The Wicked: A Black Force Thriller (Black Force Shorts Book 7)

by Matt Rogers

  ‘What things?’

  ‘There’s the matter of the girl.’

  ‘Alonsa?’

  ‘Yes. That’s her name.’

  ‘I don’t know who she is.’

  ‘You just claimed she was a member of the same cartel that excommunicated me.’

  ‘I was panicking. You tried to suffocate me. I don’t know who she is.’

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  Slater tried to look away, feigning it as the pain getting to him. In truth he had to suppress an inkling of panic. He was hanging onto reason and rationality for dear life. If Malvado broke through the thin veneer…

  And he would.

  Malvado punched him in the gut again, and this time Slater vomited, unable to help himself. Thankfully, he managed to aim between his legs, so he wasn’t covered in the stuff.

  ‘Who is she?’ Malvado said.

  ‘I honestly don’t know. I roped her along with me because I thought she’d be useful if I needed a human shield.’

  ‘That’s harsh of you.’

  Slater shrugged. ‘Business. Part of my job.’

  ‘You went straight for her in the White Phoenix. You knew her.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I recognised weakness and tried to take advantage of her.’

  ‘You seem like a man of principles. I don’t think you’d do that. I think you’re the noble savage. I don’t run into many like you. That’s something I enjoy — categorising. You seem to be quite a unique individual. You’d be surprised how many people I’ve tortured, how many people I’ve broken down to their very essence. You’re … surprisingly pure. It’s not common anymore. What’s your name? I never got it.’

  ‘Will.’

  ‘Will…?’

  ‘Will Slater.’

  ‘Well, Will Slater, you’re quite the specimen. You kill effortlessly, without hesitation. I saw that first-hand. But now that I see you for who you truly are, I can look back at the last twenty-four hours. You’re clinical. Precise. You murder at will but you’ve got your moral compass screwed in tight.’

  ‘What is this — family counselling?’

  Malvado grinned — the effect was horrifying. ‘I like studying people.’

  ‘You’ve studied me. Now accept that you need me if you want to live.’

  ‘Back to the girl. You said she was our ally.’

  ‘I don’t know who she is. I was bluffing. Let her go.’

  ‘Not a chance in hell.’

  ‘She doesn’t know anything. You’ll achieve nothing by torturing her.’

  ‘Quite the contrary. I feel like I’ll achieve a lot.’

  ‘Don’t…’

  ‘I didn’t get to where I am now by listening to what other people told me to do. I’ll find out for myself, thank you very much.’

  ‘Malvado…’

  ‘In the meantime, why don’t you take a nap?’

  ‘What?’

  Before Slater could react, one of the four henchmen stepped forward and produced a pre-prepared syringe loaded with a clear substance. In the stifling heat of the warehouse, veins ran along Slater’s forearms like twin road maps, so the guy had no trouble finding an insertion point. He stuck the needle in and pushed the liquid through, yanking it out directly afterward and jamming a cotton swab over the dot of blood that appeared.

  It hit him all at once, an overwhelming sensation of pleasure. Despite his training, despite his instincts, he threw his head back, squeezed his eyes shut, and let out a guttural groan to ride out the intensity of the wave. Malvado burst forward and wrapped a hand around the back of Slater’s neck. He leant in close and whispered, ‘We just pumped you full of enough heroin to make sure you’re not going anywhere. Now get the hell out of that chair. It’s her turn.’

  A couple of henchmen unspooled the ropes, freeing Slater from his bindings, but nothing could spur him into action. He slumped pitifully to the concrete, tasting dust in the corner of his mouth, barely noticing how disgusting it was. His mind overwhelmed, he slipped into a white bliss, experiencing the same sensations as the previous night multiplied by a hundred.

  As he drifted into neurological wonderland, he thought he saw a head of dark shoulder-length hair being dragged toward the chair he’d just fallen off.

  ‘No,’ he muttered.

  He passed out.

  17

  He lost all track of time. When he came to, he thought three or four days had passed. He opened his eyes, his vision dull and his ears pounding with a strange kind of headache. He was back in the chair, bound just as tightly as before, not going anywhere. He blinked hard, looking left to right, scanning the ceiling a hundred feet above his head, soaking in the vastness of the empty hangar. There were two men in front of him, but they meant nothing to him.

  ‘Where…?’ he muttered, saliva bubbling between his lips. ‘Uh…’

  ‘Quite the ride, isn’t it?’ a tall spindly man with a ponytail said.

  Slater noticed his eyes. Brilliant blue. Piercing. Unblinking. Deadly serious.

  It all started coming back to him, like spoonfuls of information being fed to him out of a murky haze. He groaned, shaking off the effects of the heroin, remembering it all clearly. It was still daylight outside — barely. The golden light of sunset filtered through the doorway in the distance, spilling across the concrete floor.

  Malvado.

  Slater smiled, his emotions heightened to the point of ridiculousness. It was a beam, a glowing display of the joy he felt at remembering.

  ‘I know you,’ he said. ‘You’re Malvado.’

  ‘That I am. That dose really did fuck you up, didn’t it?’ He threw a glance to his buddy. ‘How much did you give him? Jesus Christ.’

  ‘Way too much. You said to knock him out.’

  ‘Will he be like this for the rest of the day?’

  Slater blinked, shook his head, jolted himself back to reality. He clenched his teeth. ‘No. I’m good.’

  Malvado’s eyes drifted back across. ‘Well, that’s a relief.’

  There was blood on the man’s face.

  Slater froze. This wasn’t right. He looked around again. Where the hell had the other three guys disappeared to? Then he noticed dark crimson stains on the concrete around them, coagulating with the dust, some of the puddles forming dark brown muck. A horrid pit formed in his stomach. He returned Malvado’s gaze, and this time he saw burning rage in the man’s eyes.

  He feared the following conversation would determine whether he lived or died.

  ‘I’m going to ask you one time to tell me what you knew about the girl,’ Malvado said, his eyes burning. ‘I won’t ask again.’

  Sorry, Alonsa, Slater thought. Wherever you are. I have to save my own skin.

  ‘She worked for the Sinaloa cartel,’ he said, unequipped to lie given the heroin crash sending chills down his spine. ‘She was going to kill you.’

  ‘And you knew her before last night.’

  ‘No,’ Slater said, and that was the truth.

  Malvado seemed to recognise as much. ‘She’s dead.’

  He scrutinised Slater’s features — Slater didn’t react.

  ‘She died slowly,’ Malvado said.

  Nothing.

  ‘Painfully.’

  Still nothing.

  Malvado opened his mouth to continue, but Slater interrupted with, ‘Go on. Find another adverb.’

  Malvado cocked his head to one side. ‘You really don’t care…’

  ‘I have no affiliation with her. She made her choices.’

  ‘You slept together.’

  ‘I sleep with a lot of women I don’t like. In fact, it’s usually mutual.’

  ‘She spoke highly of you.’

  ‘She worked for the cartel. That means she’s probably killed dozens of people who didn’t deserve it, maybe hundreds. I’m finding it hard to get emotional.’

  ‘Okay,’ Malvado said, rising off one knee, standing tall. ‘You passed the test. I was going to gut you like a fish if you showe
d any kind of reaction to that news.’

  ‘What happened here?’ Slater said.

  The wide blue eyes bounced up and down as Malvado nodded, almost manic in his movements. He was hopped up on something. Probably the chemical cocktail released when blood was spilled. ‘Yes. That issue.’

  He crouched back down, getting close, and Slater knew he was going to have to pass another test.

  ‘Did you give her the knife?’ Malvado whispered, sinister as all hell.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t stall. The knife she had on her. Did you give it to her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘She used it?’

  ‘She sliced through the ropes and then sliced up three of my men before I restrained her. So I made it painful. And I made it gruesome. Because no-one kills my friends like that.’

  ‘Sounds like she had some courage.’

  ‘Courage?’ Malvado said, and a murderous glint sparkled in his eyes.

  ‘Tenacity. Brazenness. Whatever the hell you want to call it. Look, I didn’t give her the knife.’

  ‘She said you did. Before I killed her.’

  ‘People say anything when they’re under duress. You should know that better than anyone. Given your … career choice.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Malvado pulled the very same knife from his waistband and extracted the switchblade. He brought it toward Slater’s neck with the kind of speed that signalled he meant business. This wasn’t a threat. It wasn’t a fake. It was the real thing, and mortal fear seared through Slater.

  ‘Wait,’ Slater said. ‘Look at my neck, for God’s sake.’

  Malvado froze, the blade only inches from Slater’s throat.

  ‘Look closely,’ Slater said. ‘See the bruising? The thin line?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She held the knife to my throat. You think I’d give my own weapon to her so she could hold me hostage with it?’

  ‘You must not be much of a government agent if she got the better of you.’

  Slater said nothing, because the irony was self-evident. Malvado was standing in the blood of three of his closest allies. How did that get there?

  ‘Okay,’ Malvado said, slotting the switchblade back into his waistband. ‘Okay, okay.’

  He ran both palms over his face, wiping the sweat away. Slater could almost see the stress leeching from his pores. There were dark bags under Malvado’s eyes — he looked like he’d seen a ghost. Perhaps the gravity of his situation was sinking in. Slater figured there was no better time to capitalise on it.

  ‘You never should have come back across the border,’ he said.

  ‘I realise that now,’ Malvado said.

  ‘You need to get back to the States.’

  ‘I know. I’m already working on it. I have connections who aren’t directly in bed with Sinaloa. They can be swayed by money. They have what I need.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘I can get my hands on a Lockheed C-130 Hercules. You know the plane?’

  ‘I know the type.’

  ‘If I agree to give up all the information I have regarding the Sinaloa cartel, do you give me your word your government will go easy on me?’

  ‘You wouldn’t be the first to want to do that,’ Slater said. ‘There’s precedent. No-one will betray you.’

  ‘Good. Let’s do that, then. I don’t have any other options.’

  ‘Alonsa?’

  ‘Dead. I wasn’t bluffing.’

  ‘Okay,’ Slater said, filing that information away. ‘Doesn’t bother me.’

  ‘You were telling the truth?’

  ‘Fuck the cartels,’ Slater said.

  ‘For the first time in my life I can whole-heartedly agree,’ Malvado said. ‘Let’s go then. I don’t think I can hide from Sinaloa for long. If they want me, they’ll turn Mexico over to flush me out. I guarantee it.’

  ‘Get me to the plane,’ Slater said, ‘and I’ll get in contact with the right people. We’ll find you an airstrip to land on across the border.’

  Unbridled relief flooded Malvado’s features. He snatched up the switchblade and sawed through the ropes one by one, watched closely by his last remaining bodyguard. The guy was six foot even with a flabby, unathletic build, but the cruelness in his eyes was unmistakeable. He might look like an accountant, but he’d no doubt killed dozens of people.

  Slater wouldn’t underestimate him.

  Finally free, he stood up, breathed deep, and got his feet underneath him without toppling over. A moment of lightheadedness passed him by, and then he nodded. ‘After you.’

  Malvado didn’t budge. His hand remained wrapped around the switchblade. ‘You’re a government agent, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So there’s rules in place. Protocol. I’m surrendering to your country. You can’t stab me in the back.’

  ‘Of course not. I’d be violating all kinds of regulations.’

  Malvado nodded, his mind put at ease. ‘Okay. In the van. Now.’

  The pair took off across the warehouse, and Slater followed behind. Slow. Menacing. Calculated.

  He’d barely been able to contain his rage.

  Not for the first time, he breathed a silent thanks for the existence of Black Force.

  It meant he could do whatever the hell he wanted to whoever the hell he wanted.

  And although he was stranded in the middle of nowhere in hostile Mexico, he felt the power dynamic shift subtly underneath him.

  He sensed Malvado’s desperation, and it flooded him with strength.

  The hunter had become the hunted.

  18

  The van protested with intermittent groans as it flew across the desert road, an ageing piece of junk that Malvado must have acquired from a used car yard in San Francisco. Slater sat in the back, his senses reeling from everything they’d been put through over the last twenty four hours. The sun dipped below the horizon and a pale blue hue settled over the arid landscape, darkening by the minute. The foreboding in the pit of his stomach showed no signs of receding.

  He had limited options. More than anything he wanted to slaughter Malvado for all the suffering he’d dished out over his lifetime, but that wasn’t practical. Malvado and his bodyguard, who introduced himself as Jorge, were the only thing separating Slater from inevitable demise. If he killed them both, he would be left to fend for himself somewhere in Baja California, and it wouldn’t be long before the Sinaloa cartel descended on his location in search of Malvado. So he sat patiently still, knowing he had the capacity to murder both men in an instant, but restraining himself for more ideal circumstances.

  Thirty minutes into the drive, the darkness smothered the van. Malvado fired up the headlights, but they did little to penetrate the gloom. Slater stared out the grimy window and saw nothing — no lights, no sign of civilisation. Malvado had taken him to the middle of nowhere. He seemed the cerebral type, reacting to everything on the fly, which was probably how he’d ended up in such hot water. Reflexively thinking he could wrap both the cartels and the U.S. government around his thumb, he’d overextended himself, and now he was paying the price.

  Slater could see the unease in the blue eyes, fixated on the road ahead, visible in the rear view mirror.

  ‘What’s our ETA?’ Slater said, wondering when he should burst into action.

  ‘Twenty minutes, but we have to move fast,’ Malvado said. ‘I don’t fully trust the men at the airfield. They don’t have any allegiances. They’ll sway to the right price.’

  ‘You think the cartel will get to them before we get there? Tell them to sabotage the plane?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Malvado said, wiping a bead of sweat off his dirty brow. ‘Fuck…’p

  Good, Slater thought. Suffer. You deserve it.

  But he said, ‘We’ll be fine. We can all defend ourselves.’

  ‘Not against the cartel.’

  ‘You’d be surprised.�
�

  ‘They will send a hundred men after me if they think I’m trying to flee the country.’

  ‘You should have stayed in the U.S.,’ Slater repeated.

  ‘I know,’ Malvado hissed. ‘But I was dealing with you. And the girl. And the government. And the cartel. All at once. And now this is my only option.’

  ‘You’ll be fine.’

  ‘How many years do you think I’ll get — if I co-operate?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What do you mean you don’t know?’

  ‘That’s not part of my job.’

  ‘What — sentencing?’

  ‘I don’t deal with the finer details. I’m the muscle.’

  ‘Then what are you doing here?’

  ‘They wanted me to find out what you knew about our covert operations, and then kill you.’

  Even in the lowlight, Slater saw Malvado go pale. The man’s hand intuitively darted for the leather holster at his side, and Slater tensed every muscle of his body at once in anticipation of a brawl inside a fast-moving vehicle. He went through the list of actions — lunge forward, one arm around the neck, one arm trapping the gun at his side, one foot kicking the steering wheel to throw the van off-course and send them lurching off the road…

  But nothing happened. Malvado stopped halfway, realising he was out of options, accepting the fact that he would have to rely on Slater’s goodwill. ‘That plan’s out the window now, I assume?’

  ‘If it wasn’t, you’d already be dead.’

  Not quite true, but whatever eases your mind.

  Malvado said nothing.

  ‘What do you know about covert operations?’ Slater said. ‘You came to us with some juicy information. I’m sure you know more about it than I do.’

  ‘I’m not telling you shit. You’re the muscle, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m the guy who decides whether America takes you as an informant or not.’

  ‘Bullshit. You said you didn’t get involved with that stuff. Pipe down, junior.’

  ‘If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll kill both of you right now. Then there’ll be nothing to inform about.’

  ‘You wouldn’t.’

  ‘Remember in the warehouse? Remember the rules you said I had to follow? They don’t exist. I’m so far off the books you wouldn’t believe it. So you’d better start co-operating.’