by Matt Rogers
‘I hear your last job was mid six-figures per year…’ Ramos said, obviously confused. ‘You got money troubles?’
Fuck, King thought.
‘I… uh…’ he said. Then he got an idea. He could use his hesitation to play the part of a man hiding a secret. ‘I have a few issues. Gambling, drugs. You know…’
‘Drugs?’ Ramos said.
‘I’m not looking for supply, don’t worry.’
‘I wasn’t worrying.’
‘Okay.’
‘So … what do you need me to do first? I’m familiar with the TOR browser, if you want to start there.’
Ramos paused again. The silence turned deafening. It drew out longer, and longer still. Three seconds, four seconds, five.
‘I damn well expect you to know what the TOR browser is…’ Ramos said. ‘This is amateur stuff. How did you get your last job?’
‘I know what I’m doing,’ King said, like he was insulted that someone would dare question his capabilities.
‘What’s the safe word?’ Ramos said.
‘What?’
‘Three seconds.’
‘Sorry, I’m tired. It’s been a long day. Refresh me.’
‘Two seconds.’
‘Uh…’
‘One second.’
‘Do you understand what I’ve just done?’ King said, grasping at straws. ‘I’m not in a great mental state at the moment. I just dropped everything to seize this opportunity. It meant leaving everything behind. All my friends, my family. I don’t even know if I’ll head back in one piece, given the nature of this business. Spare me at least a single courtesy and remind me what the hell we’re talking about.’
The spiel did little to affect Ramos’ expression. It remained steely, his eyes wide, his gaze fixed on King like a snake watching its prey.
Finally, he relented.
‘In my initial email,’ he said. ‘The word I sent you to ensure that you didn’t get intercepted at the border. The word that would confirm that it’s you standing in front of me, instead of someone simply impersonating you.’
King couldn’t afford to pause for even a single breath. He stomached a sharp inhale of mounting tension as it dawned on him that Ramos had employed a safety measure. The PGP encryption meant that James Bennett — sitting in a cell at the San Diego-Mexico border — was the only one who knew the safe word. He hadn’t bothered to share it with the authorities.
In doing so, he had abandoned King in the deep end.
King didn’t know the word.
He couldn’t respond.
The two enforcers sensed his sudden hesitation and panic. They reached for their guns.
17
King recognised the approaching combat, and his vision narrowed.
The atmosphere shifted, the mounting tension palpable. He saw realisation spread across Ramos’ face as the man’s worst suspicions came to life.
King bull-rushed Ramos, switching from stationary and placid to a charging, explosive battering ram in the blink of an eye.
He dropped his shoulder low and drove it straight into the centre of Ramos’ chest, taking the man by surprise. He focused on pushing through with his legs, adding momentum to the tackle. Ramos was taken off his feet, entirely unprepared for the blunt trauma punching its way through his frame.
He toppled back into the enforcer behind him — the smaller of the two. Together, the pair cascaded to the floor in a tangle of limbs, bruising skin and straining muscles. The tiled floor underneath them offered no protection from the fall.
King carried straight on, barely slowing down. He vaulted over the two scrambling bodies and intercepted the larger thug just as the man slid a compact semi-automatic pistol out of his waistband. The guy fumbled with the trigger guard. King realised that he carried the firearm more for intimidation than anything else.
He clearly had no idea how to use it.
Years of non-stop training kicked in and King went through the motions, reacting reflexively. He clamped two hands down on the thug’s wrist and locked his arm in a vice-like grip, preventing the guy from swinging the barrel in his direction and squeezing off a lucky shot. Then he used the strength that came from a rigorous powerlifting routine and an added dose of life-or-death adrenalin to smash the back of the guy’s hand against the nearest wall.
The man released his grip on the pistol at the same time that his hand tore straight through the flimsy plaster, caving a decent-sized hole out of the wall.
The thug winced in agony. The mean-mug expression vanished off his face, replaced by pain and a hint of fear. He had felt King’s raw power. It had certainly shocked him.
King used the slight pause in action to line up a bullet-like uppercut, treating the underside of the thug’s chin as a sparring pad. He envisioned Randall in front of him, instructing him to twist his body into the motion and use every ounce of explosive power in his mid-section to add weight to the shot.
He swung through, preparing for impact. It came with the audible crack of breaking bone as the thug’s jaw crunched into his top row of teeth, snapped up by the punch. His head jerked back, stiffening his neck as the force resonated through his skull.
His legs caved before King’s eyes.
King realised that he had knocked the man unconscious with a single, staggering punch. The guy dropped like a deadweight, folding in on himself as the lights went off upstairs. The tough-guy demeanour vanished along with his consciousness and he careered back against the plaster wall, whiplashing his head against it on the way down.
King noted the dissolution of the threat and spun to dive on Ramos and the smaller thug. The pair were still making their way to their feet, scrambling on the slick tiled flooring. King analysed the different threats — first and foremost, the smaller thug had a finger inside the trigger guard of his weapon. All he had to do was raise the barrel and blast King’s face to shreds. It was a precarious situation — one that needed to be resolved within the next second if King wanted a chance of seeing another sunrise.
Ramos appeared unarmed.
His mind was made up.
He dropped low and wrapped a powerful arm around the enforcer’s waist, heaving him off the ground. The vertigo kicked in and the guy slackened momentarily, shocked by his lack of control. In a fight to the death, where animalistic instinct often took over, a fifty-pound bodyweight difference meant everything. King felt the ease with which he could manhandle the smaller thug, and it gave him a boost of confidence.
He took off in a full-blown sprint across the room, using the momentum of his wild charge to hurry toward the bank of computer monitors on the far wall. The thug dangled uselessly over King’s shoulder, swinging wild, unhinged punches into King’s upper back.
They achieved nothing.
King knew exactly how to cause a world of neurological damage if needed. The years of relentless martial arts training had its advantages. Punching him in the back would cause bruises, but nothing that couldn’t be healed by some ice and rest.
What came next for the thug on his shoulder would take a little longer to recover from.
King changed his momentum mid-stride, ducking forward and wrenching the guy’s legs down. He effectively threw the man like a rag doll into the collection of trestle tables, sending him crashing head-first through the field of electronics. Glass shattered and wires disconnected as the table legs gave out. The entire setup came crashing to the floor of the apartment, with the smaller thug landing in the midst of the destruction in a dazed heap. The impact had stunned him, causing him to falter.
In King’s heightened state of awareness, a single moment’s hesitation felt like an eternity.
He had the upper hand.
He scrambled for the firearm the man had dropped, recognising it as a FN Five-seven semi-automatic pistol. A reliable weapon, likely smuggled into Mexico and purchased for a hefty mark-up on the black market. King snatched up the gun, locking it in his grip in a single motion. He twisted on the spot and brough
t the barrel up to head-height, searching for Ramos in the cramped apartment.
He froze.
There was no sign of the man.
Ramos had reacted blindingly fast. The door was still swinging on its hinges from where he had made a mad dash out onto the balcony. He must have sensed the tide turning in King’s favour all at once, because he had fled from the scene without a moment’s hesitation.
King swore under his breath and bolted for the door. He almost lost his footing on the shiny floor underneath his feet, moving too fast as panic took hold. If Ramos got away, the operation would screech to an earth-shattering halt and King would be forced to slink back over the border with his tail between his legs.
His entire future came down to these next few seconds.
18
He burst out into the open-air corridor outside the apartments only a few seconds after Ramos. As he exited the apartment, he caught a flash of movement on the edge of his peripheral vision.
Noting that the man could have been in possession of a hidden firearm, King’s instinctive training kicked in and he swung the barrel from left to right, assessing the threats.
What he found shocked him.
No sign of Ramos.
Where the fuck is he? he thought.
A split second later, he heard a crash emanating up from the ground below. He sprinted over to the railing and glanced down, searching for the source of the noise.
Ramos had leapfrogged the railing, making the one-storey drop out of desperation. He had landed hard on the dusty ground beneath, and was now scrabbling for purchase.
King lifted the Five-seven and squeezed off a cluster of shots. They rang off the nearby walls, causing screams of surprise to drift out of neighbouring apartments.
He missed every shot, because Ramos was no longer there.
By the time he’d brought the barrel over the railing to aim at the ground, Ramos had got his feet underneath him and dived for cover. King watched the man disappear from sight, ducking underneath the second-storey balcony upon which he stood. The bullets sunk harmlessly into the dirt where he’d landed a second earlier.
King threw a glance toward the flight of stairs he’d ascended just a few minutes earlier. They were too far away. If he wanted any hope of catching Ramos, he would have to throw caution to the wind.
He gripped the railing with his free hand, noting its flimsiness. Then he pushed off both feet and launched over the edge. His stomach dropped into his feet as he rocketed towards the ground ten feet below.
Mid-fall, his heart rate leapt.
Ramos had been anticipating the move. As King dropped through the air, he noticed a shadowy figure charging straight at his landing trajectory. He couldn’t do anything but watch as Ramos sprinted out from under the balcony to intercept him. He caught a shoulder in his solar plexus — Ramos timed the tackle expertly, slamming into King before his feet had even touched the ground.
The momentum changed drastically.
He kept a desperate hold on the Five-seven as Ramos dropped him unceremoniously into the dirt. Instinctively, his finger tightened around the trigger. As the back of his head smashed into the ground hard enough to disorient him, he felt the gun go off in his palm. The shot went wide, hitting a neighbouring building. In the confusion, he watched Ramos take the opportunity to swing the point of his elbow in King’s direction.
King saw the blow coming, but was powerless to stop it.
He caught the elbow directly in the soft tissue of his throat, wrenching all the breath from his lungs. Briefly, he wondered if he’d been permanently damaged by the blow. It was one of the hardest strikes he had ever received, shocking his system into temporary paralysis.
Pain tore through his head and chest, resonating from the point of impact. King froze up, the blood draining from his face as he gasped for breath. He realised that his youth and inexperience in the field had come around to haunt him, shutting his senses down for a few seconds. He lay in the dirt, seized up by the pain of the landing.
In the brief moment that it took him to regain control over his motor functions, Ramos had capitalised.
King quickly realised that he was dealing with a foe more dangerous than he previously anticipated. He had likened Ramos to a foolish new gangster on the block. In truth, the man was cunningly smart, and highly reactive.
Just like King.
He rolled over and pushed himself up to his knees, noting a drop of blood that fell from one of his nostrils as he did so. His vision had blurred, either from the damage done to his throat or the back of his head when he’d landed on the hard earth. In the corner of his gaze, he made out the shaky silhouette of Ramos sprinting at top speed down the road.
Desperate to act, King reared to his feet and aimed with the Five-seven, his hand shaking. He stumbled, righted himself, then fired.
By then, Ramos had ducked into the gap between two low shanty town houses. King’s bullets went wide.
Crazed yells tore down the street in his direction, from somewhere off to the side. He jolted in surprise and followed the source of the commotion to see the three thugs he’d passed earlier wrenching their second-hand firearms out of their pants.
They were responding to King’s shots.
They thought he was starting a war.
With his senses flooding back to him, King swore in frustration and ran across the bare lot in front of the apartment complex, high-tailing it towards the idle Chevy. He was cruelly exposed in his current position, susceptible to a wave of gunfire if he didn’t move immediately.
The trio of gangsters unloaded a handful of rounds in his direction.
Thankfully, they seemingly hadn’t fired a gun before in their lives.
The bullets went wide, missing King by several feet each. He hurled open the driver’s door of the Chevy and threw himself inside, twisting the key in the ignition before his ass had even touched the seat.
The sedan coughed into life.
A bullet shattered the passenger-side window, spraying glass fragments into the interior. King ducked reflexively away from the horrific blast of noise, stamping on the accelerator at the same time. The back wheels of the Chevy skidded out as the car bit for purchase on the hot ground.
Finally, they found their grip in the dust.
King’s stomach fell as the acceleration slammed him back against the seat. He twisted the wheel, fishtailing the Chevy in a tight arc to send it hurtling back down the road. Every second he spent stationary was another opportunity for Ramos to escape.
Based on his estimates, he imagined that Ramos had sprinted through to the next street over. King roared away from the trio of gangsters. They kept firing on him as he sped past. Lead punched through the thin chassis of his vehicle, each impact sending a bolt of fear through his chest. His heart thumped hard against his chest wall, riding out an overwhelming wave of adrenalin.
At the end of the street he swerved left, heading back the way he had come. On the way to the apartment complex he’d glimpsed the street parallel to the one he’d just left. He guessed that was where Ramos was headed.
As he skidded around the next bend and entered the adjacent street, a horrifying scene unfolded before his eyes. He peered out the tinted windscreen to see an overweight civilian sprawling uncontrollably out of her car in the middle of the road ahead, thrown out against her will. He caught a flash of rapid movement as Ramos’ gangly frame ducked into the seat she’d just vacated. The man had chosen to hijack an ordinary hatchback, currently the only car in the entire street.
King heard the crack of a gunshot, and saw the elderly woman collapse in a limp heap. At the same time, a muzzle flare flashed out of the open driver’s door.
Ramos had killed the woman.
For no good reason.
King rode out a wave of blistering rage and mashed the accelerator into the footwell, chasing after the hatchback with newfound anger in his blood.
19
Two minutes into the pursuit, it dawned o
n King that Ramos knew the streets of Tijuana a hundred times better than he did.
They twisted at breakneck speed through the shanty town, drawing the attention of anyone brave enough to step outside their house. A bald, drug-addled gangster with oversized shorts that stretched down to his ankles waved a fully loaded firearm in King’s direction as he tore past. Maybe the guy thought that the speed at which King was travelling was a sign of hostility.
It didn’t matter.
What mattered was keeping up with Ramos — or his short-lived career as a solo operative would come crashing to a halt.
As the poorer slums melted away — replaced by the wider avenues and bare fields of land that sat between Tijuana and the arid mountains behind it — King dared to increase his speed. He throttled the Chevy up to ninety miles an hour, gaining ground on Ramos with each passing second.
The hatchback in front of him swerved violently into oncoming traffic. It took King by surprise, and he adjusted his course to try and keep up. Then the hatchback’s tyres squealed as Ramos slammed on the brakes. It skidded uncontrollably for a brief second before finding purchase on the asphalt and darting down a narrow side street.
Just in time.
In the space that Ramos’ vehicle had preoccupied a moment earlier, a thick line of oncoming traffic flashed past. King realised that the angle didn’t add up. He would have to slow his Chevy considerably to make the same turn that Ramos did, allowing the cartel leader to peel away and put distance between them.
Instead, King darted back into his lane and pressed on, electing to try and turn down a similar side street up ahead.
Hopefully, all the narrow alleys led through to the same parallel road.
He waited for a gap in the passing traffic before screaming through to the other side of the road. He twisted the wheel, correcting course just in time. The Chevy ploughed onto a narrow trail curving between two residential apartment buildings, both a little more aesthetically pleasing than the shanty town complex he’d just visited.
