by Matt Rogers
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not a chance.’
She groaned. ‘What do you want?’
‘You’re going to take me to the supplier.’
12
W-what?’
‘You heard me.’
‘What supplier?’
‘Don’t play dumb.’
‘How do you know about that?’
‘About their addiction?’
‘About their boss.’
Rollins shifted in his seat. Maybe it wouldn’t be as hard as he’d originally anticipated to whittle information out of Viola. ‘You shouldn’t have said that.’
She froze. ‘Shit.’
‘Now you’re going to need to explain yourself.’
‘Uh…’
‘If I get the slightest hint that you’re making shit up, I’ll shoot you in the head. Imagine what that’ll be like. You won’t even hear the gunshot. You’ll just see the barrel of the gun — that dark, empty hole — and then there’ll be a blinding flash of light and darkness forever. How would that feel?’
His spiel worked brilliantly. Mortified, Viola shrank back into the armchair, getting as far away from Rollins as she could.
‘Start talking,’ he said. ‘Right now. And don’t stop. If you stop, I’ll know you’re making things up, and I’ll shoot you. Don’t forget that.’
‘Um…’
‘Right now, Viola.’
‘Okay, okay,’ she said, unblinking, staring wide-eyed at the Walther PPX in Rollins’ hand. ‘There’s an Asian guy. Xiao. He lives in one of the villas between Vernazza and Corniglia. Really expensive place. He was the supplier for my… friends.’
‘No pauses,’ Rollins reminded.
‘Sorry. It’s just … they are not my friends anymore.’
‘That was a quick turnaround.’
‘They were using me as a shield. They were more than prepared for me to die.’
‘True. But don’t think that makes you redeemed. You were implicit in all of this.’
‘I didn’t hurt anyone.’
‘But they did. And you watched.’
She said nothing.
Which said everything.
‘How many did they kill?’ he said.
‘None.’
In the blink of an eye Rollins had the barrel of the PPX trained on her face. Viola seemed to recall every word Rollins had told her, because the mortal fear that spread across her face was unmistakable.
‘That’s a lie, Viola.’
‘No, it’s not.’
He burst off the armchair and crossed the space between them before she could even recoil. He jammed the barrel of the Walther to her forehead, grinding the cold steel against her temple.
‘That’s a second lie. I won’t let you make a third.’
‘Four,’ she said.
‘Four men?’
The slightest pause.
Rollins applied pressure to the Walther’s trigger.
‘Two men,’ she said, tears forming in her eyes, her expression twisting into a mask of horrified guilt. ‘One woman. And a kid.’
Rollins considered pulling the trigger, right then and there. It wouldn’t have bothered him in the slightest, and then he could leave the house behind for good. He could try his best to forget all about the horrific dynamic he’d discovered on the mountainside above Vernazza. All parties would be dead, and he could move on with his life.
But he knew he couldn’t.
Not anymore.
The old Sam Rollins was back, and the old Rollins would chase these goddamn leads until he arrived at the trail’s bloody conclusion.
So as much as he wanted to blast Viola’s head to a pulp, he took the gun away and crossed back to the couch as she let out a wail of anguish.
‘Feel guilty now, don’t you?’ he said.
‘I…’
She didn’t know what to say, and in all honesty he understood. He had witnessed with his own eyes how effortlessly an ordinary man or woman could get wrapped up in horrors. She had probably shared a genuine connection with those three men at some point, before the madness of addiction took hold. It wasn’t difficult to sink to moral lows when everyone around you was behaving in the same fashion. It had probably felt normal to her. Like a natural progression of things. Only now that her friends were dead would she realise the gravity of what she had done.
Look at Nazi Germany, for God’s sakes, Rollins thought.
‘Look at me,’ he said, and she did. ‘You’ve done some awful things. But you know what you need to do to make things right. You know who I am.’
‘I have no idea,’ she said.
‘But you get the idea. I killed your three friends fairly easily. You’re going to take me to their boss. Who is he?’
‘I told you. Xiao.’
‘What does Xiao do?’
‘He sells drugs.’
‘To you?’
She shook her head. ‘I didn’t go down the path they did.’
‘But you hung around.’
‘I… didn’t have many friends. I grew up with them. We were like family.’
‘You didn’t seem like family a few minutes ago.’
‘I said were for a reason.’
‘That changed pretty quickly then…’
‘That’s what crack does.’
As I suspected, Rollins thought.
‘Why didn’t you join them? Seems pretty easy to get pressured into it if those three are the only people you hang around with everyday.’
‘My father. He died from a heroin overdose. I promised I would never…’
‘But you didn’t have a problem kidnapping innocent people to fuel their addictions?’
‘I guess… I couldn’t think of anything else to do.’
It sounded pathetic, but Rollins could sense the undercurrent of helplessness in her tone. It was something that couldn’t be easily faked. She wasn’t putting on an act. Viola had deep-seated issues, issues that likely stemmed from one — or more — of her family members succumbing to a horrible fate. He wondered how much that situation had affected her subsequent life choices.
Frankly, he didn’t have time to dwell on her past, or her future. He didn’t know what kind of security measures were in place to keep tabs on the three junkies and their female counterpart. If he wanted to see this through to its conclusion, he needed to move.
And move now.
‘Viola,’ he said. ‘Tell me more about Xiao.’
13
Rollins elected to listen on the move. He didn’t want to spend any longer than necessary in that godforsaken mountainside house — it reeked of the suffering that had been dished out within its walls. He needed the fresh air to digest his next move, to relive the madness of the last hour. Earlier that day he hadn’t a care in the world, far separated from the hardened killer he’d been during active service. Now he was straight back in the chaos, complete with the laser-like focus and elevated heart rate of an operation.
And he was still a free man.
He tried to remind himself of that fact, hammering the point home. There was nothing stopping him putting a bullet in Viola, or letting her go, and disappearing into the Italian countryside. She had a name to work with, but there were countless men named Sam Rollins on the planet. And his previous occupation had made him particularly adept at staying low, out of sight and out of mind.
He could vanish, right now, and continue his attempt at retirement.
But the very concept of retirement seemed ridiculous right now.
And the action had brought back a fresh wave of emotions.
How could he turn his back on this? The presence of one kidnapping ring would no doubt lead to other secrets Rollins would uncover. How could he willingly walk away from injustice, considering he had the tools and the training to fight it?
And what did that mean in a wider perspective?
How could he have turned his back on Black Force?
To silence the thoughts racing through his head, he turned his attention
to Viola. The pair made their way out through the front door and down the sloping field of grass in front of the house. Soon they would return to the forest, and the trail between Monterosso and Vernazza packed with tourists. Rollins kept the Walther in his jacket pocket, but it was always there, always ready to fire. Viola knew that. They would pass civilians and she might get the urge to run, but to reinforce the point he made sure the gun barrel remained pressed up against the inside material of his jacket.
She could see it in her peripheral vision.
None of the colour had returned to her face.
‘Well?’ he said as the trees consumed them and they hurried down the mountainside.
‘He deals drugs,’ she said. ‘What more is there to know?’
‘A hell of a lot.’
‘I don’t know much.’
‘Viola…’
‘That’s the truth. You say you’re good at reading people. Well, that’s the truth. And if you can’t see that, then you’re not so good after all.’
He scrutinised her features. He couldn’t find anything worth investigating. He nodded satisfactorily. ‘What do you know?’
‘He got rich. Doing something else. Overseas. Obviously. There’s not many Italians named Xiao.’
‘Funny.’
‘You don’t seem like you’re in a joking mood.’
‘I’m not. You’re observant.’
Viola hesitated.
Rollins sensed it. ‘What?’
‘It’s just…’
‘Say it.’
‘I want to tell you things about Xiao, but it’ll seem hypocritical.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Well, he has no moral compass whatsoever.’
Before Rollins chased down that particular train of conversation, he took a moment to study the way Viola was speaking to him. ‘Your English is far better than I thought.’
A coy smile crept across her lips. ‘My English is very good, actually. I was faking a stronger Italian accent in Vernazza. Seems to help convincing people I’m a local.’
‘You’re not a local?’
‘I am. I can just speak English fluently.’
‘You certainly convinced me.’
‘I’m flattered.’
‘You should be. It takes a solid effort to deceive me.’
‘I told you. It wasn’t all deception.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Rollins said.
They burst out of the trees at the same stretch of the hiking trail they’d initially branched away from. With nothing but a thin wooden railing separating them from a staggering drop to the ocean far below, the views of the Tyrrhenian Sea were unparalleled. Rollins could see Vernazza, jutting out from the base of a cluster of soaring hills. He gently placed a hand on the small of Viola’s back and guided her imperceptibly in that direction.
‘Why are we going back there?’ she said. ‘We should head onto Monterosso.’
‘You said Xiao lives between Vernazza and Corniglia.’
‘Yes, but what’s that got to do with—’
She went deathly pale. Despite the Walther PPX aimed at her torso through the fabric of Rollins’ jacket, she defied him by spinning on her heel and facing him directly. They were only half a foot apart now. Her gaze bored into him, willing him with everything she had not to proceed.
‘Don’t do this,’ she said. ‘You’ll get me killed. You’ll get yourself killed.’
‘You should have thought of that before you targeted me,’ he said. ‘Because now I’m seeing this through to the end. No matter what happens.’
‘Sam, you need to leave.’
He stepped closer to her, until he was able to poke the barrel of the PPX through his jacket pocket and press it into her bellybutton. To any passersby, they would appear as lovers talking intimately, their faces only inches apart.
‘I don’t need to do anything. The sooner you get that through your head, the better. You made the decision to get me involved with this. You didn’t know my past. But I can’t just walk away now. Especially not after that reaction. You know Xiao’s a bad man, don’t you?’
She nodded.
‘You know he’s more than a drug dealer?’
She nodded again.
‘You think he’ll tie you up and kill you for leading me to him.’
‘You won’t win,’ she whispered through chattering teeth. ‘Not against him.’
‘See,’ he said. ‘You saw what I did to your three friends in the house. That’s my specialty. So how can I walk away from Xiao and leave him to continue with all his unpleasant hobbies? Don’t you see how that would paint me in a negative light? It would be admitting that yes, I can stop it, but I’m choosing not to. I hope you never need to shoulder that kind of burden, Viola. Hopefully you can see why I have to.’
She turned paler still, which Rollins hadn’t considered possible.
‘Sorry in advance,’ he muttered. ‘This might get a little tense later on.’
Then he jabbed her with the gun barrel, commanding her to set off back down the mountainside, toward Vernazza.
She obeyed.
A couple of young men in their twenties with pale skin and red cheeks — Rollins guessed they were British from their complexion alone — had seen the whole incident unfold. Everything from Rollins and Viola bursting out of the woods, drifting closer together, and then heading back in the direction of Vernazza.
As they passed by along the trail, both of them flashed sheepish smiles and nodded to Rollins, a seemingly congratulatory gesture for what they thought had transpired in the forest.
A guy getting lucky.
Rollins nodded back.
If only they knew.
14
They descended into the coastal town, their demeanours far different from the youthful exuberance they’d shared during the climb up. Everything had changed in the last hour — not just the dynamic between them, but the demons inside Rollins’ head had quietened.
That scared him the most.
He hadn’t even given a thought to the vision of the Peruvian rainforest from the previous day. That post-traumatic flashback felt alien and foreign to him now.
Why?
Because he was back in this world. He wasn’t a stranger to it anymore. He couldn’t look back in fear at the times he’d come inches away from death, because now he’d taken up residence in that very same reality. He was back in the game where a stray gunshot could mean the end, where violent psychopaths thrived.
And Rollins thrived too.
So when they strode down off the mouth of the trail and ducked through narrow cobblestone streets and burst back out onto the main road, the peaceful coastal village seemed entirely different to the one Rollins had been staying in a day earlier.
He wasn’t here as a tourist anymore.
He was here as an operative.
And maybe that was the only way he was ever supposed to experience the world.
What were the odds that he would unintentionally get wrapped up in this level of violence so soon after leaving the military?
It had to be fate.
It had to be a reminder.
He filed that into the back of his head and turned his attention back to the present.
They stopped at the local supermarket to buy a pair of water bottles from the fridge up the back. Viola guzzled hers before Rollins even had the chance to pay. He made sure not to waver in the slightest with the PPX’s aim. Clearly she had a multitude of deep-seated issues, all of which had contributed to her ending up obedient to her three buddies, but he didn’t inherently think she was a bad person. Not through to her core, in the way some people were.
Not just yet.
Still, she would no doubt make a break for it if given the opportunity. Rollins had killed three people in front of her. People she knew. No-one got over that kind of thing with ease.
As Rollins handed a five-euro note to the elderly cashier, he noticed Viola sobbing out of the corner of his eye. He shot a dark
look in her direction, and she wiped tears from her face in an attempt to stifle the emotion. The cashier glanced inquisitively at Rollins, and he shrugged and offered a half-hearted smile.
She nodded and gave a warm smile in return.
A wordless exchange, but one that didn’t raise any red flags. Perhaps the woman took Rollins smile as an indication that someone Viola knew well had passed away. That would explain the outburst of emotion.
Actually, that wouldn’t be a lie.
It would be slightly harder to explain that Rollins had been the one to do it.
They left the supermarket and began the trek up the main street, past the train station, finally reaching a narrow concrete stairwell spiralling into the hills with a sign labelled “CORNIGLIA” nailed into the mossy cobblestone wall beside it.
Rollins glanced at the sign, then glanced at Viola and raised an eyebrow.
She nodded. ‘It’s getting dark. We haven’t eaten.’
‘There’ll be food at Xiao’s place,’ Rollins said, and hurried her forward before she could utter a word of protest.
The sun melted into the horizon, casting pale orange streaks through the darkening sky. They climbed higher and higher, and the air turned cold. A chill ran down Rollins’ neck, culminating at the base of his spine, but he wasn’t sure whether it was because of the drop in temperature or the knowledge of what the evening would bring.
‘Xiao was the one who got us started,’ Viola muttered, barely audible over the wind whipping against the mountainside.
They had paused at a lookout far above Vernazza, overlooking the thin finger of civilisation jutting out into the swells. With the sun setting, Rollins could sense the desolation of the surrounding area. Aside from a few key points of civilian activity, the mountains facing the Tyrrhenian Sea were largely uninhabited. The occasional villa had been skewered into a handful of natural clearings, but there was privacy out here. He could see how it appealed to a man like Xiao.
‘Got you started on what?’ Rollins said, taking care to keep his voice low.
Hordes of tourists and locals alike still streamed past them on the hiking trail. Most were heading down the mountain, completing the sunset hike at Vernazza for a cocktail and a meal by the oceanside.