Lynx

by Matt Rogers

  He shut the water off, sauntered to the phone, and ordered room service — nearly everything on the menu. It arrived in impressively fast fashion, and he wolfed down close to two thousand calories to replenish his system. Steak, eggs, pasta, salad, bread. A massive serving of each. Gourmet, too. Packed with micronutrients, especially the salad — a blend of kale and spinach and avocado. A world away from the plane food he’d been forced to stomach en route to New York. He didn’t want to know how much it would set him back.

  His stomach fit to burst, he went to the bed and climbed straight in.

  Surrounded by opulence. Provided with one of the most desirable views on the planet. He tuned it all out.

  He closed his eyes.

  He slept.

  67

  He came awake in the early hours of the morning, almost entirely revitalised.

  It was still dark outside.

  The trauma he put his body through on a regular basis back in Colombia paid dividends now. He’d always known it would. Otherwise he wouldn’t have had the mental fortitude to go through with it. But back in the thick jungle of the Chocó Department, he’d risen each day with the determination to push his body slighter further than he had the day before, setting off a compound effect with his physique that had slowly, piece by piece, created the shape he was in today.

  He rolled out of bed, showered again for good measure, and dressed in the same clothes from earlier that day. He headed for the balcony overlooking Central Park and Manhattan, and leant on the railing for what could have been an hour, deep in his own head. He couldn’t shake the incessant thoughts, and couldn’t hope to decipher them. So many strains competed for his attention that eventually he gave up and zoned into the view, admiring the bustling night lights and the dark swathe of Central Park, forcing everything else out of his head.

  It certainly wasn’t easy to abandon a life at the drop of a hat, no matter how much he’d grown used to the road. Now he had no fixed abode. He wondered how long it would take for the cartels or a group of savvy locals to dismantle the lavish compound he’d left behind on the banks of the river. There would be endless value in the raw materials. Maybe they would be carted off into the jungle to build a new, better encampment to replace the clearing he’d emptied of life.

  The wheels keep turning.

  People keep snorting and injecting and swallowing.

  The demand grows.

  The cartels provide.

  He shivered at the helplessness of it all. He couldn’t hope to make a dent in the industry. In any industry. Even the mob. Sure, he’d decimated a townhouse of what were reportedly the toughest sons of bitches in Manhattan, but there would always be more to take their place.

  He couldn’t concern himself with that.

  What he could focus on were the isolated incidents. The ordinary people he encountered, the people he could communicate with face-to-face, the people that actually mattered.

  Like Shien.

  He forced all those thoughts away. He had to. It could be days before the web of chaos he’d created ran its course, and he wasn’t sure what form the outcome would take. Until then it would serve him no purpose to speculate about what could be. It would only waste mental energy. If all went well, Russell Williams would reveal he’d put Shien in a respectable foster home and Slater could be done with that train of thought forever.

  It was a mad game to play — not knowing if anything he was doing had a purpose — but he figured he’d made the world a slightly better place in the process regardless. A cartel in Colombia, and a mob family in New York. Neither of which had anything to do with Slater, or the girl.

  Just rare strokes of happenstance leading to violence.

  That practically summed up his life.

  He must have dwelled in a near-limbo state for far longer than he expected, for the pale blue light of dawn seeped into the sky before his eyes. He shook himself out of the trance and gave himself the once-over, shocked that hours had passed. His elbows had turned raw, leaving pale red wounds in place of his usual dark black skin tone, and he winced as he bent his arms back and forth to test them. Whatever injuries he sported, he figured those on the receiving end of the blows had it a thousand times worse.

  He wondered how the Whelans were coping with the complete disruption of their lives. Most of the men Slater had encountered wouldn’t be getting out of bed for weeks, which would leave a sparse workforce to deal with the ramifications. Tommy Whelan would have to take certain matters into his own hands.

  And right now, he would be seething with fury.

  He might have already made the necessary calls.

  Word would be travelling up the pipeline, minute by minute…

  Slater stepped inside. There’s no use speculating, he reminded himself for what felt like the hundredth time. He figured he might as well get to work, and stay busy for the rest of the day. The calmness of solitude was no stranger to him, and he would be perfectly content sitting alone in his hotel room for as long as it took for the next phase of his plan to take place, but there were too many thoughts vying for attention.

  He needed something in front of him.

  He found a Brazilian jiu-jitsu gym on his smartphone, only a few blocks away, and his eyes widened as he noted the esteemed lineage the founders held. He had no way to prove the black belt he’d earned during his years of secret training in Black Force, but he figured actions spoke louder than words. It had been quite some time since he’d put on the gi and stepped foot on the mats.

  He made a mental note to buy a fresh wardrobe, left the Royal Suite behind, and headed for the street.

  Wholly unperturbed by the fact that there was likely an entire crime family hunting for his head.

  68

  His intuition proved accurate enough.

  He didn’t run into anyone. He found no confrontation. He didn’t even catch a dark look from a passerby. Everything took time, and Tommy Whelan would still be in the process of scrambling for reinforcements.

  He loaded up on designer clothing, including activewear and jeans and shirts and jackets, spending close to ten thousand dollars on a few outfits for the sole reason that the outlet rested neatly between the Four Seasons and the jiu-jitsu gym. Ever since Macau, money had ceased to mean anything to Slater. He no longer looked at price tags. He went where he wanted, and did what he wanted. Black Force had ensured his every need was met during his time in active service, but four hundred million dollars of triad funds put him in a whole new ballpark.

  It had taken some time to get accustomed to, but as Slater had come to learn about everything in life, habits develop quick.

  He found the gym, paid the entry fee, and bought a traditional gi from reception. The staff stared at him, smug in their disdain, likely under the impression he was a tourist with a fat wallet and no knowledge of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. They thought they could bleed him dry on private coaching sessions and a smattering of optional extras. As soon as he was on the mats, he sought out a cluster of men in their late thirties with rough hands and thick, calloused fingers. There were black belts around their waists. As he expected, they ran the joint.

  He explained his predicament.

  They didn’t believe him.

  He spent three consecutive hours proving his worth.

  There was a certain indescribable flow to a jiu-jitsu rolling session that Slater couldn’t put into words, but it achieved exactly what he was going for. He thought nothing of what his future might hold — given the fact he might have to go up against the entire government, he figured he was handling the impending crisis well.

  Intense physical exertion stripped you of all other concerns.

  He twisted and levered his frame across the mats, grappling with all comers, giving every black belt in the gym enough competition to stun them. He tapped purple and brown belts with ease, and they quickly learned not to underestimate him. After only a few minutes of cranking arm-bars and diving for leg locks, the inexperienced members o
f the gym backed right off.

  Then the black belts fought back. Slater got his knee caught in a precarious position, and the man he was rolling with pounced on it like a pit viper. Slater tapped immediately, aware that any attempt to try and tough it out would be met with a crank of the submission. He didn’t fancy getting his knee torn apart before what might constitute the most vital few days of his life.

  After a final gruelling roll with the gym’s chief operator, the most elite black belt in the whole place, Slater collapsed onto his back as the man finally called the session to a halt. They both lay there, side by side, drenched in sweat, chests heaving, grateful for the opportunity to test their mettle against such ruthless competition.

  The wizened veteran rolled into a seated position with the dexterity of a cat, wrapping his arms around his knees and observing the rest of the mats.

  Slater clambered upright, nowhere near as graceful.

  He said, ‘Thank you.’

  The man looked at him with a hard lined face and said, ‘Who gave you your black belt?’

  Slater paused. ‘I can’t actually tell you that.’

  ‘I believe you have it. You proved yourself. You don’t need to be secretive about it.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Would I know the man who gave it to you?’

  Slater nodded. ‘Probably. He’s esteemed. Held in high regard. You’d know him.’

  ‘But you can’t tell me?’

  Slater got to his feet, put both hands on the guy’s shoulders, and jokingly pushed him back to the mats. ‘He signed an NDA before he started training me. If you know one of BJJ’s elite who disappeared off the map about eight years ago, and then resurfaced back out of nowhere … that’s because he was training me.’

  The man’s eyes widened. ‘Wait…?’

  Slater nodded. ‘Yeah.’

  He deemed it prudent to get the hell out of there before he revealed anything else. The trainer in question had dedicated two years of his life to bringing Slater into the realm of the elite jiu-jitsu practitioners in the world nearly a decade ago, during the foundations of his career. The government had paid hand over fist for his commitment. He’d been instructed to never speak a word of it.

  And Slater had practically revealed all to the guy seated next to him, a guy he’d never met before today. But bonds were formed on the mats, deep in the sweat and exertion and pain.

  Brazilian jiu-jitsu was a brotherhood.

  And Slater was proud to belong to it.

  So he knew the information wouldn’t travel far. Black belts had a cunning and an intellect rarely found in the general population. After all, they had dedicated years of their lives, day after day, to honing themselves into human anacondas. They had steadily learned to deploy patience and calmness above all. This man wouldn’t react foolishly with the information. He’d mull over it, consider the circumstances, and determine that it probably wasn’t worth pursuing the matter any further.

  In fact, he already seemed to be figuring that out.

  Slater nodded farewell, and used the bathroom to change into a new pair of jeans, a crisp white shirt, and a dark leather jacket that cost him what most would consider a month’s salary. He slung the rest of his gear over his shoulder and bid the staff goodbye with a brief wave, heading past them fast. They stared at him with undisguised interest — the reception counter had a direct view of the mats, so they must have seen him prove his prowess.

  He found a fairly nondescript brunch spot and loaded up on eggs, bacon, avocado, spinach, chorizo, and a small mountain of bread. He hadn’t eaten since the night before, and burning over a thousand calories on the jiu-jitsu mats depleted him like nothing else. But he’d conditioned himself to experience that kind of output day over day, so the food fuelled him right back up, supercharging his energy. He ordered a couple of jumbo styrofoam cups of long black coffee to go, and downed them en route back to the Four Seasons.

  Fatigued by an enormous meal and a gruelling training session, he crashed again as soon as he made it up to the Royal Suite. The old military adage — sleep when you can, not when you need to — was burned into him from long ago, and he didn’t take it lightly. He didn’t know how much he’d be able to sleep over the coming days, if at all. So he drew the curtains and climbed into bed and turned the lights out with the touch of a panel above the headboard. The lavish space plunged into darkness, and he breathed deep, in and out through his nose, and then he was asleep.

  A knock at the door woke him hours later.

  69

  He came awake in an instant. None of the grogginess, none of the hesitation, none of the murky confusion. Just a lightning-fast flash of ice, searing his temples, revitalising him.

  Telling him, This is it.

  There was no other reason for the knock. Ordinary civilians weren’t allowed up to these floors, and he’d hung a Do Not Disturb sign on the door, so it couldn’t be hotel staff. He snatched the Sig Sauer off the nightstand and thumbed the safety off, ready to shoot and kill if the situation deemed it necessary. He couldn’t find an ounce of hesitation within him. That had been drilled into him nearly a decade ago.

  You pause, you die.

  He gave the Royal Suite the once-over. He had no idea which way the coin would roll when he opened that door. He prepared to abandon everything. Still dressed in the same clothes he’d changed into earlier that morning, he shoved his wallet, phone, and passport into the pockets of his jeans, and gave the Dolce & Gabbana shopping bag a final glance.

  Unnecessary. Deadweight.

  He left it where it was.

  The price tags still on the gear.

  He was ready. It couldn’t have been more than ten seconds since the first knock, but his brain flipped into overdrive. He ducked low in case a preliminary gunshot blasted through the wood. He crossed the room, skirting around armchairs and rugs, reaching the keyhole and peering into it with bated breath, ready for an onslaught of the deepest, darkest operatives the United States had to offer. The men and women pulled out of the depths of the secret world, sent to put a rogue asset in check, and most likely eliminate him.

  What he saw through the keyhole made his heart skip a beat.

  No.

  Really?

  Holy shit.

  He realised he’d built castles in his head that weren’t there. There was no need to have been paranoid. If Ruby hadn’t talked, then he was supposedly on good terms with most of the covert world.

  She clearly hadn’t talked.

  Not a word.

  Silently, Slater thanked her.

  Then he put the Sig Sauer behind his back and re-engaged the safety, tucking it comfortably into his jeans. He squared up, took a breath, and opened the door.

  Russell Williams said, ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing throwing my name around like that?’

  He stood there on his own, unarmed, dressed in dark grey pants and an open-necked shirt and a thick black winter coat. He had a five o’clock shadow the colour of salt and pepper across his jaw, and short dark brown hair flecked with grey. His eyes were brooding, piercing, yet open. Slater had only met him once — back in Macau — but Williams had evidently made such a fatherly impression that Slater had ended up trusting him with the life of a nine-year-old girl with nowhere to go and a lifetime of hardship to look back on.

  It might have been his biggest mistake yet.

  Slater ushered the man inside, gesturing into the Royal Suite. ‘Please.’

  Williams barrelled past, clearly in a furore. ‘You’ve been busy.’

  ‘I had to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To get in touch with you.’

  ‘You couldn’t have called?’

  ‘You’re uncontactable, remember? You shut down my old avenues of communication.’

  ‘I’m sure there’s other ways to get hold of me than making it look like I picked an esteemed mob family up and dumped them on their head. Do you have any idea how much of a shit-storm you just c
aused?’

  ‘I needed you here. In the flesh. I needed an urgent response. And … I had to target the Whelans anyway. For other reasons.’

  Williams eyed him warily. ‘Should I have brought back-up?’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Exactly. I trust you. I thought we were on good terms. Was that a mistake?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘I’d say it’s good to see you, but what the hell are these circumstances?’

  Slater stepped back, ever so slightly. Putting just enough distance between them to prevent a wild rabid lunge on Williams’ part. As far as he was concerned the man had no combat experience — hence his position as handler — but one could never be too careful. Slater made sure to inject a lackadaisical nature into all his movements. And he kept a hint of unrest on his face, screwing his eyes slightly shut, as if something was bothering him. It added to his own mystery, drawing Williams away from the simple fact that they were in a hotel room together, alone.

  Slater said, ‘You can say it. It’s good to see you, old friend.’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. You don’t have to know someone for long to know you can trust them.’

  That seemed to bring Williams’ guard down. He kicked his coat back and dropped into one of the armchairs. ‘What the hell have you been up to, Will? I’m hearing my name in places it should never be spoken.’

  Slater sat down on the edge of the bed, distinctly aware of the P228 nudging against the small of his back.

  ‘That was the point,’ he said. ‘I told you — I needed a fast response. I needed you here. No backup.’

  ‘For what?’

  Williams eyed the door. Slater knew he didn’t have long. Williams hadn’t been expecting this. He was running through the hypotheticals now, wondering how he could have been so stupid to drop everything and track down Slater on a whim.