The Will Slater Series Books 1-3

by Matt Rogers

  The Jericho.

  The pistol had clattered to rest just a foot away from him — in the darkness, he hadn’t seen it before. Charged with a final spark of determination, he reached over and snatched it off the ground, coating the grip in his own blood.

  The pick-up truck bore down on him, engine screaming.

  Fuck this.

  You don’t need to die here.

  He unloaded the remaining contents of the magazine, losing count of how many times he fired. In his lucid state, he had no idea where he was aiming or how accurate his shots were.

  He simply pointed into the light, and unleashed everything he had left.

  Yet his motor reflexes must have held up.

  The decade of training he’d undergone must have channelled itself into his subconscious over time.

  Because — even as the driver stamped on the brakes to shield himself from the barrage of gunfire — Slater heard the windshield shatter. Above the din of the burning rubber and the throaty engine and the wind whistling across the promontory, his ears picked up a pathetic wheeze, followed by the gargling of blood and gore.

  He knew exactly what the sound meant.

  One of the rounds had blasted straight through the man’s throat, undeniably fatal. Without being able to see the extent of the damage, Slater capitalised on a surge of momentum and ignored his instincts, climbing to his feet in one fluid motion. He stumbled, wobbled, but remained standing.

  The pick-up truck screeched to a halt alongside him, and he stared into the cabin to see the driver pawing half-heartedly at the gaping wound underneath his chin.

  He would be dead in seconds.

  Slater heard outcries from across the promontory — the remaining tribesmen must have thought the conflict was over. He was the first to admit that he was one tough son-of-a-bitch, but his better judgment took control.

  He wouldn’t win a fight against them.

  He could barely keep himself conscious.

  With his limbs moving like they were being dragged through mud, he opened the driver’s door and yanked the dying tribesman out of the crimson-stained seat. The man offered no resistance — he had barely any time left. He toppled out of the cabin, pitching forward, face planting the promontory floor and lying still.

  Slater collapsed into the driver’s seat, blinking hard.

  Somehow, he found the strength to lean on the accelerator and droop one bloody hand onto the top of the steering wheel.

  The pick-up truck lurched forward, the engine drowning out the screams of the remaining tribesmen.

  One glance in the side mirror and he could tell they were giving pursuit.

  He tuned out everything else and plunged onto the mountain trail, the suspension groaning under the exertion.

  Run.

  53

  Each time Slater gained ground on the convoy of vehicles hot on his heels, a wave of misery made him lag.

  Every foot of ground he covered as the pick-up truck twisted and roared down the track only compounded the nausea.

  You failed.

  The thought roiled through his mind, drowning out everything else. It didn’t matter that there were three identical pick-up trucks in his rear view mirror, keeping pace with him, desperate not to let him escape. In fact, he didn’t give a shit if they caught up to him and put a bullet through his brain.

  He would almost welcome it.

  As the hood of the truck bounced and rattled over the uneven ground, he asked himself why he was bothering to flee.

  How will you live with yourself — watching the news, seeing the trauma inflicted upon hundreds of thousands of people — knowing that you could have stopped it?

  The memory of the tribesman speaking the “go-ahead” word seared his mind.

  Dhi’b.

  Wolf.

  You failed.

  Rivers of blood in the streets.

  The vehicle went airborne as it shot off a particularly steep patch of disturbed rock. Slater’s stomach dropped into his feet. When the front wheels smashed back to earth and he jolted painfully in the driver’s seat, the headlights flickered out for a brief instant.

  In the total darkness, Slater noticed a soft glow coming from the passenger footwell.

  The headlights burst back into life and he corrected course, continuing his rapid descent of the mountainside.

  He searched for the source of the artificial light, and his gaze came to rest on the satellite phone that had been used to make the call. The tribesman had discarded it into the passenger footwell when he’d leapt into the vehicle.

  His work complete.

  His attention resting solely on Slater.

  Slater reached down and snatched it up, keeping one hand on the wheel. Flicking his eyes between the treacherous road ahead and the satellite phone’s screen, his heart skipped a beat as he registered what the device said.

  The text was in Arabic — indecipherable to Slater — but there was no mistaking the symbol displayed harshly on the digital screen.

  An exclamation mark inside a triangle.

  Error.

  ‘Oh my God,’ he whispered.

  The call hadn’t gone through.

  But why?

  Abu.

  Frantically, Slater exited the warning screen and brought up the keypad, ripping his attention from focal point to focal point as he smashed digits into the phone. He couldn’t take his eyes off the trail for more than a couple of seconds — any more than that and he would find himself spearing off the edge of the mountain.

  Finishing the string of numbers, he dialled.

  He pressed the phone to his ear, smearing his own blood across his cheek.

  Abu answered almost instantaneously.

  The man muttered some kind of greeting in Arabic — unsure about the unknown number.

  ‘Abu, it’s—’ Slater began.

  ‘Will!’ the man screamed. ‘I thought you were dead.’

  ‘I’m—’

  ‘Shut up,’ Abu said, suddenly dangerously serious. Slater had never heard him like this. ‘There’s no time. I have details about the bomber.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The man in London. I know where he is.’

  ‘How—?’

  ‘The call didn’t go through, but the guy’s going through with it anyway. We have minutes.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘I could track the co-ordinates of where the call was answered from,’ Abu said. ‘It’s an apartment building on Brook Street, in a suburb called Kingston. Very busy. It’ll be hell if the device goes off.’

  Slater twisted the wheel sharply to guide the pick-up truck along a steep bend in the trail. For a moment the rear wheels skidded out, jolting his heart in his chest. He corrected course and surged forward, fleeing from the remaining tribesmen.

  ‘I…’ he started, trying to compose his thoughts.

  Everything was moving too fast.

  ‘There’s nothing I can do,’ he admitted.

  ‘You were military?’ Abu said. ‘You can make calls? If we know where he is…’

  ‘Uh…’

  Slater hadn’t considered anything of the sort. He hadn’t been anticipating that he would learn of the bomber’s exact location — it opened a wide range of possibilities he hadn’t had time to consider.

  He didn’t have time.

  He had minutes.

  Less than that.

  Just a few hundred feet down the trail, he glimpsed the soft glow of Qasam, resting peacefully in its alcove on the mountainside. He would roar into town in seconds. Battling for control of the wheel, he suppressed a mind-crushing headache and considered his options.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘It’ll get me killed, but I can do that.’

  ‘Get you killed?’

  ‘I didn’t exactly part amicably with my old employers.’

  ‘You have to stop this, Will.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It might be too late.’

  ‘I know.’


  He made to hang up the phone, but Abu interrupted. ‘And one last thing…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I found al-Mansur’s daughter.’

  Slater paused. ‘You found her?’

  ‘Hanging in a closet, in a spare room. Sayyid must have left her there, for al-Mansur to find. Sadistic bastard.’

  ‘Fucking hell,’ Slater said. ‘Maybe it’s best he never knew her fate.’

  ‘Yeah…’

  ‘Brook Street. Kingston. Apartment complex. Middle-Eastern male. That’s what I have to work with?’

  ‘You got it,’ Abu said.

  ‘Whatever happens,’ Slater said. ‘I won’t ever speak to you again.’

  ‘I’m leaving the mansion now. I’ve done all I can.’

  ‘Thank you. If it wasn’t for you…’

  ‘I know,’ Abu said. ‘Good luck, my friend.’

  The line went dead.

  Slater gripped the wheel tight, his knuckles turning white, attempting to compartmentalise his emotions while struggling to control a battered old truck that was one good impact away from structurally disintegrating. He covered the last stretch of the mountain trail and shot through into the streets of Qasam.

  Residential buildings flashed by on either side.

  This late in the evening, civilians were in their homes, evident by the warm glow emanating from the windows Slater screamed past. He narrowed his eyes at the road ahead, vision blurred and head pounding. At the same time he moved to dial a number into the satellite phone, a number he never thought he would have to use again.

  He took a deep breath.

  Making the call was a death sentence.

  But all other options had been exhausted.

  He finished entering the digits and moved to dial…

  …when his attention was torn away from the device as the road opened out ahead.

  There were at least a dozen military vehicles parked across the street, forming a rudimentary blockade to prevent any kind of civilian traffic passing through. Slater counted a small army of uniformed soldiers wielding automatic weapons — he couldn’t tell if they were private mercenaries or official forces.

  His judgment came down on the latter.

  There was no other reason for them to be here — they were al-Mansur’s forces, called in to eliminate a hostile in the encampment. Slater could tell by their mannerisms that they were milling around, preparing for a targeted offensive.

  They were ready for war.

  Thankfully, he had commandeered a tribesman’s vehicle, which made them hesitate. They weren’t sure exactly what to make of the Land Cruiser that came roaring into sight, its front windscreen shot out and its chassis littered with bullet holes.

  Slater checked his rearview mirror — sure enough, the four vehicles in pursuit were less than a hundred feet from his rear, closing in fast.

  They weren’t going to slow down.

  It would take mere seconds for the remaining tribesmen to communicate with the soldiers and unite against him.

  He was bottlenecked into a fatal trap.

  Activating the brakes, he screeched to a halt in the middle of the deserted laneway. The soldiers watched him wordlessly, draped in shadow, confused as to what was unfolding.

  Slater took a deep breath, hurled open the driver’s door, and ran with everything he had left into an adjacent alleyway, keeping the phone locked tight in his grip.

  54

  Chaos broke out.

  The soldiers screamed at him in Arabic, urging him to stop. His right leg threatened to give out, an act that would be a death sentence in every sense. He pictured himself sprawling to the pavement, helpless to resist the storm of bullets that would shred his back apart and kill him in seconds.

  But he stumbled, righted himself, and ducked into the lip of the alleyway just as a chunk of the mud-brick wall directly alongside him exploded, showering him in debris.

  They were firing on him.

  They knew.

  For a single, terrifying moment, his consciousness became detached from what lay ahead. The dark alleyway pitched and yawned, twisting in his vision. He paused, reeling, wondering if he had lost his mind.

  Then he realised exactly what kind of condition he was in.

  With his brain rattled by the impact with the ground back on the mountainside, his senses were beginning to fail themselves. He afforded himself a single moment to rest a hand against the mud-brick wall beside him. He sucked in air, regaining his balance.

  Then he set off again.

  He was the last chance for this plot to be foiled.

  Maybe he was trying in vain.

  Maybe the Marburg virus had already spewed forth from the bomblets, invisible to the naked eye, worming its way down the throats of civilians craning to get a look at the aftermath of a standard suicide-bombing.

  That’s how they’d do it, Slater realised.

  Disguise it as something else.

  Something more ordinary.

  Something guaranteed to capture the attention and headlines of the first world until the real onslaught revealed itself in all its blood and gore.

  A shiver ran down Slater’s spine, invigorating him.

  He heard soldiers and tribesman alike converging on the mouth of the alleyway. With no cover to hide behind, he was a sitting duck if he stayed put. He ran straight by a nondescript wooden door leading into a residential building, this structure also made of mud-brick. Unable to use his feet due to the crippling hole in his calf, he shouldered the door inwards, snapping the lock with a single shove.

  The power of adrenalin.

  He hurried into a cramped, claustrophobic hallway with minimal lighting and horrendous air filtration. The atmosphere was heavy and thick with humidity. Slater felt the sweat leeching from his pores as he hobbled frantically deeper into the building, sinking down the rabbit hole.

  He didn’t know where he was headed.

  He just needed a few minutes alone.

  That was all it would take.

  Finding a derelict door at the end of the hallway, he smashed it open with another heavy blow and limped into an empty, low-ceilinged room containing a toilet and shower in the far corner.

  There were no windows, and the tiny uninhabited living quarters stank of dilapidation.

  Slater slammed the door shut behind him and slumped to the floor, sweating and bleeding and breathing hard.

  He rested his back against the door, panting restlessly, attuning his ears to the sound of approaching combatants.

  He could hear them milling around in the alleyway, their voices harsh and discordant. Their yells and barks filtered through into the room, floating under the doorway.

  It would only be a matter of time before they found him.

  There was no escape.

  Squeezing his eyes shut to combat the various sensations washing over him — pain, resignation, acceptance — he finally dialled the number resting on the satellite phone’s screen.

  The call went through straight away.

  Slater lifted the device to his ear and waited for the line to connect.

  It was answered with total silence. Just as it always had been.

  ‘It’s Will Slater,’ he said, speaking fast, his tone charged with purpose. ‘You might think I’m dead, but that’s something to discuss later. Get me Williams as fast as you possibly can.’

  ‘What’s this about?’ a voice said.

  ‘Get me Williams,’ Slater repeated.

  ‘Sir, I don’t think—’

  ‘If you don’t put me through to Williams, I’ll have you thrown in a black prison. You’re just a dispatcher, but you’ve heard of them. Off-the-grid locations. I used to work for Black Force and I can have you dragged into one of those for the rest of your life for disobeying orders. Get me Russell Williams, right fucking now.’

  ‘One moment.’

  There was a pause at the other end of the line. Slater knew it would only drag out for a second or two, maximum. His old
life had been gruelling and unrelenting, but he’d be damned if his superiors weren’t efficient with their time.

  They had to be.

  Their line of work demanded it.

  Then a familiar voice presented itself, incredulous, laced with disbelief. ‘Slater?’

  ‘Hey, Williams.’

  ‘What the fuck are you doing? You know we have to come for you now.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘The way things went down … you really expect us to just leave you alone? You should have kept your head buried in the sand.’

  ‘Listen to me,’ Slater said. ‘This isn’t about me. There is a man on Brook Street, in a suburb of London called Kingston, and he has three bomblets packed with a weaponised strain of the Marburg virus. He’s going to set them off in the next few minutes. Middle-Eastern complexion. He’ll have a backpack. They can’t miss him.’

  Williams had known Slater for long enough to understand that he was deadly serious. Whatever was unfolding, it was bad. ‘Can you get to him?’

  ‘I’m in Yemen,’ Slater said.

  ‘What the hell are you doing in—?’

  ‘Russell!’ Slater barked. ‘Minutes. Get onto your contacts in London. You need to prevent this. Pull out all the stops. I can’t stress how goddamn serious this is.’

  Slater could tell there were a million questions rolling through the man’s mind, each on the tip of his tongue, but Williams recognised a dire situation when he saw one. He kept his response succinct. ‘On it. Stay where you are. You know we need to bring you in.’

  ‘There won’t be anything to bring in.’

  ‘Will…’

  Slater ended the call and tossed the phone across the room, where it shattered against the opposite wall, its screen disintegrating into shards of glass.

  There was nothing left to say. He had done everything he possibly could. It was out of his hands. Inside a grungy, darkened mud-brick room buried in the depths of a building in a remote mountain town, Will Slater let out the tension he’d been holding in ever since he’d caught sight of the infected desert wolf.

  The fate of hundreds of thousands of people rested upon the reaction speed of the organisation that had exiled Slater only weeks earlier. Now, it all came down to how fast his superiors were.