as a solo operative relied on self-confidence instilled by ruthless training. She had to think, had to know, that she was the best. Then the hunters had toyed with her, manhandled her, used her as bait. They were fellow countrymen, but it was terrifying to know there was someone twice as good out there, someone who could put a bullet in your head whenever they pleased.
Fellow countrymen, Slater realised.
His insides tightened.
He said, ‘I’m sorry.’
She glanced over. ‘For what?’
‘Now they know.’
She nodded. ‘Looks like you four aren’t the only ones who need to disappear anymore.’
Slater thought hard. His stomach twisted tighter. ‘Can they trace it back to Alonzo?’
Antônia was already pale. Her lips were a hard line. She didn’t answer.
From the back, Violetta said, ‘I don’t think it matters.’
Slater turned in his seat. ‘What?’
Her eyes were solemn. ‘I’ve called him twice since we touched down. He hasn’t answered. He always a
nswers. No matter what.’
Slater bowed his head.
66
Violetta said, ‘We have to assume the worst. That he was caught trying to make us invisible at McCarran. Which ended up serving no purpose anyway, because they were already on us.’
Alexis said, ‘If they were already on us, it explains why he was caught.’
Violetta put her head in her hands. The adrenaline of the firefight at Joya de Cerén had worn off, replaced by the weight of ruining the lives of everyone that had helped them.
Antônia said, ‘We’ll sort this out.’
Slater didn’t like foolish optimism. He ignored the reassurance, and no one spoke.
They covered the rest of the distance to Santa Ana without a word. The quiet in the truck was morbid. By the time they crawled into the south of the city, the storm had receded, leaving humid dampness in its wake. Many of the streets in the cramped barrios were flooded, but the gutters and uneven sidewalks teemed with Salvadorans regardless. These people had to be out here; they weren’t afforded the luxury of being able to sit at home in adverse weather.
Antônia said, ‘My place is up north. We’ll bunker down there and sort this mess out.’
Slater voiced the obvious. ‘If America knows you’re sheltering us, they’ll feed the hunters that intel. They’ll come straight for us.’
‘They don’t know where I’m staying. I handled my own logistics.’
‘They let you do that?’
‘Sometimes I don’t give them the option. You remember your time in service. The leeway you were afforded. The best get the best treatment.’
‘They might still know.’
She shook her head. ‘When I tell them I’m doing it my way, I do it my way. I paid three weeks’ rent in cash. There isn’t a trace of digital record.’
Slater rested back, satisfied for now.
He heard Violetta murmur something in King’s ear, then repeat it a little louder.
Then she said, ‘Jason?’
Loud.
Slater knew something wasn’t right.
He turned to look. King’s head was lolled back, his eyes now half-open. They were milky and unfocused, gazing around in primitive wonder.
