by Matt Rogers
When he had the giant blade under control, pinning it to the ground, he wrapped his free hand around the guy’s throat and forced him underwater with the strength of a primal adrenalin rush juicing through his system.
The veins in his forearms bulged, protruding like a road map on the surface of his skin as he held the man’s arm and head underwater.
Something close to an out-of-body experience unfolded. King’s mind locked up like a steel trap, zoning in on the one thing that he needed to achieve — overpower the man underneath him.
He entered a different state, a long tunnel where normal reality melted away, replaced by something more animalistic and raw. He rode out each of the man’s spasms as they came — the guy writhed under the surface of the rainwater like his life depended on it.
Which it did.
Air bubbles rose to the surface and popped, stamped out by the rain bombarding down from the sky. King narrowly avoided a boot to the jaw, as the guy lashed out in his final death throes, swinging blind in an attempt to make it out alive.
The world would be fading for him…
The guy’s free arm shot out of the water all of a sudden, wrapping around King’s throat in turn. He felt the cold fingers around his neck, strong and determined, fighting for life.
He didn’t budge an inch.
He picked up the guy’s head underwater and smashed it against the road — once, twice, three times, then four.
The last of the air spilled from the man’s lungs and the fingers around King’s throat went resolutely limp.
King slammed the back of the man’s skull into the hard surface of the road three more times, even though the guy had already drowned. If he wasn’t dead already, he would be shortly.
Even in the murky darkness, he saw a cloud of red spread out from the man’s head. It hung in the rainwater for a second before the current washed it away, trickling downhill.
King released the corpse and slumped onto his rear in the newly-formed river.
The threat had dissipated.
He almost couldn’t believe it.
He had succeeded.
He couldn’t ascertain exactly how long he spent in the middle of the village, sitting immobile as the torrential downpour attacked him with sheet after sheet of intense rain. He let the storm wash away everything that had happened since he’d crossed the border from San Diego into Tijuana.
He couldn’t comprehend the fact that it had all begun less than forty-eight hours earlier.
Two days of carnage. Two days of bloodshed. The bodies and the madness had all blurred together into a kaleidoscope of destruction. He couldn’t ascribe an exact number to the amount of people he had killed. The whirlwind shocked him as he looked back on it. He could only realise the extent of what he had achieved when he reached the operation’s conclusion.
And he had just reached it.
Sitting in the dark, up to his waist in rainwater, attacked by Mother Nature, breathing through his mouth out of necessity due to his swollen mess of a nose, he allowed himself a smile.
Over and over again for the past two days, he thought he’d drawn his final breath.
Each time, he’d proven himself wrong.
Somehow, he’d pushed through the adversity.
And he wouldn’t have preferred it any other way.
He couldn’t imagine conducting the same operation with a unit of fellow operatives. They would have weighed him down, questioned every decision, resisted heading directly into Guatemala and throwing themselves to the wolves.
Now, he realised that he could do what others dared not to.
And he was more than willing to.
As long as he did it alone.
Now that the major threat had vanished, and the heightened level of awareness that King had been running off for the last two days had begun to fade away, the pain began to take over.
His nose hurt like nothing he’d ever experienced. Coupled with the searing pain in his stomach and the needling fingers of ice in his shoulder, he slumped into a semi-conscious state, riding out the vicious waves of discomfort.
He barely even noticed the hands looping under his armpits and hauling him to his feet.
Eyes half-closed, he made out a shape that seemed vaguely familiar.
Whoever was helping him didn’t seem to have hostile intentions.
He closed his eyes and let them guide him to destinations unknown.
52
King propped himself up on the thin straw mattress, allowing himself a better view outside. That came rather easily, as the entire front portion of the house he rested in was missing.
The husband and wife that he had saved earlier had scooped him up out of the elements, carting him back into their humble abode. The woman had sensed King overheating from his injuries and pressed a cool towel to his forehead, providing some relief from the overbearing humidity.
Then they let him be, wordlessly recognising that he still had a lot to process. The spare mattress they’d brought out into the kitchen provided a welcome respite from the storm, and it gave him a front-row view to the chaos outside.
An hour later, the storm passed. The deafening cacophony of falling rain faded into nothingness, replaced by the sound of the trickling streams of water running off the jungle canopies surrounding the village. King let the calm soothe his mind, ignoring the dead body still resting out the front of the property.
He would deal with that later.
Right now, he needed to recuperate.
Detox his brain from the horrors he’d experienced first-hand.
He hadn’t spent long enough in the field to be affected by the post-traumatic stress disorder that wracked his nation’s military, but something told him that what had unfolded in Tijuana and Guatemala would linger on his mind for years to come. It had been his first taste of madness, his first rush of unimaginable violence and raw instinct.
Something about it had also sucked him in.
He could feel the addiction taking hold. He was self-aware enough to recognise that he was blessed by unnatural reaction speed. Reflecting on all the violent encounters he’d been part of over the last two days, he understood that the level of clarity he experienced in the heat of the moment was a rare gift.
He felt different when it came down to life or death.
He felt like he could thrive.
He felt hooked on the process.
There was all the time in the world to assess whether that made him a psychopath at a later date. For now, he settled onto the mattress properly and closed his eyes, drifting into a restless sleep. Over and over again throughout the night he jolted awake, seized either by a fresh wave of pain from his nose or an uncomfortable dream in which he focused on the faces of the men he had killed.
Hours later, the hooting of tropical birds woke him at first light. He blinked once, rolled over, and came face-to-face with the man who had helped him inside the previous night.
King jolted upright, shocked by the man’s silent presence. He looked to be in his early fifties, with a widow’s peak hairline and rough skin coating his cheeks from years spent outdoors. His nails were cracked and his fingers hardened from manual labour work. Despite the gritty exterior, his eyes were kind, studying King more out of interest than anything malicious. He had been squatting bare-footed on the other side of the kitchen for what must have been some time, because King hadn’t heard a peep from him since he’d stirred.
‘Thank you for helping me,’ King said, drawing out his words, unsure if he was falling on deaf ears.
The man smiled warmly and laughed. ‘I speak English just fine. I was raised by parents fluent in the language, and they made sure to teach me to pass it onto my next of kin, too. You do not need to treat me like a fool.’
King nodded. ‘Sorry.’
‘That is not something to be sorry for,’ the man said. ‘What you should be sorry for is what you did to my house. That is a little worse, sir.’
King’s gaze rolled a
cross to the gaping hole in the front of the hut. ‘Yeah. That’s worse. Sorry about that, too.’
‘It seems like you saved my life though,’ the man said. ‘And my wife’s. And my young boy’s. So this is a small price to pay. Were these men—?’ He gestured outside, to the body on their lawn and to the other two dead men lying somewhere out of sight.
King nodded. ‘They were going to kill you.’
‘May I ask why? I can’t think of what I have done to anger anyone.’
King shook his head, considering the horror of what Ramos had almost achieved. A senseless massacre would have unfolded, simply for the purpose of crushing his adversary’s spirit. ‘Let’s not talk about that. It had nothing to do with you. The threat’s gone.’
‘Will there be more?’
‘No,’ King said.
He considered the handful of Ramos’ men that he had left in the ruins the previous night. They had been combing through Piedras Negras when he’d abandoned them in pursuit of their boss.
He wondered if they would spell trouble…
He highly doubted it. There couldn’t have been more than three men left alive in the ancient city. They were now leaderless, their ranks decimated by a single enemy. They would have returned to the warehouse to find it abandoned, their boss slaughtered in one of the offices and the rest of their force nowhere to be found.
They were ex-Army soldiers, the lot of them. Hired guns. In the game for a paycheque, a cheque signed on the dotted line with blood.
They would scatter at the first sign of adversity.
King guessed they were probably a dozen miles away from the Mexico-Guatemala border by now.
The war between the drug cartels would go on. That much was certain. King couldn’t take down a multi-billion dollar industry on his own.
But he had single-handedly removed a radical new arm of the business.
There was satisfaction to be had in that accomplishment.
But not yet.
He needed to get the hell out of Guatemala first.
‘And who are you?’ the man said, staring at King with his head cocked to one side like a scientist observing a lab experiment.
‘Just someone trying to lend a helping hand.’
‘This is your job?’
King nodded.
‘How long have you been doing this?’
‘About two days.’
The man furrowed his brow, confused by the statement.
King didn’t want to lie.
‘You are a soldier?’ the man said.
‘Of sorts.’
‘You like what you do?’
King flashed a glance across at the guy. ‘Is this a counselling session?’
The man smiled again. ‘I am always curious to hear from people with far different lives to mine. It’s a valuable experience. Don’t you agree?’
‘I guess so.’
‘So — do you enjoy it?’
‘I don’t get much time to think about that, man. Things happen too fast. It’s not fun, if that’s what you’re asking me.’
‘That is not what I’m asking you.’
King understood. Deep down in his core, did he feel like he had a purpose? Did he feel like he was doing good?
‘Yeah,’ he admitted. ‘Yeah, I do like it. If I was doing anything else I’d feel like my time was being wasted.’
‘I see.’
‘What about you?’ King said. ‘What do you do?’
‘I’m a gardener,’ the man said. ‘One of the airfields near here pays me to tend to their grounds. It is an honest job.’
‘Who owns the airfields?’
‘I prefer not to know,’ the man said. ‘The ownership changes with each passing week. Lots of conflict, lots of back-stabbing. Squatters, illegal settlers, drug runners. I mow the lawns and keep my head down. It is a simple existence.’
‘Sounds pleasant,’ King said.
‘It is. I am trying to raise my boy to have better opportunities, though. The English my parents taught me did not go as far as I thought it would.’
‘I’m going to wire you money to fix your house,’ King said. ‘It’s the least I can do.’
‘I would be humbled if you chose to do so.’
‘You have a bank here?’
‘There is a small branch in town. We have an account. There is not much in there, to be honest. We get by, though.’
‘Make sure to get me your account details,’ King said. ‘I’ll make sure you get taken care of.’
The man bowed his head. ‘Thank you.’
‘There’s just one thing I need from you.’
‘Oh?’
‘A satellite phone.’
‘I’m afraid…’ the man began.
‘Don’t worry. I didn’t think you would have one. But would there by anywhere in town that might be able to lend you one for twenty minutes? It’s seriously important that I make a call.’
‘I shall see what I can find, sir.’
The man rose to his feet and strode out the front of the hut, ignoring the bodies in the street. King imagined that either local or federal police would arrive in some capacity over the next few days. This section of Guatemala was barren in regards to law enforcement, but he couldn’t imagine that such bloodshed could take place in plain view of a rural village and go unnoticed.
Two figures materialised in the bedroom doorway as soon as the man had left — the wife and child.
‘Hello,’ King said with a smile.
‘Hello,’ the woman said back. ‘I’m going to cook something. Want a plate?’
‘I’d like that very much.’
With the little boy trailing in tow, she set about preparing a dish made with sun-dried fish and a smattering of spices. King got to his feet and watched her cook with measured grace, silently pondering just how unbelievable his life had become in such a short period of time.
Two weeks ago, he’d woken up in Wyoming without a hint of knowledge as to who Lars Crawford was.
Now he was here.
53
The man returned less than half an hour later with a worn-out Garmin satellite phone, scratched and faded from years of use in the humid tropical conditions. King stared down at the device in disbelief, turning it over in his hand.
‘It was that easy?’ he said.
‘There is no reception out here,’ the man said. ‘The grocery store needs one to communicate with their supplier and co-ordinate new deliveries. They are certainly expensive. I was told that I would be beaten to within an inch of my life if I did not return it promptly.’
‘Understood,’ King said.
He stepped out of the hut, noting the two bodies scattered across the lawn and the third man lying pale and motionless in the middle of the street. He watched locals emerging from their huts as daylight speared through the sky and the sun began to rise over the treetops, steaming and cooking the rainwater left over from the previous night.
To King’s surprise, they barely looked twice at the dead men before going about their duties, heading off into the village centre or the neighbouring airfield without a shred of concern.
He wondered just how intense the cartel infighting was in this region to result in a response like that. The trio of corpses seemed like an inconvenience to the villagers, instead of something to raise an alarm about.
They ignored King similarly.
He dialled a number off the top of his head and waited a worryingly long amount of time for the call to be answered. He pictured Lars staring at his phone, confused as to why an unknown number was calling a top-secret military phone.
Finally, he answered.
He didn’t say a word, patiently waiting for whoever was on the other end of the line to respond.
‘Hey, buddy,’ King said, his nose stuffy and sealed from the broken septum.
‘Unbelievable…’ Lars muttered.
‘Where are you?’
‘At a military base,’ Lars said. ‘Waiting for your call. If we d
idn’t hear from you in the next eight hours, we were sending a SEAL team in.’
‘Don’t bother,’ King said. ‘But seeing that you’re ready to go, I’d appreciate if you come pick me up.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Near Piedras Negras. There’s an airfield near here, apparently. Occupied by illegal settlers. I’m sure you can find it if you look hard enough.’
‘Any more detail than that?’
‘No,’ King said. ‘That’s on you. I got the job done.’
Lars stayed quiet for some time.
‘What happened?’ he finally said. ‘If you did things that you don’t want on the record, I suggest you keep your mouth shut about them. I’m required by contract to report everything you give me to my superiors.’
‘Tell them everything,’ King said. ‘I killed Ramos, and over a dozen of his men. His organisation was already hurting, but that was the nail in the coffin. I imagine they would have fallen apart even without my involvement, but I made sure that whoever’s left will go scurrying back to wherever they came from.’
‘Was it a processing facility?’
‘Yes.’
‘Cocaine?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sure Ramos is dead, or is it speculation? Did you see the body?’
‘I sent half his brains across the floor. He’s as dead as dead can be.’
Lars exhaled loudly, letting out the breath that he’d been holding since he first answered the call. ‘Do you have proof?’
‘Send a team to the last location you found Ramos’ ping. You’ll find his corpse. And a few more to go with it.’
‘All affiliated with Ramos?’
‘Yes.’
‘If we send a team in to verify, I don’t want dead civilians turning up that can be traced back to you. You can promise me that no-one got caught in the crossfire?’
‘Not by my hand. I worked clean. I only killed people who were coming after me in the first place.’
‘Good fucking work, King. I’ll find that airfield you spoke of — whatever it takes. I’ll be in Guatemala mid-afternoon, as long as we get wheels up here in the next few minutes. You in any danger?’
