Hunters

by Matt Rogers

  She smirked. ‘No. He’s not. Shame it doesn’t change anything.’ She leant down closer to him. Her lips were inches from his. ‘I’m going to leave you here. You can’t move a muscle. I want you to hear everyone you care about die.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So you know what happens to good people in a bad world. So you never make that mistake again.’

  ‘You think … I’m going to side … with you?’

  ‘I’m not stupid. I know you probably won’t. But just as Alonzo came to me because he was thinking with his genitalia, sometimes I let myself do the same. I’m drawn to you. Maybe it’s false hope. I won’t kill you first because you mean something to me, whatever that may be. Your crew, though … they’re nothing.’

  King’s head swam for a hundred different reasons.

  He tried to think.

  He croaked, ‘What happened at Joya de Cerén?’

  Antônia smirked as she remembered.

  71

  Joya de Cerén Archaeological Site

  Antônia was facedown in the muck of the jungle floor when Opal stepped on the back of her ribcage.

  She knew it was him from the weight distribution. After spending most of her life in this world, she’d fine-tuned her perceptions to be intensely aware of the human body.

  When she rolled over she let the knife go immediately, in case her fellow hunters hadn’t identified her yet and reacted impulsively to the sight of a threat.

  Opal stared down at her.

  She said, ‘Shit.’

  He lowered his gun. ‘Shit?’

  ‘I was waiting for them. Not you.’

  ‘They’re further along.’

  Coated head-to-toe in mud, only her eyes were visible, aflame with excitement. ‘They trust me.’

  The brute regarded her for just a moment, then made his mind up. ‘Come here, then.’

  She rose, nodding a brief greeting to Topaz, who nodded back, stereotypically quiet.

  ‘How deeply?’ Opal asked.

  ‘They won’t see it coming. This is a terrible location for a skirmish. If it doesn’t work here, I’ll get them when we make it to Santa Ana.’

  ‘It’ll work here. This is the end of the road. You may as well come on board. We’ll overwhelm them.’

  She shook her head. ‘For how deeply we despise them, they’re fucking good. They didn’t lower their guard for a second on the drive. I don’t know whether they were conscious of it, but if I put a round in King, Slater would have knocked me dead with a punch before I could work the aim over to him.’

  ‘Sounds like excuses,’ Topaz grunted.

  ‘Feel free to try for yourself.’

  Opal ruminated for a beat. ‘Stick to the cover story, then.’

  She looked him dead in the eyes. ‘Make it believable.’

  He smashed the base of his open palm into her nose so hard her head snapped back. Blood fountained from both nostrils, and she deliberately reached up and smeared it across her face, coagulating it with the mud. ‘How do I look?’

  ‘Believable.’

  The pain meant nothing to her. Victory was everything. She said, ‘See you on the other side.’

  Then she ran into the archaeological site, howling in perceived agony.

  She decided she’d pretend she couldn’t breathe, as if she’d been kicked in the chest. The urge to suck in air was perhaps the most fundamental human instinct. Slater would buy it.

  They all would.

  72

  King was high enough to speak his mind.

  Enveloped by the cushion of the thin mattress, he muttered, ‘You said … we were … “fucking good”?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You’re just as good, if that’s really … what happened. Slater … believed you.’

  ‘So did you. There’s a reason I’m the only female hunter. I’d win an Oscar in Hollywood.’

  Her iron grip lifted from his wrists, and duct tape lowered to his mouth. She stretched the tape tight over his lips, then grabbed one of his wrists again, cuffed it, and locked the other cuff to the bedpost.

  She pressed her lips to the tape, so there was only a millimetre between their mouths.

  She rose and whispered, ‘Now don’t fall asleep. Listen closely.’

  She glided out of the room.

  73

  Slater hunched forward in the armchair, holding his head in his hands.

  His temples were splitting.

  Antônia stepped out of King’s room. When Slater lifted his eyes, he saw a grimace on her face. ‘How is he?’

  She shook her head apologetically. ‘He’ll be fine. But he’s out of it right now. It makes me sick what I did to him.’

  ‘It’s okay. We all make mistakes.’

  ‘We sure do.’

  She moved to the kitchen countertop. Alexis was still hunched over the sink, washing crusted mud off her forearms. Violetta stood by her, working knots out of Alexis’ hair. Antônia reached out and placed her hands on the edge of the kitchen counter, bending forward to let out a long breath.

  Slater stayed frozen.

  Something was different. Her energy, her demeanour. Like it was forced…

  So much of the brain is a mystery. We don’t know why we remember certain events when they flash into our minds. Now a fleeting memory came to him.

  He recalled what King said had happened at Joya de Cerén.

  The giant Diamond lumbering out of the tree line.

  ‘You’re out, right?’

  Thirty rounds apiece expended.

  How had Diamond known that? How was his confidence so high to know for sure they had no backup weapons?

  Because Antônia had precisely three Kalashnikov AK-47s in her rear tray.

  And Diamond knew Antônia.

  The AK beside Slater’s chair was out of reach, and too bulky for this tiny apartment.

  Antônia reached for the pistol on the kitchen countertop.

  He launched out of the armchair like a linebacker and crash-tackled her through the living room wall just as she got her hands on the gun. But she spun with it, so instead of driving her down through the plaster they both hit the wall side-on, crushing into it. A sharp snap emanated from her shoulder and she cried out, but she still had the good sense to pump the trigger regardless. Two bullets roared through the confined space, but neither hit Slater. He had no idea where they went, but he didn’t feel the sudden penetrating stab of an impact. Perhaps her rotator cuff was torn, and she couldn’t aim correctly.

  He levered himself out of the wall at the same time she did.

  She tried to raise the gun.

  He hit her in the jaw with a ferocious uppercut, crushing both rows of teeth together, sending her careening back. A couple of teeth fell loose. She thumped into the windowsill and sensed the empty space behind her. When she looked around, she realised she no longer had possession of the pistol. It was on the carpet between them.

  Slater dived for it.

  Semi-conscious, Antônia fell backwards out of the window.

  He could barely believe it.

  He scooped the gun up, bolted to the window, and stared out.

  Antônia’s lithe form flashed out of sight as she plunged into the trees across the road. She was limping badly, trailing blood behind her, but she made it. She’d bounced off the first-floor scaffolding, landed in the middle of the street, and taken off sprinting before the shock wore off.

  Then she was gone.

  It had happened in a matter of seconds. The initial reaction from both parties had spanned milliseconds. As Slater turned, he knew he’d find Violetta and Alexis in a state of mutual shock.

  Neither of the women were hit from the rounds Antônia had fired, and Slater let out the tension trapped in his throat.

  Violetta shouted, ‘What was that?!’

  Slater didn’t answer.

  Because a minute earlier, Antônia had emerged from King’s room.

  They’d been in there alone, and King was in
capacitated, helpless to defend himself.

  No, Slater thought. God, no.

  He barrelled into the small bedroom, shouldering the closed door open.

  King stared up at him, hazy and unfocused, but no matter how inhibited he was, he could still see.

  He was alive.

  Slater crossed to the bed and ripped the tape off his mouth. ‘You okay?’

  King swam in dreamland, the painkillers working their magic. He flapped his lips, looked around the room, and tried to shake himself out of his stupor.

  He couldn’t.

  He settled back on the pillow and met Slater’s eyes as he mumbled, ‘What a bitch.’

  74

  A fatigue-filled, morbid hangover settled over the small apartment as Violetta and Alexis worked quickly to get King up and moving.

  They found it easier than they anticipated — he was more lucid, sharper-eyed, able to walk on his own, albeit slowly. Whether that was the oxycodone passing its peak intensity or his own adrenaline overpowering its effect, they couldn’t be sure. Whatever the case, he made it out of the bedroom without assistance, and gazed at Slater for a long beat.

  ‘What happened?’ he mumbled.

  ‘Later,’ Slater said.

  He’d induced tunnel vision to prevent the exhaustion overwhelming him.

  Before they left, Slater combed the spare room and all the drawers and cabinets, but found no other weapons. Wherever Antônia’s arsenal was stashed, it wasn’t here. Some secure location close by, he figured, but that didn’t help. There was no time to search the entire walk-up building. They had to be out of Santa Ana fast, in case she had backup in-country she could muster.

  She has all the backup she needs, he realised. She has Fabio Torres.

  The severity of the situation began to dawn on him, but he mentally thrust it aside. In one of the last drawers he searched he found a dirty dossier of printed files, apparently the only physical intel Antônia kept in her safe house. He took it with him without looking at it — there would be time for that later. But he breathed thanks that she was somewhat old-school. She liked perusing papers instead of swiping at a screen.

  He went back to the kitchen and ushered them all out.

  The quartet left the apartment, taking only the meagre belongings they’d brought to El Salvador and the MEU(SOC) Antônia had left behind. As soon as they reached the ground floor and burst onto a side street Slater found pain and fatigue had killed his patience. A car trundled past, and he stepped in front of it. The driver stamped on the brakes.

  Without a word Slater rounded to the open window and stuck the gun in through the frame.

  ‘Out,’ he growled.

  The driver was a Salvadoran man in his forties and the car was a station wagon. The vehicle was on death’s door. The driver looked composed, well put-together, neat. His livelihood likely wasn’t riding on this rustbucket. Even if it was, Slater and the people he loved most would die if they didn’t get out of this neighbourhood within the next couple of minutes, so that meagre justification would have to do.

  The driver clambered out, hands above his head, and the four of them slipped in. Violetta had to help King into the back seat. He could walk on his own, but his fine motor skills needed work.

  Slater got behind the wheel and gunned it away.

  He drove south into the centre of Santa Ana and stopped outside an electronics store. Violetta ran in, and five minutes later hustled back out with a laptop computer and a crumpled receipt. She tore the box open once she was back in the car, and immediately set to work leaching off a nearby restaurant’s Wi-Fi.

  Slater kept his eyes peeled on the dusty street as she tapped away at the keyboard. She was zoned in with wide eyes.

  Only a few minutes had passed when she said, ‘Okay. Rented a place under a false name. Two-bedroom house in Ciudad Real. Couple miles west of here.’

  Slater didn’t waste time.

  Every man and woman teeming past down the street was a potential threat. He threw the car into gear and sped away from the electronics store.

  When he reached the outskirts of Santa Ana, he gave himself permission to let a little tension out.

  If his nervous system was any tighter, he’d explode.

  They reached their destination in a hair over ten minutes and parked the stolen car far enough away to prevent it being traced to their new safe house. Then they hobbled up the quiet street. Ciudad Real was a world away from the grimier barrios — the houses were new, the lot sizes were respectable, and the fences were taller. Their rented house was a white two-storey number with columns propping up the portico and security bars over the windows.

  Compared to Antônia’s building, it was the height of luxury.

  Violetta carried the laptop in one hand and squinted to make out the check-in instructions. She found the key in a small capsule under a pot plant that required a four-digit combination to unlock. She got it open, took out the key, shoved it in the front door, and twisted.

  The door spilled open, and the artificial scent of a newly cleaned vacation rental washed over them.

  Mind-numbing relief.

  Slater helped King through the door and they both collapsed on the small sofa just inside the entrance. Strangely, the front door opened straight onto the living room.

  They sat side-by-side for at least fifty long breaths, slumped down so they practically sunk into the deep cushions.

  Violetta and Alexis hovered over them, mutually concerned.

  Then, one by one, they came back to life.

  Only then did they discuss their predicament.

  King contributed first. ‘We’re fucked.’

  75

  Alexis looked down at King. ‘You sound like Will. Aren’t you usually optimistic?’

  ‘Maybe it’s the comedown from the drugs,’ King mumbled, shaking his head to compose himself. ‘Maybe not.’

  Violetta said, ‘I’m in agreement with him, and I’m not drugged.’

  Slater said, ‘There’s always a way.’

  Violetta said, ‘I’m all ears.’

  Slater made to speak, but King interrupted, his social sensibilities eroded by the oxycodone. ‘How does any of this make even … the slightest bit of sense?’

  Slater raised an eyebrow.

  King sat on the sofa, groggy, but getting closer to reality with each passing moment. ‘Antônia told me what happened … at Joya de Cerén. The hunters ran into her, recognised her, and they planned to do … all of this. She was faking it the whole time.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘But why?’ King said, his brow furrowed in confusion. ‘The Armed Forces had us … in custody. They were handing us back to America. If Antônia was a hunter this whole time … why did she get Torres to release us?’

  Alexis cut in. ‘Maybe El Salvador was going about it the wrong way. They might have wanted to make a spectacle of it, flaunting their ability to apprehend the world’s most dangerous fugitives. Then they’d have handed us back publicly, with a fanfare of PR and news stories. The secret world would have despised that. All their dirty secrets laid bare.’

  Slater shook his head. ‘I doubt it’s that. Whichever way America wanted us back, El Salvador would comply. No, it’s what we discussed earlier. They didn’t want us defenceless in a prison cell. They wanted us out there, to hunt. They’re purists. They’re animalistic operators through and through. King and I know the mentality required, because we lived it. It’s nigh on impossible to hold onto your morality and do the job we did, which is why we got out. But these men — and woman, it seems — are all the way in. They live on that edge of human experience that’s damn near inconceivable to the ordinary human. Which is why sneaking up on us from behind and putting a bullet in our heads is sacrilegious. It’d be like stomping on a defenceless puppy. No satisfaction, no pride in the act. They want the pure fight, and a couple of them were willing to die for it.’

  King murmured, ‘What about the ones you met? Opal and … Topaz. T
hey’re purists too?’

  Slater said, ‘Topaz?’

  ‘That’s the quiet one’s name,’ King said. ‘Antônia … told me. When she revealed what really happened at Joya de Cerén.’

  Slater shook his head. ‘They’re not purists. They just wanted me dead. I guess there’s a rift in the ranks. The hunters that wanted us dead at any cost … they got us locked up before we even got off the plane. The ones that wanted to best us in combat … they got us released.’

  ‘Which side is Sapphire?’ King asked.

  ‘Huh?’

  King grimaced. ‘That’s what she told me … her callsign is.’

  ‘Whoever’s left,’ Slater said, ‘it’s different now. We’ve killed four of them. If it’s just Sapphire, Opal, and Topaz remaining, then we’ve killed more than half of them. Now they’re the underdogs. They’re not going to play with their food anymore. Antônia was restless in the apartment. I was pressing her about the life she’d supposedly forfeited to help us, and it looked like she didn’t want to play the deception game anymore. She just wanted it over and done with.’

  Violetta said, ‘There’s something else.’

  They waited.

  She pulled out her burner phone. ‘Alonzo contacted me. Before they took him.’

  Slater sat forward. ‘He did?’

  If there was even the remotest chance of salvaging this mess…

  Violetta said, ‘I don’t want you to get your hopes up, Will. There’s nothing we can do for him.’

  ‘Just tell me what he said.’

  ‘It was a default message. He must have written it long ago for this exact possibility. It was copy-pasted into a G-mail draft on an anonymous account we both share.’

  ‘And?’

  She thumbed an application on the burner phone, entered her login credentials, and pulled up the draft email. Then she took a deep breath.

  ‘“They take prisoners out on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 0600. They’ve never deviated from this routine. They use the Bay 2 exit. Violetta, you know where that is. If you’re reading these words, I need you.”’