by Matt Rogers
It was a straight drop all the way down the face of the mountain if he slipped.
Griffin sized up the window, and came away unsure as to whether he would make it or not. In his mind, it was fifty-fifty. An overcommitment would send him sprawling off the side of the mountain, and holding back would result in landing on the uneven ground, losing his footing, and spilling off the side of the ledge regardless.
All or nothing.
He didn’t have time to think. He spotted the thick black duffel bag swinging off the man’s shoulder. It was stuffed full of something, zipped up and secured. It contained everything he’d entered this monastery for, and if the man got away with it, everything Griffin had done would have been for nothing.
His final thought before he jumped was of the chimera.
The mythical beast. Part lion, part serpent, part goat. An amalgamation of creatures, just as the virus was an amalgamation of the worst components of the world’s deadliest pathogens.
He couldn’t begin to imagine how much damage it could cause.
He realised, in a single moment of clarity, that his entire life had been a chimera. A fusion of different circumstances that had ultimately put him here, on this freezing mountain ledge with a collection of grievous injuries, gifting him this opportunity to put his life on the line to stop a greater threat.
He still wasn’t sure if he believed in fate.
He took a deep breath, waited for the last scientist to run directly underneath him, and jumped.
25
It was further than he anticipated.
He wasn’t going to make it.
Fuck.
The scientist noticed the giant silhouette bearing down on him from above and flinched involuntarily, ducking away from the incoming object at the last moment. At the same time Griffin landed awkwardly on the upper portion of the slope itself, leaving him with nothing to steady his fall. The steep angle of the mountain sent one of his ankles twisting gruesomely to the side, and with a sharp crack the bone shattered. He didn’t notice it because he spilled forward, tumbling and lurching onto the lower ledge itself.
He’d made it.
But momentum was not on his side.
The way in which he’d landed sent him careening forward head-first, with no handholds in sight to slow him down. He was going to go over the edge of the mountain. There was no alternative.
Except…
As he was falling he reached out and snatched hold of the duffel bag, managing to catch the very edge of the material in two fingers. Employing a pincer-like grip, he held on for dear life as the rest of him spilled over the side of the ledge. The duffel began to slide off the scientist’s shoulder and the man visibly panicked, snatching and clawing at the bag that contained his magnum opus.
Although Griffin was battling for mere survival, rabidly trying to find balance on the ledge’s precipice, he stared straight into the scientist’s eyes. It unnerved him how normal the man looked — he was a white man in his thirties with thinning brown hair and a slightly crooked nose. Other than that he was unassuming — on a residential street, Griffin would have considered him an ordinary law-abiding family man.
But the eyes revealed all, and in those eyes Griffin saw darkness and cruelty and malice. He knew then, without a doubt, that the man in front of him would do anything to protect the contents of his duffel.
Griffin tugged backward.
The bag slid further off the guy’s shoulder. It was simultaneously Griffin’s lifeline and the object that would send the scientist spilling over the edge if he held onto it. Griffin had both feet scraping the edge of the cliff and the rest of his body suspended in space, propped up by the duffel. He was heavier than the scientist, and the man stumbled forward a half-step, unable to prevent himself being dragged off the ledge.
The scientist realised his predicament.
If he held onto the bag, Griffin’s raw strength would send both of them tumbling off the side of the mountain. If he let go, it would save his own life but send his most cherished work cascading away to the forest floor. He would never find the bag in time.
The man had a choice to make.
And Griffin could do nothing but hold on for dear life.
In truth, he hadn’t quite considered the ramifications of the situation he found himself in. It didn’t exactly click that he had no way out of this mess. His focus had been captured so entirely by the sinister contents of the duffel bag that he had ignored his own safety.
He tugged again.
His survival instinct had disappeared. He wasn’t sure if his injuries — and the severe concussion he’d suffered inside the monastery — had stripped him of his sensibilities, or if subconsciously he understood that nothing was more important than getting this chimera virus out of the hands of the man who intended to sell it.
Whatever the case, he didn’t put it all together until the scientist’s face contorted with a furious acceptance…
…and the man let go of the bag.
Griffin hung frozen in the air for the briefest of moments.
Then he clutched the duffel bag to his chest and tumbled off the mountainside.
26
He couldn’t have fallen for more than ten seconds, but it gave him all the time in the world to think.
He thought of choices. He’d thrown a dart at a map and it had landed on Bhutan. He never would have done that had he been kept in the Delta Force after his Operator Training Course, and he never would have ended up here, completing a task for the division he’d been forced out of the traditional military structure to join.
Fate.
He might believe in it after all.
He thought of the directions lives could take. He’d seen brilliance in the eyes of the man on the ledge, and he imagined there was brilliance in his own eyes too. He never would have considered it possible to do what he’d just done, and he realised he was so content with death because he had never anticipated making it off the mountain alive. He’d accepted his own demise the moment he got the call from Lars Crawford, which made it all the more satisfying that he’d managed to complete the task along the way.
He didn’t know what was in the bag he clutched against his chest. He fell back-first toward the forest floor, staring up at the mountainside as it shrank rapidly from his view, and for a brief moment he thought he saw the awed face of the man he’d wrenched the duffel bag off, leaning over the ledge to get a look at the intruder who had torn his dreams away.
Colt Griffin fell, and as he fell he squeezed the bag tighter. He’d never know its exact contents. All he knew was that he’d prevented something awful, and he would take that satisfaction to the grave. He would never know who the scientists had intended to sell the chimera virus to, or whether they’d even succeeded in creating the super-virus at all.
But the look on the last scientist’s face had revealed the truth.
They must have succeeded in creating the chimera.
Because Griffin had never seen someone so distraught.
He carried that mental image with him, searing it into his brain, imprinting it on his subconscious.
He had succeeded.
And the men in the monastery had failed.
All eighteen of them.
Now I know what I’m capable of.
Then he hit the ground and all his thoughts ceased forever.
27
Washington D.C.
Three days later, Lars Crawford woke to the sound of his landline phone shrilling in its cradle. He shook his head groggily from side to side, taking a moment to realise where he was. Truth was, he hadn’t slept much over the past few nights. The uncertainty, the sheer unknown of it all, had been eating him alive.
He suspected this call would clear up most of what he’d been wondering.
He slipped out of the otherwise-empty double bed and padded across the room to his desk. There was no view to gaze out over as he lifted the receiver to his ear. His bedroom was a dull box, courtesy of wha
t little time he spent at home.
His entire life was work.
And sometimes, like right now, work seeped into his core.
‘We found the body,’ the voice at the other end of the line said, and even though Lars had been anticipating those exact words he still sunk his head in despair.
‘What happened?’
‘He fell off the mountain.’
‘Fell? You’re sure?’
‘I doubt he committed suicide. He landed on his back. His internal organs were pulverised. But we found a black bag clutched to his chest with enough spores of a bioweapon inside it to destroy an entire country.’
‘Jesus Christ. How close were they?’
‘They weren’t close… they’d done it. We’re looking at the samples in the lab, but it’s worse than anything we’ve ever seen before. They mashed an entire chain of pathogens together — if it got released into the atmosphere and found hosts, it would have spread like nothing we’ve ever seen before. Maybe even worldwide.’
‘What were they planning to do with it?’
‘It’s an ongoing investigation.’
‘You said you recovered three bodies of men from Zenith Laboratories who went MIA?’
‘Correct.’
‘I’m led to believe there are four missing.’
‘We’re on his tail.’
‘The last guy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Ben Ware. Nothing notable about him whatsoever, apart from his scientific capabilities, of course. An ordinary family man before he set off on this crusade. I’ll never understand how minds work, Lars. The world’s gone mad.’
‘By “on his tail”, you mean…?’
‘We know his rough whereabouts. He’s good at creating monster viruses, but he’s not an expert at covering his tracks.’
‘I have operatives who can take care of him.’
‘I don’t doubt you anymore, my friend. You sure know how to select them. What the hell is this scene we found? Seventeen dead. Seventeen. Colt Griffin didn’t even work for you yet, for God’s sake.’
‘There’s a limit to what our training can do,’ Lars said. ‘Some people just have it in them. It’s my job to find them, and use them to the best of their abilities. Griffin had it in him.’
‘Imagine he had training. Imagine what he could’ve done.’
‘There’s no point imagining. He’s dead. It’s our job to find more.’
‘You think he knew what he’d achieved before he died?’
‘It sounds like he took the bag to his grave. Maybe he jumped of his own accord. Knowing he needed to carry the chimera virus to his death.’
‘Why didn’t he just throw it off the mountain?’
‘I don’t know. We’ll never know. But he prevented a catastrophe. And I don’t use that word lightly. I spend my entire life around this kind of thing. And what he stopped … I can’t imagine how bad it could have been.’
‘We can’t honour him. We can’t hold a public funeral. No-one will ever know what he did.’
‘That’s what he signed up for. That’s what they all sign up for.’
‘Different breed,’ the voice on the other end of the line noted.
‘They certainly are.’
‘You okay? You seem quieter than usual.’
‘Just thinking.’
‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘I know. I did the right thing. But sometimes … I just wonder if he knew what he was getting himself into.’
‘He accepted the job, didn’t he?’
‘Through a phone call. Maybe he wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe it all hit him when he got there, and by then it was too late to turn back…’
‘Does it matter? If he didn’t accept your offer, he never would have been able to live with himself.’
‘I hate putting people in that position.’
‘But you do it. Because the world needs it. You can’t always be perfect.’
‘It’s fucking hard.’
‘Onto the next one, Lars.’
‘A good man died.’
‘And took seventeen pieces of shit with him. How are those odds?’
‘Not good enough. I want 17-0.’
‘Then get back to work. Jason King. Will Slater. James Xu. Look at what your agents are doing. Look at what you’ve achieved in three short years. Don’t ever take your foot off the pedal. You’re making too much progress to ever consider anything otherwise.’
‘I’ll send King after Ben Ware. He’ll get rid of him.’
‘Okay. I’ll keep you posted on Ware’s whereabouts.’
‘Good. Because King’s hungry. And he needs to eat.’
‘Ware might have help. He hired fourteen men in Bhutan. He must have the bankroll to acquire more.’
‘Somehow I think Jason King won’t be too bothered by that.’
‘So I’ve heard.’
‘Keep me posted.’
‘Get some rest, Lars. Griffin didn’t die for no reason. He would have been content.’
‘You can’t know that.’
‘Yes I can.’
The man on the other end of the line ended the call. Lars paused with the dead receiver against his ear for a few beats, thinking long and hard about a man named Colt Griffin who had shouldered an impossible burden without hesitation. As chief handler for Black Force, Lars spent most of his life around people of Griffin’s calibre, and it never failed to astonish him just what certain individuals were capable of.
He realised he couldn’t dwell on the sacrifice for long. In truth he’d been expecting Griffin to wind up dead. He didn’t think the man had a hope of succeeding, but he had to attempt something in the face of such horrific circumstances.
Colt Griffin had delivered more than anyone had ever expected.
Actually, no-one had expected a thing, Lars thought.
No-one had known. Deniability was one of the most important aspects of Black Force’s existence, and as such what Colt Griffin had done would never be officially acknowledged. There would be no posthumous medals to receive, or noble burials to take part in. If Lars had it his way, the entire nation would stop to honour what Griffin had done.
But instead, he would be quietly shifted into the ranks of the men lost on black operations across the globe.
But he could rest easy, because he’d accomplished the impossible.
All of them could.
Lars Crawford went back to bed, wondering what madness the next day would bring. The world of black operations held no time for remorse or reflection. A horrifying situation would crop up shortly, and someone would need to answer the call.
Lars slept soundly, knowing that his operatives would rise to the occasion.
They always did.
MORE BLACK FORCE SHORTS COMING SOON…
Books by Matt Rogers
THE JASON KING SERIES
Isolated (Book 1)
Imprisoned (Book 2)
Reloaded (Book 3)
Betrayed (Book 4)
Corrupted (Book 5)
Hunted (Book 6)
THE JASON KING FILES
Cartel (Book 1)
Warrior (Book 2)
Savages (Book 3)
THE WILL SLATER SERIES
Wolf (Book 1)
Lion (Book 2)
BLACK FORCE SHORTS
The Victor (Book 1)
The Chimera (Book 2)
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About the Author
Matt Rogers grew up in Melbourne, Australia as a voracious reader, relentlessly devouring thrillers and mysteries in his spare time. Now, he writes f
ull-time. His novels are action-packed and fast-paced. Dive into the Jason King Series to get started with his collection.
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