by Matt Rogers
‘I’m sorry.’
‘But you know what else I know about you? You talk.’
‘I won’t say nothin’.’
‘But you will. You’ll run to your friends all across the city — all the small-timers — and tell them that the guy who fucked up the Whelans also fucked you up. Rumours will spread like a virus. Soon, everyone will know what happened to us. We cannot afford that risk to our reputation.’
On the couch, Gianni stiffened. But there was nothing he could do. He was unarmed, and his face had swollen like a pumpkin, and he couldn’t get to his feet if his life depended on it.
Whelan withdrew a Glock 23 equipped with a Silencerco Osprey 40 Silencer from the rear of his waistband. He held it in his palm. He said, ‘I guess it doesn’t make a difference what I tell you anymore, does it?’
‘Come on, Tommy…’
Whelan leant forward. ‘We were paid tens of millions to ensure those crates were delivered to the townhouse on time. I won’t tell you who funded the job. You wouldn’t believe it if I did. But it was vital that they reached their destination. Now my entire organisation is at risk, and my reputation is on the line too.’
‘Tommy, please—’
Whelan shot him through the forehead.
The Glock coughed in the apartment, and still made a considerable sound, but the neighbours would think he was watching a movie at an obnoxiously loud volume. Plus, the apartments were expensive, so the walls were thick and sound-absorbent.
Whelan flashed a glance at the balcony.
The four beat-up thugs were watching with solemn expressions.
That would change soon.
Soon, they would panic, and their stomachs would drop, and their veins would turn to ice.
Tommy Whelan advanced toward the balcony.
If he left Gianni’s men alive, they’d spread the same rumours.
As he opened the glass door and shot each of them once in the face, he made a mental note to have his men clean the rest of Gianni’s crew off the street later that day.
10
Slater pulled the box truck to a halt beside an electronic security interface in front of a vast metal gate.
He reached down and swiped a keycard across the scanner. A sharp beep sounded, and the gate rumbled off the ground.
Slater drove into an underground parking garage.
Beside him, King muttered, ‘Home sweet home.’
‘We can’t leave it here for long,’ Slater said.
‘We’ll take the crates upstairs if we need to. Then I’ll torch the truck.’
‘I can do it, if you need.’
‘You were tracking them all day yesterday. I slept in. I’ve had more rest.’
Slater shrugged. ‘Fair enough. I am running on fumes.’
‘We both are.’
‘When’s the last time you knocked some heads together?’
King sighed. ‘Not since … you know.’
That was the only way to describe it.
Their recent history defied belief. Slater recalled the madness in New Zealand, the incident that had reunited them after a long spell apart. Before that, they shared a long and equally turbulent history. They were brothers in arms, united in their mutual penchant for chaos, both cut from the same cloth. Together they’d contributed to the foundations of Black Force, a secret division of the U.S. government that honed and forged solo warriors with inhuman reflexes. They were genetic specimens, and they’d sacrificed most of their lives and their own personal comforts for their country. And now the division that had formed their separate identities was dead, and after a period of mutual exile they were back together.
They’d tried to stay apart, but normal civilisation didn’t suit them.
Their minds didn’t stop running.
Their morality never wavered.
They couldn’t sit back and let their talents go to waste as the world fell apart around them.
So here they were — unemployed vigilantes, cast out from the system that had built them, both with more money than they knew what to do with.
Hence the building they’d driven the truck underneath.
They’d agreed to unite two months ago, and they’d been busy ever since. After discovering they were no longer wanted by the U.S. government, they’d been free to move back into the country that had forged them. Slater was worth four hundred million dollars after a detour through the bank accounts of a Macau triad, so it hadn’t taken much of an effort to snatch up two penthouse suites in one of New York’s most expensive residential buildings on the Upper East Side. The luxury apartments had cost fifteen million dollars apiece, and they resided side by side on the top floor with a sprawling view of Central Park and enough amenities to keep them both in obscene comfort for the rest of their lives.
But comfort had never been part of their agenda.
So after a brief acclimatisation period to get used to their new surroundings, they’d figured it was time to get back out there and put their skills to work.
They’d put out the feelers and started sniffing leads, and it had all culminated in the assault on Gianni and his men.
Now, Slater parked in a dark corner of the garage. The space was quiet and desolate and empty. There was no-one in sight. He spotted the same handful of luxury supercars dotted around the garage — Ferraris and Lamborghinis and the odd McLaren or two. But they weren’t in use. Some of the supercars had lain dormant for months, purchased by residents with no idea how to splurge their cash. They had chauffeurs to pick them up, and rarely drove their own vehicles. This section of the building was reserved for those on the top five levels, where apartments didn’t fall under the low eight figures.
So there was privacy, and anonymity.
It worked well for King and Slater.
They piled out of the truck and Slater skirted round back. He lifted the latches out of their holsters and swung the doors outward. Then he and King set to work dragging the crates out of the hold, one by one. They lowered them to the concrete, arms and legs straining. Each crate had to weigh north of four hundred pounds. They could deadlift that weight on their own, but there was a difference between lifting a barbell with perfect form and manhandling an object the size of a refrigerator out of an enclosed space.
With the four crates out of the truck, Slater slammed the doors closed.
They stood with their hands on their hips, panting for breath, and stared down at the payload.
King scrutinised the keyholes on each crate and said, ‘How are we going to do this? They look like they’re designed to be impenetrable.’
Slater said, ‘They came off the river. I saw Gianni’s men collect them. There was no other handover. I was keeping a close eye on how it went down. They didn’t even interact with the divers who brought the crates in. So the keys are here. They were supposed to go straight to their destination. There was no need to hide the keys.’
King bent down and ran a calloused palm along the side of the closest crate. There was a snap as he found a loose piece of reinforced plastic and ripped it off the lining. It exposed a small nook carved into the side of the box. Inside rested a small silver key.
‘Well, what do you know,’ he said.
He took it out and unlocked the crate.
Slater stepped forward and lifted the lid.
They looked inside.
‘Oh,’ King said.
‘Where the hell were these going?’ Slater pondered.
They settled into an uneasy silence.
11
Weapons.
Lots of weapons.
Serious firepower.
Enough to start a civil war on the streets of New York City.
On top there were brand new Heckler & Koch HK417 rifles. They were variants of the base model, with 20 inch barrels, telescopic sights and detachable bipods. Putting one in the hands of a trained marksman with an agenda would result in unimaginable destruction. Then there were dozens of spare magazines neatly slotted into cut
outs in a layer of foam. All .308 Winchester cartridges.
Slater lifted the assault rifles out and found dozens of claymore mines underneath, also carefully slotted into foam. They were the miniature variant designed for use by U.S. Special Forces — MM-1 Minimores. Slater was intimately familiar with them, as was King. They’d taken many on Black Force operations in the past. The mines were lightweight — easy to carry, hard for an enemy to spot, yet they packed practically the same punch as the larger M18A1 claymore mine.
You could use them to set up an impenetrable fortress anywhere in New York. It told Slater this was a defensive operation.
Someone was anticipating a siege.
If only they knew who…
‘Is that it?’ King said. ‘I was expecting something… more.’
Slater said, ‘There’s another layer.’
He lifted out the MM-1 Minimores.
And, of course, it wasn’t only guns and mines.
The most valuable cargo was always unassuming.
At the bottom of the crate lay nondescript black boxes, and their exteriors were entirely featureless. There were nine of them arranged in a three by three grid, and Slater used his limited knowledge of computers to liken them to CPUs. He figured there was enough processing power in those boxes to do something incredibly sinister.
And the mystery around them made it so much worse.
King said, ‘You’re the computer guy. What are we looking at?’
‘I’m afraid this is above my pay grade.’
‘What do we do with them?’
‘Would be great if we still had our government contacts, wouldn’t it?’
‘That’s not our world anymore.’
‘No,’ Slater said, forlorn. ‘It isn’t.’
King glanced at him. ‘You don’t sound thrilled. Do you want it to be?’
‘I don’t know what I want. You ever feel like an imposter living this life?’
‘This is our first independent job. We’re just getting started. There’s always going to be growing pains.’
‘You like where we live? What we do?’
‘What’s not to like?’
‘You ever feel empty inside? Like something’s missing?’
King stared around the empty garage. Their words were echoing off the walls. ‘You really want to have that conversation here?’
‘Is there a better place to have it?’
‘Are you still thinking about New Zealand?’
‘Considering I almost went under the knife and got my brain altered by a lunatic, I’d say it’s hard to stop thinking about it.’
King said, ‘I remember you were worried the world’s passing us by. Technology’s advancing, and our type is becoming obsolete. The old-fashioned type. The type who knock heads together.’
He gestured to the black boxes.
‘That’s what you think this is,’ King continued. ‘More horrors. More things we know nothing about. You’re overwhelmed. You’re out of your depth. Right?’
‘Yeah,’ Slater admitted.
‘They didn’t change your brain,’ King said. ‘Back in New Zealand, they didn’t achieve anything. I stopped them. We stopped them.’
‘They almost did.’
King shrugged.
Slater said, ‘They could have. That’s the point. If you hadn’t intervened, I would have been a mental slave. Programmed to do the bidding of my master. That’s where society is headed. Genetic alterations. There’s going to be a fundamental shift, if it hasn’t already happened yet.’
‘No use getting caught up on hypotheticals.’
Silence.
King said, ‘It didn’t happen.’
‘Something will happen. Eventually. And we’ll be powerless to stop it.’
‘We destroy these boxes,’ King said. ‘Whatever they are. If they’re out of the picture, then it doesn’t matter what their purpose is. That’s all we can focus on. Like I said, no use concentrating on anything else.’
‘Yeah,’ Slater said, dejected.
King grabbed the back of his shirt and hauled him to his feet like a disobedient child.
Slater said, ‘You’d better get your fucking hands off me.’
‘Pull yourself together. We didn’t set up this life to back out when the going gets tough.’
Slater said, ‘Help me get these upstairs. Then we’ll torch the truck, and the boxes along with them. That’s one plan we foiled, at least.’
King said, ‘Are you frustrated that this isn’t official? Because it means we know nothing about what we’re trying to prevent.’
‘I guess. There’s usually briefings, and after-action reports, and investigations. All on the down-low, obviously, because of what we used to do. But I hate not knowing. What did we prevent? We’ll never know.’
‘This is the way it’s going to work moving forward,’ King said. ‘We don’t have a choice. We have no resources. No contacts. We’re cut off from that world. We’re on our own.’
Slater shrugged. ‘Better than doing it solo, I guess.’
‘Exactly.’
King offered out an open palm, and Slater slapped it. King thumped him hard on the back. ‘You’re okay, soldier. We’re okay.’
‘Strange new world,’ Slater muttered under his breath.
‘Let’s get these upstairs.’
They bent down, hauled the first crate off the ground, and shuffled toward the private elevator.
12
Half an hour later, Slater sat alone in his penthouse and looked out at Central Park.
Watching the sun rise from the height of luxury.
There was a lidless blender filled with green juice in his hand.
Not a tumbler filled with whiskey.
At least that much had changed.
He hadn’t touched alcohol since he and King had reunited in Budapest. It wasn’t conducive to an optimal state of being, and he figured with his early thirties behind him there was nowhere to go but downward. The decline of old age was inevitable, not to mention the accumulative wear and tear on his body. He and King were no longer young hungry lions with something to prove.
But that gave him some reassurance, at least.
Beware of an old man in a profession where men usually die young.
In truth, he wasn’t old. He was thirty-five. In some sports, that would be considered his athletic prime. But this was not a sport. It was a game that was all but guaranteed to kill him sooner or later, so he figured he’d do his best to slow that decline, and that meant not drinking himself into a coma every time he needed to destress.
He watched the orange glow spill over Central Park and shine into his apartment through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
This was the American dream.
Worth millions — hundreds of millions, to be exact. Living in the most desirable location in the country. Financially free. Physically unstoppable. Mentally … alright, all things considered. He’d had enough life experience to give ten Navy SEALs PTSD, but somehow he’d managed to keep the demons from consuming him. They weren’t the problem.
So why was it that he felt so terrible?
He hadn’t been the same since New Zealand. There, his view on the enemy had shifted forever. He always thought he’d be up against the same level of competition, and his enemies hadn’t changed in a decade. Terrorists, mercenaries, rogue agents, common criminals, organised crime. Scum was the same in all shapes and forms.
But not this time.
This time he’d run into Ali Hawk, a techno-terrorist who specialised in neuroscience. The reclusive venture capitalist billionaire had recruited the world’s best brain surgeons to fundamentally alter the human mind, and he’d succeeded at it. He’d captured Slater with plans to put electrodes deep in his head, killing his ability to make decisions on his own. Effectively controlling him. It wasn’t science fiction. It was real. It was binary. It was, above all, actually possible.
And Slater had been on the operating table when Jason King
had burst in and saved his life.
Another few minutes, and he never would have been the same.
Now he shivered and got out of the armchair. If he sat there for too long, he’d fall asleep.
He didn’t want to dream.
Not yet.
He knew what to do. It was best to physically exhaust himself before he crashed. He’d sleep through the day after warring all night, then set to work correcting his sleep pattern the following morning.
But first … a workout.
He moved past the four crates and went into his private gymnasium. He’d fitted it with every piece of fitness equipment under the sun — it hadn’t even made the slightest dent in his fortune, and what he could do with some iron and a few state-of-the-art cardio machines was unparalleled.
He always approached the Versa Climber with a slight reluctance, but he’d managed to overpower his distaste for exercise a long time ago. It was a total body cardio machine that he’d found the most effective for keeping his body fat down and his cardiovascular health in top condition. In his line of work, he had to focus on every facet of fitness and capability — from every effective form of martial arts (boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, jiu-jitsu), to endurance, to strength, to power — so he didn’t have time to waste messing around with suboptimal exercises.
The Versa Climber was simply the fastest way to burn calories on a stationary machine.
He gripped the handles, slotted each foot into the grooves and pre-selected a workout that burned eight hundred calories. Then he fought tooth and nail to improve on his previous best time. Within minutes, his arms and legs were on fire, and his heart thudded in his chest, and stitches creased his ribs, but he didn’t let up.
He never let up.
It wasn’t in his DNA.
When he finally reached the 800-calorie mark and dropped off the machine into a puddle of sweat, he looked up at the display screen and realised he’d beaten his best time by over two minutes. Perspiration fell off him in rivulets, and his muscular chest heaved. He clambered to his feet and set to work wrapping his hands in athletic tape. He slipped MMA gloves over the top of the tape, and put in a trio of five-minute rounds on the heavy bag. He drilled combinations non-stop until his muscles were spent, throwing earth-shattering left and right hooks into the leather.
