by Matt Rogers
They’re here to kill him.
That was his base instinct, and he reacted accordingly. As soon as the door thundered open he was there, taking up most of the space in the narrow crack, catching the giant wooden slab midway through its trajectory. The veins in his left forearm rippled as he seized the door by its frame, halting the momentum of the two men now charging into the entranceway. It created an awkward tangle of limbs that he utilised to its fullest advantage.
The guy taking the lead wasn’t ready. He’d put a significant amount of effort into the kick to save looking like a fool and having to try twice. Although the house was old, the lock proved strong enough, and the result was a vibration through the man’s boot, up his leg, rattling his hips and throwing off his equilibrium ever so slightly. He’d succeeded in smashing the door inward, but he was still in the process of recovering his stance.
Slater kicked him in the kneecap with the same amount of force the guy had applied to the door.
The man’s leg hyperextended, still not skewered into the ground with enough support to protect him. Ligaments and muscle and bone crushed under the sole of Slater’s boot and the guy’s face seared with the kind of silent agony Slater had seen a hundred times before.
There was no outcry, no scream of rage or pain, just quiet acceptance and the blood draining from his cheeks and his mouth wincing and his eyes widening and his hands flying to his mangled leg.
He hadn’t even hit the ground yet, but he was probably wondering whether he would ever walk again.
Slater used him as a step on the way down. He put his other boot on the small of the guy’s back as he doubled over onto all fours, and leapt over him, colliding hard with the second guy. Chest to chest, awkward as hell, tangling their limbs in a manic flurry. There was a gun somewhere in the mix, but Slater ignored it.
He figured the pair hadn’t been anticipating resistance like this in the slightest, and therefore wouldn’t have been mentally prepared to execute Nazarian within the first couple of seconds of opening the door.
Therefore his finger probably wasn’t in the trigger guard, to save accidentally shooting his buddy in the back on the way in.
He was right.
The guy didn’t shoot him in the chaos. Slater grabbed the man’s skull, one open palm on each ear, almost squashing his head in place. He kept his left hand there as a guidance accessory and surged forward into a massive elbow with his right arm, swapping the right palm for a pointed bone. He drilled the elbow into the soft tissue just above the guy’s ear with the equivalent kinetic energy of a dozen punches in one.
Perfect placement.
It was almost obscene how much time he had.
The guy did his best impression of a newborn giraffe and staggered away from Slater, barely clutching onto consciousness. His knees wobbled in every direction at once and he managed to make it past his buddy, who was still down on his rear on the landing, clutching his broken leg with involuntary tears in his eyes.
Slater gave the guy he’d elbowed a gentle shove in the small of his back, aiming him in the direction of the house.
The man tripped over his friend, and kept staggering, straight through the open doorway.
Slater grabbed two handfuls of the other guy’s jacket and hauled him to his feet. He shoved him toward the doorway and the guy tumbled and twisted and fell onto the rug just inside the entranceway, unable to keep his feet, with his left leg in enough pain to warrant fainting. Slater followed them in, ducking out of sight of the rest of the neighbourhood in case of nosy civilians. He barely broke stride. He slammed the door behind him, wedging it back in place despite the broken lock, and faced off with the first guy in the hallway, still semi-conscious, eyes almost rolled into the back of his head.
It wasn’t even a fight. The outcome had been dictated moments earlier.
Over the guy’s shoulder, Slater saw Nazarian materialise at the other end of the hallway, wide-eyed, in disbelief. Slater nodded a look of reassurance to him, then shot a stabbing Muay Thai front kick in the direction of the semi-conscious man. The guy had his hands halfway up in a pathetic display of self-defence, but the sole of Slater’s boot shot through his guard like a knife through butter. The flat heel punched into the guy’s nose, breaking it in a couple of places, the power of a brick with the speed of a whip. The rest of the boot hit him in the forehead and finished the fight, completing the requisite rattle of brain inside skull. Valuable neurons clashed off hard walls of bone and shut the lights off. The guy’s legs gave out completely and he seemed to sink down vertically, limbs splayed.
The second guy, pale and sweating, reached for his leg. He’d come to rest seated on the rug with both legs extended straight in front of him, in too much pain to move.
Slater switched stances and lashed out and kicked him in the head and put him down for the count.
He adjusted his jeans. Tucked the black T-shirt into the front of his waistband. Gave himself the quick once-over for any freak injuries.
All clear. Just pumping muscles and a sweaty forehead and the breath rasping in his chest. All the usual signs of a fight.
No-one spoke.
In the movies, people knocked unconscious sleep like babies. In reality, they breathe in ragged and gasping fits and starts as they come to, drooling all over the floor. The pair of mob thugs did that, twitching on the rug.
Nazarian said, ‘Yeah, you’re definitely something else.’
‘Had to be able to survive on my own,’ Slater said. ‘So they taught me to do things like that.’
‘How?’
Slater put a hand on each of the unconscious guys’ collars and hauled them through to the sitting room. ‘By dedicating my entire life to it.’
56
Nazarian came back with a roll of duct tape, and Slater wrapped a quarter of it around the first guy’s wrists, then did the same to his ankles, then repeated the process with the second guy. They weren’t going anywhere. There would be no bold, daring escapes. They would lie on their stomachs with their limbs taped together and slowly come back to consciousness, weak and scared and surrounded by unfamiliarity. It would take them some time to even make the connection of where they were. And until they did that they would lie weak and placid. Then they would try to escape the restraints, to no avail. No-one had ever torn free from that amount of duct tape. It didn’t matter how strong you were. It defied physics.
So Slater left them there, and guided Nazarian back into the kitchen.
He gestured to the table. ‘Where were we?’
Nazarian stayed on his feet. He shook his head. ‘We need to do something about that.’
‘We will. First we need to talk.’
‘I can’t have them in my house like that.’
‘What’s the issue?’
Nazarian held out his hands, flabbergasted. ‘I don’t know. I’m not used to this.’
‘I thought you used to be a Green Beret.’
‘I did.’
‘I thought you regularly go to rough people up for a living.’
‘Yeah, but … not like that.’
‘You’re a brawler?’
Nazarian nodded. ‘Dirty. Sometimes I get hurt. Take one punch to give out two. I don’t know anything else.’
‘They’re not going anywhere,’ Slater said. ‘Sit.’
‘You sure?’
‘Never been more sure.’
Nazarian sat.
‘You think you could give me a few pointers some time?’
Slater raised an eyebrow. ‘For fighting?’
‘Yeah.’
‘There’s no pointers to be given.’
‘Then how do you do it?’
‘You want the truth?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I react faster than almost anyone on earth. Just genetic. On top of that I’ve spent well over ten thousand hours in modern MMA gyms, most of them built for me by the U.S. government. No kung-fu, no wushu, no bullshit. They call those places McDojos. They teach s
tuff that would never work in the real world. I’ve never stepped foot in one. All I’ve ever known is punching and kicking heavy bags and sparring partners and pads. I’m a black-belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, so—’
‘I thought you said that stuff doesn’t work in real life.’
Slater smiled. ‘You don’t know what jiu-jitsu is, do you?’
‘I assume it’s something taught at … what did you call it? A McDojo?’
‘Far from it. You can tear an elbow or a knee apart in a couple of seconds if you know what you’re doing. It’s all about torque and leverage, and it’s awfully practical. If we tumble to the ground and I grab hold of you and rip every muscle in your arm to pieces with a kimura, you’re not getting back up again. And even if you do, you’ll be fighting with one arm. Simple as that.’
‘A what?’
‘A kimura. Look it up.’
‘So that’s it?’
‘That’s it. I hit harder than anyone my size and I don’t get hit. Pretty simple.’
‘And you can’t teach that?’
‘Go spend five years in a real gym. That’ll give you some level of reflexes, even if they aren’t there genetically. But I imagine by then you’ll be too old to do this line of work.’
‘I was already thinking about getting out of it.’
‘Does your wife know about these … expeditions?’
‘The family thinks I’m independently contracted to a private security firm. So … sort of.’
‘They think you stand around and do nothing?’
‘Basically.’
‘When really you’re out there knocking heads together.’
‘Not really.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I don’t quite operate on the level you do.’
‘So you’re a D-list enforcer.’
‘Something like that. I only do what I think is right, though.’
‘There’s nobility in that.’
‘It’ll get me killed soon. That’s why I’m getting out. I hope.’
‘I’m finding it hard to accept that you had such a bad relationship with your daughter,’ Slater mused. ‘You seem the same.’
‘Now, maybe. Back then she wasn’t the wrecking ball you met.’
Slater nodded. ‘Understood.’
‘And there’s no hope of rekindling it,’ Nazarian said, bowing his head.
‘You don’t know that.’
‘You said it yourself. She was bred to be an operative. You think she’ll be able to have a normal relationship with me, or her mother? Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t.’
‘You haven’t tried.’
‘I’m sure she was trained to hate me.’
‘Why?’
‘Mitigate the risk of her running back.’
‘You think Williams would stoop that low?’
‘Ask yourself how low someone would stoop who conceived of a program like that in the first place.’
‘You’re adamant there’s no way you can get in touch with him now?’
‘Positive.’
‘Could you track him down?’
‘Wouldn’t know where to start.’
Slater rested a palm flat on the table. He scratched at the wood intermittently. A nervous tic. Nazarian helped himself to a dash more whiskey.
‘I’d cool it with that,’ Slater said. ‘Why were you en route to getting blackout drunk when you knew these guys were coming?’
Nazarian stared at him. Bloodshot streaks crept into the pale blue eyes.
‘You haven’t really grasped what’s happening, have you?’ he said. ‘You think those two will be the first? I’m not you. I’m not some balls-to-the-wall one man army. I’m a guy who did some time in the Special Forces, but I can’t wage war against the mob.’
‘Why not?’
‘I just can’t.’
‘What’d you do to get yourself here?’
‘Acted like the kind of stubborn bastard that drove my daughter away in the first place.’
‘Tell me.’
‘It’s a long story.’
Slater tipped the metal chair back, leaning on its rear legs. He balanced precariously in place to get a better angle down the hallway, catching sight of the two hostages on the sitting room floor. They stared back at him through foggy eyes, still swimming through the muck. He thumped the chair back down to earth.
‘We’ve got time,’ he said.
‘I don’t. They’ll send more.’
Slater shook his head. ‘Those guys were pros. If I hadn’t caught them with their pants down it might have been a different story. They won’t send more for a while. They’ll give their men time to take care of business. The mob are loyal to their own to a fault.’
‘How much do you know about them?’
‘If you’re talking about a specific crime family, not much. The mob in general — everything.’
‘You spent much time around them?’
‘I had a few operations in their midst.’
‘How’d they go?’
‘I’m still here.’
‘You know about the Whelan family here in New York?’
‘That’s who’s after you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Never heard of them.’
‘Then let me tell you a story.’
57
The two thugs in the sitting room eventually piped up, swearing and shouting as they became aware of where they were and what was happening to them. Their Irish accents were thick, and they started spewing depravity about what they might do to Nazarian’s loved ones if he didn’t set them free.
One of the voices seemed more nasal than the other — Slater figured it belonged to the guy with the broken nose. As soon as the volume reached an uncomfortable level, he leapt off the metal chair, fetched the nearly-finished roll of duct tape, and wound a final series of strips around both their mouths, making sure to leave gaps under their nostrils so they could breathe. Then he tossed the empty roll across the room and went straight back to the kitchen.
Nazarian watched his movements with unbridled fascination, like Slater was a gorilla at the zoo.
‘What?’ Slater said.
‘You’re very good at what you do.’
‘I’ve done this a few times.’
‘I can tell.’
‘Gavin Whelan,’ Nazarian said.
Slater paused, noting the abrupt change of direction. ‘This the guy you pissed off?’
‘My daughter did.’
‘Ruby?’
‘Abigail.’
‘Of course.’
‘She’s a lawyer. Property law. So she’s around folks from that industry all the time. You know how construction goes in this city…’
‘Mob ties?’
‘They’ll never explicitly state it. But she’s low-level at one of the major firms. Did well in college — very well, actually. Got offered an internship at one of the big players right off the bat. We were so excited for her. She’s a real go-getter. They work her to death, but she’s passionate about it. And that’s all you can ask for, right?’
‘Right.’
‘But the firm isn’t exactly savoury. They represent a few crooks. Nothing ever sticks to these guys, but they get the big deals, the big contracts. I don’t know the details. Anyway, the Whelan family have deep connections to the unions. They’re paying Abigail’s firm millions to represent them. Big clients. So the extended family starts treating the place like home. The eldest kid, Gavin Whelan, starts to visit. He likes the look of Abigail. Talks to her endlessly. Never quits. She has a good head on her shoulders, so she’s amicable, but she knows where he comes from and avoids his advances.’
‘He doesn’t like that.’
‘Not one bit.’
‘He gets more and more confrontational about it. He’s not used to hearing “no.”’
Nazarian paused. ‘Seems like you know it better than I do.’
‘It’s a timeless tale.’
‘I
t might not go the way you think it’ll go.’
Slater shrugged. ‘Did he cross the line and get too touchy one day? Maybe he cornered her in the office, spoke his mind, told her what would happen if she kept saying no to him. Did she tell you about it? Did you go find Gavin Whelan and give him the beating he deserved? Did Gavin run to his dad or uncle or whoever the hell sits at the head of the table in the family? Did they give you a beating of your own? Or maybe started following you everywhere, letting you know they’re watching? Did you retaliate, because you used to be a Green Beret and it’s the only thing you know how to do? Did you make a mess of it? Did you infuriate the family? Is that how you ended up here?’
Nazarian sat back, stewing, cradling his glass. ‘Maybe.’
‘Like I said, it’s a timeless tale. I’ve seen a few iterations of it before.’
‘What happens at the end of the story?’
‘When I’m around? Only one thing, usually.’
Nazarian shook his head. ‘I don’t think that’s the best idea here. You can do your work, and leave. And then I still have to pick up the pieces of a broken life. The Whelans are everywhere. They run a lot of shit under the surface. They have ties in everything. That’s why I drink, and wait for them to show up. Because it’ll be a never ending war. It’ll only delay the inevitable. I realised that far too late. I never should have spoken up. Should have bowed my head and taken whatever came my way like the rest of them.’
‘If they send guys like those two, I can deal with them.’
‘What — forever? You going to sit here and be my guardian angel for the rest of my life?’
‘No,’ Slater said. ‘I’m going to the Whelans.’
‘Please don’t,’ Nazarian said, suddenly cold and deadly serious. ‘You’ll be ruining everything. If you were anyone else, I’d hit you if you tried anything.’
‘That might not be such a good idea.’
‘I put that together a few minutes ago.’