Contracts

by Matt Rogers

  A pause.

  A long, deadly, ominous pause.

  ‘…well, I guess you’re no longer any use to me.’

  King sensed what was about to happen and screamed, ‘No!’ to try and throw Mukta off his rhythm, but the man was a professional.

  He didn’t hesitate.

  Didn’t even blink.

  Just turned and raised his weapon and shot Raya Parker in the head.

  Part II

  67

  Somehow, Slater drifted off.

  He didn’t intend to. It was the last thing he wanted. In reality it was pure exhaustion, but it sure felt like falling asleep. His vision faded and his brain powered down and he gently slid down the doorway, inch by inch, until the whole thing smashed against his upper back as someone rammed it from the other side.

  The jolt woke him up in an instant, and with a shock like a car jumpstarting he rolled away from the door.

  The next impact broke straight through the lock.

  The door flew open, its trajectory missing Slater’s unprotected face by inches. It swung on past and there was a man right there in the doorway, wielding another Kalashnikov. He was hopped up on either natural or artificial chemicals, and ready to kill with his bare hands if it came to that.

  But it didn’t.

  He was expecting Slater to be standing, and maybe half-expecting him to be stretched out on the bed, but he certainly didn’t think he’d be lying on the floor. Slater shot upwards from his back twice. One bullet struck the guy in the chest, and the other snapped his head back.

  He was dead before he hit the floor.

  Slater reached out with one foot, caught the edge of the door, and swung it shut. It didn’t close all the way, catching on the corpse’s shoulder.

  He tried to sit up.

  His chest pounded faster and faster.

  He sunk back to the floor and grimaced, staring up at the ceiling.

  Move! he screamed at himself. Just move!

  He couldn’t.

  The adrenaline he’d used to decimate the first wave had depleted him entirely. There was nothing left. He inched across the carpet on his back, dragging himself across the floor, painfully slow. He reached the doorway and extended a weak hand, fingers outstretched. He placed his palm on the corpse’s shoulder and pushed. It was like moving a five hundred pound weight. The guy didn’t budge.

  Slater took a deep breath, then strained with all his might.

  His face contorted into a grotesque mask of exertion, but he battled not to make a sound.

  The body shifted.

  First an inch, then half a foot, and then…

  It was clear.

  Slater reached for the door, willing his aching muscles to just hold on, and gripped the edge.

  He closed the door.

  And collapsed against the wood.

  There wasn’t a chance in hell he was putting up any more of a fight. The next wave would kill him. There was a body directly outside his door, and if that didn’t signify it as a location of interest then he didn’t know what would. Then again, there were half a dozen more corpses scattered through the rest of the hallway.

  He had to hope…

  Time passed — seconds, or minutes, or hours. No way to know for sure. He was barely holding onto consciousness, let alone managing to keep track of the clock. But eventually there were more footsteps. Boots crunched shards of glass underfoot as a fresh party of rebels made their way into the building. He could sense them sweeping the corridor, searching all vantage points, clearing all corners.

  He heard them move right past the door.

  And then a pair of footsteps doubled back.

  Slater held his breath. His vision had narrowed to a dark tunnel, and he was barely lucid. He raised his gun in a sweaty, shaking palm, but he couldn’t find the energy to take it all the way through its trajectory. It came up short, halfway toward pointing at the door, and then his hand dropped as he lost all ability to move.

  The footsteps stopped right outside his door.

  There was a lengthy pause.

  Then a sound eerily similar to scratching.

  Fingers against clothing.

  His eyes half-open, Slater watched the door and waited to die.

  Then he heard a muttered curse, followed by the footsteps pattering away. Slater waited, breathing hard and deep. That was about the only thing he could do. The newcomers swept room 108 — he could tell where the majority of the sound was resonating from — but they didn’t seem concerned about the other rooms.

  Then what was…?

  He put it together. One of the rebels had bent down and checked the pulse of the corpse out there. Maybe the dead man was a close friend. Whatever the case, the body must have blended into the half-dozen other dead insurgents scattered down the hallway. The door to Slater’s room mustn’t have stood out enough to investigate.

  Slater fought to control his impulses. Every part of him was on the verge of losing control. It wouldn’t take much prompting. He was utterly helpless, all his training thrown out the window, praying the second wave of rebels didn’t walk in. They might take him alive if they found him in such a state. That would be a whole new world of awful.

  Out in the hallway, they muttered to each other in Nepali. They were keeping their voices low, even though every civilian in the building had fled in a panic minutes earlier. They could shout if they wanted. No one was around to hear. No one was around to help.

  Slater tried to raise the Sig Sauer one last time.

  His shaking hand made it a few inches off the floor.

  Then fell straight back to earth.

  He lay still and focused on avoiding a heart attack.

  And then, all of a sudden, there was silence.

  Slater couldn’t help himself. He drifted off again. Consciousness fell away as his body entered survival mode, and he didn’t know how much time passed before he came out of it. When he cracked an eyelid open, he realised it might as well have been hours.

  But he was still alive, and during the time he’d been out cold his body had scraped together a few morsels of… something.

  He sat up.

  Cradled the Sig in his palm.

  He couldn’t move fast. But he could move.

  And he knew he needed to get the hell out of Gokyo before the rebels tore every building in the village apart searching for him.

  Shaky, weak, faint, he attempted to get to his feet.

  Levered up onto his knees, then fully upright.

  He wavered.

  But he remained standing.

  Then he wobbled forward and threw the door open.

  68

  King fell to his knees.

  He couldn’t process it properly.

  He and Slater had nearly killed themselves to get here, and now their rescue was eradicated with a single piece of lead.

  The only salvation he could find was that she never would have known what was coming. It happened so fast, so unexpectedly, that King almost didn’t realise himself until her body hit the cave floor.

  Then he dropped, all the feeling sapping out of his legs.

  He rocked back on his haunches, turning pale, turning wide-eyed, and tears flooded his eyes.

  Mukta actually smiled.

  ‘How does that feel?’ the porter said. ‘How does it feel to fail? I wouldn’t know, to be honest. This shit is too easy.’

  Oscar Perry barely batted an eyelid, but King knew he was hurting on the inside. He also knew the bodyguard was confused. Elite operations were about compartmentalising your emotions and refusing to let them affect you in the heat of combat, no matter what happened. And here was supposedly the best warrior on the planet, succumbing to an emotional breakdown. What the hell was King thinking?

  King didn’t blame him for being surprised.

  Mukta and the rebels, however, didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary.

  King bowed his head and sobbed into the cuff of his sleeve.

&n
bsp; ‘Shut up,’ Mukta hissed. ‘Stop your whining.’

  When King sat up, he scooted back half a foot on his rear.

  But he timed it well, so both movements aligned, and Mukta didn’t notice.

  ‘Get up,’ Mukta said. ‘You’re pathetic. Makes me embarrassed that I gave up on the ransom. Maybe you’re not as special as I thought.’

  King moved slow, lethargic with his actions. Like all the life had been sapped out of him. Like he’d lost any motivation to continue. Eyes bloodshot and red with tears, he rolled onto his knees, turning his back to the mouth of the cave. He stared into the dark abyss for a moment, contemplating reasons to get to his feet.

  ‘Up,’ Mukta roared.

  King rose. But as he did he reached out for the object he’d blocked with his body.

  The empty Sig Sauer P320 given to Perry to use as bait.

  He tucked it in close to his body, rose to his feet, and slotted a fresh magazine home, lifting it gently out of his belt.

  Then he turned and unloaded the weapon in the space of three seconds.

  He blew the brains out of the two rebels with Kalashnikovs, sending them careening off their feet in the mouth of the cave. Then he put three rounds into the guy with the pistol — two in the chest and one in the head, just to make sure his soul was ripped from his body. He put a round into Mukta’s left leg, then his right, disintegrating both his kneecaps. The result was grisly — the porter’s legs splayed out at unnatural angles and he broke a few bones in his upper and lower legs as the limbs simply folded beneath him. Mukta passed out from the pain, but King didn’t notice because he was already putting the last two rounds of the magazine into the unarmed insurgent hovering in the snow outside. The guy took both bullets to the throat and he died before he could even reach for his neck.

  The carnage ended, almost before it had begun.

  The echo of the gunshots rippled through the cave, and Oscar Perry said, ‘Holy shit.’

  King didn’t hear it. Fury roared in his ears. First he went over to Raya and made sure she was dead, but he quickly realised there was no room for debate. She had a cylindrical hole in the centre of her forehead, and an exit wound out the back of her skull, and her eyes were glazed over. He bent down and put a gentle hand on her shoulder, horrified by what had unfolded, and then he went straight for the porter.

  Mukta was still unconscious, so King took a run-up to build momentum and scythed an open palm through the air, slapping the guy so hard on the cheek that it sounded like another gunshot on the cave walls.

  Mukta came awake in a world of pain.

  King grabbed him by his mop of hair and held him a few inches off the cave floor.

  ‘I’m going to ask you a few questions,’ he said.

  Pale and shaking, Mukta noticed his broken mangled legs. ‘Ohhh…’

  King bashed his head against the ground like a bowling ball.

  ‘Just kill me,’ the porter mumbled.

  ‘Soon,’ King said. ‘I’m still trying to piece this together.’

  ‘What… do you want?’

  ‘How long have you been doing this?’

  ‘Two years.’

  ‘How often are you successful?’

  ‘Almost every … time. Oh, my legs, oh. Please. Just… help me. Get rid of this pain.’

  ‘No,’ King said, and smashed his skull into the rock floor again.

  Hard enough to hurt like hell.

  Not hard enough to knock him unconscious.

  ‘How much money do you think you’ve made doing this?’

  ‘Tens… of millions … of U.S. Dollars. This was… my last job.’

  ‘Why hasn’t anyone caught you?’

  ‘Because when they pay the ransom… it’s easier for everyone if no one speaks about it.’

  ‘And when they don’t pay the ransom?’

  ‘They always do.’

  ‘What made you think you could get away with kidnapping an important government official’s daughter?’

  ‘I didn’t… know how important… she was. Please. The pain.’

  King slapped him across his already-swollen cheek. ‘How did you know who she was in the first place?’

  ‘I… pay some people who know who’s coming into Nepal. There were… certain flags we picked up on… when Aidan Parker came into the country. No one… knew… what he did. So I knew he was important. I made sure… I got the porter job… for his trek. From there it was easy.’

  ‘Did you know about the laptop beforehand?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How important do you think the laptop is?’

  ‘I know it will sell for millions. Maybe double my fortune… maybe more. I already told… the rest of my forces… to get it.’

  ‘How many are there?’

  ‘Many more.’

  ‘They’ll come for us?’

  ‘They are already on their way.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because maybe… you will help me.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint,’ King said.

  He put a huge palm on Mukta’s throat and squeezed the life out of him.

  69

  Like moving through a fever dream.

  Slater went down the hallway, drenched in shadow, stepping over bodies, surrounded by desolation. There wasn’t a soul in sight. He made it to the shattered entrance doors and stepped right through the frame, holding the Sig in front of him as best he could. The cold hit him like a punch to the chest, threatening to sap more of his momentum, but he killed that line of thinking and stepped down into the snow.

  He was in a snowy laneway between the two buildings — the main dining room, elevated on stilts a few feet above a snowy embankment, and the dormitory-style accommodation behind him. From there the slope descended to the flat plains between the village and Gokyo Ri.

  But not before it gave way to a small divot in the hillside, home to a patch of land filled with dirt and rock. The snow had been cleared away earlier that morning for…

  For what?

  Slater blinked.

  Really?

  He saw the helicopter perched there, painted red and silver, powered down as it rested on its landing skids. But he couldn’t quite believe it wasn’t a figment of his imagination.

  When the hell did that show up?

  When he was passed out, probably. There wasn’t anyone inside it. There were any number of explanations for that — the pilot had landed for a routine supply drop, or to evacuate one of the many trekkers who succumbed to altitude sickness each and every week. The visit in itself was nothing out of the ordinary — there were choppers flying in and out of the remote villages all the time — but the sheer dumb luck was worth scrutinising.

  Slater didn’t believe in coincidences.

  But right now, he didn’t give a shit what he believed in. There was a helicopter there, ripe for the taking, and he wasn’t about to debate the semantics.

  He didn’t move, though. He swept his surroundings, but frankly it was impossible to cover all his bases. There were probably ten buildings in total facing the helicopter, and all of them had multiple vantage points from which to blast his head off his shoulders.

  He just had to hope for…

  A door swung open in the dining hall to his left. He pivoted and caught a peripheral glance of a woollen balaclava, and that was all he needed to see.

  He swung the P320 up and pumped the trigger ten consecutive times.

  He had spare magazines, after all, and nothing to lose anyway.

  The rounds shredded everyone in the doorway to pieces. Three or four rebels jerked back inside or collapsed over the threshold, bleeding from entry and exit wounds, either dead or soon to be.

  Slater didn’t need any further encouragement.

  He turned and ran.

  Flat-out bolted for the helicopter.

  Bad move.

  Very bad move.

  Give an elite athlete with unparalleled genetic reflexes all the combat traini
ng in the world and they’re still bound to make mistakes when unfamiliar circumstances arise. Slater had never been affected by altitude. The warrior ethos dictated that the solution to all physical problems was just to tough it out, but that wasn’t conducive to success out here. He honestly thought he could make it to the chopper at a sprint. But he made it probably five steps in total before his legs gave out and he sprawled forward on the slope, landing face-first in the powder and tumbling head over heels down the hillside. He picked up steam, his body thrashing this way and that, and when he came to rest in a bruised heap at the bottom of the slope he checked himself over for injuries.

  But he genuinely couldn’t tell.

  He could have a broken leg for all he knew, and the leeching ache in his muscles would override it.

  He rolled over in the snow drift and aimed up at the windows of the building on stilts, slotting a fresh magazine home. It felt like he was moving through quicksand. The windows were fogged up, and he couldn’t see a thing inside.

  Then one of them blew out as a bullet shattered it from within. But any contact with a bullet in flight alters its trajectory, even slightly, so the insurgent firing through the window missed his target. The snow right near Slater’s head exploded, and the thwack of the impact came a millisecond later, but as soon as he realised he wasn’t dead he returned with three rounds through the window frame.

  And he struck something, because crimson droplets splattered the grimy windows on either side of the gaping hole.

  Slater rolled over, got to his feet, and half-limped, half-walked to the motionless chopper.

  ‘Get the fuck down,’ a voice with a British accent hissed. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

  Slater didn’t respond, or even search for the source. He was in a trance, but he still had an objective.

  Find cover.

  He circled around the nose of the chopper and took refuge behind its chassis.

  A thirty-something man in decent shape seized him by the collar.

  ‘Are you fucking crazy?!’ he hissed. ‘Now they’ll shoot it to pieces.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Slater mumbled.