Ciphers

by Matt Rogers

  King grabbed him by the shirt and threw him back in the direction of the ladder.

  Samuel barely kept his feet.

  King raised the MP7 and pointed it square between the kid’s eyes.

  Stared him right in the face.

  And suddenly Samuel knew that King knew.

  The kid grimaced.

  King said, ‘You’re going up that ladder.’

  Beside him, it all clicked for Slater. He said, ‘Oh.’

  Samuel’s eyes turned to ice.

  59

  Slater put it all together, almost as fast as King had.

  Then he stepped forward and grabbed Samuel by the collar and hauled him onto the lowest rung of the ladder. He pressed his own MP7 into the back of the kid’s neck and said, ‘Climb.’

  ‘No,’ Samuel hissed.

  He kept an iron grip on the rungs, his knuckles white.

  Slater said, ‘I’ve met a couple of people throughout my career who didn’t care whether they lived or died. Only a couple. You’re not one of them. They’re exceedingly rare.’

  ‘Well, you bought it for longer than you should have…’

  ‘Up the ladder,’ Slater said.

  Samuel went pale. With each passing second, he looked more and more like a real skeleton.

  Slater said, ‘You don’t want to die. Not down here. So you’re going up that ladder, or you’ll get a bullet through the throat.’

  Samuel said nothing.

  He stayed frozen, like a deer in headlights.

  Slater said, ‘If it’s a trap up there, then you might survive if they realise it’s you. But if they’re waiting, they’ll be jumpy…’

  ‘Shoot me here,’ Samuel muttered. ‘I’d prefer it.’

  ‘I will, in five seconds.’

  A pause.

  ‘I’m not kidding,’ Slater said. ‘You’re wishing I am, but I’m not. I don’t care about you, kid. So make your choice. Die down here, or maybe die up there.’

  Silence.

  ‘Five.’

  Samuel didn’t move.

  ‘Four.’

  Samuel didn’t move.

  ‘Three.’

  Samuel lurched up the ladder, scrambling up the rungs in record time, fuelled by desperation. In doing so, he bared his soul. Sure, he had no regard for others, and killing indiscriminately was second nature to him, just as killing for justice was second nature to Slater and King. But at the end of the day, no matter how desensitised you are to violence, everyone wants to live.

  Even psychopaths.

  ‘Two.’

  Samuel ascended the ladder like a spider and put one hand on the bottom of the manhole’s lid and heaved with all his might, exposing huge rippling veins in his forearms and biceps to accentuate his rail-thin physique. There wasn’t much strength in the kid’s frame. He pushed like a man possessed, a man fighting to survive.

  ‘One.’

  Fight-or-flight adrenaline swamped the kid, and he chose fight, because there was nowhere to flee. It added a little extra strength to his gangly arms, and finally the lid moved. First an inch, then half a foot, then it caught its own momentum and swung all the way up and out.

  Samuel burst up and out, his top half above the manhole, screaming, ‘No, no, no, it’s me!’ at the top of his lungs, but he was too late to prevent the knee-jerk reaction of those lying in wait.

  The top of his head came off in a grisly shower of brain matter.

  60

  King didn’t hesitate.

  As soon as the first shot was fired above ground, he shouldered past Slater and leapt up the first four rungs of the ladder in a single bound. He kept one hand on his MP7 and used the other to heave himself higher, faster and faster. By the time Samuel’s decimated corpse fell off the ladder, losing its grip on the rungs as the brain controlling the hands disintegrated, King was only a couple of feet below him.

  Samuel fell on top of him, and King simply shouldered him aside.

  The gunfire abruptly ceased, and a deep voice, unsure of itself, said, ‘Oh fuck, Rick, that was—’

  King almost smiled.

  They’d realised they’d killed one of their own.

  It would freeze them up, maybe only for a second.

  To King, that was all the time in the world.

  He reared up out of the manhole, his focus impenetrable, his mind so dedicated to the task at hand that he barely even registered that he was in danger. He took in the recognisable features of a bank lobby, understood where he was, and then tuned it all out.

  He spotted two burly silhouettes as the closest to his position, both adopting wide stances, heavy assault rifles in their hands. But both barrels were lowered a few inches. It was an imperceptible, involuntary response to realising you’d just killed one of your own men, no matter how deranged that man in question might be.

  There was temporary guilt, and shock, and acceptance.

  King had the MP7 on full auto, and he simply squeezed the trigger and worked the barrel in a short horizontal line from left to right. Not quite spraying and praying. More accurate, more surgical. The submachine gun roared and bullets laced the chests of the silhouettes. They jerked and hit the floor.

  He calculated his next decision in a split second.

  Down, or up?

  A quick pivot on the ladder revealed the lobby was a strange combination of traditional Renaissance architecture and a half-completed modern refurbishment. The building must have been in the midst of renovation when it was closed to the public and became a private dwelling. The walls speared up to a dome-shaped ceiling, and they were adorned with pilasters projecting from the marble, giving the space a regal aura. The black-and-white tiled floor spread out in all directions from the manhole, but although the lobby might have previously been one cavernous space, now it was partitioned into separate open-plan sections with the help of a few modern upgrades. King saw glass and wood partitions coloured in warm hues, with thick decorative curtains adding privacy.

  If the bank was still open, they might have led through to private consulting rooms and swanky waiting areas.

  Now, the lobby was dead and empty.

  The only artificial light came from giant floodlights running on backup generators, the only ambient noise. The lights hummed gently between the roaring gunshots, their white beams aimed up toward the dome ceiling, spilling large shadows over the floor and walls.

  With the rudimentary analysis of his surroundings complete, King turned to the matter of the hostiles. Gunning down two men in brutal fashion had sent a couple of the stragglers scattering, and he saw them now ducking behind curtains, throwing the heavy material aside in their desperation to retreat and regroup.

  But one of them didn’t.

  A hulking silhouette stood frozen in the corner of the space, draped in the shadow of the modern wall behind him. He was bigger than King, which was impressive in its own right. At least six foot five, with a thicker frame. Basketball-sized hands. A large head, but not brutish. His features were refined, despite his size. It gave him a wholly unique appearance, and something about it scratched at King’s memory. He was reminded of an intelligence briefing he’d glossed over months ago, but before he could confirm it, the enormous man raised a semi-automatic pistol and fired twice.

  But he’d aimed and fired too fast.

  Granted, the shots came close. King felt them whisk past him, and anyone else — besides Will Slater — would have ducked reflexively after nearly having their brains pulverised by tiny pieces of lead. Instead of retreating back down the manhole, King vaulted out of cover, rolled his big frame over the steel lid, and heaved it off the lobby floor. It weighed almost as much as the drain lid back in the alleyway, but this time he had the all-encompassing aid of adrenaline on his side. He lifted it like it weighed nothing and propped it up vertically on its hinges, using it as a circular shield to protect his vitals from follow-up shots.

  Just in time.

  He tucked his chin to his chest, ruining his si
tuational awareness but saving his life. Three bullets struck the lid dead-centre, each one reverberating against the steel and vibrating through into his bones. He shivered, but then came the inevitable lapse in gunfire as the big guy realised King was safe from harm. King could see a perfect mental image of the guy skirting to the left or right. No way to tell which direction, but easy to estimate how much ground he was covering.

  One step. Two steps. Three steps.

  King reared up and snapped the MP7 to his shoulder, skewering it hard against his collar bone for support, and then found his target and pulled the trigger.

  The guy was smart.

  He hadn’t stayed in place.

  He’d retreated, anticipating what was coming.

  He was halfway through the curtains when King’s rounds laced his upper back. One of them struck centre mass, that was certain. The others, King couldn’t be sure. But there was the meaty thwack of a direct hit and then the guy jolted like he’d been electrocuted, and a half-second later disappeared behind the curtains. The thick brown material drifted back into place, obscuring his bulk.

  King sent three more rounds through the curtains, hoping for the best, and then turned and bolted for another set of curtains in the opposite direction.

  As he took off, he shouted, ‘Fifteen!’ into the manhole.

  He knew Slater would get the message.

  He ran flat out, heart pounding, and threw himself behind the curtains just as a couple of stray bullets tore through the material, right near his skull.

  He ducked into a crouch as he burst through them, practically rolling head-first into a half-furnished waiting room complete with oak coffee tables and polished stools arranged around a marble bar.

  He barely had his feet under him when he realised there was someone else in the space.

  Only a couple of feet in front of him.

  The guy was unarmed, and hadn’t been anticipating defending the lobby from within, but it didn’t seem to deter him. He was a trained combatant — King could tell from his demeanour alone — squat and compact, probably six inches shorter than King but roughly the same weight. A gorilla in human form, with an enlarged jaw and a feverish glint in his eyes. A capable veteran ready to kill for a high price, a price he’d undoubtedly been offered.

  King started along the natural trajectory of raising his MP7, but the guy caught it under the barrel and wrenched it upward even faster, using his inhuman strength, sending it arcing toward the ceiling. A trigger pull would achieve nothing, so King abandoned that option, and loaded up to deliver a colossal head butt into the bridge of the guy’s nose.

  The man jerked sideways, throwing King’s aim off, making him hesitate.

  Then he wrapped two burly hands around the shoulders of King’s bulletproof vest and hurled him off his feet and brought him down on the nearest oak table, crushing and splintering it.

  Crushing and splintering King in turn.

  61

  Perched halfway up the ladder, Slater counted to fifteen, making sure to take it slow.

  Anyone in a high-stress environment was naturally inclined to rush. Thankfully, he’d spent most of his life in high-stress environments, and he could calm himself when he needed to. So, with gunshots raging over his head, and the life of his brother-in-arms hanging in the balance, he started ticking away the seconds as accurately as he could manage.

  When he made it to thirteen, he heard an almighty crash.

  It resonated through the lobby, the sound travelling up to the dome ceiling and echoing back down. It sounded eerily like wood splitting, with considerable weight behind the impact, and it had come from the exact direction King had run toward.

  Two seconds left.

  Indecision plagued him.

  Stay, or go?

  If he missed his cue, it would be tactical chaos. Together, he and King formed a cohesive unit, but only if they knew what each other was going to do before they did it. King had instructed him to wait fifteen seconds with full confidence, and Slater knew the man needed the time to set himself up at a vantage point so he could provide covering fire.

  But if it was King on the receiving end of that earth-shattering crash, then there’d be no cover fire to speak of.

  Slater would raise his head out of the manhole and meet the same fate as Samuel had.

  Fourteen.

  Fifteen.

  He didn’t move.

  He held his breath, listened to the gunshots ripping through the space, and hoped like hell King was okay.

  62

  King wasn’t okay.

  Superficial pain was nothing. In a fight to the death, he could get bruised and cut over every square inch of his skin, and he’d barely notice until he was out of danger. But injuries that impeded his movement … those couldn’t be so easily ignored.

  When he pulled himself out of the wreckage of the coffee table and shot to his feet, his ribs lit up like they’d been torched with a flamethrower.

  He almost went back down on one knee, but he knew that was as good as suicide.

  He barely faltered. Barely wavered. But a half-grimace tickled the corners of his mouth, and the bull-like man across from him noticed. In a fight with stakes like this, it might as well have been the largest display of weakness in human history. The guy’s face contorted into a sneer and he broke into an all-out charge, smelling blood in the water, sensing an opportunity to kill.

  King readied himself.

  There’s no feeling quite like being overwhelmed by true pain. The type of pain that drills deep, that evokes primal fear, that screams at you, You’re really fucking hurt. Don’t move! Survive!

  King couldn’t listen to it, but it distracted him endlessly. He barely even realised his MP7 was nowhere to be found, and he caught it at the last second in his peripheral vision, buried under the splintered wood of the table. He had no time to reach for it, because the bull in human form had picked up serious momentum, and the next moment he launched himself with barbarism at King, who stood there rigid as if frozen in place.

  No, King told the voice. I have to move.

  His ribs screamed with every slight disturbance, but he didn’t pay it a moment’s thought. Thousands of hours of practice hardening his mind came together in one collective moment and gave him the strength to side-step, catch the guy under the arm and heave him forward, taking him completely off the ground, using the momentum of his own charge to rotate him half a revolution in the air and dropping him upside down. The top of the man’s skull hit the ground so hard that it very nearly split open, but the thud told King everything he needed to know. If the guy wasn’t dead, he was damn close to it, but King made sure by kicking the MP7 out of the wrecked table, sliding down and lifting it off the ground with three fingers, planting it on the back of the guy’s thick squat neck, and sending two bullets ripping through his throat.

  Then, with his face contorted into a show of weakness he could finally allow, he ran for the curtains, hoping, praying, that Slater hadn’t actually moved after fifteen seconds.

  He shouldered through the thick brown sheets, fully aware that he could catch a bullet in the face for his troubles, but also aware that he had no other choice. Slater needed him. He exposed half his frame, but thankfully there was no one paying enough attention to capitalise on it. The enormous guy was nowhere to be seen — maybe wounded, maybe dead.

  Two new mercenaries had appeared out of nowhere, but they were focused on the manhole, slinking toward it with Kalashnikov AK-47s aimed dead at the blackness.

  The curved magazines, full with lead, seemed to ripple in the lowlight.

  Ready to spew forth their rounds into an unsuspecting Will Slater.

  King intuitively switched the MP7 to semi-automatic with a flick of his index finger, then shot the first mercenary square between the eyes. Blood geysered out the back of the guy’s head, which was sufficient enough to distract his comrade. The second merc wheeled around with his eyes wide, trying to discern where—

&n
bsp; King put two rounds into his face, too. He let both corpses drop to the floor, and then trained his vision wide, taking in the entire lobby.

  All quiet.

  ‘Now!’ he roared.

  63

  Slater had his MP7 trained on the space above the manhole, but his heart rate was through the roof, and he couldn’t bring it down.

  Fifteen seconds had well and truly passed, and there was no sign of King.

  Doubt began gnawing at the back of his mind.

  If he’s dead, you should regroup.

  Of course, there would be the soul-crushing loss to deal with if Jason King had truly met his demise, but all Slater could focus on right now was the eight million who needed power. Compartmentalisation was in full swing, and he started planning a tactical retreat, perhaps a call with Violetta to discuss what sort of reinforcements he had access to…

  ‘Now!’ King roared from above.

  Slater flipped an internal switch.

  All thoughts fell away.

  He scrambled up the last few rungs, vaulted out into the cavernous space, then spotted King positioned between two brown curtains on the left-hand side of the lobby, his weapon trained to provide covering fire.

  Slater recognised that he was covered, and began a beeline for King’s position.

  Then two rounds hit King full in the chest and sent him sprawling back out of sight.

  He vanished behind the curtains.

  Slater didn’t think. Didn’t waste a millisecond. Just jerked hard to the left and ducked low and threw himself forward over one shoulder, rolling wildly to throw off the aim of anyone looking to follow up the initial shots.

  And they sure tried.

  A chunk of tile exploded in his face as he rolled, and loose shards gashed his cheek and forehead, coming perilously close to removing an eyeball. He realised a bullet had struck the ground directly underneath him, and he lurched to his feet and covered the final dozen feet to another pair of curtains. He realised he’d ended up running in the opposite direction to King’s position — he’d shouldered through the curtains to the east, and King was to the west. The shots had come from the north.