by Matt Rogers
The night was still young.
He shouldered the station door open and hurried out into the freezing darkness.
12
Movement.
It was the only thing on Slater’s mind.
He tucked the Glock out of sight as soon as he’d put a mile between himself and the station. Then he slid the same cheap smartphone out of the back pocket of his jeans — he couldn’t believe that, in D’Agostino’s haste to throw Slater in the drunk tank, the man hadn’t had the mental fortitude to conduct a simple frisk search. Probably because of the stereotypes associated with vagrants. Besides, the man wouldn’t have been thinking straight, internally panicking at the amount of knowledge Slater had about the construction site. Regular order and routine checks fell to the wayside when someone’s life was in danger of being turned upside down.
Which turned Slater’s attention to a vital point.
He had absolutely no idea what was happening inside the unfinished skyscraper.
He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know. Whatever it was had warranted the murder of three homeless men found in the area, for the simple reason that they’d flown too close to the sun. D’Agostino had probably figured that, as commander for Chicago’s central district, he had the authority and technical know-how to pass their deaths off as simple accidents.
Or set it up to look like a wild homeless brawl, in Slater’s case.
And he’d paid for it with his life.
Slater hit dial on a number he’d memorised by heart and waited for the call to go through. Lars answered in seconds.
‘What have you found?’ the man said, understanding that Slater wouldn’t be getting in touch unless he’d made progress.
‘Ray D’Agostino.’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s no longer with us.’
A pause.
A long pause.
‘I won’t lose my shit just yet,’ Lars muttered, ‘but how bad is it?’
‘It’s fine.’
‘You know that if you’re implicated, there’s nothing we can do—’
‘I said it’s fine.’
‘Where did it happen?’
‘At the station.’
‘Then it’s very far from fine.’
‘He came for me. Walked right into the holding cell with a switchblade. He was going to make it look like my cellmate stabbed me to death in a drunken brawl.’
Lars soaked that information in. ‘So he would have switched off the cameras?’
‘Exactly.’
The man breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Okay. Is there anything that can pin you to the scene?’
‘Maybe some murky CCTV footage from the exterior feeds. Nothing that’ll be a problem, though.’
‘We can probably make that disappear. I’ll pull some strings.’
‘How the hell are you going to do that?’
‘Do we need to go over this again?’ Lars said. ‘You’re the muscle. You don’t get involved with the bureaucracy. Leave that to me. I’ll take care of it.’
‘Good.’
‘Why’d he try to kill you?’
‘It’s the construction site. He’s picking up vagrants from a specific area and slaughtering them if it sounds like they know anything about what’s happening inside the skyscraper.’
‘I don’t know much about that place,’ Lars said. ‘I can start digging. I didn’t think it would be the geographical area. I was thinking more along the lines of D’Agostino getting his kicks from killing people who couldn’t fight back.’
‘And it helps if no-one misses the victims.’
‘Exactly.’
‘It’s not that. It’s something bigger. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s worth killing over.’
An uncomfortable silence unfolded. ‘And?’
Slater smirked, maintaining a vigorous pace through the darkened city. ‘You think I’m getting cold feet?’
‘I hope you’re not.’
‘Well, you’ll be happy then. That’s why I called.’
‘For permission?’
‘To sniff around.’
‘You should know by now that you don’t need permission.’
‘Oh?’
‘Slater,’ Lars said, his voice stern. ‘You just killed a police commander in his own station and I didn’t bat an eyelid. You think I’ll have a problem with you investigating further?’
‘So no matter what happens,’ Slater said, ‘there won’t be repercussions?’
‘Within reason. If it comes out that you’ve slaughtered innocent civilians we’ll need to take measures to prevent you from doing any further damage.’
‘I’d never do anything like that.’
‘We know. That’s why we recruited you.’
Slater had made it almost a mile away from the central district precinct when the echo of a distant police siren trickled down the open street. He threw a glance over his shoulder, suddenly paranoid. D’Agostino had been one corrupt bastard, but that didn’t change the circumstances. Slater had murdered an officer of the law in one of the most brutal fashions imaginable, and any kind of arrest would result in Black Force denying his existence. He would be left to rot in a prison cell for the rest of his life, or receive the death sentence for his endeavours. There would be no way to connect D’Agostino to a yet-unknown plot within an abandoned construction site, and Slater couldn’t see a path to successfully defending himself if he was apprehended.
So he ducked into the lee of a neighbouring alleyway, allowing the darkness to envelop him. He paused there for a long ten count with the smartphone pressed to his ear, eyes darting left and right in search of confrontation. At this point he wouldn’t shy away from barrelling straight through an army of police officers if it resulted in his own freedom.
But nothing materialised.
No-one came.
The street remained dark and silent and empty. The street lights spaced intermittently along the two-lane road did little to penetrate the night. In the alleyway itself, Slater could barely see his hand in front of his face.
On the other end of the line, Lars sensed that Slater had gone quiet. He didn’t respond, remaining silent until Slater opted to voice his concerns.
After a long beat, Slater muttered, ‘All clear.’
‘You being hunted?’
‘I can’t imagine D’Agostino’s body will go undiscovered for long.’
‘Anyone else get a good look at you on the way out of the station?’
‘One guy saw me for a couple of seconds but he won’t remember anything.’
‘Knocked him out?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’re particularly good at that.’
‘That’s something you’ve observed?’
‘You just seem to have a knack for it.’
‘It’s not hard when you get the hang of it.’
‘I wouldn’t know. I’m a desk jockey.’
Slater smirked. ‘So just to clarify — I’m all clear to check out this construction site?’
‘I don’t think you understand the concept of the division you work for. You can do whatever the hell you want. You don’t exist.’
Slater twisted on the spot to glance down the alleyway, suddenly spooked. Finding nothing, he hunched over the phone. ‘I think I’m slowly coming to that realisation.’
‘Go knock some heads together.’
‘Happily,’ Slater said.
He ended the call and tucked the phone back into his pocket. Exhilarated by the sheer thrill of the operation, he strode straight back out onto the sidewalk and surged with purpose in the same direction he’d been heading.
Into the unknown.
13
Slater had only undertaken three missions for Black Force, but they had taught him more about the workings of the world than anything he’d experienced previously.
There were certain social cues and standard interactions that, if exploited successfully, resulted in phenomenal success in the
field. Slater had been experimenting with a wide range of techniques over the last six months, and over time it had started to open his mind to the power of a proper approach.
Like right now.
He spotted the construction site in the distance, as dormant as when he’d first laid eyes on it. Its half-finished structure twisted into the night sky, dwarfed by the gleaming skyscrapers on either side but set far enough back from the street to go largely unnoticed unless you paid attention to it. The sidewalk in front of the site lay desolate, unpopulated.
There wasn’t a soul in sight.
Slater figured he would have spooked D’Agostino with all his talk, especially if the police commander imagined that Slater knew the truth about his business inside the site. Slater put himself in the man’s shoes, and figured he would have put his operation — whatever that may be — on lockdown until Slater was dead and D’Agostino could check the coast was clear and nothing was amiss.
Which would involve a trip to the construction site.
Which meant whoever dwelled within the structure would be expecting D’Agostino.
So Slater kept his shoulders straight and his chest out, refusing to allow any shred of hesitation to creep into his demeanour. It would be paramount in the coming moments. As he crossed the street he stared up at the gargantuan structure with all its dark walkways and crevices, and figured he was definitely being watched. He nodded up at the giant construction site, holding up three fingers in an arbitrary gesture. It meant nothing, but it made him look like he was in the loop.
And sometimes, in the world of crime and espionage, that was all it took to carve out an opening.
An opening was all a man of Slater’s calibre needed.
He stepped up onto the sidewalk in front of the skyscraper and strode straight into the site, squeezing through a narrow gap in the rusting wire fence. Gravel crunched underfoot, signalling his presence, but Slater had already made clear the fact that he wasn’t hiding. He made as much noise as he wanted as he ducked under low-hanging scaffolding and powered further away from the street lights until the darkness swamped him. He didn’t dare use his phone as a flashlight — he wasn’t sure what would be taken as a threat and what wouldn’t.
He continued straight into the bowels of the construction site, keeping the Glock in the back of his jeans, unwilling to cause confrontation just yet. He was vulnerable to a surprise attack — if the people populating the skyscraper wanted him dead on the spot, they could simply shoot him in the back. They no doubt knew the layout of the site far better than he did.
It was one of the more foolish moves in military history, no doubt — Slater couldn’t imagine a soldier displaying such insane foolhardiness to stride unprepared into enemy territory. But Slater’s work took place in the strange, muddied grey area of society — no-one knew he was a government operative. He could use susceptibility to his advantage, and he did so now.
When the twin flashlights lit up the corridor around him, spearing through the darkness and illuminating him where he stood, he didn’t flinch.
When the twin beams lowered to the floor, casting shadows across the walls and revealing a pair of muscular Eastern European men standing a dozen feet ahead, scrutinising him, he acted like there was nothing out of the ordinary.
When he noticed the flashlight attached to automatic rifles, he didn’t bat an eyelid.
He simply stood in place and pretended like he belonged.
He found that particular gesture worked an uncanny amount of times.
And when the barrels of the rifles remained trained on the floor, Slater realised he had the window of opportunity he’d been so desperately searching for.
Simultaneously, it confirmed D’Agostino’s involvement in something menacing.
A weight lifted off his shoulders. On the trek from the police station to the construction site, doubts had plagued him intermittently, trying to convince him that he’d made an error and killed an innocent man. But, time and time again, he turned back to the image of Ray D’Agostino descending on the cell with a murderous glint in his eyes and a switchblade in his hand.
That immediately dispelled any thoughts of making a mistake.
Even if there was nothing at the construction site, Slater felt nothing for killing a man who had tried to take his own life.
That was the risk one took when dealing with a trained specialist.
The two Eastern European men advanced, their physiques akin to muscle-packed gorillas. They were both big and burly and their tight jackets strained against their massive arms. Slater figured he would lose an arm wrestle to them.
But he wouldn’t lose a fight.
14
Slater nodded to each of them in turn — they didn’t respond with any kind of acknowledgement, but they didn’t aim their weapons at him either, and that was all he asked for. He stayed on the spot to minimise his own aggression, allowing them to approach instead. If he had to guess, he would have picked them as Dagestanis, but it was hard to discern the difference between the specific regions of Eastern Europe.
Whatever the case, they were hard, cruel men.
Slater could see it in their eyes.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ one of them demanded, his accent thick.
They were the first words spoken since the two parties had laid eyes on each other. The five syllables echoed off the walls, highlighting the isolation of the construction site. They were deep inside the skyscraper now, in unfinished halls, within the vicinity of no-one.
Lots of room to bury a body in here.
There was hostility in the man’s tone, and in both their demeanours — that was inevitable. But it wasn’t the kind of unwavering aggression that would result in Slater catching a bullet if he made the wrong move. Instead it was the kind of typical anger and frustration that came with having to deal with an unknown party.
They thought he was involved with D’Agostino in some capacity. They simply didn’t know how to react to him.
There was a vast difference between that, and wanting to shoot him dead where he stood.
Because who the hell would stride willingly into this darkened structure if they didn’t have business within?
‘Ray sent me,’ Slater muttered, sending a piercing glare at both men to try and assert dominance.
At the mention of the police commander, both men twitched. The man on the left — the one who had spoken first — shifted uncomfortably on the spot. ‘He did not mention this.’
‘Were you expecting him in the flesh?’
‘Da.’
‘Yeah, well,’ Slater said, then cast a glance over his shoulder to sell the performance. ‘There’s been unexpected developments.’
‘Huh?’
Slater beckoned with two fingers, urging the first man forward, as confident as always in his intentions. Sensing Slater’s brashness, the first guy shuffled a couple of steps further toward him. Now they were only half a foot apart.
Dangerously close.
Not that the man knew it.
‘Someone at the station,’ Slater mumbled, deliberately quietening his voice. ‘They figured out what was happening here.’
‘Police?’
Slater nodded.
‘So who are you?’ the first man said, but there was far less hostility in his tone this time. There was genuine concern, unease that law enforcement might be descending on the structure at any moment.
It was the oldest trick in the book. Slater had subliminally aligned his intentions with the men — even though he had no proof that he was who he said he was, they trusted him because of the mutual threat of being caught. They were united in their involvement in the operation, even though Slater wasn’t involved at all.
But they didn’t know that.
‘I’m the muscle,’ Slater said. ‘Ray sent me to take care of things.’
‘What things?’
‘The guy at the station, for starters. The one who realised what was happening.’
&nbs
p; ‘This station man,’ the first guy said in broken English. ‘Who?’
Slater inclined his head toward the floor, hunching forward as if he had secrets to share. The first Dagestani took another imperceptible step in Slater’s direction. Now their heads were separated by mere inches, as if Slater was about to whisper a revelation in the man’s ear.
And he did.
‘Me.’
15
It threw the guy off for a second — he hadn’t been expecting Slater to admit that kind of information. He paused for the briefest of moments in time as the gears whirred in his head, connecting the dots and understanding the fact that the stranger in front of him had sinister intentions.
By that point it was already too late.
Slater activated all his fast-twitch muscle fibres at once, transitioning from a state of calm to an explosive battering ram that threw everything with murderous intent. He launched a thunderous right hook that scythed through the shadows and connected with every knuckle at once on the side of the Dagestani’s head, drilling into the soft skin right above the man’s left ear.
Lars’ words proved correct.
Slater did have a knack for smashing people unconscious.
The guy dropped with no control of his limbs, folding over like a lawn chair and crumpling into the loose dirt underfoot. The floor of the hallways on the ground level hadn’t been installed yet, and the dirt softened the impact as the first guy went down. As a result, his comrade didn’t notice the sudden explosive shift in atmosphere until his chance of retaliation had dissipated.