Hunters

by Matt Rogers

  The two men screamed and screamed until one of the snipers blew their heads off, spacing his two 7.62mm rounds only a second apart.

  Dark blood and brain matter sprayed the windshield of the first vehicle in the convoy.

  The body of the first man slumped in the middle of 5th Avenue, and the second slapped the Chrysler’s windshield as he slid down the hood like a ragdoll.

  Carnage erupted.

  The fourth vehicle in the convoy wasted no time. It was the ride that housed the valuable goods, so its driver was most on edge. The convoy had barely made it a hundred feet down 5th, so all he had to do was pull a sharp U-turn onto the sidewalk and gun it back the way they’d come. Pedestrians had scattered at the sound of automatic gunfire and sniper rounds, and an eerie chorus of civilian screams echoed down 5th.

  The fourth car reached the mouth of the alley it had spewed forth from, and the driver ripped the handbrake and twisted the wheel so the alley could swallow it again without the SUV losing any momentum.

  Tyre smoke rose in plumes as it drifted into the alleyway, retreating fast for the bay it had emerged from.

  Lockdown procedures.

  When the smoke whispered away, the sniper with the better vantage point spotted a bulky silhouette spread-eagled on the roof, gripping the meagre handholds for dear life.

  Fuck, his brain screamed.

  He went for his throat mike and shouted a warning into it, but by then it was too late.

  81

  The guard nodded politely to King.

  It was an automatic reaction to the chef’s uniform.

  The man was skinny-fat. He had noodles for arms yet his gut hung over his belt. He was probably in his late forties, and King had to wonder just how idiotic Fabio Torres was with his approach to his own security. It reeked of nepotism. Maybe this physically unimposing specimen was an old friend, facing tough times, in need of gainful employment. Maybe Torres had helped him out. ‘Work for me, friend. All you have to do is walk around the ground floor. No one will make it past the perimeter cordon anyway.’

  But someone had.

  The guard’s nod froze at its lowest point as he computed King’s facial features and didn’t find a match. There was a half-second of disbelief, his motor functions pausing as he thought, Oh, shit.

  By that point King was already in his face. He’d released the tray as soon as he’d burst forward and it clattered to the rug as he looped his arm around the back of the man’s neck. He wrenched the guy forward. The guard was going for his gun but it was far too late. He found himself trapped in King’s one-armed clinch, and now their faces were separated by inches.

  He went to shout for help.

  King headbutted him in the mouth, knocking his two front teeth out. The guard’s knees buckled but King knew that was going to happen, so the next headbutt found the mark square on the guy’s nose, breaking it. King knew his forehead was like a bat at close range, so he used it twice more, thudding it into the guard’s own forehead as the man sunk down to the rug.

  King knew he had a harder head and a higher pain tolerance.

  King ripped the phone out of the unconscious guard’s belt, tossed it aside, and dragged him back into the kitchen by the collar. He kept a two-finger grip on the pistol and dragged the body with his other three fingers, all his sinew straining. He dumped the unconscious man in front of the cool room door and pulled it open with his free fingers.

  He came face to face with the terrified chef, shivering between two butchered cows suspended on meat hooks.

  Torres must like his steak.

  King said, ‘You have a visitor. When this guy wakes up, reassure him. But make sure he stays in here with you. You know what I’ll do if I see either of you.’

  A scared nod from the chef.

  King dragged the guard over the threshold and shut the door on both of them.

  He shook out the lactic acid in his arm, then left the kitchen again.

  82

  Slater had leapt from the cover of a newspaper stand into the mouth of the alleyway two seconds before the target SUV came roaring up the sidewalk.

  He’d pressed his back to the brick wall just inside the alley, narrowly avoiding getting run over by the speeding vehicle.

  When it screeched past, slowing only a touch, he burst forward and leapt.

  It never goes as smooth as it does in the movies.

  He’d got one hand cupped over the right-hand roof ridge before he slammed into the side of the vehicle, but he used the momentum to brute-force his way atop the car. Adrenaline overwhelmed the pain, but he knew one whole side of his body would be bruised the next morning from the way it went instantly numb. The vehicle had been sliding sideways as he dived onto it and when it corrected course he nearly rolled off the other side. He came inches away from careening head-first off the top before he seized hold of the left-hand ridge and pressed himself between them.

  This was the most dangerous part.

  He needed both hands free to hang on, and if any of the occupants buzzed their windows down and came up with automatic rifles, he’d be dead. But the drift into the alley had been chaotic, frantic, intense, and the SUV had grazed both walls on the way in, so the bump of Slater impacting the side of the car could be chalked up to banging against the side of the alley.

  The SUV went forty miles an hour down the claustrophobic laneway until it screamed to a stop in front of the closed bay doors. Slater heard hoarse shouting through the roof he was gripping. The occupants of the vehicle were screaming commands into their radios, demanding the roller doors be lifted again. They’d only just come down after spitting out the convoy a minute earlier, and mechanical procedures couldn’t be expedited.

  With a groan, the doors started inching upward.

  Muffled to a dull murmuring through the reinforced roof, Slater heard one occupant shout, ‘Fuck this! Out!’

  All four doors burst open, and black-ops killers manhandled their prisoner out of the vehicle, ready to duck under the slowly-ascending roller door.

  Slater looked down as the prisoner looked up.

  He met the gaze of Alonzo Romero.

  83

  Torres wrapped the Versace bathrobe around his short fat frame and toddled out of the en suite bathroom.

  Warm air snaked out after him. Despite the weather, he’d needed the scalding hot shower, if only for to kickstart his brain by exposing himself to something shocking. He needed his head clear so he could think over the morning meet. Cártel de Texis would be none too happy. He knew who he was meeting with. He also knew how the cartel head handled bad news.

  It wouldn’t be pretty.

  He was halfway to the four-poster bed where his clothes for the day were laid out when he felt the barrel against the back of his neck.

  He froze.

  84

  Slater slid off the roof, using all his two hundred pounds as deadweight.

  He simply crushed the man who had a grip on Alonzo’s collar, landing with both boots on the top of the guy’s skull, driving his head down into the filthy pavement. The man’s fingers hooked into Alonzo’s collar, dragging the prisoner down with him.

  Alonzo cried out from pain and shock.

  Slater was already inside the SUV, diving into the rear seats and scrambling out the other side, moving with the haste of a rabid animal.

  It all happened fluidly, and he stayed alive because he was almost prescient to the way men move in combat.

  He came down on his side outside the vehicle, on the opposite side to Alonzo, just as the three remaining operatives ran round to investigate the cause of Alonzo’s shouting. Two went round the trunk, and one went round the hood. They missed Slater in their peripheral vision by milliseconds, and when they came upon Alonzo and their incapacitated colleague, the pair were alone.

  ‘Wha—?’ one of the men started, then Slater shot him from underneath the SUV.

  Thankfully, no one wears Kevlar on their ankles.

  He pumped the HK
45CT’s trigger twice more, and obliterated an Achilles tendon on each of the last unscathed pair.

  All three operatives took a knee, scrabbling in rapidly broadening puddles of their blood, and one had the good sense to lower his HK416 rifle so the barrel pointed below the undercarriage of the SUV and pull the trigger.

  At least a dozen rounds spewed out of the automatic weapon.

  They would have torn Slater to shreds, only he wasn’t there anymore.

  He was back in the rear seats, moving like a man possessed, and he came back out Alonzo’s side and crash-tackled the man who had his HK416 lowered underneath the car. He drove the guy down into the pavement, making sure all his weight was leaning on the side of the man’s head as it hit the ground. It knocked him clean out, and Slater dragged his unconscious body upright by the collar and used him as a human shield as he trained his pistol on the last two men.

  One of them was pale as a sheet, already deep in shock, gripping his carbine like he had no idea how to use the weapon. His ankle fountained blood, and he couldn’t take his eyes off it.

  The second had his wits together, but Slater locked his aim on the guy’s forehead.

  ‘Drop it,’ he snarled. ‘You’ll hit your friend here if you shoot.’

  The guy almost raised the MP5 submachine gun in his gloved hands, but didn’t. He was blue-eyed, sandy-haired, young. Maybe mid-twenties. Likely a prodigy in the special ops world, just as Slater had been ten years ago.

  He was lucid as he said, ‘You’ll just kill me.’

  ‘Have I killed anyone yet?’

  The guy blinked. ‘You’re—’

  ‘Yes. I’m Will Slater. Now drop it. And take a long hard look at your employers.’

  The guy didn’t waste another second, because he was smart. He recognised that, for Slater, this standoff had to be over in a matter of seconds. Either Slater would be forced to kill, or he wouldn’t.

  The operative chose to live another day.

  He dropped the MP5.

  Slater hurled the unconscious body aside and charged at the remaining pair. He thrust a boot heel into the face of the man who was in shock, snapping his head back and separating him from consciousness. Then he twisted at the hips and thundered the toe of the boot into the side of the blue-eyed man’s head.

  Nothing personal.

  Only business.

  Alonzo opened his mouth, as if he were about to say, ‘You made it.’

  He didn’t get the opportunity.

  Slater grabbed him by the collar and hauled him into an adjacent laneway, because he knew reinforcements would be descending on Bay 2 in moments.

  There’s a time and a place for extraneous conversation, and this wasn’t it.

  Back in El Salvador, Violetta had hacked into the New York Department of City Planning, pulling up the plans for the buildings directly surrounding the black hole that was the government skyscraper. Everything concerning the skyscraper itself had been redacted, but Slater hadn’t needed those plans. He’d memorised what he needed to do, so now he shouldered a flimsy back door open, snapping its lock.

  He shoved Alonzo through into a supply back room for a still-closed department store. He sprinted past metal racks of inventory — fast-fashion clothing in neat plastic packaging — and made it to the alarm panel, where he entered the code Violetta had fed him.

  4021.

  The blinking warning light went green, and the alarm never went off.

  Alonzo had the common sense to shut the door that they’d come through, sealing them off from the adjacent laneway, but he slid down it as soon as it was closed, panting for breath.

  Slater said, ‘Pull yourself together.’

  Alonzo gulped, his curly brown hair knotted and damp with sweat. He wore a plain grey jumpsuit, and his wrists were cuffed.

  He shook himself back to reality, then asked, ‘We’re going out through the front?’

  ‘This shopfront faces 5th Avenue,’ Slater said. ‘It’ll be bedlam.’

  ‘Then we’re fucked. They’ll have this building surrounded.’

  Slater shook his head. ‘There’s dozens of buildings we could have gone into, and there’s no better place to evade capture than Manhattan. Hard for them to be discreet with thousands of witnesses.’

  Alonzo blinked hard, fighting to centre himself. ‘Okay. So we make it out of here. Then what?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Slater said. ‘Sooner or later they’ll get us, somewhere in the Greater New York region. We need an ace up our sleeve.’

  ‘Do we have one?’

  ‘Let’s hope so. That’s King’s job.’

  ‘Where’s King? And the girls?’

  ‘Back in El Salvador.’

  Alonzo blinked again. ‘You came alone?’

  Slater nodded.

  ‘What are they doing back there?’ Alonzo asked.

  ‘Gaining leverage.’

  Alonzo stared.

  Slater said, ‘So we have a whole country on our side.’

  Alonzo put his head in his hands. ‘What have you done?’

  Slater said, ‘When we get out, we’re going to the Consulate General of El Salvador.’

  85

  King kept his voice low, making sure it evoked terror. ‘A man with your wealth needs better security.’

  Torres registered the American accent, and went paler still. ‘Oh, God. No. Please. Please, sir. I did what your friend asked! I released you! Oh my God, my family. My children. No…’

  King had seen the worst the world had to offer, and he’d still never met a man as scared as Torres. Again, he wondered, What did Antônia threaten to do?

  ‘She’s not my friend,’ King snarled. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

  Torres’ lips flapped but no sound followed. He was both battling not to succumb to a panic attack and trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

  King said, ‘Don’t think. Don’t talk. Listen.’

  Torres appeared almost relieved. He nodded, still physically tense.

  King said, ‘You’re going to spend the rest of your life as a slave to America. Everything they want, everything they need, you’re going to give them. You’ll go to the grave as a coward who succumbed to fear, who served your masters until they grew tired of you and dispensed with you. And that might be sooner than you think. Texis will kill you for what you’re going to tell them.’

  Torres didn’t respond.

  King said, ‘Is that what you want?’

  ‘I have no choice.’

  ‘Now you do.’

  ‘Antônia…’

  ‘I’ve dealt with Antônia. You help me, and then you go back to serving Texis. You keep your life, your wealth, your freedom.’

  Antônia’s still out there, he thought, but you don’t need to know that, Fabio.

  Torres’ relief was visible on his face. The very thought that Antônia might no longer be in the picture nearly brought him to his knees. His whole body began to shake. Tears leaked out of their ducts and rolled down his cheeks.

  King was flabbergasted. ‘What did she tell you she was going to do?’

  Torres shook his head, his teeth rattling, as if even vocalising it would make him violently sick.

  King said, ‘I can make you help me. Just like Antônia made you help her. But I want you to want it. That’s the difference between me and her. I want you to help me out of trust, not fear.’

  Torres hesitated. Then he bristled, like he was going to do something drastic. Scream for help, or try to run…

  King switched gears. ‘Okay. Have it your way.’

  He took the gun away from Torres’ head. When Torres went to run, King kicked his legs out, using his shin to knock one knee into the other. Torres went down hard, slamming his face on the carpet. King snatched him up and dragged him to the side of the four-poster bed like he weighed nothing.

  There is an unmatched physical intimidation in being dragged around at will.

  The helplessness.

  You feel like a
twig, like you can be snapped at any moment.

  King pressed his three free fingers into Torres’ throat, pinned his head back against the bed frame, then let go and took a proper grip on the pistol as he pressed it hard into the man’s forehead.

  Torres spluttered, choking.

  ‘That’s it, then,’ King said. ‘You die right here.’

  He abandoned trigger discipline and slipped a finger inside the trigger guard.

  Torres squealed like a pig. An inhuman sound.

  King stopped his finger millimetres off the trigger.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘All those threats Antônia made, those threats Cártel de Texis made, they’re for some future date. This is right here, right now. And you’re going to die. Are you ready for that?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘You’re absolutely not. Are you a religious man?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you’re facing infinite darkness. You’re staring it in the face. You’re so close to going there forever. Picture it, Fabio.’

  Torres wet himself. A dark stain appeared on the carpet, spreading rapidly outward.

  King said, ‘Where’s your phone?’

  ‘In my robe pocket.’

  ‘Not that phone. The emergency phone.’

  ‘Wha—?’

  ‘The one you’re supposed to use when everything goes to hell. For the worst case scenario.’

  His jaw slackened. ‘How did you know—?’

  King said, ‘All men like you have one of those. You didn’t get here without some serious connections. You’re going to call the President of this beautiful country.’

  Torres’ face scrunched up.

  King said, ‘Don’t tell me you don’t have his line.’

  ‘I have it. But...’

  Silence.

  King waited for the urine-scented man to elaborate.

  Torres took a deep breath. ‘It depends what you need done.’

  ‘Right now, two men are arriving at the Consulate of El Salvador in New York. America considers them dangerous, wanted men, and they would very much like to get their hands on them. Your President is going to place a call to our President, informing him that if U.S. troops storm the consulate you will consider it an act of war and retaliate accordingly.’