by Matt Rogers
King knew he didn’t stand a chance from twenty feet away. If the bikers desired, they could light him up at a moment’s notice. He’d die, without a doubt. His heart pounded against his chest wall, pumping his veins with adrenalin, but on the outside he made sure to exude cockiness. He kept his demeanour confident and arrogant and insulting. If he could antagonise the bikers to the point where they decided to get up close and personal, then he had a chance.
He was far from the one in control. But he made it seem like he was. He preyed on their desire to show him who was boss.
It worked swimmingly.
Jed and Skinny, guns up, made for him. They closed the gap until they were within touching distance. Another big mistake. Jed walked with a pronounced limp, no doubt still battered from the altercation the previous day. He prodded King with the barrel.
‘Get on your knees,’ he said.
As King dropped to the ground, he scrutinised their M4’s up close. Once again he struggled to comprehend how such powerful arms had been transported to Jameson. Who were these people supplying them? What reach did they have? Whatever the case, it was more than clear that he was now a definite target, and not just someone in the way. His enemies had, instead of showing their faces, supplied a bunch of local bullies with enough weaponry to arm a special forces unit and sent them after him. And they would succeed in getting the job done unless he capitalised on the situation.
Jed saw the object in King’s waistband and withdrew the Beretta. He tossed it away into the overgrown grass. Disarming him.
King began to laugh. At first, sniggering. Then that built to a crescendo, until he was cackling in glee. He made sure to make eye contact with Jed’s weapon.
‘What the fuck is so funny?’ Jed said.
‘You guys really are amateurs.’
‘You say that, but you’re the one on your knees.’
‘You’re not going to kill me.’
‘Pretty sure I am, you dumb fuck.’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘And why is that?’
‘You’ve all got the safety on.’
King said it with such disdain that for a brief, panicked moment … they believed him.
Both Jed and Skinny’s eyes darted to their weapons, searching for the safety near the trigger, wondering if they really had made such a colossal mistake.
It was a fraction of a second of hesitation.
All that a man like King needed.
He exploded off his knees. A single burst of energy, tapping into something deep within, some kind of primal rage. It lent him a strength and a speed that he knew no common civilian could match. A rush that he’d trained himself to unlock when a split second could mean the difference between life and death. He reached up and snatched Jed’s gun with unrestrained power. The sudden movement shocked the man, causing an involuntary reaction. A flinch. His grip loosened.
That would do.
King ripped the gun away and spun it around and slotted his finger perfectly into the trigger guard and pulled down. All in a single swift movement. Streamlined, with the practiced flow of a trained professional. Something these men were very far from.
The weapon fired instantaneously. Safety off.
It had never been on, but the statement had made the bikers pause. Made them question their decisions. Made them hesitate for that minuscule amount of time that — in combat — meant death.
He unloaded the entirety of the thirty-round box magazine before the other three had time to aim. They all died in a blaze of gunfire, jerking like marionettes on strings, blood spurting from their torsos like a grotesque fireworks show. King saw all four collapse. Their limbs hung limp, signifying that they were all corpses. Their weapons cascaded away, eliminating any threat of danger.
He knew he had escaped catching a stray bullet by a hair. He also knew that a hair was all it took. King thrived in the milliseconds separating life and death. He’d been there too many times to count. That talent had kept alive all these years. Once again, it had yet to fail him.
Unloading a full M4 cartridge created a deafening rattle. He knew it would be heard for a mile in any direction, and he hoped this section of the forest was largely uninhabited. But it didn’t matter either way. If anyone was drawn to investigate the noise, he would be long gone by the time they arrived.
He let the sudden energy fade away. By now, the steps had become a practiced ritual. He’d calmed himself after the incident with the sniper, and he would ensure he calmed himself now. The blood-pumping rush of a firefight was useful in the moment, but now he had to remain level-headed. Calm. Rational. Saner heads prevailed when the rush that came with killing had dissipated.
The four bikers had sprawled out over the grass, spread around Billy’s sedan. He checked each body. All were stone dead. Blood blossomed across their torsos, soaking their filthy clothes. Each man had taken at least three bullets. Most in the chest. Some in the head. Whatever the case, they had all died fast, probably before they even realised what had happened. Even though all four were degenerate pieces of shit, King never wanted anyone to suffer more than was necessary. They’d tried to kill him, so it was within his right to try to kill them. That was his version of justice.
The law wouldn’t see it that way.
Therefore, he had a job to do.
He stared past the dead bikers and saw the cylindrical machine sitting in the middle of the factory floor. Already home to four dead men.
Its occupancy rate was about to double.
CHAPTER 20
The job was messy, but King had dealt with far worse in the past. As he carried each man into the bowels of the factory and levered their bodies over the edge of the cone, he thought back to the Special Forces. The bikers’ deaths had brought old memories to the surface, taking him back to times when killing was nothing more than second nature to him. When it was natural. Years spent working in the upper echelons of the military meant he had done a lot of good, but often that meant bypassing standard operating principles. It meant killing a lot of people. He liked to think that they had all been scum, but after all he had done, there was bound to be some innocents thrown into the mix. People who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, recruited into third-world mercenary forces through lies and deceit.
There was a reason King’s entire career was off the books.
When he was finished, eight men lay in the machine. Six he had killed himself. Once again, he told himself they had all deserved to die. But as he left the factory and slipped back into the driver’s seat of Billy’s sedan, a familiar thought began to niggle in the back of his mind.
You’re a murderer.
It had come to him hundreds of times before. In his line of work, inner demons were unavoidable. You could only kill so many people before it became impossible to convince yourself that it was all for the greater good. No matter how pure your intentions were.
He accelerated out of the clearing with all four of the carbine rifles scattered across the back seat, and the Beretta returned safely to his waistband. If there was a federal investigation into what had happened, the thirty bullet casings would inevitably be discovered. By then, King would be in another country. Far from this hellhole.
Dust from the gravel path blew in through the shattered windscreen. He coughed and wiped sweat from his brow. He ignored the doubt nagging at him and forced it to the back of his mind. Likely an unhealthy thing to do. But an action that was necessary right now. He had a single lead, and little time to follow it. Self-reflection could come later.
When the path met the mountain trail, King slammed on the brakes and screeched to a stop by the side of the road. As usual, there was no traffic. He was alone.
He slid the phone from his pocket and unlocked it once again. The battery had almost entirely depleted. It would shut down at any second. He quickly checked the messages.
Empty.
He clicked back to the home screen and opened the call history.
Empty.
No contacts. No leads of any kind. Nothing. King wondered just why on earth Buzzcut and his friend had gone to so much trouble to get this phone. In one last desperate attempt, he began to open apps at random.
When the notes application flashed onto the screen, a single document sat in its folder.
A message. Two sentences, short and sharp:
Room 32 at the Discount Inn, Queensbridge. Already booked.
King let out a sigh of relief. He had a lead. It wasn’t much, but it was better than moving on from Jameson, helpless to stop witnesses being murdered as he continued on his travels.
He reversed onto the asphalt, turned the wheel in the other direction and made for Queensbridge. The sedan coasted past the same looming pine trees which seemed to cover every inch of empty land in these parts. An inkling of claustrophobia crept in. He passed the stretch of road where his troubles had all began. Spotted the exact place he’d decided to sit and listen to the night. An exercise that had led to witnessing the death of David Lee and Miles Price. Ale House flashed by next. Three cars sat idly in its lot. A popular place, given its location.
Next came more of the same winding mountain road. King was glad he didn’t get carsick. These parts would be hell for anyone who suffered from that kind of nausea. Never-ending bends, twisting their way through uninhabited woods.
He rounded a corner, travelling close to seventy miles an hour, and was instantly blinded by a bright flash. The light lasted for only a split second, crossing his vision from somewhere ahead. Any normal civilian would have no knowledge of what was to come, simply passing the flash off as an anomaly.
They would die.
King knew exactly what the flash meant. A few rifles he’d used in the past had come equipped with the same red laser mount that had just passed across his face. The device emitted a single powerful dot which let the triggerman know exactly where their aim lay. Someone had a powerful weapon locked onto the sedan. He had no idea who, and no idea where they were. But the brief flash was all too clear.
For the second time that day, instinctual, rapid reaction speed saved his life.
As soon as he felt his vision go a small section of his brain screamed danger and his limbs fired on all cylinders. He switched instantaneously to survival mode. Ducked to one side of the driver’s seat, at the same time wrenching the wheel in a vicious arc, throwing the car off-course. The stomach drop as the wheels screeched on the asphalt almost overrode his senses, but he was still able to feel a volley of rounds dot the inside of the car, blasting in through the open windscreen frame. They were powerful shots. High caliber. He felt his seat vibrate as a couple thudded into the fabric of his seat. Inches above his head.
Being fired upon was always terrifying, no matter how many times King experienced it. His heart hammered in his chest as gunfire destroyed the interior of the sedan. If a shot hit him, it would be all over. His organs would rupture and the car would career into a tree at seventy miles an hour. But his evasive move at the last second had thrown the marksman’s aim off just enough for him to escape a direct impact.
Now, though, he had created another lethal problem.
The sedan careered wildly, out of control.
It swerved and bucked across the road. King tried to turn in the opposite direction but he overcompensated. The car slid sideways, tyres screaming, heading straight for the forest on the far side. Time seemed to slow as he turned his head and saw the trunk of the nearest pine coming straight at him, about to crumple the chassis. His stomach fell further. Not from the rush of vertigo. From fear. He could outsmart a man trying to kill him. An uncontrollable vehicle was a different ball game.
He managed to twist the wheel one last time, straightening the car ever so slightly. It began to correct course. But by then it was too late. It came off the road and ploughed through a stretch of ground covered by leaves, built up from the end of autumn the month before. Then the right-hand side of the bonnet directly in front of King crumpled against a pine tree, metal on wood, shaking the whole car. A violent, savage impact. His brain rattled inside his skull and an explosion of sound surrounded everything. He felt his ass lift off the seat and before he knew it the directed force of the crash sent him flying out of the windscreen’s frame.
He hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt.
Which, in hindsight, probably saved his life.
If a strap of leather had kept him in place the sheer force of the car slowing so rapidly would have unquestionably knocked him unconscious. Which would have been fine, had someone not been trying to kill him. Instead, his vision devolved into madness as he spun like a rag doll out of the wreckage. Nothing but twisting, blurring colours. The sky. The ground. The forest.
He hit the leaves along the side of the road like a freight train. The collision shook him to his core. He attempted to roll with the landing but only managed a half-hearted attempt. He twisted once and smacked chest-first into the ground, finally coming to a halt. Nerve endings fired across his skin. Pain exploded in too many areas to count.
He lay amongst the leaves for what felt like an hour but in reality was nothing more than a couple of seconds. Quickly, he assessed the damage. There would be injuries. That was inevitable. But he wasn’t paralysed. He could move. The adrenaline and the urgency of staying alive would allow him to push through until he was safe enough to tend to his aches and pains. The blanket of vegetation and eucalyptus leaves had created a slight crumple zone. It had removed most of the impact from the landing. If he’d landed onto the asphalt road instead, they would have had to scrape him off the pavement.
There was no time to recover. Not yet. He stumbled to his feet, ignoring the icy stabs of agony along his back and down his arms. He was up so quickly that shock barely had time to set in. His blood still flowed hot from the sudden altercation. Perhaps all the evasive action had been for nothing, and he was about to take a bullet to the skull.
He saw Billy’s sedan in front of him, resting idly, nose buried in the trees, one side of the bonnet completely destroyed. Smoke sizzled from its bonnet. He spun and searched for the source of the gunfire. Right now, he stood in open territory. There was no cover nearby. If they wanted to kill him, he was helpless.
But he stayed alive.
He guessed the assailant had used up an entire magazine firing at his sedan. As he scanned the tree line on the opposite side of the road, he saw movement between two trees. A shadowed figure, disappearing into the forest. Retreating. Probably out of ammunition. Needing to reload.
He had no time to think. No time to retrieve one of the M4 carbines from the back seat of the wreckage. If he took the time to arm himself, his enemy would be long gone. He had to give chase now. The Beretta M9 had a few rounds left. That would have to do.
King broke into a sprint. He crossed the mountain road at a lightning pace and dove into the scrub on the other side.
Pursuing the man who had twice come close to ending his life.
CHAPTER 21
As King followed the man into the woods, he couldn’t shake a feeling of deja vu. It brought back memories of Buzzcut’s demise. That’s how it all started. Chasing killers through the forest. A small part of him considered giving up. He’d just survived a devastating car crash. Statistically, the odds were already against him. He wasn’t sure if he would survive what came next.
But by now he had committed to the chase, fuelled by some kind of animalistic motivation. He was determined to get answers. Determined to rid the planet of whoever wanted him dead.
The forest on this side of the road was perched on uneven ground, slowly descending into a valley below. The terrain was treacherous. Turning an ankle or breaking a leg would spell disaster. He would be helpless, wounded, incapacitated. He gritted his teeth and urged himself not to let such a precarious situation unfold.
Below, the fleeing man ducked underneath a low-hanging branch and disappeared from sight. King swore, knowing he needed to make up ground or risk losing the targe
t. He drew the Beretta from his waistband and slipped a finger inside the trigger guard as he ran.
Then he heard rustling, close by. It startled him. He hadn’t anticipated such a noise, especially from such close proximity. It came from the side, behind a cluster of trees, all shrouded by undergrowth. The sound of frantic movement.
King spun and raised the Beretta and squeezed off a single shot just as a pair of men came charging out of cover. Both were dressed in tactical gear, different to any others that he’d encountered so far. One look at them and King knew they were also amateurs. Their gear was cheap shit, probably purchased from a civilian store selling wannabe tactical clothing. They weren’t real soldiers. It gave him a small surge of reassurance. They’d taken him by surprise, but he had the upper hand in skill, size, athleticism and experience.
His wild shot missed, and the man on the left swung a serrated combat knife at his outstretched arms. He fell back, dodging the blade by a hair. It swished through the air near his hands. The guy had put too much into it. He’d been hoping to take a limb off. He staggered forward, thrown off balance by exerting maximum effort and missing. King kicked him hard as he stumbled into range, just above the knee. His boot crushed into tendons. He heard a loud snap and the man went down screaming, twisting away from the source of pain.
By then, the second man was already on King. He swung an identical knife, both probably purchased together, both seemingly badass until they were put up to the task of attacking an ex-Special Forces soldier. This time, King’s weight was resting heavy on his lead leg and he had no time to completely avoid the attack. The blade caught the back of his hand, slicing along the skin and drawing blood instantly. He winced and let go of the Beretta involuntarily. It clattered to the forest floor and as he retreated the second guy stepped over it, advancing toward King. The Beretta was impossible to access without going through the second guy. Perhaps King had underestimated them. One of them had just effectively disarmed him.