by Matt Rogers
The guy went down.
But not all the way.
Because Slater caught him by the shoulders and threw his unconscious body into the concrete wall of the compound alongside them.
Head first.
Crunch.
He wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon.
If at all.
No hard feelings.
Slater simply didn’t want anyone recovering and sneaking up behind him. He had enough problems to deal with on his own.
For good measure he stomped down on the guy’s head as he hit the dirt. It was dark, so the results were blurry. Probably a good thing. He knew it was bad from the way his boot crunched down against the man’s skull.
Sorry, Slater thought.
You were about to kill me.
Now the hostile was unquestionably dead. Slater scooped up the AR-15 and checked the weapon in the lowlight. It came with a twenty-round box magazine. He ejected it and flashed a glance at the cartridges inside the magazine. Fully loaded. No shots fired.
No shit.
He hadn’t heard an assault rifle go off during the skirmish.
Wasted time.
Wasted opportunities.
Cursing himself, he took off up the side of the ditch.
He made it to the riverbank in a few seconds, spurred on by adrenalin. Moving fast now. Four men dead. There wouldn’t be many more. The three narcos from earlier that afternoon knew he was tough, but there was an extent to which their pride came into play. If they showed up with an army of twenty men to take on a single foreigner, it would bruise their egos. And cartel thugs had egos the size of buildings, and they wore them like suits of armour.
So he figured there would be one more, maximum, aside from the original three.
As fate would have it, he hadn’t chanced upon them yet.
Unless they’d sent their minions to do the job for them.
No, Slater thought.
They weren’t the head honchos. Which meant they’d be responsible for their own shortcomings. Which meant they’d come themselves. But they’d bring help. Hence the bodies riddled across the compound.
Slater vaulted onto the outside landing, which consisted of a vast concrete slab smoothed down and slapped into the earth, jutting out from the open-plan living area.
He pressed himself to his belly, and aimed down the AR-15’s sights.
He needn’t have bothered.
There were four of them.
Inside.
He recognised Bautista, Vicente, and Iván. The rough outlines of their shapes. He could still recall them from earlier in the afternoon. When he dealt with people in hand-to-hand combat he memorised body types. He was probably an expert in kinesiology without realising it. Practice makes perfect. So he knew instantly who they were. They moved awkwardly. They were injured. Beat down. They needed medical attention, but they were trying in vain to press forward and please their boss.
Whoever he was.
The fourth guy was an anonymous cartel thug. The menacing posture, the stooped shoulders, the frantic movements. Hopped up on stimulants, too. Probably Dexedrine, if Slater had any insight into the minds of narcos.
And Slater had caught all four of them with their pants down.
They’d been unnerved by the strange way the skirmish had unfolded. They’d expected a balls-to-the-wall gunfight. They’d game-planned accordingly. Maybe taken a few too many stimulants. Slater pictured their resting heart rates skyrocketing, their pulses pounding and their temples sweating and their nervous tics racing to the surface. They hadn’t approached with a stealth mindset. They’d expected an assault, and now nothing was going according to plan. So they’d abandoned tactical reasoning and sprinted into the compound like the inexperienced morons they were.
All four of them had their backs to Slater. They were tearing across the living area. Weaving around designer furniture. Heading for the hallway where they’d last heard commotion. They’d be out of sight in a few seconds, and that would make things difficult.
There’s no time like the present.
Slater killed the unknown narco with a headshot, spraying blood and brain matter across one of his favourite couches. The wet thump of the body hitting the leather upholstery froze the three familiar faces in places. Or, rather, familiar bodies. Bautista and Vicente and Iván. The ringleader in the middle. The other two manning either side like a guard of honour. Slater only needed one of them, and keeping all three alive would be too much to handle. So he shot Vicente in the neck, then figured he’d send a message with the last kill. He put six bullets in Iván, all in the centre of the man’s chest as he turned to face the landing.
A deafening roar.
A body jerking like a marionette dangling from strings.
And a terrified last survivor, white as a ghost, his jaw swollen beyond comprehension from where Slater had broken it.
Bautista started to raise his own AR-15.
Bad move.
Should have dropped it.
Slater shot him in the gut.
23
Something about the arrival at the encampment sent Casey into a downward spiral wracked with anxiety, terror, and above all helplessness.
She hyperventilated as they dragged her out of the SUV. Foreign hands on her flesh, pulling her arms, nearly wrenching her shoulders out of their sockets. She fell off the edge of her own mental clarity, and suddenly all the stifled emotions roared to the surface. She fought and clawed and bit and screamed, but her resistance was short-lived. There was no natural light to illuminate what was going on around her, and that compounded the terror. A hand shot out of the darkness and slapped her full in the face, firing nerve endings across her cheek and shocking her into temporary silence.
Before she could start screaming again, the big man with the fat lips rounded the passenger side of the SUV and crouched down by her shuddering form.
He leant in close.
‘Listen,’ he whispered, his breath disgusting. ‘Can you hear that?’
Despite everything, she followed his commands. She said nothing, and listened.
She heard nothing.
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Exactly.’
She sobbed.
‘Scream all you want. You’re just wasting energy.’
‘You said you weren’t going to do anything unnecessary.’
‘I wanted a pleasant car ride.’
She let out a guttural moan.
He slapped her again. ‘I don’t even know your name.’
‘Casey,’ she said instantly, as if her willingness to share might salvage the situation. ‘It’s Casey Hayes.’
He nodded, smiling a sick smile. ‘Nice to meet you, Casey Hayes. I’m Santiago.’
‘Nice to meet you too,’ she mumbled through a split lip.
She stared up at him through bloodshot eyes.
He smiled wider. ‘No. Don’t lie.’
‘What?’
‘I hate liars.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘It’s definitely not nice to meet me.’
‘I just want to go home.’
‘Yeah, well…’
He gestured to his thugs, and they seized her by the armpits and dragged her away from the black SUV.
She didn’t scream. She didn’t even fight.
She lay there groggily, detached from reality, numb to the terror.
Her fear had reached its apex moments earlier, and now it had given way to a dead soul.
Now, the nihilism set in.
She didn’t want to go home anymore.
She just wanted it to be over quick.
They hauled her wordlessly toward a concrete bunker.
Behind her, she heard the muffled protests of her three friends as they were led toward the same building.
24
Bautista crumpled, bouncing off one of Slater’s designer armchairs on the way down to the polished concrete floor. Even though the night was thick with humidity to
the point where the air between them swam with shimmering heat, Slater would never forget the look in the narco’s eyes as he went down.
Understanding.
Acceptance.
It was like he always knew he would lose.
Slater realised he’d done his job earlier that afternoon. He’d put mortal fear in this brutal, unforgiving cartel thug. Bautista had never wanted to come here. He seemed to have known the result was inevitable. But he needed to save face, because that was the nature of the cartels, and weakness wasn’t tolerated in the slightest.
Slater almost felt bad for him, and then he remembered where he was.
He recalled the horrors he’d personally witnessed as a result of the drug cartels. There was nothing moral or even remotely human about these vermin. They were the scum of society. Irredeemable, at least in Slater’s eyes.
Because they had the choice to walk away.
Child soldiers in Somalia and other undesirable parts of the Third World had no choice. Slater had witnessed that first-hand too. But there was no brainwashing here. These were grown men, who willingly put profit before humanity. He had no illusions as to the nature of the atrocities Bautista had committed.
So he switched off his moral compass for what came next.
He crossed the room, smashed a boot into Bautista’s AR-15, watched the rifle skitter away across the concrete, and snatched the writhing narco by the collar of his shirt. He heaved the man to his feet, noting the dark red pool of blood forming underneath him, dripping down from his stomach.
‘You don’t have long left,’ Slater snarled.
Bautista, white as a ghost, said, ‘Please kill me.’
‘No.’
‘Please.’
‘You took them, didn’t you? Even though I told you not to.’
‘No, no, we let them go…’
Slater heaved Bautista to his feet and slammed the man down on the leather couch.
On top of Vicente’s corpse.
Bautista squirmed. Clearly uncomfortable. A sociopath, sure, but not all the way. Not devoid of any emotion whatsoever. The man underneath him had been a close ally. A person he could count on. And now he was dead, and Bautista was sitting on his body.
‘Let me go,’ he gasped.
Close to panic.
‘You’ve got a choice to make,’ Slater said.
‘What?’ Bautista snapped.
Now, he couldn’t handle it. He needed a way out, fast. He would do anything Slater requested.
‘I liked those four kids,’ Slater said. ‘They were stupid, but we’re all stupid when we’re that young. I know you took them. Maybe not you personally. Maybe your boss. Am I on the right track?’
‘Yes, yes, you’re on the right track. Take me off him, please…’
‘You don’t get to play the victim. Not here. Not now.’
‘Please.’
‘You took them back to your camp?’
‘Yes.’
‘You personally?’
‘The boss.’
‘Who’s the boss?’
‘Santiago. You don’t want to mess with—’
Slater dragged the bleeding, dying man to his feet. ‘Oh, but Bautista, I think I do. We’re going for a drive.’
‘No, please, just kill me here.’
‘The four of them are at your camp?’
‘Yes.’
‘With the boss?’
‘Yes.’
‘To be executed? To have their deaths filmed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then excuse me if I don’t feel sorry for you.’
‘Just kill me.’
‘Then how would I know the way?’
‘I can tell you.’
‘I might get lost.’
‘You won’t get lost. It’s a straight path through—’
Slater slapped him in the face, aggravating his damaged jaw. ‘Good. But just to make sure, you can show me the way.’
He dragged Bautista out through the compound, not bothering to lock the front door or secure the property in any meaningful way. In truth, he’d never expected an assault before the trio of narcos had appeared earlier that morning.
That morning.
It felt like a month ago.
You’re back in the system, a voice told him.
Back in the hell you tried to crawl out of.
He smirked to himself. No. He’d never tried to crawl out of it. He’d only been delaying the inevitable. And he was in shape. Damn good shape. Under the sweat-soaked shirt his muscles rippled, breathing life, tasting the all-out exertion of combat.
His mind was bulletproof. Six men dead in his territory, men he’d cut down with his own hand, and not even a shred of remorse had come to the surface. Maybe if he had less experience in this world … maybe then the shock might have set in. Maybe then he would have considered the intruders human.
But they were linked to the cartel, and that entwined them in a world of malevolence. He’d long ago given up on trying to remain moral in a world like this.
Besides, he knew he was doing the right thing.
He didn’t need to think about it too hard.
Armed intruder, right there. Shoot. Kill.
Simple as that.
He shoved Bautista toward the open-topped jeep. The big man bounced off the passenger door, and a clang echoed through the small clearing, choked by the oppressive night-time heat. He hit the dirt. He let out something close to a whimper. Slater wrenched the door open, pulled Bautista to his feet, and manhandled him into the seat. He put the seatbelt on, just in case they crashed en route to the encampment. He needed his tour guide conscious and functioning, not careening through the windshield.
Slater left him there. He walked back to the compound, strode boldly through the silent hallway, collected the AR-15s the narcos had dropped, ejected their magazines, shoved them into the deep pockets of his khakis.
Locked and loaded. Ready to go.
He left the building. Left the front door wide open. No-one would come. Not the cartel. They’d sent all the forces they were willing to expend. There wouldn’t be more. If, by an impossible stroke of chance, a civilian happened upon the property, they would find a shocking crime scene and flee with their tail tucked between their legs.
Besides, if he wanted to lock up, he would need to find his keys.
And, quite frankly, he didn’t have time.
Four college kids were somewhere out there in the jungle. Crying, sweating, shaking. Fearing for their lives.
They weren’t used to this. Slater was.
So they needed him.
He returned to the jeep, and sure enough Bautista hadn’t budged an inch. Slater eyed the man’s lap, stained crimson, dripping onto the seat between his legs.
He wouldn’t last long.
Slater got into the driver’s seat and put the AR-15 down on the centre console. Normally an overwhelmingly foolish tactical manoeuvre. But the guy in the passenger seat was knocking on death’s door, and Slater had enough faith in his reflexes to kill him with a single punch to the throat if he made any kind of move for the weapon.
But he really didn’t want to do that.
Because Casey and Whitney and Jake and Harvey needed him.
You’re dumb kids. But we all were.
He accelerated into the night.
25
They threw Casey down in a concrete room that stank of everything a human body could emit, from sweat to blood to faeces. She wiped a tear from under her eye and brought the same hand in front of her face, trying to scrutinise the dirt caked into her palm lines. She couldn’t see a thing. It was too dark. The two men who’d dragged her here turned on their heels and left the room, sealing the door shut behind them.
She sat still in the darkness, her bones aching, her muscles cramping, her mind overwhelmed with possibility. Anxiety, multiplied by a hundred. Sensations she hadn’t thought possible. Fear she hadn’t thought imaginable. She sat hunched over with her back agai
nst the hard moss-ridden wall and wept.
Then a voice floated through the darkness, strangely close.
Weak and faint and soft.
Female.
‘Hello?’
Casey reared up, eyes wide, but it didn’t help. The room stayed just as dark. Her surroundings seemed to grow more distant still. Like everything was tucked away behind a thin film. None of this felt real in the slightest.
‘Who’s that?’ Casey whispered.
She tensed up, her whole body preparing in anticipation for what might come next. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the dark. The most primal human instinct. Cold goosebumps flared on her hot skin.
‘I’m right here,’ the voice came back. ‘I’m on your side.’
Casey froze and said, ‘What’s my side?’
‘You sound like you don’t want to kill me. Therefore I’m on your side.’
The voice sounded scared. Underneath a brave front, it was shaking.
Casey said, ‘Did they take you too?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who are you?’
‘My name’s Ruby.’
‘I’m Casey.’
‘Where’d they get you?’
‘In town.’
‘Same.’
‘When?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘How old are you? Where are you from? You’re American? You sound it…’
Too many questions, but Casey couldn’t help herself. She needed to match some kind of identity to the floating voice. Attach some meaning to the talking darkness. She could just about handle the secret jungle encampment and the faceless narcos and the aura of dread draped over the entire place. She could almost handle the concept of a slow, laborious, painful death at the hands of people she didn’t know, who would probably take a sickening amount of pleasure from the experience. She could almost handle the knowledge that her parents and entire extended family would never know what happened to her, or her three best friends.
But she couldn’t handle anything more than that.
So she needed to know who this person was.
She needed an ally in her darkest hour.
Ruby said, ‘I’m twenty-two. American, yes. From Maine.’