Corrupted: A Jason King Thriller (Jason King Series Book 5)

by Matt Rogers

  No hesitation.

  No mercy.

  Thankfully, he had a lifetime of experience in similar situations.

  They wouldn’t know what hit them.

  He stepped onto the rickety wooden deck running the length of the lodge’s exterior, taking care to adjust his weight in order to silence his footsteps. He kept the M4A1 in a tight double-handed grip. His hands didn’t waver. His heart rate barely rose.

  He would need every sliver of concentration for what came next.

  King took three sharp breaths — and entered a different zone.

  He couldn’t talk in this state, even if he wanted to. He was primed and ready to unleash. The energy and adrenalin and raw sensation built up in his chest until it felt set to explode.

  He pressed one ear tentatively against the thin wooden door at the front of the lodge.

  He listened.

  Low voices inside. More than one. Less than five.

  He could handle that.

  He laid two fingers on the outside handle and lowered it inch-by-inch. It was unlocked, as he anticipated. This deep in the Russian Far East, security and awareness took a nose dive. Especially after what King expected was a lengthy period of uneventfulness.

  As soon as the door clicked, he switched gears and shouldered it inwards. Dead-centre, two hundred and twenty pounds of muscle straight into the flimsy wood. It flew along its hinges like a rocket, opening in a half-second.

  Then it hit something on the other side.

  For a panicked beat King thought they had barricaded the door in anticipation of his arrival. That would pose problems. It meant there would likely be weapons aimed in his direction.

  Then the object on the other side of the door let out a sharp breath and stumbled off-balance.

  A man.

  King charged into the room and flicked his eyes over its contents.

  The lodge consisted of a single communal area stretching from one wall to the other. At the back of the space, a handful of doorways led into what he assumed were living quarters. The main area was furnished with a smattering of old couches and dusty coffee tables. A tiny kitchen had been jammed into one of the corners. Dirty plates and mugs were piled high in the sink.

  But King didn’t pay attention to any of that.

  He focused on the living bodies in the room, assessing their hostility in the blink of an eye.

  One man was in the process of leaping off a couch.

  Another was sprawled on the floor in front of him, scrambling for purchase.

  They were the room’s only inhabitants.

  King saw the man furthest from him diving for a gun resting on the nearest coffee table. He was a scrawny Russian, all bone and sinew and lean muscle. There was sheer panic in his eyes.

  Not one of ours, he would be thinking.

  King raised his M4A1 and fired a precise volley across the room. Four bullets total. Mostly muffled by the suppressor screwed onto the barrel, but the sound still punched through the cool night air.

  Rat-a-tat-tat.

  The man caught two rounds in the throat just as he got a hand on the pistol. King noted its make — an MP-443 Grach handgun. One of the standard issue sidearms in the Russian Armed Forces. These men must have secured a stash of them off the black market — or received a direct supply from a corrupt official.

  So far, none of them had got the chance to use the weapons.

  Arterial blood arced from the wounds in the man’s neck and he cascaded to the wood-panelled floor, knocking over a lampshade in the process. King registered the glassy look in his eyes and knew instantly that the wounds were fatal.

  He shifted his aim to the man on the floor.

  Fuck.

  The guy was fast. He had half-made it to his feet, wrenching a serrated combat blade from a sheath on his belt. He sliced it through the air, barely aiming, swinging for the fences. Nevertheless, a knife could do a world of damage if it even touched King.

  He shot backwards, hearing the steel whistle through the dead space near his throat. The mercenary — another scrawny guy almost the same height as King — stumbled, thrown off-balance by the miss. He had put everything into the swing.

  King planted his feet, switched the carbine to semi-automatic, and fired a single unwavering shot through the side of the man’s head.

  Just above the ear.

  The guy hit the floor in equally brutal fashion. The tension dissipated out of his limbs before he dropped, which resulted in his corpse slapping the wood like a rag doll only a couple of seconds after his friend.

  Twin thumps.

  Two down.

  King didn’t move a muscle. He let the reverberations of the impacts fade away until the only audible sounds came from the wind outside and the soft creak of a rocking chair that had been disturbed by the first guy’s face-plant.

  No-one came tearing out of the adjacent rooms searching for a target. King was prepared for that. He swept the barrel of the M4A1 clinically from door to door, ready for any additional attackers.

  After ten long seconds of inactivity, he moved to clear the lodge.

  The bedrooms were empty. The bathrooms were empty. The toilet cubicles were empty.

  Two men total, then.

  Three, if you counted the guy that King had dispatched in the storage shed.

  He ran the situation through his head. It made sense — three of the thugs had been sent off with the female prisoners, to keep them secure at this remote outpost while the real event took place elsewhere with the males. The women were obviously not needed for whatever their captors had in mind, so they had been locked up in a shed and left to the devices of this small detail.

  An abandoned mine, he thought, recalling what Sarah had told him in the shed.

  If he found it, the environment would suit him. He thrived in cramped spaces. Two hundred and twenty pounds could achieve vicious results in close quarters.

  He hoped the rest of the thugs were ready.

  Satisfied that all hostiles at the outpost had been eliminated, he made his way back out into the cold and opened the door to the storage shed. He was met with three terrified gazes.

  He couldn’t imagine the fear that would course through the trio if it had been one of the Russian thugs who entered instead of King. It would mean that their last hope of escape had been dispatched.

  Then their faces flooded with relief.

  ‘Come into the lodge,’ King said. ‘It’s warmer in there.’

  He led them across the flat land and ushered them onto the deck and through the open front door. He took one last look out into the howling night, then followed them inside.

  Carmen and Sarah were the first to lay eyes on the bodies. Jessica trailed meekly behind, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on the floor, likely in preparation for what she knew she might see. The two women in front had vastly different reactions.

  Carmen recoiled, astonished by the amount of blood spread across the floorboards. She turned away from the two dead men and made eye contact with King.

  He saw something there. A kind of detachment. Like she didn’t consider King human.

  He didn’t blame her. This world was nothing like the civilian world. He would have preferred if situations like this didn’t exist, and he could spend his days in a relatively normal profession. Yet this seemed to be what he excelled in, and there would always be people across the globe with sinister intentions.

  So he killed them like it was nothing.

  He wondered if she considered him a cold-hearted murderer. Maybe he was. Maybe he had become so desensitised to the violence that it felt casual, like something that needed to happen regardless.

  He looked past Carmen, to where Sarah stood frozen with her back to them.

  Sarah had no visible reaction. She kept her gaze transfixed on the pair of dead men, almost trance-like in her lack of movement.

  ‘Sarah,’ King said, breaking the silence. ‘You okay?’

  She wheeled around. ‘Yeah.’


  Carmen stared blankly out the window. ‘How can you look?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Sarah said.

  ‘This is horrendous.’

  ‘You know what they were going to do to us. One of them almost did, in case you forgot. Why wouldn’t I look? Why would I care that they’re dead?’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Carmen said, her voice faltering. ‘But this is…’

  King studied the room around them, and all of a sudden their voices faded away. He concentrated on particular details that he hadn’t paid attention to before.

  There were over ten plates in the sink.

  There were eight dirty mugs spread across the countertop, each recently stained.

  He doubted three men went through that much kitchenware.

  He brushed past Sarah and Jessica, making for the bedrooms. Something had felt off while he’d swept their contents for hostiles, but he hadn’t paid attention to it.

  He stuck his head around the doorway and noted at least six hiking backpacks sprawled across the stained carpet.

  That was all he needed to see.

  There were others.

  22

  The trio sensed his urgency as he stormed back into the communal area.

  ‘Jason?’ Sarah said.

  He met her curious gaze. ‘There’s more of them. I don’t know where, though.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s gear for at least six or seven men in these rooms. Possibly more.’ He paused, thinking hard. ‘Are you sure you three didn’t see anything?’

  Sarah and Carmen nodded in unison.

  King stared past them to where Jessica stood, hunched over by the door, her face a pale sheet. ‘Jessica…’

  She looked up, eyes wide. ‘I—’

  She trailed off.

  King strode across the room. ‘You need to tell me, right now.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, spluttering. ‘I heard engines when I woke up. Heading away from here. Like three or four snowmobiles fading into the distance. I was too scared to tell you when you first asked. I thought I might sound stupid. I thought it was nothing.’

  ‘Like a search party?’ Carmen said.

  Jessica shrugged, and shrank back into her shell. ‘I don’t know. That’s just what I heard.’

  ‘Most likely,’ King said. ‘Looking for me, I’d guess. Maybe news of the skirmish in the village made it up here…’

  ‘But you would have passed them on the way up,’ Sarah said. ‘There’s only one way down the mountain.’

  ‘I know.’

  A faint growl drifted in through the open doorway. It was barely perceptible, but King heard it. His blood ran cold and he hurried out onto the deck. He peered in the direction of the noise, past the garage and watchtower. Behind the properties, the mountain spiralled away into the sky. The landscape was a mass of sheer rock walls and snow-covered boulders.

  He glimpsed a dark trail disappearing into the hillside, curving between rock formations on either side. He hadn’t seen it the first time. It spelled the continuation of the trail he had ascended to reach the outpost, heading further up the mountain.

  From the entrance to the trail a faint glow emanated, brightening with each passing second.

  Headlights.

  Coming down towards the outpost.

  Not a search party. A search party would have headed straight down the mountain if they received word from the crew dispatched to the village. King didn’t think anyone had got the message out. The skirmish had unfolded too fast.

  So this was something else. Four or five of them had trekked up the mountain, ascending to the summit around an hour ago — given the timeframe that Jessica had provided.

  Why?

  It was inconsequential.

  The trail was only wide enough to fit one snowmobile at a time. The first vehicle came tearing out into open space at full speed, engine screaming above the winds. King spotted the driver hunched over the handlebars, minimising the target space.

  They knew he was here.

  The crew must have spotted him from above. It was the only reasonable explanation for their awareness. The driver of the first snowmobile let go of one handlebar and reached back, grasping at something.

  A weapon.

  He started to bring the gun around.

  King dropped to one knee, raised his carbine, lined up his aim and pumped the trigger.

  Thwack.

  One bullet spat out of the rifle, an isolated burst that ripped across the lot faster than he could see. No further shots followed, even though his finger stayed tight against the trigger, pressing it against the back of the guard.

  Semi-automatic! a voice in his head screamed.

  Foolish. He hadn’t switched the weapon back to its full-auto setting before unloading on the approaching snowmobile. He fumbled desperately for the switch on the side of the rifle, fully aware that he was completely exposed to a barrage of gunfire.

  In his peripheral vision, he saw the driver jolt backwards, taking a dead-on impact to the face. A puff of brain matter shot out as he tumbled off the seat. King watched his lifeless body drop in a heap to the snow while the snowmobile drifted on, carried by its own momentum.

  In the end, the first shot had been the only bullet necessary.

  Silently thanking the years of training that had allowed him such accuracy, he adjusted his aim to the mouth of the trail. His heart thrummed against his chest wall like a beating drum. The cortisol threatened to take over, scrambling his reflexes and fine motor skills. He forced it back down and waited for more hostiles to appear.

  The combined roar of the group of engines came from a point several hundred feet in the distance.

  King had a few moments to assess.

  The first guy was a test.

  The thought raced through his mind as he watched the now-empty snowmobile drift towards the lodge, coasting across the snow on its skis. Its ex-driver lay dead in the middle of the flat area. The snow around his head was quickly turning crimson.

  There were four more coming, at least. Each on separate snowmobiles. Each armed. They would likely pour out of the opening nose-to-tail, ready for a firefight after witnessing their friend get shot down.

  Their suspicions would have been confirmed.

  They would not charge lightly into open ground.

  King went pale as he realised this was a situation where he couldn’t come out on top.

  Hands shaking, he turned to face the open doorway of the lodge. The trio of workers peered out at him, curious and terrified all at once.

  ‘Close the door,’ he said. He motioned to the pair of corpses on the floor behind them. ‘Fetch the guns off those two. If anyone walks in, shoot them dead. Don’t stop to check whether it’s me or not. I’ll warn you if it is.’

  ‘Where are you going?!’ Sarah demanded, exasperated.

  ‘There’s too many coming. I need to draw them away from here.’

  ‘How are you going to—?’

  There wasn’t time.

  King stepped to the door and slammed it closed, sealing the three health workers in the lodge. If all went to plan, the approaching party wouldn’t notice their presence. They would be too fixated on King’s actions.

  He spun and took off at a sprint, racing toward the driverless snowmobile that had now drifted past his position. It was headed for a collision course with the storage shed. King pushed himself faster, breath pounding in his throat, lungs heaving.

  To his rear, he heard the engines grow louder.

  Headlights lit up the outpost as the group of snowmobiles tore out the mouth of the trail and fanned out across the lot.

  King didn’t look.

  No time.

  He reached the back of the snowmobile ahead and leapt onto the seat, landing hard on the faded leather. He ignored the wind buffeting his clothes, numbing his hands and feet. He slung the carbine rifle over his back and used both hands to snatch control of the handlebars.

&
nbsp; Ahead, the storage shed loomed.

  King wrenched the snowmobile to the left, squinting to combat the icy breeze slicing across his face. He saw a flash of blurry movement as the tin walls of the shed passed him by at lightning speed.

  He missed an impact by mere inches.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit,’ he muttered as he lurched in the direction of the descending mountain trail.

  The path he had trekked up.

  It was the only way back down.

  As he was struck by the danger of the situation, he reconsidered. He caught a fleeting glimpse of the treacherous slope spiralling down to the forest below. There were all manner of sharp twists and turns along the way. It had been a tough trek up on foot. He couldn’t imagine going down at speed on an unstable vehicle.

  He began to falter.

  One hand reached for the brake.

  Then a cluster of bullets struck the back of the snowmobile. The sound of tearing metal filled his ears, sending jolts of panic through his chest. A half-second later, the report of the automatic gunfire reached his ears.

  They were firing on him.

  He threw a brief look over his shoulder. Four identical snowmobiles were converging on his position, each kicking up a geyser of snow behind their rear tracks. Each was manned by a balaclava-clad mercenary, dressed in tactical garb similar to the four men King had already killed.

  Two of the drivers were fumbling with automatic weapons. One had squeezed off a barrage of shots, hoping to shoot King down before he could put distance between them.

  King’s stomach dropped as he spotted the party.

  They were armed.

  He was at a disadvantage.

  He hated being at a disadvantage.

  He thought of the forest at the base of the mountain, with its claustrophobic darkness and interspersed tree trunks. Tight spaces. Uneven ground.

  There, he would have the upper hand.

  But he had to reach it first.

  Sucking in a lungful of air in an attempt to muster the courage, King shut out the part of his brain warning him not to act suicidal and rode his snowmobile off the lip of the trail.