by Matt Rogers
The other two men didn’t even have time to raise their own weapons.
They twisted away from Slater, their blood coating the far wall, turning the cream wallpaper into a speckled mess of crimson. Slater fired the last round directly into the first man’s face, tearing the skin right off his skull. He cast his eyes away from the grisly result, threw the empty shotgun away and returned to the hallway.
So much for that little ambush they had planned, he thought.
He surged down the hall like something out of a nightmare, wondering who would present themselves as the next challenge. He would be happy to oblige them. He hadn’t even thought about taking the time to arm himself, or take things slowly.
Strategy had been thrown out the window.
He wanted nothing more than to put his bare hands on any motherfucker involved in this operation.
He rounded another corner…
…and immediately ducked back into cover.
For half a second he’d entered a vast kitchen and dining room space — home to a cluster of mercenaries with their weapons aimed at the very entrance he walked into. But he knew his reflexes were otherworldly.
They would have seen someone appear in the doorway for a single moment before promptly disappearing.
A volley of shots tore apart the opposite wall. Slater kept himself pressed against cover, his expression deathly stoic. He would simply wait. It would only be a matter of time before their patience would grow thin and the bravest — or dumbest — of the group would make a brazen charge for Slater’s last known position.
He’d counted four men during the brief flash of observation.
Easy work.
It took less time than he had originally anticipated for the first man to come sprinting through the doorway, weapon raised, wildly searching for any kind of target to hit in his berserker-like attack.
Slater sent a massive uppercut directly into the soft tissue of the guy’s throat, helped along by a healthy dose of animalistic rage. The man’s head snapped back, rattling gasps pouring out of his mouth, his lungs scrambling for air after the debilitating blow.
Slater plucked the ArmaLite AR-15 assault rifle out of his hands as if he were a parent scolding a child for picking up a forbidden object. He spun the mighty weapon by the trigger guard until the barrel froze — locked onto the idiotic mercenary who had thought bull-rushing Will Slater was a good idea.
He unloaded a tight cluster of bullets into the left side of the man’s chest. Either one or all of them penetrated his heart. It didn’t matter how many.
He died all the same.
Slater didn’t hesitate for a second. He surged forward, throwing the corpse aside, and stuck the AR-15 around the doorway. He held the trigger down and worked the barrel from side-to-side until the gun clicked dry.
Now.
No time to waste.
He tossed the rifle away and charged into the kitchen, aiming directly for the stone bench with a marble countertop he’d seen positioned in the centre of the space. It would provide ample cover. During his mad dash he threw his gaze from left to right.
Where were the remaining mercenaries positioned?
What state were they in?
He quickly saw that one had been caught by the spray-and-pray. His weapon lay off to the side. He sat — an expression of confusion and fear plastered across his face — bleeding out in the middle of the kitchen, his chest dotted with holes. Completely exposed.
He would be useless in the coming fight.
Another had been hit in the shoulder. He staggered for cover. The last man was unhurt. He held a fearsome-looking rifle in his hands. Ready to use it at a second’s notice.
Slater made eye contact with the healthy mercenary before ducking under the bench.
He knew he had the upper hand. This man was paid to look imposing. He didn’t know real combat. Now, surrounded by savage violence, listening to the sounds of his co-workers hurt and bleeding to death, he would be psychologically affected.
Not many people on earth could completely turn their emotions off in the heat of battle.
Slater could.
He could also use other feelings to his advantage. Like pure rage.
He waited a beat, crouched in the lee of the stone slab, his veins cold and his demeanour calm. He heard the laboured breathing of men all around him and knew they were scared shitless. He thrived off this sort of atmosphere.
The sound of approaching footsteps set him into action. He rounded the bench into open ground, staying low — too low. He almost scraped his stomach on the tiles, moving on all fours, snake-like. The mercenary directly ahead hadn’t been anticipating that. His barrel was aimed at chest-height. At empty space. Slater knew he would correct his aim in a second.
But a second was all he needed.
He closed the distance and powered up into the underside of the man’s rifle, clattering it loose as their bodies collided. He launched off both legs, using explosive plyometric power to force them both off their feet. They crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs — where Slater knew he possessed the upper hand.
He scrambled to full-mount, a jiu-jitsu position where the legs straddled the opponent’s torso, preventing them from any real movement or defence. A seasoned martial artist could inflict devastating injury from the full-mount position.
Slater prided himself on being exactly that.
He rained down heavy shots, helped by the addition of gravity. His punches broke through the mercenary’s guard effortlessly and slammed down into the delicate features of his face, breaking bones, spilling blood, causing agony.
Convinced that his work was done, he rolled off the semi-conscious man and snatched up the rifle he’d knocked loose from his hands.
Another AR-15.
In three clustered bursts of automatic gunfire, Will Slater finished off the three enemies left standing, each at various levels of injury. The lead tore through them, turning them into lifeless corpses.
He let the rifle fall to his side and took in the carnage he had enacted upon the occupants of the boat.
His ears rang.
His pulse raced.
Finally, the anger began to dim.
CHAPTER 38
As King hurtled down the stairwell, wondering just where the hell Slater had disappeared to, he heard swathes of automatic gunfire echo through the walls of the superyacht.
He paused on a step and listened hard. There was a brief moment of silence, then more shots. They seemed to come from everywhere at once. They ripped through the walls, vibrating in King’s chest. He thought he heard more gunfire further inside the boat, down on the ground floor.
Someone was rampaging through the ranks…
He could only imagine who that might be.
He hurried to the ground floor and hurdled the last five steps in one giant leap. He crashed to the floor of a corridor leading deep inside the yacht. More shots tore through the silence. King’s stomach — previously sinking at the thought of his only comrade dying violently below deck — began to calm.
Because the shots seemed orderly.
Precise.
Like they were all coming from a single man on a violent mission.
He hurried down corridors, chasing the source of the commotion. He passed a cramped office with the door hanging off its hinges. He threw a brief glance inside and his heart rate quickened. Three bodies had been torn to pieces by some kind of heavy weaponry. The walls were painted with their blood.
Slater…
He pressed on, listening to the sounds of violence still raging.
When he finally burst out into a spacious kitchen and dining room, he couldn’t believe what he saw.
Slater stood in the centre of the room, panting for breath, riding out the waves of energy coursing through him. Around him, four corpses were sprawled in various positions, all riddled with bullets. Blood covered Slater’s hands and face.
The blood wasn’t his.
King had t
rouble putting a coherent sentence together. He surveyed the scene in utter disbelief before blurting out, ‘Is that all of them?’
Slater looked at him with ice in his veins. ‘I think so. I count twelve dead in total, including the four on the pier and the guy on the roof. Moreau can’t have many more men than that.’
‘Where is the bastard?’ King said.
Slater shrugged. ‘Can’t wait to find out.’
They each collected an AR-15 and checked the respective magazines. Slater fished a spare out of the combat vest of one of the dead mercenaries and slammed it home.
‘Yours good?’ he said.
King checked his own weapon. Fully loaded. ‘Yeah.’
‘Let’s go.’
They drifted out of the kitchen and set out to clear the rest of the rooms. King felt the power of the AR-15 in his hands and felt calm. It was a hell of a lot better than a measly MK23.
And look at what you can do with a pistol.
He slammed doors open with a newfound sense of confidence, checking corners, scouring the boat for the monster behind the operation.
As they scouted an empty corridor, King decided to speak. ‘What the hell happened, Slater?’
Slater faced forward, refusing to turn around. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You know exactly what I mean. You just slaughtered seven men in a couple of minutes. Was it the girls?’
Slater nodded. ‘We spoke about this.’
‘You okay?’
‘Lot better now.’
‘You should probably get therapy for that sort of thing…’ King said. ‘That was intense.’
A knock from an adjacent room stopped them in their tracks. It came from the other side of a set of oak double doors, built into the wall. Slater stopped directly in front of them and smiled.
‘This is therapy,’ he said, and thundered a boot into the flimsy frame.
The doors sprung open. He stormed into the room with his gun raised, and King followed close behind. They trained their AR-15s across a massive boardroom, containing nothing but an oak table and a plethora of surrounding chairs.
Moreau and an unknown Afghani man sat at the other end of the table.
Unarmed.
Like they had accepted their fate.
‘I heard the fighting,’ Moreau said as King and Slater covered the distance between them. ‘Thought at least one of my men might be useful.’
‘They probably would have been to anyone else,’ King said. ‘Unfortunately for you, you triggered my friend here.’
‘And he is…?’ Moreau said, staring at Slater dismissively, contempt in his tone.
Big mistake.
Slater shifted his aim slightly, turning it from Moreau to the man sitting beside him, and unloaded ten rounds into the guy’s skull.
His chair was thrown backward by the force of the bullets. Blood arced from various puncture wounds, covering Moreau’s previously pristine clothing. He was dressed in an open-necked dress shirt and a peach-coloured suit which did well to hide his rotund belly. The peach quickly turned red as the body of the dead man crumpled to the floor in a crimson heap.
‘Fuck!’ Moreau cried, clearly disgusted and horrified by the incident. ‘You didn’t even know who he was.’
Slater shrugged. ‘Don’t care. He was involved in this.’
Moreau sat rigid, unmoving. His hands began to shake. His cheeks turned pale. ‘He was the buyer.’
‘So you’re selling them?’ Slater said. ‘That’s what this is?’
‘Yes,’ Moreau said, his shoulders sagging.
King saw the defeat in the man’s eyes. There was no way out of this situation. Even if they decided to spare his life, it was over regardless. What had gone down in the Bay of Calvi couldn’t be covered up. There were too many dead bodies. Too much blood on King and Slater’s hands. The truth of Moreau’s real nature would come to light — no matter what he did from this point.
He was done.
‘Last night,’ King said. ‘At my place. What the hell was all that?’
Moreau turned to him. ‘Thought you might ask.’
‘I can’t say I’m not curious. You had the opportunity to kill me, and you didn’t take it.’
‘I didn’t want to kill you at the time.’
‘Look where that got you.’
‘If I’d known…’ Moreau said, staring wide-eyed at the blood covering his suit. ‘I would have leapt at the opportunity.’
‘Why didn’t you want to kill me? Why did you make up all that shit?’
Moreau looked at him with a twinkle in his eye. Like a faint glimmer of hope. ‘I thought you could be bought.’
‘Ah.’
‘You don’t sound surprised?’
‘I’ve faced that sort of thing more than you know,’ King said. ‘Money seems to be the only thing driving people like you. They all think I can be paid off, or dealt with. No-one realises that they shouldn’t play games with someone of our caliber until it’s too late.’ He gestured to himself, then to Slater. ‘We’re a different breed.’
‘I can see that.’
‘What would you have got me to do?’
‘Finish off these incompetent fucks, if that’s what it took,’ Moreau said. ‘Afshar promised me the highest level of security. Then he wound up dead on the first night at the hands of a random civilian. I wanted to find out more about you.’
‘So you took the good-cop approach?’ King said. ‘Pretended you had a noble cause in mind. Then what?’
‘I would have offered you a truckload of cash,’ Moreau said. ‘And explained what I really wanted from you.’
King allowed himself a grim smile. ‘Good thing you didn’t.’
‘And why’s that?’
‘Because this whole thing would have been over a lot faster than this. I would have killed you then and there.’
‘I still don’t know who you really are,’ the politician said. ‘A hitman? What? Seems you have some kind of moral code — unless someone’s paying you to get rid of me and my little operation.’
‘No-one’s paying me a cent.’
‘Then who are you?’
‘Someone who despises people like you,’ King said. ‘That’s it.’
He paused, ready to put a bullet between the despicable bastard’s eyes and turn his back on Corsica forever. Then he stopped. ‘There’s a girl upstairs. Her name’s Klara. I know her. Is that a coincidence?’
Moreau shook his head. ‘Guess that was one advantage of my failed recruitment mission. I came across a scrap of paper on your kitchen counter. Before you came out. It had her name and number on it. Seems like you two had some fun. I did a little research and thought she’d be perfect to add to the collection.’
‘How did it go down?’
‘The same way it always does,’ Moreau said. ‘I called her with a promising business opportunity and arranged to meet in the heart of Calvi. Snatched her in broad daylight.’
‘Earlier today?’
Moreau nodded.
‘Odd coincidence,’ King said.
‘How so?’
‘She would have been at that party tonight. There wasn’t any need to move for her early. Risky venture.’
Moreau nodded. ‘She would have likely raised a few issues. Usually we screen all our goods before we ship them out. Make sure we snatch the tourists who no-one will ever notice will gone. Her family would have caused an uproar. Many have in the past. It doesn’t make a difference. They’re in the heart of the Middle East before anyone can bat an eyelid. Largely thanks to the man you just killed. He roped me into all of this, anyway.’
‘Trying to divert the blame?’ Slater said.
Moreau shook his head, staring into the void. ‘I’m a little pessimistic right now. No matter what, I’m done. Death would probably be a relief.’
Slater looked at King and smiled. ‘You see what he’s doing?’
King nodded. ‘Clear as day.’
Moreau looked up. ‘And what wo
uld that be?’
‘You’re fucking terrified,’ Slater said. ‘I’ve seen a million people like you before. You’re silently praying that we spare you, because there’s all sorts of loopholes and options you rich fucks have in the outside world. You have a fighting chance if you step off this boat alive. The legal system can be exploited. I’ve seen it happen before.’
‘I disagree,’ Moreau said.
‘No you don’t. And you’re making it seem like killing you would be the favourable option — so we’re influenced to do the opposite.’
Moreau shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you’re on about. Do whatever the hell you want. But you won’t make it off this boat alive.’
‘Oh?’ King said.
‘You won’t see the morning,’ Moreau said. ‘You two might think you have the upper hand because you killed my security, but it goes deeper than that. I own this island. And they’ll kill you slowly. I hope you enjoy.’
Slater thundered a boot into the chair between him and Moreau, knocking it across the room, clearing a direct path to the politician. Moreau jolted at the noise. His hands began to shake. He sensed the shift in atmosphere.
King’s suspicions were confirmed. The politician had kept up a decent facade, until things got very real…
Slater crossed the room and looped behind Moreau’s chair, keeping him in place with a single palm on the shoulder. Moreau whimpered as a muscular arm looped around his throat and tightened like a boa constrictor wrapping around its prey.
‘Please…’ he whispered.
‘I hope you enjoy,’ Slater said.
He squeezed.
King turned away as the first pathetic gasps began to crawl out of Yves Moreau’s throat.
CHAPTER 39
When it was done, they left the bodies where they lay and retreated to the hallway.
King had no qualms with the police discovering Moreau’s corpse amidst this madness. His reputation would be forever tarnished. He would be universally viewed as a monster after what he had been a part of came to light.
Those were the things that brought King satisfaction, even though the effects of his actions could not be undone.