Betrayed: A Jason King Thriller (Jason King Series Book 4)

by Matt Rogers

  ‘Is this all there is to this place?’ King said as they sat in the same chairs.

  ‘Of course not,’ Isla said. ‘This is one room of a larger facility.’

  ‘You haven’t given me the tour yet.’

  ‘You haven’t needed it,’ she said in retort. ‘It’s the same as it’s always been, King. The operatives are kept separate from the inner workings. I recall you only ever meeting Lars in outposts just like this.’

  ‘Need-to-know basis?’ King said.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So what do I need to know?’

  She sighed and ran two hands through her greying hair. ‘We were working on an assortment of tasks for you. Leads in Mogadishu and Namibia respectively. Talks of terrorist cells are swirling through the pipeline.’

  ‘Sounds pretty serious.’

  ‘It always is,’ she said. ‘But then this came up. Now you can forget about Namibia.’

  With worry creasing her features, she leant forward and opened one of the folders on the desk in front of them.

  CHAPTER 9

  ‘John Lopez. Samuel Price,’ Isla said.

  ‘Never heard of them,’ King said.

  She withdrew two official-looking headshots from the folder and lay them in front of King. They revealed the two faces in stark detail. Both hard men, their features darkened over time, dotted with wrinkles and lines creasing their foreheads. Lopez had a receding hairline and chapped lips and Price was a little younger, a little slimmer. Mexican and American, respectively.

  ‘What did they do?’ he said.

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing. They’re two of ours.’

  He looked across. ‘Black Force operatives?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘New?’

  ‘Relatively. They’ve been working together for their stint so far. Both ex-SEALs. Both very good at what they do.’

  ‘So what’s the situation?’

  ‘They’ve vanished.’

  King felt an invisible weight press into his chest, like a re-occurring situation was growing dire. He grimaced. ‘This is sounding all too familiar.’

  ‘It’s nothing like what happened to Slater,’ she said. ‘I’m fearing the worst.’

  ‘Where were they?’

  ‘In Cairo. Zamalek, to be specific. It’s one of the more affluent districts in the region. Where all the wealthiest expats and locals reside.’

  ‘What were they doing there?’

  ‘Investigating—’ Isla said, sliding another photo out of the folder, this one taken from a distance on a telephoto lens, ‘—this man.’

  The guy looked to be in his thirties, tall with a slim frame. He looked native to the region, possibly Egyptian. King studied the look on his face. Even though the photo had been taken in secret, he appeared angry, either with a certain situation or life in general. His cheekbones were gaunt and his eyes sat strangely in their sockets, set back but wide like a tarsier. He seemed to have started balding years ago but had grown the wispy strands long in an attempt to cover up.

  ‘Khalil Nasser,’ Isla said. ‘Lived in Cairo his whole life. Had ties to extremists almost his whole life too. We’ve been keeping tabs on him the last few years. Making sure he doesn’t stray too far into the wrong mindset.’

  ‘I take it he’s making waves now,’ King said.

  She nodded. ‘Very much so. Our sources tell us he’s been reaching out to a number of different people lately, each obscenely wealthy. So far, we have no idea as to the reason.’

  ‘Funding for something?’

  ‘More than likely. He lives in the slums, but he’s been making frequent trips into Zamalek. We pick up whispers of his dealings, but once he’s inside the district we lose him. We’re unsure who he’s meeting. Lopez and Price were sniffing around over the last few days, trying to pick up anything they could.’

  ‘Had they got much?’

  ‘A little. He’s ramping up the visits lately. Trips to the Cairo Opera House, meetings with persons unknown at the Cairo Tower. He spent the day yesterday on a golf tour inside the Gezira Sporting Club. He’s been busy. Whatever he’s planning, I can’t assume it’s good news.’

  ‘How long had they been in Zamalek?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Lopez and Price.’

  ‘Three days. Then, eight hours ago, we lost all contact with them.’

  ‘You sure you’ve given it long enough?’

  She nodded. ‘Lopez sent me this before they fell off the grid.’

  Isla pulled out a smartphone and navigated to a voice recording timestamped 0632. King guessed it was the time she received it. A clear voice with a deep Texan accent rang out through the room. ‘We found Nasser eating along the Riverside Cairo and tracked him back to a residential building on Al Narges. We stayed out of sight. I’ll move in with Price and try to get some intel without being spotted. Should be fine. Touch base soon.’

  There was an audible click as the voice recording ended — the line had been disconnected.

  King clasped his hands together and stared at the phone. ‘Well, guess they were spotted.’

  ‘They were shaping up to be two of our best operatives,’ Isla said. ‘They’d just completed a successful hostage extraction in Borneo. Took down a militia eight times their size. Remind you of anyone?’

  King nodded.

  Me.

  ‘Point is,’ Isla said. ‘I need them back — if they’re still alive. Maybe Nasser thinks he can hold them and get some ransom money.’

  ‘I hope he’s that dumb,’ King said.

  ‘Like I said, maybe.’

  ‘Did they give you the location of this place they found? I’m sure there’s a number of residential buildings on that street.’

  She nodded again. ‘He forwarded me a geo-location. You’ll need that.’

  King smiled grimly. ‘I’ve never been to Egypt.’

  ‘Well, buckle up.’

  ‘What happens if I find their bodies?’

  ‘Then your brief stint with us might have to be extended.’

  ‘You’re that short on numbers?’

  Isla nodded. ‘We were already struggling. Truth is, I had high hopes that Lopez and Price would be able to fill your shoes. And Slater’s. They were fresh blood, but they were exceptional.’

  ‘Maybe not as exceptional as you thought.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘I assume you have a swathe of information on Nasser and his dealings.’

  ‘You bet. You’ll get all of it to study on the plane over.’

  ‘You want me to go that soon?’

  ‘We’ve already booked you a flight.’

  King whistled softly.

  ‘I don’t think you understand,’ Isla said. ‘If the worst has happened to Lopez and Price, that’s three and four crossed off the list. You and Slater held this operation together. Without you, I don’t know what we’re going to do. We’ll be spread too thin. We’ll have to bring more men in. The training takes too long.’

  ‘So — basically — they need to be alive?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Then I’ve got work to do.’

  ‘Anything you find on Nasser — chase it up. But I can’t stress the necessity of finding Lopez and Price. Even if you have to confirm their demise. If so, I’ll get working on replacements as fast as humanly possible.’

  ‘I take it the same ruleset applies?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘This is outside the boundaries of the law, correct?’

  ‘Of course. What do you think this division exists for?’

  ‘If I’m caught…?’

  ‘We’ve never heard of you.’

  King accepted the news with a resigned sigh. That was how it had always been. All knowledge of his existence — or the existence of a covert special-ops division — would be explicitly denied. He understood. ‘Send me everything you have for the trip over.’

  ‘Already on it.’

  She passed over a single firs
t-class plane ticket, printed from an online booking. He scrutinised it. John F. Kennedy International Airport, EgyptAir, 10-hour-20-minute flight direct to Cairo International Airport. The departure time was three hours away.

  They’re not messing around, he thought.

  ‘That was possibly the fastest briefing of my life,’ he said.

  Isla cocked her head. ‘You want me to hold your hand?’

  He grinned and made for the door. ‘I’ll be right.’

  ‘You know what you’re doing, King,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing I can tell you that will be any further help. Get on the ground and do your thing. I’ll send the files.’

  King wrenched the steel door open and paused with his fingers on the handle. He wheeled around, wondering one last thing. ‘What if I die over there?’

  Isla didn’t respond for what felt like an eternity. She stared at him, unblinking, mulling over the possibility of King not returning.

  Then she spoke — a single word, conveying all of what she was feeling in one succinct syllable. ‘Don’t.’

  CHAPTER 10

  The taxi to JFK took twenty-two minutes.

  King spent the time struggling to control his rapidly increasing heart rate. He wasn’t sure exactly why the quick briefing had resulted in such a spike to his adrenalin levels. He found his breathing quicken, his pulse race, his cheeks grow warm. All signs that he was feeling the intensity that came with a new mission.

  And he loved every second of it.

  He welcomed the sensation, opting to roll with the nerves rather than be consumed by them. He knew he could be walking into a slaughterhouse. If Nasser was three steps ahead of Black Force, then no level of investigation would turn up anything of use. He would succeed with whatever he had planned, and King would likely die in the process.

  Yet despite that, King was quietly confident. Compared to what he was used to, it seemed there was less risk than various other operations he could have undertaken. Investigating a sole radical extremist was well within his comfort zone. Even if it wasn’t, he would have embraced the task.

  King never turned down a mission.

  Halfway to the airport, his phone chimed, signalling an incoming email. He flicked across to the application and opened the document Isla had attached. It was fifty-five pages long — a compilation of different reports on Nasser’s movement over the last five years, the operational profiles of Lopez and Price and their brief but chaotic history with Black Force. He skimmed through it, speed-reading, not truly concentrating on any one morsel of information. He would sink his teeth into the file on the flight.

  For now, there was too much racing through his mind.

  He thought of Klara. He’d shared a brief but intense romance with the Swedish model in Corsica, where she’d happened to become caught up in the dealings of a corrupt and evil politician. Before he left the island, he had made her a promise, which he had every intention of keeping. When this was over, and the whirlwind of clandestine operations had come to an end, he wanted nothing more than to settle down with her and live out the rest of his days in relative peace.

  Can I, though?

  He grimaced and stared out the window. He didn’t know if it was possible. Both for his own safety and hers, he was hesitant to commit to anyone at all. Even his own father. He couldn’t shake the feeling that if he spent too much time with any single individual, he placed them in grave danger. He’d seen the results of that with Klara’s kidnapping just a few short days ago.

  Hopefully, she was safely on her way back to Sweden.

  He made a mental note to call her when he touched down in Egypt.

  The cab dropped him at the entrance to the international departures terminal and he strode through the glass doors without a single piece of luggage. As he made his way to the security checkpoint, a text flashed up on the screen of his phone from Isla:

  Got you a place at the Marriott in Zamalek. Enjoy.

  He smiled and shot a quick message back:

  Hope that’s not coming out of my pay.

  This late in the evening, the line for security was shorter than usual. It took him less than ten minutes to make his way through the queue, step through the full-body scanner and collect his phone and wallet from the plastic tray. Of course, he had no official military ID with which to pass through faster. He operated outside standard jurisdiction, known only to a handful of high-level officials — one of them being Isla.

  He found his gate after a brief walk past dozens of high-end clothing stores and newspaper agencies sporting the latest best-sellers on flashy stands. As he sat to wait for the first boarding call, he felt a ripple of exhaustion through his quads. It had been a long day. It made him glad that Colt had pushed him so hard over the last two weeks, seeing that it had led directly into his first operation. The last thing he’d wanted was to wait around for a few useless weeks until some terrorist cell was discovered in a far corner of the globe, and he was thrust into combat in the middle of a stagnation period.

  Now, he felt primed and ready to go.

  He boarded first, thanks to the several-thousand dollar ticket Isla had purchased. The first-class seat was just as comfortable as the dozens he’d used before, but he couldn’t relax. Not with this many thoughts churning through his head. He knew it was relatively normal to know surprisingly little about the task ahead — in fact, that had been ordinary during his first and longest stint with Black Force. But something about this felt different.

  Perhaps it was the stakes.

  If Lopez and Price were buried in the desert somewhere with holes in their foreheads then King would never find them, let alone uncover the reason for their murder. Nasser would almost certainly have an alibi, and King imagined that once the presence of two Special Forces operatives had been discovered, whatever he was up to would be tightened significantly.

  All signs pointed to a dead end.

  Yet he had faced many tasks like this before. They always held inherent surprises — it was unavoidable. He knew that if he did his job correctly and efficiently, answers would present themselves. What that would lead to was another story. For all he knew, he could be walking into a death trap.

  Nothing new.

  It took thirty minutes to get into the sky, but once the EgyptAir aircraft had reached altitude and the seatbelt signs flashed off, King leant his seat all the way back and closed his eyes. On the east coast, it was bedtime. He had jumped into this whirlwind so quickly that he had no idea what time he would be landing in Cairo. It didn’t matter. He would sleep now, and then stay awake as long as was needed to get the job done.

  King wasn’t known as the patient type.

  He slept soundly, forcing all thoughts of danger and intrigue out of his mind. If he were to succeed — at what was yet to be determined — he had to be well-rested. So he employed the training of years past to zone out of the real world and coast into a gentle and undisturbed sleep. When he had been trained to rest in the most dangerous active war zones on the planet, a broad recliner seat in a commercial airplane felt like paradise.

  Which it is, he reminded himself.

  He woke eight hours later, stirring as the cabin lights flickered on and an announcement from the pilot informed them that they would be landing at 1:50p.m. local time. King stretched and smiled. Even though he had no idea what he would be heading into, something about the situation invigorated him. He knew he was one of the unique human beings who turned fear and terror into energy.

  A simple Continental breakfast was served by a group of dolled-up flight attendants. He ate a croissant off a china plate and wolfed down a couple of bread rolls — much needed after skipping dinner the night before.

  With an hour to go before landing, he unlocked his phone and pulled up the files of Black Force operatives John Lopez and Samuel Price.

  He found it fascinating delving into their operational reports and childhood summaries. It wasn’t often that he got the chance to study men in the same field as himself
. There had been a brief period back in Corsica where he had spent time with Will Slater. He had learnt much about the man in a short space of time, enough to understand exactly why he needed to try and enjoy a retirement similar to King’s.

  I hope you find more success than me, brother.

  The two missing operatives had grown up in the same town — Hidalgo, Texas. They had done everything together — both only children, both determined to join the military and serve their country. They’d worked their way up through the ranks over long and storied careers, refusing to progress unless the other was also accepted. King flicked through mission reports from the Navy, then the SEALs, and finally their first two operations working for Black Force.

  They were damn good at their jobs, he concluded.

  Both were recognised as possessing impeccable situational awareness and combat IQ by their superiors. In the heat of the moment, they made the right decision ten times out of ten. King acknowledged their abilities with a soft smile, knowing he shared similar tendencies. It was necessary at this level of the game.

  You couldn’t choke when the going got tough.

  You would just end up in a bodybag.

  Their first Black Force operation had been a test of sorts — a low-level hit on a trio of self-converted radicals plotting an attack on a major metropolitan area (the report had classified the exact details of their plan). All the analysis had pointed to all three men being willing to die for their cause. They would not be arrested peacefully. King knew that ordinarily that would be a matter for other departments, but he assumed Isla had put Lopez and Price up to it to slowly integrate them into the big league. They had pulled off the raid without a hitch, leaving three dead bodies in their wake without a single scratch to show for it.

  The second task caused King to raise his eyebrows. Two months ago, in the jungles of Borneo, it was deduced that several dozen men had formed a militia with intent to carry out acts of gruesome violence across the populated areas and exploit the hordes of currency that tourists often foolishly kept on hand. The situation was of particular sensitivity due to the fact that four Americans had disappeared close to the region, and it was rumoured that they were in the hands of the militia.