by Matt Rogers
In response to the confusion, the pilot smacked King on the top of his skull with the butt of the pistol. It was comically weak.
‘Quiet,’ the pilot demanded with false bravado.
Internally, King cringed. The guy wasn’t exactly Robert DeNiro.
You’re going to have to sell it better than that, buddy.
Thankfully — either due to the lowlight or all the sudden commotion — the bodyguards didn’t notice the shocking display of acting. They shepherded the trio into the back of the bulky Mercedes. Once inside, the man in the passenger seat spun around and aimed the barrel of his loaded weapon straight into King’s face. The pilot kept his own weapon against the side of King’s head.
‘A little overkill, don’t you think?’ King said.
‘I have been told you’re a very dangerous man,’ the guy in the passenger seat said. ‘I’m being careful.’
‘You hear that?’ King said to Klara. ‘I’m a very dangerous man.’
‘Don’t encourage him,’ she said to the bodyguard. ‘His ego is large enough as it is.’
The man regarded them with a perplexed look. They weren’t acting how two people held at gunpoint should.
Good.
King wanted them confused.
All of them.
The journey to Abdullah’s building was made in complete silence. No-one spoke a word. King wondered if the pilot’s lack of dialogue might give them away — the guy was likely battling internal thoughts on how to get out of the situation and get back to his wife and kid. Finding no answers, he had decided to clam up. King let the seconds tick by until he concluded that these men weren’t talkers to begin with.
Nothing seemed awry.
Yet.
They entered the same garage and were hauled out of the Mercedes at gunpoint. The barrel of the pilot’s weapon stayed planted on the back of King’s head at all times. At one point he slackened his aim, and one of the bodyguards snapped at him, demanding he keep the gun where it was.
King felt a certain sense of satisfaction as they headed for the elevator.
The closer the gun to his head, the more of a chance he had.
They reached the top floor in record time, and the elevator doors slid quietly open to reveal the living quarters — and beyond, the dining room.
Slater sat at one end of the broad oak dining table, fastened securely to the back of the chair. His arms and legs were locked into place, effectively trapping him. He wasn’t going anywhere.
Isla was nowhere to be found.
King feared the worst.
Abdullah sat on the tabletop itself, twirling a brand new Glock-22 in his palm. Straight off the black market, probably purchased for a hefty handling fee. King imagined that Abdullah could stomach the price.
The man straightened as the arriving party entered the penthouse.
King noted how Abdullah handled the weapon — like a novice. He wasn’t employing any procedures to ensure that there was a backup firearm trained on King. The bodyguards had slackened their concentration too. They must have figured that with the pilot keeping the barrel of his weapon on the back of King’s head, there was no danger to be found.
This would be easier than he’d initially expected.
‘Do you know why this is happening?’ Abdullah said.
‘I put two and two together,’ King said curtly.
Ahead, the bodyguards took up position on either side of Abdullah, folding their hands together like henchmen from a movie. It looked fearsome, but in reality it was highly impractical.
The barrels of their sidearms were pointed at the floor.
That was all that mattered.
‘And what did that give you?’ Abdullah said.
‘You’re rich. I’m guessing you had the desire for some light entertainment. Spent your free time watching kidnapped foreigners beat each other to death on a live stream. Lovely hobby.’
‘A guilty pleasure,’ Abdullah said, shrugging as if he were trying to pass it off as something justified. ‘I’m sure you can understand why I can’t let it come to light.’
‘I don’t have the names of the viewers. I never did.’
‘Maybe,’ Abdullah said, shrugging. ‘There’s no way to know that you’re telling the truth.’
‘So what is this? You’re going to kill me?’
‘I have a few things to consider. Like whether to hand you over to the Russians or not. That’s riskier, but I imagine they’ll reward me. Or they might appreciate it if I just take you out of the picture right now.’
‘I’m sure they would.’
‘But your friend here,’ Abdullah said, gesturing to Slater, ‘has told me that he won’t take your death lightly. I’d rather just let him get on with his life, to be honest, but he’s stubborn. I might have to kill him too.’
‘So much for owing him.’
‘I need to protect my reputation first.’
Slater scowled. ‘You wouldn’t have a reputation if I didn’t save your life. You’d be in the ground.’
‘Very true,’ Abdullah said. ‘Like I said — I’d rather you just leave.’
‘I’ll pass — thanks, though.’
‘So be it.’
King had heard enough. He leant his head back slightly, applying a few ounces of pressure to the barrel of the weapon behind him.
Letting the pilot know that things were about to kick off.
He sensed the man stiffen in anticipation.
‘Abdullah,’ King said.
The man looked in his direction. ‘What?’
‘You really should pay more attention.’
31
King spun on his heel and tore the cable ties apart with a rapid outward jerk of both wrists at once. The ties had been hanging by a thread, nearly sawed apart by the pair of medical scissors of the first-aid kit onboard the Gulfstream. King had kept the weak link pressed into the small of his back, shielding it from view of any inquisitive eyes.
As soon as his restrains had snapped, he snatched the empty pistol out of the pilot’s hand. He’d removed the magazine from the bulky firearm back in the Gulfstream — both Abdullah and the two idiotic bodyguards had been too preoccupied to notice the dark hole in the underside of the weapon.
With his free hand, he slipped the fully-loaded magazine out of his back pocket and slammed it home with a single practiced motion. The weapon was a Desert Eagle Mark XIX — one of the most powerful handguns in the world.
Abdullah’s co-pilot had received some serious firepower.
Which now rested firmly in King’s hands.
He had control of a loaded gun in the space of two seconds. Before either of the bodyguards had a lock on him with their own pistols, King swept the Desert Eagle up to eye-level and fired a cluster of rounds, pumping the trigger three times in quick succession.
The first shot blasted the taller bodyguard’s forehead apart, taking him out of the equation instantly.
The second punched through the nose of the other man, also killing him instantly.
The third and final round took a sizeable chunk of flesh out of Abdullah’s forearm, turning his face pale. The Glock-22 fell out of his hand without any resistance, and he sunk to his knees with pain contorting his expression into a grotesque mask.
King wanted to keep him alive for a short while, to send a message back to the Russians and hopefully end this ridiculousness once and for all.
Back in the Gulfstream, he had already instructed Klara to turn her eyes away from the grisly results, aware of what a dead-on impact from a Desert Eagle round could do to human flesh.
He let the deathly quiet of the shootout’s aftermath settle over the penthouse.
No-one else had even received the opportunity to get a shot off.
‘Fuck,’ Abdullah spat, staring down at the bloody hole just below his elbow. He flexed the fingers on that hand out of instinct. They moved, but King saw him wince, crippled by the agony.
‘King…’ Slater muttered from ac
ross the room.
King froze in his tracks. ‘What?’
‘He’s got more people on the way.’
Abdullah’s features twisted into a gleeful smile. ‘I can’t say I wasn’t expecting something like that.’
‘Oh, really?’ King said. ‘You wanted me to shoot your arm off, did you?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Then how were you expecting that?’
‘You think I’d drop sixty million U.S. dollars on a private jet and not have a way to keep tabs on it?’
King said nothing.
‘Ever heard of surveillance footage?’
‘Shit.’
‘Hand over…’ Abdullah said, then lapsed into silence as a droplet of sweat fell from his forehead. He was in a world of pain. ‘Hand over the gun.’
‘Why on earth would I do that?’
‘I have an army heading for this penthouse.’
King raised an eyebrow. ‘Seems like they’re late. I’ll believe it when I see it. Until then…’
He crossed the room and wrenched open one of the kitchen drawers, retrieving a serrated steak knife out of the cutlery. He severed Slater’s bonds with four quick slices.
Slater rose to his feet, stretching his long-dormant limbs.
‘He had you tied up there the entire time?’ King said.
‘Yeah. So much for his word. We need to move — I heard him call for help.’
King grimaced. He wondered what kind of men Abdullah had at his disposal, and what kind of expertise they had. ‘Where’s Isla?’
Slater motioned to one of the closed doors branching off from the kitchen. ‘Through there. Tied up, I think.’
The door was locked, but King shouldered it open with a single blow, fuelled by anger.
‘Watch him,’ he instructed Slater, pointing to Abdullah.
‘Should I kill him?’
‘Not yet. We’re taking him with us. I want to know more about these Russian bastards who want me dead.’
‘Understood.’
He found Isla chained to a four-poster bed in the centre of the room. The space was furnished and decorated just as lavishly as the rest of the penthouse, juxtaposed harshly against the squirming prisoner on the mattress.
She was conscious, and seemingly unhurt. Her wide eyes flicked to him as he entered.
‘You’re okay?’ he said, assessing what lay in front of him.
‘Yeah,’ she murmured. ‘Fucking pissed off, though.’
He snatched the single key off the ornate chest-of-drawers in the corner of the room and unlocked her handcuffs. She slid her thin wrists out of the biting steel and rubbed them tentatively.
‘Slater,’ Isla called through the doorway. ‘So much for your friend being a man of his word.’
‘Exactly what I said before,’ Slater replied. ‘Didn’t know everyone with a few hundred million dollars enjoyed violence so much.’
‘When will these people understand that I don’t know their goddamn identities?’ King called out. ‘Abdullah, do you think I would have walked in here if I knew you were on the list?’
The man didn’t respond. King guessed he was still nursing his grievous wound.
‘They don’t care,’ Slater said. ‘This has gone beyond reason. They just want you dead. Then they can all rest easy.’
The four of them assembled in the kitchen, standing over Abdullah’s hunched form. He drew in deep, rattling breaths in an attempt to control the pain in his forearm. Slater had tied a torn piece of rug around the lower half of the guy’s arm, trying to prevent him from bleeding out.
‘We’re still taking him?’
King paused. ‘Maybe not.’
He shifted his grip on the Desert Eagle, pondering whether to use it. He concluded that he would — he felt no remorse for the man underneath him, who had haphazardly attempted to apprehend King and Slater separately with no true knowledge of the skills they possessed.
He raised the enormous handgun.
From somewhere further inside the penthouse — where the spacious corridors became a maze of unpredictability — he heard a door crash off its hinges. It slammed against a tiled floor and a horde of footsteps burst into the penthouse.
Heading straight for the dining room.
King couldn’t help it. His attention was torn away from Abdullah, focusing on the new development.
The man scrambled across the tiled floor and ducked into a neighbouring room before King had the chance to correct his aim and blast the back of his head to pulp.
There was no time to follow him. King swore as the situation dawned on him.
Abdullah hadn’t been lying.
The man had called in reinforcements to silence them forever. An eight-figure net worth meant that he could have an entire private force on standby.
Or crooked law enforcement.
Whatever the case, they couldn’t stay where they were a second longer. None of them knew the layout of the penthouse. King recognised that they could be effortlessly out-strategised, and Slater simultaneously came to the same revelation.
Together, they broke off at a sprint for the elevator in the adjoining living quarters.
The approaching party grew closer — it sounded like their footsteps came from everywhere at once, filling several corridors in unison. King felt trapped, enclosed, overwhelmed. He had a Desert Eagle Mark XIX — and as they ran, Slater picked up the Glock-22 that Abdullah had dropped — but there could be over a dozen men headed for them.
It sure sounded like it.
Eventually, any level of skill gave way to being sheerly outnumbered.
King grabbed Klara’s hand as he ran, hurrying her toward the elevator. Slater got their first, utilising his athletic ability. He slammed the panel on the side of the wall — the elevator doors opened instantly.
Thankfully, it existed for the sole purpose of shepherding the penthouse’s occupants down to the private garage.
King noticed the pilot sitting on one of the couches, a finger plugged into each ear and his eyes squeezed shut. He wanted nothing to do with this.
King let him be.
The four of them hurried inside the elevator.
Isla began breathing heavily — King wondered if she was claustrophobic. He looked down and noticed she had retrieved one of the semi-automatic handguns that the recently-deceased bodyguards had been carrying. It was a IWI Jericho 941 — the baby brother to the Desert Eagle he wielded. Abdullah must have received the firearms in a bulk order.
Now, there were three of them armed — all with combat training.
That was better than one.
King couldn’t remember the last time he had operated in a unit, but he knew that he needed the extra assistance now more than ever. His wrist hadn’t healed properly during his time aboard the supercarrier, and it had been aggravated severely by the recent action.
He was effectively fighting with one arm.
The doors began to slide closed, moving at a snail’s pace. When they were a foot from shutting, the living quarters beyond exploded with movement. King counted at least four men tearing into open view, brandishing compact assault rifles and heavy-duty shotguns. Their uniforms sported the insignia of a private security force.
Abdullah hadn’t been exaggerating.
He had summoned a small army to protect him.
King fired two massive blasts of Desert Eagle ammunition out through the gap, causing the closest troops to dive for cover. A second later the doors whispered closed and they shot toward the garage.
They’d bought themselves a minute, tops.
King was determined to use it efficiently.
32
The trip down to the garage took the same amount of time as usual, but in King’s heightened state of awareness it felt like the journey quadrupled in length. He paced back and forth across the cramped space, his finger twitching against the trigger guard of the Desert Eagle.
He wasn’t accustomed to tight spaces.
He
needed room to breathe.
Klara eyed him cautiously. He realised she had never seen him like this. She wasn’t used to the type of volatile situations they were currently facing. He gripped her shoulder reassuringly.
‘We’ll get out of this, okay?’
‘Where do we go?’ Isla muttered. ‘What do we do?’
‘We get out of here first,’ King repeated. ‘One step at a time.’
By that point, it had almost become his catchphrase. Nothing made sense, and pandemonium reigned. He hadn’t even considered the fact that Ramsay was still after him.
‘We have to get as far away from here as possible,’ Slater said. ‘Abdullah’s nothing but trouble.’
‘That’s why he was so eager to send me off to Sweden,’ King said. ‘He wanted us apart, to try and deal with us separately.’
Slater nodded. ‘He got his pilots to do his dirty work?’
‘I think he panicked. Didn’t want me showing back up here unrestrained. Tried to get his pilots to do it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Slater said.
King paused — Slater wasn’t normally the type to apologise for anything. ‘Sorry for what?’
‘I thought he was a good man.’
King shook his head. ‘You can’t blame yourself for this. The world’s complicated. Maybe he is loyal to his friends. Maybe he really did want to help. Then he realised who I was, and his judgment was clouded by that part of his life.’
‘He’s a piece of shit.’
‘Why do I keep running into those kind of people?’ King mused, shaking his head in bewilderment.
‘Hey…’ Klara said.
King smiled. ‘You’re the exception.’
The elevator slowed its descent and came to rest at its one and only stop. The doors slid open and the horde of supercars revealed itself in all its glory.
‘Goddamn,’ Slater whispered.
King crossed to a plexiglass cabinet full of keys to the vehicles and broke the locked glass door off with brute strength. He regarded the various insignias on the keys and fetched one off its hook.
‘You want the Lamborghini?’ he said to Isla.
She nodded eagerly.
He tossed the key over and she ushered Klara into the passenger seat of the orange Huracan. Isla ducked into the driver’s seat and fired up the beast with a thumb of the ignition button. It roared to life and she accelerated out of the tight parking space, heading for the ramp on the far side of the room.