by Matt Rogers
By which point he’d brought the barrel of his own AK-74 up and unloaded its contents into their legs.
Gunfire rang out across the empty path. Thirty rounds of ammunition tore across the tiny space between them. Bullets sunk into calves and shins and feet before any of the four had time to fire a shot. They fell simultaneously, blood arcing from flesh, screams slicing out of their mouths.
Shocked by such a rapid sequence of events.
Much like any man who crossed King.
Sometimes he imagined how events unfolded from the perspective of his enemies. He knew his reaction speed was inhuman, an extreme outlier amongst the outliers themselves. That’s what had secured him a position in a top-secret U.S. black-ops program. That’s what had kept him alive through years of vicious combat.
That’s what would keep him alive today.
He didn’t hesitate to surge forward as soon as the pack of soldiers were taken off their feet. It took a millisecond to assess who his attention had to shift to. Two of the men sprawling into the dust had taken wounds of such a painful nature that their instinctive reaction had been to release their weapons and clutch their trousers, which were quickly turning crimson. Instantly, he disregarded them. He focused solely on the two men that had their fingers slotted inside the trigger guards of their assault rifles.
Kalashnikov AK-103s. Standard issue for the Venezuelan Army.
Very dangerous at close quarters.
He wound up and swung his leg at one of the weapons as if taking a free kick. He targeted the space where the magazine met the receiver, as it provided the least room for error. As soon as contact was made and the gun tumbled away across the dirt he spun and pounced on the last armed guard.
The guy lay on his back, covered in dust, bleeding profusely from exit wounds in his calves. Nevertheless, he possessed the mental fortitude to keep a grip on his firearm. King squashed him into the ground, slamming him chest-to-chest. Minimising the potential to find himself on the other end of the barrel. He grabbed the AK-103 and wrenched it free, then used the stock to drop a blow into the guy’s stomach. The man let out a wheeze of protest. Coupled with the other injuries, King didn’t imagine he would be putting up much more of a fight.
He got to his feet, surrounded by four groaning bodies. All disarmed. All going nowhere.
Raul and Luis had barely begun to react.
‘What the f—’ Raul whispered, gazing at the scene around him. He looked at King like he was some kind of monster, like he didn’t come from the same planet. Like he possessed skills that bordered on otherworldly.
‘Let’s go,’ King said.
There wasn’t time to gawk at his talents. They had all the time in the world to ponder such thoughts when they were free.
King caught the edge of the door just before it swung shut. As his fingers locked around the cold metal, he breathed a sigh of relief. If it had clicked closed, they would have been left in the same position they’d started in.
And now every guard in the compound knew of their presence.
Thirty rounds ejecting from the AK-74 had caused a deafening racket. The noise had echoed across El Infierno. Harsh and sharp. Drawing attention to the other side of the prison.
King knew they needed to move, or they would quickly find themselves in a war.
He used short commands to instruct the twins. They needed to be told exactly what to do. He saw shock setting into their features. Their time in the pavilion may have desensitised them to violence, but not at this level of intensity. Not when every move made the difference between seeing freedom and being carted unceremoniously back to the prison in chains.
Where he had no doubt Rico would relish torturing him slowly to death.
Raul and Luis scooped up two of the AK-103s the soldiers had dropped. Briefly, King glanced at each man’s legs. The sights passed through his mind and he checked to see whether any limbs would need amputation.
Probably not, he concluded.
Which was the most reassurance he would get, for a fresh set of alarms exploded from loudspeakers across the compound. These sounded at a different frequency, shrieking with the urgency that highlighted a volatile situation.
He imagined that the three of them had been spotted on various cameras. Now every guard in the compound would be alerted to their presence.
There were prisoners breaking out.
King ushered the twins inside the building, his heart racing, wondering just how on earth a peaceful holiday had turned to this in the space of a few days.
CHAPTER 26
The interior of the building brought with it a different smell.
It was still putrid — but a controlled kind of putrid. Not the filth of untouched faeces and urine that permeated every inch of El Infierno’s centre. Prison officials and Guardia Nacional soldiers patrolled these corridors. They had offices in these buildings. As such, the conditions were somewhat passable. Hygiene was tended to. So King inhaled deeply as the three of them tore through white-washed hallways, relishing the smell of civilisation. He tasted freedom, so close now he could almost sense the other side of the building just there.
And he’d only been locked up for two days.
He couldn’t imagine how Raul and Luis felt.
He saw it in their faces. Something that he hadn’t seen since he’d met them. An emotion that began to surface only when escape transformed from a shaky improbability to something very plausible.
Hope.
After at least a year inside the walls of El Infierno, he imagined they had become resigned to the brutal, unforgiving system, shattered by the betrayal of the gang that employed them. Now they might finally be able to start a new life.
King kept his AK-103 raised and his right eye firmly aligned between the sights, but they made it down three corridors in succession without any sign of resistance. He spoke as they moved.
‘Where to after this?’ he said.
‘We’re not out yet,’ Raul whispered.
‘We’re close. Will you visit your family first?’
He nodded. ‘Of course. Luis and my sister were inseparable. They did everything together. He didn’t handle the arrest well. He hasn’t spoken to her in over a year.’
‘And you?’
‘I was closer to my mother. But I cherish both of them.’
‘I’ll get you to them,’ King said. ‘Then I’m gone.’
‘Where will you go?’
He paused. ‘Haven’t figured that out yet. Seems impossible for me to escape trouble.’
‘I think you can,’ Raul said. ‘I think you try too hard to seek it out.’
‘You think?’
‘You don’t need to do anything after we get out of here. It’s not on you to get us back to our family.’
‘I’d like to help.’
Raul raised a finger. ‘That’s why. You can’t help everyone. When you try, you get yourself into this shit.’
‘I didn’t involve myself in this. I stumbled across it.’
‘You beat up the three Movers when you didn’t need to. If you want peace, King, you need to refuse to react.’
‘Sometimes I can’t.’
Raul shrugged. ‘Then maybe you’re supposed to do this forever.’
The corridor ended up ahead, sprawling out into a security station to process new arrivals. Two separate steel doors were built into each end of a narrow path, walled in by bulletproof glass. A bank of controls lay beside the station, currently uninhabited. Usually, a guard would monitor the prison staff exiting or entering. The setup was designed to ensure that no-one could leave without express approval of a staff member sitting behind the impenetrable glass.
Now it lay deserted. Surrounded by every siren in the prison sounding in unison, King paused by the first steel door and struggled to figure out a way past the checkpoint. The controls to unlock the doors were locked away in the bulletproof cube, usually occupied by a guard.
They had come this far.
He wo
uldn’t let them fail when they were so close to the other side.
He heard muffled movement from somewhere in the complex. Somewhere behind them. He froze, listening intently. It came from behind one of the closed doors, within one of the adjoining rooms. Amidst the din of the alarms, he couldn’t confidently assess which one. He dropped into a crouch and headed slowly back the way they’d come, pressing his ear against the wall every few feet.
Nothing.
Maybe they were trapped in this corridor after all.
Sudden commotion broke out directly in front of him, a cluster of hurried panicked movements happening all at once. King saw a wooden door burst outward, thrown open from the inside. A man came charging through into the corridor, his eyes bulging in their sockets. Mid-thirties, King guessed. They were roughly the same age. This man wore an official prison uniform with his buttoned-up shirt tucked into brown slacks. He had a pistol clasped between his fingers with no situational awareness to speak of. The gun looked like a foreign object in his hands. King knew inexperience when he saw it.
A man used to long slow stretches of inactivity behind a desk, watching proceedings through security cameras, buzzing his co-workers in and out of El Infierno all day. A man who had fled into an office at the first sign of losing control of a situation. Then he’d second-guessed himself, and come hurtling out into the hallway in an attempt to save face after such a cowardly gesture.
Noble, for sure. But misguided.
King had no intention of ending the man’s life, so he darted forward and jabbed the thin barrel of his weapon into the guy’s liver. The metal pummelled into his side with enough force to double him over. From there, it was simple. Like clockwork.
There was no-one more effective than King at physical conflict.
He bundled the guy into the wall and slapped the pistol out of his hands. It barely took any effort at all. Like scolding a small child for touching something he shouldn’t. The gun made a harsh noise as it skittered away across the linoleum.
Wide-eyed, breathing heavy, the guard let out a moan that signalled a mixture of frustration and fear. He’d made bold plans with such a brash manoeuvre. It certainly hadn’t unfolded the way he’d envisioned it.
King backed off and raised the AK-103. Barrel pointed between the guard’s eyes. He wasn’t sure if the man had ever had a gun aimed at his head. He assumed the gesture would evoke a specific type of reaction in the event that one hadn’t.
He was right.
The guard began to bawl. No build-up. No sobbing or snivelling. Just an explosion of emotions that King knew meant his life had never been threatened before. The man was staring death in the face, and he couldn’t handle it.
‘You speak English?’ he said.
The guard stared blankly, tears trickling down both cheeks.
‘English?’ King repeated.
The guy shook his head.
Luis approached the stand-off and began to talk directly to the guard in Spanish. He spoke low, barely audible above the sirens. King kept his gun trained on the guard, every so often shaking the barrel for effect. Each time he did so, the man flinched.
By the time Luis had finished his spiel, the guard was fully compliant. From the tone of his voice King guessed it had come laced with threats and promises of death in the event that he didn’t help them. By the end of it, the guard had wet himself.
Luis raised his own weapon and prodded it into the guard’s back, directing him towards the booth. As soon as King realised Luis had the situation under control, he wheeled his aim away and trained the gun on the other end of the corridor. They’d spent too much time in one place. He knew either Guardia Nacional or prison guards would follow the trail of incapacitated officials and happen upon them in no time.
Unless the riot in the pavilion had turned into a full-scale bloodbath.
Which it must have, because the corridor remained deserted. The absence of conflict unnerved King. He was in battle mode, primed for conflict, ready for a firefight. The extended period of nothingness bothered him more than a shootout would have.
Which isn’t natural, he thought.
But neither was running through an entire army of prison officials. And he had done so successfully. It sent a ripple of confidence through his system. To any other man, such a feat would have been impossible. Yet he had cut through El Infierno like a hot knife through butter. And now he would soon be on the other side of its walls.
He kept all his focus directed at the end of the corridor. Behind him, he heard movement. Doors unlocking. Raul and Luis were coaxing the guard into letting them out.
So close.
A harsh buzz indicated that the first door had been opened. King registered the noise, but didn’t act. Not yet. It would only take him turning his back for a second to compromise them. Guardia Nacional could charge round the corner and light them up in the time it took to make it through the doorway.
The second door buzzed.
They had a clear path to freedom.
As a deterrent, King squeezed off a volley of shots with the AK-103. They dotted the far wall, taking sizeable chunks out of the plaster. The sound of multiple discharges ricocheted off the narrow walls, blisteringly loud inside the corridor. King felt his ears ringing. He stayed unperturbed. The gunfire would cause anyone nearby to hesitate.
Which gave him more than enough time.
He spun on his heel, dropped the AK-103 and took off for the station. At the same time, he assessed the position of the twins. Raul had been the one to enter the booth with the guard. He was in the process of exiting at full pelt. Luis held the first door open for them. They had to time it so that the guard didn’t trap them in the space between the two doors.
King flew past Luis and snatched the second door, which had popped open when unlocked. He held onto its metal surface so that it didn’t swing back and lock, effectively trapping them in. Now both doors were open. There was a clear path to freedom. He saw sunlight spill into the glass corridor.
Raul burst through the first doorway and rushed past King, leaving the prison. As he did so, Luis let go of the first door and stepped inside the room.
Then King saw it.
A figure rounding the corner at the other end of the hallway, limping badly. One arm dangling uselessly by his side. Blood covering his uniform. His good hand clasping an automatic pistol.
‘Luis, down!’ King roared.
Luis sprinted for the second door, arms and legs pumping like pistons. Behind him, the first door slowly began to swing shut.
Not fast enough.
A single crack tore down the corridor, registering in King’s eardrums at the same time that he saw Luis jerk forward like a marionette thrown by its strings. He locked eyes with the man for a split second, seeing the fear in his stark green irises. Then the side of his head puffed open in a spray of brain matter and he slapped the hard tiled floor with a wet smack.
All tension dissipated from his limbs.
Luis was unquestionably dead.
King saw Rico leering in the distance. The grotesque smile seemed to hover for a brief moment — teeth stained red, nose dripping blood.
Then he turned and fled El Infierno, stepping out into the bright Venezuelan heat. He shut the memory away. Perhaps he would need it later, for motivation. But for now he had to focus on escape.
They hadn’t come this far for nothing.
CHAPTER 27
He knew what came next would be tough. Beyond tough.
He stepped down into a small courtyard — not the one he’d arrived at. This space was a little more claustrophobic, a little more deserted. It was a small inlet carved out of the surrounding trees. A row of rust-pitted dumpsters lined the nearest wall, each leaking disgusting fluids. Broken wood pallets crawling with cockroaches were strewn across the courtyard’s floor. It seemed to be the dumping ground for El Infierno’s unneeded waste.
The inlet exited onto a main road with occasional passing traffic. On the other side
of the road, steep hills ascended far above them. A shanty town had been constructed in the side of one mountain. Its rickety houses overlooked El Infierno.
Beautiful view, King mused.
But he wasn’t concentrating on any of that. He gave his surroundings nothing more than a passing glance, because the real problem lay directly ahead in the form of Raul, standing a few feet away from the entrance.
A man who fully expected to see his brother emerge from the doorway after King.
King passed through the doorway and slammed it shut behind him, shutting them both off from any more of Rico’s pinpoint-accurate shots.
Raul’s face fell. His features crumpled. He cocked his head to the side, staring right at King, hoping for some kind of explanation. There was so much King wished he could say.
Don’t worry, Raul, your brother is heading a different way.
He’s perfectly fine.
Nothing to worry about.
He’ll catch up with us later.
But King had nothing for him. He looked into Raul’s eyes, seeing the hurt flaring within them. They were identical to Luis’. He shook his head, a single solemn gesture that said everything all at once.
Raul’s legs buckled.
Whether he was fainting or simply overcome with grief, King could not let him collapse in the dirt. Rico would make his way down the hallway, open the steel exit doors and unload the rest of his clip into the man’s crumpled form if given the opportunity.
They hadn’t come this far for that.
King scooped a hand under Raul’s armpit and hauled him to his feet. Raul sobbed, eyes already watering, tears sliding down each cheek, destroyed by the loss of someone so close to him in the seconds before they both found their freedom. King felt the same emotions deep down, threatening to bubble to the surface and faze him out.
But as always, the necessity to succeed at the task at hand overpowered whatever shock or anger or grief he felt.
He shoved Raul hard, spurring him forward, heading for the main road. The morning traffic passed by frequently enough for King to be confident they could seize a car. Raul stumbled once, and faltered. King saw the expression on his face. He didn’t want to leave El Infierno behind, because that meant Luis had been confirmed dead. He clutched onto a strand of hope. He hadn’t seen the body for himself.