Lion

by Matt Rogers

  ‘Where is he?’ she muttered as she brushed past him.

  ‘Out of sight.’

  ‘Will,’ she said, her tone far too condescending for someone of her age and inexperience. ‘You’ve already killed people in front of me. I think I can handle one more.’

  ‘Are you always like this?’ Slater said. ‘You’re the only nine-year-old I know who wouldn’t be shitting their pants in a situation like this.’

  She cocked her head to one side. ‘Is it not showing?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m scared out of my mind.’

  ‘You still feeling groggy?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘I think whatever they pumped into your system for two weeks straight is still suppressing some things.’

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘A kid doesn’t belong in this world, Shien.’

  She shrugged. ‘I’ve been around it for a while. I haven’t seen anything up close, but I’m smart enough to work it out for myself. I’m not stupid.’

  ‘I thought you said your father wasn’t a bad man.’

  ‘He’s not. But he works in a bad world. I know that much.’

  They lapsed into silence and pressed further into the apartment. With a sigh of relief, Slater realised this particular room had some semblance of natural light. For hours the stifling nature of the complex had weighed down on him, to the point where he was growing increasingly desperate for any kind of glimpse of the outside world.

  Everything in here was hot and rancid and horrific.

  But a narrow rectangular window ran across the opposite wall — directly alongside this apartment’s kitchenette — and Slater raised himself onto his toes to catch a glance outward. The day was heating up. A heavy layer of cloud hung low in the sky, draped over everything in sight, suppressing any kind of joy one could find in these slums.

  They were positioned along the front of the complex, facing out over Beco da Perola and the hundreds of civilians hustling along the narrow sidewalks a few floors below. Urgency was palpable in the air — all these people had places to be, measly dollars to make, children to feed.

  Slater glanced back into the apartment and realised he faced a similar predicament — caring for a young kid.

  Possibly for the first time in his life.

  ‘You hungry?’ he said.

  Shien said, ‘We just ate.’

  He glanced at his watch, and once again found himself fascinated by the nature of the human brain. It felt like he’d been fighting for his life for hours on end, but they’d only spent a total of sixteen minutes in the apartment complex upon returning to its bowels. He brushed off the strange sensation and spotted Shien still clutching the laptop tight between her small fingers.

  ‘Give me that,’ he said.

  She handed it over, happy to be free from its possession. Maybe she considered it a bad omen. ‘What are you going to do with it?’

  ‘He had the program up on the screen,’ Slater explained. ‘That Samuel guy. He was eager to get this over and done with. Almost too eager. I think we can go through with all this without him.’

  Shien froze. ‘Why do we want to do that?’

  Slater paused.

  Actually, he hadn’t quite considered the reasoning yet. He’d simply been reacting, capitalising on openings he found in the situation, seizing opportunities. Stealing money from a billionaire casino owner meant nothing in the long term — especially since Slater had no control over where the funds were deposited.

  He would never see it. He would simply make the triad wealthier.

  But, deep down, he knew why it was important.

  The triad were looking to cause anarchy by tearing profits away from a man whose entire existence revolved around profits.

  Slater thrived in chaos.

  He was no closer to remedying the situation with Shien, and if she felt unsafe returning to her father he had no ability to convince her otherwise.

  He had to demolish anyone who felt it necessary to threaten her life.

  And, simultaneously, get to the bottom of what exactly she’d been doing in the possession of Peter Forrest.

  Something told him he wouldn’t like what he found.

  But the first step to any semblance of success would involve flushing Forrest or the triad thugs out of their private hiding places. To do that he would need to throw their dealings into disarray — cause confrontation, instigate conflict, generally implement chaos.

  So he slammed the laptop down on the kitchen countertop and flipped the screen open, ignoring the sweat dripping off his forehead. He wiped a cuff across his eyebrows to try and clear his vision — combat drew out perspiration in a way that few other events could. Recreational sports were challenging, but there was a natural limit one could reach when pushing themselves to the next level. A life-or-death fight eliminated those barriers, to the point where people could do things they’d previously considered impossible.

  All the fighting had sapped the energy out of Slater entirely.

  He hunched over the screen, studying the algorithms and symbols in front of him. Amidst all the technological jargon were three rectangular boxes for entering information.

  They lay empty.

  In fact, the mouse cursor hovered over the first box, as if Samuel Barnes had been preparing nervously in anticipation of Shien’s arrival. He’d been planning to approve the transfer within seconds of her showing up at the door.

  No wonder Slater’s presence had terrified him so completely.

  He was a nervous kid.

  Briefly, Slater glanced skyward and wondered how Barnes was faring up there.

  He regretted leaving him already.

  It was in his nature to protect people.

  ‘You’re thinking you shouldn’t have left Samuel in the apartment.’

  Once again, Shien proved herself deceptively attuned to the finer details of Slater’s expressions. He tried to mask his surprise, but it proved useless.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ she said. ‘I’ve been doing this kind of thing for years.’

  Slater cocked his head. ‘How so?’

  ‘My Daddy gives money to people, which apparently is very sensitive to talk about. People don’t like talking about money. And I don’t think he gives money to nice people. Not usually. But he expects it back, which means he has to be careful about what he talks about around me. It took me a while but now I can almost tell what he’s thinking because he’s always trying to hide things. Just like you’re trying to do now.’

  ‘I’m not trying to hide anything from you, Shien,’ Slater said. ‘In fact I can’t even believe I’ve been so honest with a nine-year-old myself.’

  ‘But you don’t want to talk about who you are. I asked you a couple of times and you keep pretending like I never said anything.’

  ‘That has nothing to do with you. Who I am isn’t something anyone should be interested in.’

  ‘You’ve saved my life about a hundred times, so I’m pretty interested.’

  Slater paused. ‘Maybe later. And don’t push it — this is unheard of from me. You’re not old enough to know the details anyway.’

  ‘I’m old enough to get kidnapped and drugged and nearly killed,’ she said, her face twisting in an attempt to mask her tears. ‘I’m sure some words won’t hurt me.’

  ‘You deserve a better life than this.’

  ‘So do you, Will.’

  The words hung in the air, striking Slater in such a way that made it difficult to form a response. The breath caught in his throat and he paused, composing himself, horrified at the thought of showing any emotion in front of this little girl.

  ‘And what’s worse is that you chose to be here,’ Shien said, hammering her point home. ‘You hate it but you can’t stop doing it. I can tell by your face. You think you need to help everyone. That’s why you’re so scared about Samuel. Even though it’s none of your business.’

  Slater reached down and gripped the edge of the countertop
with white knuckles, riding out a sickening wave of nausea. At the same time a pang of acute pain rang up the side of his leg, reminding him of his condition. The sweat continued to flow from his pores.

  ‘You’re damn good at reading people.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘What were the odds I’d run into a kid as smart as you? You’ve got to be one in a million.’

  ‘I could say the same.’

  Despite everything, Slater smirked. ‘You’re a good kid.’

  ‘I don’t know if you’re a good person, but you’ve been one to me, and that’s really all that matters I guess.’

  ‘I don’t know either, Shien,’ Slater said. ‘Now hold on while I bankrupt this Peter Forrest guy.’

  22

  Slater had limited experience with computer programming or anything of the sort, but from what he could deduce it seemed Samuel Barnes had done the majority of the necessary grunt work.

  ‘Give me that first code again, Shien,’ he said.

  ‘H204VR68,’ she said calmly.

  Slater punched each key in rapid succession, his fingers flying over the keyboard. When he finished he tabbed to the second empty box and stared expectantly at Shien for the remaining two codes.

  She rattled them off, one by one, barely pausing between digits. She had no trouble reciting them — it seemed almost automatic, just as the “Beco da Perola” location had materialised in her mind. He wondered if there were certain techniques to implant information in someone’s head to ensure they’d remember it even under the foggy haze of a drug-addled state.

  If there were, he imagined the triad had utilised them.

  ‘You sure all three of those are right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No doubt whatsoever?’

  ‘I don’t know how, but I can remember them so easily.’

  Slater stared at the screen — all three boxes had been filled with Shien’s codes — and took a deep breath. ‘Well, here goes nothing. Let’s hope this kicks up a storm.’

  He scrolled to the bottom of the page and clicked PROCEED.

  A fresh page loaded instantly, the command executing in milliseconds, going through as soon as he placed pressure on the mouse pad.

  Horrifyingly simple, given the ramifications of what he had done.

  Slater’s eyes darted over the rapidly materialising information.

  Account numbers.

  Digits.

  Hong Kong dollar signs.

  HK$1,117,300,405.

  HK$904,077,030.

  HK$755,000,000.

  HK$620,400,306.

  Slater roughly added the four obscene numbers displayed on the screen, siphoned into four separate accounts, and came up with close to HK$3,400,000,000.

  Three-point-four billion.

  He ran through calculations in his head — something that had always come effortlessly to him — and landed on the equivalent of $435 million USD.

  An unfathomable amount of money.

  Money that he’d just sucked dry from four of Peter Forrest’s accounts.

  Sitting in the dingy, humid apartment within a complex that rested in one of the more rundown sections of Macau, Slater felt a sudden surge of raw power that came with causing devastation to a titan’s finances. He had no way of working out where the money was headed, or what the triad planned to do with it, but he had to imagine there were further steps Samuel had been planning to take to ensure anonymity.

  Slater had no idea what to do next, so he simply left the laptop where it was and smirked as he considered the consequences.

  It wouldn’t be complicated to trace the source of the transfer, and Slater didn’t intend to try and hide it.

  Let them come, he thought.

  By then he’d be long gone. And there would be enough evidence left lying around to trace the source of the heist to the triad, at which point Forrest would be forced into an uncomfortable decision.

  The more uncomfortable the man was, the more mistakes he would make.

  Mistakes Slater fully intended to exploit.

  ‘What happened?’ Shien said, breaking the dead silence.

  Slater realised he’d entered a trance-like state, staring at the numbers on the screen without any awareness of his surroundings. If anyone — from the triad thugs to Forrest’s hitmen — had chosen that time to barge into the apartment, both he and Shien would have been history.

  He forcibly dragged himself back to the present moment, despite his fascination with the amount he’d just ripped from Peter Forrest’s holdings.

  ‘The man who kidnapped you,’ Slater said. ‘I think I just made him very mad.’

  ‘I never met him,’ Shien noted. ‘He can’t be a nice guy, though, if he’s doing things like that. How did you make him mad?’

  ‘I just stole almost half a billion dollars from him.’

  Shien’s eyes narrowed in an effort to concentrate and tap into her memories. ‘Wow. That’s a lot of money. Isn’t that what Samuel was going to do? Is that what my codes were for?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why did you go through with it? This has nothing to do with you.’

  ‘You’re right. It doesn’t.’

  ‘You want to make the bad man angry?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Why? Then he’ll just send more people after us.’

  ‘I can deal with that if we get out of here right now. He’ll make mistakes if he gets angry. I can take advantage of that.’

  ‘Are you going to kill him?’

  ‘I think you’re very important to him and his reputation. You were kidnapped for a reason, Shien, and I don’t want to even consider what that might have been. That’s what I was talking about before. You might see me angry if I find out exactly why you were there.’

  Shien glanced instinctively toward the bathroom, where the dead man rested silently in his makeshift burial chamber. ‘I’ve seen you angry.’

  ‘No,’ Slater said. ‘You haven’t. Not truly angry.’

  ‘I don’t think I want to see that.’

  ‘I won’t be able to help it if I find out the truth.’

  ‘What truth? You keep hinting at something but I don’t understand. Why was I kidnapped?’

  Slater thought of the darkest period of his life, a time where his own mother had left the house to go to work and hadn’t returned. A time where revelations had presented themselves about the true nature of her work. A time Slater could link to nothing but pain and torment. From that point onward, he’d vowed to transform himself into a monster, so that the sheer helplessness he’d felt in his earlier years could never be repeated. He’d wanted the ability to destroy anyone capable of causing that kind of pain.

  He knew the men that had taken his mother. He knew what they’d done to her beforehand. He knew where she’d been headed, and understood the torment she would have undergone before she’d eventually succumbed to death.

  The product never survived the sex slavery pipeline.

  Never.

  ‘I’m willing to talk to you about almost anything, Shien,’ he said. ‘But not that.’

  She frowned. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I could be grasping at straws.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I have no way to tell if my hunch is accurate or not.’

  She pouted, recognising that Slater wouldn’t be elaborating. He could almost see the gears whirring behind her eyes, working with what little information she had. Once again, he found himself astonished by her capabilities.

  ‘If you find out you were right,’ she said. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Very bad things.’ He gestured to their surroundings, summing up everything that had transpired within the complex’s walls. ‘This will look like nothing in comparison.’

  ‘Have you gone off like that before?’

  ‘Once.’

  ‘Did people get hurt?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Will you hurt me if you go down that path?�
�

  ‘No.’

  ‘You sure.’

  ‘Positive.’

  She shrugged. ‘Okay, then. I can’t get anything else out of you. Where are we headed?’

  Slater glanced at the laptop. The required work had been done. ‘Far away from here.’

  ‘We taking that thing?’ Shien said.

  ‘Definitely not. They’ll be tracing it as we speak.’

  ‘Does that mean more bad guys?’

  ‘Sure does, Shien. We won’t be here, though.’

  ‘Where will we be?’

  Slater gazed around at the filth they’d spent the last twelve hours in. The sweat and the humidity and the claustrophobia and the dark corners and the flickering lights and the stench of tension all culminated together into a disgusting cocktail of unpleasantness. None of it fazed him — he’d spent half his life in similar settings — but at this moment their predicament was easily resolved. His own discomfort didn’t bother him whatsoever, but he glanced down at Shien and noticed the unbridled fear on her face. She was surprisingly composed for such a small child, but the atmosphere was getting to her. Her skin was slick with sweat and her previously untarnished hair now rested in wet, matted knots.

  ‘How about an upgrade?’ Slater said, twirling the hundred-thousand dollar chips in his pants pocket.

  23

  ‘What the fuck?!’ Forrest roared at the top of his lungs.

  Emotion overwhelmed him. Unable to help himself, he launched the chair underneath him away from the grand oak dining table, letting it tumble across the floor. His veins surging with fury, he sprinted to the nearest wall of the lavish penthouse and gouged three consecutive holes in the plaster with the toe of his trainer. Teeth clenched, forehead sweating, his horror reached a boiling point and he smashed his temple into the wall, over and over again, beating the anger out of himself the only way he knew how.

  When his fit of destruction had ceased, he stumbled away from the stretch of wall, panting with exertion, disoriented but still seething. Three of his most trusted members of security stood on the other side of the table, their hands clasped behind their backs, their faces white in reaction to the sudden outburst.

  They knew that Forrest had his limits regarding how far he was willing to take things, but they also knew those limits melted away when his fury took hold.