by Matt Rogers
There was no time to retrieve it — even for a split second — because King realised how it had all happened.
The fifth and final mercenary had observed what King had done with the first guy, and repeated it. As his comrade had died the man had shoved him from behind, double-handed, sending the body sprawling into King. Now the guy charged across the trail, covering the few feet between them in record time. King sensed him coming, all two-hundred plus pounds of muscle.
The Congo was not a forgiving place, and all these men were in the business of death. King had taken out four with the element of surprise, but now a level playing field had been established.
This was going to hurt.
The fifth mercenary crashed into him before he could regain his composure, and the pair sprawled into the dust in a no-holds-barred fight to the death.
39
King’s mindset shifted.
A certain darkness enveloped him, consuming his thoughts, stripping away the ordinary Jason King and replacing him with a monster that would do absolutely anything necessary to survive.
At the same time he steeled his nerves, accepting that he might get the ever-loving shit beaten out of him in the coming moments.
But no matter what, he would persevere.
He would win.
Even if he broke all the bones in his body trying.
As they hit the ground King levered his hips, using the momentum to launch his rear off the ground and slip over the top of his sprawling adversary. Up close he could sense all the details of the man — his coarse blond hair, his massive shoulders, the unnatural veins in his forearms that only appeared in a man pumped up with artificial testosterone.
Suddenly something overwhelmed him, a strange kind of clarity that he’d never experienced before in the heat of the moment. He realised he subliminally understood how the man underneath him was going to move, how the guy was going to use his momentum and his weight to pitch and lever himself off the ground.
He recognised the mercenary was going to burst up off his elbows, and he leant all his weight on the guy’s chest, crushing him back into the ground.
The man swung a fist upward, burdened by gravity. King batted it away like it was nothing and dropped one of the most pinpoint-accurate elbows he’d ever thrown into the guy’s sternum. With a cough and a splutter, the man faltered.
King followed up with a colossal headbutt.
A world of opportunity opened up.
He spotted gaps in the man’s defences without so much as a second look and took direct advantage of the change in momentum. The guy moved to roll to his side to protect his exposed face, and King smashed a punch into his ear, bouncing his skull off the gravel. That loosened the guy up enough to make him drop his guard completely, lowering his hands as his equilibrium went haywire.
Then it was over.
King took the opportunity to fire a massive haymaker with his right fist — ordinarily, combat left no room for such wild shots, but the mercenary had frozen underneath him, locked up in hesitation by the onslaught of strikes. It allowed King to charge up all his energy into a single devastating punch, crashing off the same sensitive patch of flesh just above the guy’s ear. It shut the lights out, like flipping a switch.
The guy went instantly limp.
Either unconscious or dead.
King didn’t leave it to chance.
He wrestled the shiny Colt M1911A1 out of the holster at the guy’s waist and sent a .45 ACP round through the side of the mercenary’s head before his conscience told him otherwise.
These men had tried to kill him, and he would not be merciful on them. King glanced at the weapon in his hands, experiencing a brief moment of nostalgia. Delta favoured the M1911A1 and most of King’s relentless sessions at the firing range had been with identical pistols. He considered the weapon an extension of himself, the act of firing and hitting his target ingrained into his subconscious.
Then he climbed off the dead body underneath him and fired a second ACP round through the brain of the second mercenary, the one who he’d dumped on his head. The guy had just made it back to his feet, his legs stumbling underneath him as he righted himself. The fatal bullet sent him straight back to the gravel, his efforts entirely in vain.
Then there was nothing.
King stood around five dead men, breathing hard as he rode out the release of cortisol in his brain. The adrenalin supercharged his nerves, heightening all his senses. But there were no threats left to dispatch, and the inevitable comedown had to be taken care of then and there.
Motionless on the gravel trail, he realised he didn’t have a scratch on him.
‘Unbelievable,’ he whispered to himself.
Maybe training with Brody had subconsciously taught him things he’d never anticipated. Ordinarily he would have expected a beatdown at the hands of the last man — he could run through combatants using surprise to his advantage, but not when the playing field was even.
The way he’d levered his weight to completely neutralise his opponent’s attacks left him stunned, casting his eyes from body to body to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.
He’d never done that before.
It had been total domination.
He kept the Colt M1911A1 gripped tight in his hand as he made his way back through the perimeter gate, heading for the warehouse.
He wondered if Brody had heard the shots.
He must have.
A moment later he rounded the front roller door of the warehouse and stepped inside, facing a stunned Brody across the combat mats.
40
Before he started to explain what had happened, King noticed Thorn slumped over in his seat.
Unconscious.
Bleeding.
Not in good shape.
‘What did you do?’ King said.
Brody folded his hands over his chest. ‘I got the information I wanted.’
‘Which was?’
‘Wyatt knows. Wyatt was involved. All those years ago.’
‘You know that for certain? You sure this guy wasn’t talking shit to try and save his own skin?’
‘Trust me. I know.’
‘Just Wyatt?’
‘He won’t elaborate. I don’t think he knows much. But he remembers the village needed to be cleared, and instead of relocating the villagers Wyatt took responsibility. Thorn never heard from any of the villagers again. He’d assumed they’d been forcibly evicted until he walked through the village and saw all the blood.’
‘It was Wyatt? All on his own?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘This is what I was afraid of,’ King said.
‘What?’
‘You have a lead. You’re going after him, aren’t you?’
‘I’m man enough to admit when I can’t control myself. This is one of those times. Sooner or later, I’ll go. It’s best not to put it off.’
‘I can lock you up,’ King said. ‘In the house. If that’s what you want. Until you calm down.’
‘Wyatt knows,’ was all Brody said.
‘You think he did it?’
‘I’m sure going to find out.’
King crossed the mats, drawing to within a foot of the man he’d spent nearly every moment of the last couple of weeks of his life with. ‘Everything we discussed. Everything you swore you wouldn’t do. You’re about to do it.’
Brody gestured to Thorn, who was beginning to stir out of the throes of unconsciousness. ‘Look, King. Look. I’ve already crossed that line. I can’t go back now. Not until all this is behind me.’
‘You said it yourself. You start down this path and who knows where you’ll end up? Where are you going to draw the line in future? You just going to leave it at Wyatt? What if you get to know someone down the line and they go missing? You going to go on a bloody rampage again? You said it yourself. You need to stop before it’s too late.’
‘I’m not getting to know anyone down the line.’
‘Don’t be ridicul
ous.’
‘You don’t understand what this has done to me. I’ve been living in isolation for the last three years because of this.’
‘So why take me? Why am I here?’
‘Because I’d been keeping my head down for too long. I was close to venturing out into the world again when I got the offer to train a prodigy. I took it up. And I think I’ve done goddamn well considering I heard multiple gunshots a few minutes ago and you seem to be standing here without a scratch on you.’
‘You’ve done well, Brody. You’ve done well.’
‘What happened?’
‘They said they were taking Thorn back. By force if they needed to. I disagreed.’
‘Firefight?’
‘Not much of one.’
‘Did you feel different?’
King nodded. ‘I don’t know what happened. I just … saw things.’
‘They’re dead?’
Another nod.
‘All of them?’
‘All five.’
‘You killed five men?’ Brody said, unable to hide his astonishment. ‘I was only back here for a couple of minutes.’
‘What can I say? I’m getting better.’
‘More importantly, you didn’t get your head kicked in.’
‘You think this will stop?’ King said. ‘They’ll keep coming. From the mine. They have enough money to hire every soldier of fortune in the goddamn Congo. There’s no fix to this.’
‘I know,’ Brody said. ‘That’s why I didn’t get back in the game. Because this is exactly the type of thing I knew would happen.’
‘I think all odds of a swap have gone out the window, don’t you?’
Reluctantly, Brody nodded. ‘The question is, what happens n—’
He didn’t finish the last word of the sentence, because at that moment a digital shriek sounded from across the warehouse, emanating from King’s faded duffel bag. He’d dumped it in the corner when they’d returned from Kisangani. Now he eyed the bag cautiously.
‘You think that’s Lars?’ he said.
‘Who else has that number?’
‘No-one.’
‘Stall him.’
‘How?’
‘Tell him training’s going fine.’
‘I think he knows something’s up. He’s been calling non-stop lately. Like a delusional ex-girlfriend. I can’t keep giving him nothing. Besides, he’s probably lost all contact with Bernardi, too…’
Brody pressed two fingers into his eyelids. ‘Christ, I forgot about Bernardi.’
Something sparked in King’s mind — a way to solve all their problems in one fell swoop. He held up a hand to instruct Brody to remain calm. ‘Let me take this. I can delay him another day or two, just by being vague. Then I have an idea.’
‘About Bernardi?’
‘Yeah. We need him back, or I’m fucked. I’ll wind up in an off-grid military prison for getting a diplomat killed for no good reason. Hold on…’
King recognised the call was about to end, and he flew over the mats, hurrying past Thorn’s semiconscious form. He rummaged around in his duffel and wrenched the satellite phone out from between a pair of sweaty workout clothes. He studied the information displayed on the tiny digital screen and furrowed his brow in confusion.
Brody recognised something was amiss from across the warehouse. ‘What is it?’
King held up the phone half-heartedly — it still shrilled with a digital high-pitched whine. ‘It’s not Lars. I don’t recognise the number.’
‘Who knows to contact you there?’
‘I told you. No-one.’
‘Answer it.’
‘It can’t be good.’
‘You’re better answering it than ignoring it.’
‘You sure?’
‘Pick up the goddamn phone, King.’
King thumbed a button and lifted the device to his ear. He said nothing, allowing the elapsing silence to seep through both ends of the conversation. He would wait for whoever was on the other end of the line to speak. He felt uncomfortable giving anything away.
Then, after a beat of hesitation, a voice exploded across the line. ‘Have you gone mute, King? Speak up. We need to fucking talk.’
Wyatt.
41
A wave of unease washed over King, but he didn’t let it show in the slightest.
‘What do you want?’ he said, close to dismissive.
‘You have something that belongs to me.’
‘Someone.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I can say the same.’
‘You think we could negotiate a swap without resorting to our instincts?’
‘Maybe. How’d you get this number?’
‘I work for a billion-dollar corporation. There’s plenty of ways to trace a satellite phone. Especially considering there’s about three in this entire country.’
‘That’s an exaggeration.’
‘Regardless — here I am. You want to talk?’
‘Happy to.’
‘How’s my friend doing?’
King glanced at Thorn, now drooling blood onto the mats between his feet. ‘Pretty well, all things considered.’
‘Want to know how your man’s doing?’
King paused, racing through how quickly the situation could turn south. Did Wyatt know how important Bernardi was? If he’d managed to squeeze the true nature of the man’s role in the government out from between bloody lips, then the entire conversation might be a farce. If Wyatt knew the value of the hostage he had in his possession, he would never let Bernardi go without a substantial payout.
Unless Thorn meant a great deal to him.
King had to assume the two were close. The savagery of the Congo no doubt brought contract workers closer together, no matter the nature of their role. In amongst the killing and the intimidation and the bloodshed, they were human. They formed bonds, and brotherhoods.
He had to imagine Wyatt wanted his co-worker returned safely.
‘How’s he doing?’ King said.
‘So he is your man.’
‘I know him.’
‘Want to explain how you two are connected?’
‘Can’t tell you that, Wyatt. Now do you want to arrange a swap or not?’
‘Of course.’
‘So — specifics…’
‘Does the phone you’re talking to me on right now have a built-in satellite map?’
‘It does.’
‘Good. There’s a trail between our complexes that cuts through a patch of jungle. It’s narrow — you can’t pass another vehicle going in the opposite direction. And the terrain on either side is thick. Good luck trying to set up an ambush in that madness. We’ll meet there. An hour from now. Halfway down the track, stop with everyone in the vehicle sitting still and we’ll stop facing you. The two hostages will get out and pass each other by. They’ll both be bound at the wrists only. And unarmed. We’re not going to point weapons at each other. We’re going to do this civilly.’
‘Sounds good to me.’
‘You thinking about setting up an ambush, Jason King?’
King paused, thrown off by the strange use of his full name. ‘No.’
‘I think you might be. Want to know why?’
‘Sure.’
‘I think your friend isn’t too happy with me.’
‘Brody?’
‘That’s the one. You got any other friends out here that I might be speaking of?’
‘Just him.’
‘Then that’s exactly who I’m talking about, buddy.’
‘Why wouldn’t he be happy with you?’
‘I don’t know, mate. I’ve just got the feeling that my pal Thorn might have fed him some lies. Told him some mistruths, if you want to put it that way. I might not be thrilled if your friend Brody thinks he can take me by surprise when we swap the hostages. You get what I mean?’
‘You won’t have any problems.’
‘Of course you’d tell me that. But I think behind t
he scenes, you’ll be plotting. I think your friend Brody might have the wrong idea. I’d advise you to control him, Jason King. I’d advise you not to fuck with us under any circumstances.’
‘Do you know about your co-workers who showed up here earlier?’ King said.
It threw Wyatt off — King could sense it in the brief moment of hesitation. ‘What?’
‘Soldiers of fortune from the open-pit mine. Maroon Ford Raptor. Looks like your bosses sent them to get your friend back without your knowledge.’
‘I see.’
‘They didn’t get him back. If you get what I mean.’
‘Doesn’t bother me either way.’
‘I’m telling you I just killed five men. I’m new here, but you don’t want trouble with me either. Let’s get this swap over and done with and stop bragging about our abilities.’
Another pause from the other end of the line, which King mistakenly took as hesitation. He couldn’t resist a smirk, growing ever more confident — which made the next twenty seconds of conversation soul-shattering in their revelations.
‘So…’ he started to say.
Wyatt broke out in laughter.
Harsh, cruel laughter.
The kind of amusement that only came when a man had nothing left to lose. In that single moment King understood that nothing they’d just discussed had been relevant, or in any way meaningful. He said nothing, letting things play out organically. He wanted to know just what the hell was going on.
‘Bet you thought all your problems would magically disappear,’ Wyatt said. ‘Are you really that dumb?’
‘You want to swap or not?’
‘I know Brody thinks I have something to do with his dead girlfriend. You really expect me to go through with a hostage negotiation knowing you have an unhinged psychopath in your midst? He’ll try to kill me the first chance he gets. So I’m going to pass on all this bullshit. Sorry, mate.’
‘Do you want your friend back or not?’ King said, growing increasingly irate as the tension mounted.