Ciphers

by Matt Rogers

  And then he smiled.

  Because he remembered who he was.

  He let out a shout of agony as if he’d been mortally wounded, and Walker paused his assault to step forward and rip the plasterboard apart, allowing him a clear line of sight to King’s crippled form, but as soon as he tore part of the wall out King reared up and burst back in Walker’s direction and tackled him out into the middle of the hallway.

  They sprawled, and limbs crashed into torsos, and fists into faces, and foreheads into noses.

  A fight to the death.

  King didn’t know how hurt he was, or how badly he’d hurt Walker. The man was a legitimate phenom — if he hadn’t realised it yet, now it struck home. Black Force, in its heyday, would have scooped him up if they had the opportunity. Walker was strong, and fast, and tough, and his reflexes were otherworldly. He would have mopped the floor with anyone sent to subdue him, and it was no wonder he’d found astonishing success as a gun-for-hire.

  But all those traits applied to King, too.

  And deep down, he had the unshakeable belief that he could endure better than anyone else on the planet, no matter how evenly their skills matched up.

  So with a broken nose and a bloody mouth and searing pain in his ribs, he fought and clawed for every advantage. He dropped an elbow on Walker’s face, stunning the man, and then he rolled off him and snatched up the MP7 and rolled to aim it and—

  Shit.

  Slater was there, grappling with Walker, misinterpreting the situation and figuring that King needed his life saved. The wrestling match turned ferocious and King held back on pulling the trigger, knowing that one of his shots only had to stray an inch to kill his brother-in-arms.

  But Slater was compromised.

  From the concussion.

  Walker hit him with a perfect right hand to the centre of his chest, sapping his breath away, and when he fell back he landed on King. King lowered him to the ground but it provided just enough of a break in the action for Walker to close the distance and drill the same right hand into King’s face, hitting him full in the mouth.

  King sat down hard, and Walker took the gun off him like taking candy from a baby.

  Game over.

  Walker regarded the two defeated, unarmed combatants at his feet.

  He wiped blood off his face and said, ‘I’ll admit, lads, you got further than I thought. What was it, thirty on one? You’ve done very well. I saw Rick Whelan’s body in the lobby before. Now that’s impressive.’

  King said nothing.

  Slater said nothing.

  Walker seemed hesitant about the anticlimax. He said, ‘Well, that’s what the power of friendship gets you, doesn’t it?’

  Silence.

  The man said, ‘You had so many opportunities to shoot me. But you both wanted to protect your buddy.’

  ‘You’re alone,’ King said.

  ‘But I won.’

  ‘Against us. But we didn’t exactly start at a hundred percent.’

  ‘That’s a shame. You still lost.’

  Walker levelled the MP7 at King’s unprotected face.

  ‘Thought it would be harder than this,’ he said.

  Slater said, ‘It is.’

  A gun barrel touched the side of Walker’s head.

  King didn’t recognise the newcomer.

  But he realised that Slater did.

  70

  Detective First Grade Jim Riordan tightened his grip on his service weapon.

  Slater had seen him creeping through the shadows from the stairwell, a split second before Walker manhandled him. Slater had run through the odds of success if he tried to keep fighting Walker in his compromised state, compared to admitting defeat for a few vital seconds as Riordan closed the gap.

  He’d made the right call.

  Now, Riordan said, ‘Put that down, my friend.’

  ‘You first,’ Walker said, keeping the MP7 pointed straight at King’s face.

  ‘You don’t want to die here.’

  Walker thought about it. Realised resistance was futile. Dropped the submachine gun to the carpeted floor.

  ‘Jim,’ Slater said, looking at the detective. ‘Listen to me.’

  Riordan looked him in the eye, keeping the barrel touched firmly to the side of Walker’s neck.

  ‘Shoot him,’ Slater said.

  ‘I need to bring him in,’ Riordan said. ‘To answer for all of this.’

  ‘He’s not the man behind it.’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘We’ll get to that.’

  ‘I can’t kill him.’

  ‘You’ve never played by the book,’ Slater said. ‘Sometimes it landed you in hot water. Most of the time it didn’t. This time, it won’t. We’ll take the blame.’

  ‘I have my line. I won’t cross it.’

  ‘If you don’t, we will.’

  ‘I’ll arrest the both of you if you try that. Killing him is the easy way out.’

  Slater said, ‘Jim. Listen to me. You don’t understand. Shoot him.’

  ‘Or what?’

  Walker said, ‘Or this.’

  Spun, fast as lightning, and smacked the Glock off-course before Riordan could fire a shot. Because there was a world of difference between a genetically gifted phenom and a street cop. Riordan was hotheaded yet principled, steadfast in his vigilante-style morality, but Walker was something else.

  So Walker wrenched the Glock free and turned it around and shot Jim Riordan in the forehead before the detective could even flinch.

  Thankfully, Slater was genetically gifted, too.

  He had Walker’s dropped MP7 in his hands before Riordan’s corpse had hit the ground and now he angled it upwards and held the trigger and sent five consecutive shots into Walker’s groin. Unrivalled pain hit the man in a chilling wave and he collapsed, defenceless, and Slater finished him off by putting a solitary round through his head.

  The gunshot reports resonated through the office floor, petering out into nothingness.

  Slater stood over the two corpses, panting.

  King sat still beside them.

  King said, ‘Christ.’

  Slater put a hand out to steady himself, gripping the top of the nearest cubicle. His head swam, but reassurance sank in that Walker was out of the equation. A truly devastating adversary. Neither of them had realised until he’d overwhelmed them.

  ‘Are we losing a step?’ King said.

  Slater looked around. ‘I don’t think so. I think we’re just in over our heads.’

  ‘I don’t know, Slater…’

  Slater looked at him. ‘You think anyone else would have managed to do what we just did?’

  ‘You think there’s anyone left? My ribs are…’

  He trailed off, searching for the right word, then lifted a palm gently to his ribcage and applied a touch of pressure. His face creased in pain.

  ‘My ribs are fucked,’ he concluded.

  ‘Your nose, too,’ Slater said.

  King’s septum was broken, and the skin was already ballooning.

  Slater listened to the silence.

  Complete.

  All-encompassing.

  The aftermath of war.

  Then he looked down at Walker’s body.

  ‘I think we’re done here.’

  ‘He wasn’t Black Force,’ King said. ‘He was ordinary SAS. And he beat us both.’

  ‘Did he?’

  King gave him a questioning look.

  ‘He’s dead,’ Slater said. ‘We aren’t.’

  King shrugged.

  ‘And he might have been in the SAS, but you and I both know he could have made the cut for Black Force. They just didn’t know.’

  King nodded.

  ‘There’s always going to be people like him,’ Slater said. ‘We’re not the only gifted combatants on the planet. And we’re not getting any younger.’

  King clambered to his feet.

  Slater put a hand on his shoulder, and gripped it tight. ‘You okay
?’

  ‘Of course,’ King said. ‘I’m alive, aren’t I?’

  ‘That’s the way.’

  King peered toward the middle of the floor, over the cubicles, searching for one in particular. ‘You think he’s still there?’

  ‘I think so. He’ll be licking his wounds. He’s smart, but he’s not tough.’

  ‘Then we still have work to do.’

  He spat a gob of blood on the carpet between his feet, wiped his mouth, and strode away.

  Slater saw the animalistic determination in his eyes.

  71

  It had been a rough night.

  King wasn’t in the mood for games. He’d been kicked, punched, very nearly shot dozens of times — the only thing that had come between himself and a lead-soaked death was his reflexes.

  Slater’s words rang in his ears.

  We’re not getting any younger.

  Maybe so, but he figured he was getting smarter. Experience was a valuable asset, and right now experience was telling him to begin the recovery process. Ribs healed, cuts turned to scars, bruises vanished. Pain receded. Then he could get back to work.

  First, he had to get the lights back on.

  He barely noticed Slater following in his wake. He hustled down one long carpeted aisle, then veered left, then right. He came to the empty cubicle Slater had thrown Gavin Whelan into, and sure enough the kid was there, lying on his back, his face contorted into a wince.

  For the first time King noticed the dark blue light filtering through the second floor had turned a shade lighter.

  The tendrils of dawn creeping into the sky.

  King didn’t have time to sit around and wait for Gavin to feel better. He stepped through the demolished plasterboard, grabbed the kid by the lapels and hauled him to his feet. Gavin groaned in protest, and King said, ‘You ever had a finger broken?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘I… can’t think straight.’

  ‘Oh,’ King said. ‘That’s too bad.’

  He took Gavin’s pinky finger in a vice-like grip and wrenched it to the left.

  Crack.

  Gavin moaned.

  King didn’t give him a moment to soak in the pain. He seized hold of the ring finger on the same hand.

  ‘Here we go,’ he said.

  Gavin turned white as a ghost.

  ‘Please,’ the kid croaked. ‘No. What do you want? I’ll give it to you.’

  King shot a wry look at Slater. ‘See? That’s all it takes.’

  Slater said, ‘What about all your idealism, kid? Where’d that go? I thought you were committed to this.’

  ‘He’s not familiar with pain,’ King said. ‘It always ruins so many grand plans.’

  Gavin wheezed, sweat coating his forehead, staining his shirt.

  King said, ‘The hackers running the show. They’re in this building?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  Gavin didn’t answer.

  King said, ‘You’d better make sure you have a good answer. Otherwise I won’t believe you. And then I’ll keep breaking your fingers. There’s nine left.’

  ‘W-what are you talking about?’

  King pulled him close. ‘Why, kid, did you set up your base in the middle of the city you were targeting? You got into the grid with malicious code. You could have done that from anywhere.’

  Gavin’s eyes drooped to the floor, his hope shattered. ‘I knew… you would come. I knew you were here. I wanted you to see.’

  ‘I’m sure you figured we might have won.’

  ‘No,’ Gavin croaked. ‘Mason Walker was…’

  He trailed off, consumed by defeat.

  ‘Mason Walker? That’s the guy’s full name?’

  Gavin said, ‘He was a prodigy. I got my people to dig up classified intelligence documents. You, your government… they wanted him. They wanted him so bad. They made offers. Staggering offers. Whatever you two got paid… double it, triple it, quadruple it. They knew he was the best on the planet. He turned away from it all. Saw where the ladder led. Didn’t want to be a slave. I was so shocked that he accepted my contract that I got hotheaded. Set myself up here because… I thought I had a super soldier on my hands. Because I did all this for you, you see? So you two could see what happens when you push a Whelan too far.’

  ‘Why the power? Why the lights?’

  Gavin’s solemn expression turned to a half-smile as he tapped into some final vestige of pride. ‘Because I could.’

  ‘How did you do it?’

  ‘I’ll take you to them,’ he said. ‘The people who did it. But … you need to believe me … it’s not up to me. You’re going to need to convince them to give up control.’

  ‘You’re the ringleader,’ King said. ‘You tell them what to do, they do it.’

  ‘You want the truth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s more cultish than that,’ Gavin said. ‘That was the key to all this. I’m persuasive. Always have been, but I kept it close to my chest when I was just a spoiled kid with a powerful father, and uncles, and grandfathers. That’s how I got Rick on board, and it’s how I got Walker. I think they both realised I wasn’t an idiot, but they realised it too late. These kids… they’re too far gone.’

  ‘What kids?’

  ‘Let me show you. Sixth floor. There’s a vault.’

  King said, ‘If you’re leading us to more of your men, I’ll break all your fingers, then all your toes, then I’ll get started on the rest of you.’

  Gavin gulped, genuine terror in his face. He knew the pain of a single shattered pinky finger. King could see his mind struggling to process what sort of agony he’d be in if King truly got going with the punishment.

  Gavin said, ‘I swear, I’m not.’

  ‘I believe him,’ Slater said.

  ‘Me too,’ King said.

  He shoved Gavin toward the far wall. ‘Lead the way.’

  Gavin moped away from them, his back turned, his shoulders slumped, not an ounce of resistance in his posture. King had seen it all before. It’s easy to inflate your ego in private, convincing yourself that you’re unbreakable, unstoppable, indestructible, but it’s a very different experience when you’re staring down the barrel of more physical pain than your mind can possibly handle.

  The kid had caved, as King knew he always would.

  Halfway across the floor, King’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

  72

  He pulled it out.

  The screen was cracked, but the protective case had done its job, and the phone still worked.

  The screen read: Violetta.

  He swiped across, touched the smartphone to his ear and said, ‘Hey.’

  ‘Oh, thank God,’ she said.

  ‘Any news?’

  ‘I need to know how close you are to stopping this.’

  ‘Close.’

  ‘Can you give me a timeframe?’

  ‘Not long,’ he said, ‘but I can’t say for sure. All their forces are down.’

  ‘Great,’ she said. ‘I’ll send in the cavalry to secure the building.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Not yet. We have to be alone.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m fairly certain that the guy behind this radicalised a handful of college-aged kids,’ King said. ‘And Slater and I need to talk them out of it.’

  ‘If we bring them in,’ she said, ‘we can make them talk.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you can. Not with violence. We can’t either.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘I’ve been in this field for long enough. If I’m wrong, I’ll hand it over to you. But give me thirty minutes.’

  ‘I can’t approve that,’ she said. ‘You know I can’t.’

  ‘Then we’re going to stay locked out of the grid, and it’s all going to hell.’

  ‘It already is,’ she said.
/>   He paused. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘A few gangs kicked off the looting an hour ago. It’s spreading like wildfire. We can barely maintain order.’

  Silence.

  She said, ‘We aren’t prepared for this, Jason. Everyone needs help, and we don’t have the information they need. All of our infrastructure — all of it — is down. Networks, transport, water, sanitation. We have millions of MREs stored in warehouses for this exact scenario, but it’s nowhere near enough. The meals will be exhausted in less than a week. We can use the Defence Logistics Agency to bring supplies in, but that’s not going to achieve much. Not for eight million people. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If your plan doesn’t work…’

  ‘Give us thirty minutes. That’s it.’

  ‘Why are you so convinced you’ll have any more success than we will?’

  ‘Because the man who organised this is weak,’ King said. ‘But I don’t think the people he recruited are. You and your people might resort to waterboarding them, but you’ll just get false information and leads. All they need to do is hold out for twenty-four hours, and they know it.’

  ‘We have trained negotiators…’

  ‘That you’ll be using to try and convince them when they’re sitting in cells. Not the right environment.’

  ‘Have you met these people?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Then what the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Have I failed before?’ King said. ‘Have I?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thirty minutes.’

  ‘I just need to know what makes you so sure.’

  ‘I think I know exactly who these kids are,’ King said. ‘I think I understand how we ended up here. If I’m right, we can avoid all the unpleasantries, which wouldn’t work anyway. Please.’

  ‘Half an hour,’ Violetta said. ‘That’s it.’

  ‘That’s all we need.’

  He hung up, and returned the phone to his pocket.

  Gavin Whelan and Will Slater watched him intently, very different expressions on their faces.

  Gavin had hope, that it was all still possible.

  Slater had doubt.

  Slater said, ‘How are you so sure?’