by Matt Rogers
The Storm
Black Force Shorts Book Six
Matt Rogers
Copyright © 2018 by Matt Rogers
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Onur Aksoy.
www.liongraphica.com
Contents
Reader’s Group
Books by Matt Rogers
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Announcement
Books by Matt Rogers
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Books by Matt Rogers
THE JASON KING SERIES
Isolated (Book 1)
Imprisoned (Book 2)
Reloaded (Book 3)
Betrayed (Book 4)
Corrupted (Book 5)
Hunted (Book 6)
THE JASON KING FILES
Cartel (Book 1)
Warrior (Book 2)
Savages (Book 3)
THE WILL SLATER SERIES
Wolf (Book 1)
Lion (Book 2)
BLACK FORCE SHORTS
The Victor (Book 1)
The Chimera (Book 2)
The Tribe (Book 3)
The Hidden (Book 4)
The Coast (Book 5)
The Storm (Book 6)
1
Lagos
Nigeria
Choking on the rancid humidity in the seaside bar, James Xu stared across the countertop at the Cambodian-American man wedged into a booth on the other side of the room and debated when to make his approach.
It wouldn’t be easy. Like almost everything he did, there was no plan. The information fed to him by his handler, Lars Crawford, had been suitably barebones. Then again, Xu had spent so long reacting to impossible situations that it was beginning to feel like second nature.
He’d survived New York, after all, and nothing could be as bad as what he’d been forced to endure in that Brooklyn townhouse.
Nothing could rival the beating he’d taken.
Don’t jinx it, he thought.
Lagos had little going for it. Xu had been in-country two days, both of which he’d spent reeling from one lead to the next with the kind of carelessness you didn’t ordinarily expect from an elite U.S. black ops soldier. But that was the game he played, and the world he lived in. He and his faceless comrades in Black Force dealt with the worst scenarios imaginable. Hence why reaction speed played such a vital role.
But Xu couldn’t work out how his reflexes would play a part in anything that came next.
They should have sent a bureaucrat.
He got off the bar stool, practically peeling himself off the chipped wooden surface. Nigeria was hot and sticky and overbearing, weighing down his every movement. The beer he sipped at intermittently in an attempt to blend in had long ago turned lukewarm, reaching room temperature only a couple of minutes after being pulled from a rusting fridge. Although the bar rested in a narrow dirt street close to the Lagos Port Complex, it offered no views of the ocean.
In fact, it offered nothing appealing to Xu in the slightest, save for the man in the corner, sweating and hunched over, swigging from a long-neck bottle of beer, his eyes cold and detached.
Jimmy Neak.
Xu knew precious little about him, save for his name. He crossed the room, sensing the tension build in his chest, battling it back down. That was the reality of a black operative. The situations they found themselves in scared them just as much as the common civilian, but they compartmentalised it.
It was the only way to stay sane.
Xu dumped himself down in the booth opposite Neak before the man even realised he was approaching. At a shade over six feet tall and nearly a hundred and ninety pounds of sinewy muscle and skin hardened from years and years of relentless Muay Thai sparring, Xu could act the part when he needed to. He sat up straight, dumped two burly forearms down on the rotting wooden table between them, and leant forward to stare into Jimmy Neak’s beady eyes.
‘Jimmy,’ he said, as if he were a teacher scolding a student who’d stepped out of line.
Far, far out of line.
Neak locked eyes with Xu, his pupils dilated. Probably under the influence of a cheap cocktail of chemicals to bear the burden of what he was about to do.
It’d be great if I knew, Xu thought.
Neak gazed quickly around the room before responding, as paranoid as Xu had expected. Then his attention turned back to the man in front of him.
‘We met?’ he said, wiping greasy sweat off his forehead. ‘Do I know you?’
‘No. And no.’
‘What do you want, then? Looking for trouble? For a fight?’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Pal, I’ve never fucking seen you before. Enough games. What do you want?’
‘To talk.’
‘Yeah, well… I don’t want to talk.’
‘Good to know.’
Neak eyeballed him, silently fuming but clearly thrown off by the strange sequence of events. Only a third of his beer still rested in the bottle, so the man picked it up by the neck and drained the rest of the liquid. Drops of condensation ran down his grimy fingers. Xu took the time to study Neak’s appearance. The guy was skinny, but there was strength in his frame. He had the wiry physique of a man used to hard labour.
Which made sense, considering he’d been a deckhand on freighters for the last five years of his life.
The most notable tell was the hands. Neak’s were calloused and tough, hardened from years of outdoor manual labour. Xu eyed the dirt caked thick under his fingernails as he slammed the empty glass bottle back down on the table with enough verve to draw attention.
‘Would you look at that?’ he said with a sarcastic smile. ‘Looks like I’m done.’
Cocky.
Confident.
Back in control of the situation.
He’d recovered from Xu blindsiding him, and now he thought he could return the favour.
Not likely.
Neak moved to slide out of his side of the booth, dragging himself along the torn, damp vinyl. He placed two hands on the edge of the table to lever to his feet.
Now.
Xu balled up a fist and dropped it sideways onto the top of Neak’s hand with just enough force to throw his balance off. When the Cambodian man stumbled, halfway to his feet, Xu darted out with the same hand, grabbed him by the collar, and hurled him back down into the booth. Gravity did the rest of the work and Neak almost landed on his neck, collapsing back down across the long stretch of seating in an awkward tangle of limbs.
When he sat up, fl
ustered and provoked, Xu slapped him across the face.
Hard.
2
Three consecutive actions.
None of which had been overwhelmingly forceful.
But Xu had timed them perfectly, dragging Neak back under the surface of awkward discomfort every time he tried to gasp for breath. First he tried to slap Xu’s initial hand punch away and missed, then his off-balance lurch ruined the chance to retaliate in any meaningful way, and the final slap across the cheek sent his senses reeling and nerve endings firing through his face.
The result didn’t look like anything resembling a bar fight, but Xu knew he’d subdued the man for long enough to get his point across.
At least, what came next would prove it.
He jabbed an accusatory finger in Neak’s direction. ‘I didn’t say we were done. I tell you when this conversation’s over, and it’s very far from over. You—’ Xu slapped him again when he saw Neak opening his mouth to protest, ‘Shut the fuck up. Don’t speak. Listen. You’re going to answer some questions for me and then I’ll be on my way if I’m happy with the answers. Make sure I’m happy with the answers.’
Neak made to respond again, and Xu slapped him again. A third crack echoed across the bar. No-one turned around.
This was Lagos, after all.
‘Sit,’ Xu hissed.
Neak sat.
‘You understand what I’m saying?’ Xu said.
Rage burned in the man’s eyes, but he eventually nodded. Sensory overload could be an overwhelming experience — Xu knew that first-hand. Jimmy Neak had never met the man across from him before, and now the guy was almost effortlessly bullying him into staying in his seat. As soon as he made the first compliant move, he would be all Xu’s.
With one nod, Xu knew exactly how the conversation was going to go.
He would get answers, after all.
‘How long have you been a deckhand?’ he said, even though he already knew.
Better to start with the easier questions.
The juicier ones would follow.
‘Three years,’ Neak said.
Xu’s face turned to stone. The opening question wasn’t supposed to be a hurdle, but it seemed that Neak was testing his capacity to lie to this stranger interrogating him. Xu slapped him a fourth time, targeting the red welt that had already formed on his left cheek.
This time, Jimmy Neak audibly whimpered.
This gritty, hardened deckhand — a man who willingly accepted one of the more uncomfortable manual labour jobs on the market.
Reduced to a snivelling mess.
Good.
I need answers, and I’m going to get them.
‘Jimmy,’ Xu said, letting out all the scorn he could muster. ‘That’s a lie. You’ve been a deckhand for five years.’
‘So what, man? Who gives a shit how long I’ve been on ships?’
‘Not me. But I give a shit if you lie to me. Which you just did. Don’t do it again. I’ll be able to tell.’
‘How’d you know I’ve been one for five years?’
‘I know a lot about you, Jimmy.’
‘Then why’d you ask?’
‘To find out if you’d lie to me.’
That shut him up.
‘Don’t do it again,’ Xu repeated, lowering his voice to a sinister whisper.
Neak nodded, this time more enthusiastically. More compliant.
‘How long have you been a deckhand?’ Xu said.
Neak sighed. ‘Dude…’
‘Answer me, Jimmy.’
‘Five years.’
‘How much money you got in your bank account?’
‘What?’
‘How much money you got in your bank account?’ Xu said. Verbatim, word-for-word repetition. Same tone.
Demanding an answer.
Neak paused, as if he were about to make something up. Then he thought better of it and said, ‘About two thousand dollars.’
‘American?’
‘Yes. I’m American.’
‘I know that. I don’t need you to elaborate. I just need simple answers.’
‘Okay.’
‘When’s your next job?’
‘This afternoon.’
‘How long from now?’
‘Two hours.’
Xu slapped him hard enough to elicit an audible outcry of pain. ‘Wrong, Jimmy. You leave from the Apapa Port in the Lagos Port Complex at five-thirty p.m., which is four and a half hours from now.’
‘If you know all this shit, why are you questioning me?’
‘You lied twice, Jimmy.’
‘Fuck off,’ Neak said, suddenly enlightened with a surge of confidence. ‘Next time you slap me I’ll start a brawl.’
Xu slapped him.
In the swollen cheek.
Hard.
Neak winced before attempting to throw a mad, supercharged right hook across the table. Xu simply battered it away with his elbow and slapped Neak again — the sixth time, if he was keeping track accurately. He’d targeted the same area over and over again, and now the left side of Jimmy Neak’s face was starting to visibly puff up. A dark new welt was forming underneath his bottom eyelid. Neak stared with inflamed fury across the table, but there was nothing he could do. The pain was mounting — each consecutive slap drew more broken veins to the surface of his cheek — and his one attempt at retaliation had been shut down like it was nothing.
Now, he was broken.
So Xu hit him with the real questions.
‘Jimmy, what do you know about what happened to your brother?’
Neak froze up.
‘Randall Neak,’ Xu said. ‘He was a Special Forces operative stationed in Niger for the last month. Part of JSOC. You two were close. Am I correct?’
Jimmy said nothing.
‘You called each other frequently.’
Silence.
‘He was killed in action two weeks ago.’
Silence.
‘But you already knew that.’
Silence.
Xu transferred all his weight onto his elbows, leaning across the table, invading Neak’s private space. He drilled his gaze into the man, unblinking, searching for any sign of suspicion. ‘Who have you been calling across Africa, Jimmy?’
Neak said nothing.
‘I need you to answer me,’ Xu said. ‘And I need you to tell the truth. Because you’re in very hot water right now. Your brother is dead, and you’re mad about it. Furious, even. And you made stupid decisions. Like making unencrypted contact with a bunch of junk phones from your own personal unsecured number. The government can pick up on things like that, Jimmy. We know your brother Randall was killed by Islamic militants. Is that who you’ve been talking to for the past week?’
Xu sensed movement in his peripheral vision, and he winced. He’d been discussing incredibly sensitive material. He couldn’t allow anyone to overhear…
He looked up and met the gaze of the Nigerian bartender. The man spoke no English, and there was no recognition or understanding in his eyes. He must have ventured over from behind the bar, making the rounds to see if the patrons needed another drink. He didn’t seem to care that Xu had slapped one side of Neak’s face into a swollen bubble. It didn’t faze him in the slightest. He offered no threat.
Xu registered all this, and turned back to Jimmy Neak.
But he shouldn’t have taken his gaze off the man in the first place.
Neak burst off the seat underneath him like his life depended on it.
3
Xu snatched at him, but he was a half-second too late.
Neak sprinted across the bar, his boots slapping the wooden floor, his arms pumping like pistons, a rabid, crazed expression on his face. He needed to get away from this man who knew the gist of his deepest, darkest secrets.
He needed to be alone.
Xu wasn’t about to let that happen.
He powered out of the booth and shoved the bartender aside, sending the gangly Nigerian man flying i
nto a cluster of nearby tables. The inconvenience didn’t cross Xu’s mind — he had far more important things to worry about.
Namely, the man running away from him who — given his reaction — had probably been radicalised at some point over the past two weeks.
Xu didn’t know what Jimmy Neak’s motivations were, or whom he’d been talking to, or why he’d seemingly embraced radical beliefs in the aftermath of his brother’s death, but he didn’t need to know. He just needed to stop the man, and get more answers.
Now he could do it by force.
Because he had an admission of guilt.
He had to gain ground before they made it out of the building. Over twenty million people lived in Greater Metropolitan Lagos, and Xu seemed to have encountered every single one of them over the last two days. It was impossible to get anywhere in the most congested stretches of the city by vehicle. After only twelve hours in Nigeria, Xu had elected to walk everywhere.
It was easy to power through the crowds.
And it was easy to disappear in them.
So he raced across the bar floor, darting between tables, hot on the heels of Jimmy Neak. The deckhand lurched through the open entranceway, knocking aside a thin curtain of hanging beads. Xu burst through the same doorway a couple of seconds later, ricocheting off the opposite wall by slamming his shoulder into the plaster and using the jolting change in momentum to send him careening to the right. It was the fastest way to stay on Neak’s heels without slowing down.