by Matt Rogers
King remembered everything.
Every last scrap of detail.
It was only when he sensed movement in the corridor outside that he realised he’d been in the server room for well over half an hour.
Gripping the Colt half-heartedly, he powered down the monitor and stepped over the corpse of the man he’d shot. He opened the door and found himself face to face with a pair of stunned workers, still dressed in high-visibility vests and hard hats.
They looked European.
Their eyes widened at the sight of King and they backtracked across the corridor, their hands raised in the air. King shuffled out of the room in a trance, barely paying them any attention at all. He knew he would meet no more resistance — he’d been able to tell by the nervousness of their footsteps that they wouldn’t pose a threat.
They weren’t enforcers.
They were workers.
He simply left the building, not saying a word in the process.
He had never seen anything quite like that tape.
And the three executives had faced no repercussions for it. As he thought of the senseless unadulterated bloodshed he’d witnessed, the scope of the problem dawned on King. That sort of violence happened across the Congo on a regular basis — no, across the world. Hundreds of thousands of people died every single day for no good reason at all.
He couldn’t solve all the world’s problems, but he could do his best with the skills he possessed.
As he returned to the beat-up Toyota a hundred feet from the entrance of the mining complex, he realised he was still unscathed.
He truly had evolved.
There’s savages in this world, King thought. Hiding in plain sight.
It was his job to deal with them.
He accelerated away from the Barnes & Cooper Resources-owned site, leaving that moral grey zone where it rested.
He had other business to attend to.
51
Brody’s compound seemed peaceful, a world away from the devastated mining complex despite the two resting only a few short miles apart. King pulled the Toyota to rest beside the open-topped jeep he’d used days earlier, killing the engine as the old pick-up truck rumbled into its final resting place. As he stepped out of the vehicle, he realised it would probably never fire back up again.
He couldn’t care less.
He considered leaving the SCAR-H in the passenger seat, wanting nothing to do with combat for the foreseeable future, but ultimately decided to take it with him in case any unwanted visitors decided to snatch it up. The thought of any kind of violence twisted his insides, especially after what he had seen. Thoughts of noble vengeance or violent justice seemed disgraceful now. He knew he was doing the right thing, but right now the whole world seemed mad.
The sooner you realise it is, the better.
And the more you can do to help it.
He found Brody sitting calmly on the patio outside his house — to King the man was simply a silhouette in the darkness, resting alone in one of the rocking chairs. By this point King’s eyes had adjusted to the dark. Both the Toyota’s headlights had been inoperable for the journey back, so the night didn’t faze him.
He sat down wordlessly in the chair opposite and let the stillness wash over them both. His heart rate had settled and the inevitable adrenalin crash had started to take hold. He sensed lethargy in his limbs — either from overtraining or fighting or the sheer tension that had been draped over him for as long as he could remember.
‘You’re back,’ Brody said after a considerable silence.
‘I am.’
‘I take it you didn’t have any problems. You don’t seem injured.’
‘Not a scratch.’
‘Is that typical for you?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Of course. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here, would you?’
‘I guess you taught me something after all.’
‘Was there resistance?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you handled it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Without a problem?’
‘No problem.’
‘Did you run into Wyatt?’
‘Sure did.’
‘Did you find what you were looking for?’
‘Sure did.’
‘You don’t seem thrilled about it.’
‘I’m not.’
‘You think I need to know?’
‘Yes. And that’s why I’m hesitant. You need to know all of it. I would have rather it been Wyatt. Who pulled the trigger. But it wasn’t. He was there, but he didn’t kill anyone. At least not in that instance.’
For a moment, Brody said nothing. ‘You didn’t let him off the hook, did you?’
‘He’s dead.’
‘Good.’
‘And Thorn? What happened to him after I left?’
‘Who?’
‘Thorn—’
‘Never heard of him.’
King nodded solemnly when it clicked. ‘Got it.’
Brody suddenly reached across in the darkness and seized King by the shoulder.
‘Think long and hard about this,’ he said. ‘Make sure you’re certain that I need to know what happened. Because from almost every way I look at it, I’d be better off not knowing. And I think you recognise that too, which is why you’re so hesitant to divulge it. If Wyatt and his men are dead, then what’s left?’
‘There’s a whole lot left.’
‘Can you handle it yourself?’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re young and in the foundations of your career, and if you truly feel in your heart that I need to know then it must be pretty damn bad. Which means you wouldn’t mind taking care of it yourself.’
‘I wouldn’t mind at all. Morally speaking, at least.’
‘Then why do I need to know?’
‘Because I need to get back to work,’ King said. ‘That mine made me realise it. I can’t sit around and train any longer. I’m ready. I’ve been ready for a while now. I got into the routine of growing and improving and convincing myself that I didn’t need to get back out there, and knock heads together and solve problems. But I do. I saw with my own eyes what people are capable of. I need to stop as much of it as I can before I get put in the ground.’
‘That mentality will take you places.’
‘Places I want to go?’
Brody shrugged. ‘Places where you’ll do a whole lot of good.’
‘I hope so.’
‘So you need to leave?’
‘I do.’
‘Then tell me what it is I need to hear.’
‘You’re not going to like it.’
‘Of course I’m not.’
‘But I can’t take care of it myself. When I leave this place I’ll be watched over like a hawk, and that’ll render me incapable of doing anything I’m not ordered to. You know that as well as I do. You need to take care of this problem yourself. And you’ll want to.’
‘So tell me.’
‘Okay…’
King unloaded everything he knew, refusing to look across and make eye contact with Brody in the darkness as he spoke. The gravity of his words hung heavy in the air, and when he finally wrapped the speech up he realised he had just condemned three men to grisly deaths. There was no doubt about what Brody would do. He couldn’t stay in the Congo, and soon he would seek vengeance.
Soon.
But not right now.
The two men — who, despite being twenty years apart, possessed very similar mentalities about life and pain and selflessness — watched the moonlight sparkle off Lake Kivu and thought long and hard about the direction their lives would take.
52
Two weeks later…
Jason King sat in a rented apartment in Washington D.C.
He hadn’t seen anyone besides Lars and a handful of faceless superiors in weeks.
Think of it as a transition period, they’d said.
He’d deliberately isolated himself. T
he apartment provided all the amenities he needed, a temporary holding point until some crisis emerged in an undesirable corner of the globe. At that point he’d be whisked out of the States and dropped into the carnage, where his unique skill set would prove valuable in service of his country. The thought enticed him, and for the last week he’d found himself chomping at the bit to get back out in the field.
Years and years of combat training had culminated in the extended stint with Brody Hartman, which had served to unlock some kind of final understanding deep within him. It was like he’d been assembling devastating skills for the entirety of his adult life, and Brody had provided him with the glue to piece them together into one fluid package.
He was now ready.
Beyond ready.
The evening news flashed on the flat-screen television across the room, muted so King could enjoy the silence of the evening. He considered it a form of meditation, savouring the calm before the inevitable storm. There would be a call soon. Whether that came today, or tomorrow, or—
The phone shrilled on the low table in front of him — this one a mobile, a strange sight compared to the satellite phones King had become accustomed to. It seemed like he was spending less and less time in regions with adequate cell service. He snatched up the slim device and answered with the press of a button.
‘Lars?’
‘The one and only,’ Lars Crawford said.
‘What’s the go?’
‘You spent enough time in that apartment yet?’
‘Just about.’
‘We’re looking to move you to a new facility. State-of-the-art. Been under construction ever since you first signed up. We want to use it as a kind of performance institute. To keep you sharp.’
‘I’m down. Anything to get me out of this place.’
‘And we might have something in the works. A new assignment.’
‘Big?’
‘Like nothing you’ve ever done before.’
‘Care to share any details?’
‘When you get here. Oh, and…’
‘Yes?’
‘There’s been an update on Rex Bernardi.’
King gulped. ‘Uh-huh.’
‘He’s dead. Investigators found his body on a rural trail in the middle of nowhere. Dumped. Actually, closer to where you trained than Kisangani. A hundred miles away from Lake Kivu. Early theory is he was abducted in Kisangani and taken for a ride. You sure you didn’t hear from him at all?’
‘I would tell you if I did.’
‘The Congo, man…’ Lars muttered. ‘I told him not to go. He never should have gone.’
‘No. He shouldn’t have.’
‘Brutal place.’
A news bulletin on the screen across the room seized King’s attention — he kept the phone against his ear, but his eyes locked onto the headline.
‘Everywhere’s brutal,’ he said. ‘It’s not a geographical thing. There’s monsters everywhere. Talk soon.’
He ended the call, grabbed the television remote and turned the volume back up. The newsreader was mid-spiel.
‘…the bodies of Michael Rhodes, Elías Puig, and Finn Northcutt were found hanging by the neck in a downtown Dallas industrial zone earlier this morning. Authorities are asking anyone with information to come forward, and investigating the link between the three men and Barnes & Cooper Resources, a mining conglomerate operating predominantly in Africa. There is currently no known motive for their murder.’
King turned the television off and breathed a long sigh in the resulting silence.
‘Be at peace, brother,’ he said, wondering where the hell Brody Hartman was now. ‘Be at peace.’
He got off the couch, snatched a heavy woollen jacket off the coat rack by the door, and headed out into the night.
JASON KING WILL RETURN.
MORE BOOKS BY MATT ROGERS
THE JASON KING SERIES
Isolated (Book 1)
Imprisoned (Book 2)
Reloaded (Book 3)
Betrayed (Book 4)
Corrupted (Book 5)
Hunted (Book 6)
THE JASON KING FILES
Cartel (Book 1)
Warrior (Book 2)
Savages (Book 3)
THE WILL SLATER SERIES
Wolf (Book 1)
Lion (Book 2)
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About the Author
Matt Rogers grew up in Melbourne, Australia as a voracious reader, relentlessly devouring thrillers and mysteries in his spare time. Now, he writes full-time. His novels are action-packed and fast-paced. Dive into the Jason King Series to get started with his collection.
Visit his website:
www.mattrogersbooks.com
Visit his Amazon page:
amazon.com/author/mattrogers23
