by Matt Rogers
‘Shut the fuck up,’ Brad said. His voice cut through the hangar like a knife. ‘He’ll be here.’
King waited patiently. Silently. His mind was elsewhere.
In the distance, the drone of an engine.
‘Oh, thank God,’ Clint said.
Sure enough, it was the pilot. He drove a beat-up pickup truck, paint flaking off its sides. The vehicle looked worse off than Clint’s sedan as it bounced over the runway toward the hangar. Even from this distance, King could tell the suspension was terrible.
The sun had just started to rise, turning the sky yellow. He walked with Brad underneath the roller doors and out into the dawn. Before he exited the hangar, he made sure to tuck one of the Glock 19s into his waistband.
Always stay armed. Always stay ready.
‘Diego!’ Brad called as the pickup screeched to a halt just outside the entrance to the hangar. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Very sorry, my friend,’ the pilot said, clambering out of the vehicle. His accent was thick. ‘I was having breakfast.’
‘Of course he was,’ Clint muttered.
Brad strode up to him. ‘I said 0500, Diego. What part of that didn’t you understand? This is extremely important.’
‘Yes, yes, I understand,’ Diego said. ‘I understand you, mister. I very sorry. I got held up at cafe.’
‘Cafe? What cafes are open at five in the morning?’
‘Not many. Just the one I always go. Karma Cafe. Very good food. Fantastic. But I get held up by stranger, wanting to talk. Otherwise, I be on time!’
Brad hesitated. ‘What stranger?’
‘Ah, it was nothing.’
‘Tell us,’ Brad said, more insistent. His tone had changed. Less scolding; more wary.
‘Man come up. He say, “Hey, Diego!” But I don’t know him. But then, maybe I forget him. I no want to offend. I say hey back. He say, “Diego, my friend, what you doing today?” I say I flying tourist into rainforest. Then he run off. Just like that.’ Diego clicked his fingers for added effect.
King’s heart rate increased instantly. ‘Oh, that’s not good.’
Brad slammed a closed fist down on the bonnet of Diego’s truck, infuriated. ‘Why the fuck would you tell him what you’re doing?’
‘I didn’t!’ Diego yelled. ‘You see, I say tourist! I don’t say soldier! He does not know.’
‘Did you make sure you weren’t being followed here?’ King demanded.
‘I—’
‘Answer the question!’
‘I don’t know. I no pay attention.’
‘Diego, did you ever stop to think that you shouldn’t go around telling people about top-secret tasks you’ve been paid handsomely to do?’
‘I dunno,’ Diego said, flabbergasted. ‘You no tell me much. I dunno if it was important!’
‘We’re probably okay,’ King said to Brad. ‘Chances are it’s nothing.’
Then came the thunderous sound of tearing metal, and the four of them stared across the airfield to see a black four-wheel-drive burst through the flimsy metal gate. It slid momentarily across the grass. Then it revved its engine and powered toward the hangar, heading straight for them.
CHAPTER 6
King didn’t act for a split second. He focused hard, staring at the 4WD. It was imperative he caught a glimpse of the number of hostiles. He saw a figure running after the vehicle, attempting to catch it from behind.
The guard at the gate.
The rear window of the 4WD rolled down and a thin man leant out. He clutched some type of assault rifle in his hands. King couldn’t make out the exact type from this distance. The assailant let out a quick burst of fire, rat-a-tat-tat, and the guard dropped like a rag doll.
‘Inside!’ King roared.
Brad’s instincts kicked in and he reacted fast, wrapping an arm around Clint and tugging him into the hangar. It was the necessary action to jumpstart Clint’s movements. He’d been frozen solid, startled by the gunfire. Now he found his feet and bolted inside.
With one swift motion, Diego dropped to the tarmac and rolled under his truck. A practiced move. King wondered if he often found himself in the middle of shootouts. He had no more time to ponder that idea, as a hail of bullets churned up the tarmac all around him. He got one look at the 4WD — now sporting three men hanging out the windows, all brandishing fully automatic weapons — before darting into the hangar, behind cover.
It did not take long to realise what was about to happen. With dawning dread, King let out a shout.
‘Clint, to the side!’
It was too late. Clint, in his inexperience, had decided to flee in a straight line away from the enemy vehicle. He’d sprinted down the centre of the hangar, toward the cover of the Cessna.
Too far away.
King watched as his back turned to pulp, lit up by a barrage of bullets. He stopped running. Staggered. His head swivelled side to side, eyes wide and bulging. There was nothing anyone could do to save him.
Whether he would have succumbed to those injuries did not matter. The round that punched through the side of his skull finished him off.
It was less graphic than King expected it to be. He’d seen some gruesome injuries during his time in the field. He’d seen men bleed more liquid than he thought could possibly be contained within a human body. The sight was always grisly, and something he attempted to avoid revisiting. The killing round that hit Clint sliced through his head, just above his ear, and pulverised his brain.
He died instantaneously.
King couldn’t help but feel relief that the bullet had found its target in the side of his head. Not for any malicious reason. In fact, he felt a stab of sadness as he watched Clint’s limp body fall to the concrete. He’d warmed to the analyst. But he knew that if the man hadn’t been killed by that shot, he would have bled out slowly, over the course of hours. It would have been accompanied by an unfathomable amount of pain. A quick and painless departure was in all ways preferable. If King had to choose the method of his own death further down the line, a bullet to the brain would be one of the most favourable outcomes.
He withdrew the Glock 19 from his waistband. It was a small pistol. Compact. Designed for concealed carry as well as use in the field. But experience had taught King that the length of a barrel did not change how fast a bullet entered an enemy’s head. The Glock 19 was pinpoint accurate, and that was what truly mattered.
Diego had fallen out of his line of sight. He would worry about the pilot later. Brad, on the other hand, was clearly visible. He’d ducked off to the far side of the hangar, putting a corrugated iron wall between himself and the 4WD. Just as King had done. A clear example of the quick thinking that separated the dead from the living.
‘You hear them?’ Brad called from across the space.
King nodded. The racket of the growling engine grew closer. ‘You think they know we’re right here?’
‘I can’t be sure.’
‘My bet is they’ll come speeding in. Be ready.’
King let his pulse quicken. The icy determination of imminent combat was upon him. He knew he had less than five seconds before the 4WD came roaring into the hangar.
He closed his eyes for a brief moment. Zoning in.
Now.
As soon as he saw the bonnet of the vehicle pass through the entrance he broke into a full sprint toward it. His timing paid off. As the truck charged into the building the men hanging out each window rotated wildly, desperately searching for targets. It took the two men on the left-hand side a fraction too long to notice King.
That half-second cost them their lives.
He raised the Glock with a rigid arm and squeezed off a single shot. His aim did not falter. Neither did the bullet. A loud discharge echoed off the walls and the man hanging out of the passenger seat jerked back, a red burst coating the matte black paint of the 4WD. Shocked by the sudden turn of events, the man behind him spun his rifle around to face King. He managed to fire two bullets.
Way off.
King felt them whisk past him as his stride quickened. He reached the truck just as it slammed on the brakes, the driver reacting to the now stone-dead passenger. King wound up and swung a well-placed fist at the assailant hanging out of the back seat. Squeezed his shoulder blades. Swung round. Followed through. His knuckles smashed into the man’s chin, breaking bone and tearing cartilage in his neck. His head whipped to the side and he slumped back inside the car, instantly unconscious.
The driver panicked. As King assumed he would. Two of his men had been incapacitated in the blink of an eye. King heard the screech of tyres and knew the 4WD was about to take off again.
In one movement he wrenched the door open and threw himself inside the truck.
Fighting for your life at close quarters inside a moving vehicle with two limp bodies in the mix was chaotic, to say the least. King thrived on chaos. It was something his enemies were never used to. But it was something he fully prepared for.
His eyes darted left and right. Assessing. Calculating.
There were two threats. The driver, currently focusing on slamming the accelerator. And the man in the back seat with him, separated by the limp body of his unconscious friend.
‘What the—’ the thug started.
King planted his feet on the floor and sprung across the man he’d just knocked out. He slammed into the thug, crushing him against the far door. Now the fight raged directly behind the driver. If he had a weapon, it would be difficult to fire a shot under these circumstances.
King wrapped an arm around the thug’s throat, taking advantage of the confusion. A glancing blow bounced off the side of his head. It did little to faze him. He locked his hands together and squeezed like a madman. Tensing all the muscles in his forearm, he pulled and wrenched and constricted like his life depended on it.
Which it did.
He’d locked the choke in under the chin, which was disastrous in any street fight. Nine times out of ten it led to unconsciousness. With a man of King’s power and explosiveness, half the time it resulted in a crushed larynx, and possibly death.
It didn’t take long for the thug to join his comrade in unconsciousness. King felt him go limp, and released him instantly. There was no use wasting time making sure he was dead. For now, he was out of the fight. That was all that mattered.
Now, a new situation appeared. King and the driver were the only two people still conscious. The three bodies surrounding them were either dead, or close to. The driver quickly recognised how the tables had turned. He no longer had the advantage of numbers. He was about to enter combat with the man who had dispatched his three colleagues effortlessly, at the same time battling for control of an enormous motor vehicle. The odds were skewed heavily against him.
‘Give up,’ King said.
A futile statement. There would be no surrender. He watched the driver stamp down one last time, crushing the accelerator into the footwell. The engine roared and the speedometer spiked. Their surroundings quickened to a blur. The vehicle had already been clocking close to sixty miles an hour. Now it surged forward. One final burst of momentum.
The driver bailed before King could move. One moment he was there, white knuckles clutching the wheel determinedly. Then he reached down, tugged the handle and fell out the open space created by the door swinging open. As he disappeared, King saw what lay ahead. His view had been obscured by the back of the driver’s head. Now he saw the far wall of the hangar growing closer, expanding, filling his vision. The car was seconds away from impact.
He felt a pang of shock in his gut. He knew he was in an awkward position. The unconscious thug’s body lay splayed across him, pinning him in place. He took a deep breath and exploded into action. Fuelled by a burst of primal energy. The type of strength that only materialised in life-or-death situations. With one hand he threw the man away like a discarded plaything. With the other, he reached sideways. Desperate, manic. Knowing he would be pulverised if he was not out of the car in a second.
Two fingers found the door handle.
He tugged.
It opened.
Using one last surge of movement he dove. Springing off the footwell. Flailing head-first toward the gap.
Halfway out the door the vehicle ploughed into the hangar wall with breathtaking force.
CHAPTER 7
King felt the car crumple around him.
An ear-splitting shriek of tearing metal raged everywhere, from all directions, filling his senses. But he was out. With milliseconds to spare. The edge of the door clipped his ankles. Spun him around in mid-air. Threw him onto the concrete. He landed hard, back-first. Rolled with it. The impact flung him head-over-heels, careering across the concrete. First his upper back, then his shoulder.
Then — just as suddenly as the chaos had started — it stopped.
King tumbled to a halt a safe distance away from the wreck. Before his vision even returned to him his brain frantically sent signals through his limbs, searching for any dire injuries.
No broken bones. Nothing impeding his movement. His tumble-roll had reduced the majority of the force behind the landing. Sure, he would be excruciatingly sore when the adrenalin wore off. Soft tissue damage was inevitable. Half his body would be bruised.
Right now, that was inconsequential.
There was still one hostile alive.
The corrugated iron wall had taken just as much damage as the 4WD. It was thick material, but the collision had demolished much of its form. The car itself was a battered mess, its bonnet smoking, glass strewn everywhere. Ten feet away, the driver lay on the concrete. Shell-shocked from the landing.
He’d hit the concrete violently, much harder than King had.
King would capitalise on his inability to act.
He sprung to his feet, ignoring the nerve endings across his body screaming for him to rest. Slowly, tentatively, the driver rose too.
In unison, they both saw it.
The Glock 19 had been flung from the wreck, thrown out of King’s hands as he dove to safety. It lay in the space between them. Still spinning slowly on its side.
The driver recognised the importance of the gun, and charged at it.
King was three steps ahead.
In one motion he reached down and scooped the weapon off the ground. His finger slid into the trigger guard. He took another bounding step toward the driver and levelled the gun.
Then the driver’s actions took him by surprise. Clearly a trained mercenary, the man reached out and wrapped his hands around the gun with surprising accuracy and power. King felt it slipping from his grip as he depressed the trigger. A single round spat from the barrel and hit the man squarely in the centre of the chest, accompanied by the vicious noise of steel sinking through bone.
The driver would succumb to his wounds, that was for sure.
But that meant nothing, for now he had control of the Glock.
‘Gun!’ a voice roared from behind them.
King spun to see Brad storming across the hangar floor. The SCAR assault rifle from the duffel bag sat on his shoulder. He peered down the sights, aim locked directly on the driver.
King stood in between them.
He flung himself out of the way, arcing sideways through the air. He hit the ground hard and came to a skidding halt. Just in time to see events unfold.
Brad fired a burst from the rifle. His aim rang true. Three rounds tore up the driver’s chest, tearing his jacket to shreds. One of them hit his vital organs. King saw his eyes glaze over.
Then the driver fell to his knees, raised the Glock and spat out a final, desperate shot. The reverberation echoed off the walls. Finally, there was silence.
King breathed a sigh of relief and turned to thank Brad on coming to his rescue.
Which he found would be impossible.
Brad sported a cylindrical bullet hole in his temple. An instantly fatal shot. The life in his eyes had already died out. King watched the limp body slump to the concrete.
He took a moment to process the sight.
He was the last man alive in the warehouse.
He let his head fall back against the concrete, sucking in air, recovering from the brutal series of events. The only sound came from the wind slicing through the entrance and whistling around the empty hangar. He closed his eyes and let the calm of the aftermath wash over him.
‘This is fucked,’ he whispered, effectively summarising what had just occurred.
The operation had been torn apart before it was even supposed to begin.
CHAPTER 8
He heard Diego stumble into the hangar not long after. He kept his eyes closed, reeling from the close call.
‘Oh my god,’ the pilot exclaimed.
‘I’m alive, Diego,’ King shouted.
He opened his eyes to see Diego jolt, startled by the sound of a man he’d thought to be dead. He looked around. Brad and the driver lay opposite each other, face-down in pools of their own blood. The body of one of the passengers hung half out the window of the obliterated 4WD. Near the Cessna, Clint’s body slumped motionless.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Diego said. ‘What the — oh my god.’ He struggled to form a coherent sentence. The man was clearly in a considerable state of shock.
Understandably, King thought. With no prior combat experience, the scene he gazed upon would be far too bizarre to process. It was time to relay clear, concise instructions to Diego until they were out of this mess.
King rose off the floor and laid a hand on the man’s shoulder.
‘My name is Jason King,’ he said, slowly and calmly. ‘I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself earlier. I’m a soldier. A very good one. I’m going to get you to safety, okay?’
‘Okay.’ Diego remained unable to peel his eyes away from the bodies strewn across the hangar.
‘Look at me, Diego.’
The pilot glanced briefly in his general direction.
‘We need to go through with the plan,’ King said. ‘Do you hear me?’