Lynx

by Matt Rogers

  Slater lined up his aim on one of them and let loose with a measured burst, dotting the guy’s back with lead. He went down at full speed, with nothing to break his fall. Not pretty. Chest to mud, geysers of the gunk flying in a couple of directions at once.

  Slater turned to the second man.

  He lined up the sights.

  He breathed out.

  Calm settled over him, stilling his hands, making everything seem crystal clear, smooth and measured and composed despite the intensity of everything around him. It was vital for survival, especially in a world like this. Everyone in the vicinity wanted each other dead. There was something inherently primal about it. Slater didn’t spend time thinking about that. He’d had all the time in the world to figure out the morality of it all years ago. Now he locked his aim on and tracked the guy across the clearing. He noted the bunker the man was headed for.

  He started to depress the trigger.

  Hot blood ran into his eyes — both at once — and he panicked. It was impossible not to. The thick viscous stuff hit both pupils at the same time, blinding him in an instant. It stung like all hell, searing his eyes. Instinctually, he took a hand off the AR-15 and wiped it across his face.

  It worked well with water.

  Not so much with blood.

  He ended up smearing the crimson deeper into his eyes, under his eyelids, stinging and burning and searing. He grimaced and backtracked, now blind.

  Well, not entirely blind.

  Everything was still there, but he stared at it through a dark, blurry cling film, and any attempt to keep his eyes open for longer than a couple of seconds failed miserably. He blinked again and again, teeth clenched. Everything moved awfully fast. One second bled into the next, and he realised he was compromised.

  Truly, deeply compromised.

  Cursing his luck, he tried to find the perimeter of the encampment by touch alone. If he vanished into the jungle he could lay low, recuperate, spend time clearing his vision.

  Not much chance of that.

  Something hit him like a dump truck. In the side. Shoulder to ribcage. Like a defensive end smashing into him, crushing his mid-section, taking him off his feet. At the same time he felt an iron grip on the end of the assault rifle — he slid his good hand down the gunmetal and touched someone else’s fingers. Desperately trying to wrench the AR-15 out of his grasp.

  Slater still couldn’t see a thing.

  The guy who’d tackled him drove through with the move, disrupting Slater’s equilibrium. Blind and hurting and panicked, he went down into the dirt, and almost lost his grip on the assault rifle. But that would have been game over. Right then and there. The second guy would have his hands on some serious firepower, and Slater would be defenceless. And then he would die slowly and painfully in the middle of nowhere, in the most brutal way imaginable.

  So he kept a goddamn tight grip on the rifle.

  Because it was his lifeline.

  This is it.

  The moment.

  If he lost the tug of war, he would die.

  He won it.

  The rifle slipped out of the hostile’s grip and Slater brought it down with him — not that it made things any better. He kept his arms wrapped tight around the AR-15 like a prized possession, but that left him exposed to the fall.

  Pick your poison.

  He was screwed regardless. Let go of the rifle and break his fall, and one of the narcos would snatch it up in a heartbeat. Clutch onto it for dear life, and risk concussion as the side of his head hit the earth.

  He braced for impact.

  The guy who’d tackled him drove harder into his ribs.

  They both went down.

  Impact.

  Skull against dirt.

  BANG.

  32

  But Slater rolled with it.

  He knew he couldn’t risk an impact to the skull. Even if he survived the all-out brawl, it would pose horrendous long-term consequences, considering the fragility of his freshly-healed state of mind. So he twisted at the waist, utilising the flexibility developed through gruelling yoga sessions, and rolled along the dirt across his upper back. There was a slight knock as the back of his head hit the earth, but the mud softened the blow.

  Slater kicked free from the man’s grasp, still blind, still terrified. He scrabbled like a madman, bucking and jerking, until he wriggled free. Then he scooted himself across the earth before either of them could pounce on him. He brought his sleeve up to his face and wiped it hard across his eyes, creating just enough of a gap in the crimson mask to make out his surroundings.

  Two narcos.

  Both the same — Colombian killers. Nothing more, nothing less.

  Slater adjusted his grip on the AR-15 and shot each of them once in the forehead.

  They shouldn’t have given him a single second of opportunity.

  They clearly hadn’t understood who they were dealing with.

  Slater rolled to his feet, bloody and dazed but reinvigorated.

  He turned, as fast as he could. Now he was right out there in the open. Nowhere near cover. He had to act now, before…

  Santiago loomed up out of nowhere, skirting around the stone slab he’d been cowering behind. Slater began to raise the gun, but the giant man caught it by the barrel and thundered a straight right into Slater’s forehead.

  Rattle.

  A deadly sensation. It wasn’t just the pain. His skull shaking, resonating from the force of the blow, sent chills down his spine. It brought nausea and hesitation and a certain distance to the reality all around him.

  Head strikes were no joke.

  The delicacy of the human brain could never be underestimated. Slater’s grip slackened before his own eyes, and he was helpless to prevent it.

  Santiago tore the gun away from him.

  Game over.

  The big man hit him in the stomach. He was a boxer — probably habits formed in his youth that never left — and if he competed professionally he would weigh in at heavyweight. Weight classes existed for a reason. Slater had seen his old colleague punch. Jason King was six foot three and two hundred and twenty pounds. He hit like a sledgehammer. Slater had power, but only relative to his size. He relied on speed, most of the time.

  It all failed him here.

  The shot to the gut crashed home, knuckles against flesh, almost paralysing Slater with pain. He gasped and retched, fighting the urge to vomit, and swung back.

  Then he found out Santiago was fast, too.

  The big man stepped back as if it was effortless, something Slater rarely saw and couldn’t prepare for in such a compromised state. He was relying on instinct and reflex and automatic motor functions. He overcommitted to the swing. He missed. Santiago lined up the AR-15 — still holding it by the barrel — and swung it into Slater’s forearm as it sailed past. There was no crack, but it knocked him off-balance, and he stumbled, and the blood ran back into his eyes, and now he was blind again.

  He lost his footing.

  Santiago hit him in the chest, crumpling him, folding him inward. The shock of the impact froze him up and he sprawled into the dirt.

  He lay there, unmoving.

  Santiago bent at the waist and squatted down. He pressed the barrel of the AR-15 to Slater’s breast and held it there, like driving an imaginary stake through his chest.

  ‘Wipe your eyes,’ he said. ‘I want you to see what’s coming.’

  Slater wiped his eyes. He took his time, breathing hard, the fight sapped out of him. The combination of blows to the stomach and chest had smashed the breath from his lungs. No matter how much he wanted to retaliate, there was simply nothing he could do. He could lunge at Santiago, but the big man would recognise the hostility instantly, and from there all it would take was a simple pull of the trigger to send a bullet directly through Slater’s heart.

  There were rounds left in the mag.

  He was done.

  Slater cleared the blood away and sighed, staring up at the n
ight sky. The stars were out. Reality came back into focus. Santiago and the last remaining narco in the clearing stood over him, studying him like a lab experiment gone wrong.

  Slater grimaced.

  He’d come so close.

  Two left, and the other guy would have been no problem at all. He was short and thin, with almost no fat on his frame, and not much muscle either. A single punch would have put him down for the count. Santiago would have proved a larger hurdle, but Slater figured he could have managed if the blood running from the top of his skull hadn’t impeded his vision.

  He gulped.

  It had all come crashing down, here in the Colombian jungle. A lifetime of evading death. All to cease over a group of dumb college kids.

  On that note, where…?

  Slater stared across the clearing, and he forced himself not to react. There was Casey, cut and scratched and bruised but otherwise unharmed, with no significant injuries, stooped low and creeping across open ground. She had a small chrome object in her hand — the floodlights reflected off it.

  A switchblade.

  A rusting and blunt thing, but a weapon all the same.

  Scavenged from nearby.

  Slater’s heartbeat caught in his throat. He pleaded his body, his neurochemistry, not to give it away. She was his last lifeline, a final shred of hope in the darkness, the only thing separating both of them from an untimely demise. He stared straight into Santiago’s eyes, his own eyes burning, refusing to let any kind of micro-expression cross his features.

  It didn’t work.

  Santiago twisted on the spot and saw Casey approaching.

  She was still a dozen feet away, at least.

  ‘Get her,’ he hissed.

  His underling spotted the knife, and stared down at Santiago. Looking at the AR-15. Looking for backup.

  ‘I’m not taking the gun off his chest,’ Santiago said. ‘He’s too fast. Get her.’

  ‘Just shoot him.’

  ‘I want him to see it. He came for her.’

  ‘Okay.’

  The short thin man advanced toward her.

  Slater watched.

  Unblinking.

  33

  To her credit, Casey tried her best.

  She’d obviously never used a knife in self-defence, and her adrenalin levels would be sky-high. Through the roof. Unquestionably.

  In truth, Slater had never expected her to succeed.

  Santiago kept his gaze locked tight on Slater’s face. Watching him for any hint of rebellion. If Slater moved an arm, Santiago would pull the trigger, and that would be that.

  ‘You should kill me,’ Slater said quietly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You killed all my men. It’ll be inconvenient to replace them.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘You need to pay for that.’

  ‘What do you have in mind?’

  The fat lips spread into a leering grin. ‘Oh … you have no idea.’

  ‘I’ve seen worse, I’m sure.’

  ‘No. You haven’t.’

  Spoken with supreme confidence. Santiago believed in his capacity to enact suffering in a way Slater had rarely seen before.

  He couldn’t help himself.

  He gulped.

  Tried to hide it.

  Failed.

  Santiago smiled again. ‘You should be scared.’

  ‘You’d better hope your friend is good enough.’

  ‘He’s good enough.’

  ‘Want to see?’

  Santiago didn’t respond. He kept his gaze fixed. It didn’t matter what was happening behind him. He wasn’t budging with his grip on the AR-15.

  Smart man, Slater thought.

  Casey and the thin man were circling each other, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. He was hesitant because he had nothing to work with besides his own fists, which in an ordinary altercation against a knife-wielding hostile would spell disaster. But she’d never been in a violent confrontation in her life, and her hands were shaking from fear — certainly not the weather, because the heat drenched the atmosphere.

  Slater’s sweat mixed with the blood on his forehead.

  His heart thudded in his chest.

  Casey lunged.

  She burst forward with a wild motion, swinging the knife too hard, too fast. She was too scared. The small man reacted impossibly fast, his nerves supercharged. He’d been anticipating the horizontal slash. He skirted around it and hit Casey so hard in the face with enclosed knuckles that she dropped the knife immediately, cowering into a ball and adopting the foetal position in the mud.

  Her nose was probably broken.

  Dread fell over Slater, but he pushed it aside. He didn’t blame her. He would have achieved the same with no combat experience. This was another world entirely. A different beast. She never stood a chance.

  On that note, where are the others?

  It didn’t matter.

  Nothing mattered anymore.

  Slater was going to die, right here in this humid clearing with the toxic air pressing down on him and his lungs burning and his eyes stinging and his stomach rippling with pain. He never imagined it would actually come to an end.

  And here he was.

  Santiago paused, studying the stranger lying on his back, staring up at the sky.

  ‘You’re something special, aren’t you?’ the big man said.

  ‘I like to think so.’

  ‘I’m serious. There’s a look on your face. Like you never thought this would happen. Even though this should be a fluke, even for one of the best on the planet. Right? You killed seven of my men at your compound. And nearly that amount here. That should be impossible, and you should feel that. But it seems like you’re angry. Angry that you got bested. You must do this regularly.’

  ‘Regularly enough.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Dumb luck.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Hate to break it to you. That’s about it.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you want me to say?’

  Santiago paused, taking the opportunity to survey the encampment, counting the dead. Tallying the damage. He kept the AR-15 skewered into Slater’s pectorals. Any movement would be met with a quick trigger pull, and an equally quick departure from the land of the living. So Slater stayed put.

  The big man’s gaze wandered back to Slater. ‘Can you be bought?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did someone send you here? Are you doing this for money?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘I liked those kids you took. I didn’t think they deserved what you were going to do to them.’

  ‘That’s not a motivation. That’s an inconvenience. Why did you get yourself killed for them? There has to be something deeper, for that.’

  ‘I’m just not fond of people like you.’

  ‘Okay. But that doesn’t answer my question. Can you be bought?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re saying.’

  ‘Is there any world where you might work for me?’

  Slater thought about going along with it. Doing his best to play the part of a sociopathic mercenary, pretending to negotiate a deal with the man looming over him. But he simply didn’t have the mental fortitude. He was spent, completely. There was no use delaying the inevitable. At some point Santiago would see right through his lies and shoot him dead.

  Might as well get it over and done with.

  ‘No. Shoot me.’

  But now Santiago was transfixed by the possibility. He was staring at his fallen comrades, imagining how devastating a partnership would be for the other cartels.

  They would rule Colombia, no doubt.

  ‘You’re going to work for me,’ Santiago hissed, baring his teeth.

  ‘And how do you propose to do that?’

  ‘We’ll keep you here. Long enough for you to come round.’

  ‘You really think you can break me?’


  ‘That happens to be my specialty.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  ‘I don’t need it.’

  ‘I wouldn’t risk it if I were you.’

  Santiago paused, contemplating, studying the man underneath him. Slater got the impression he was intimately familiar with the depths of the human soul. He wondered how many people Santiago had tortured. How many innocents. Slater doubted Casey and her friends were the first.

  Whatever he was, he seemed to possess the capacity to read minds.

  ‘You’re thinking about how cruel of a bastard I am,’ Santiago said.

  ‘Basically.’

  ‘I’m cruel.’

  ‘I thought so.’

  ‘Do I get points for embracing it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I have to be cruel.’

  ‘You don’t have to do this job.’

  ‘Yeah, well, what else am I gonna do?’

  He twisted on the spot, assessing how his underling was progressing. The small man had bound Casey’s wrists and ankles with a coarse roll of duct tape he’d fetched from the back of one of the pick-up trucks the cartel used to bomb around the jungle. She was secure. Not going anywhere. Slater imagined the other three were tied up somewhere.

  Game over.

  Well and truly.

  He closed his eyes.

  ‘Open them,’ Santiago said.

  ‘No. Just shoot me.’

  ‘Open them or I’ll make you.’

  ‘Whatever helps you sleep at night.’

  Slater kept them shut. He wanted to infuriate the man. Get it over and done with. Better a quick shot to the chest than a drawn-out procedure. He knew they would make Casey suffer for longer. He wished none of this had ever happened. But there was no use wishing. Sooner or later he had to face reality.

  Not right now.

  He was tired. Forlorn. Worn down. Ready for an eternity of sleep. He’d done enough this life.

  Onto the next, if there was such a thing.

  Somehow, he managed to accept his own death.

  Then Santiago bent down and forced an eyelid open. ‘Keep them open or I’ll make it more painful for the girl.’

  Slater squirmed, then opened them. Everything came back into his field of vision, in all its depravity. ‘Fine.’