by Matt Rogers
‘Got any weapons on you?’ he said.
‘No,’ Lars said. ‘And now neither do you.’
From behind, a pair of hands wrapped around his wrists and tugged hard. The altercation took him completely by surprise. He hadn’t heard anyone come up behind him. His heart leapt in shock, loosening his grip slightly, enough for the hands to wrench the M&P out of his grasp. He found himself unarmed for a split second.
Then the assailant fired a single round into his foot. The 9mm round penetrated his all-weather boot and tore through skin and tendons near his toes. The shock caused his legs to buckle and his weight to drop. Before he knew it he lay on the cold surface of the runway, staring up at the barrel of his own weapon, panting from the instant agony that came from such a wound.
It was the person on the other end that startled him most.
Officer Kitchener of the Jameson Police Department.
CHAPTER 40
The expression on her face had King confused. Reeling at the sudden change of fortune, it took him a moment to process such a look. It was a mixed bag of relief, angst and fear.
‘Good girl,’ Lars said.
Keeping her pistol trained on King, she tossed the M4 carbine across the tarmac. Lars caught it and slipped a finger into the trigger guard. Kitchener turned and yanked Kate out of the Hawkei. She fell to the tarmac beside King, staring in disbelief at the police officer. Kitchener wiped her brow and readjusted her grip on the pistol.
‘Bet you didn’t see that one coming,’ Lars said, striding forward in nonchalant fashion.
‘Can’t say I did,’ King said.
‘I’m sorry, King,’ Kitchener said.
‘Sorry?’ Lars said, and let out another harsh cackle. ‘If you were sorry you wouldn’t have shot him. If you were sorry you wouldn’t have taken my offer all those weeks ago.’
‘Offer?’ King said.
‘What did you expect?’ Lars said, pointing at Kitchener. ‘You think a broke small-town cop living from paycheque to paycheque would say no to seven figures? Do you really believe it’s that hard to get people to work for you? Jason, Jason, Jason. You act like everyone who gets swayed by money is a monster. It’s called being human.’
‘That true?’ King said, looking up at Kitchener.
She shrugged. ‘Somewhat.’
‘When did he contact you?’
‘As soon as he landed in the country, last month. I’ve been trapped in this town my whole life. Don’t have the funds to move. Now I’m free.’
‘What about all the people that are going to die?’
‘No-one will know I was involved.’
‘You’re pathetic.’
Her grip on the pistol hardened, and her tone darkened. ‘Am I? Who’s around to say so? Just you and your girlfriend? You won’t be much longer.’
King turned to look at Lars. ‘So she’s been with you this entire time?’
He nodded.
‘Then you’ve been letting me live.’
He nodded again. Another wry, disgusting smile spread across his lips. ‘You’re catching on.’
‘She saved us at the concrete plant.’
‘I had a change of heart at the top of the road. Sent her down to help you. I wanted you to tag along for a little longer. Wanted you to actually see me leave with the spores.’
‘You killed your own men?’
He laughed. ‘Jason, I handled you for ten years. I know exactly what you’re capable of. You think I sent all my men to kill you at the dropzone with any intention that they would return?’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘I needed to dispose of them anyway. Turns out I had a one-man killing machine conveniently running around behind me. I just fed them to you.’
King saw the plan. ‘No witnesses.’
‘Exactly.’
With that, Lars turned and swung the barrel of the M4 so that it pointed directly between the eyes of the last remaining mercenary. He was a black man, short and stocky, with wide eyes and a quivering mouth, both recent developments after listening to Lars reveal his true intentions.
‘You can’t be fucking serious,’ he said.
‘Sorry, champ.’
Kate let out a cry and averted her eyes from the killing. It only took a cluster of bullets to the temple for the man to tumble back against the side of the monoplane, smacking into its chassis with a dull thud and slumping to the ground a moment later.
Lars turned back to King. ‘Where were we?’
‘You were explaining your entire plan to me instead of putting a bullet in my head.’
‘Ah, so I was. It’s hard to resist, you know. The movies make it seem like a ridiculous concept. Why aren’t I killing you? The truth is, this is the most enjoyment I’ve felt in … years. Look at your face!’
‘Did you kill Brandt?’ King said to Kitchener. ‘You killed your co-workers?’
‘No,’ Kitchener said quietly.
‘That was me, I’ll admit,’ Lars said, raising a hand in jest as if he were a kid in a classroom. ‘Officer William Brandt — nice enough fellow — happened to see us carting the spores around the construction site. Kitchener here didn’t have the stomach to kill, at least back then. She kindly informed me of his place of residence and I got the job done.’
‘Hence the imposter at the police station,’ King said. ‘You let him in?’
Kitchener said, ‘He was one of the mercenaries. I gave him Brandt’s uniform when we heard you were in the area. Before we came to arrest you. I didn’t want to kill you myself.’
‘Oh, so you’re a coward as well as a bitch.’
She stepped a little closer to him, barrel locked on target. ‘Want to see how I’ve changed?’
‘I saw first-hand at the warehouse. That was a quick turnaround.’
‘Money does that.’
King didn’t respond. He looked past her, to the tree line on the other side of the runway. The pine branches stirred softly in the breeze. In amongst the darkness of the forest, he thought he saw a slight glint. Like the sun reflecting off metal.
He turned to Lars. ‘Want to know the problem with using local help?’
‘What’s that?’
‘They’re complete amateurs.’
‘Excuse me?’ Kitchener said, rattling the pistol in his face.
‘You heard me,’ he said. ‘You see, all this juicy gossip would have been big news if I didn’t realise you were working for Lars yesterday.’
‘What?’
‘Remember when you and Dawes arrested us at the construction office?’ King said. ‘You took us back to the station and decided to tell me that you’d had a look into my file. You noted that I used to work for Black Force.’
‘Yeah…’
‘Well, the only way you could have known that was if someone close to me told you. Such as Lars. There are roughly five people on the planet who know what I used to do. And you are definitely not one of them. That division of the U.S. Government doesn’t exist. It’s a little hard to read a file on it when every single aspect of the program was deliberately kept off the books.’
‘You played along, though?’ Kitchener said. Now the doubt had begun to creep into her tone.
‘I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on. It took me by surprise. So I just watched you very closely. And waited.’
‘Well it seems you waited a tad too long.’
‘Quite the contrary. I made my move last night.’
She paused. ‘When you left the factory?’
‘I never scouted the town last night. What good would that have done? It’s Jameson. Completely useless to wandering the empty streets.’
Silence.
‘In fact,’ he said, ‘I made a few calls. To a few old friends. Turns out one of them was in the country. He had to drive all night to make it here.’
She shot a glance in either direction, keeping her gun trained on him. ‘I don’t see anyone.’
‘That’s the point.’
The
runway seemed to freeze for a single moment in time. Lars had watched the conversation unfold with growing restlessness, eyes darting left and right, searching for invisible threats. King knew he had unnerved them. Kitchener remained unsure of herself, awkwardly shifting her weight from foot to foot. The type of action that came from sudden discomfort and unease. She’d felt so in control, and now it had all been torn away. Did King really have backup? Was he lying?
The answer came a second later.
CHAPTER 41
A .338 Lapau Magnum bullet sliced through the top of her head, creating a deluge of blood and brain matter. King knew the exact make of the bullet because he knew the round came from a Barrett MRAD sniper rifle, which was the only weapon of choice of the man behind the scope. When the man had one in his hands against a stationary target, missing was something of an anomaly.
The sound of the discharge rang out across the runway shortly after, at the same time that Kitchener’s corpse smacked against the tarmac. It caused Lars to flinch involuntarily. He raised his M4 and scanned the tree line, desperately searching for a target. Anything that could possibly resemble an enemy. He found nothing. Just as King knew he would.
Lars had spent the majority of his career behind a desk, which was why he hesitated. The correct course of action would be to unload the gun on the two people in front of him and dive for cover. He did neither of those things, determined to find the sniper in the trees.
It gave King more than enough time to scramble over to Kitchener’s dead body, ignoring the throbbing pain in his foot. He snatched up her M&P and had its sights trained on Lars before he even had time to turn around.
‘That all changed pretty quickly,’ he noted.
Lars turned to him. ‘Well, you got me this time.’
‘There won’t be another time.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘Drop the gun.’
Lars seemed to hesitate for a moment. He didn’t respond to the command, which meant he was not co-operating, which meant King’s finger tightened on the M&P’s trigger, half an ounce of pressure away from hammering the pin and sending a round through his old handler’s skull.
Then the man let go of the rifle. Just as expected. It clattered to the tarmac and lay useless.
‘Step away from it.’
Lars stepped away from it.
‘All clear!’ King yelled. The words echoed into the forest, audible from hundreds of feet away. On cue, a figure emerged from between two pine trees, previously shrouded in shadow, clutching an enormous bolt-action rifle in one hand, dressed all in black. He stepped onto the runway and headed for their position.
Dirk Wiggins.
They’d spent two years as squad members in Detachment-Delta of the United States Special Forces. King had met with Billy the night before, waking him from a deep sleep in his small living quarters above the post office. He’d used his phone to call dozens of old friends who he’d formed connections with at some point during his military career. Most were halfway across the world.
Dirk was mid-holiday in Sydney.
The man had rented a car and made the eight-hour drive as soon as King had called. Some favours required that sort of commitment.
And King had done Dirk plenty of favours in the past.
‘Brother,’ Dirk said, striding up to King with an outstretched palm. He stood roughly the same height, but a little stockier. He wore his hair long and dreadlocked, tied back when on the job. In any other setting he would be indistinguishable from a festival hippie. Truth was, he was one of the most accurate marksmen on the planet.
They clasped hands.
‘It’s been a while,’ King said.
‘Too long.’
‘You doing alright?’
Dirk looked down at Kitchener’s nearly-headless corpse.
‘I’ve had better days,’ he said. Then he looked up at King. ‘So have you by the look of it.’
‘I’m a bit of a mess, aren’t I?’
‘What are you doing in these parts?’
‘Recommendation from a friend,’ he said, shaking the pistol in Lars’ direction. ‘Hasn’t been a great trip.’
‘This your old handler? From that secret post-Delta project you could never discuss?’
‘Uh-huh.’
Dirk strode up to Lars, towering over the slight man. He wrapped a hand around his throat and hurled him back into the monoplane’s chassis. Lars bounced off the metal and collapsed to the ground, coughing from the sudden violence. He stayed on all fours for a long moment, then spat blood on the tarmac beneath. Then he got to his feet.
‘Pleased to meet you too,’ he said, just as sardonic as always.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ Dirk said. A man of few words.
‘Glad to know that I’m still smarter than you two idiots,’ Lars said.
He brought one hand out from behind his back, revealing a small remote roughly the same size as an car key fob. His thumb rested on its centre, touching a thin circular button. Keeping just enough pressure on it so as not to set it off.
‘Know what this is?’
‘I can guess,’ King said, his gut sinking.
‘Kitchener might have been useless but she got one thing right. Guess so much has gone on that you haven’t had time to check your belt, Kate?’
Kate stared down at her leather belt, frantically searching for something. King watched her out of his peripheral vision, keeping most of his attention focused firmly on Lars. Dirk stood directly beside the man, unmoving, hesitant. Unsure as to the validity of the threat.
Confirmation came a moment later.
‘Fuck,’ Kate whispered. He thought he heard a sob.
‘What is it?’ King said, refusing to look away from Lars.
‘A small metal cylinder,’ she said, voice shaking. ‘Clipped to the back of my belt. It looks like some kind of bomb. She must have put it on me last night while I was asleep.’
‘That’s exactly what it is,’ Lars said. ‘Heptanitrocubane. The boys at DARPA were experimenting with the stuff, so I grabbed a few on my way out the door. It’s a very powerful high-explosive. Your girlfriend will cease to exist if I push this button a few millimetres more.’
King kept the gun locked on target. He didn’t move.
‘You shoot me and it’ll go off,’ Lars said. ‘You move suddenly and it’ll go off. I can’t get much closer to setting it off than I currently am.’
Silence.
‘I’m leaving now.’
King said, ‘No you’re not.’
Lars cocked his head. ‘Want to test me? Games are over. I’m getting in this plane and taking off and if I see you take a single step towards me I’ll blow her up. You’re close enough to her that you’ll die too. Either instantly, or you’ll lose a few limbs and bleed out slowly.’
‘That’s two of us. If you take off in that plane there’ll be hundreds of thousands dead.’
‘I don’t think you’re ready to die yet, King,’ Lars said. ‘A lot of people say they are, but you’re not. That’s why you quit. You kept coming too close to death. That’s why you came here.’
‘So much for that.’
Lars smiled. ‘You know, I still can’t believe you actually came. All I did was say you should check the area out sometime.’
‘I had nowhere else to go. Nothing else to do.’
‘Well, I’m glad you did. This has been fun.’
No response.
‘I’ll be off now. Might blow her up after I take off anyway.’
King tightened his finger on the trigger.
‘Go on,’ Lars said. ‘Pull it.’
‘I might.’
‘You won’t. I know you inside and out. I know how your mind works. You’re thinking there’s still a way out of this situation. You’re thinking of a million different ways to win, as always. But you’ll keep standing there, because…’
A flash of movement. A grunt of exertion. Mid-sentence Lars flinched. King made to squeeze the trigger but some
thing made him hesitate. He heard the sound of a small object skittering across tarmac, and he knew the remote had left Lars’ hand somehow. It had happened too fast to ascertain exactly what had occurred. Dirk now stumbled past Lars, attempting to correct his balance. He must have swatted the remote away. The action had been blindingly fast, so fast that even King hadn’t seen it fully.
All he knew was that the remote had landed somewhere behind Lars.
Dirk stood in between them, blocking a clear shot.
There was no time to re-adjust his aim.
Reacting in a split second, King powered past his old friend and crash-tackled Lars into the runway. They sprawled across the ground, tangled in limbs. Lars wrapped his arms around King’s gun hand and wrenched with surprising power. King hadn’t anticipated that kind of strength from such a slight man. He lost control of the M&P and Lars’ movement sent it spinning away.
King dropped a hard elbow into his stomach. He felt the wheeze of a winded man. Using the same hand he thrust up, fist clenched, driving his knuckles into the bottom of his chin, feeling soft tissue and delicate bone crunch under the power of the blow. Lars’ head whipped back and he scooted backwards, heading for the remote. King wrapped a hand around his ankle and tugged him back into range.
He saw the fist coming but couldn’t do anything to move away from it. He was stuck lying on his side in an awkward position, one arm pinned under his bulk, chin up, legs splayed. As he saw the approaching shot he knew it would land. He hoped Lars did not possess pinpoint accuracy.
He did.
Spots of darkness swallowed much of his vision as the fist crashed into his head just above his ear. He wasn’t sure if it was from the force behind the impact or simply the fact that he had been weakened from such a sheer amount of physical conflict in a short space of time. Whatever the case, he reeled back from Lars, utterly disorientated. To make sure he had the upper hand, Lars kicked out with a steel-toed boot, once again hitting his target perfectly.
King’s injured foot.
Searing pain shot up his leg. He let out an involuntary grunt in an effort to manage its effects. The stomp hit him directly above the bullet wound. Coupled with the strike to the head, he knew his body would not respond to his brain’s commands for the next few moments.