by Matt Rogers
He never wanted to think about what had happened there again.
It had tested limits Slater didn’t think a human body could go through. When he’d stumbled out of the war-torn country with his life hanging by a thread, he’d understood the nature of his injuries and recognised the need for a specialised kind of recovery.
Which had led to Zurich.
For two reasons.
Firstly, Slater had a lifetime’s worth of government black operations money sitting in accounts with little protection from his old employers. Because they hadn’t exactly parted amicably, and also because Slater didn’t feel inclined to give up everything he’d made over the years in service of his country, he’d turned to the murky dealings of Swiss bankers to help funnel his millions into offshore accounts. Sure enough, just a couple of days after he’d dealt with the brunt of the problem, his private banker had informed him that there’d been an attempt to drain all his old accounts at once.
An unknown source, the man had said.
Slater knew the truth.
Simultaneously, he’d utilised a four-week program at a private stem-cell clinic on the outskirts of the city. It had taken several favours he’d earned over his career to smuggle himself into Zurich, but by the time he dragged his broken body onto the doorstep of the clinic and offered the specialist doctors hundreds of thousands of dollars to nurse him back to full health with experimental treatments, he’d been knocking at death’s door.
Six weeks later, standing tall and comfortable at the lip of one of the most expensive casinos in Macau, Slater couldn’t believe the rapidity of his recovery.
The stem cells had nursed him back to one hundred percent — and then some.
He hadn’t mentioned it to a soul — or even vocalised it in general — but ever since he’d stepped out of the clinic, he’d felt unnatural energy and vigour coursing through his body. He’d been on a mad quest to experience the crazier side of life ever since, opting to venture into Macau and embrace all the vices that had eluded him over his career.
Making up for a lifetime of pain and deprivation, it seemed.
And now, those same traumatic experiences allowed him to recognise all the signs of an imminent snatch.
The little girl wandered across the sidewalk in front of him, her arms flapping by her sides. She couldn’t have been much older than eight or nine, with soft features and a clouded expression on her face. She was frail, with silky black hair. It seemed she was half-Asian — mixed parentage, Asian and white.
Slater wouldn’t have looked twice at her if he hadn’t been startled by the absence of a parent. Despite Macau’s grand sights, it remained a dangerous, poverty-stricken territory, and a young child wandering down the main gambling strip alone drew attention. So he afforded her a second glance, which offered him a plethora of warning signs.
He noted the foggy look in her eyes and the dilated pupils and realised she had been drugged. There seemed to be a purpose in her stride but it was hindered by the cocktail of chemicals flooding her system. She was doing her best to mask its effects, which was why Slater hadn’t noticed it upon first assessment.
He weighed up the ramifications of stopping her in her tracks and seeing whether she was alright.
Then, like magic, the sidewalk became pandemonium.
Slater felt right at home amidst the madness. Faceless men in suits — security of some kind — brushed straight past him, their sights set on the little girl. A jet-black limousine with tinted windows and fat tyres screeched to a halt out the front of the left-hand skyscraper, planning to intercept the kid along her current trajectory. The rear door flew open, leading into darkness.
Waiting.
The security team congested into a spearhead, almost all of them Asian, bundling together shoulder-to-shoulder and descending on the girl in a wild flurry of movement. Slater sensed the testosterone crackling in the air — this was an important goddamn retrieval. He tasted the nerves and the sheer determination. They had converged on the sidewalk from a number of different angles, so as not to attract attention until the very last second.
Slater cast a precursory look in either direction and noted that — at this exact moment — there was barely any foot traffic in sight.
They’d been waiting for their opportunity to move.
They’d seized it.
There were six or seven of them — Slater couldn’t work out an exact number in the confusion. The two in front wrenched the girl off the concrete like she weighed nothing — she probably didn’t. Another pair hurried to the open limousine door and guided her straight into the vehicle. She only had a second to protest the move, and it seemed she was in shock — or the drugs made her slow to react. The other three men formed a rudimentary barrier of sorts around the interaction, shielding most of the details from view of any scrutinising eyes with their giant backs.
It all unfolded in the space of a couple of seconds — they were seasoned professionals. Even if they’d been standing in the same position, an ordinary civilian might not have seen anything. A barrage of movement meant nothing when the confusion of six or seven bodies were involved.
But Slater mirrored their professionalism, and he saw everything.
And his fast-twitch muscle fibres burst into movement, his brain making the decision to act in the half-second of opportunity he had to capitalise on the situation.
He understood live situations like no-one else. Anything that involved force and motion and adrenalin played to his strengths. He could take advantage of opportunities that not even combat veterans would sense — most of it came down to the reaction speed that had seen him recruited into the world of black operations in the first place.
Just because he had left an active career behind, it didn’t mean he’d lost his touch.
So even as the last two suit-clad security were brushing past him, he fell straight into line alongside them, mimicking the urgency and pace of their steps, keeping his head low, hurrying his comrades forward. When the limousine door flew open to welcome to the party — with the drugged-up little girl hurried into their midst — Slater simply followed the procession into the cabin in a flurry of limbs and movement.
He found the darkest stretch of seat inside the booth-like interior and squashed into a corner, shoulder-to-shoulder with an Asian thug on either side of him. There was one other black man in the group, which carved out a narrow window for Slater that would make all the difference. It would take the group a brief period of time to realise that they had an extra member, and right now that was the least of their concerns.
All eyes turned to the little girl — the crucial payload. They forced her down into one of the plush leather seats and clamped a hand over her tiny mouth until the limousine door had swung shut behind them. When they were all sealed inside the vehicle, the driver stamped on the accelerator and everyone lurched in their seats, thrown around by the sudden change in momentum. Tyres squealed and the limousine shot away from the sidewalk, roaring down the road.
They left Mountain Lion Casino & Resorts behind in a flurry of tyre smoke.
Slater sat patiently, motionless, in the centre of the seats and waited for all hell to break loose.
3
Peter Forrest strode into one of the hundreds of VIP rooms dotted through both towers of Mountain Lion Casino & Resorts.
He had purpose in his stride.
With his phone clasped in one hand and his eyes fixed on the two elderly Asian businessmen still loitering around the very same table he’d caught them laundering their profits through, he advanced steadily toward them.
Neither of them would have a clue who he was.
Over his life, Forrest had made sure that — no matter what levels of success and achievement he attained — he kept his name and face out of the media. It meant that he’d managed to ascend to the status of one of the wealthiest men in Australia without so much as a single person ever stopping him in the street to ask for a photo or an autograph.
Certainly in Macau, no-one had a clue who he was. The “Mountain Lion” brand had nothing to do with Forrest on a personal level, and it meant he could move around his buildings freely, without disturbance.
He despised the concept of celebrity.
He preferred silent power.
He preferred to control things from the shadows.
So as he stepped into the free slot on the high-roller baccarat table — where bets started at 300,000 HKD — neither of the pair even looked in his direction. They had no interest in him, and nothing to bother him with apart from focusing on the table where they were likely siphoning millions of dollars of drug money into legal profits.
Forrest nodded briefly to the dealer — a young British guy, roughly the same age as the Filipino he’d just thrown to a grisly demise — and then pivoted on his heel to face the businessman on the left-hand side. The guy furrowed his brow and stared straight ahead, refusing to make eye contact.
Perhaps he thought Forrest wasn’t on the man’s level. Maybe few were. Maybe he was one of the many Hong Kong businessmen who ventured over with billions of dollars to throw on the tables in Macau. These men and women were the “whales”, the compulsive gamblers who lost or won eight figures at a time.
They couldn’t stop, and because the house always won over the long run, if Forrest and his competitors could convince the whales to continue returning to their premises — well, it spelled a literal fortune in profits and a financial disaster for the addicts.
But this man had tried to do dirty deals behind Forrest’s back, which negated any potential profit the guy might earn him in future. So Forrest leaned across until he was clearly violating the man’s personal space and thrust the smartphone under his nose.
The elderly Asian’s brow furrowed and he flashed a look at Forrest that would wilt lesser men. Forrest stared back with equal verve and nodded once to the smartphone screen.
Wordlessly, reluctantly, the man turned his eyes to the screen.
Horror spread across his features in a change of expression like nothing Forrest had ever seen before.
He didn’t blame the man. The video he’d recorded had revealed the dealer’s fate in excruciating detail — only a single second of viewing would have been enough to churn even the most hardened soul’s guts. Before the businessman could react any further, Forrest wheeled on the spot and pressed the screen maniacally into the second guy’s face.
He reacted in similar fashion.
Neither of the two made a move — either they were too old to flee or they simply understood that Forrest would have every inch of the casino covered. There were five or six other tables in this particular VIP room, each of them bristling with whale customers. Forrest didn’t feel like causing a scene and creating potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in losses over the long term, so he kept his voice low and turned his gaze from man to man while he spoke.
‘You both get the fuck out of here,’ he said. ‘And you tell your friends that anyone who tries to leave me out of a deal will get the same result. You’re lucky I let you two live. It’ll be worse for anyone who tries to pull this shit again. Trust me. And if you think anyone will ever find out what happened, you’re poorly mistaken. Leave my casino in ten minutes or I’ll feed you to the same lions.’
His business complete, Forrest turned on his heel and left the VIP room without fanfare. He’d kept his tone barely above a whisper during the spiel as to not attract attention. But both businessmen understood every word — he knew that much.
They wouldn’t be a problem in future.
He knew broken men when he saw them.
He headed for the upper level.
In a compartmentalised room tucked into one corner of the complex’s upper level, the three triad members who had delivered the dealer to Peter Forrest sat watching his progress on the bank of live surveillance feeds on the desk before them.
They sat alone, their lowered voices echoing around the room in the silence. Each of them observed Forrest’s reckless actions with fascination. They didn’t mind the shocking violence they’d witnessed on the walkway — that sort of behaviour had become a part of their daily lives for as long as each of them could remember — but they hadn’t seen an employer make such waves in quite some time.
Peter Forrest had blasted onto the Macau gaming scene with enough verve and aggression to carve out a sizeable portion of the market. He’d felt the need to utilise the services of the triad long ago, a natural response to such a dangerous industry.
They’d been with him ever since.
Now, the largest of the three leant forward so his nose rested inches from the screen. His eyes widened as he scrutinised the fuzzy surveillance footage.
‘Look at the dealer,’ he said in Chinese.
The other two concentrated hard on the British guy in the midst of the proceedings. They nodded in unison, recognising all the characteristics of someone scared for their life. They were familiar with the man — the triad had been responsible for recruiting certain members of the casino’s staff to ensure they would be complicit in illegal tactics — but they hadn’t been expecting such a reaction.
The kid had devolved into a nervous wreck in front of Forrest and the two businessmen. Even on the grainy footage, the tallest triad member could see the blood drain from his face. His forehead turned shiny, breaking out in sweat. His eyes darted everywhere but the table in front of him, trying desperately to search for a reprieve from his terror.
He had caught a glimpse of the video on Forrest’s phone.
‘Could just be a natural reaction,’ one of the members said. ‘Maybe he got a look at his friend being eaten. The dealers would know each other.’
The taller man shook his head. ‘I saw the video Forrest recorded. You can’t tell who it is unless you study it. Forrest isn’t angling the phone in the kid’s direction.’
‘So why is he that scared?’
‘Because he knows what’s going on. He’s part of it. He’s in bed with the businessmen. A two-man dealer team that they’re using to hoard their profits.’
‘Has Forrest realised?’
The taller man stared at the screen, watching hard. ‘Not yet. He’s a violent man but he’s not used to this game. He’s concentrating too hard on the businessmen.’
As they spoke, Forrest turned on his heel and left the VIP room as quickly as he’d arrived. The young British dealer visibly exhaled, letting out a ball of tension that had built up inside him over the course of the conversation.
He thought no-one had noticed.
But the triad had.
‘What do we do?’ the second man — who up to this point hadn’t uttered a word — said. ‘Report it to Forrest and get in his good books?’
The tallest man paused for thought. ‘We’re already in his good books. I think this kid might be useful. I think he’ll do anything to make sure no-one finds out about his guilt.’
‘Oh…’ the other two said simultaneously, realising what the tallest man intended.
‘Change of plans,’ the tallest man said. ‘We don’t involve ourselves in the ground-level work. We’ve got the messenger in place, but I say we use this guy to our advantage. We have more dirt on him than anything he could possibly fathom.’
‘Should we go get him? Bring him up here?’
‘Has the girl been released yet?’ the tallest man said.
The first checked his watch. ‘Ten minutes ago.’
‘Then go tell him to finish his shift. We’ll use him. But make sure we keep this away from Forrest. For obvious reasons.’
4
The longest twenty-two seconds of Slater’s life began to tick by.
He mentally counted out each increment, breathing normally and keeping his heart rate calm and subdued. Over time he’d learned to compartmentalise as much adrenalin as possible. The situation leeched with stress, but panicking about it would only sap energy from the outburst that inevitably needed to occur.
&n
bsp; So he sat, and waited, and stared straight ahead until someone realised he wasn’t a member of their security detail.
They were fairly amateur in that regard. Each man craned their necks to stare out the tinted windows at the vast sprawl of Mountain Lion Casino & Resorts fading away in the background. They were searching the sidewalk for any sign of panic amongst the civilians. They didn’t realise that one of the civilians was missing entirely.
And in the vehicle with them.
Most of them nervously shuffled on the spot, letting the heightened emotion of a live situation fade away. The little girl squirmed in her seat, her face pale and her eyes wide, clearly uncomfortable but too terrified to make a break for it. At the same time the murky fog resting over her features lingered, preventing her from reacting in any significant capacity. Slater could tell she was scared out of her mind, but her limbs refused to function properly.
She was definitely drugged.
He loosened his shoulders, relaxing any tightness and tension in his body. A fight was imminent — there was no way around it. He had seconds to compose himself. He sketched out a brief plan of attack in his mind based on the position of the security all around him, and then settled back and waited for the madness to ensue.
‘How the hell did she get out?’ one of the men in front of him said, staring across the interior at his two buddies on the other side of the limousine.
One of them shrugged. ‘Don’t know. She didn’t make it far though.’
‘She shouldn’t have made it anywhere.’
The man to the left of Slater nodded imperceptibly in agreement, and turned his head to check whether his friend felt the same. He glanced once at Slater, then paused for a single second that felt like an eternity.
‘Hang on,’ he said, ‘who the fuck are—’
Slater detonated an elbow off the side of his temple with enough built-up momentum to shut the lights out with a single strike. The guy’s head snapped back against the partition separating the interior from the driver’s cabin. An audible thwack rang through the limousine and the guy slumped forward, unconscious.