by Matt Rogers
‘Where do you get money from?’
‘Outside connections, mostly. The guards sometimes let us make calls. Organise for money to be sent here. That sort of thing.’
‘What do I do about Tevin?’
Raul looked up. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He’s angry. He wants me dead. I was close to being killed when the raqueta broke out. I imagine there’ll be attempts as soon as these guys get their hands on guns again.’
‘You want to take him out?’
‘I won’t kill him. But I don’t think he got the message before.’
‘What message?’
‘I told him not to fuck with me.’
Raul laughed. It was cruel and full of contempt. ‘You’re in his world. Why would he listen to you?’
‘He’s an old man.’
‘He’s an old man who runs this pavilion. Everyone listens to him. Everyone does what he says.’
‘Why? Because he has a room? Because he has better access to guns and drugs?’
‘Partially. He’s respected.’
King got to his feet. ‘I’m sure he’s only respected because of what he can get done. No-one gives a shit about a feeble old murderer.’
Raul and Luis studied him with curious looks on their faces. Like he was an anomaly.
‘What?’ King said.
Luis whispered something in Spanish. Raul smiled and nodded. ‘He’s still surprised that you don’t show fear. Everyone gets scared in this place. It’s hell.’
‘No it’s not,’ King said. ‘I’ve seen worse.’
He brushed past them and headed for the hallway. It was time to pay a visit to the man causing all this trouble.
CHAPTER 16
The hallway smelt like piss and shit and vomit. But so did everything else in the pavilion, so King sucked it up and pressed on. He passed inmates coming down from vicious highs, lying prone on the dirty floor. Doors opened and shut and mean-looking thugs passed him by, eyeing him off in the process. The place was alive with chatter and madness. The pavilion in El Infierno was a community in itself. King was just a single cog in a larger machine.
But so was Tevin.
He approached the door at the end of the hallway. It was bolted shut. But its material was flimsy wood. It would give. King strode into range and smashed it open with a single kick, planting his trainer firmly into the lock.
They weren’t ready for it.
He burst into the room, scanning his surroundings for any kind of weapon pointed his way. If there was, it would spell disaster, but he had confidence that the brash manoeuvre would take them by surprise — especially so quickly after a raqueta.
The dead man was nowhere to be seen. He’d probably been carted out of the pavilion when King was away with Rico. The two remaining bodyguards were in bad shape, and as a result they were slow to react. They were both sprawled across the couch, one with duct tape covering his badly broken nose and the other spaced out, not all there, still reeling from the effects of the concussion he’d received earlier that morning. Tevin himself lay on the same bunk, identical duct tape plastered across his own face.
The guy with the concussion made it to his feet first. He took a step forward. King twisted at the hip and drove all the momentum in his body through his right leg, whipping it round like a bat. His shin sunk into the side of the man’s leg, buckling it at the knee with the loud crack of skin-against-skin contact. Leg kicks caused massive damage to those unprepared to absorb them. The guy lost all momentum and toppled backwards, sinking back into the couch cushions. He’d have a sizeable bruise the next morning.
The bodyguard with the broken nose made a move, as if he were about to get to his feet.
King held up a hand, palm open. The universal stop signal. ‘You want me to break it again?’
The guy paused for a split second, but it was enough to sway control in King’s favour. He had all of them exactly where he wanted them. Once again he watched the effect of demoralisation take place. One guy backed away, and the rest instantly gave up on any kind of assault they’d been planning.
‘I didn’t think so,’ King said. ‘Stay where you are. Both of you.’
He crossed the room and sat down on the chair closest to Tevin’s bed, positioning himself so that he had every member of the room in his peripheral vision. Then he looked long and hard at the old man.
Tevin sneered at him. ‘What do you want?’
‘A resolution to this.’
‘You ruined your chances of that when you attacked me and my men.’
‘My chances?’
‘What?’
‘My chances have nothing to do with it. I’m telling you now, you’d better leave me alone. Or I’ll start recruiting inmates and we’ll get into a full-scale gang war.’
Tevin laughed. ‘With what money? I control this prison.’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘Want to test it? Go ahead. Do it.’
‘I might. There’s a lot you have to learn, Tevin.’
Tevin sat up with genuine anger in his eyes. ‘You do not understand. You walk around here like you know everything about this place, when really you don’t have a clue. You think you’re tough because you’re tall and you can beat people up, but that means nothing in here. I could click my fingers and have you killed. That’s the kind of control I have. I was considering doing so, but I’m waiting it out. Seeing how you’ll react. It’s not often we get a man like you in this pavilion. I’d like to play with you.’
‘I think you planned to kill me,’ King said. ‘But the raqueta interrupted all that. Now you’re scrambling for a plan. You can’t get your boys to jump me with their fists because I’ll send them straight to the infirmary. So you’re exuding this aura of control — like you’re far above me — when really you’re hurrying around behind closed doors like a coward, trying to figure out exactly how to deal with me. That’s why I’m here.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Neither do you, old man. You’re a toxic leader.’
‘What?’
‘You use coercion and manipulation to get what you want. People follow what you say because they’re scared they’ll catch a bullet if they don’t. That’s not control. You’ve got a unique environment here where that type of leadership happens to work. But watch what happens when people start floating across to my side. I’d guess that your little set-up will come to a crashing halt pretty soon.’
‘If this resorts to a war, you’ll lose,’ Tevin said. ‘Feel free to test out whether that statement is true.’
‘Maybe. Maybe I’ll kill you first.’
‘How would you do that?’
‘I could kill all three of you in this room within a minute.’
Tevin made to retort, but something stopped him. King kept his expression deadpan. He was confident in his statements because he knew for a fact that they were the truth. Tevin must have seen the look in his eyes. He knew King had killed many men before.
‘You’re a pawn in the grand scheme of things,’ Tevin said. ‘That’s why you’re in here.’
‘You’re right,’ King said. ‘For the life of me, I have no idea why I’ve been locked up in here. But my worries have nothing to do with you.’
‘You sure?’
‘Oh, I’m sure, Tevin. I see it. You’re trying to capitalise on the unease I’m feeling about why I’m in here. But you’re not involved — I know that much. At the end of the day, you’re an old criminal. And I’ll kill you just like I killed your bodyguard if I even get a hint that you’re planning something.’
He didn’t wait for the man to respond. He got to his feet and threw a feint. A stiff jab, pinpointed at Tevin’s nose but deliberately falling far short. Tevin recoiled like a deranged man, bringing both hands to his face, desperately trying to protect his already broken nose. In that moment he looked feeble.
Which is exactly what he is, King thought.
It left an impression on
everyone in the room. They lost a little more confidence. Sagged a little further down in their seats. To exude complete control of the situation, King crossed to the toilet and relieved himself, outwardly uncaring of the tense confrontation. He hoped it gave off the air that he thought nothing of the men in the room. That way, they would subtly consider him their superior.
He turned and strolled out of the living quarters, whistling softly to himself as if he had not a worry in the world.
But he knew he was in trouble.
He’d seen the stubborn look on Tevin’s face. Sure, he was an old man, but he was set in his ways. He would not stop until either he or King were dead. King had left the Force to escape a life of killing. He would do everything he could to only kill when it was absolutely necessary.
He would wait until the moment someone showed violence, aggression or hostility towards him. Then he would demolish them, find out who put them up to it, and retaliate.
But before that, it was time to recruit help.
CHAPTER 17
He re-entered the pavilion in a state of heightened awareness.
He didn’t doubt that Tevin had considerable control of the general population in the enclosure. Money trumped all in El Infierno, and Tevin seemed to have the most influence in that department. He was certainly a problem. But King had far greater troubles on his mind.
Unless he put together a concrete explanation as to why he had been falsely accused of murder and thrown into a gulag, he would remain in here forever. The prison was too well-fortified to attempt any sort of escape. For the time being, at least. He knew he might be able to do it, given his track record in the military and his widespread expertise in the art of physical violence.
But it would involve killing many guards, and causing general anarchy. It would mean devolving into the man he used to be, the ruthless mercenary hired by the upper levels of the U.S. Government to destabilise entire terrorist organisations and eliminate swathes of hostile threats. He’d left the States to escape that past. He’d sworn it would not return. He didn’t want to resort to such measures just yet. There was every chance he would die in the process. Perhaps there was a more pacifistic solution to his troubles.
He passed through crowds of restless prisoners, none of whom bothered him.
Then he saw the entrance.
The pavilion had a new arrival.
A man with pale white skin and thinning hair had been thrust up against the steel mesh by a couple of Venezuelan thugs in tattered singlets. They screamed expletives at him in Spanish, shaking him viciously in the process. Even from across the room, King saw the man trembling. There were tears in his eyes. He’d shown weakness almost instantly.
Bad idea.
King crossed the pavilion, heading straight for the trio. No-one noticed him coming. The two thugs were too preoccupied with terrifying their new slave to bother scanning for any approaching threats. The new guy was too busy shitting his pants to concentrate on anything outside his immediate vicinity.
He grabbed the thug on the left by the back of his collar and wrenched him away. The guy lost his balance and sprawled into the mud, taking a faceful of the stuff. The other man wheeled around.
He saw King looming over him, at least five inches taller and fifty pounds heavier.
He saw the force with which his friend had been hurled across the pavilion by a single tug.
He turned and walked quickly in the other direction.
‘Good call,’ King muttered under his breath.
The new guy collapsed to the floor, panting, resting his back against the mesh.
‘You okay?’ King said.
‘Yeah, I think so,’ the guy said between deep inhalations. ‘Just scared. Fuck.’
British, King noted.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Percy Reynolds. I’m from Birmingham.’
‘Jason King. I’m from … all over.’
‘You sound American.’
‘I am. Don’t live there anymore though. Haven’t spent much time in one place for years. Well, until now, I guess.’
‘Clearly. Goddamn, how the fuck did I end up in here…?’
Percy had the distinct look of someone struggling to believe their own reality. King tried to imagine being thrown into this Venezuelan hellhole if he’d lived nothing but an ordinary life. It would be madness.
But his life had been far from ordinary, and due to that he’d grown accustomed to the chaos far quicker than expected.
‘You tell me, buddy,’ King said.
Percy wiped a sweaty hand over the strands of hair matted to his forehead. He thumbed a finger into each eye, raising a pair of spectacles that had been cracked in the altercation with the two thugs. He let out a single, feeble sob. Then he composed himself and dropped the glasses back down onto his nose.
‘I’ve been a bloody straight shooter my entire life,’ he said, speaking quietly. ‘Just a normal guy. I work in human relations at an IT firm. Done that for the last ten years. Now I’m here.’
‘And how exactly did you end up here?’
‘I bought drugs.’
‘Ah.’
‘First thing I’d ever tried that wasn’t what I was supposed to do. That’s what this whole trip was. Shake things up a bit, try and get out of the nine-to-five — escape the soul-sucking rat race. I’d heard that Venezuela could be dangerous which was exactly why I came here.’
‘Mid-life crisis?’
‘I guess so. Face my fears, be more outgoing. That sort of thing.’
‘I get you.’
‘Didn’t really work out, did it?’ Percy said, staring at his surroundings, still sporting a perplexed expression. Still trying to process his new circumstances.
‘So what exactly happened?’ King said.
‘I met this guy at one of the markets. He asked if I was looking for drugs, and I said yes, because I’ve never done anything like that before. Thought now might be the perfect time to try new things. Branch out a bit, you know.’
‘You don’t have to justify everything to me, Percy,’ King said. ‘Buying drugs is very low on my list of morally questionable activities.’
‘You sound like you’ve seen a lot of shit.’
‘I have. Continue.’
‘Yeah, so, this guy told me to come back the next day and he’d have a whole bunch of good stuff for me.’
‘A drug dealer didn’t have any product on him?’
‘No, I guess not. I don’t know. Beats me how any of that stuff works.’
‘That’s a red flag already, Percy.’
‘Like I said, I just did what he said. Came back the next day. He showed up. I gave him the money he asked for. He gave me a quarter of what he promised me.’
‘You sure there wasn’t a mishap on your end?’
‘I’m sure. I’m … tight with money. So I made sure to outline exactly how much I wanted before handing over the money. And he gave me three grams of cocaine when I paid for twelve.’
‘What’d he say?’
‘Not much. I started carrying on and he shoved me up against a wall. Called a pair of cops over. He talked to them in Spanish for a bit — I’m still pressed against the wall, mind you — and then they carted me away. Threw me straight in here.’
‘No trial?’
‘No trial.’
‘This can’t be normal,’ King said. ‘I didn’t get one either. If this happened regularly it would cause all sorts of diplomatic uproar.’
‘That’s what I was thinking.’
King explained the events that had transpired over the last few days. He gave no hint of his past, and didn’t care to mention that one of the prison guards had something to do with it. He needed more time to think about Rico. It would do no good for Percy to have to speculate on that lead too. The man had enough to worry about as is.
By the time King finished talking, Percy had become slack-jawed.
‘Wait, so this Tevin guy wants to kill you?’ he said.
‘Does that put me in danger?’
‘You’re in a pretty terrible situation, Percy.’
‘How so?’
‘If I leave you alone, the animals in here will beat you, rob you, maybe kill you. They might rape you beforehand. I don’t know how rabid they are. I haven’t been here long enough. I can protect you from all that. Most of them fear me. But if you stick around me, you’ll probably make enemies. Just as many people want me dead. It’s up to you.’
‘Seems like there’s risks either way.’
‘You’re in a prison in Venezuela. Get used to it.’
‘Well, you helped me out. And fuck being in here alone. So I guess we’re friends, Mr. King.’
King paused. ‘Was that a serious title?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Good. Don’t ever call me Mr. King again.’
Percy smiled, the first flash of teeth King had seen since he’d met the man. ‘Got it.’
King held out an open palm and Percy took it. He tugged the man to his feet. ‘Follow me.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘We’re too exposed out here. There’s nothing to stop someone killing us in our sleep.’
‘Doesn’t look like there’s many alternatives.’
‘There’s a few.’
‘I wouldn’t imagine they are pleasant.’
‘They’re certainly not.’
Percy sighed. ‘What are we doing?’
‘We’re evicting the occupants of one of the rooms.’
‘Forcibly?’
King nodded and cracked his knuckles. ‘Forcibly.’
CHAPTER 18
The inmates kept their distance as King led Percy through the pavilion, heading for the hallway. A few seemed eager to intimidate the new arrival but King kept him on a short leash so he didn’t venture out into the crowds. He wouldn’t put it past any of the savages in El Infierno to attempt a murder. They made sure not to antagonise King — fearing he may retaliate — but anyone else seemed to be fair game.