Contracts

by Matt Rogers

  He knew they were watching him. He could feel eyes on him from somewhere — there were endless vantage points down in that rocky maze. They’d be peering out from all of them. They’d leave nothing to chance.

  ‘Well,’ he said under his breath, ‘here goes nothing.’

  He could sense the lack of oxygen in the air as he set off again. Each breath seemed to come up short — no matter how much air he sucked in, his system pined for more. He deliberately exacerbated his breathing as he set a measured pace down the north side of the peak, sucking in giant lungfuls of air.

  His muscles were aching, but he didn’t panic. It could still be chalked up to general exhaustion rather than the crippling effects of altitude.

  If he succumbed to the same fate as Slater, then he’d never make it back down.

  But he wasn’t there yet.

  And, if that was the way it was going to go, he’d fight it until his last breath.

  He made it a few dozen feet through the knee-high snow before he sensed the first sign of movement. It came from a cluster of boulders to his right, and he picked it up in his peripheral vision.

  But he didn’t overreact.

  A man stepped out from behind one of the rocks.

  Clad in faded camouflage fatigues.

  Wearing black shiny boots.

  Pointing an AK-47 at his face.

  ‘Hey,’ King said, hunched over against the wind chill.

  The guy didn’t budge. His aim didn’t waver. He wasn’t going to slip up — not with this much on the line, not with the potential for unimaginable riches dangling in front of his face.

  ‘Don’t accidentally shoot me,’ King said. ‘You know why I’m here.’

  No response. No movement.

  King said, ‘You want to pat me down for weapons?’

  ‘No. Walk.’

  Smart man, King thought.

  If the guy got into range, King could batter the cumbersome Kalashnikov away with a single swipe. Then he’d break the man’s neck for having the gall to point a loaded weapon at him. But the insurgent clearly recognised these risks — King’s frame was intimidating to anyone — and he kept his distance, skewering himself into the snow, looking through the AK-47s sights, unblinking.

  King said, ‘Walk where?’

  ‘Keep going. Down there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Walk or I shoot.’

  ‘No you won’t. You don’t want to upset your boss. The girl is worth a lot of money. I’m the guy who will get you that money. You understand how that works?’

  ‘Walk.’

  Stalemate.

  Call it delirium, call it recklessness, call it idiocy. King didn’t know which label to assign to it, but he decided not to draw his weapon. It would be relatively simple, and the odds were in his favour. A single jerky movement to the left and then a dive to the right, throwing the rebel’s aim off for the split second it would take to get the Sig Sauer in his hand and the bullet through the guy’s forehead. The sun would help him, reflecting off all the snow, compromising the man’s aim. King had the reflexes, the training, and the track record to pull it off.

  But he didn’t do it.

  Instead he said, ‘Okay,’ and trudged down the slope through the snow.

  The insurgent followed, keeping at least a dozen feet between them at all times.

  King could sense the barrel aimed at his back. So he went slow, which was easy considering the circumstances. He was dead tired and it was hard to breathe. The wind died off as they sunk lower into the natural valley between the peaks, and then they were surrounded by clusters of rocks and boulders, all coated in powdery snow.

  Obscured from the sight of any trekkers’ who happened to reach the top of Gokyo Ri behind them.

  King could feel how alone he was. It was palpable, and it’d get to him if he let it. It’d transform into doubt, plaguing him with the knowledge that even if he got wounded and survived, no one would ever find him.

  Behind him, the rebel growled, ‘Here.’

  King looked around.

  And then he saw it.

  The mouth of a shallow cave. It was hard to spot amidst the maze of rocks, but the shadows caught his eye and he realised every answer he’d been seeking rested in that gaping maw.

  ‘Inside?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  King only had to take a couple of steps forward before he saw them.

  Two silhouettes, maybe twenty feet inside the cave.

  A small woman, and a large man.

  The man was holding her out in front, and had a handgun pressed into the side of her head.

  King trudged the final few steps through the snow and stepped into the mouth of the cave.

  There was just enough sunlight to make out the curly blond hair.

  King said, ‘You could have just told us at the start. It wouldn’t have changed anything. You’ll still get your money.’

  Oscar Perry kept his mouth shut. His eyes were rabid, almost animalistic. The shadows were deep, but the sun was at the appropriate angle to illuminate him. His clothes were dirty, ripped in a few places. He had a tight grip on the handgun — another Sig Sauer P320 (probably the same shipment) — and his finger inside the trigger guard.

  Raya looked okay, all things considered. She was tall for her age, pale and lean. Probably paler than usual due to the bloody bandage wrapped around her hand. The shock of losing a finger would take some time to wear off. She wore hiking gear and had deep bags under her eyes. Her hair was slick with sweat and grease. She was shaking.

  King took another step forward. ‘You wanted me here to talk. So let’s talk.’

  Perry still didn’t speak.

  He didn’t take his eyes off King.

  Didn’t blink.

  Didn’t make a sound.

  Just watched.

  King took a final half-step forward, and behind him the rebel said, ‘Hey.’

  King looked over his shoulder casually, both eyebrows raised. Like, What’s the problem?

  The rebel opened his mouth to say something.

  King blew his forehead apart with a single round.

  He’d drawn his own P320 with half his body facing away from the insurgent, so the guy had never seen it coming. The body hit the cave floor with a wet smack, but King didn’t see it because at lightning speed he whirled around and had the gun pointed between Perry’s eyes before anyone could even blink.

  Reflexes, he thought.

  They’ve saved me more times than I can count.

  Perry barely reacted. He still didn’t say a word.

  ‘Now let’s talk,’ King said.

  ‘Not to me,’ Perry said.

  The words came out croaky. Like they were his first of the day.

  Like he’d never been prepared to speak.

  King said, ‘What?’

  ‘He was waiting for you to do that.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I’m being told to stand here.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘This gun is empty.’

  A barrel touched the back of King’s neck.

  65

  Slater lowered the empty plate to the carpet next to his bed.

  The motion made his heart speed up.

  He lay back and tried to focus on digesting the food. There was little else worth paying attention to besides listening out for intruders. There was an invisible ball of lead on his chest, pushing him deeper into the thin mattress, turning his bones to deadweight. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t concentrate. Could barely breathe.

  It had been three hours since King left. By now, he should be at the summit. It was all playing out up there, far out of reach, too far for Slater to offer any kind of assistance — not that he could help anyway. He needed to descend now — reach a lower altitude so his body had some hope of recovering — but he couldn’t do it alone.

  And by now, the insurgents would know he was here.

  Alone.

  Compromised.

&nbs
p; Vulnerable.

  They’d want to do it quietly. No point ruining their country’s tourism industry by going into a trekkers’ safe haven with all guns blazing. Far easier to slip into the room without disturbing the other patrons and put a suppressed round through the top of Slater’s head.

  He just had to hope the owner stayed true to his word.

  If not, they’d overwhelm him.

  Then he heard it, and his pulse quickened. He fought it back down and listened hard, struggling to a seated position in bed. Everything hurt, but he didn’t pay attention to it. He focused everything on what he’d heard.

  A footstep.

  He wouldn’t have suspected anything if a civilian had come stomping into the corridor, but this person was making a deliberate effort to stay quiet. Much like the owner had done nearly an hour earlier. Slater had switched to operational mode thirty minutes ago, figuring his next encounter would be with someone brandishing a loaded weapon.

  Another footstep.

  Then another.

  Right outside his door.

  He braced himself.

  Slipped a finger inside the trigger guard.

  Aimed the handgun at the door.

  Exhaled.

  Ready.

  Then there was a rapid flurry of footsteps, and an almighty crash, and a door flew open, and a suppressed gunshot coughed and echoed through the rooms.

  Not Slater’s door.

  Not Slater’s room.

  They’d gone for 108, just down the hall.

  Slater breathed out, and the adrenaline hit him in a wave, as he imagined it would. He knew that was the trigger he needed. He also knew time was finite. Stress chemicals didn’t last forever. You could only stay wired to the eyeballs for a narrow window of time.

  But for now…

  Slater leapt out of bed, good as new. If anyone had been watching him as an observer for the last couple of days, they might have assumed it was a Herculean effort to lunge to his feet, but he knew enough about the primal workings of the human body to take it in his stride. He crossed to the door, opened it softly, and leaned into the hallway.

  The doorway to room 108 was across the hall, maybe a dozen feet down.

  There was no door there.

  Someone had smashed it off its hinges and sent it tumbling into the room.

  Slater couldn’t see anyone. Whoever had rushed 108 was now inside, probably hurling sheets off mattresses, realising the room was empty, rapidly calculating alternatives.

  Slater counted to three.

  Then a tall wiry man clad in a balaclava and camouflage fatigues crept back out through the open doorway. His mannerisms were sheepish — he’d created a whole lot of noise and had nothing to show for it. There was an AK-47 in his hands. Serious firepower for an assault on a crippled man. Clearly they didn’t underestimate Slater… but the guy didn’t get a chance to use the rifle.

  He looked up and noticed Slater standing there, and that was the last thing he saw. Slater pumped the trigger once and gore exited the back of the man’s skull, and then Slater was on the move. He kicked the guy in the chest before he could collapse and sent the corpse splaying back through the doorway, where it crashed into two more guys on the way out. They didn’t fall over, but it took them a beat to lower their dead friend to the carpet and reach for their weapons again.

  Slater filled the doorway.

  He shot one of them through the top of the head and the other in the face when he jerked upright to greet the new threat.

  Reacting to an impulse, Slater pivoted in the doorway and took a step out into the corridor. He aimed down the length of it, levelling the barrel with the glass entrance doors and the snowy embankment beyond.

  Fresh insurgents stepped into the entranceway, responding to the blaring gunshots. Their guns were up and they were ready for a war.

  They didn’t get one.

  Slater put a round into each of them.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  They dropped like dominoes, a couple of them crashing into each other on the way down. The third guy pitched forward and fell straight through the glass door, shattering it. What ordinarily would have been an almighty noise fell on deaf ears.

  Slater shrugged off the temporary hearing loss and backpedalled into room 105.

  Because now his muscles were leeching, protesting, whining, his heart rate rising, his brain screaming, The tank’s empty. You’re done.

  He stumbled through the doorway and barely got it closed before his legs gave out and he slid to the floor.

  He tried not to panic, but it was like trying to hold back a tsunami with a dam wall.

  Chaos reigned on the other side of the door. The handful of trekkers still in their rooms were now screaming, running, banging into walls and doors as they fled. Under the impression they were now caught in the midst of a deadly mass shooting. When they got out of the building, they might keep running until their legs gave out.

  Slater closed his eyes, pressed his back to the door, and tried his best not to pass out.

  66

  ‘Drop it, please,’ an accented voice said.

  King calculated how fast he could pivot, smash the gun away, seize the upper hand.

  He couldn’t.

  He’d been through enough combat to know when the odds were hopeless.

  So he dropped it.

  He didn’t have a choice.

  Turned around slowly, so the barrel came to rest against his forehead.

  ‘I know you move fast,’ the porter said. ‘Don’t try it with me. It won’t work.’

  King believed him. The small man’s calloused finger was millimetres off the trigger. He was barely a shade over five feet tall, with skin like leather and an unimposing physique, but he only could have pulled this off if he had an arsenal of experience in this very realm.

  And then the opportunity was gone anyway, because the porter backed up a few steps. Now he was out of range, leaving King a sitting duck in the depths of the cave.

  ‘Oscar, put the gun on the floor,’ the man said. ‘Then all three of you stand in a line.’

  Perry complied. King heard him lower the empty handgun to the cave floor, and then sensed the man’s sizeable bulk in his peripheral vision. Perry stood still as a statue beside him, and Raya joined them. None of them said a word. They couldn’t afford to.

  Then King decided to test his luck.

  ‘Mukta, isn’t it?’ he said.

  The porter nodded.

  King said, ‘That’s Indian?’

  ‘I was a Naxalite,’ Mukta explained, ‘for most of my adult life.’

  India’s Maoist insurgency.

  No wonder he was able to recruit Nepal’s own rebels so effortlessly.

  Their supposed cause was one and the same.

  ‘And now you’re here,’ King said.

  ‘Now I’m here.’

  Mukta whistled low under his breath, and a trickle of insurgents bled into the mouth of the cave. They were all identical, seemingly materialising out of nowhere, dressed in the familiar dark green fatigues and draped in balaclavas. King counted four of them, plus the porter.

  The porter.

  King said, ‘Your job. That was all a front?’

  ‘Yes and no. It’s a good cover story. I’m small, and you can tell I’ve lived a hard life. I don’t look any different from them. If I pretend I can’t speak English, I’m practically a chameleon.’

  King recalled what Violetta had said. Most kidnappings aren’t actually reported.

  He said, ‘How many ransoms have you racked up out here?’

  Mukta’s eyes lit up. ‘Enough.’

  ‘How long have you been doing it?’

  ‘You’re an inquisitive one, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m here to negotiate.’

  Mukta laughed. ‘Cute.’

  The faint inklings of dread began to creep up King’s spine.

  Because there was nothing more dangerous than a
n enemy who didn’t care about money.

  King said, ‘You’re in the kidnapping business. Your hostage is worth a lot of cash. I’m the one who can put you in touch with the necessary parties. Isn’t that what you want?’

  ‘It was,’ Mukta said, looking bored. ‘Now I figure it’s not worth the hassle.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Several reasons.’

  ‘Care to enlighten me?’

  ‘What’s the point?’

  King shrugged. ‘Some basic level of respect. I made it up here, didn’t I?’

  Mukta thought about it. King could see the gears whirring.

  Do I make the age-old mistake of talking too much? the man was thinking.

  But that’s the thing about age-old mistakes.

  They keep getting made for a reason.

  It’s awfully tempting to brag.

  Finally Mukta said, ‘Fine. Here you go. This business is volatile. The girl’s not worth the hassle she’s created. And besides, I now have two prizes that are much more valuable.’

  King stayed quiet.

  Mukta said, ‘One of them is a laptop.’

  Beside King, Perry visibly tensed.

  Mukta noticed, and half-smiled. ‘Frustrating, isn’t it? You see, Oscar here is a terrible liar. I started playing around with the thing on a whim and saw the colour drain from his face. That told me all I needed to know.’

  King said nothing.

  Mukta said, ‘The second prize is you.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘I saw how fast you shot my bait. You’re a fuckin’ freak of nature, aren’t you? How much would your government pay to get you back?’

  ‘That’s a dangerous game to play.’

  ‘I know. You probably think I’m some dumb henchman. But I can tell when I’m out of my depth. It wasn’t in the job description to deal with super-soldiers. So I think I’m deciding, right here and now, to get out of the business. I’ve done enough of these. I’ve milked those negotiators for all they’re worth. I know they’re not happy with me. And I can’t be bothered dealing with live hostages anymore, so I’ll sell the laptop to the highest bidder and that’ll be that.’

  He turned to look at his men. ‘I think it’s time to disappear, don’t you?’

  One by one, they nodded.

  ‘Cashing out,’ Mukta said, bemused. ‘Never thought I’d see the day. As for you three…’