by Matt Rogers
King shrugged. She had a point. His attempts to find peace had ended in violence and bloodshed, time and time again. That’s why he’d gone back.
Now, that was no longer an option.
‘I think I’m done, Isla,’ King said. ‘With everything. I can’t go back, and even if I could — I don’t think I want to anymore.’
‘Didn’t you tell yourself that when you retired the first time?’
‘This time it’s different. This time I mean it.’
‘You sure?’
‘When you showed up in Sweden a couple of weeks ago to drag me into another operation, I would have rather been anywhere else.’
‘Because of Klara?’
‘Maybe. Maybe I just reached breaking point again.’
‘But you went through with the Russian job,’ she said. ‘You went above and beyond. Even when you knew it wasn’t official.’
‘That was in my blood,’ King said. ‘But I’m not sure if it is anymore.’
‘It’s in Slater’s,’ Isla said. ‘I can see it. I don’t think he’ll ever lose that itch, that edge. I feel like Corsica put false ideas in his head — he saw another Black Force operative trying to retire, and he thought he could mimic it.’
‘He’s a loose cannon,’ King said. ‘A little more unhinged than I am.’
‘I know.’
‘He’ll do his own thing. I’ve always realised that.’
‘You think I can do mine?’ Isla said.
‘You don’t need my opinion for that. You know you can. Black Force wasn’t everything.’
‘It was to me, whether I wanted it to be or not.’
‘Yeah…’ King said, trailing off. ‘For all of us, I think.’
She got to her feet, looking partly shocked by how much she had opened up. ‘That’s enough, I think. Get some rest, King. God knows you need it.’
‘Thanks, Isla,’ he said as she made for the doorway. ‘Keep thinking about your future. It’s not as daunting as you might think. Trust me.’
She nodded, spaced out, and disappeared from sight.
A moment later, Klara appeared in the doorway.
‘Hey,’ she said with a warm smile.
‘Hey,’ King said, returning it.
She crossed the room and lay down on the cold wooden floor beside him. He wrapped his good arm around her shoulders.
‘Everything okay?’ Klara whispered. ‘Isla seemed off when I passed her.’
‘She’s confused,’ King said. ‘We all are.’
‘Any idea what we’ll do from here?’
‘We’ll figure something out,’ King said, touching his lips to hers.
They said nothing for a couple of minutes, which was all it took for King to drift off. Exhaustion swamped him like a heavy blanket, sapping the strength from his limbs.
He fell asleep in the empty room and dozed, shutting away all the pain and confusion of recent times.
39
Daylight flooded his senses, tearing him out of sleep.
He blinked twice and looked around the room, grimacing as all the combined sensations of his mangled hand came back to the forefront of his consciousness. He realised that it had been light for quite some time. The brightness hadn’t woken him.
Movement had.
Slater stood in the doorway, his upper arm bandaged tight but otherwise fully functioning. King felt Klara nestled against his chest, dozing softly. He made eye contact with Slater and nodded a subtle greeting.
‘Rise and shine, lovebirds,’ Slater said.
They got to their feet, King taking a little more time than usual. He squinted against the harsh glare filtering in through the unfinished parapets above and felt sweat start to needle from his pores. The Dubai sunshine bore down through the cracks in all its intensity.
King noticed the heavy bags underneath Slater’s eyes. ‘You get any rest?’
The man shook his head. ‘I don’t sleep unless everything’s fine. And everything is far from fine.’
‘Surely you’re exhausted.’
‘I am.’
King said nothing. Slater was a different beast — hopefully he didn’t drop from mental depletion before they could make it out of the Middle East. He and Klara crossed the room and the trio made their way downstairs, where Isla was curled up in the corner of the kitchen, fast asleep.
‘What have you been up to?’ King said softly.
‘I headed back into Dubai when the three of you dropped off,’ Slater said. ‘Swapped the Lamborghini for something a little less … noticeable.’
‘Orange wasn’t as covert as you wanted?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘What did you find?’
‘See for yourself.’
They stepped out into the driveway, bombarded by the intense morning sunlight. King blinked a couple of times to adjust to the difference. The residential street seemed like something out of a nuclear-blast test site, dead quiet and devoid of life. He guessed that construction had started for the day — just not in this residential sector.
Maybe they had given up on this sector.
He shivered despite the heat, recognising that a fever had begun to spread through his body. Without any hard drugs to dull the pain, his system was vulnerable to infection. He hoped whatever was coming would not debilitate him.
He needed his senses for whatever lay ahead.
‘Here she is,’ Slater said, gesturing to the vehicle in the driveway.
It was an old panel van with rusting sides and half-deflated tyres. It looked like it was barely holding itself together, blasted by years of use. There was a large emblem plastered across both sides of the van’s sliding doors — a blue diamond surrounded by a smooth white border.
Underneath the emblem, bold lettering spelled “Winston International Construction Group LLC.”
‘Nice,’ King admitted.
‘I looked it up,’ Slater said. ‘Winston’s responsible for at least a third of the construction work out here. They’ve been contracted to build a couple of the logistics and commercial sectors. We’ll be practically invisible moving around.’
‘I like it.’
‘Beats a supercar, that’s for sure.’
‘You think Abdullah will actually invite the other viewers?’
Slater shrugged. ‘It’s anyone’s guess. You were the one on the phone.’
King thought back to the raw terror in Abdullah’s tone. The man was evidently horrified at the thought of King escaping with the supposed information he had extracted from the mine. He wouldn’t put it past him to act irrationally.
‘It’s only a five hour flight from Russia,’ King said. ‘All these men have private jets, and their own private security forces. Abdullah controls the airport out here. I think he brings them in. He doesn’t deal with situations like this. He’s a businessman with a fetish for watching violence unfold over the Internet. Up close and personal, he’s out of his depth. I think he calls them in as fast as possible. While he still knows that I’m in-country.’
Slater smirked. ‘You’re good at this.’
‘It’s just a hunch. We have no fucking idea what he’s going to do.’
‘We can go find out.’
King stared at the panel van and nodded. ‘Russia’s not far away. They could be landing as early as this morning. We should move.’
Footsteps sounded behind them, and they wheeled around to see Isla emerge from the front door, rubbing her eyes as she woke up. ‘What’s going on?’
Slater gestured to the new arrival. ‘I switched rides.’
‘Good call.’
‘We’re thinking about staking out Al Maktoum,’ King said. ‘Or, at least, attempting to. We’re running on improvisation here.’
‘Aren’t you always?’ Isla said with a smirk.
‘Exactly.’
‘We’ll wait here,’ Isla said, flashing a glance at Klara. ‘We can get to work plotting our next move after this is over.’
‘What are you thinking?’
>
‘I like Oman,’ Isla said, repeating what she’d suggested on the previous night’s drive. ‘There’ll be ample opportunities to charter a small plane or take a boat down to Yemen. From there, we’ll have enough distance between us and whoever the hell is after us to spend some time recuperating. I’d say you’ll need it.’
King noticed Isla scrutinising him. He knew he was in bad shape — he hadn’t had the chance to find a mirror recently, so couldn’t ascertain exactly how horrible he looked.
Already, the blood was draining out of his face, whether from illness or the overwhelming trauma of his mangled wrist.
‘You need morphine or something of similar grade,’ Isla noted.
‘Tell me about it.’
‘That should be our top priority when we get a move on.’
King made for the panel van, with Slater trawling behind him. Given the extent of their injuries, King opted to ride in the passenger seat for this drive. Slater was badly hurt, but not on King’s level. Briefly, he wondered if he could drive even if he wanted to.
Isla stopped them in their tracks a moment later. ‘What exactly is the plan here?’
King turned to her. ‘You said it yourself. Improvise.’
He settled into the passenger seat as Slater fired the engine into spluttering life and reversed out of the spacious driveway. There was evidence of the previous occupants all around the van — from the muddy floor mats to the discarded confectionary wrappers tossed around the interior to the tools and construction gear sliding around the rear compartment.
Slater twisted the wheel and set off for Al Maktoum International Airport.
At this time of the day, the streets were a little more lively. Similarly-rundown vans and pick-up trucks roared across the asphalt, darting from location to location as fast as possible in order to stick to their daily instructions. Slater exchanged a wave with each passing driver, a courtesy this far out.
We’re all in this shit together.
That was the tone conveyed.
Worked to near-death in the relentless Middle-Eastern sun for an honest paycheque.
King kept his gaze fixed on the view outside, his vision wandering over the half-completed skyscrapers lining the distant horizon. The commercial sector of Dubai South was cordoned off from the rest of the city. Because Abdullah’s companies were responsible for some of the sector’s construction, he would likely have full access to many of the unpopulated structures.
A perfect meeting point if King had ever seen one.
‘Are we grasping at straws here?’ Slater said, asking the question as if it had been the only thing on his mind for the past few hours.
‘Of course,’ King said. ‘But it’s our only option.’
‘What are you hoping to gain from this?’
‘Gain?’
‘We kill Abdullah. We kill his powerful Russian friends who want you dead. Then what?’
‘Russia is as corrupt as all hell,’ King said. ‘I have a feeling that if these people are removed from the equation, I’ll be the least of the oligarchs’ problems. They hand out power and riches based on who is most loyal over there. There’ll be a small army of wealthy socialites and businessmen fighting a free-for-all for the power left unclaimed.’
‘You’re okay with killing them all?’
King turned to him. ‘You’re not?’
‘Of course I am,’ Slater said, flabbergasted that King would even suggest such a thing. ‘You’ve always been more responsible than me, though. Thought you might want to do things the moral way.’
‘This is the moral way,’ King said. ‘Those motherfuckers watched innocent men and women beat each other to death in the bottom of an abandoned mine. Over and over and over again. For nothing but their entertainment. Then they tried to kill me onboard a U.S. Navy vessel because they thought I might leak their details to the public. Good men died in the crossfire.’
‘I agree,’ Slater said whole-heartedly. ‘Fuck them. But I doubt they’re coming. They’re too smart for that.’
‘I’m here,’ King said. ‘They might smell blood.’
‘This is Al Maktoum up ahead, isn’t it?’ Slater said.
King nodded. The vast, largely unpopulated group of terminals stretched into the distance. ‘I think we should…’
He trailed off as a jet-black limousine with maximum-tint on the windows passed through the intersection directly in front of them.
40
Isla followed Klara back inside the house as the panel van faded into the distance.
She couldn’t concentrate on anything. The floor seemed to swim underneath her. Their plan of action was so bareboned and unstructured that she wasn’t even able to communicate with King and Slater. They hadn’t purchased disposable phones or co-ordinated a safety fallback if everything went to shit.
And she’d spotted something in the street outside when Slater had reversed out of the driveway and taken off for Al Maktoum.
Klara sat down on the bare floor of the kitchen and pressed two fingers against her closed eyelids. She exhaled a long breath that had seemingly been building up for minutes.
‘You’re doing well,’ Isla said, recognising the unhealthy signs of stress on Klara’s face. ‘Frankly, I expected you to be slightly more traumatised after being pulled out of your old life.’
Klara shrugged. ‘Minus the guns, this doesn’t feel much different than my old life.’
‘I’m sure it does,’ Isla said.
Klara nodded knowingly, suddenly exposed. ‘You’re right. I’m fucking terrified. Trying my best to hide it, though.’
‘We’re all just as scared.’
‘No you’re not,’ Klara said. ‘The three of you have done this kind of thing so many times. It’s reassuring to me, at least. That you’re so experienced. But I’m still much worse off.’
‘Look at my face,’ Isla said. ‘Do I look okay to you?’
Klara lifted her gaze off the floor, and her eyes widened. ‘My God, you’re pale. Everything okay?’
‘There’s…’ Isla said, trailing off. She continued staring into space.
‘What? Tell me.’
‘There’s a couple of security cameras down the street. Watching over this area. I didn’t spot them at first — they’re the modern type, just black translucent domes on top of telephone poles.’
‘You think we’ll get arrested?’
Isla shook her head. ‘No. But I think Abdullah might know that we’re here. If he’s looking in the right places, and if he really has as much control over this city as he said he did.’
Klara said nothing. She glanced nervously out through the open front doorway of the house, where sunlight filtered in off the empty street.
Their surroundings turned shockingly quiet.
Too quiet.
Isla snatched the IWI Jericho 941 handgun off the kitchen countertop. It was the gun she had lifted from one of Abdullah’s bodyguards the day previously.
She had yet to use it.
Something in the pit of her stomach told her that time would soon come.
‘I don’t like this,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t like this at all.’
‘It’s just a hunch, isn’t it?’ Klara said. ‘You didn’t see anything besides the cameras?’
‘No. But I rarely get hunches. I hate it when I do. It usually means trouble.’
‘Do you have a spare gun for me?’
‘No.’
‘I’m sure we’ll be…’
Klara trailed off a slight thrumming sounded somewhere in the distance, signalling some kind of large vehicle approaching their street.
Multiple large vehicles.
Isla paled. ‘Fuck…’
‘Do we run?’
The convoy screeched to a halt outside the house, forming a rudimentary barricade across the front of the property. Isla stared out the doorway and caught a brief glimpse of the vehicles. They weren’t what she had been expecting.
They were worse.
She sucked in a sharp breath of air.
‘Oh my God,’ she whispered.
41
‘Follow it?’ King said as he noticed the limousine flash past, travelling well above whatever the speed limit was around here.
If there was one.
‘Follow it,’ Slater confirmed. ‘Could be nothing, but worth a look.’
‘If it’s not nothing, we need to be ready.’
Slater checked his Glock-22 had a full magazine of ammunition and was ready to fire. King’s own Desert Eagle had been left back at the house. He had run out of bullets during the shootout in the mall, and there hadn’t been any spare magazines lying around when he’d first picked up the weapon.
Slater had smartly frisk-searched Abdullah after retrieving his weapon off the floor and come away with three magazines in total. Now, he was down to his last.
Fifteen rounds.
Isla had her Jericho 941 handgun back at the house, fully loaded. She would be able to protect herself if need be. King knew she was more than capable. He doubted the girls would find trouble.
He and Slater, on the other hand…
Slater flashed the van’s indicator and turned slowly around the corner, taking care not to rush and attract unwanted attention in the process. They were headed straight for the commercial sector, a cluster of unfinished office buildings and towering skyscrapers. The horizon was eerie in its artificiality.
King imagined that, sooner or later, they would run into some kind of security checkpoint.
He wasn’t wrong.
The tail of the limousine disappeared through a walled-off section of the city, waved through immediately without the need for identification. A security booth near the gap in the wall bustled with the activity of two patrolling guards.
The limousine’s occupants had clearly been expected.
Slater looked across. ‘What do you think?’
‘How many vehicles like that drive around here?’
‘None, I’d say.’
‘I think we go for it.’
‘I agree,’ Slater muttered. ‘Not like we have a shortage of time…’
‘Those guards seem pretty serious. I’d say they’re being paid well. Once we act, we’ve got to move fast.’