The Will Slater Series Books 1-3

by Matt Rogers

  ‘I was expecting this,’ the man said, eyeing the Jericho in Slater’s palm. ‘But who the fuck are you?’

  ‘A curious stranger.’

  The man managed a pathetic smile, exposing stained teeth and chapped lips, and shook his head pitifully. ‘Leave. Nothing for you to see here.’

  ‘I think there is.’

  ‘You don’t want to get involved in this.’

  ‘I already am.’

  The man lifted an eyebrow in curiosity. It seemed like the only gesture he could manage in his current state. ‘Ah. Came here deliberately?’

  Slater nodded.

  ‘Fucking fool,’ the man said.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I run this place. Or, at least, I did.’

  ‘And what do you do now?’

  He lifted the bottle off the floor, his arm swaying as he presented it to Slater. His head drooped forward involuntarily. ‘I drink. And I sit here waiting for someone like you to walk through that door. And I hope for the end.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I made a mistake.’

  ‘What kind of mistake?’

  ‘You are American?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are here for your government?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘Tell me again.’

  ‘I’m a curious stranger.’

  The man sighed and settled back into his chair. ‘So you have no procedure to follow?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘No superiors to answer to?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If I tell you what I have done, will you use that gun in your hand on me?’

  ‘It depends. Probably not.’

  ‘I’m asking you to.’

  Slater let the silence hang in the air, opting not to respond. He weighed up the gravity of what the man was saying.

  He had done something horrendous.

  And it had evidently torn him up inside.

  ‘Whatever it was,’ Slater said, ‘why did you do it? If it made you this?’

  The man shrugged. ‘That question will carry on as long as we live on this planet.’ Then he scoffed. ‘Which might not be long, after all.’

  ‘I know the Brigadier-General is working with northern highlander tribesmen to manufacture some kind of bioweapon,’ Slater said. ‘That much I’ve got. Is that what you were doing here?’

  The man nodded. ‘And that’s all I know.’

  ‘What does London have to do with it?’

  The man spat a glob of saliva onto the viewing room floor. ‘London…’

  He pondered that statement for what felt like an eternity.

  Slater realised the man hadn’t known.

  ‘They kept you in the dark?’

  He smiled wryly and shrugged. ‘Need to know basis. I wasn’t told what would become of what I created. But they told me to check the news. Every day. They told me I’d know then.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Al-Mansur,’ the man said. ‘And his men. You already know that.’

  ‘So tell me about what you created.’

  Clear fluid ran out both the man’s nostrils at once — either a result of the alcohol leeching through his system, or the drugs that had gone up his nose earlier that day, or the lack of sleep. Whatever the case, he spat again and composed himself.

  ‘Have you heard of the Marburg virus?’

  Slater paused, contemplating the words. None of them inspired confidence in him. ‘Can’t say I have.’

  ‘Ebola’s slimy cousin,’ the man said, laughing pathetically at his own words. ‘Three particles hanging around in the air are enough to cause the most painful death imaginable.’

  Slater thought of the red desert wolf in the cave, horrendously damaged, separated from death by a thin sheet of agony. ‘I saw an infected animal. Back in Qasam.’

  ‘With your own eyes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you’re one of the luckiest men alive to be standing here before me. You should be haemorrhaging by now. Your skin should be bruising as your capillaries burst. You should be vomiting blood and shitting uncontrollably. Consider it a blessing that you’re doing none of those things.’

  ‘What do you know about the tests they conducted on the mountainside?’

  The man smiled again. ‘Nothing. As I said — it’s their business what they do with it. I was paid to manufacture it. Weaponise it. Seal it in bomblets and pass it along.’

  ‘Why didn’t you do anything to stop them?’ Slater said, suddenly thinking the man might be faking his demeanour. ‘Why the sudden change of heart?’

  ‘Fear? Intimidation? Uncertainty? Why does anyone do anything?’

  ‘Money,’ Slater said.

  ‘They paid me,’ the man said. ‘They paid me very well. Look how much I appreciate it.’

  He waved an arm over himself, highlighting the state he’d devolved to. He took another swig from the bottle, letting the whiskey drain its way down his insides. Slater watched the man let out a sickening belch and slump further back into his chair, head drooping back.

  Slater didn’t move.

  He wanted more.

  ‘You said you weaponised it,’ he said. ‘Give me details.’

  The man coughed. ‘What use would it do you? It’s too late to do anything about it. You’re fucked. I’m fucked. The world’s fucked.’

  ‘How many bomblets did you manufacture?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘How much damage could that do?’

  The man didn’t respond. It was difficult to tell in the lowlight, but Slater thought he saw the blood drain from the man’s face.

  Either fear had caused the reaction, or the alcohol.

  But Slater knew.

  He knew the signs of overwhelming guilt.

  This man was going through a world of pain.

  ‘I … don’t want to think about it,’ the guy said. ‘But it spreads fast. Really fucking fast. Especially after what I did with it.’

  ‘Just you?’

  ‘I had two assistants.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  The man touched two fingers to the side of his temple, pointing his thumb skyward, forming the distinct shape of a gun. He mimed the barrel recoiling as the weapon fired.

  ‘You did it?’

  The man shook his head. ‘Couple of tribesmen. Came and picked them up a few days ago when the final batch was handed over. Never heard from them again.’

  ‘You were okay with that?’

  ‘I didn’t have a choice in any of this.’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘Guilt trip me all you want,’ the man said. ‘I can’t feel any worse.’

  ‘I should kill you.’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘Back to what I said earlier,’ Slater said. ‘You weaponised the Marburg virus. How?’

  ‘We passed it through a live incubator.’

  Slater paled. ‘You mean…?’

  ‘Now you see why I am like this,’ the man said. ‘What I’ve done…’

  ‘Who was he? Or she?’

  ‘A homeless beggar we dragged in off the street. No-one bothered to wonder where he went. Anyone who knew him must have thought he succumbed to his life on the streets.’

  ‘You’re a piece of shit.’

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘About as horrifically as you could possibly imagine. It took a few days for the infection to set in. He went from headaches and queasiness to complete shutdown of his motor skills. The haemorrhaging began on the fifth day, and by that point everything went south fast. His body turned blue — almost black — and his skin began to break apart. He bled from everywhere at once. He constantly defecated — it was uncontrollable.’

  Slater stood immobile, in a state of shock. ‘What causes that kind of reaction?’

  The man shrugged. ‘Nobody’s cert
ain. We know it stops the body’s ability to clot blood. Through shutting down platelets and the like. And it’s highly contagious. The samples we took from his broken body were weaponised beyond measure. I was in shock when I handed them off. I couldn’t believe what I’d done.’

  ‘I can’t believe what you’ve done,’ Slater whispered.

  ‘You’re a tough guy?’ the man said, his eyes moving from Slater’s stern expression to the Jericho in his hand.

  ‘I like to think so.’

  ‘You need to stop this,’ the man said. ‘I was too weak, too pathetic, too much of a failure at everything. I don’t think I need to stress what will happen if you let this unfold.’

  ‘London,’ Slater repeated, mulling in his thoughts. ‘But why? Why is any of this shit happening? What reason does al-Mansur have?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask him that yourself.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘And you’d better do it quickly…’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s been four days since I sent the bomblets off to al-Mansur. He said he had systems in place to deliver them straight away. He told me that much, at least. Whatever he did — they should be in position soon.’

  ‘What makes you think it’ll be today?’

  ‘It could be any day,’ the man said, taking another swig from the whiskey bottle. Its contents were almost entirely depleted. ‘But I told him to do it at sundown. Wherever he wanted to set it off, he needed to do it then.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’ll cause maximum infection that way,’ the man said. ‘Sunset creates an inversion in the weather. The cooler air in the sky covers the warmer air on the ground. Think of it as a giant bubble, sealing all the particles in.’

  ‘You didn’t have to tell him that,’ Slater said. ‘That was your own information that you offered him on a platter?’

  The man nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘You weren’t really doing this out of fear, were you?’ Slater said. ‘You were caught up in the moment. You did whatever he asked, blinded by the money. Only now you’re realising the gravity of what you’ve done. That’s what this pity party is.’

  The man smiled, drained the last of the whiskey, and pointed the empty bottle at Slater. ‘Bingo.’

  Slater blasted his forehead to bloody shreds with a single shot from the Jericho. He had the sidearm trained on the man and the trigger depressed before the guy even knew what hit him.

  The man deserved a whole lot worse than that.

  Slater left the man to bleed out all over the swivel chair and moved past him to where a landline phone rested on its cradle. He snatched the receiver up, pressed it to his ear, and dialled the number he’d memorised back in the mansion.

  Abu picked up on the second ring.

  ‘You’re alive?’ Slater said.

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Good. We don’t have much time.’

  33

  Yemen was two hours ahead of England, which meant Slater had just over five hours before dusk arrived in London. When he’d strode into the bioweapon complex the sun had been drooping toward the opposite horizon, but he imagined it wouldn’t grow dark here for a few hours.

  They had enough time to stop and think.

  Barely.

  ‘Any close calls?’ Slater said.

  ‘You’ve been gone an hour,’ Abu said. His voice was muffled, its tone deliberately lowered to prevent detection. ‘Not exactly a world of time to get discovered.’

  ‘You’re doing okay though?’

  ‘No-one’s been inside. Whatever you did out the front has their attention. They’re not searching the place, that’s for sure.’

  ‘You think you’ll be okay for now?’

  ‘Al-Mansur uses ten percent of the house,’ Abu said. ‘I’ll be fine. I heard them untying him before.’

  ‘Pick up on anything they said?’

  ‘They were scarce on the details,’ Abu said. ‘But…’

  He hesitated.

  ‘But what?’ Slater said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Abu said. ‘It’s strange. He seems … almost scared.’

  ‘I don’t blame him. We almost crashed his party. We still have the chance to.’

  ‘No,’ Abu said. Slater could almost hear the man shaking his head. ‘Not like that. A different kind of scared. Like he was worried for himself.’

  ‘What are you basing this off?’

  A pause. ‘Nothing. Just a hunch.’

  ‘Keep an ear out for anything strange,’ Slater said.

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘The truck I stole from the mercenary that tried to kill me in Qasam. It led to a bioweapon facility here in Seiyun. The guy had been contracted to guard the place. Al-Mansur’s been using it to manufacture a virus.’

  ‘What kind of virus?’

  ‘Something called Marburg. It’s bad. Horrifically bad.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Tell me everything about the security situation at the compound,’ Slater said. ‘I can’t see any other way around this. I need to get back in. I thought you might be useful if you could get into the office without being detected, but there’s no time anymore. I need al-Mansur to talk. It’s the only option.’

  ‘We tried that already,’ Abu muttered.

  ‘There’s a weapon in London capable of decimating an entire city. We need to try again.’

  ‘There’s a dozen tribesmen spread around the compound,’ Abu said. ‘They’re not searching for me — they don’t know I’m inside. But security is damn tight. Al-Mansur might be expecting you to come back.’

  Slater sighed and bowed his head. Although he didn’t vocalise it, memories he’d rather have left in the past came roaring back. Sieges on enemy strongholds.

  One man against a small army.

  He’d done it before.

  He would have preferred to leave those kinds of risks in the past, but it seemed he had no other option.

  ‘What kind of damage could you cause from the inside?’ Slater said. ‘I’ll need all the help I can get.’

  He heard Abu audibly gulp. ‘I don’t know…’

  The man couldn’t have been less versed in combat. Slater recognised that, and adjusted his approach accordingly. ‘You know what — don’t worry. I don’t want you doing anything stupid. Buckle down. Wait for me to come storming in. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ Abu said, a little hesitantly. ‘What are you planning to do?’

  ‘What I do best.’

  Slater ended the call and slammed the landline receiver back down onto its cradle. He left the scientist’s corpse spinning slowly in its seat, bleeding profusely, resting awkwardly against the chair back. The guy deserved nothing less. Slater had spent years dealing with the incompetence of men who simply did as they were instructed.

  This man was as much of a scumbag as the rest of them.

  Even despite his late-notice change of heart.

  It didn’t alter what he’d done.

  Slater took a moment to compose himself. So far, he had been lucky to absorb little damage. Amidst the madness of the past day there had been glancing blows and brutal impacts, but nothing significant enough to cause serious injury. He had made it through everything in one piece — and, all things considered, he was in acceptable shape to storm a hostile compound.

  He had fared far worse in the past.

  Drawing on that, he burst into motion, charged with energy. He pictured the scenario that the scientist had described in all its gruesome detail — the shocking effects of the Marburg virus on a human incubator.

  He imagined all of London succumbing to the bioweapon.

  It sent a shiver down his spine, simultaneously icing his veins with determination.

  He didn’t know why this was happening, or what reason al-Mansur had for inflicting such a terrible curse upon society.

  But he had the tools to stop it.

  He left the viewing room as quickly as he’d entered it,
ghosting out into the deserted corridors of the complex. It didn’t take long to stumble across a holding room designed for the use of the mercenaries employed to guard the compound.

  The important work was done, and the rooms had been abandoned in haste as soon as the final product had shipped out.

  Luckily, they’d left behind entire racks full of weapons and ammunition.

  Slater eyed identical rifles and sidearms, all of which he felt like he’d seen a thousand times over during his time in Yemen. Kalashnikov assault rifles — AK-47s, AK-12s, AK-15s, AK-74s — littered the racks, all loaded with magazines and ready for use. There were a handful of sidearms — Beretta M9s and more IWI Jerichos — scattered across the countertops, but he ignored those. Loading up with every weapon under the sun simply proved cumbersome. Slater snatched up an AK-15 with an attached suppressor, bundled a handful of magazines into the pockets of his jacket, and turned on his heel.

  He had never spent much time weighing up the tactical advantages of different approaches.

  He simply picked a gun, got his mind right, and swung for the fences.

  He was still here today — so his approach obviously held some merit.

  He wondered if that could be chalked up to his blindingly fast reaction speed.

  Shrugging it off, he left most of the weaponry where it lay and retraced his path through the complex. It had quickly become apparent that the lead scientist was the last man left in the building — leaving the doors open had been his form of committing suicide. Too scared to go through with the act himself, he must have figured that his ineptitude would have caused al-Mansur to send a few thugs in to deal with him.

  He sure hadn’t been expecting Slater.

  Slater thought about many things as he made the trek back to his vehicle. He thought of a small package of bomblets somewhere in inner-city London, soon to be unleashed in an event that would no doubt be remembered for centuries to come. He thought of a computer technician with an uneventful life, currently trapped in a psychotic general’s mansion in the centre of a desert valley all because he’d run into Slater earlier the previous day.

  Above all else, he thought of the eyes of a red desert wolf, wracked with unimaginable pain as its skin fell apart and it succumbed to a virus beyond comprehension.

  He thought of hundreds of thousands of people suffering the same fate.