The Tribe: Black Force Shorts Book Three

by Rogers, Matt

  ‘It’s Peru,’ Rollins said, and felt no need to elaborate.

  ‘Well,’ King said, ‘you were right. Frisson’s doing some serious shit in that region. There’s bodies showing up all over the place, and the Asháninca clan in that region are refusing to communicate with the outside world. They’re up to something.’

  ‘So go in yourself,’ Rollins said. ‘Why did you need to break me out of prison?’

  ‘Because you’re the only one who they’ll recognise,’ King said. ‘You’re the only one who stands a chance of breaking through their guard.’

  ‘Just storm the place.’

  ‘It’s not quite as simple as that. I’m sure you can understand why.’

  ‘They’re not inherently bad people,’ Rollins said. ‘They’ve just been deceived.’

  ‘Exactly. And we can’t get Frisson in a hurry because he’s got an entire army of mercs on the payroll. I want to know who the hell he was before all of this. He’s come out of nowhere. The amount of shit he’s managed to stir up in the last few months is seriously impressive.’

  ‘I’ll die if I go back there,’ Rollins said. ‘The tribe hates me. They’ll kill me in a heartbeat. Put a spear straight through my chest. I’m not kidding.’

  ‘They might. Or they might not. We want to you to try and persuade them to see things from your point of view.’

  ‘You’d be sending me to my death.’

  King slowed the buggy as the trail reached a flat stretch so that he could crane his neck and stare directly at Rollins. Rollins sensed unbelievable intensity in the man’s eyes.

  ‘What is it you think we do, exactly?’ King said. ‘You think this is a game? Every operation I think I’m being sent to my death. That’s what we signed up for. Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet.’

  ‘I’m not,’ Rollins said. ‘I… think I just need time to adjust. I was ready to spend the rest of my life in that cell. I’m not ready to go back into the field yet. Especially with that much pressure on me.’

  King glanced at his digital watch. ‘You’ve got about six hours to get ready.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m dropping you straight back onto the same jungle trail you were arrested on.’

  ‘What if I don’t want to go?’

  ‘Then we’re going to have a problem.’

  ‘You prepared to have a problem?’

  King clenched both hands against the wheel. ‘Without a doubt. Are you?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Rollins admitted.

  Something told him there were levels to this game.

  ‘Then you’ll do as we say,’ King said.

  ‘If I wasn’t necessary for the mission,’ Rollins said, ‘would Black Force have left me in that prison forever?’

  ‘Maybe. No way to know for sure.’

  ‘So what makes you think I want to keep working for them?’

  King audibly growled. ‘You’re going to do this job. This is serious shit. There’s innocent lives at risk in Huancayo. Do this job for them. Then we can figure out where to go next.’

  ‘Black Force will kill me if I refuse?’

  ‘It’s not my place to confirm one thing or the other. I’m a foot soldier, just like you are.’

  ‘Something tells me you’re another level of foot soldier.’

  ‘Maybe. I wouldn’t know. Never met another operative.’

  ‘You have now.’

  ‘So you are an operative? Then you’re going to do this.’

  ‘I know I am.’

  ‘Any other questions?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Rollins said as the buggy continued rocketing down through the Andes. ‘How the hell did you end up in this life?’

  7

  King lapsed into silence for the rest of their descent through the Huaytapallana mountain range, and Rollins figured he’d crossed the line. The man had made it objectively clear at the beginning of the conversation not to share personal details, but Rollins’ curiosity had got the better of him and he’d thrown caution to the wind. King didn’t respond to the request, and they spent the rest of the descent in stony silence.

  The snow-capped mountains and vast fields of murky brown grass gave way to endless plains of rocky outcrops. King guided the buggy with expertise through the twisting mountain trails without the assistance of a map, which made Rollins wonder whether the man had a photographic memory or was simply making it up as he went along. Nevertheless, Rollins recognised the general direction they were headed.

  Back toward the jungle.

  The climate palpably shifted. Above the relentless drone of the buggy’s engine, Rollins sensed the air humidifying with every passing moment. The cold of the mountain range behind them still seeped over everything, but there was now a certain heaviness in the air. Sweat beads broke out across his forehead, but he couldn’t work out if the weather or the stress was causing that.

  When the first lush palm trees began to materialise in the surrounding fields — their tops draped in low-hanging fog — King opened his mouth for the first time in hours.

  ‘Alright,’ he said.

  The syllable startled Rollins. He looked across at the man. ‘Alright what?’

  ‘I’ll talk.’

  So much time had passed since Rollins’ initial inquiry that he had a tough time putting it together. ‘Talk about what?’

  ‘How I ended up here.’

  ‘Oh. Thought you wanted to kill me just for asking.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘Most of us do that.’

  ‘Keep up the smart-ass quips and I won’t tell you a thing.’

  ‘My bad.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Whatever you’re prepared to tell me.’

  ‘I figure — we’re never going to see each other again. We might as well get some stuff out in the open. It’s not often you meet someone in the same field as yourself.’

  ‘How long have you been doing this?’ Rollins said, starting innocently enough.

  ‘Coming up on four years.’

  ‘Black Force has existed for about that long.’

  ‘Black Force has existed for exactly that long.’

  Rollins gaze wandered to King, who had opted to stare straight ahead in concentration. ‘You were the first?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘That’s why you’re so good at this.’

  ‘Make it through four years of this shit and you get pretty good at staying alive.’

  ‘Why’d they form the division? As in — why’d they isolate you specifically?’

  King paused, either searching for the correct words or mulling over what he wanted to disclose.

  ‘You need to understand that you’re not supposed to know a thing about this,’ King said. ‘You take this shit to your grave.’

  The latter.

  ‘Got it,’ Rollins said.

  ‘Reaction speed,’ King said. ‘I imagine it’s why you were recruited too. How long you been in this game?’

  ‘Four months.’

  King glanced over. ‘So this was your…?’

  ‘Second operation.’

  ‘You really shit the bed…’

  ‘Now you know why I wasn’t expecting anyone to come for me.’

  ‘What was your first gig?’

  ‘Pretty cookie cutter, all things considered. Hostage situation in Chicago. The only solution was through unconventional methods, and that meant turning to people who didn’t officially exist.’

  ‘They sent you in alone?’

  ‘They did.’

  ‘How many people did you kill?’

  ‘Five mobsters.’

  ‘So you are good.’

  ‘Clearly not good enough.’

  King shook his head, clearly in disagreement. ‘Don’t talk down on yourself. You know how brutal this world is? There’s no backup. No relying on the authorities to pull you out of a mess. You slip up once in the field and you die, or you get thrown into a mountain priso
n in the Andes for the rest of your life. That’s what you sign up for. I don’t know specifics, but I imagine there’s been dozens of operatives who haven’t made it back. You wouldn’t have been the first.’

  ‘But you’ve been doing this since the beginning,’ Rollins said. ‘And you’re still here.’

  King shrugged. ‘Luck, maybe.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Focus on yourself, kid. How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-eight.’

  ‘You like what you do?’

  ‘I mean, apart from the likelihood that I won’t make it back, it’s not a bad gig.’

  ‘You seen combat before?’

  Rollins nodded. ‘Did a couple of tours. You get in some scuffles out there in the desert.’

  ‘But it’s a different world to this, isn’t it?’

  ‘I can’t even begin to explain…’

  ‘You don’t need to. I understand.’

  ‘We’re not military,’ Rollins said. ‘We’re … vigilantes. Or something like that.’

  ‘Would you go back if you had the chance?’

  ‘Not for a second.’

  ‘Then you’re doing the right thing.’

  ‘How do you explain that?’ Rollins said. ‘I’m sure you’ve considered the same things. It’s almost certain that we’re going to die doing this. But we keep going back. Sure, I struggled with it when we were coming down through the mountains, but that was temporary. Now I wouldn’t want to do anything else.’

  ‘Because that’s our personality type,’ King said. ‘You see yourself retiring from this?’

  ‘Not if I keep succeeding.’

  ‘You think it’s an addiction?’

  ‘You’d know better than me.’

  King scratched at the stubble on one side of his face. ‘I can’t even imagine stepping away from it.’

  ‘I spent the last couple of weeks trying to detach myself from this life,’ Rollins said. ‘Expected to spend the rest of my existence in a cell. But it only took a couple of hours to get right back into it. What does that say about me?’

  ‘That you know where your talents lie. And you know what you were put on this earth to do.’

  ‘Let’s hope it doesn’t send me straight back to that prison.’

  ‘Or to an early grave,’ King muttered, and accelerated into the forests of Central Peru as a choking sea of vegetation and undergrowth enveloped their buggy.

  8

  Rollins took a deep breath of the overbearing forest air as it flowed in through the open frame of the buggy.

  His first trip into the Peruvian jungle had been disastrous.

  Returning to the scene of his failure would no doubt stir traumatic memories. He would simply have to push through them.

  ‘Do you know anything else about what I’ll be walking into?’ Rollins said.

  ‘Afraid I can’t help you,’ King said. ‘They didn’t give me much. This isn’t standard protocol and they sure as hell weren’t happy about doing it. I’ve been told to leave the country as soon as I drop you off, and then forget you exist.’

  ‘That’s nice of them.’

  ‘This world isn’t nice.’

  ‘I’m going to get killed,’ Rollins said, and vocalising the realisation turned him pale as a ghost. He’d said the words to test himself, and he’d failed. Truth was, he couldn’t see any other alternative to the situation.

  Frisson knew who he was, and what he looked like, and by all accounts the man had the Asháninca tribe under his thumb.

  So the villagers would hate Rollins, too.

  Whoever the hell Bradley Frisson was, he had put his talents to the most effective use possible. Rollins had spent weeks warming up to certain members of the tribe, notably the giant translator who managed to convey his English to the rest of the natives. Then it had all fallen apart in the space of a day — Rollins would never forget the tension built up in his system as Frisson and his mercenary thugs carted him out of the camp with a few dozen pairs of native tribespeople’s eyes on him. At any point he’d been expecting a spear through the upper back, and he hadn’t kicked up a fuss at risk of being torn apart by either the mercenaries or the Asháninca people themselves.

  He could phrase it however he wanted, but it had been a failure to act.

  King would have acted.

  King would have unleashed himself on the mercenaries and beat them down into the dirt, asserting his dominance and reclaiming the respect of the Asháninca by proving Frisson a fraudster.

  But Rollins was not Jason King.

  That thought leeched through him as King steered the buggy further into the rainforest. The shrieks of wildlife filtered through intermittently, sounding over the steady thrumming of the engine.

  ‘What do you think my best chance is?’ Rollins said. ‘At making it out of this alive.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ King admitted, wiping sweat off his brow. The humidity had reached its peak. ‘But I’d come up with something fast.’

  ‘You really think this is the best option? Black Force said to send me straight back to the tribe?’

  ‘Intel says that Frisson and his men are moving forward with something in the next couple of days. Whatever he wants to use the tribe for, it’s going to happen soon. We’re trying to mobilise and snatch Frisson on some deserted rainforest trail but he’s only travelling in convoys now. He’s moving fast. And we’re afraid if we capture him, the tribe will go through with the plan anyway. You need to get the tribe on your side. You’re the only one who they’re familiar with. There’s no other way.’

  Frisson exhaled, jolting against his seatbelt as the buggy bounced over a particularly vicious pothole. His clothes stuck to his body. Fear seeped through him. For the thousandth time during his short career as a black operations specialist, he wondered if he was cut out for this line of work.

  Then he pictured himself retreating back stateside with his tail between his legs.

  No.

  You started this.

  You have to go through with it.

  He hadn’t expected to return, but he knew he had a fighting chance. All that mattered was locating Bradley Frisson and putting an end to his mad game. Anything else was a secondary objective, even his own life. He had only met Frisson once, but the man’s eyes had sparkled with such a dark intensity that Rollins knew he was capable of horrific things. Frisson was somehow able to mask his true intentions around the tribe, but he’d swayed them to his side with a cocktail of deception, and now he was going to use them for something…

  Something awful.

  Rollins realised he didn’t even need to find out what that was.

  He just needed to stop the man.

  King screeched the buggy to a halt in what seemed to be the most stifling part of the jungle. Rollins could taste the air — the thickness of it, the way it hung over everything. The trail condensed ahead, shrinking to a narrow tunnel as overhanging trees drooped their fronds across the path. King spent a moment letting the engine run, staring straight ahead, as if discerning whether he should continue pressing forward or double back the way he’d come.

  At least, that’s what Rollins thought was happening until King opened his mouth.

  ‘Recognise this place?’ he said.

  Rollins shot a glance in either direction, seeing nothing but dense foliage and murky, dark green space between the trees. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Look closer.’

  Rollins squinted, and it all suddenly clicked.

  There was a path in the side of the trail, barely visible, choked with undergrowth and lush jungle flora. Something about the way it twisted into the jungle reminded him of a distant memory, and he tapped into his subconscious.

  Then he remembered.

  This was where it had all started.

  9

  Guess I’ve been suppressing it,’ he muttered, staring down the trail he’d discovered weeks earlier, at the origination point of the operation.

  ‘You thou
ght you were done with this life,’ King said. ‘Your brain probably forced the memories out. Up in that prison. Where you thought your old career had ended. So you forgot all about what it looked like.’

  ‘You sound like you’re speaking from experience.’

  King shook his head. ‘I have a lot of experiences under my belt… but I’ve never been done with this. I don’t know if I ever will be.’

  ‘You have to be. At some point.’

  ‘One day.’

  ‘Or you’ll die before you get there.’

  ‘Most likely option.’

  ‘So I’m getting out? This is where we part ways?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s up to you where to go from here. I just got told to break you out and put you back where you started. Anything beyond that is your call. You can walk away.’

  ‘Somehow I don’t think I can.’

  King shrugged. ‘That’s your business. I have my own business to take care of. Always have.’

  ‘You don’t care what I do?’

  ‘Doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I’ll never see you again.’

  ‘Good luck with your career, King. And your life.’

  ‘You too.’

  ‘So this is it?’

  ‘It’s Rollins, isn’t it?’

  Rollins nodded.

  ‘Best of luck, kid.’

  Rollins took the cue and unbuckled his harness, letting the straps snap back into its holster, sensing the finality in the gesture. It signalled a crossing over of sorts, a return to the life he thought he’d escaped from.

  Escaped?

  Was that the right way to put it? Didn’t he enjoy what he did?

  It was hard to articulate. There was nothing enjoyable about the blood roaring in his ears and the overwhelming knowledge that he might be slaughtered by a man named Bradley Frisson in the coming hours. But that was all part of the job.

  And he’d been doing the job — in one capacity or another — for his entire adult life.

  So he wasn’t about to walk away.

  He got out of the buggy and stepped down into the churned dirt underfoot, taking a moment to get his bearings. The atmosphere bore down on him, stifling and oppressing, wrenching the sweat from his pores.