Hunters

by Matt Rogers

  King said, ‘Shit.’

  Slater said, ‘What’s he talking about?’

  Violetta tucked the phone away. ‘We used to work in the same building, once upon a time. There’s designated floors for … detainees. If they’ve branded him a traitor and taken him in, they’ll be storing him there until they cart him off to a facility outside the boroughs so they can really go to work on him.’

  ‘And you know this how?’

  Violetta grimaced. ‘We’ve both seen it in action. Previous colleagues caught funnelling sensitive data to foreign intelligence agencies. We know what they do with traitors. The burn-off period, where they keep them in the very building in which they work until they’ve sorted out the mess left behind. Then what comes later, after they’re extracted. The real punishment…’

  ‘What happened to the other traitors?’

  ‘They became an example.’

  She looked at the floor, unwilling to explain.

  ‘No way that’s happening to Alonzo,’ Slater said. ‘No fucking way.’

  Violetta shook her head and turned away. She muttered, ‘This is exactly why I didn’t want to discuss this right now.’

  ‘You want to leave him to die? Painfully? Slowly? After everything he’s done for us?’

  ‘We don’t have a choice!’ Violetta yelled, turning back. ‘We can’t show our faces here in El Salvador, let alone the country we fled from. You’re concussed, King’s functionally useless, I’m pregnant, and Alexis—’

  She cut herself off instantly, but they all knew where she was going.

  Alexis said, ‘You can say it. I’m inexperienced.’

  Violetta sighed. ‘I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. You’re already a better fighter than I am. I’m just stressed.’

  ‘We all are,’ Slater said.

  ‘I’m not,’ King muttered. ‘But it’s the drugs. When they wear off…’

  ‘Which won’t be long,’ Slater said. ‘And look what I have.’

  He pulled out the intel folder he’d taken from the safe house and perused it wordlessly. No one interrupted. They didn’t have the energy. Violetta and Alexis slumped at the kitchen table with glasses of water, and King sat back and closed his eyes.

  Staring at the mess of files, Slater fought back a wave of intrusive thoughts.

  Just give it up. Rest. Breathe. Forget about Alonzo. Worry about yourself.

  But he’d never listened to intrusive thoughts, and he wasn’t about to start now.

  He soaked in the intel, eyes progressively widening as he realised the bombshells that lay on the pages in front of him.

  Violetta finally looked up and noticed his expression. ‘You got something?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Slater said. ‘Antônia had serious dirt on the people she was competing for Torres with.’

  Violetta hesitated. ‘Cártel de Texis?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘What dirt?’

  Slater said, ‘Enough to make them do whatever we want them to.’

  Alexis said, ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘Deadly.’

  King winced and blinked in an attempt to muster the energy to speak. Then he managed, ‘I’m in no state … to do anything … right now.’

  ‘I know,’ Slater said. ‘So I’ll go. Alone.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Alonzo risked his career, his freedom, and his life for us,’ Slater said. ‘He asked for nothing in return. He did what Antônia pretended to do — he acted selflessly. And everyone he turned to for help stabbed him in the back. He fed us into the hands of another hunter because he still believed in the idea of human decency. I’m not letting a man like that suffer and die. It’s just not happening.’

  He didn’t care what King and Violetta thought of his stance. The only reason he was vocalising his case was to convince the love of his life.

  He lifted his eyes to Alexis, and saw there was no resistance in hers.

  She said, ‘Of course.’

  He smiled.

  Violetta said, ‘I hate being the bitch, but someone needs to point out the obvious. You smuggle yourself back stateside, you directly attack a government black site — probably getting yourself killed in the process — and on the off chance that works, you and Alonzo become the most wanted men in the country with no way to get yourself back here. It’s literal suicide. I’m all for heroism, but there’s selflessness and then there’s getting yourself killed for nothing but nobility. Which doesn’t help Alonzo in the slightest.’

  Slater held up the last sheet in Antônia’s intel folder. ‘There’s a way for all of this to work. All we need is the resources.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘She had a backup plan. In case seducing Torres didn’t work. Here are clear, explicit instructions on how to get into his estate. Past the holes in his security perimeter, through the blind spots, straight to his bedroom.’

  Silence.

  Slater felt the buoyancy of excitement pulling him out of the energy slump. ‘This is going to work, because you three are going to get Fabio Torres. Then we’ll have a whole goddamn country behind us.’

  Violetta thought it through.

  A devilish smile played at her lips.

  There was a chance, no matter how small.

  Then her brow furrowed.

  ‘Antônia will know what information she left behind when she fled. She’ll tell Opal and Topaz. There’s still three hunters out there who’ll be able to predict exactly what we’re going to do.’

  King said, ‘As soon as these painkillers wear off … I’ll get every last one of them. Even if I have to do it with one arm.’

  Slater said, ‘So let’s go.’

  76

  The airfield was in a lawless dead zone west of Santa Ana, close to the Guatemalan border.

  Deep in the jungle, where survival of the fittest reigned supreme.

  There were many of those zones in El Salvador, but even the common criminals and gangsters knew there were particular regions you didn’t traipse into if you remotely enjoyed being alive.

  It was nothing impressive, but it didn’t need to be. An uneven runway overrun with weeds, surrounded by choking tree lines on all sides, and a couple of industrial-sized warehouses on either side to temporarily store product. Sicarios for Cártel de Texis patrolled the perimeter, keeping a keen eye out for antagonists, but they were sloppy. They believed in the might of their network, pumped up by the false confidence of the automatic weapons in their hands. They thought that made them invincible.

  Slater made it past the outer perimeter guards without so much as a hackle raised.

  He could have killed them all, but conserving energy was more important than exacting wrath on these thugs, and it would serve him well to make it to his destination without racking up a body count.

  He would be in a better position to negotiate if he didn’t enrage them from the get-go by leaving bodies in his wake.

  He came up on the airfield like a ghost in the cloudy early afternoon, and surveyed the men on the tarmac from a distance.

  There were eight of them, all heavy-hitters. Decked out in combat gear, wielding carbines and automatic rifles. There were HKs and Kalashnikovs and even a couple of M4s. Serious stuff, but they didn’t look so serious to Slater. They looked mean and scary, but that didn’t mean a thing at the highest levels. It was important for intimidating petty gangsters who didn’t know any better, but Slater knew Cártel de Texis had operated ruthlessly in Santa Ana and Chalatenango for at least two decades, and with a lack of competition comes a lack of urgency.

  Top dogs often get complacent.

  They were rusty for the simple reason that no one had challenged them lately.

  A Cessna 525 CitationJet sat on the runway and workers streamed towards it, their hands loaded with heavy duffel bags. Slater was under no illusions as to what was in them. They were packing the plane with drugs.

  He soaked it all in, made a decision, and executed.

 
He stepped out of the foliage and strode straight for the enforcers.

  He made sure they could see that his hands were empty, his demeanour calm. There was nothing more off-putting than total confidence in the face of a threat, so they didn’t bull rush him and shove him to the ground as they would to anyone else who walked toward them in the middle of a confidential meet.

  Slater identified the leader of the pack based on body language alone and stared at him as he walked across the deserted airfield.

  He came within twenty feet of them and stopped.

  The leader seemed like an ordinary Salvadoran guy, which was the point. The rest of the enforcers were psychotic killers, but the top dog went to the business meetings and the charity functions to cosy up to the socialites and the politicians.

  But there was still venom in those charismatic eyes.

  The guy took a long look at Slater, then motioned to one of his henchmen, who didn’t have to be so restrained.

  The psycho’s eyes went wide as he levelled his HK rifle at Slater’s head. High class modern weaponry. Top shelf. Cártel de Texis spared no expense.

  The leader said, ‘Make sure you have a good answer for this. Who are you?’

  Slater didn’t skip a beat. ‘If I don’t send the right code to my people within the hour, certain information will be made public regarding the location of every airfield you use to smuggle drugs out of El Salvador and into the United States. That includes the deals you have with law enforcement on my side of the border. I know everything.’

  The guy’s eyes went wide, but not from fear. There was a certain visceral excitement in his expression. He clearly thrived on tension. There was no chance he’d be in this line of work if he didn’t.

  He went slack-jawed. ‘This is incredible. Are you trying to blackmail us? Blackmail me?’

  Slater played it just as cocky, because making the man angry was the only way to make him see the light. ‘You speak as if you’re actually someone important.’

  The leader shot side-eyes at his henchmen, and scoffed. ‘He’s new, huh?’

  They nodded and smiled back like the obedient dogs they were.

  ‘You done?’ Slater said. ‘You ready to ask me what I want?’

  ‘I don’t care what you want. I couldn’t give any less of a shit about you, my ignorant friend. You will turn around and go back where you came from.’

  ‘But I won’t,’ Slater said, standing his ground. ‘That’s the truly unfortunate thing. I’m going to stand right here, and you can either shoot me, take me prisoner, or help me. Those are your only three options. If you do anything other than the third option, it’s goodbye to your smooth supply chain. You’ll be fighting with your competition for every airfield you have in this country. That’s bad for business. No one likes delays. You might even lose that war. Then you’re in a real tight spot.’

  ‘You know nothing,’ the leader said, but his eyes betrayed the slightest shift in the stone-cold mask.

  Slater didn’t take his eyes off the man when he said, ‘You move the largest quantities of product out of a private airfield along the Río Lempa, south of Azacualpa. Think of the damage if your competition is personally notified of that location. And that’s just one. I have them all. Trust me.’

  A long period of quiet.

  The henchman’s HK stayed locked on Slater’s face, but the barrel started to waver.

  Slater could have darted forward, wrenched it out of the man’s hands, and beaten him to death with it.

  But he didn’t.

  He just stayed put, and he didn’t blink.

  The leader’s voice wavered slightly as he said, ‘How many other airfields do I have?’

  ‘Twelve.’

  No pause, no hesitation.

  The leader said, ‘Where did you get this infor—?’

  Slater let fury into his eyes. ‘When did I say you could ask the questions? Now I need a concrete “yes” or “no.” Will you help me? Or will you turn me away and destroy yourself?’

  ‘I’ll help you.’

  ‘Good. If you think shooting me in the back of the head might be a good idea, you’ll seal your fate. If at any point you restrain me and try to get me to send the correct code, I’ll simply send the wrong one, and you’ll seal your fate. Any other questions?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  Slater gestured to the Cessna 525. ‘This plane must be going to the States. A man of your political influence wouldn’t have to smuggle your product through the border checkpoints. I know the deals you made.’

  A slow nod.

  Slater said, ‘Reroute it to your closest airfield to New York, and put me on it.’

  77

  Six hours later…

  The leader of the cartel had changed into a wool suit as soon as he boarded the Cessna.

  He’d chosen to accompany Slater stateside.

  Before they boarded he offered the name Garcia, but didn’t include a given name. Slater doubted the surname was real.

  Now, as the jet swooped down toward New Jersey, Garcia stared daggers at Slater from the opposite seat. All that rested between them was a fold-out walnut tabletop. They’d spent the entire flight in tense silence, which to Slater was the furthest thing from a problem. He was grateful to have a reprieve from the migraine that had plagued him ever since he’d been concussed at the Vegas estate. He didn’t close his eyes once, refusing to drop his guard in case the sicarios on board got brave and decided to do something about the imposing stranger holding them verbally hostage. Instead he focused on his breathing, deepening each inhalation until his heart rate was at its lowest.

  He’d maintained the near-meditative state for hours, and renewed life began to return to his exhausted muscles.

  The Cessna descended toward a small public-use airport near Eagleswood consisting of a single long runway surrounded by thick forest. Garcia’s backroom political deals enabled him to use the airport anonymously as an emergency backup, and by the look on Garcia’s face, Slater knew this little detour would cost Cártel de Texis some serious bribe money.

  Now Garcia interrupted the monastic quiet in the cabin, knowing his time with this mysterious stranger was coming to an end.

  He said, ‘Who are you?’

  Slater lifted his gaze to Garcia for the first time, even though they’d sat five feet apart for hours. ‘You must know whatever I say isn’t going to be true.’

  ‘You’re an American. You’re clearly trained. And you look like you’re half-asleep.’

  ‘I assure you I’m not.’

  ‘I know. What I’m saying is that this is nothing to you. There are hundreds of men that check the corners of their room each night before they go to bed, terrified I might be there waiting. So you are either delusional and have no idea who I am, or you understand and simply don’t care.’

  ‘The latter.’

  ‘So you have done things like this many times. You’re a seasoned operator. I’ve never met a man who kept as cool as you do who wasn’t insane.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘You are not insane. What are you here to do?’

  Slater didn’t answer. Just tilted the corners of his lips into a slight smirk.

  Garcia said, ‘Whatever you’re making with your private business, I can double it. I have plenty of use for a man like you.’

  Slater said, ‘I wouldn’t work with scum like you for all the money in the world.’

  Now it was Garcia’s turn to smirk. He wagged a finger. ‘That’s what I’m talking about. No one has insulted me to my face in years. I’m sure you are aware of that. And yet you do it without hesitation.’

  ‘I’ll keep doing it if it makes you shut your mouth.’

  Garcia became ice. His demeanour shifted, and there was total assuredness about it, like he knew it would invoke terror. But it didn’t. Slater didn’t so much as register a rise in his abnormally low heart rate.

&n
bsp; That put Garcia on the back foot. He cleared his throat. ‘So you’re a ruthless operator. You also think you have morals, if you choose not to associate yourself with “scum” like me. What are you, then?’

  ‘You’re not going to get the answers you want.’

  ‘You used to work for your country?’

  It was a decent guess, and maybe Slater’s eyes betrayed the truth, because Garcia smiled. ‘Yes, you did.’

  Slater sealed his lips.

  Garcia said, ‘So you think you are noble. You are an outcast, then, no? Like a cowboy. And now you are using me to get back into the country that threw you out. Do you know who I really am, boy? No, you must not. You must have convinced yourself I’m not so bad. So here you are…’

  He paused, and hunched forward. Slater didn’t recoil, or look away. He stared hard into Garcia’s eyes.

  The man said, ‘I supply meth and heroin to tens of thousands of junkies. Pregnant women, teenagers, you name it. I fuel their addictions with cheap product. Some of it is tainted, or too concentrated, and they OD. I don’t care. My cartel is responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths every year. We cleanse entire Salvadoran villages that don’t fall into line. Women. Children. They all go.’

  Slater knew exactly what Garcia was doing, but it didn’t make it any less uncomfortable.

  ‘By taking advantage of our resources,’ Garcia said, ‘you are no better than we are. You should rid yourself of this silly idea that you’re morally superior.’

  Slater said, ‘I know who I am.’

  ‘And what does that mean?’

  Slater took a long look at him. The ageing man was practically frothing at the mouth for an answer.

  Slater said, ‘You just don’t get it.’

  ‘What am I missing?’

  ‘The fact I don’t give a shit what you, or anyone on this plane, thinks about me. Go ahead. Try to convince me I’m scum of the earth.’

  Quiet.

  Slater said, ‘I know what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. Sometimes to get things done, compromises must be made.’