by Matt Rogers
Behind King and Slater, the elevator doors pressed closed and the small room shot back up through the building with a mechanical whir.
‘Shit,’ Slater said. ‘We don’t have long.’
King snatched another key off the rack. ‘Bugatti?’
‘Yes, please.’
King had never driven a Bugatti Veyron before. They were the most expensive vehicle in existence, coming in at a little under two million dollars. From what he could remember, they could reach sixty miles an hour in a hundred and twenty feet.
A shiver of anticipation ran through his veins.
They hurried toward the vehicle as the garage descended into silence. Out the long row of glass windows he saw the sparkling lights of Dubai’s skyline. Just underneath the lip of the window, the Mall of the Emirates’ roof stretched out into the distance. The mall had closed hours ago — it was approaching midnight. Large glass domes across the surface of the roof revealed a swarm of lights still on inside the complex, likely for security purposes.
They passed the fleet of Polaris off-road buggies and ducked into the Veyron, unlocking it with the click of a button.
In the distance, the sound of the Lamborghini’s ten cylinders firing off the walls of the descending tunnel faded into obscurity.
Isla and Klara had a sizeable head start.
The cockpit felt like a spaceship — King ran his hands over the thick leather wheel as the car roared to life. As soon as Slater was inside, he took off after Isla.
‘How much time do you think we have?’ Slater said.
‘I don’t know. Let’s gain as much ground as we can.’
He took the tight corners of the tunnel at breakneck speed, barely keeping control of the supercar. The engine was deafening — the sound of the sheer horsepower rang in their ears.
They reached the ground floor in less than a minute — just in time to spot the rear of Isla’s Lamborghini disappearing into the night.
A second later, the steel roller door descended from the ceiling and slammed into place, cutting King and Slater off from the outside world.
Clearly, Abdullah had control of the garage doors from the penthouse.
‘Shit,’ Slater muttered.
They were sealed inside the building.
King grimaced. In the confines of the artificially illuminated ramp, there was no room to turn around. Without considering anything else, he slammed the Bugatti into reverse and tore back the way they had come.
Slater winced, tightening his grip on the Glock in his right palm. ‘We’re cutting this tight.’
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘You want a shootout in the garage? That’s not going to work. You saw their firepower.’
‘We stay in this tunnel and we’ll be even more fucked.’
‘We’ll be exposed up there.’
‘I’m working on something.’
‘Care to enlighten me?’
‘You won’t like it.’
Still travelling backwards, they shot out into the garage at close to thirty miles an hour. King stamped on the brakes and the Bugatti squealed to a halt, tyres burning rubber underneath the low ceiling.
They leapt out simultaneously.
The elevator hadn’t arrived yet. When it did, King guessed it would be carrying close to seven men. That was as many as he thought could fit in the cramped cable car.
He and Slater took up position behind the parked Bugatti, using it as a rudimentary form of cover. They aimed their weapons at the sealed elevator doors.
‘How the hell are we going to survive this?’ Slater muttered.
King didn’t have an answer.
33
The elevator doors whispered open and a squad of well-equipped, well-trained soldiers of fortune came striding out into the garage. They moved in a practiced formation, evidently knowledgeable in combat and ready to eliminate any and all of Abdullah’s enemies. They were clearly kept on standby to act as Abdullah’s lifeline in times of need.
This was one of those times.
Unfortunately, they were up against a pair of powerful and lethal enemies.
From across the room, Slater unloaded his Glock’s magazine until the gun clicked dry, letting hollow-point bullets tear across the empty space and impact all around the mercenaries. They recoiled and fell into cover, breaking formation to deal with the sudden onslaught of gunfire.
They hadn’t been expecting their foes to put up such a fight.
And that was their Achilles’ heel. They were expertly-trained in a plethora of different tactics and strategies to defeat their competition, but when everything fell to shit it was hard to remain composed.
Jason King loved it when everything fell to shit.
He came charging in from one side, emerging from the shadows of the garage’s corner like a phantom materialising out of the wall itself.
No-one saw him coming until it was too late.
They were focused on the distant din of Slater’s gunshots, seeking cover where they could find it and lining up the sights of their expensive assault rifles with the Bugatti the man cowered behind.
None of them cared to check left or right.
King sprinted for the cluster of combatants, raising the Desert Eagle Mark XIX with his good hand. He sent a round punching through the side of the nearest man’s neck, bypassing all the protective armour provided by his combat helmet and bulletproof vest. Arterial blood arced from the exit wound and he went instantly limp, letting go of his rifle in the process.
King leapfrogged his corpse, wrapping his free hand around the stock of the rifle and catching it out of thin air. It sent pain flaring through his wrist — still sensitive from all the punishment it had undertaken — but he forced the sensation to the back of his mind.
He crash-tackled the nearest man off his feet, ramming him into one of the supercars. The guy was European — from the deep bronze tone of his skin, King guessed somewhere in Italy.
Just a foreign mercenary happy to lend his services to Dubai’s elite for an exorbitant price.
It wouldn’t pay off for him.
They bounced off the chassis in unison and the mercenary lost his grip on the weapon in his hands, winded by the impact. King let the trajectory of his pistol line up with the guy’s wrist and depressed the trigger, blasting his hand to shreds with a well-placed, high-calibre bullet.
The guy screamed.
King looped an arm around the back of the guy’s neck and dropped down into a crouch, lowering his hips and in turn his centre of gravity. From this position, he was able to carry out an effective judo throw, tossing the man head-over-heels through the air and disorienting him entirely.
The guy came down in an ungainly heap on the other side of King, hitting the concrete hard enough to knock him senseless. At the same time the two nearest mercenaries swung their aim around to the explosion of movement, their attention attracted by the close-quarters brawl. They fired instinctively, reacting based on their reflexes alone.
King’s lightning-fast hip toss put an enemy body in between himself and the others in the blink of an eye. He counted four bullets that sank into the man’s soft flesh, killing him instantly.
Upon reflexively murdering their own ally, the pair hesitated.
King swung the Desert Eagle around and took their throats apart with twin bursts from the weapon.
Four men down.
Three left.
He sensed someone on the move. Slater came charging out of his cover, firing with pinpoint accuracy after chambering a fresh magazine into the Glock-22. King spotted two of the three mercenaries wheel their aim onto Slater, who had thrown caution to the wind by running into open ground.
One of them squeezed off a three-round burst.
Slater went down.
King’s eyes widened at the sight, unsure as to where Slater had been shot. All he saw was a blur of movement as the man collapsed mid-sprint, sprawling across the concrete in brutal fashion.
Slater
was now in the middle of the open.
Exposed.
Vulnerable.
In danger.
King lined up his aim and pumped the trigger, but the Desert Eagle clicked empty. He swore and threw the gun away, launching to his feet and covering the distance between himself and the remaining trio in a couple of seconds.
He pushed off the ground — double-footed, diving headfirst — and crashed into them with reckless abandon.
The four of them sprawled to the concrete, all as stunned as each other.
King reacted first, using the assault rifle he’d snatched off one of the mercenaries as a club. He didn’t have time to slide a finger into the trigger guard so he swung the butt of the rifle in a rapid semi-circle, meeting the nearest man on the chin. There was serious kinetic energy behind the swing, and the resulting force dislocated the guy’s jaw in shocking fashion.
He twisted away, blood spraying.
The other two were armed.
One of them managed a single shot, but it went wide. King smashed the pistol out of the guy’s hands with a front kick and closed the gap between them, pinning the man in a crushing bear hug. He was smaller than his co-worker — less than six feet tall and lean instead of muscular. With the man pressed so tight against him, the other was hesitant to fire his weapon.
He was at risk of hitting his ally.
King yelled with exertion and hurled the man between his arms like a sack of potatoes, utilising the terror that had built up in his limbs. The guy crashed into the other mercenary, taking them both to the ground.
As King completed the throw, an ominous crack sounded deep in his already-injured wrist. The snapping sensation needled his brain with crippling agony. It sliced fiery pain up his arm. His legs buckled underneath him, threatening to collapse at any moment.
He fought back a wave of nausea, sorted out his grip on the mercenary’s rifle, and killed the two men sprawling to the concrete with a well-timed burst of fully-automatic gunfire.
As the shots rang out through the garage, signalling the end of the firefight, King slumped to his knees.
He hadn’t felt pain like this for quite some time.
It was hot and intense and isolated to a specific region, unbelievably agonising but not overwhelming enough to cause him to pass out. He felt his forearm go numb, his body reacting to the torment by attempting to subdue it.
It didn’t work.
Pale and sweating, King managed to get a foot underneath himself. He wobbled as he rose, searching desperately for where Slater had come to rest.
The man was alive.
King breathed a sigh of relief and stumbled over, passing seven dead bodies as he did so.
Slater’s face also sported an expression of agony. He was cradling his shoulder and wincing sporadically as fresh waves of pain creased his features.
‘You’re hit?’ King said.
‘Yeah. Upper arm. It’s not fatal. Just hurts like hell.’
‘My wrist is re-broken, I think. Even worse than before.’
‘Jesus. How are you conscious?’
‘I don’t know…’
King felt faint — detached from reality. He slumped down beside his friend, struggling to deal with his wrist. It was all-encompassing, literally the only thing he could focus on amidst the madness. With his vision shimmering, he just managed to make out the elevator doors sliding ominously closed in the distance.
Slater grimaced. ‘Another wave. We’ve got a minute, tops, I’d say.’
‘How many do you think there are?’
Slater shrugged. ‘It could be endless. Abdullah could have entirely different factions on the payroll. When his private contractor friends are dead, he’ll bring in crooked cops. Bloodthirsty expats. You name it. Money rules out here.’
‘Money rules everywhere.’
‘You’re right.’
‘So what the fuck do we do now?’ King said, trailing off as the searing pain snaked its way up his arm.
‘We’re screwed,’ Slater gasped. ‘I need to keep pressure on this or I’m going to lose too much blood. I can’t fight like this.’
‘Neither can I.’
‘But there’s nothing else we can do.’
‘We can run.’
‘How? We’re trapped in this fucking building with these goddamn lunatics.’
‘We’re trapped if you look at it the conventional way.’
Slater simply stared at King. ‘I don’t like this.’
‘We either definitely die, or we probably die.’
‘What are you thinking?’
King’s gaze wandered to the fleet of Polaris X Edition off-road buggies lined neatly against the far wall. Their chunky tyres and state-of-the-art suspension systems were designed specifically to handle bumpy journeys.
He then stared out the fifty-foot row of sturdy floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the rooftop a dozen feet below.
The Mall of the Emirates sloped steadily away into the distance.
‘Care for a change of scenery?’ he said.
34
The growl of the orange Lamborghini’s engine attracted a wealth of attention. Even though it was close to midnight in Dubai, the sidewalks were populated — albeit sparsely — by the occasional tourist couple wandering around the city’s grand sights, revelling in the marvel of oil money.
Most stared at the bright, loud vehicle as it trawled past.
Isla grimaced every time the engine roared. She didn’t like having eyes on her. Abdullah had people everywhere. It would do them good to find somewhere to burrow down and wait for King and Slater to get in touch.
If the pair had survived.
When they’d made it under the descending roller door and out into the open air, it had shut before King and Slater could follow suit. The two of them were sealed somewhere within the building, waging war against the private army of a psychopath business tycoon.
Just another day at the office, she thought.
She pulled the Lamborghini into one of the massive outdoor carparks in front of the Mall of the Emirates. From here, they had an advantageous view over Abdullah’s building, and she was able to kill the engine and let the attention die down.
She pulled into a vacant car space between a pair of white Range Rovers and switched the supercar off. Its throaty purr died out, replaced by deathly silence.
In the passenger seat, Klara sat rigid, nervously biting at one of her nails. Isla let the silence reach an uncomfortable length before she felt the need to speak up.
‘They’re going to be okay,’ she said.
‘You sure?’
‘They’ve been through enough of this shit to know what to do.’
‘This is insane…’
‘What do you mean?’
Klara shrugged. ‘I guess I’ve been babied my whole life. Or I haven’t lived a very eventful one. But this violence, this brutality … it’s not normal.’
‘Of course it’s not. This isn’t how the regular world works.’
‘It’s like Jason’s a different man when he’s fighting. Like he flips a switch and turns primal.’
‘He has to. The people he’s fighting want to do the same to him.’
‘I know. And to me…’
Isla paused, thinking about what she would say next. She selected her words carefully. ‘Do you love him?’
‘King?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think so.’
‘Then tell him.’
‘I have. He told me, too. Before whatever happened in Russia.’
Isla grimaced. It was a subject she wasn’t keen to discuss. ‘You should hold onto him. He’s different when he’s around you. I never would have thought he was capable of that kind of emotion before this.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He was devoted to his work. Didn’t really have time for a personal life.’
‘You think that’s what he’s really like? What if he’s faking it when he’s aroun
d me?’
Isla shook her head. ‘Things have changed. I don’t think his work exists anymore.’
‘What happened in Russia?’ Klara said.
‘Something I’d prefer not to discuss.’
‘Did it have to do with you?’
Isla nodded, staring out the windscreen at the deathly-quiet parking lot. ‘I made a mistake. A serious one.’
‘Is that why we’re here now?’
‘Somewhat. You’re asking a hell of a lot of questions.’
‘I’m just curious.’
‘I can tell. Most people would have turned and run as far away as they could if they saw the type of things that goes on in our lives.’
Klara shrugged. ‘I’ve always been on the move.’
‘It doesn’t affect you? You seem okay.’
‘It might be shock,’ Klara admitted. ‘It was strange seeing those men die. That’s all there is to their lives. Trying to kill Jason and failing miserably.’
‘It tends to happen a lot.’
‘Why do so many people want him dead so consistently?’
‘He seems to attract trouble. Which is why I’m astonished that you want to stick around.’
Klara paused. ‘I really like him.’
‘I think he really likes you.’
Isla turned her gaze toward Abdullah’s building, lit up like a beacon at this time of night. Most of the residential dwellings dotting the face of the glass tower had their lights on, despite the hour. Maybe it was the weekend. Whether due to the chaos that had unfolded over the last week or the adrenalin rush clouding her memory, she could barely remember what day it was.
‘What do you think’s going on up there?’ Klara said.
‘We’ll just have to wait and see…’
Before she could finish her sentence, a resounding crash echoed across the parking lot, coming from somewhere above their heads. She threw her gaze toward the right-hand-side of Abdullah’s building and spotted one of the long, reflective windows running the length of the eighth floor shatter into a million pieces.