The Will Slater Series Books 1-3

by Matt Rogers

  ‘I told you, I’m not—’

  ‘You really ready to die?’ Slater said.

  ‘Iosif.’

  It meant nothing to Slater. ‘What business do you have in Vladivostok, Iosif?’

  ‘Where are my friends?’

  ‘Those were your friends?’

  ‘My business associates.’

  ‘I thought they were holding you hostage. You seemed awfully scared.’

  ‘I’m not scared.’

  ‘You look terrified.’

  ‘Well, I am now. You’re pointing a gun at me.’

  ‘You looked pretty scared before guns were in the equation.’

  ‘I’m a nervous guy, I guess.’

  ‘Your English is quite good,’ Slater noted.

  Iosif shrugged. ‘You want to be anyone in this country, you learn English. Helps with international trade.’

  ‘Is that what you do?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘You going back home too?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind. You been to Vladivostok before?’

  ‘A couple of times. It’s not my favourite place on earth.’

  ‘So why are you headed there now?’

  ‘Business.’

  ‘What kind of business?’

  ‘Contract work.’

  ‘Stop bullshitting, Iosif. Tell me about the Medved Shipbuilding Plant.’

  Iosif tried acting nonchalant, but it was difficult with a barrel aimed at his face through a jacket. The blood started to drain from his cheeks, turning them white. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Your business associates did. They tried to kill me because they overheard myself and my friend Viktor here talking about the plant. What do you know about it?’

  ‘My business is there, that’s all.’

  ‘You’d better start being clearer, and you’d better start filling me in, or I’ll blast a hole through your chest. I’m not joking. I killed your two friends just five minutes ago. If you think I’m bluffing, try me.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re bluffing.’

  ‘Then start talking. Start giving me information, or this is going to get painful.’

  Iosif sighed and bowed his head. ‘Look, I’m going to Vladivostok for personal reasons. I’m visiting friends. They’re doing something … illegal. Unsavoury. I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘You’d better start talking about it, or—’

  Commotion flooded the carriage, causing an outpouring of protest. Slater masked the sight of the Desert Eagle poking against the inside of his jacket but kept the weapon trained in the direction of Iosif. At the same time he flashed a glance in either direction down the aisle, leaning across to get a better look. It sounded like all hell was breaking loose — in neighbouring carriages he heard literal cries of distress.

  Shit, he thought.

  He’d shoved both of the bodyguards’ corpses into a supply closet connected to the staff’s quarters, but it had been a rudimentary job only intended to get him safely through to Vladivostok. It seemed that either the Federal Security Service officer in the bathroom had been discovered, or the supply closet had been opened.

  Either way, the carriage suddenly came alive with nervous energy.

  Three plainclothes officers rushed into the aisle — one of them shouted a long string of Russian to the passengers in the cabin, then handed it over to a second man who repeated the spiel in English.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said. ‘There has been a critical incident onboard this train. I would like to ask you to remain in your seats until we arrive in Vladivostok, for your own safety. Once we arrive we will arrange transportation to the nearest Primorsky Krai police station for questioning. If I could ask you all to make no sudden movements and stay where you are seated, we will get to work securing this train. Thank you for your patience. I must ask you all not to panic. This situation is under control.’

  Shit, Slater thought.

  They knew there was a murderer onboard. Anyone jumping to their feet in an attempt to flee would be swarmed by every security officer on the train. Slater saw the glint of gunmetal out of the corner of his eye and realised one of the officers had drawn their weapon. He had it aimed at the floor, but he was scouring each booth for any suspicious activity.

  The tension ran thick in the air.

  Slater knew he had no choice but to stay where he was seated.

  If he killed Iosif, he would need to mow down every officer on the train.

  For now, he was trapped.

  13

  They made an odd trio — Slater, Viktor, and Iosif.

  Neither of them had any connection to the other, apart from the Medved Shipbuilding Plant linking Viktor and Iosif. Perhaps they came from different sections of the plant; perhaps their business was in no way connected. But Slater couldn’t know for sure, because his line of interrogation had ceased with the sudden presence of the officers. Slater scrutinised their clothing but couldn’t make out whether they were undercover members of the Federal Security Service, or members of a different faction.

  He doubted they were connected to the man he had killed in the bathroom.

  That man had been after Viktor.

  Investigating him.

  Following him.

  These men seemed more like officers of the peace, stationed on the train to prevent any kind of disruption, there to respond hastily in the event of an emergency like the one they were dealing with right now.

  Slater found it odd how many policemen had flooded the train’s aisles — if there were three in this carriage, it meant there had to be at least ten or fifteen spread across the entire train. But, then again, desperate times called for desperate measures.

  And these were desperate times.

  Slater had been keeping a close eye on the news ever since he’d made it out of active duty. His mission to rescue Jason King had elevated tensions between the United States and Russia to heights unseen since the Cold War. That had happened months ago, but the world had changed regardless.

  King had been sent into Russia to investigate the disappearance of aid workers on the Kamchatka Peninsula, and the havoc he’d caused had seized the attention of the political elite in Moscow. Slater’s involvement had only escalated tensions, until the shadowy elite had deemed it necessary to destroy a great swathe of the peninsula with a ballistic missile to preserve their dark secrets.

  It had then become public knowledge that a black operations soldier working for the U.S. government had infiltrated Russian soil. Since then, the respective governments had been embroiled in political conflict. Each side knew the gravity of what they were doing — an escalation to actual war would wipe both countries out, so efforts were being made to calm things down. Slater had watched the political battle unfold from the sidelines, holding the knowledge that he was partially responsible. If he’d never gone to Russia to help King, the man would have died deep underground, carrying his secrets to his grave.

  Instead, they’d escaped, and Black Force collapsed in the aftermath of the failure in Russia. Slater and King had been cast out into the world and hunted for their wrongdoings. Only recently in Macau had Slater discovered he was no longer a topic of interest to America. They weren’t searching for his head anymore. They had their own problems to deal with, and ultimately they’d concluded that he’d done the right thing in the Russian Far East.

  He was, in all respects, forgotten.

  And that suited him just fine.

  It left him free to wander the globe.

  But Russia was still volatile, with most of its citizens reeling from the news that America had inserted an agent into their country who had killed a vast swathe of their people, no matter how corrupt they were. Tensions were still at an all time high. People were angry.

  And, it seemed, the Trans-Siberian Railway had become a hotspot for potential terrorist activity.

  So the three plainclothes officers kept watch over the
carriage as the train screamed toward Vladivostok, its pace increasing as the drivers recognised the need to arrive in a hurry. The more time they spent on the move, the more chances the murderer had to devise a plan of escape.

  Slater couldn’t imagine the police presence that would be waiting for them in Vladivostok.

  He needed to think. Frustration boiled inside him, mostly due to the fact that he’d uncovered almost nothing about either Viktor or Iosif’s intentions. Both were stubborn bastards who needed to be poked and prodded and coerced into revealing the slightest details. And there was no way to force anything more out of them whilst three police officers patrolled the aisle directly alongside them. Complete silence had fallen over the carriage — the kind of terrified silence that began when ordinary folks were scared for their lives.

  They didn’t know what was going on.

  Slater did.

  When the officers made it to the other end of the carriage, Slater threw caution to the wind and jabbed the barrel of the Desert Eagle against his jacket, displaying it to Iosif. The man deliberately ignored it, pretending not to see. He stared out the opposite window.

  ‘Hey,’ Slater hissed under his breath. ‘Start talking or I’ll kill you right now.’

  Moving painfully slowly — which Slater knew was deliberate — Iosif craned his neck to meet his gaze.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ he muttered.

  And he was right.

  Slater clenched his teeth to stop himself reacting.

  He couldn’t do a thing.

  His threats fell on deaf ears, because Iosif knew Slater would have to shoot his way through an army of police officers if he decided to fire the weapon. Iosif thought Slater was scared of failure, but Slater knew it wouldn’t be a problem.

  The truth was, he’d killed enough officers of the law today.

  There was a Federal Security Service officer lying dead in a small bathroom just a few dozen feet from his seat, who in all likelihood hadn’t deserved it. He’d tried to shoot Slater, but, all the same, Slater found himself wracked with guilt. The guy had been pursuing Viktor, who — as far as Slater knew — was probably knee deep in some kind of horrific shit himself. Perhaps he should have stepped back and let Viktor get arrested.

  But there hadn’t been any time for that. He’d found himself sandwiched between two parties and forced to act.

  That kind of situation seemed to present itself rather frequently in his life.

  He let the Desert Eagle fall back against his hip and sent a piercing glare across the booth, letting his rage brim to the surface for a brief moment.

  There would be hell to pay if he made it off this train at Vladivostok without incident.

  There would be chaos when the passengers departed, and in all likelihood Iosif would take the opportunity to disappear. Chaos didn’t favour someone trying to keep tabs on two men, one of whom wanted nothing to do with him.

  But Slater realised, in a fleeting flash of colour, that Iosif wasn’t his main priority. Viktor wanted to cooperate with him, and all roads led to the Medved Shipbuilding Plant. Even if Slater lost Iosif, he would get all the information he needed out of Viktor. Just because he didn’t know anything right this second, it didn’t mean all hope was lost.

  Viktor wanted to help.

  The tense silence reached a fever pitch as some of the passengers noticed Vladivostok approaching out the window. Slater craned his neck to see out the glass pane beside him after he realised there was no point trying to keep watch over Iosif. The man wasn’t going anywhere for the foreseeable future. Even if he tried to run, the officers would have him in handcuffs before he could make it out of the carriage.

  All bets were off when they arrived.

  Slater caught a glimpse of the approaching port city, which seemed to carry with it a shift in atmosphere. They were no longer travelling through the desolate, inhospitable stretches of the Russian Far East — instead, civilisation approached. It brought with it a sense of safety, of community. They raced toward the city with the subtle understanding that Vladivostok had infrastructure and resources — they wouldn’t be abandoned in the Siberian wilderness if they broke down, as shelter and food and drink were only a few miles away now.

  Even from this distance Slater could sense the activity taking place within the city limits — he saw flashes of snow-covered roads clogged with vehicles, and looked out across a sea of residential buildings crammed side by side, awfully similar to Khabarovsk.

  As they approached, Slater swallowed a ball of anxiety. Those kind of sensations didn’t come to him often, but he didn’t like anything about this situation.

  He’d been thrust into a labyrinth of mystery.

  It was a grim day, the air thick with drizzle and the sky overhead swirling with storm clouds. Snow covered the buildings, and misery dripped in the air. The tension made the artificial air-conditioning inside the carriage seem sterile, not at all comfortable. Slater swallowed again.

  The train rocketed toward the train station in downtown Vladivostok.

  He had never been more uncertain.

  14

  Frozen in place on the tracks, surrounded on either side by empty concrete platforms, Slater quickly understood that he would have to try something drastic if he wanted any hope of making it out of sight of the authorities with Viktor and Iosif in tow.

  They had been stopped at the train station for nigh on thirty minutes now. Everyone had been ordered to remain in their seats until the platform was secure, at which point the civilians would be ushered out into the cold carriage by carriage, to be screened and processed and shipped off to the nearest police station for questioning.

  Slater had no interest in taking part in any of that.

  But he simply couldn’t find a window of opportunity. Viktor and Iosif sat side by side across from him, still as statues, neither of them going anywhere in a hurry. The three plainclothes officers continued to patrol, every now and then throwing odd glances into Slater’s booth, but never growing suspicious enough to vocalise any of their concerns.

  Slater grimaced. He had to get off this train. And going about it in an orderly, cooperative fashion wouldn’t get him anywhere. He noticed the three officers growing lackadaisical in their patrols. They were still keeping disciplined by sectioning off three portions of the carriage and checking the booths for any sign of trouble, but Slater started to sense minute-long windows where none of the three looked at him.

  The mechanical hiss of doors opening rang through the carriage. Ever so slowly, trying to minimise the attention on him, Slater looked over his shoulder and felt a blast of cool air on his face, washing in from the far end of the carriage, coming in through an opening just out of sight.

  Natural air.

  Not artificial climate control.

  They’d opened the doors in anticipation of herding the passengers off the train, and Slater glanced out the frosted window. A cluster of armed policemen milled about on the platform, slowly creating formations to funnel the civilians through to the station’s main building.

  The building itself was enormous, a great slab of straw-coloured stone with two connecting facades attached to each side of the main structure. All the foot traffic arriving along the Trans-Siberian Railway were funnelled through the colossal building on their way out into downtown Vladivostok, but Slater guessed the delay had been caused by emptying out the station for the logistical nightmare that would soon follow.

  But they weren’t ready just yet.

  Cordons were still being created. Policemen were congesting in groups across the platform, muttering to each other as the sleet battered their all-weather uniforms.

  Slater sensed the last opening he would get to instigate chaos.

  And he seemed to have a particular knack for that.

  Fuck it.

  Now.

  He wrenched the Desert Eagle out from under his jacket as soon as he realised the three plainclothes officers were clustered down the other end of the c
arriage.

  ‘Run!’ he roared at the top of his lungs, a word so common in pop culture that it would be understood by ninety-five percent of the people on the train whether they spoke English or not. ‘Run!’

  Then he pumped the trigger over and over again, emptying the rest of the Desert Eagle’s magazine into the roof of the carriage.

  15

  Those generally unaccustomed to unsuppressed gunfire would liken a shot from a Desert Eagle to a nuclear bomb going off in their ears.

  The seven consecutive blasts roared like thunder in the enclosed space, tearing giant holes in the flimsy metal roof of the carriage, exposing the interior to the snow and the elements.

  But no-one noticed the wind howling in through the cluster of holes in the roof, because by that point everyone in the carriage had let out guttural screams. They were fearing for their lives, and when people feared for their lives all order and reason was hurled out the window.

  Slater hadn’t known whether the Desert Eagle was chambered with .357 Magnum rounds, .44 Magnum rounds or .50 Action Express rounds. As the gunshots ruined his hearing and the high-pitched whine of tinnitus filtered into his eardrums, he realised it was the latter.

  0.50 caliber rounds were the largest caliber legally allowed in a handgun in America, mostly because they caused enough noise to deafen all the occupants of a regular suburban street. In a confined train carriage, it sounded like the world was ending.

  Moving faster than almost anyone on board the carriage, Slater dropped the empty pistol, wrapped a hand around the collars of both men opposite him and hauled them out into the aisle.

  ‘Exit,’ he demanded, even though he couldn’t hear himself speak — and he doubted either of them could hear his words either. ‘The exit! Move!’

  There was no chance of the plainclothes officers getting a beat on who had fired the gunshots. They were in the midst of a panicked crush of terrified passengers, all throwing their personal safety aside to get off the train as quickly as possible. With everyone in the vicinity seized by mortal fear, Slater used it to his own advantage.