by Matt Rogers
He ran his fingertips over the MK23 tucked into his waistband and checked that the silencer was firmly attached and the weapon was fully loaded. He leant against a nearby railing and tried his best to act casual, even though the nerves of combat ate away at his insides.
He heard Slater returning before he saw him.
It began with a dull droning noise that cut through the relative silence of the bay and sent a flock of birds soaring out of their perches. King peered into the darkness, staring straight down the promenade, searching for the source of the commotion. He squinted to make out a flash of movement at the very end of the bay.
Then he worked out exactly what he was looking at.
The battered BMW they’d left in the parking lot roared into view, its engine screaming as it accelerated well past the speed limit. It mounted the pedestrian path and rocketed past restaurants and souvenir shops and traditional Corsican houses.
He felt his chest constricting. A wave of nervousness washed over him.
What on earth was Slater doing?
He saw the man at the wheel of the vehicle, his teeth bared, clearly in the midst of a full-blown adrenalin rush. Before he knew it, the BMW shot past his location.
Heading straight for the marina.
King set off at a sprint, clueless as to what Slater was about to attempt yet determined to follow along in his wake and provide support. He drew the Heckler & Koch pistol out of his belt and flicked the safety off as he bolted for the same pier he’d studied for the last several hours.
Ahead, Slater turned the wheel, sending the BMW through a flimsy railing at the very last moment. Its tyres coughed against the uneven ground. The vehicle careered over a waist-high ledge and ground its front bumper into the wooden jetty as it landed. It righted itself and shot off the mark, shooting out along the pier that housed the superyacht.
‘Oh,’ King said.
Still running, he heard cries of panic. He leapt over a low railing and landed near the entrance to the pier, scrambling to his feet. He looked down the length of it and laid eyes on a fascinating scene.
Slater had set off along the pier at close to fifty miles an hour, veering wildly out of control on the wooden planks yet keeping the BMW in line just enough to stay on solid ground. With no space on either side of the car, the four armed men spread out across the length of the pier were left with few choices.
The pair closest to the yacht were able to unholster their weapons and fire a few rounds at the approaching BMW. The unsuppressed shots rang out through the bay. King flinched as he heard the rounds shatter glass as they struck home in the vehicle’s windshield.
They signalled the first proper offence between the two parties.
They signalled war.
The two men closest to the BMW had to jump — or be run over by the charging 4WD. They took one glance at the vehicle bearing down on them and abandoned their position on dry ground. They dove for the black ocean, plunging into the quiet waters of the bay as the BMW rocketed over the space they had occupied moments earlier.
King set off along the pier as fast as his legs would allow.
He knew he had to take advantage of their confusion — or risk catching a bullet for his troubles.
In the distance, he saw Slater press on, heading straight for the last two men on the pier. They exchanged a look … then committed to the same course as their co-workers.
With all four men breaking the surface of the Mediterranean Sea almost simultaneously, the pier had been emptied in the space of five seconds. A course had been cleared leading directly to the superyacht.
‘Fuck me,’ King whispered as he realised Slater wasn’t going to stop there.
He might have been imagining it, but he thought he heard a faint cheer, like a hoot of nervous energy. If Slater really had let out what surmounted to a war cry, then the man was truly deranged. King stared in fascination at what unfolded next.
The BMW shot off the end of the pier, not slowing an inch. It covered the tiny space between the end of the dock and the superyacht’s hull in a brief moment. Then it plunged nose-first into the fibreglass hull in an explosion of tearing material. The luxury vehicle came to rest half-buried in the side of the boat, rattling the entire craft in the water, shaking it to its very foundations.
Briefly, King thought he saw Slater leap from the open driver’s window and topple head-first into the superyacht’s bowels. Unarmed, yet still highly dangerous.
He shook his head at the man’s utter carelessness before turning his attention to the four men in the water.
The closest two had only just surfaced. They were in the process of wiping the saltwater from their eyes, clearing their vision. King couldn’t see any weapons.
Had they provoked him?
Could he really shoot these men — who had done nothing to him?
What if they were oblivious to their employer’s operation?
The answer came a split second later. A gunshot echoed from somewhere in the water and King felt the displaced air near the side of his head as a round tore past, coming within a few inches of taking the top of his skull off. It carried with it an air of violence and brutality that kicked his nervous system into overdrive.
Fuck that.
He raised the MK23 and fired. His aim stayed precise. His hands didn’t waver. He clinically spotted the two men treading water below him — unaware as to which one was armed or where specifically the shot had come from — and pumped the trigger twice in quick succession.
All at once, their bodies disappeared under the surface.
Direct impacts.
Welcome back, a voice in his head whispered.
Ignoring it, he carried on, leaving the pair to their watery graves. Who was he kidding? These men knew. They were willingly being paid to ensure a human trafficking operation went according to plan. They were as good as dead already.
He quickly found the other two guards, struggling to clamber back onto the pier further ahead. They had yet to spot King converging on their position, preoccupied with the chaos raging all around them. They weren’t thinking straight. Some lunatic had just driven his car into the boat they were tasked with protecting. They scrambled for purchase on the slippery pier, consumed by tunnel vision.
King saw their hands reaching for their belts.
He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
He fired twice — again. Twin coughs emitted from the barrel, but the two muzzle flashes were muffled by the attached suppressor. The guards jerked akin to marionettes in a circus play and toppled back into the water, barely a second after leaving it. King had sent a .45 round through the base of each of their skulls. There was no doubt they had been killed on impact.
They had never seen it coming.
That’s something, at least.
He left four dead men in the waters of the bay and slipped quietly inside the superyacht, weaving through the jagged hole Slater had created in its hull.
As he touched down on a wooden path running along the boat’s perimeter, a hand shot out of the darkness and clamped around his mouth. He wheeled on the spot and lifted the still-smoking barrel of the MK23, pressing it against the temple of his assailant.
Slater’s eyes silently bored into him, urging him not to make a noise. King took the weight of his index finger off the trigger, his nerves tingling at the thought that he had been only a few ounces of pressure off ending the man’s life.
‘It’s quiet,’ Slater whispered. ‘Think we might be the only ones aboard?’
‘I don’t know,’ King muttered. ‘Let’s find out.’
From above, a muffled feminine cry echoed down over the lower decks.
‘Top deck,’ Slater said, his eyes widening.
They hurried for the stairwell.
CHAPTER 36
King led the way, making sure to clear each corner with the MK23 before he hurried forward. The boat was enormous. It would take considerable effort to find anyone on board. There were hundreds
of potential vantage points from which any number of Moreau’s forces could lie in wait, ready for the two Black Force operatives to come stumbling past.
King heard Slater breathing rapidly. The man was unarmed. King could have lifted one of the dock guards’ weapons off them before jumping aboard — but his utmost priority had been on putting them out of the equation. Their firearms had sunk with them to the bay floor, out of reach.
Until they ran into someone else, Slater would remain weaponless.
He found a narrow stairwell that steeply ascended to the upper levels. The cry he’d heard possessed the unmistakeable tone of someone in distress. If there were live members of Yves’ operation aboard, protecting them was King’s utmost priority.
Save innocents first.
Kill the sick bastards after.
If they could do both at the same time, even better.
He took the stairs three at a time, making sure to keep his head up, navigating with his feet by touch alone. It would be no use fixing his gaze on where he was headed and end up catching a bullet in the top of his skull.
The yacht remained eerily silent.
No doors burst open. No mercenaries spilled into their path, ready for a firefight.
Instead, there was a total lack of action.
‘Maybe they really were the last of them,’ Slater whispered from behind.
‘Moreau wouldn’t be that stupid.’
They burst out of the stairwell and raced out onto the upper deck…
… and King spotted a bulky fire extinguisher arcing through the air, aiming straight for his unprotected face.
Without taking his hands off the pistol, he ducked violently, blurring his vision. The next second unfolded without his knowledge of what was occurring. All he knew was that whoever had swung the extinguisher at him had missed. He felt the air whistling above his head. His stomach dropped with the knowledge that a fraction of a second’s hesitation would have resulted in a caved-in face.
That had been a powerful swing.
Then he sprawled forward on the deck, stumbling off-balance. Ducking so quickly had caused him to slip. He righted himself and spun around, barrel raised, searching for a target.
Slater was one step ahead.
The attacker had stumbled also, carried by the momentum of the missed swing. He had veered directly into Slater’s path, who had been following King onto the upper deck.
King saw Slater thunder a boot into the man’s exposed stomach, shattering a couple of his ribs. The mercenary let out a cry of distress and doubled over, crippled by the pain. He was unable to mount any kind of retaliation.
It would be the death of him.
Slater held him at arm’s length, simply seizing his collar in an iron grip and extending his arm straight out. King knew what to do.
He fired twice. Once to the torso, once to the head. The mercenary jerked from the force of the impact and went instantly limp.
Slater hurled him overboard.
Due to the nature of the superyacht’s construction, the body didn’t fall directly into the water. The levels were tiered, so that the entire cluster was shaped like a trapezoid. Therefore the man — already dead — smashed into the lower deck with a grisly thud. King heard the body hit the wood below and allowed himself a grim smile.
It would be an ominous sound for whoever remained aboard.
Slater gestured over King’s shoulder. ‘I see why he was up here.’
King rose to his feet and spun, taking in the deck’s contents all at once. In the commotion, he hadn’t had the chance to observe his surroundings. Now he looked out across a wide space taken up by a lap pool, a few dozen tanning beds and a small rectangular building with one side open — converted into a bar.
It was what lay in front of the bar that seized his attention.
Almost a dozen women of various ethnicities dressed in filthy clothing, their mouths gagged with white cloth, their hands and feet bound together by sturdy rope, their eyes wide and panicked. Clearly this was what Yves had hired a small army to protect. He was either selling them, or purchasing them. Either way, the politician was looking to make a profit by any means necessary.
The sight of the group seated on the floor, shaking with terror, made King’s blood boil. He nodded to Slater, who tossed him a fresh magazine of .45 ammunition for the MK23. He reloaded and made his way across the deck. The cluster of women watched him every step of the way, some of them making terrified guttural noises through their gags.
They might have thought he was there to eliminate them forever.
King splayed his hands wide open and pointed the barrel of the MK23 skyward. He adopted a calm expression, attempting to demonstrate that he meant them no harm. Most of them visibly relaxed, convinced that they would not be dying just yet.
A few began to weep from the possibility of escaping this hell.
King moved to the closest woman and crouched down beside her. He tore the gag free. She had to be close to thirty, with a toned body and straggly brown hair. She was either Chinese or Korean. King couldn’t quite ascertain exactly what race.
‘English?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she responded. ‘We all speak English.’
King wandered his gaze over the group. ‘Do you all know each other?’
She nodded. ‘Same agency. We were here for a photoshoot. We were supposed to fly out tomorrow. We attended a party … earlier this evening.’
King thought back to his encounter with Klara and blanched. She had spoken of the same party. She was here for a…
He studied the group again, searching desperately, praying that he didn’t spot what he was looking for.
There she was.
Klara rested at the very edge of the group, her hair dishevelled and her expression one of horror. The gag across her mouth covered half her face, which was why King hadn’t recognised her at first. He hurried over and wrenched the cloth off her lips. She spluttered a helpless sob and pressed her head against his chest.
‘Cut me loose,’ she whispered. ‘Let me do it.’
‘Do what?’ King said, still shocked by her sudden appearance.
‘Let me kill him.’
He paused. ‘Have you ever killed anyone before?’
She shook her head.
‘The first time, it takes a piece away from you,’ King said. ‘You’ll never get it back. Stay here. Where is he?’
‘I don’t know. Somewhere downstairs. There’s a lot more on this boat…’
King felt his stomach twist into a knot. He feared that may be the case, but now that it was confirmed the boat felt like a death trap. There were definitely plenty more mercenaries aboard…
…so where were they?
‘Stay here,’ King said. ‘Watch over them. We’ll take care of whatever’s downstairs.’
‘Can’t I come?’
‘Only one of us is armed in the first place,’ King said. ‘If we had more weapons everything would be a lot easier.’
Klara turned pale. ‘You’re going down there unarmed?’
King waved the gun in the air. ‘I’m not. My friend is.’
‘Who’s your friend?’
‘He’s…’ King spun to locate Slater and introduce him — but the man had vanished. ‘Oh, shit.’
CHAPTER 37
Will Slater descended the stairwell like a bat out of hell.
Fury creased his features. Inside, he felt his blood boiling. His skin tingled and his hands shook. The sight of the cluster of women tied up helplessly on the top deck had sent him into a blind rage from which he wasn’t sure he would be able to exit.
Distant memories bubbled to the surface, flashing into his head at an alarming rate. He thought of his father coming home to let him know that he couldn’t locate Mom. He remembered the long walks late at night, alone, looking for nothing but trouble, searching and wandering aimlessly.
Hoping she would come back.
He remembered the docks in Harlem where he knew sh
e had been taken.
He hadn’t had the courage to confront them back then. It had eaten away at him for years. It had enabled him to devote himself to a life of combat. He had become a human weapon since that day. Twenty years ago, he couldn’t do a damn thing to stop the fiends who took his mother. He knew where they lived. He knew that they had been responsible for shipping her off to hell.
Now, though…
Now he could act.
He burst out of the stairwell on the ground floor, entering an intricate web of plush corridors and ornate interior decorations. He was a man possessed. The lights all the way along the hallway burned bright. His pace didn’t slow. He passed open doorways recklessly, daring anyone to cross his path. He prayed that one of the mercenaries — or even possibly Yves Moreau himself — would confront him. He had an arsenal of tools that he couldn’t wait to unleash.
He couldn’t care less that he wasn’t armed.
He didn’t need to be.
Halfway down a corridor indistinguishable to any of the others within the superyacht, he heard a noise from one of the neighbouring rooms. Barely audible. Just a faint click of someone bumping against an object.
That would do.
He shoulder-charged the locked door separating himself from whoever was on the other side, aided by the power that came with primal anger. It sprung aside, the lock snapping like a piece of plywood. Splinters flew and the entire door crashed inward, startling the room’s three occupants.
All well-built, middle-aged men. All outfitted head-to-toe in combat gear. All clasping high-powered weaponry ranging from automatic assault rifles to heavy duty shotguns.
In that moment, Slater didn’t care whether he lived or he died.
He launched into motion. A single high kick shattered the jaw of the man closest to the door. Slater wasn’t sure if he knocked him unconscious — or if the man’s legs simply buckled from the agony of the injury. But he dropped instantaneously, cascading to the floor of the small office. Slater scooped up his shotgun — a Baikal MP-155K semi-automatic from Russia — and unloaded its contents upon the rest of the room in the space of a couple of seconds.