Lion

by Matt Rogers

  ‘You did a lot, though. You put a stop to some bad people.’

  ‘That I did. So you can understand why I need to pass these girls off.’

  ‘What if there’s bad people in the police?’ Shien said. ‘I’ve heard of that happening before.’

  ‘I can’t save everyone, Shien. All I can do is my best. It’s why I had to leave Samuel in the apartment complex, and it’s why I need to hand these girls over. If I try and protect all of you, it’ll do more harm than good.’

  ‘We’re here,’ Shien said.

  Slater twisted the wheel and pulled sharply into the near-deserted parking lot — the end destination set into the limousine’s inbuilt GPS. He pulled to a halt in front of a long, low building with blocky letters arranged above the entrance. They spelled the name of the complex in several different languages.

  Public Security Police Force of Macau.

  Shien stared up at the unimpressive building with concern — Slater noticed the lump in her throat. By now the sun had started to set, plunging their surroundings into lowlight.

  ‘How do you know there’s no bad men in there?’ she said.

  ‘Not everyone’s bad, Shien. If they were, everything would be chaos.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Slater stared at the young child and realised the experiences of the past two weeks had changed her. For better or worse, he wasn’t yet sure. She might have previously been hopeful and optimistic, searching for light even in places it didn’t exist. Now he could sense her judging everything, assessing everyone for threats.

  He couldn’t imagine her trusting anyone for quite some time.

  Slater flashed a glance behind the driver’s seat and spotted all eleven girls sitting rigid in their seats, their backs pressed against the leather and their gazes unwavering.

  ‘I can’t send them in on their own,’ he muttered.

  ‘You can barely walk,’ Shien said.

  ‘Don’t need to walk.’

  He slumped in his seat and leant one shoulder on the horn — the noise cut through the quiet of the parking lot like a jackknife, hammering across the open space and piercing through the open windows of the police station. Slater gulped back a ball of nausea, struggling to prevent himself from vomiting, and waited a full five seconds for the discordant sound to fade away.

  Within seconds a pair of officers materialised at the front entrance, hands by their holsters in an instinctual response to the interruption. Slater forced his door open and hobbled out of the driver’s seat, leaning on the chassis for support. His face still bloody, he waved the man and woman over.

  Shien clambered out of the passenger seat, recognising that Slater could barely move. She hurled open the rear door and began ushering the children out of their seats one by one, guiding them toward the pair of officers.

  Slater immediately noticed the concern on the officers’ faces. They took their hands away from their weapons and bent down, folding at the knees to welcome the kids into reassuring arms. The woman turned and barked a command in Chinese through the open doorway. Another pair of officers appeared at once, hurrying out to meet the strange procession of new arrivals.

  Once all eleven of the children had been transferred across, Slater sensed eyes on him — the only adult amidst the strange scene. The officers were looking to him for answers — one of them rose from her knees and touched a hand to the sidearm at her waist. She took a step toward him.

  Slater subconsciously understood that he couldn’t stay.

  The carnage would be traced back to him.

  And he had never stayed in one place for too long.

  He locked eyes with Shien across the roof of the limousine. ‘Tell them these children were found in the basement of Mountain Lion Casino & Resorts. Tell them to be prepared for what they’ll find there. Tell them to leave no stone unturned when they investigate.’

  Shien wrestled with the translation for a moment, then fired off a string of rapid-fire Chinese to the approaching officer. The middle-aged woman paused in her tracks, digesting the words, then turned to look at the group of young girls.

  She could seemingly sense that Slater meant no harm.

  ‘Get in the car,’ Slater said to Shien.

  Shien turned back to him. ‘What?’

  ‘Get in.’

  ‘You don’t want me to stay with them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Will, maybe it’s best… you know. To return to my family.’

  ‘Shien,’ Slater said, fighting to mask the emotion in his voice. Despite his best attempts, his tone wavered. ‘Just get in.’

  She understood all at once. Her upper lip began to quiver, and anguish flared in her eyes. The sight wracked Slater’s own mindset — he’d been putting the revelation off as long as he feasibly could. But sooner or later she had to know.

  He didn’t know where they would go.

  He didn’t know what they would do.

  But they couldn’t stay here.

  Wrestling with the knowledge that her parents were gone, Shien ducked back into the passenger seat, fighting back tears. She slumped over, hyperventilating, a sea of emotions washing over her.

  The female officer watched Shien slip back into the car. She widened her eyes, reaching for her weapon.

  Fuck, Slater thought.

  He crammed himself back into the driver’s seat and stamped on the accelerator — he’d left the engine running for a reason. Tyres squealed and the stretch limousine shot away from the police precinct before the officers had the chance to detain any and all witnesses. Slater kept tense in case he heard the deafening blast of a gunshot headed in their direction — he doubted the limousine was bulletproof — but no shots came.

  The officers mustn’t have deemed it prudent.

  There was no threat.

  Just a fleeing witness.

  Slater lurched the vehicle back onto the uneven surface of the road and rocketed away from the station, leaving the children in the safest hands he could find, internally unsure about his decision but understanding that he needed to focus on his own survival. He had pulled those kids out of hell, and that was all he could do.

  He couldn’t individually return them to their families while dealing with half of Macau wanting him dead.

  So as Shien broke down alongside him he accelerated into the darkness, unsure what his next move would be but determined not to stop.

  He never stopped.

  56

  Miles away from the bright lights of the luxury casinos, Slater pulled the limousine to a final stop on the side of a dingy, unlit street strewn with rubbish and filth.

  It had been an uncomfortable journey. He’d initially intended to provide words of reassurance to Shien but over the course of their trip, it had become obvious that he was in no state to offer the girl guidance. He could barely string a sentence together, let alone find the necessary words to soothe her and take her mind off the revelation.

  So he simply concentrated on the road ahead and let Shien process the news as best she could.

  When they finally pulled to a halt, after nearly half an hour of pitiful, body-wracking sobs drifting across from the passenger seat, Shien turned to him with bloodshot eyes and a running nose.

  ‘How did you find out?’ she whispered.

  ‘Someone upstairs told me.’

  ‘They killed them?’

  ‘They killed your father. Your mother … is fleeing the country.’

  Shien paused, digesting Slater’s words. He wondered if there were still traces of the drugs in her veins — despite the initial breakdown she seemed to be processing the information in a coherent manner. She nodded, staring over Slater’s shoulder, deep in thought.

  ‘I didn’t think she would hang around.’

  The words took Slater by surprise. ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘We weren’t that close. I loved my Daddy more than anything.’

  Her bravado threatened to shatter under the weight of the sentence. Her u
pper lip began to tremble again.

  Slater reached out a hand and touched it to her shoulder. ‘We’ll figure this out. I’ve got you this far, haven’t I?’

  ‘Where will we go? How will you look after me? You’ll get arrested if I’m a missing person — you realise that?’

  ‘I haven’t thought that far ahead,’ Slater muttered. ‘Too much is happening at once.’

  ‘This won’t last long.’

  ‘I’m not the person to take care of you, Shien.’

  She froze. ‘You have to. I can’t survive on my own. I’m too young. I don’t know how the world works.’

  ‘I get that. But I can’t hang around forever. We both know that. I’m not that guy. I … wander. And I kill people. Neither of those things are suitable for someone like you. That’s why I don’t have kids.’

  ‘So where do we go from here?’

  Slater paused, riding out a massive headache sprouting to life behind his eyes. He closed them momentarily, leaning back in the seat, then opened them a second later to scrutinise his surroundings.

  They were in the middle of nowhere.

  Out this far on the outskirts of Macau, the streetlights barely functioned as the darkness settled over the rundown buildings all around them. The resulting shadows could conceal all kinds of undesirables. Even with the driver’s window open just a crack, Slater sensed the stench of poverty and desperation in the air.

  They were in the slums.

  ‘We lay low,’ he said. ‘For as long as it takes for the attention to die down. I have contacts … from my past. Maybe we can sort out false identities. Start fresh somewhere. I don’t know… I’ll work it out when—’

  Involuntarily, his eyes drooped shut. He slumped over the wheel, hitting his forehead on the top of the leather. Shien leapt across the centre console out of concern and tiny hands grabbed his shoulders, heaving him back upright.

  ‘Will,’ she said. ‘You’re hurt bad. You need a doctor.’

  ‘Triads … might be in the hospitals.’

  ‘They might be everywhere. You need help.’

  ‘Let’s … get to safety. Come on. Let’s find a place.’

  He reached out and fumbled with the door handle, prodding and yanking until the release mechanism kicked in and the door swung outward into the filthy alleyway. He stepped out, searching for flat ground with his good leg. He pitched and levered himself upright, breathing hard, swimming in a sea of darkness and suffering.

  ‘Come on, Shien,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s—’

  A shape materialised out of the darkness, surging into range before Slater even had time to recognise it as a man. The newcomer pushed Slater into the side of the limousine with one hand, heaving him off-balance without any effort at all. A gun appeared in the murky night and the barrel slammed against Slater’s temple, pinning him upright against the side of the vehicle.

  On the other side of the car, Shien screamed.

  ‘Who’s the girl?’ a deep voice said.

  Slater squinted, wading through the haze of semi-consciousness, desperately trying to make out who stood directly in front of him. He saw redness and shadows and the sharp glint of steel. He felt the cool touch of the gun barrel on his skin. Sweat leeched from his pores, running onto the metal. He winced and slumped further down the side of the limousine, giving in.

  He couldn’t fight any longer.

  ‘Who’s the girl?’ the voice repeated.

  He thought he recognised it.

  ‘Just kill me, for God’s sake,’ he muttered.

  ‘If I were here to do that you’d have been long dead.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘You really can’t see me?’

  ‘I’m beat half to death, in case you couldn’t tell.’

  ‘Oh, I can see that. But up to this point I was under the illusion that William Slater was a superhuman. Since when did injury stop you, brother?’

  Brother.

  The word triggered something in his memory. For a moment, head bowed, pulse racing, he thought the impossible. ‘Jason King?’

  The man laughed. ‘Close enough. In fact, it’d be awfully convenient if you could tell me where he was. But that’s not what I’m here for.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m the guy you called in Yemen when you needed to save the world.’

  Slater paled. He had spent the last few months running from his old division, the clandestine black-operations unit that had single-handedly forged him into a destructive killer. They hadn’t parted on good terms, and Slater had spent his time since the forced retirement lying low — for the most part.

  An unintended barrage of all-out warfare in Yemen had culminated in a chemical weapon on the streets of inner-city London. Slater couldn’t have made it to England in time. He’d been forced to call on the resources of his old employers, men and women who no doubt wanted him dead for deserting his position at such a crucial time.

  Frankly, he was surprised the man standing across from him hadn’t found him sooner.

  ‘You took your time, Williams,’ he muttered through bloodstained teeth.

  Russell Williams let the barrel of his sidearm drift down from Slater’s forehead.

  ‘You look like death,’ the man said. ‘Par for the course, though.’

  ‘When do I not?’ Slater said, spitting a ball of crimson onto the dirty concrete between them. ‘You sure you’re not here to kill me?’

  ‘Like I said, that would have happened days ago if it was my intention.’

  ‘You been following me?’

  ‘Intermittently. You’re a hard man to keep track of.’

  ‘You found me, though.’

  ‘That I did.’

  ‘So what are you here for?’

  ‘To apologise.’

  57

  They made an odd trio — Shien, Slater, and government handler Russell Williams.

  Three people from vastly different backgrounds, sitting on their rears in the muck of an unlit alleyway, their backs resting against the chassis of a dark limousine. Slater welcomed the respite — no-one would think to come looking for them out here. He had crucial time to talk, and recover, and formulate a next step.

  First, he had to work out what the hell Williams was doing in Macau.

  ‘You couldn’t have called?’ he said.

  ‘Given the extent of your contribution to our country, I thought it’d be best to deliver this message personally.’

  ‘What message?’

  ‘You’re off the hook.’

  ‘I’m going to need more information than that.’

  ‘I’ve been busy,’ Williams said. ‘Ever since you and Jason King absconded. The two best operatives our government has ever seen — gone, just like that.’

  ‘We had our reasons.’

  ‘I now know that. The internal investigation took a little longer than necessary, but ultimately it all comes back to Ramsay, doesn’t it?’

  That piece of shit, Slater thought.

  When King had taken certain liberties concerning an operation in Russia, the mysterious handler known only as Ramsay had detained the pair in an effort to rein them in. It had resulted in catastrophe, with both King and Slater vowing never to return to active service after a whirlwind of chaos in Dubai.

  Now, King was gone. Vanished into the depths of the free world. Enjoying retirement.

  Slater knew the man would never return.

  He knew he would never see Jason King again.

  And he was perfectly fine with it.

  ‘Where’s King?’ Williams said, as if reading Slater’s mind.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

  ‘Come on, Slater. You know something.’

  ‘We went our separate ways.’

  ‘Somehow I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘If you really want proof, find the hospital in Sohar — a port town in Oman. They’ll confirm everything I’m telling you. We were together there, and then we weren’t. King
was done with this life. I wasn’t. We parted ways there — there wasn’t much else to discuss.’

  Williams stared at Slater’s bloody clothing, and the mass of cuts across his face. ‘You sure aren’t done with this life.’

  ‘And Uncle Sam’s okay with that?’ Slater said incredulously. ‘With knowing I’m out here in the wild, putting my skills to use?’

  ‘They’re not okay with it. But they’re willing to forget you exist. As a compromise for what Ramsay put you through. Just as you and King went down your own paths, we can too.’

  ‘A clean slate?’

  ‘A clean slate.’

  ‘So I go off,’ Slater said. ‘Do my own thing. You promise me you won’t track me down and silence me.’

  ‘We promise.’

  ‘Who’s to say you won’t break that promise in future? No-one will ever know.’

  ‘If that was our intention, you’d be dead. I don’t know how many times I need to repeat that.’

  ‘Enough to convince me.’

  For added effect, Williams raised the gun in his right hand and pressed it to the side of Slater’s temple without resistance. He mimed firing a shot, accompanied by his own personal sound effects.

  ‘As easy as that,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe you’re not going through with it because the girl’s here.’

  Shien perked up at the mention. She’d tuned out of the conversation, most of it flying straight over her head. Now she craned her neck to get a better earshot of what the men were discussing.

  ‘Who is she?’ Williams repeated.

  ‘Someone who’s been through a lot.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have anything to do with the state you’re in, would it?’

  ‘It sure does.’

  ‘Someone got what was coming to them?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  Williams shrugged. ‘Not much I can do about it.’

  ‘You could kill me right here, right now. Would make things easier for you and your people, if we’re being honest. You wouldn’t have the threat of my existence hanging over your heads.’

  Williams glanced sideways at him. ‘We’re not too worried about that.’