by Matt Rogers
The Victor
Black Force Shorts Book One
Matt Rogers
Copyright © 2018 by Matt Rogers
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Onur Aksoy.
www.liongraphica.com
Contents
Reader’s Group
Books by Matt Rogers
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Announcement
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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)
BLACK FORCE SHORTS
The Victor (Book 1)
1
Greenpoint, Brooklyn
New York
It takes a certain type.
The mere presence of fear only served to compound James Xu’s anxiety. He grimaced as he twisted the nondescript sedan through narrow residential streets. His brain had crossed over to autopilot the second he’d pulled out of the car rental station outside LaGuardia Airport. Since then he’d been furiously grappling with his churning insides, to the point where he’d dwelled on his own mentality for so long that it was starting to have a physical effect on him.
Because Xu couldn’t remember the last time he’d experienced genuine nerves before an operation.
Which made this particular endeavour all the more terrifying.
Rain lashed against the sedan’s windshield, falling from a dark grey sky covered in storm clouds. Xu twisted a knob on the left-hand side of the steering wheel and the wipers accelerated. The car stank of artificial disinfectant — everything about the interior felt stale. He’d entered the co-ordinates into the GPS ten minutes ago, and according to the route planner he was making good time.
He wasn’t sure if he wanted to arrive at his destination, in any case.
But here he was.
This is what you signed up for, he reminded himself.
Black Force had never been advertised as an easy gig. In fact, it had never been advertised at all. Xu knew surprisingly little about the organisation, considering he’d put his life on the line for his country well over thirty times now. The job had no official protocol and no rigid instructions, which made it all the more satisfying when he pulled off the impossible.
Something he had managed to achieve time and time again.
So why did he have such a horrible feeling about this operation?
Probably because it wasn’t an operation at all. It was a Hail Mary, a desperate attempt to capitalise on a narrow opening in the underworld, an opportunity that would be lost if the United States military didn’t — unofficially, of course — throw one of their best operatives at the window.
Enter James Xu.
He shoved all thoughts of failure from his mind as the GPS beeped a brief digital note.
He was approaching his destination.
The nerves amplified, reaching a fever pitch, presenting themselves through sweaty palms and a cold chill on the back of his neck which he couldn’t attribute to the weather.
There it was.
The townhouse was indistinguishable from the dozens of others lining the street. Xu had visited the neighbourhood of Greenpoint many times before, none of which carried the weight of today’s trip. He’d been flown in-country on a day’s notice, forced to hurry through the state he ordinarily called home. Now he followed the instructions he’d been provided with, pulling up to the sidewalk a few hundred feet from the house in question.
He couldn’t make out many features from this distance, but there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary. He spied a cluster of parked cars — some expensive sedans, some giant four-wheel-drives — but that was Greenpoint. His targets had money, but so did everyone in this neighbourhood. Nothing caught the eye. It was an ordinary civilian street in suburbia.
But under the surface, something darker stewed…
Xu slid a disposable phone out of the pocket of his jeans and hit autodial. It connected in seconds. He lifted the device to his ear.
‘Yes?’ a voice said.
Xu’s handler.
Lars Crawford.
‘I’m in position,’ he said.
‘Good. Do your best. And, if all else fails, get out of there in a hurry.’
‘I might need to.’
‘This isn’t what we usually feed you — I know.’
‘I don’t like this at all.’
‘You already voiced your concerns.’
‘You got any more information?’
‘Nothing. Whoever this guy is, he covers his tracks like a seasoned professional. You’re going in blind. But you know that.’
‘This isn’t what we do.’
‘Changing times. We think it’s something big, so you need to chase it up. And…’
Lars trailed off. Xu had been working with the man for nigh on three years now, and the pair never held anything back from each other. Xu understood that Black Force was set up to encourage maximum deniability, and that suited him just fine. But Lars was the central node connecting all the operatives to the upper echelon of command, and Xu placed trust in the man.
So he wanted answers when he demanded them.
‘What?’ he said. ‘Tell me. If it’s on your mind then I need to know.’
‘Something’s happening at the port.’
‘Port of New York and New Jersey?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s only a few miles away.’
‘Hence my concern.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Bunch of delays with a suspicious shipment. The port authorities are inspecting a container ship. They found a strange TEU on board.’
‘TEU?’
‘Ten-Foot Equivalent Unit. The big metal boxes they use to ship everything on the planet.’
‘What’s suspicious about it?’
‘It’s like someone built one to use as a nuclear bunker. The guys at the port wanted to inspect it and they can’t get in. And it was buried in a pile of TEUs packed with fleece jackets, like someone was trying to hide it amongst banal shit.’
‘Have you scanned it?’
‘Yeah. With mixed results. They don’t know if there’s some kind of jamming tec
hnology in there, but it’s proving annoying. And they can’t keep the container ship waiting much longer. Schedules and all that. They’ll have to send off the cargo and keep the suspicious container behind.’
‘Doesn’t sound good. It couldn’t be a dirty bomb, could it?’
‘We don’t know. But it’s so close to your operation … keep an eye out.’
‘You don’t have a shred of information on what I’m walking into?’
‘I already gave you everything.’
‘You working on getting more?’
‘What do you think my job is?’
‘I don’t know, Lars. I don’t like this one.’
‘Neither do I. But that is what we do, despite what you might think. The shit no-one else wants to do. Get in there and see what the deal is.’
‘What’s my name again? Mike Nguyen?’
‘Mike Nguyen,’ Lars repeated.
‘And you said it’s a tournament? That’s all we know?’
‘That’s what the guy was running his mouth about before he swallowed a cyanide pill when we brought him in.’
‘Serious shit.’
‘That’s what we do,’ Lars repeated.
‘Leave it with me.’
‘Good luck, soldier.’
Xu ended the call, executed a series of commands that erased all content on the device, and shoved it under the driver’s seat. Then he stepped out of the sedan, bowing his head low to protect himself from the rain, and set off with hunched shoulders in the direction of the townhouse.
‘Soldier,’ he muttered.
When he’d first walked into a military recruitment office the day after receiving his green card, this certainly wasn’t what he’d had in mind.
2
He rapped once on the door and it opened immediately. The lack of delay caught Xu off-guard and he spent a moment composing himself, hardening his features in response to the large European man scrutinising him from across the threshold. The man wore a thick woollen coat and had slicked his jet black hair back off his forehead with some kind of greasy pomade.
‘Gonna let me in?’ Xu said.
‘You Nguyen?’ the guy said, sporting the trace of an Italian accent.
‘Were you expecting anyone else?’
‘Nope. You’re the last arrival.’
‘I thought we agreed on eight. It’s seven-fifty.’
‘You clearly don’t know who you’re dealing with.’
‘Must not.’
‘It pays to be early.’
‘Sorry for the inconvenience, then.’
Xu felt no need to bow down to this man. He kept up the sardonic tone all throughout the conversation, refusing to shower the door grunt in sincere apologies. The guy kept his hackles raised, but didn’t go so far as to slam the door in Xu’s face.
Xu took that as a positive sign.
Finally, after a mute staredown that went on far longer than necessary, the guy stepped aside. Xu nodded once and hurried in out of the rain — not that he should have bothered. He’d spent close to a minute shifting from foot to foot on the portico, and the rain falling through the gaps in the structure’s ceiling had drenched him. He ran a hand through his short hair and swept raindrops down the back of his jacket.
‘Can I take that?’ the guy said as he shut the door behind Xu, sealing them into an echoing wood-panelled entranceway, eerily silent as the sound of the rain falling in sheets outside subsided into a muffled din.
Xu shrugged off his jacket and handed it over. ‘Thanks.’
‘I gotta search you for weapons.’
Xu flashed him a dark look. ‘You really think I’m that stupid?’
‘You’re late, by Velli’s standards. Not much of a stretch to think you might have brought a gun.’
Velli.
The guy running this operation?
Xu compartmentalised the snippet of information for future reference.
The door grunt conducted a rudimentary frisk search, then passed a metal wand over Xu’s arms and legs, instructing him to stand like a starfish in a manner akin to an airport official. Satisfied, he dropped the wand back onto the hall table…
…then he lashed out and seized Xu by the collar.
Xu didn’t react. Every part of him wanted to hammer a shin into the guy’s unprotected gut with enough ferocity to rupture internal organs, but he held himself back. He stood rigid, deciding not to offer an extreme reaction in either direction. He simply assessed.
‘You don’t look like Nguyen,’ the Italian guy grunted.
The guy had thirty pounds and at least three inches of height on Xu, but Xu was not a small man either. He stood six foot tall and weighed just under one ninety, which provided him with the physical prowess to put enough weight behind his strikes to kill a man in a flurry of well-placed punches. He knew he could. But that didn’t mean he should.
‘You seen me before?’ Xu said, pulling out every acting trick in the book to maintain the aura of nonchalance.
‘We’ve been in the same room.’
‘I’ve been hitting the gym,’ Xu said. ‘Other than that — don’t know what to tell you.’
He was going off a surveillance photo of the recently deceased Mike Nguyen, forwarded to his private email address at the last second. This operation was the definition of time sensitive, and Xu had entered the townhouse knowing almost nothing about the man he was impersonating.
One of the most dangerous risks imaginable.
Especially considering the type of criminal he was dealing with.
The consummate professional.
‘Who were you talking to in your car?’ the door grunt said.
‘You were watching?’
‘It’s Velli. He’s got dozens of people spread through the neighbourhood. You really think you could get away with that? You really don’t know who you’re dealing with, pal.’
I know that. That’s why I’m standing here, oblivious to all the finer details, pretending to be Mike Nguyen instead of charging through the front door surrounded by an army of Special Forces soldiers.
Because this Velli character is a meticulous, ruthless individual.
Because he’ll disappear into thin air at the slightest hint of suspicion.
That’s why I haven’t broken every bone in your face, you stupid fuck.
‘I was calling the boss,’ Xu said, assuming that Mike Nguyen implicating himself as a member of the New York City triad before his arrest would prove accurate. ‘Cut me some slack. Someone puts you in this tournament — how do you think you’d react?’
The Italian guy grinned. ‘Drawn the short straw, eh?’
‘Yep.’
‘You got experience?’
Please, give me more information.
Please.
Xu paused. ‘Enough. I’ll manage.’
‘Been in many streets fights?’
‘My fair share.’
‘Might not be enough in this game. You’ve really been thrown to the wolves, haven’t you, pal? Ah, fuck it, you’ll be right. Enjoy yourself. You don’t want to know what kind of medical staff we’ve got on hand.’
The guy cackled, a harsh guttural noise that resonated through the empty corridor. Xu’s stomach catapulted, but he couldn’t say he hadn’t been expecting the confirmation.
There weren’t many kinds of tournaments in the underworld that didn’t involve some kind of grievous bodily harm.
‘I’ll be right,’ he said.
The Italian guy jerked a thumb in the direction of the ceiling. ‘Party’s upstairs. You’re good to go.’
Xu rolled the sleeves of his loose long sleeved shirt up, exposing forearms laced with muscle and sinew, and nodded once to the door grunt. He wasn’t sure if he’d see the guy again. If he did, it would be during the process of smashing his way out of this townhouse.
He hoped fifteen years of Muay Thai would hold up over the course of the night.
With his guts turning end over end, he set off down the dar
k passageway for the ancient wooden staircase spiralling into the upper levels of the townhouse.
As he strode, his ears picked up the slightest murmur of activity.
Here’s trouble.
He headed upstairs.
3
He sensed a roomful of eyes on him before he made it to the second floor.
The staircase spiralled up in a corkscrew fashion, leaving him with no idea what he’d be walking into until he reached the top step and stepped out into a large open-plan space where a kitchen, a dining room, and a lounge area had been mashed together in an awkward amalgamation. Most of the furniture in the living area had been shoved over to the far walls, and a collection of cheap stools had been carted in at some point.
Those stools were now populated by a smorgasbord of undesirables — Xu gazed out over at least fifteen shady-looking characters of all races and ethnicities. It looked like something out of a bad thriller movie, if not for the lethal tension drenching the air.
It seemed almost hard to breathe.
‘Boys,’ Xu said with a nod.
He couldn’t spend long scrutinising each member of the near twenty man procession — any prolonged bout of eye contact would probably be taken as a fatal misstep.
Someone up the back cackled. ‘Sit the fuck down, princess.’
Xu didn’t respond. He didn’t know whether Mike Nguyen had met anyone in the room, and what kind of precedent the guy had set with his prior behaviour.
Was he confident? Was he subdued?
Xu knew nothing, so he crossed to the nearest vacant stool, sat down, and bowed his head.
