Ciphers

by Matt Rogers

  ‘Look,’ he hissed.

  ‘I see them.’

  ‘I know one of them. I fucking hate him.’

  ‘What’d he do?’

  ‘Messed with me. Nobody does that. Not anymore.’

  Samuel leered. ‘Good, kid. You’re learning.’

  ‘Let’s fucking get them.’

  Together, they took off in pursuit.

  37

  They walked fast.

  And they walked hard.

  Just how they approached everything in life.

  They swept through Midtown, then Koreatown, increasing their stride as they warmed up, keeping their eyes peeled for any sign of trouble. But in circumstances like this it was impossible to keep track of everything. There were hordes of people out on the streets now, and for most of them the initial excitement of the blackout had worn off. King saw faces barely concealing panic — some were more contained than others, but there was a definite undercurrent of stress now. It might have thrown him off if he didn’t have tunnel vision, focused entirely on the sidewalks ahead. He was scanning every face and discarding it — superficial emotions like fear and unease didn’t stand out. Everyone was feeling the same, as far as he could tell. And he knew it would only get worse.

  When the lights stayed out for good, what was considered “civilised” would descend into something savage real fast.

  King had spent enough time around the savages of the world.

  Halfway through Koreatown, he noticed Slater staring into a dark hole-in-the-wall bar as they strode past it.

  King said, ‘What is it?’

  Slater shook his head in apparent disbelief. ‘That’s where I started my night.’

  ‘Bet it feels like a year ago.’

  ‘And at the same time, it feels like the night hasn’t even started yet.’

  King said, ‘How do you want to play this?’

  ‘No point speculating until we see the building in the flesh.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I was going to say.’

  Slater glanced over. ‘You know ... we work well together. Maybe we should have started this cooperation thing a lot sooner in our careers.’

  ‘Maybe,’ King said. ‘Or maybe we get killed tonight and that statement seems dumb in hindsight.’

  ‘Not if I can help it.’

  They kept walking. A hundred feet, then another hundred, then another, and suddenly Koreatown morphed into the Flatiron District. The crowds fell away, and their absence created a grimy atmosphere. King looked around and realised it must have been a snowball effect. When the lights went out, people were unnerved, and their instincts must have kicked in. They’d congregated in the busiest sections of Manhattan, grateful for the supposed “safety in numbers,” and as soon as the quieter parts of the city emptied out, the stragglers scattered like ghosts in the wind.

  He figured everything south of the Flatiron District would be even more desolate.

  At least the emptier streets allowed for better observation. King could scan every passerby in an instant, and it allowed his mind to quieten too. He didn’t have to rapidly process a dozen people at once, looking for any sign of a threat. He spotted every silhouette well in advance and ticked them off the list.

  It was halfway through the Flatiron District that he realised he hadn’t been keeping track of his six.

  But Slater beat him to it.

  The man had already thrown several glances over his shoulder, and now he looked back and his gaze lingered. King noticed. He turned, too, and saw nothing but shadow. You could have all the surveillance training in the world, and darkness was still darkness. He couldn’t see a thing.

  But it seemed Slater could.

  Still keeping stride, the man murmured, ‘Go left. Now.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Left,’ Slater hissed.

  He seized King by the crook of his elbow and veered him off Fifth Avenue. Out on the main avenues there was the faintest aura of light — a few shops had backup generators, and the outer halo of illumination gave them something, at least.

  But in the alleyway they veered into, it was pitch black.

  Slater pushed King a couple of feet into the mouth of the laneway, and then let go of his arm. Slater handed over his duffel bag containing the MP7, freeing both his own. King froze on the spot, two bags in his left hand, and waited.

  In the quiet King reflexively lifted his shirt, seizing hold of the Glock with his right hand. The handgun was large for its positioning against his appendix, but he was a large man, so it worked. He felt the cold metal and strained his gaze.

  Then two silhouettes hustled past the mouth of the alleyway.

  He couldn’t see much, but he didn’t need to.

  Slater stepped forward and seized the smaller of the pair from behind in a vicious single-arm chokehold. With expert dexterity he looped his bulky forearm around the silhouette’s throat and yanked the guy backwards hard, almost taking him off his feet.

  The second silhouette took off like a rocket.

  One moment he was there, the next he was gone.

  King burst off the mark to try and catch him, but it was futile. He’d already vanished. King snatched at thin air anyway, then stumbled to a halt in front of Slater and the man he had in a chokehold.

  No, not a man.

  A kid.

  Probably nineteen or twenty — a pup in comparison to Slater — but even in the lowlight King could see the menace in the kid’s eyes. He had long flowing black hair and an evil intensity about him. Veins protruded from his forehead — mostly because Slater was squeezing him half-unconscious — and his teeth were bared in a snarl.

  Slater pressed his Glock to the kid’s head and dragged him further into the alley, out of harm’s way in case the second silhouette decided to take potshots at them from a secluded location.

  King followed.

  He heard Slater say, ‘You just can’t leave me the fuck alone, can you, Rico?’

  38

  Samuel ran for his life, panting, hyperventilating.

  He’d never seen something unfold that fast before.

  It had sent his adrenaline levels into the stratosphere.

  He couldn’t believe how quickly it had unfolded. One moment, he and Rico had been sneaking south through Manhattan, hot on the heels of the two men they were pursuing. Then the men were gone, and a few seconds later someone had reared up from the shadows like a pouncing lion and wrenched Rico nearly all the way off his feet. Samuel had his gun in hand, but he’d been spooked. His heart had skipped a beat in his chest, and his first instinct had been to run.

  So now he was on the opposite sidewalk, maybe a hundred feet from the place Rico had been snatched. He got his wits about him and slowed to a jog, then finally a fast walk. Then he pivoted and worked on bringing his heart rate back down, breathing hard through his mouth.

  Gotta go back.

  You liked him. He was a friend.

  Gotta help him.

  But his legs stayed fixed to the ground, like his feet were cast in concrete. He couldn’t figure out what had come over him. Nothing had frightened him like that before. It took a few ragged breaths, but eventually he gained some confidence back. He set off before it could dissipate, striding hard, his palm against the Glock slick with sweat. He made it back to the mouth of the alleyway, but Rico was gone, and so was his assailant. There were a few civilian stragglers, wandering aimlessly through the streets, and no one else.

  Samuel put his hands on his hips.

  He felt so alone.

  So abandoned.

  So empty.

  He thought Rico had been a godsend. Something to keep his mind off the fallout with his family. Now, with the kid gone, Samuel couldn’t hope to keep his sanity. He knew it. He shouldn’t have done the coke offered to him, but peer pressure had got to him. He had enough of his marbles to know he wasn’t all there mentally, which was a paradox, but it made sense to him. Drugs would just make him worse. More unstable. More prone t
o madness.

  A voice whispered in his head.

  Just end it.

  He looked down at the Glock.

  Considered it.

  He had nothing left.

  Then he heard movement. Quiet, and guarded, so he only caught it at the edge of his hearing, but it was movement all the same. It sounded like five or six people moving in a tight unit. Obviously with some sort of combat training, or Samuel would have heard them coming from a mile away. But now there were tears in his eyes, and his bottom lip had started quivering, and he truly didn’t care who they were, or what they were here to do. In that moment he figured if they were going to kill him, then they could go right ahead and do it. He stared up Fifth Avenue and saw them materialise out of the gloom.

  There were five of them. Big intimidating men in suits, coated in sweat from moving so fast, but they were still quiet as mice. They reached Samuel and converged around him, staring at him like he was an exhibit in a museum.

  They noticed the Glock in his hand, and kept a cautious distance.

  But they were armed too.

  It didn’t take Samuel long to realise there were five handguns pointed his way.

  He’d be dead if he lifted a hand.

  He briefly considered it. The equivalent of suicide by cop.

  Same result either way.

  Then he figured he might as well find out who they were, if this really was the end. He kept his voice low and said, ‘What’s going on?’

  One of them said, ‘We’ve been following you all the way from Midtown. Where the hell is he?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The guy you were with.’

  ‘Rico?’

  A couple of the suits breathed sighs of relief. Like the weight of the world had been lifted off their shoulders. The same guy said, ‘Yes. Rico.’

  ‘He was just here…’

  ‘Where’d he go?’

  Samuel pointed a shaking finger down the alleyway. ‘Down there.’

  ‘Did he run off?’

  ‘No. He was taken.’

  ‘Taken?’

  ‘Someone grabbed him.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘I ran.’

  ‘Why were you with him?’ the guy said incredulously. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘A nobody,’ Samuel said. ‘A piece of shit. A useless waste of space. That’s who I am.’

  No one answered that.

  One of the suits said, ‘Do you know who Rico is?’

  ‘The son of someone important?’ Samuel said.

  A pause.

  ‘Yeah,’ the guy said. ‘You could say that.’

  ‘You’re his bodyguards?’ Samuel said as the veil finally cleared and realisation struck him.

  ‘You could say that,’ the guy repeated. ‘We’re a little more than bodyguards.’

  ‘He ran off on you?’

  ‘He sure did.’

  ‘Where’d you see him?’

  ‘Back there. You two were moving fast.’

  ‘We were chasing someone.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter anymore. You going to get him back?’

  ‘We’ll try. Can you show us exactly where he went?’

  Samuel nodded. Shouldered past them, out of the middle of the pack, and led them down the alleyway.

  They followed, guns drawn.

  Samuel’s pulse rose once more.

  He felt alive again.

  He smiled.

  This is fun.

  The men behind him exuded the vibe of a pack of rabid animals. He could sense it below their demeanours, which they were still keeping cool and professional. Something brewed under there. The cartels, Samuel remembered. Maybe these were the famed sicarios that stabbed and shot and maimed their way through their boss’s enemies. Set people alight, skinned them alive…

  Maybe.

  If so, Samuel was honoured to be in their company.

  He led them toward where he thought Rico might be, and basked in their savagery.

  39

  Slater kept his arm so tight around Rico’s throat that the kid wouldn’t even try to escape.

  If he squirmed, Slater would tighten the pressure. And then the squeeze would become unbearable, and Rico would either pass out from the restricted blood flow to his brain, or the sheer stress alone would get to him and he’d faint.

  Slater dragged the kid further away from Fifth Avenue, prioritising secrecy. He noticed King following in stride, but didn’t pay too much attention. They operated as one, and King would make sure to cover him in his moment of vulnerability. Slater made it to a narrow alcove between two buildings in the laneway and dragged Rico into it, plunging out of sight of anyone passing by.

  King followed.

  The alcove was small, barely wide enough to fit the three of them, surrounded on three sides by sheer brick wall. Slater noticed damp gravel underfoot and made a point not to shift his weight around too much.

  He muttered, ‘Rico, I’m going to release a bit of pressure on your throat. If you even think about screaming for help, I’ll break your nose. It won’t feel good. That’s going to be your only warning.’

  The kid spluttered a frantic affirmation.

  Message received.

  Slater kept the chokehold in place, but eased off the boa-constrictor pressure. Rico tried his best to quietly gasp for air, but his throat rattled all the same. More for dramatic effect than anything else, King took out his Glock and pressed the barrel to the kid’s head.

  It might have the side effect of making the kid wet his pants, but it’d sure as hell get him talking.

  Slater said, ‘Why are you following us?’

  ‘I’m drunk, man. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Not good enough, Rico.’

  ‘I swear. I was just going to shout at you. You know — hurl some obscenities your way. It was a stupid idea.’

  ‘You armed?’

  ‘No, man. Of course not.’

  ‘Check him,’ Slater said to King.

  King patted the kid’s expensive suit down and came away with nothing. He nodded a confirmation.

  Slater said, ‘Who was your friend?’

  ‘Just a guy from the club.’

  ‘If it was a guy from the club he wouldn’t have stayed silent. He would have shit his pants. That guy knew to run.’

  ‘I…’

  Rico trailed off.

  Slater said, ‘You were coming after us, weren’t you?’

  ‘No, man, I swear—’

  Slater didn’t tighten his grip. He just leant in closer to Rico and said in his ear, ‘I’m going to start hurting you if you don’t tell me the truth. Is that what you want?’

  Nothing over-the-top. Nothing extreme. A simple statement, with simple truth behind it. Often, it was all that was needed. Slater knew how to ramp up the intensity over time. A slow build instead of trying to induce all-out terror right from the start. But in this case, the steady increase in threats wasn’t needed.

  Rico broke instantly.

  ‘Yeah, okay, okay,’ he panted, on the verge of total panic. ‘We were coming after you. It was stupid. I’m so sorry. Don’t fucking hurt me, man. Please don’t.’

  ‘Who’s the other guy?’

  ‘Just some guy. Crazy. Like, he’s not all there in the head. Thinks he’s responsible for the blackout.’

  Slater looked up at King.

  Inconclusive, he thought.

  But he’d been trained not to treat anything as coincidence.

  ‘Who is he?’ Slater demanded.

  ‘His name’s Samuel.’

  ‘You got anything else on him?’

  ‘No, man.’ Then Rico’s eyes lit up. Slater knew what the kid’s demeanour meant. The spoiled cartel brat would have said anything to try and keep himself alive, but now he’d remembered something that might be genuinely useful. He was young, and terrible at keeping a poker face. So when he said, ‘Actually, this might all be connected,’ Slater believed him.

&nb
sp; ‘How?’

  ‘Are you Slater?’ Rico said. ‘Or King?’

  Slater froze. ‘What?’

  King stared. ‘Is that something to worry about?’

  Slater looked up. ‘He never heard my name from me. Or yours.’

  ‘Oh, shit.’

  ‘Samuel knows you,’ Rico said. ‘You screwed up his family or something. He’s angry at you.’

  Slater said, ‘You’d better start going into detail or I’m going to—’

  Then King cocked his head to one side. Slater almost didn’t notice, but he caught it out of the corner of his eye. Like a sixth sense, he honed in on his counterpart with laser focus. ‘What?’

  King crept toward the edge of the alcove and leant around the corner.

  Stared hard for a long beat.

  Then he wrenched the olive Glock from his waistband and raised it to shoulder height and fired three shots down the alleyway outside. The gunshots blared, the muzzle flashes bright as day, the noise unrivalled. Rico flinched so hard in Slater’s grip that it made Slater himself jolt in surprise.

  A cacophony of return fire lit up the alleyway, and King ducked back behind the alcove wall as chunks of old brick shattered off the corner, torn loose by bullets.

  King yelled, ‘Take the kid and go!’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘He’s valuable! He has info! Get him out of here.’

  King leant back out, only a few inches, as soon as he recognised a lapse in the gunfire. He squeezed off another few shots, taking careful aim and firing only when he had a precise target, and an ungodly yell rose up from a few dozen feet away. The yell morphed into a blood-curdling scream — whoever King had hit was mortally wounded, and would soon be dead. Slater had heard the same noises thousands of times before, and he was desensitised to them. But he didn’t figure the hostiles would be — even if they were the sicarios from the club, as he damn well expected them to be, they wouldn’t be used to hearing those sorts of sounds from their colleagues.

  So Slater drew his own weapon, kept a tight hold around Rico’s throat, and hauled him out of the alcove into open ground.

  He took off for the other end of the alley, weaving left and right, as King laid down covering fire.