by Matt Rogers
Slater muttered, ‘Hello, old friend.’
53
He thought the fight had left him.
He thought he’d left the past in the past.
He thought he was done with this life forever.
And then Will Slater called from a pay phone in Khabarovsk.
Clad in jet black combat gear, Jason King moved through the darkened passageways below deck, having demolished the main generator seconds earlier. He’d left the prime mover and alternator in ruins. The emergency power system would kick in without much of a delay, but that delay was all he needed.
He sensed unrest in the next passageway. Six or seven men clustered tightly together, caught in an awkward log jam as their visibility disappeared and claustrophobia set in, the icebreaker groaning all around them as it headed further out to sea on its predetermined path. King didn’t know when it would intercept the convoy of U.S. Navy warships, but he’d heard every word that Magomed said thanks to an earpiece sitting deep inside Slater’s ear canal.
He barrelled into the lip of the passageway and raised his Heckler & Koch HK433 assault rifle, painted black, its shoulder stock folded. He fired a tight cluster of rounds into the unprotected face of the shocked mercenary standing frozen in the centre of the corridor. The guy’s facial features disappeared in an explosion of gore and his lifeless body dropped to the metal floor. King vaulted over him on the way down and emptied the rest of the clip into the rest of the bodies, dropping mercenaries left and right, the unsuppressed roar of gunfire resonating off the walls.
When the rifle clicked dry he shouldered aside a bullet-riddled corpse still in the process of falling to the floor and swung the gun like a baseball bat into the throat of the nearest man. The guy was slow to react, inhibited by the darkness and the muzzle flares and the deafening scream of gunfire. King’s ungodly power caved in the soft tissue of his throat and he collapsed against the closest wall, suffocating, succumbing to a grisly death.
King snatched hold of the corpse he’d thrown aside and hurled it into the last remaining guy, sending two hundred pounds of deadweight into the centre of his chest. Knocked off his feet by the staggering impact, the guy went down in a tangle of limbs and King leapt on top of him, heaving the corpse aside, its purpose utilised.
He ripped a combat knife from his appendix holster and plunged it into the guy’s throat.
He gave a pathetic wheeze, and died horribly.
King reloaded the HK433, slotting a fresh magazine home. He surveyed the devastation behind him as the emergency power system kicked in, illuminating the six corpses, showing the stark reality of what had happened in the dark.
A shudder tore through him.
The Jason King of old was returning.
Piece by piece.
He sensed the anger building, the rage that was necessary to do the things he was capable of. He channelled it toward the men aboard the icebreaker, the remnants of an operation in an abandoned gold mine that had pushed him further than he ever thought he could go. It had tested his limits, showing what a human being was capable of. And he knew the worst of them remained behind, swaying to the highest bidder, which in that case involved an ex-politician with enough smarts to potentially pull it off.
So retirement on an island off the coast of Thailand had to be put on hold.
Because King couldn’t sit back and watch nuclear war unfold from a beach.
Supercharged with motivation, he thundered through the below-deck passageways, weaving left and right with no particular agenda or destination in mind.
He was searching for hostiles.
He found two men clutching their weapons like their lives depended on it in a narrow steel tunnel, aiming them in every direction at once. They spotted the hulking silhouette at one end of the passageway far too late. One of them cried out and raised his gun, his lips twisting into a mask of horror.
Because he sensed the calmness with which the intruder approached.
King shot the first guy in the forehead, sending a single lead round burrowing into his brain like a metal beetle. He collapsed into his comrade. The pair were standing far too close together to be tactically efficient. The second guy wheeled on the spot, catching his friend, unaware the man was dead. When the gunshot blared off the walls a few milliseconds later he flinched and tried to raise his weapon toward an unknown presence.
King put a bullet in his throat.
He shoved the corpses aside, slamming them into the wall before they hit the ground, dissipating some of the adrenalin coursing through him.
He hadn’t unleashed this side of himself in a long, long time.
As it came out, it was almost too much to tame.
A fresh face tore into view at the other end of the passageway, responding to the altercation with his rifle raised, searching for a target. With King’s brain firing on all cylinders, time seemed to slow, and it looked like the newcomer was dragging his limbs through mud, even if he appeared shockingly fast to the untrained eye.
He didn’t even draw a beat on King before a cluster of rounds destroyed the lower half of his face, sending him careening back into the metal wall and slumping to the floor.
King sprinted forward, caught hold of the body, and dragged it through the next corridor. A strict powerlifting regime on Koh Tao Island had kept him in serious shape, and now he treated the corpse like it was nothing, even though it weighed close to a buck eighty. When the next two mercenaries materialised at the end of this passageway, they caught their dead comrade square across their chests.
King had heard them coming. He’d noted their footsteps, tapped into the fast twitch muscle fibres crackling across his giant frame, and hurled the dead man double-handed off the floor.
Now, the trio collapsed to the metal floor, one dead, two alive.
King stamped down on the dead man, crushing the two mercenaries under the deadweight, and fired a well-placed round through each of their skulls.
Eleven dead.
There were more. Countless more. Slinking through the ship all around him, attempting to locate the source of all the chaos. But through the haze of adrenalin King sensed the wind howling against the side of his face. He spun, searching for the source, and noticed an open shell door facing the sea. Sleet and ocean spray tore in, and the wind buffeted down the passageway and lashed at his combat gear.
Slater.
He was close. He retraced the path from memory, remembering the amount of time he’d heard Slater being dragged through the earpiece and extrapolating that to a guide through the icebreaker’s underbelly. He sprinted down an endless series of passageways, favouring speed over stealth, and shouldered his way through a giant pair of oak doors into a luxurious state room.
There was Slater.
Sprawled across the bed. Bloody, semi-conscious, concussed.
And there was an unidentified man with a snarl pressing a semi-automatic pistol to the side of Slater’s head.
‘Whoa,’ King said. ‘Relax.’
The man stood there, frozen, perplexed, his gun hand shaking. Pumped full of adrenalin.
King pointed the barrel of his HK433 at the floor and raised his other hand high, fingers splayed. ‘Relax. You win.’
The guy wasn’t used to this. He didn’t know how to handle a situation like what was unfolding. He nodded, still staring King dead in the eyes, paying Slater no attention.
‘Put the weapon down,’ the man grunted.
Gently, Slater lifted a swollen finger and tilted the gun barrel a couple of inches away from his head.
King had the rifle aimed square between the guy’s eyes in less than a half a second, and he pulled the trigger.
Blood sprayed and the man dropped limp into the narrow gap between the side of the bed and the far wall.
Slater breathed a sigh of relief. ‘You made it in.’
‘Told you I would. Did we just win?’
Groggy, eyes half closed, Slater flashed a glance at the corpse in the corner. ‘No
. That’s not him. He left as soon as he heard the gunfire.’
‘How are you?’
‘Not good.’
That was an understatement.
54
King took up position in the doorway, reloaded HK433 aimed at the other end of the passageway, anticipating resistance at any moment.
‘Talk to me,’ he said, his voice looping over his shoulder to catch Slater, still sprawled immobile on the bed.
‘Did you hear what Magomed said?’
‘Most of it. Doesn’t sound good.’
‘I don’t know how long we have. I can’t … focus on anything. I’m in bad shape.’
‘You’re in better shape than you were last night,’ King said.
It was true. King had wrenched Ruslan Mikhailov’s head clean off his shoulders with a garrote, and then found Slater curled up in a ball on the other side of the concrete room, on the verge of death. He’d unlocked his cuffs, loaded him with enough pain medication to dull the agony, and let him rest through the night as Magomed’s sizeable forces seized the icebreaker under cover of darkness at the other end of Medved.
But King couldn’t take them on single-handedly.
He’d needed a decoy.
A distraction.
He’d needed Slater functioning well enough to bear the burden.
And King always knew he would.
‘They’ll meet up with the Navy fleet soon,’ King said. ‘Then it’s just a matter of catching them off guard. It won’t take much effort. Magomed will turn this ship around and tear one of the warships apart. And I heard what you said. About it not being enough. Trust me. It’ll be more than enough.’
‘You sure?’
‘You’ve been keeping yourself in the dark all these months, haven’t you? Ever since we split up in Dubai.’
‘Yes. I don’t look at the news. I only hear rumours. I don’t want to know what almost happened.’
‘It’s still almost happening. Our government isn’t talking to their government. They’ve gone radio silent on each other. This is the first attempt to repair tensions since the super carrier incident. So it’s on shaky ground already. What do you think the mass murder of hundreds of Navy sailors will do to the relationship? It’s already patchy enough.’
‘No-one’s suicidal enough to start nuclear conflict.’
‘Maybe not. Not yet. But that’s a slippery slope and you know it. Tensions will skyrocket even further. Trade will be affected. Everyone will choose sides. And it’s not going to get better. Not anytime soon. It’s only going to get worse. What do you think happens then?’
‘How many did you kill?’
‘Twelve. Including that guy.’
‘There’s more.’
‘I know. There’s a hell of a lot more.’
‘Are you hurt?’
‘No.’
‘I’m sorry I pulled you back. I know you found your peace.’
‘I found it. That’s gone now.’
‘What?’
‘We’ll talk about it later. The old me was gone. I just brought him back.’
‘He needs to be back.’
‘I might not ever be the same.’
‘Later,’ Slater hissed. ‘Right now everything’s on track for Magomed. He’ll probably fast track everything. Ram one of the ships as soon as the icebreaker meets up with them. He doesn’t need to play along anymore.’
‘If we get off this ship,’ King said, ‘we can reveal the truth. We can tell everyone it wasn’t the Russian government.’
Slater said nothing for a long time.
King sighed. ‘It won’t matter, will it?’
‘You really think anyone will care? That’s twice in a row. If anything they’ll blame the Russians for their own ineptitude.’
‘And hundreds of sailors will die,’ King said. ‘If I do nothing…’
‘That’s nothing in comparison to who will die in the conflict afterwards. If you’re so convinced it’ll happen.’
‘It’ll happen.’
‘So you know what you need to do,’ Slater said.
‘How many more do you think there are?’
‘Thirty, maybe.’
‘Can you help me?’
‘Look at me,’ Slater said, mirroring Magomed’s words.
King turned and looked. He’d never seen Slater so incapacitated. The man slumped against the headboard, breathing deep and fast, face and hand swollen. Blood covered his features. And there was a fogginess behind his eyes that King had never seen before. He’d lost his lucidity, if only temporarily. He was useless.
‘It has to be me,’ King said, the inhale rattling in his own chest.
‘I can’t,’ Slater said. ‘You know I can’t. I wouldn’t have needed you if I could do it on my own.’
‘Yeah…’
‘When did you decide to come?’
‘When you called in Khabarovsk. I know who you are, Slater. I know there was a zero percent chance you’d avoid conflict.’
‘But the old you wasn’t there anymore. You said that yourself.’
‘I brought him back. Because I knew you’d get yourself killed otherwise.’
‘What’s that going to cost?’
‘I don’t know,’ King said, turning back to lock his focus onto the empty hallway. ‘My sanity, probably.’
‘Klara?’ Slater said.
‘I told her I was going away. She knew why. But she didn’t ask.’
‘Will she stay?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Thank you, King. I’d be dead if you didn’t come. And Magomed would get away with this.’
‘He still might.’
‘Not if you do what you know you need to do.’
‘I might not be able to.’
‘The world won’t be the same if this happens and you know it as well as I do.’
‘Yeah.’
‘So that’s your choice.’
‘If I do this,’ King said. ‘I won’t come back the same.’
‘That’s the choice you have to make,’ Slater said.
The silence hung heavy in the air.
Slater said, ‘I won’t make it for you.’
‘You already did.’
‘This is your call.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ King muttered, tightening his grip on the HK433. ‘I brought the old guy back as soon as I put that garrote around Mikhailov’s neck.’
‘Almost poetic,’ Slater said. ‘You finished off the family.’
‘Yeah,’ King grumbled, rising off one knee, standing solemnly in the doorway.
‘Go finish it,’ Slater said.
‘And if I fail?’
‘When the fuck have you failed?’
King nodded. ‘I’ll be right back.’
55
They were waiting.
That suited King.
He thrived in tight spaces. He relished the confusion and the darkness and the narrow passageways and the laboured breathing of his enemies as their chests tightened and their heart rates skyrocketed and their palms turned sweaty as they gripped their weapons.
Because all the firepower in the world didn’t mean a thing when there were sharp right-angle turns every few dozen feet.
King tore out of the doorway, leaving Slater to his own devices. He didn’t need to babysit the man. Will Slater was one of the most dangerous men on the planet. They’d talked as much as they could the night before. Catching up on old times as Slater lay there on the concrete floor, riding out the concussion symptoms, unsure if he would make it to the morning.
They’d spoken of Yemen and Macau, two separate countries that had proved disastrous for Slater’s health and long-term wellbeing. But he’d saved a city from a weaponised virus, and he’d saved a young girl from a lifetime of torment.
Both equally noble endeavours.
And sitting there under the weak flickering cage bulbs the night before, a wry smile had crept across King’s face. It was the confirmation he needed. Beca
use his own life had become shockingly dormant. He’d started to become accustomed to the relaxation. The itch to hone his body and mind into peak condition had never gone away. He still slaved away at the Muay Thai gyms on Koh Tao. He still pushed himself to near breaking point every day, because he’d never known anything else. But he’d truly never expected to return to the front lines.
That had all changed a few days ago.
Now he barrelled down a claustrophobic passageway, unsure if he would ever escape this life. Perhaps Koh Tao had been his last chance. Fate, telling him to lay low if he wanted to live out the rest of his days undisturbed. The second he’d stepped off that island en route to Vladivostok, all the familiar sensations had returned.
Momentum.
Relentlessness.
Carnage.
Klara knew what was happening. She hadn’t pressed the issue. She’d just nodded. Which almost made it worse. He’d wanted her to plead with him to stay, to put that life firmly in the past even if it meant letting the world tear itself apart around him. Because at some point he needed to let go of all this, and he thought he had.
All an illusion.
He approached a T-junction and slowed his pace, gripping the HK433 tight, senses reeling. He was laser focused on the space ahead, listening for any sign of activity. Sure enough, he picked up the unmistakable sound of approaching footsteps.
From both directions.
He stopped dead in his tracks, only half a foot from the T-junction.
Waiting.
There was hesitation. Confusion. He knew what was happening. A man was approaching from each side, and they’d made eye contact. They’d heard something too. They were in the process of silently communicating with their body language, planning some kind of simultaneous assault.
They didn’t know King was right there.
The guy on the left stepped into view first and King put him down with three bullets to the centre mass, impossibly loud in juxtaposition with the preceding silence. The second guy flinched hard, moving imperceptibly backward instead of forward. He probably knew confrontation was inevitable, but there was a world of difference between someone mentally prepared for combat and someone who’d lived in the heat of battle every day for ten years. King took advantage of that gap. He didn’t hesitate, or flinch, or recoil.