by Matt Rogers
Nothing.
Not a peep.
King said, ‘If you kill me, it doesn’t matter. You know that, right? You’re trapped in-country with no allies, and the whole military’s in our pocket. They’ll crush you like a bug.’
The response was a deafening cacophony of automatic gunfire from behind the barbecue.
It didn’t stop.
The carbine fired and fired and fired until it went dry, which only took a couple of seconds given the rate of expenditure.
King leapt up and vaulted back over the table again, despite everything telling him it was a trap. Truth was, it didn’t matter if the gunfire was a ruse to bait him. He had to take the opportunity regardless. Topaz had run his main firearm dry to lure King in, and even if he thought that might give him the element of surprise with a backup weapon poised and ready to fire, it still put him at a lesser capacity.
And if King gave him the time to reload a fresh magazine, they’d be back to the same stalemate which he had little hope of winning.
He rounded the barbecue, brandishing the MEU(SOC) one-handed, ready to fire at the slightest hint of human movement.
He found nothing.
Just the M4 carbine lying horizontally on the terrace floor, the barrel facing away from King. There was a half-toothpick jammed tight between the trigger and the opposite side of the guard, pinning the trigger down so it fired continuously until it ran out of cartridges to chew through.
Topaz was gone.
King put it together fast, because there were few options. He couldn’t have sprinted left or right — King would have seen it. So all that left was backwards, and King’s gaze darted up to find the window right behind the barbecue shattered. The dawn breeze blew the curtains inward, exposing a study with a giant fireplace.
Nobody inside.
Which meant…
King wheeled and saw Topaz vaulting over the lip of the balustrade once more, following the same sequence as before. Like he’d hit a giant reset button. Sweat coated his bulky frame. He’d moved at inhuman speed, going through the sitting room, out the eastern window, and down the side of the mansion, back to the eastern side of the terrace. It succeeded in throwing off the rhythm of the standoff, getting King out of position, but the brute hadn’t been anticipating King’s reaction time.
King doubted Topaz had ever come up against someone with identical reflexes.
King fired three rounds at Topaz, who fired back with a smaller pistol of his own.
Once again, chaos.
But when King pulled the trigger a fourth time, he found his gun dry.
Of course, he remembered. Seven-round mag.
He wasn’t used to such a cumbersome sidearm.
Luckily, Topaz was no longer there.
He could have fallen back off the balustrade out of sheer shock, but it was more likely he’d been hit. King only had to register that he was unhurt, and after that it all became simple. Not easy, but straightforward. Topaz’s shots had been wild spray-and-pray, so they hadn’t found their target, because he was more focused on traversing the balustrade without falling flat on his face. He’d fired in motion, and it hadn’t worked.
But now King was unarmed, and if he went for the carbine on Opal’s corpse at the foot of the staircase, Topaz could pull himself together and retreat.
That wasn’t acceptable.
So King hurled himself over the balustrade, knowing it was only a seven or eight foot drop to the garden bed.
Also knowing he had a landing pad.
He landed feet-first on Topaz’s chest, his two hundred and twenty pounds of bodyweight picking up brutal speed on the short descent, aided by the pull of gravity.
He crushed Topaz’s sternum, possibly stopping the man’s heart, and the brute wheezed a spluttering moan.
King fell to his knees beside the man, and seized Topaz’s throat with his good hand, pinning the man in place as he searched him for signs of the bullet wounds that had sent him sprawling back.
He didn’t find any.
All he found was a crushed pancake of a round, embedded in the centre of Topaz’s Kevlar vest.
No mortal injury.
Only enough force to propel him backward off the balustrade.
Topaz’s eyes came open.
King thought, No way. I crushed his chest.
He had. But that didn’t seem to stop Topaz reaching out with huge gloved hands. They found King’s left arm and grabbed him by the wrist and yanked hard, aggravating all the damage inside his forearm and elbow, all the torn muscle and torched nerve endings.
King didn’t cry out, too overwhelmed by the pain. His grip around Topaz’s throat slackened, passing from his mind completely. His only priority, the only thing that mattered at all, was to get his left arm free. It was like Topaz was holding a blowtorch to his muscles under the surface of his skin.
He tugged his arm away, and more agony seized him, but he got free.
Then Topaz used the momentum to reverse the position, scrambling up and pinning King to the ground.
He grinned through bloody teeth. He wasn’t cut in his mouth or on his lips. The blood had risen up his throat, coming from somewhere internal. He was grievously wounded. Maybe his heart was already starting to fail.
It didn’t stop him.
King fought to move, but he was weakened beyond comprehension. He couldn’t move his left arm an inch.
He’d lost all feeling in the limb.
Topaz locked eyes with King, and his gaze said, You’re right. I won’t make it out. You won’t either.
He wrapped his hands around King’s throat.
Started to squeeze.
King almost welcomed it.
Mere feet away, Violetta said, ‘Stop.’
102
King was barely lucid as he made out Violetta’s form floating on the lawn, clad in a stunning dress.
There was a giant assault rifle in her hands, its stock pressed to her shoulder, one of her eyes squeezed shut as she aimed down the sight.
It was Opal’s M4.
Topaz didn’t loosen his grip. In fact, he squeezed harder. He pressed his body to King’s, so there was no gap between their torsos, uncomfortably close. From that position, prone like a snake, he craned his neck to look up at Violetta.
For the first time, he spoke. It came out as a hoarse whisper, his face only inches from King’s. ‘You better be a good shot, pretty lady. A good shot. You miss by an inch, the bullet goes straight through me and into your man.’
Violetta didn’t answer.
King tried to hold it together, but Topaz’s grip was ironlike. He spluttered for breath, and saliva spilled out each side of his mouth. When he tried to inhale, Topaz pressed harder, steadily crushing his windpipe. Ounce by miserable ounce, the pressure piled on.
It got as bad as it could possibly get, and then it got worse.
Topaz was a rabid dog now, completely insane. He knew he would soon be dead, and he was going to take Jason King with him.
An eternal prize for the last hunter standing.
He’d carry the head of the most devastating operative in history with him into Valhalla.
It would give him a seat at the head of the table.
It had to.
In a strange southern accent King had never heard before, Violetta said, ‘You can have me, baby.’
‘What?’ Topaz snarled.
‘After you kill him, you can have me. As your reward. Because then you’ll be the apex predator. That’s what I like.’
Whatever Topaz had been expecting, it wasn’t that, so his eyes drifted up to see her for the first time. He noticed the curve of her wide hips under the dress, the way it sat off-the-shoulder, exposing her cleavage. It had been a long time since he’d been rewarded for anything.
Then he realised he was slacking, so he directed his attention back to King.
He hadn’t been distracted for more than a second.
But in that second King brought his useless
left arm up and wedged it against Topaz’s neck, just under the brute’s chin. King couldn’t even feel his own forearm, but he pushed anyway.
Pushed with the rage of survival.
It didn’t do much, but it forced Topaz’s head back awkwardly, and his grip loosened slightly on King’s throat.
King sucked in a breath of air. Savouring the oxygen, he worked his right arm free and used it to pile on the pressure, both forearms combining to form a solid barrier that tilted Topaz’s chin up by force. Topaz pushed back against King’s forearm with his own neck, because if he moved back with it, he’d lose top position, and with it his life. It was an impossible situation. He was fighting King’s solid arm bone with his own windpipe.
It presented his head on a platter.
Like he’d rested his jaw on King’s forearm, propping his face up as a target.
Violetta put a round right into the middle of that target, directly through one of the veins that strained on Topaz’s forehead.
The man died with a grimace of frustration on his face.
No final peace. No satisfaction.
Just a grimy, gritty, endless struggle, and then death.
Exactly what the brute deserved.
With no resistance against his forearms now, King pushed harder, and Topaz’s corpse toppled backward into the garden bed.
There it laid to rest.
King coughed to test his throat, and the rawness was agonising. Maybe there’d be tissue damage, but what mattered was that he could breathe. In a haze of disbelief and screaming nerve endings, he crawled to his knees, then levered to his feet, trying not to wobble.
Violetta was already there to support his weight.
King cast his eyes around the estate. ‘We got them.’
Violetta strained to support him, her shoulder in his armpit. ‘We did.’
Then King’s stomach sank, the dread overriding the hurt. ‘Where’s Alexis?’
‘Back at Vásquez’s.’
King grimaced, and not from the pain. ‘Dead?’
‘No,’ Violetta said. ‘I think…’
She trailed off.
King said, ‘What?’
She didn’t answer. She led him around the side of the terrace, to the front of the property, where the lawn was scattered with the dead of Torres’ security team.
‘Did you do all this?’ she asked.
‘No. Opal and Topaz showed up when I was with Torres. He ordered his guards to take them out.’
‘Looks like it worked.’
‘I only ever intended it as a distraction. But they killed Opal. Pumped him full of lead before he finished the last of them off. He died right here.’
Violetta had finished assisting him to the terrace steps, where he gently toed the body of the talkative hunter.
Violetta gazed down at the corpse, then lifted her eyes to the devastation all around them.
She said, ‘Every last one they sent after us. All gone.’
‘Not all,’ King muttered.
Violetta said, ‘Oh?’
‘Sapphire. We should have got her in her safe house. We didn’t. We failed.’
Violetta said, ‘Alexis got her.’
A long pause. ‘Where?’
‘At Vásquez’s. Just then.’
‘How?’
‘That’s why I didn’t answer before,’ Violetta said. ‘I think … well, I think Alexis might have more of a death wish than Will.’
‘That’s a stretch.’
‘You didn’t see what I saw.’
‘Is she okay?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Then what are we waiting for?’
Violetta said, ‘I thought you might need a moment.’
King wobbled away from her, reached down and ripped a Beretta M9 from underneath Opal’s shirt, pulling it out of the man’s appendix holster.
‘Need a moment?’ he asked. ‘Am I dead?’
‘No.’
‘Then I’m good.’
He started down the driveway for the front gate, already laser-focused.
She shook her head in disbelief and followed.
103
King commandeered the open-topped security jeep beside the front gatehouse.
There was no one alive to resist.
Bloodstains spattered one side of the khaki vehicle, evidence of the war that had taken place around it. King gazed out at the initial stretch of driveway leading up to the front gate, imagining Opal and Topaz emerging from the gloom, kitted up with heavy-duty firepower and body armour, demanding their presence be made known to Fabio Torres. Maybe they had a prior relationship with him through Antônia. Maybe they thought that bought them safety through fear. But reputation and expectation meant nothing when the billionaire had a gun pressed to his head, which is what they’d never imagined King would do.
They’d come here expecting nothing but compliance, and they’d paid for it with their lives.
But not before killing nearly twenty men.
King shook his head at the depravity of it all, and gave thanks the hunters were dead.
Violetta climbed aboard, and they left Torres’ estate.
It was a short beeline down the private road in this gated community, and then they were out the front of César Vásquez’s mansion.
For the first time Violetta noticed Vásquez’s house was set on a sloping hill, so they had to crane their necks to stare up at the bright lights.
King said, ‘You want to go in and get her? You know the place.’
‘I’ll need you,’ Violetta said. ‘I don’t want that old freak getting any smart ideas. And Alexis isn’t going to be in any condition to—’
She cut herself off as Vásquez’s front gate rumbled open, revealing a defensive line of his security standing almost shoulder-to-shoulder, protecting the estate.
King tensed up, his good hand on the wheel, wondering if he’d miscalculated and it’d all come crashing down because of a final betrayal from César Vásquez.
Then the line of guards parted in the middle and Alexis stumbled through.
She still wore her cocktail dress, half of it blood-soaked. Her hand was bandaged tight, with a crimson oval in the centre of the white cloth. But the bandaging was expertly done, applied by a medical professional. Maybe Vásquez had a doctor on hand. Her face was bruised and battered and her hair was everywhere, but she took great care in each foot she placed on the gently descending driveway. She made it through the gates and slumped in past the open frame of the jeep, dumping her weight on the seat behind the driver’s.
King twisted. ‘He let you go?’
She wiped a bloody smear off her lip, then nodded, her eyes half-closed. They still blazed green, but her energy was subdued.
She said, ‘I spooked him. I passed out briefly, but when I came to, he was hovering over me like a servant. I kept it together as best I could. Made requests, and his head of security patched me up. The guy was a combat medic in the military. Then he sent me on my way. Didn’t think about laying so much as a finger on me.’
The silence was strange. King could sense the disbelief radiating off Violetta.
Violetta said, ‘Spooked him how?’
‘He had a prior business arrangement with Antônia,’ Alexis said. ‘And by that I mean some kind of blackmail. Apparently she made it clear to him what her skillset was like, showed him videos of what she’d done to people who didn’t make her happy. Between him and Torres, she had most of the wealth in this country in her back pocket. But when I killed her, it mortified him. Turns out you do something utterly insane in front of someone, they don’t want to mess with you. He saw me catch the knife with my hand, then kill someone he thought was untouchable. After that … it was easy. He would have done anything I asked.’
King said, ‘Surely he knew he could kill you there.’
‘I’m sure he thought about it,’ she said. ‘I doubt he thought it was worth the risk in the end. He knew I had backup out here.’
�
�Did he know the state of your backup?’ Violetta said, gesturing to King, who could barely keep himself upright in the driver’s seat.
Alexis gazed at him. ‘I may have left that part out.’
King drove away from Vásquez’s place as the gates closed on the legion of security. He wanted to be as far from this cursed street as possible. There was nothing here but death and misery.
On the way out of the gated community, Alexis said, ‘Are we in danger?’
King tried to think, but that proved difficult. After a while he said, ‘I don’t think so. I think it’s done. There’s no one left to come for us.’
‘Opal?’ Alexis asked. ‘Topaz?’
Violetta said, ‘Taken care of.’
‘So that’s it.’
King said, ‘Now it’s just Slater.’
In the rear view mirror he saw her swollen brow furrow, which must have caused pain, but she couldn’t seem to stifle her concern despite the physical consequences.
She said, ‘What do we do? Did we plan that far ahead?’
King said, ‘It’s not good. Eventually Vásquez’s hold over the President will fade. The U.S. will apply pressure. Inconceivable pressure. Eventually El Salvador will cave. For now it’s a stalemate, but I’m sure the secret world wants Slater and Alonzo more than they’ve ever wanted anyone. They’ll be fully prepared to wait it out.’
‘So it’s just a matter of time before they storm in and take them?’ Alexis said, her face paling. ‘Why did we do any of this in the first place?’
‘Because it was our only option,’ King said. ‘The only safe haven we could find in Manhattan. If Slater got Alonzo out and didn’t do this, they’d tear the city apart looking for them, and they’d find them. This bought us time. Which right now is more precious than anything else.’
‘They’ll have that tiny consulate surrounded,’ Violetta said. ‘Cordons, constant surveillance, snipers across the street. They’ll have every entrance covered.’
‘I know,’ King said. ‘They were never getting out on their own.’
‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ Alexis asked from the back seat.
‘I planned for this.’
‘What plan?’ Violetta asked.
