Ciphers

by Matt Rogers

  Finally, after what felt like years, he stepped back.

  She said, ‘Was that smart?’

  ‘I needed it.’

  ‘We agreed that no matter what—’

  ‘If Slater and I fail,’ King said, ‘then a rogue band of terrorists packs up their gear and flees in separate directions, and we stay locked out of the grid for good. Which, as far as I can tell, is an absolute disaster in both the short and long term. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Then excuse me for needing to alleviate a little pressure. Sometimes I need a shoulder to rest on.’

  She reached out and took his hand. Gripped it tight. She said, ‘You’re going to be okay.’

  ‘I might be,’ he said. ‘But it’s a lot likelier that we survive, and still fail.’

  ‘You’re not going to let that happen.’

  ‘No,’ King said. ‘I don’t think I will.’

  She looked at him. ‘If you’re saying what I think you’re saying—’

  ‘When’s the last time there were stakes like this?’ he said. ‘This is monumental. That disaster with China, all those months ago … at least it would have been a steady decline. This is going to escalate rapidly. It’s going to be a nightmare. So if there’s an opportunity to put myself in harm’s way to stop this … I’m not going to hesitate. I’m going to take it. You need to be okay with that.’

  There were a million responses in her eyes, swirling there deep in the blue, but she didn’t vocalise any of them. She just said, ‘I’ve always understood that.’

  ‘I know that’s always been the case,’ he said. ‘But I think, this time, it’s clearer than ever.’

  She nodded.

  ‘In the grand scheme of things,’ he said, ‘we don’t mean much. Not in comparison to what’ll happen if we fail.’

  ‘So don’t fail.’

  ‘I don’t plan on it.’

  She jerked her head at the closed door. ‘How is he?’

  ‘Slater?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He’s okay, all things considered.’

  ‘Is he drunk?’

  ‘He was.’

  She sighed. ‘Christ.’

  ‘He’s not anymore.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure.’

  ‘Trust me,’ King said. ‘He’s talented at drinking himself into a state, but he’s just as talented at getting his head back in the game when he needs to.’

  She stared at him hard. ‘Tell me something.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Be honest.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Are you keeping something like that from me? I wouldn’t judge you.’

  ‘A drinking problem?’

  ‘I know what you’ve seen and done, and I know what Slater’s seen and done. I guess what he does to himself in his spare time is understandable. But you … I don’t know, I’ve never seen you get carried away. If you do, you don’t need to hide it from me. I’m telling you — I’d be the first to understand.’

  ‘I’m not hiding anything,’ King said. ‘If I succumbed to it, you’d be the first to know.’

  She half-smiled, probably reflecting on their workload. With the amount of her life she dedicated to black-ops, and the amount he slaved away at conditioning himself into a human weapon, there was little downtime between their schedules. They spent most of it with each other. It’d be difficult to mask a crippling alcohol addiction within those hours.

  She said, ‘Have you ever wondered why he falls into it and you don’t?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘But I’m usually interrupted by training. Then I don’t think about much at all.’

  Another half-smile.

  But it was hollow.

  King glanced at the door. ‘Did Alonzo want to speak with Slater?’

  Violetta shrugged. ‘If he did, it’s between them.’

  He stepped over to her, put a giant arm over her shoulders, and held her reassuringly. She looped her arms around his waist, resting them on his rigid abdominals, and kept them there.

  Together, they waited in silence.

  There was little to say.

  It had all been said.

  Five minutes later the door opened, and Alonzo stepped out. King tried to read his face, and came away perplexed. The tech genius sported an expression somewhere between pride and contentment, which didn’t exactly gel with the circumstances. King said, ‘What’d you two talk about?’

  Alonzo glanced at him. ‘Not a whole lot. Just trivial stuff. You take care of yourself, friend.’

  He sounded like he truly meant it.

  Then he was gone, making a beeline down the hall for his desk.

  Violetta stepped away from King when Slater appeared, sporting a distinctly thick new layer underneath his compression shirt. King knew exactly what it was. In one hand Slater had two big duffel bags, and in the other, a second Enforcer vest. He passed it over, and King set to work putting it on.

  ‘What’s in the bags?’ Violetta said.

  ‘MP7A1 submachine guns with suppressors and extended mags.’

  ‘You don’t want long range?’

  He gave her a withering look. ‘It’s Manhattan.’

  ‘You’re the expert.’

  She looked up at King.

  He nodded. ‘It’s the right call. It’ll be close quarters.’

  She checked her watch. ‘You two need to get moving.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Nearly two a.m.’

  King pinched his eyes. He’d stripped off his own shirt, exposing the same battered, hard-as-steel physique as Slater’s, and now he dropped the vest over it. He was a little taller than his counterpart, a little wider, a little denser. Harder muscle, a bigger frame, more of a giant than Slater.

  He knew it didn’t matter.

  The two times they’d succumbed to their base instincts and started brawling, Slater had come away the victor. That would always be in the back of King’s head, and always gave him the burning, white-hot determination to train every single day.

  A constant pursuit of betterment.

  Slater passed over an olive Glock 22 and an appendix holster, and King fixed both to the underneath of his shirt. Drawing from an appendix holster was as natural as breathing to him, and he knew he could have the firearm in hand in less than a second. King noticed Slater had fixed his own holster to the outside of his compression shirt and draped his leather jacket over the top.

  Violetta said, ‘You have all you need?’

  They both nodded.

  Vests. Handguns. Submachine guns.

  And their brains and fists.

  All you could ever ask for.

  ‘Let’s go,’ King said, opting not to waste another second.

  The longer they stalled, the more time they had to think.

  The more time to realise how much weight was on their shoulders.

  As one, they moved for the exit.

  35

  Slater went first, storming straight past the feds.

  None of the trio were pleased that neither Slater or King even glanced their way. It was intentional on Slater’s part, subtle yet aggravating. They didn’t feel important. They were being kept out of the loop. They thought they mattered in their usual roles, but now they were discovering just how out of their depth they were.

  In a vain attempt to provoke, the ringleader said, ‘Do you really think you’re being slick with those vests?’

  Slater stopped. ‘What?’

  ‘You both look ridiculous. Cover them up a little more, for God’s sake.’

  Slater knew the best treatment was dead silence, but Violetta didn’t have quite as much patience. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing speaking like that?’

  The ringleader glanced her way. ‘Ma’am, I was only—’

  ‘You were only nothing,’ she hissed.

  King placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘It’s okay. Let them let it out. They’re frustrated they’ve been relegated to door bitches
.’

  She glanced up at him. ‘Oh. I see.’

  Slater smirked. The interaction was so beautiful he almost thought it might have been rehearsed.

  It shut the feds down in a way they never anticipated.

  One of the guys opened his mouth to retort but Slater walked off, refusing to allow him the time of day. King followed right behind him, with Violetta on their heels, who shot daggers at the feds the whole time.

  In the stairwell, they could speak freely.

  Violetta said, ‘I don’t want to cloud your minds with details. But you should know that I’m in the process of coordinating with the NYPD to arrange a cordon around half the Bowery.’

  ‘I thought—’

  ‘It’s going to be ragtag, but it’s something, at least. If these hackers are half as talented at defending their turf as they are at using malicious code, then a few clusters of night-shift cops aren’t going to achieve a damn thing if they try to storm the building. So, for now, a cordon. From what I’m told, the police are a nightmare to try and coordinate right now. A chunk of them aren’t listening to orders because there’s immediate problems right in front of them. People trapped in elevators, hospitals in chaos, countless injuries. You name it, they’re trying to fix it. It’s noble, but their best bet right now would be to prioritise this and get the lights back on.’

  ‘Sounds like a logistical nightmare,’ King said.

  ‘It is. So I want the pair of you to treat this like you’re the last resort. Because you most likely are. But on the off chance you can’t trap them and they flee, we might have reinforcements in place to scoop up the stragglers.’

  ‘No offence,’ Slater said. ‘But that was never going to reassure us.’

  ‘I didn’t expect it to,’ she said. ‘It sure as hell doesn’t reassure me. I’m not responsible for the NYPD.’

  ‘I can’t blame them,’ King said. ‘I’ve been taking matters into my own hands my whole career. Hell, we did it in Nepal. They just want to help.’

  Violetta said, ‘I’ll send an info dump to both your phones en route to the Bowery. Go on foot. It’s the fastest way. It’s gridlock out there.’

  ‘We know.’

  ‘Move fast. Breach the building, find whoever has the ability to reverse all of this, and make them do it. Seem simple enough?’

  Slater didn’t respond.

  King didn’t respond.

  She said, ‘You’ve pulled off harder tasks before.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Slater said. ‘Because you don’t know how hard this is going to be.’

  ‘Go,’ she said. ‘No wasted time.’

  Slater shifted the weight of the duffel bag, feeling the reassuring bulk of the MP7 within. He noticed Violetta’s eyes linger on King, and his on hers. He turned away. He could rib them all he wanted, but in the end it was extraneous. They cared deeply for each other, and he’d almost had the same thing with an operative named Ruby Nazarian.

  She wasn’t around to reassure him now.

  He tightened his grip on the bag and reached for the lobby door. Bracing himself against the cold, the wind, and the dark.

  Turned back. ‘Ready?’

  King nodded.

  No words.

  Just action.

  He threw the door open, and they left Violetta behind in the lobby, striding fast for the Bowery.

  36

  ‘You got money, then?’ Samuel said as they reached the Grand Army Plaza.

  Ordinarily bathed in dull streetlight, even in the middle of the night, the plaza was now shrouded in shadow. Dark, empty and soulless. The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Arch speared a hundred and thirty feet into the air, dwarfing everything in sight, but Rico saw it only as a mammoth silhouette against the night sky. He staggered underneath it, aiming for the intersection beyond, suddenly unnerved by the darkness behind him.

  There wasn’t a civilian in sight, and if there was anyone in the vicinity, they were keeping a low profile. Probably for the best, given the blackout did nothing but aid predators in places like this. Rico’s mind wasn’t on that. Anyone tried to approach and intimidate him, he’d fuck them up. He still had the reassuring weight of the Glock in his hand, but even if he didn’t, he’d be oblivious to the short-term consequences.

  The perks of overindulging in illicit substances.

  Samuel said, ‘Did you hear me?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You got money?’

  ‘Yeah, I got money.’

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you don’t have money.’

  ‘Nah. Never have, never will.’

  ‘You were a powerful family. That sort of wealth doesn’t just go away in a—’

  ‘I wasn’t shit,’ Samuel hissed. ‘I had the family name. But I was always the fucked-up one. Nobody said it to my face, but everyone knew. I was the outcast. The psycho. You’d think that’d drive me away from the rest of the family, but nah, they had their uses for me. That’s the worst part, you know? They’re the big bad gangsters, but I’m the troubled one cause I like killin’. I figured there shouldn’t have been anything wrong with that. Not after what I knew about their businesses. But I ain’t kept a part of their businesses. Not now, not ever. They come to me and say, “Hey, we need this guy killed,” and I’d go right along and do it. And I wouldn’t even get a “thank you.” I was the puppy dog, you see. Do this, do that, you’ve got no conscience, you can get it done for us. I thought, when we all fell apart, that they’d just leave me alone. I thought, even if they came back and wanted me to do things for them, I’d be smart enough to say no. So I just started keepin’ to myself and doing what I felt like doing, not what someone else is telling me to do. But I ain’t ever been the smart one. They came back, just like I thought they would, and they convinced me, real easy. And it’s not like anything changed. Still kept out of the business. Still kept away from the cash. Still the outcast. Still stigmatised. So I ran. That’s why I’m here, Rico Guzmán. Cause I’m doin’ something for myself for the first time. What do you think about that?’

  It was a lot to process. A tirade of epic proportions, no doubt spurred on by Samuel’s first encounter with a certain fine white powder. Rico strolled quietly beside the wide-eyed kid as he let out all his bitterness and hostility toward his family, and when Samuel was done Rico couldn’t help but relate to parts of it.

  He told Samuel that, in no uncertain terms.

  ‘I’ve never been a killer,’ Rico said. ‘I’m the opposite. No one’s ever trusted me enough to put a gun in my hand. I’m the young idiot. The liability. But my family treats me the same as yours does to you. I’m kept away from the secrets. I’m not told a thing. I want to be. Maybe … maybe if I killed like you do … maybe they’d take me seriously.’

  Even in the dark, Rico saw Samuel’s eyes light up.

  ‘Fuck them,’ Samuel snarled. ‘Fuck your family. And fuck mine. But I sure do like this killin’ talk. I done a lot of it these last six weeks. A whole lot of it. But never because I wanted to. I was only doing what I was told. But … you want the truth?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Rico said, and took another gulp of whiskey from the flask he’d funnelled the remainder of the bottle into. ‘Yeah, I want the goddamn truth.’

  ‘I liked it a whole lot more when I watched you do it.’

  ‘You mean — before?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Samuel said, a wide grin on his face. ‘When you shot that guy. I could see it on your face. Plain as day. It’s new to you. It’s novel. It gives you an excitement I can’t get.’

  Rico smiled, too.

  Maybe craziness was infectious after all.

  They were still walking, powering down 59th Street in a blur. By now they were probably halfway across the Upper East Side. Somewhere in Lenox Hill, Rico figured. Now there were pedestrians all around them, congregating in groups for perceived safety, murmuring to one another. Neither Rico nor Samuel noticed them. They were a dark blur on a dark background.


  Samuel suddenly seized Rico’s wrist — the one with the Glock. He’d been carrying it in plain sight the whole way from Central Park, and no one had noticed. There were bigger things on their mind than the blurry outline of a handgun. No one had even been looking for it.

  Samuel held it up in front of his face. ‘Nothing stands out more than someone who doesn’t give a fuck.’

  Rico listened.

  Drank in the words.

  Bathed in them.

  That’s what he’d been missing the whole time. All the partying, all the drinking — it was the actions of a rebellious teenager. Sooner or later he had to do something to evolve. Something to set him apart from the young cartel playboys. Something he could take back to his father and boast about.

  Samuel said, ‘How about you do some serious killin’?’

  Slowly, Rico nodded.

  Samuel said, ‘Who do you want to kill?’

  Rico looked around up and down the street. They were at the corner of 59th and Third. The Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge was a few hundred feet to the east. The Upper East Side was north. South was Midtown and Lower Manhattan. All the possibilities in the world. A city of millions, their lives ripe for the taking. Who did he want to target first? Adrenaline rippled through him, stirring a vigour he hadn’t truly felt before.

  Then he saw two men crossing the street.

  He first noticed the big duffel bags they were carrying — it was the first thing that set them apart from the rest of the swarming civilians. Next was their physiques — they were both enormous men, with broad shoulders and purposeful strides. That made them stand out in its own right. But the third thing was the most important.

  Rico recognised one of them.

  It was the bald guy from Palantir, the man who had stripped him of his weapon and humiliated him in front of everyone he knew.

  Determination flooded him in a wave.

  He seized Samuel by the shoulder and pointed a shaking, accusatory finger across the street.