by Matt Rogers
Contracts
The King & Slater Series Book Two
Matt Rogers
Copyright © 2019 by Matt Rogers
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Onur Aksoy.
www.onegraphica.com
Contents
Reader’s Group
Books by Matt Rogers
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Part I
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Part II
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Announcement
Afterword
Books by Matt Rogers
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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)
Bear (Book 3)
Lynx (Book 4)
Bull (Book 5)
Hawk (Book 6)
THE KING & SLATER SERIES
Weapons (Book 1)
Contracts (Book 2)
BLACK FORCE SHORTS
The Victor (Book 1)
The Chimera (Book 2)
The Tribe (Book 3)
The Hidden (Book 4)
The Coast (Book 5)
The Storm (Book 6)
The Wicked (Book 7)
The King (Book 8)
The Joker (Book 9)
The Ruins (Book 10)
Prologue
1
Nepal
Aidan Parker hadn’t come here expecting sweltering heat.
It contrasted with the brochures, the word of mouth: hell, it even clashed with a simple Google search. Type “Nepal” into any internet browser and you’d come away convinced the only danger besides altitude sickness was the potential for hypothermia. Sure, the mountains were coming eventually. They were headed for Gokyo Ri, a snow-capped peak in the Khumbu region offering staggering views of Everest and the surrounding Himalayas. Temperatures plummeted at altitudes above thirteen thousand feet, but they weren’t anywhere near those heights yet.
They were low.
And it was hot.
In truth, it wasn’t that bad if you stayed still. Maybe low seventies if you checked the weather app on your phone. But for the past few days they’d been trekking, and trekking in Nepal involved excruciating ascents and descents in equal measure, which, complete with the sun beating down on the back of your neck, meant perspiring like there was no tomorrow. And when you started sweating one hundred feet into a five hundred foot rise in elevation, there was little chance of it stopping anytime soon.
But that was only half the reason Parker’s pores were working overtime.
His fourteen-year-old daughter, Raya, had deemed the trip the perfect opportunity to air years’ worth of grievances.
‘Did you even hear what I said?’ she said as they reached the top of a steep hill.
Parker paused for breath, sucking in air as he hunched over. ‘Hold on, Raya. Please…’
‘You’re not that winded,’ she said. ‘Stop making excuses.’
‘You’ve been running track for, what, three years now? I’m not on your level. Work keeps me—’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Exactly, Dad. That’s what I was saying. Thanks for bringing it up on your own. Work keeps you—?’
Parker’s heart rate settled and he said, ‘Busy.’
‘Understatement of the century.’
Parker flashed a glance over his shoulder. Sure enough, the rest of the party was in tow. It was, of course, a deliberate effort to hang back on their part. Both bodyguards had passed the request onto the Nepali guide and porter, so all four of them were a couple of hundred feet behind, ascending the mountain at a snail’s pace. It gave Parker breathing room to muster retorts to his daughter’s insults without having to deal with the added pressure of an uncomfortable audience, listening to everything that came out of their mouths.
He said, ‘That’s what this trip is about, Raya.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s not. This trip is about you feeling less guilty, so when we get back home you can say, “But, honey, don’t you remember Nepal?” every time I complain about you not spending enough time with me.’
Parker threw his hands in the air — each clutching trekking poles — in exasperated fashion. ‘So you’re already writing it off? In that case, what am I supposed to do?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe find a job that doesn’t need the presence of bodyguards whenever you step foot out of your office?’
‘It’s not like that.’
‘What’s it like, then, Dad?’
Parker wiped sweat off his brow to save it dripping into the dirt at their feet. ‘You know I can’t talk about my jo
b as much as I’d like.’
‘Which is bullshit.’
He frowned. ‘It’s not. And you’re not going to speak to me like that. If you have problems with me, which you clearly do, you’re going to convey them to me like an adult. You can’t have it both ways. You’re pretending you’re not my daughter so you can insult me for giving this my best shot, so you’re going to do that civilly instead of swearing at me every chance you get. Understood?’
He’d been on the back foot the whole trip, and she hadn’t seen him riled up often.
It made her hesitate.
Raya said, ‘Okay, Dad. Sorry. I didn’t mean to swear.’
‘And I didn’t mean to bite like that.’
‘I just…’
‘What?’
‘I think you do a good job,’ she said. ‘You know … as a father. When you’re around. So I’d like to see more of it. But that’s tough when you’re at work twenty-four-seven. And I can’t talk to you about it because we’re sitting in teahouses every night with your two bodyguards awkwardly hanging around, making shit conversation. Sorry for swearing.’
‘It’s okay,’ Parker said. ‘I get it. Can we talk about it tonight?’
‘In front of Winston and Oscar? As usual?’
‘No. We’ll find somewhere private to talk. We’re only a couple of hours from Kharikhola. I’m not in the shape I used to be. Can I just focus on the walk, please?’
She said, ‘Can we talk on the descents?’
‘Okay,’ he compromised.
So they set off, an uneasy pairing, trailed by a convoy that was required to accompany Aidan Parker at all times thanks to his crucial role in the rarely-discussed black-operations sector of the U.S. government.
2
But Raya didn’t know that.
She knew her dad worked for the government, and little else. He’d always kept it that way. Mostly because of the NDAs he was forced to sign every year, but also because there was seldom a heartwarming conversation that would come from openly discussing his job. He’d tried to imagine opening the floodgates, spilling the beans on what exactly he dealt with day in and day out, but he couldn’t see it ever brightening the mood at the dinner table.
Not that they gathered round the dinner table all that often back home.
His marriage was disintegrating, in the same way that many marriages did. No vicious arguing. No real emotion at all. In fact, it was precisely the opposite of how divorces play out on television, but wasn’t that the case most of the time? He and Catherine had been drifting for the better part of five years. Each day that passed without his presence, each night he stumbled through the door exhausted and depleted, sometimes after ten p.m. … each of those instances drove another slight wedge through the ever-widening gap between them. And that seemed to be a regular occurrence these days.
Raya didn’t know of her parents’ marital problems, either. Parker had ensured it, and Catherine hadn’t been jumping at the bit to enlighten her.
How exactly could they explain that they’d probably soon divorce for no real reason other than sheer lack of passion and interest?
Thankfully, Raya eased off on the verbal assault until they reached Kharikhola, a small town at the peak of one of the mountains. They strode in an hour or so before sundown, and Parker dropped his trekking poles into the dirt at the first sign of the nearest teahouse. It was much the same as the buildings they’d stayed in over the last few nights, made of stone and bright yellow wooden trim, with an open front door that faced the trail and a cohort of young Europeans clustered around a plastic table with Everest beers in their hands out front.
Parker took a moment to compose himself. He hadn’t expected to have to exert himself so hard. His ankles throbbed, and his chest tightened with each breath, and overall he felt a decade older as he put his hands on his hips and flashed a relieved look at his daughter when she pulled to a halt beside him.
But she looked fine.
She said, ‘Were you ready for this trip, Dad?’
He said, ‘Yeah. I’ll get used to it. This is day three. I’ll be fine by day five.’
‘You’re not as thin as you used to be. Maybe you should have shed that before we came here.’
‘Thanks, honey.’
She shrugged. ‘Do you want the truth, or do you want me to bullshit?’
For a fleeting moment, he was seized by a flashback to the endless days he’d spent cooped up in a featureless office, coordinating the high-pressure, high-stress, high-intensity operations that his fellow countrymen routinely embarked on. He tried not to shiver.
He said, ‘The truth always leads to the best results.’
Briefly, she smiled. ‘That’s the dad I know. So, you want the truth?’
‘Sure.’
‘You’re getting fat. You’re spending too much time at work. You’re ageing three years for every year you spend on this planet. I don’t want you to work as hard. I don’t want you to drop dead. I want to spend time with you. I want you to have a life.’
Parker didn’t retort.
He just stared at her.
He said, ‘Thanks, sweetheart. I understand.’
‘But are you going to fall straight back into the same routines when we get home?’
He paused. ‘I’ll do my best not to.’
‘Your best?’
‘I can’t promise you anything. My job … won’t allow it.’
‘Why don’t you quit?’
‘Because what I do is important.’
‘Will you ever talk to me about it?’
He bowed his head. ‘I can’t.’
She almost yelled at him. Almost. He could sense the words catch at the corners of her lips, on their way out but snatched by the protective shield of common decency at the last moment. He knew what they’d be.
You fucking selfish prick. Why don’t you care about your family? How could your job be so important that it means you have to neglect the people you’re supposed to care about the most?
He didn’t answer.
There was nothing asked, but there might as well have been.
He knew, deep down, exactly what Raya thought of him.
Because he thought the same of himself.
You don’t talk about your job under the guise of nobility but you don’t have the foresight or the self-discipline to even keep yourself in shape.
The bodyguards, Winston and Oscar, made it to the top of the trailhead. They wordlessly glanced at the teahouse.
Then they looked back at the guide and the porter.
The guide, Sejun, spoke passable English. The porter, whose name they hadn’t had the opportunity to memorise, didn’t speak a word of English. What he could do incredibly well was carry close to half his bodyweight in luggage on his back. He had both Parker and Raya’s North Face bags tied together with rope and draped across his upper back, which meant he’d been carrying close to fifty pounds for the entirety of the trek. He was a small, skinny man with wrinkles and bags under his eyes from a lifetime of hardship. But he didn’t complain, let alone utter a word, as they reached the top. This was his job, and he was damn good at it.
Sejun turned to his clients.
‘Not here,’ he told Parker. ‘This place sold out. No rooms. Maybe twenty minutes down road, okay?’
Parker sighed.
Raya shrugged.
It spoke to their respective fitness levels.
They trudged along the trail, jabbing their trekking poles into the loose dirt at any opportunity, grinding their aching bones together endlessly, on and on and on as it started getting darker.
3
There was no trouble.
They made it with plenty of time to spare before the sun fell and night swept over the mountains.
But Aidan Parker arrived exhausted to the bone.
He realised with staggering clarity that there was a world of difference between mental stress and physical stress. He thought he’d be prepared to handle anything Nepal co
uld throw at him due to the chaos he handled on a daily basis in his small windowless office in Washington. But as he stumbled into the teahouse’s communal area and sat down at a polished wooden bench and dropped his head to the table, he understood the depths the human body could plunge to when pushed to its limits.
Raya said, ‘Are you faking it?’
Parker lifted his head. He felt cold and clammy. ‘What?’
She was sitting across from him, looking no worse for wear, scrutinising him. ‘Are you pretending? You know … to get out of our talk?’