Contracts

by Matt Rogers

  He breathed hard, in and out, controlling his impulses, listening for sounds of turmoil elsewhere.

  He heard them immediately.

  There were muffled grunts and then a dull thud, and something faint and distant that sounded awfully like the slash of a blade against skin.

  Slater.

  Fighting for his life.

  King burst out of the doorway with no regard for his own life.

  Because that was the way he’d always operated.

  Protect those you’re closest to.

  At all costs.

  He leapt out of the alcove and down the two steps, exposing himself to the long stretch of patio. The space was barely lit by the weak bulbs, dull in the night, and the wind swept across the slab of concrete incessantly, howling and twisting and writhing in the darkness. King landed and swept the AK-47 in a full revolution, but the patio was empty.

  Until it wasn’t.

  Suddenly there were arms around his waist, and it took him by such surprise that he nearly leapt out of his skin. They came from behind, looping around his mid-section, and calloused hands locked together against his abdomen. He tried to manoeuvre the rifle around to fire behind him but it was far too late. Whoever was holding him was small — at least a full foot shorter than King — but their grip strength was astonishing.

  King resorted to desperation, and tried to wrench the guy off him, but it was futile.

  He was already off-balance, and sometimes that’s all it takes. The next thing he knew he was stumbling toward the edge of the patio, careening out of control.

  Heart in his throat.

  He felt it pounding in his ears.

  He squeezed the trigger of the AK-47, firing a volley of shots into the concrete, hoping the racket of the gunshots would deter his attacker.

  It didn’t.

  The hostile held tight and kept muscling him toward the edge, pushing him further off-balance, and then when the guy realised they were close enough to the end of the concrete slab he put all his weight into it and threw them both off.

  It wasn’t much of a drop — five feet at most to the trail — but that never matters.

  What matters is how you land.

  King didn’t land well.

  He fell forward, face-first, and had to put his hands in front of his face to break his fall, but that meant dropping the rifle.

  Which he wasn’t prepared to do.

  So the result was a last-second panic and fumble, which gave the guy tackling him the momentum needed to drive harder and stronger, tilting King further forward, and he came down awkwardly on his side on the dusty gravel.

  Thwack.

  His head bounced off the ground, disorienting him just enough to delay the pain recognition. So when he came back to reality with swimming vision and a throbbing headache it took him longer than normal to realise he’d landed badly on his ankle. He could already feel it swelling, only a couple of seconds after impact.

  That is not fucking good.

  Finally he got a good look at his attacker, who was currently scrabbling through the dirt to try and get his hands on King.

  Should have known.

  He’d recognise those bulging eyes anywhere.

  The stray porter was unarmed, clearly expecting that six handpicked combatants with automatic weapons would have got the job done without his involvement. Now the small bull-like man was making his last stand, realising that his plans had failed spectacularly and that he’d need to finish the job himself.

  But even though the porter was a freak of nature strength-wise, most of his initial success had come down to catching King by surprise.

  At least, that’s what King told himself.

  The porter got to his knees and pounced forward, hands outstretched, reaching for King’s throat.

  Immediately King knew the guy was an idiot.

  He batted the hands away like they weighed nothing, drove an elbow upwards from his back, and caught the porter in the nose. He heard a crack but he didn’t stop there — when the porter froze up to comprehend his broken septum, King grabbed him and slammed him into the gravel. At the same time he righted himself and put a knee on the guy’s stomach, pinning him in place. Then he dropped another elbow, this time with the assistance of gravity to add an extra something.

  Bang.

  Elbow against skull.

  Skull against dirt.

  Goodnight.

  King clambered off the body and tried to put some weight on his tender ankle.

  It lit up like someone had actively torched his nerve endings.

  He gasped, sat down hard, and wiped beads of sweat off his brow.

  Then a silhouette materialised at the edge of the patio, backlit by the white lights.

  Wielding an AK-47.

  King’s pulse skyrocketed and he prepared to launch himself down the hillside to avoid a string of gunfire lacing his torso.

  But the silhouette said, ‘Relax. It’s me.’

  King breathed out.

  He didn’t move.

  Slater seemed to recognise it. ‘Can you get up?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘Ankle.’

  A pause.

  Slater said, ‘How’d you get down there?’

  ‘I fell.’

  ‘All on your own?’

  King jerked a thumb toward the unconscious porter. ‘Our friend here tackled me.’

  Slater took his time assessing the porter. King could sense him lingering on the fact that the guy was about five-foot-two and a hundred and twenty pounds.

  Slater said, ‘He tackled you?’

  ‘He caught me off-guard. Now shut up and help me up.’

  Slater leapt down off the patio.

  34

  For obvious reasons, they didn’t sleep that night.

  A couple of hours after the ambush, King sat in the dining area with his leg elevated on the bench and an ice-pack pressed to his swollen ankle. He was uncharacteristically quiet, even by his own standards. He couldn’t take his mind off the injury, and no amount of meditation would stop him overthinking. He sat still as a statue with his eyes glazed over, running through the hypotheticals, getting increasingly restless.

  Slater stepped inside as the faint beginnings of daylight appeared on the horizon. He was sweating profusely.

  ‘Bodies are gathered in the storage room,’ he muttered, wiping his hands on his pants. ‘Just liked she asked.’

  ‘This must be hard on her,’ King said.

  As if on cue, the teahouse owner waddled out of the kitchen, a look of dejection on her face.

  Slater smiled at her, doing his best to keep her spirits up. ‘They’re out of sight.’

  She tried to smile back, but didn’t seem to have it in her. ‘Thank you. I clean blood soon.’

  ‘We’re very sorry we brought this conflict here,’ King said. ‘We didn’t want this to happen.’

  ‘Not your fault. Is man’s fault. I always knew he trouble.’

  ‘He sold us out,’ Slater said. ‘Which means someone is looking for us. Which makes us responsible for what happened here. Again, we’re sorry.’

  ‘Not much damage,’ she said with a shrug. ‘You two okay. Maybe small hole in wall, small blood. That okay. Can clean.’

  Slater put his hands in his pockets and nodded his understanding. Then he said, ‘Do you have any idea who those men were who attacked us?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But my English … not good. I don’t know how to say.’

  They thought about that for a spell, and then King slid the satellite phone out of his pocket and dialled a number.

  ‘Hold on,’ he said to her.

  Parker came on the line a couple of seconds later. ‘Have you found her?!’

  ‘No,’ King said. ‘Put Sejun on the line, please.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I asked you to.’

  ‘I want to know why.’

  ‘Because he
has better English than the woman we’re with, so he’s going to listen to what she has to say and then translate it to you. You’ll tell us the end result, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  There was a shuffling at the other end of the line, and King ushered the elderly woman over and handed her the phone.

  ‘Tell him what you know,’ he said.

  A long conversation played out in Nepali, and King sat back and let her speak. He exchanged occasional glances with Slater, but the pair of them stayed quiet. Neither wanted to acknowledge the truth — it didn’t matter how much they knew about their opposition if King couldn’t walk. Which was exactly what Perry or the porter were going for by continuing the trek toward Gokyo Ri. They must have figured that, between the harsh terrain and constant assaults from hired mercenaries, even the toughest super-soldiers on the planet were bound to cop some wear-and-tear.

  And they were right.

  King tried not to think about his damaged ankle. He stared out the window as the sun snaked its way into view, turning the landscape golden. The wind had subsided, giving way to another clear cool morning.

  Maybe he was wearing rose-tinted glasses, but he had hope.

  Whatever obstacle landed in front of them, they’d find a way over it.

  Or through it.

  Finally the woman nodded and handed the phone back to King. Before she walked away, she said, ‘Breakfast?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘What you want?’

  Slater hurried over and they perused the menu before ordering stacks of pancakes and eggs and huge bowls of soup, with teas on the side for tradition’s sake. They weren’t worried about overloading on carbs — it didn’t matter when you were burning three thousand calories a day. She took their orders and headed straight for the kitchen, and King felt a deep respect as he watched her leave.

  She should have kicked them out for bringing such chaos to her establishment. But she seemed to understand they had noble intentions. So she was persevering — even though it made her uncomfortable, even though she wanted to be dealing with anything but bloodstains.

  She was an incredible human being.

  When she was gone, King pressed the phone to his ear. ‘What have you got?’

  Parker said, ‘It’s not good.’

  ‘I didn’t think it would be.’

  ‘They’re a Maoist splinter group. Like an extremist version of the typical communist guerrillas. Apparently there’s hordes of them up in the isolated regions of the mountains. They win the rural villages over by offering security and education that the government can’t provide. Their goal is to be celebrated as “freedom fighters,” when really all they’re after is control. They do that by promising radical change, and it works. Most of those villagers live terribly hard lives, and the communists offer them hope. The violence has been ramping up lately, Sejun tells me. The rebellion is alive and thriving.’

  ‘Which means there’ll be plenty of them looking to line their pockets with a little extra cash.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So whoever’s behind this has all the guerrillas on their payroll?’

  ‘I doubt it. They must know the area well if they’re managing to coax Maoists into doing their dirty work. They must have connections.’

  King paused, reading between the lines. ‘You’re trying to tell me it’s not Perry.’

  ‘Do you think it’s likely that Perry knows how to contact and coordinate guerrillas?’

  ‘Anything sounds likely right now. If it’s the porter trying to raise funds for the communists by kidnapping your daughter, then what does he want with the laptop?’

  ‘I don’t know. Any update on that?’

  ‘None so far. We’re about to set off. I’ll keep you posted on any new developments.’

  Across the room, Slater looked up.

  He gave King’s ankle a worrying stare.

  King mouthed, I’ll be fine.

  Slater didn’t look like he believed him.

  King said, ‘Thanks for getting that sorted. It’s good to know who we’re dealing with.’

  ‘Sejun says to be careful if it’s the insurgents. They don’t usually go anywhere near the tourist trails, but they must have made an exception for the right price. They need to fund their revolution, after all. So if someone wanted to take advantage of well-trained militants, they could. There might be an army heading your way.’

  ‘We’ll keep an eye out.’

  ‘How many men have you killed?’

  ‘Seven so far. Around the same amount before we met you, too.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘Just another day at the office, Aidan.’

  King ended the call, then turned to Slater and said, ‘Did you collect the—?’

  Slater nodded.

  He produced the two handguns he’d found on the rebels’ bodies. They were Sig-Sauer P320s. Serious firepower. Full-size models, chambered with .45 ACP rounds. State-of-the-art, put into production only a few years ago, manufactured by the U.S. branch of Sig Sauer.

  Just one of the many reasons to suspect Oscar Perry’s involvement.

  Who was arming rural guerrillas with state-of-the-art American-made weaponry?

  For now, they didn’t talk about that.

  The handguns would be more than satisfactory for the rest of their travels. The Kalashnikovs were reliable, but they were big and cumbersome and impossible to hide on the trail. It was fundamentally useless to carry assault rifles with them when they could be more precise and more discreet with the P320s.

  Slater handed over one of the handguns and said, ‘I found eight spare magazines. We’ll split them four apiece.’

  King nodded, and hid the gun from view as the owner came back into the dining room.

  He said, ‘I have a request.’

  35

  Slater stood at the mouth of the trail, duffel bag on his back, dressed in hiking gear.

  He winced at King’s stupidity.

  King hobbled down off the patio, his ankle strapped up with nearly an entire roll of duct tape. The teahouse owner had fished the tape out of a storage room and given it to them for free, somewhat hesitant to see King try and continue. But he’d quashed both their protests and Slater had watched him yank the tape around the swollen joint over and over again.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Slater had said.

  ‘Compression.’

  Now King let out a subdued grunt with every second step, but he was making progress all the same. He shuffled ten feet along the dusty gravel, and then seemed to catch a wave of momentum. Each step from then on grew progressively larger, until he was striding it out at close to the same pace they’d maintained yesterday.

  Slater caught up to him, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘You shouldn’t be doing this. You might be causing permanent damage.’

  King turned back, his face white, the corners of his forehead beading with sweat. He said, ‘I told you I just needed to warm up. It’s not broken.’

  ‘I know it’s not broken, but—’

  King held up a hand, cutting him off. ‘There’s a fourteen-year-old kid in the possession of some madman right now, and you’re worried about my ankle?’

  ‘Yes. If it ruins your ability to operate down the line.’

  ‘Let’s worry about that when we get to it. For now, we walk.’

  Slater didn’t say another word.

  Partly because he knew King wouldn’t listen.

  But mostly because he understood.

  Pain was nothing to them. It’s everything to most people, who shy away when it crops up in their lives. But both he and King had made a career out of going directly toward the pain, toward the suffering, in hopes of a better result when it came time to perform. It was eerily similar to what elite athletes go through before competition, only with more dire physical consequences. If they didn’t perform in the field, they didn’t get a participation trophy. They died. That translated to a sickening work ethic,
and a pain tolerance practically unrivalled anywhere else on the planet.

  It meant that when one of them badly sprained their ankle, they taped it back up and kept soldiering on, no matter what it did to them mentally.

  Because all pain comes to an end.

  It can’t last forever.

  King knew that. Soon he’d be back on U.S. soil, back in his New York City penthouse, back in luxury. For now, he had to suffer. He wasn’t about to complain about it. He would never complain.

  True to his word, he warmed up fast. Slater set the pace, but King valiantly kept up for most of the morning. In truth, Slater had little time to pay attention to his own nagging injuries. His right knee hurt on the descents, probably from the jarring impact when he’d kicked one of the paramilitary soldiers in the face. But all the slight grievances he felt paled in comparison to King, who slaved away at the trail like a man possessed. Slater asked him a handful of times if he was okay, and King didn’t respond. Just stared at the ground and put one foot in front of the other and dripped sweat into the dirt.

  When they stopped for lunch, King refused to sit down. He paced back and forth slowly across the dining hall until the food came out, and then he wolfed it down, cradling the plate in one hand and a fork in the other.

  Slater said, ‘What are you doing? You need to rest.’

  ‘If I sit down, it’ll swell more. I need to keep it warm.’

  Slater shook his head. He couldn’t imagine what sort of discomfort the injury entailed. There were certain thresholds that even he considered his limits, and it seemed King was pushing past all of them.

  They got moving again. The sun beat down on the backs of their necks, scorching it. There was no escape from the heat. The temperature wasn’t even that bad — it was the sun exposure coupled with intense physical exertion that did the trick. They sucked down purified water flavoured with BCAAs and kept striding forward.

  Toward Phakding.

  The town was only ten miles from Kharikhola, but the terrain was brutal, and their various ailments didn’t help. Slater went down awkwardly on his bad knee when he leapt onto a rock, and fear speared through him. Not because of the pain, but because of the consequences.