by Matt Rogers
Everyone was dead.
He made his way back down the driveway, passing the pair of perimeter guards who’d done an awful job of protecting their employer. He made it to the foot of the long stretch of asphalt, reaching the perimeter of Xiao’s property. He didn’t turn his gaze to Viola and Gavin’s corpses.
He didn’t want to see her body any more than necessary.
He’d seen her die.
That was enough.
Something had changed, and it wasn’t the fact that he’d killed nearly ten men over the course of the day. He had always been a killer — in fact, he remembered his first kill like it was yesterday. That memory would never leave for as long as he drew a waking breath, but at the same time it didn’t disturb him. That side of the business never had. In fact, there was a subtle part of his psyche that enjoyed it. The knowledge that he was ridding the world of terrorists, drug lords, financiers, bent operatives, and all manner of morally corrupt individuals brought him a feeling of satisfaction.
You shouldn’t be scared of that.
You need to go back.
For the third time, the voice in his head echoed the same sentiments. He tried to stifle it, but he knew its words rang true. He couldn’t be sure whether all this anarchy had unfolded to demonstrate that he needed to return to active duty, but he was dangerously close to interpreting it as such.
Ghosting through the forest, he paused before mounting the same trail that descended into Vernazza. By now dusk had well and truly fallen, and night was sweeping across the coastline. In the lowlight, Rollins glanced down at his leather jacket and noted the crimson droplets dotted across the attire. He shed the jacket and dropped it into the undergrowth. There was no need to wipe anything down. He had never been arrested, and his DNA wasn’t in any public database. A pristine track record before entering the military had paid off in spades.
He was a ghost.
And he would remain that way, unless he decided to return.
It was completely up to him.
And that was the hardest part.
He made it back to Vernazza in a shade over ten minutes, wearing a simple plain tee and the same dark blue jeans he’d sported all day. There were a couple of drops of blood on the garments, but nothing noticeable to the untrained eye.
It seemed he had killed every trained eye in the region, in any case.
At eight in the evening, Vernazza pulsed with liveliness. The dark blue hue of the sky matched nicely with the soft gold glow of the street lamps, and the warm light spilling from the restaurants running along the main street added to the atmosphere. Inwardly, Rollins experienced a strange calmness. His heart rate had settled. His breathing was smooth, natural, unrestricted.
He would spend another night here. That was the shaky conclusion he reached as he stepped out into the quiet concrete square bordering the harbour. It was a cold evening, and although the restaurants and bars were packed, there was little activity in the square itself. Most of the population of the coastal town had retreated to the warm interiors of the surrounding establishments. A handful of couples and lone travellers still populated the outside tables exposed to the elements, but they were few and far between.
So Rollins noticed the man immediately.
He froze in his tracks, his legs locking up involuntarily, his eyes widening. Unable to help himself from showing such a visceral reaction, he stifled a gasp.
Across the square, Jason King took a long pull on the neck of his beer bottle and beckoned Rollins over with a mischievous smile.
24
Stunned, flabbergasted, at a loss for words, Rollins could do nothing but follow King’s commands.
He never thought he would see the man again.
How wrong he’d been.
Nothing about King had changed in the slightest. He still sported the same enormous frame, both phenomenally athletic and unnaturally strong, although it was hard to discern his full height of six-foot-three as he sat hunched over the two-person table. He sat with his back facing the ocean, presumably to assess everyone stepping foot in the square and profiling to determine whether they constituted a threat.
Or not.
With King, it was hard to tell.
Rollins crossed the square, unable to shake the feeling that there were a hundred pairs of eyes watching his every move, and sat opposite King in the chair he beckoned to.
He said nothing.
He didn’t know what to say.
King stayed mute, too. He had that effect on people. Sooner or later, they would wilt under his withering gaze.
Rollins certainly did.
‘Was this a test?’ he finally said.
King cocked an eyebrow, and Rollins realised he didn’t know.
‘Was what a test?’ King said.
‘Never mind.’
‘There’s blood on your shirt.’
‘I know,’ Rollins said.
‘Yours?’
‘No.’
King nodded. ‘Thought as much.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Cutting right to the chase, aren’t you?’
‘This is the last thing I was expecting.’
‘Why do you think I’m here?’
Rollins paused, contemplating how to respond, choosing his next words very carefully. Before he could start, a young Italian man drifted through the grid of tables, approaching them with his hands clasped behind his back and an attentive expression on his face.
A waiter.
No threat.
‘Beer,’ Rollins said, and the man nodded his understanding. He promptly spun on his heel and disappeared back into the bar that owned the tables.
The night grew darker still. Medieval-style lanterns and ordinary floodlights dotted along the surrounding buildings leaked their glow across the sea of tables, but most of the space between King and Rollins became shrouded in shadow.
‘Black Force sent you,’ Rollins said. ‘To keep tabs on me. You were watching what I did, determining whether I was going to run off and sell my secrets to the highest bidder. At which point you would have put a bullet in my head and forgotten about my existence entirely. Any of that accurate?’
King managed a smile. ‘Sounds like you’ve been watching too many bad thriller films.’
‘If Black Force isn’t keeping tabs on me, then they’re not doing their due diligence.’
‘I never said they weren’t,’ King said. ‘But if they are, then I’ve got nothing to do with it.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘Why would I lie?’
‘To save face.’
‘To save face from what, exactly?’
‘I don’t know,’ Rollins said, throwing a paranoid glance in either direction. ‘I don’t know what the hell’s going on. But if you’re going to try and convince me that it’s complete coincidence that you ended up here, don’t even bother starting. This place is as isolated as you can get. Sure, there’s tourists, but I wasn’t going to hike into the woods and live my life as a nomad.’
‘That’s a whole lot of talking,’ King said. ‘Want me to just answer your question?’
‘Sure.’
‘I followed you here.’
Rollins breathed a sigh of relief as King confirmed his suspicions. ‘Then why’d you try to convince me that Black Force wasn’t involved?’
‘Because Black Force isn’t involved.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I didn’t imagine you would.’
‘What the hell are you doing here, King?’
‘When’s the last time we saw each other?’
‘Is this a trick question?’
‘No.’
‘Peru.’
‘Now that you’ve had time to think about it,’ King said, ‘what did you make of Peru?’
‘What did I make of it?’
‘You heard me. Stop stalling.’
‘I’m not stalling.’
‘Answer the question, Sam.’
&n
bsp; ‘I…’
King let him think, let him ponder. ‘You’re reconsidering a few things, aren’t you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why’d you really step away from Black Force? Peru was successful, all things considered. You got beat up bad, but I don’t think that’s why you quit. It was something else.’
‘I thought I might start enjoying it. And I thought you were better.’
King paused. Maybe he’d been anticipating one of those answers, but certainly not both.
‘Explain,’ he said.
Rollins paused, and took a deep breath, composing himself. ‘I was emotional because of how recent everything was. That was the kneejerk reaction that made me step away. I couldn’t get over the fact that if Black Force hadn’t needed me, I’d still be in that mountain prison rotting away. Took me some time and some serious emotional detachment to realise that was simply part of the job.’
‘And then?’
‘And then I didn’t want to come back. Because the first time I stepped away from the division, I finally had time to reflect. And I realised I didn’t have many emotions to grapple with, even though I’d killed dozens of people in a four month timespan. So that made me feel guilty, and I started building mental barriers. I started convincing myself I wasn’t good enough for the job.’
‘Because you botched the Peru job?’
‘I got myself locked up. That’s unforgivable. If you didn’t need me to complete the mission, it would have cost me my life. How many more operations can I complete before I botch another gig?’
‘All reasonable thoughts to have.’
‘Yeah, well… it all came together into a giant mental block. And then I couldn’t even consider coming back.’
‘You’re speaking like your mind changed.’
Rollins didn’t respond for a long ten count. The waiter returned with a tall bottle of Birra Moretti, and Rollins took a long drink before continuing. As soon as the Italian guy drifted out of earshot, he elaborated. ‘Can you promise me with absolute certainty you had nothing to do with what happened here today?’
King leant back in his chair, tapping one finger against the glass bottle in his hand. ‘I had nothing to do with it. But I’m intrigued by the timing.’
‘Then it was meant to happen.’
‘What did happen?’
Rollins hunched over the table and rested his head in his hands. Now that his racing pulse had settled, and he concluded that King wasn’t here as part of some elaborate conspiracy, he could drop his guard enough to concentrate on his injuries. The pain started behind his eyeballs, and leeched its way through his head. He massaged the sides of his temples and took a deep, rattling breath.
‘Where do I start?’ he muttered.
25
By the time he finished laying out exactly what had transpired over the course of an otherwise pleasant day along the Italian Riviera coastline, even the ordinarily stern-faced Jason King couldn’t resist raising his eyebrows.
‘That’s quite the story,’ King said when Rollins finally finished his spiel and leant back in his seat, draining the rest of his beer.
Rollins nodded. ‘You going to tell me why you’re here now?’
King offered a wry smile.
‘You never told me,’ Rollins said. ‘You just said it had nothing to do with Black Force.’
‘I choose my words carefully. And I time them carefully.’
‘So why are you holding back?’
‘I wanted to know what you’d been up to first.’
‘And now that you do?’
‘Then I’m fairly confident in telling you the reason why I came.’
‘Which was?’
‘I knew you weren’t done.’
‘That’s a big call.’
‘Is it?’
King allowed the silence to elongate, and Rollins shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He hadn’t shared a single detail of what had been going on inside his head during the last five hours, but something told him King knew. King understood the inner turmoil. Rollins could see it in the man’s eyes.
‘Okay,’ Rollins said, relenting. ‘How’d you know?’
‘All the reasons you listed before. I figured that out. There aren’t many things I’m sure of, but this is one of them.’
‘And what is this, exactly?’
‘That if you dedicate your life to evolving yourself into something better, something more, something unstoppable — well, it’s hard to take all that experience and throw it away as soon as you reach the top.’
‘Black Force isn’t the top. It’s a death trap.’
‘Maybe. If you’re not good enough.’
‘I’m not good enough.’
‘You sure? Or you just trying to convince yourself of that?’
‘I’m not on your level, that’s for sure.’
‘Few are,’ King said, in a rare moment of hubris. ‘Call it cockiness. Call it whatever you want. It’s just a fact. I react quicker than almost anyone in Black Force, according to the statistics. Lars is always sure to hammer that point home. But just because you’re not as good as me, does that mean you need to walk away?’
‘I don’t know what it means. But it threw me off. You saved me too many times in Peru. I can’t always be relying on you.’
‘You were four months into this,’ King said. ‘You’re not done evolving by any stretch of the imagination.’
‘I just don’t know… and I don’t know if it’s worth taking the risk to find out.’
King made to respond, then — with almost inhuman speed — his eyes locked onto something over Rollins’ shoulder. Intrigued, Rollins moved to turn around in his chair.
‘Don’t,’ King breathed. ‘Stay still.’
‘Why?’
‘You turn around and you might get shot.’
‘You got a gun on you?’
‘Yes, but there’s four of them. One of them will get a wild Hail Mary shot off by the time I’ve finished killing them. There’s too many people around. Can’t risk it.’
‘How far are they?’
‘Probably thirty feet. They just came in from the main street. You want to describe the mercenaries Xiao had protecting his villa?’
‘British. Mostly big guys — not sure if Xiao preferred it that way or if it was just a coincidence. Almost all of them had shaved heads.’
‘Yeah. This is them.’
‘Four?’
‘Four.’
‘I don’t understand how I missed…’
King shook his head. ‘They wouldn’t have been at the house. They probably found the scene afterwards. Coming back from lunch, or something like that.’
‘They armed?’
‘There’s hands in pockets. Nothing visible, though. This place is too public.’
‘They heading straight for us?’
‘Yeah. They don’t know me. But if you turn around, they’ll know you.’
‘How?’
‘Did you check for cameras?’
‘Had a quick look. Didn’t see anything noticeable.’
‘That’s not enough. You’ll be on their CCTV feed. They’ll know what you look like.’
‘So how do we do this?’
‘Fifteen feet,’ King said, lowering his voice considerably. ‘They’re staring at me.’
‘You going to shoot them?’
‘Not yet.’
A powerful dose of adrenalin dumped into Rollins’ veins. He felt the surge, and fought down the urge to burst out of his chair and make a mad dash for the four men directly behind him. It took all his willpower not to turn his head.
‘You want to know if you should come back or not?’ King said, then settled back into his chair. ‘Time to find out.’
‘You’ll get me killed,’ Rollins hissed.
King sent a piercing glare into Rollins’ eyes, breaking through the barriers, brushing against his soul.
‘No,’ King said. ‘I won’t. Now fight.’
It sen
t a strange sensation racing through Rollins’ chest. He had never experienced trust like that before. King was more than comfortable sitting back and leaving his life in Rollins’ hands.
That meant more than the big man could ever articulate through words.
‘Ten feet,’ King breathed.
Rollins sat deathly still, barely twitching a muscle.
Charging his energy.
Battling down the pain.
Getting ready to detonate.
‘Five,’ King mouthed without making a sound.
Rollins could hear them now. The heavy, thudding footsteps, moving fast enough to attract attention. The simple fact that he hadn’t turned around would have alerted them to the fact that he knew more than he was letting on. He could feel four pairs of eyes boring into the back of his head, trying to deduce whether he was the person they were looking for.
He certainly was.
As Jason King sat back and watched, Sam Rollins launched off his chair like a rocket and punched the first man in the four-person procession hard in the face.
26
Rollins became violence personified.
He wasn’t sure how it happened. He tuned out the screams of nearby civilians — already running for their lives across the square — and focused on causing as much hurt as he could in as short a space of time as possible.
The first punch missed its intended target — the nose — but slammed home against the guy’s orbital bone with enough force to break it. The sharp snapping sound punctured through the ambient silence of the square, drowning out the distant lapping of waves against the harbour. The guy fell awkwardly into a pair of nearby tables, taking a freestanding umbrella and a couple of chairs down with him. He made it intensely difficult for his three buddies to draw their weapons effectively, giving Rollins all the space he needed to launch an assault.
He leapt over the cluster of overturned outdoor furniture and shouldered the weaker of the three aside, simply dropping the man with sheer force. The smaller, frailer of the trio went down in a heap before he could effectively get his hands on his weapon.
Rollins smashed a looping left hook into the side of the next man’s face, doubling him over, and finished his long string of initial attacks with a front kick to the underside of the last man’s chin. Both strikes did damage, but Rollins hadn’t thrown his entire weight behind them at risk of falling off-balance. Instead, he’d intended them to act as stinging shots, firing nerve endings across each man’s face and preventing them both from drawing semi-automatic pistols from the insides of their jackets and making the altercation more complicated than it needed to be.