by Matt Rogers
But it made him slow, and it allowed King and Perry to gain a considerable lead, so Slater saw everything that happened as if watching it through a wide-lens camera.
He was still shaking out his muscles when he noticed one of the workers staring at the laptop under Perry’s arm.
The guy had the same high-vis vest and hard hat, but his complexion was more cracked and weathered than his colleagues. At first glance it seemed he’d had the hardest life of them all, which you wouldn’t chalk up to anything suspicious unless you knew he’d come down from the mountains.
But which mountains?
Slater put two and two together and broke into a sprint in unison with the worker.
It was going to be close.
His body wasn’t ready for it. He stumbled and faltered a couple of times as his oxygen-deprived muscles pined and pleaded for him to wait, to let him recover first before trying anything drastic and—
‘Perry!’ he yelled, realising he wasn’t going to make it.
The bodyguard spun around and lunged away, but the worker was right there in his face. The guy didn’t bother to throw a strike. He knew he’d probably lose a fight with Perry, and with King right there it was a guarantee. But he was small and fast and strong, so he reached out and snatched the laptop and wrenched it out of Perry’s grip before anyone could react.
Then he doubled his pace and ran away like a pro sprinter.
Slater understood the ramifications of shooting an unarmed man dead in front of a dozen potential witnesses, so he didn’t draw his gun yet.
But he timed the trajectory to perfection.
He picked his interception point, aimed for it, waited for the right timing, and ran flat-out.
Then lunged.
He wrapped his arms around the worker’s mid-section and used his own weight and momentum to crash-tackle the guy into the side of a holding shed. They hit the thin aluminium with a noise akin to a bomb going off, and both of them sprawled into the dirt. Slater rolled over and smacked the worker with an open palm directly in the nose, either breaking it or coming very close. Then he wrestled the laptop off him, taking care not to crush it in the process.
He got to his feet, handed it back to Perry, and watched almost every worker in the field descend on them.
Slater pointed to the guy clutching his face, moaning, rolling back and forth in the dust.
‘Thief,’ he said.
No one responded.
Out of the corner of his mouth, King muttered, ‘Let’s get out of here before we get mobbed.’
They hurried up the steps into the village.
75
King couldn’t believe how fast Slater had recovered.
Slater was striding it out behind them, tackling the uneven cobblestones underfoot with ease, keeping pace with their stride. In Gokyo he’d been a shell of himself.
Altitude’s a bitch.
They weaved their way up through the south-west side of Lukla, passing townspeople who shot them curious looks. There were no foreign trekkers in sight — they were either cooped up in their teahouse rooms recovering, or somewhere along the trail en route to the town.
He kept a hand on his weapon, but held it under his jacket. Each breath seemed to supercharge him with energy, and he realised he’d been feeling the same effects as Slater, only to a much lesser extent. Now he could taste the oxygen, and it was glorious. Maybe if they’d undertaken the trek over a couple of weeks, they’d have had time to acclimatise.
He was in a state of limbo. Raya’s death hung thick and oppressive over him, and he stopped himself reaching for his phone to call it in. Then Violetta would know they failed, and Aidan Parker would know they’d lost his daughter. The consequences threatened to suffocate him, weigh him down, dump him in a vat of misery and never let up.
He couldn’t let it get to him until he was back on home soil.
Then he could start to digest it.
Perry muttered, ‘Jason…’
King looked up. There was a platoon of soldiers coming down the staircase they were ascending. He counted a dozen men in army gear, all moving in sync, all brandishing handguns in holsters at their waist and grey packs over their shoulders.
He froze.
Slater pulled to a halt to his left.
Perry stopped to his right.
Then they merged into single file to let the group past.
Everyone made eye contact. King looked from soldier to soldier, searching for any hint of suspicion. He found none. They nodded politely to him, Slater, and Perry in turn. Five of them hurried on past. They had places to be. Then a few more. Then another.
The last three stopped.
They pulled up alongside them all on the staircase, more inquisitive than their peers. One of them said, ‘Where is your guide?’
‘We don’t have one,’ King said.
‘How did you get here?’
‘We walked.’
The three soldiers exchanged a glance. Then the one that spoke English turned back to them and said, ‘Many of our guest houses will not accept you if you do not have a guide.’
‘We’ve managed so far,’ King said. ‘We’ll be fine.’
The man’s gaze wandered to the laptop tucked under Perry’s arm. ‘What is that?’
Perry lifted it up so everyone could see. ‘What do you think?’
‘Looks valuable. You shouldn’t carry it like that. Put it in a bag.’
‘Thanks. I’ll take that into consideration.’
Everyone stood there, bristling, staring at each other. King didn’t have a clue what this was. If it was hostile, then he should act now, getting the jump on them before they could go for their guns. But if it was just a friendly enquiry…
Perry stepped forward, put a hand on the guy’s shoulder, and said, ‘It’s fine.’
The man scrutinised him for a beat, then nodded and turned away. He set off down the staircase. His two comrades followed. No one looked back.
King waited for them to get out of earshot, then raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you telepathic or something?’
‘They needed prompting,’ Perry said. ‘We look like tough guys — they probably thought we were here to cause trouble. Best to give them a gentle reminder that we’re not here for that. I looked them in the eyes. I stood my ground. They appreciated that.’
Slater muttered, ‘Didn’t realise social skills were a superpower.’
‘Ninety percent of my job is just being courteous,’ Perry said. ‘You get the hang of it after a while. You learn when to step in, and when not to.’
‘What’s your magic lamp telling us now?’ King said.
‘That we should find a room and sort out this mess. And then make our way back to Kathmandu.’
‘Good plan.’
They ventured up to the top of Lukla, past the tourist commotion around the airport, past the popular teahouses. They went down back-alleys and through routes that ordinarily lay dormant. Then they found a simple wooden lodge near the town outskirts, and Parker said, ‘Perfect.’
King was grateful they’d reached shelter, because it seemed another rapid turnaround was occurring. Now Slater was in better condition than he was. The man was practically springing from foot to foot, whereas every step that King took felt slow, laborious, weighed down with invisible lead.
What’s happening?
Slater noticed. He pulled up alongside King and said, ‘Now look at us.’
‘We’re seesawing back and forth,’ King said.
Every word took considerable effort.
King said, ‘I think the Gokyo Ri climb is catching up to me.’
‘It didn’t look like fun.’
King trudged into the teahouse, waited on a hard wooden bench as Perry and Slater acquired a room from the owner, and let the brain fog seize him.
76
When they got into the room, Slater saw King eyeing one of the single beds.
Probably debating whether to collapse onto it or not.
Trying to recover.
There was little light filtering through the overcast sky in the first place, but most of it still got caught on the curtains. They were heavy and coarse, made of some cheap beige material. Slater crossed the room and drew them closed, giving them the shadowy atmosphere they needed to discuss clandestine matters.
Perry opened his mouth to speak, but Slater held up a hand. ‘Give me the laptop.’
‘What?’
‘The laptop. Give it to me. I’m going to find this file you keep talking about, put it back in the cloud, and then we can leave the laptop in the bin. It’s caused us more trouble than we need. One less thing to worry about as we sort out a way to get out of here.’
‘There’s more than the one file on there. Aidan has other—’
‘Then I’ll put it all in the cloud. I’m good with computers. I’ll figure it out.’
‘Aidan wouldn’t want you to mess around with his personal—’
‘I don’t give a shit what Aidan wants,’ Slater said. ‘We can’t have this risk hanging over our heads any longer.’
‘It’s a matter of principle,’ Perry said. ‘It’s a private—’
Slater said, ‘Are you really going to refuse? Is that where we’re going with this?’
Perry didn’t answer.
They stood there in a makeshift triangle, King and Slater equidistant from one another, watching the bodyguard closely.
Slater noticed the mounting tension.
Then Perry said, ‘Fine,’ and handed it over.
He threw his hands up in the air, silently bemoaning their decision, and crossed the room to sit on the other single bed. Muttering something to the effect of, ‘He’s going to fucking kill me,’ the whole time.
Slater understood. It’s one of the fundamental rules of black operations. Don’t ever let anyone mess around with your gear, especially if it contains sensitive information. The fewer eyes on it, the better. There’s too much on the line, too much at stake, too many variables to be exploited and—
And none of that mattered.
This was bigger than rules.
That’s why black-ops existed in the first place.
To be flexible.
Slater placed the laptop on the small wooden table in the corner of the room and dragged the whole thing over to the edge of the nearest bed. He sat down on the mattress, opened it, and ushered to King. ‘Give me the phone.’
King handed it over without a word of protest.
Slater dialled. It rang, and rang, and rang. The dial tone was tinny and faint, but it seemed to echo in the room.
Then it went to voicemail.
Slater thumbed the End Call button and stared at Perry.
The bodyguard stared back. ‘What?’
‘Do you know something we don’t?’
Perry scoffed. ‘Oh — you think I’m acting suspicious?’
‘I don’t know what to think.’
‘I’m rehearsing what to say to my boss before I hand in my resignation,’ he said. ‘That laptop was not to be touched by anyone other than Aidan Parker under any circumstances. If you think I look off, it’s because I feel off. Take that as you will.’
Slater dialled again.
It rang, and rang, and rang.
And Parker answered.
‘Do you have her?’ was the first thing he said.
A jolt of unease rippled through Slater. He chewed his bottom lip, deep in thought, wondering when was the right time.
Not now, he concluded.
‘Not yet,’ Slater said. ‘But we’re close. We managed to retrieve your laptop.’
‘Oh, thank God.’
‘I need the password.’
‘What?’
‘I need to get into it.’
‘No you don’t.’
‘Yes,’ Slater said. ‘I’m afraid I do. If you refuse, I’ll bring the full wrath of our government against you. I don’t care how senior you think you are.’
He sensed Parker stiffen on the other end of the line. ‘You should be careful who you play those sorts of games with before you—’
Slater said, ‘Do you want your daughter back, or not?’
Silence.
‘Her life is in our hands.’
‘You wouldn’t dare…’
‘The password, Aidan, or we turn around.’
‘You fucking—’
‘Stop,’ Slater hissed. ‘We’ve nearly got ourselves killed a dozen separate times for you. You’re going to do this for us, no matter how sensitive you think the data is or how unqualified I am to see it. Frankly, I need to see it, because I need to get it back into your encrypted cloud and then destroy this thing before it costs us any more attempts on our lives.’
‘Do you know how to do that?’
‘Yes,’ Slater lied. ‘Violetta’s walked me through it.’
‘She shouldn’t have granted you access to that sort of—’
‘Well, she did.’
‘W-8-2-U-V-9-3-R-4-T.’
Slater paused, repeated it once in his head, and then once out loud.
‘Is that right?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ Parker said. ‘But don’t go around spewing that out. It’s an incredibly important piece of information.’
‘I know,’ Slater said. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
He hung up.
King was staring at him.
Perry was staring at him.
He said, ‘What?’
King said, ‘That’s his daughter, Will.’
‘I know.’
‘She’s dead.’
‘I know.’
‘I don’t like that one bit.’
‘I need this laptop taken care of,’ Slater snarled. ‘I’m sorry if I offended either of you, but this thing is going to keep putting us in danger until we get rid of it. I don’t have time to sit around all day playing games with Aidan Parker. If you want me to, I’ll be the one to tell Parker about Raya. To make up for it.’
No one answered.
King turned away.
Parker kept staring.
It seemed a little odd, but Slater ignored it and fished around in his own duffel bag for the appropriate adapter. He plugged it into a power socket in the wall, and waited for the laptop screen to light up in response. Then he tapped in the ten-digit password and found himself on a dull featureless home screen. He brought his finger to the trackpad and started scrolling through folders, diving into the contents of the hard drive.
The room fell quiet.
77
King was the first to notice Perry getting fidgety.
Slater couldn’t have been fiddling with the laptop for more than a couple of minutes, but in that time Perry went from picking at his nails, to cracking his neck, to pacing the room.
When Perry shuffled over to the far corner of the room, searching for anything suspicious, King took a subtle step to the right.
Putting himself between Perry and the laptop.
And his heart started to thump in his chest.
Slater squinted, trying to make out the small digital pixels spelling names for folders, documents, files. He said, ‘Do you know where Parker left these documents?’
King turned to Perry, who shrugged noncommittally. ‘Not sure. My boss’s work is none of my business.’
King stayed right where he was.
A silent barrier.
But his bones were starting to ache. Invisible scales had been tipped, and he was declining rapidly. The overbearing sensation suffocated him — the knowledge that he’d pushed his body past its limits and jeopardised his health in the process. He tried to quietly will himself toward regaining energy, but it was useless. The tiredness took hold of him, and he did his best to ride it out.
Meanwhile, Slater hunched further over the laptop.
King sensed Perry bristle.
<
br /> Not good, he thought.
Slater said, ‘I can’t find anything.’
‘Keep looking.’
‘Hold on, there’s something here…’
A thought struck King, and he wheeled around. ‘You said your boss’s work is none of your business, right?’
Perry said, ‘Right.’
‘But when I met you, you told me that’s how Mukta worked out the laptop was valuable. Because you saw him fiddling around with it, and you freaked out.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why would you freak out if you didn’t know there was compromising information on it? How do you know he left documents out of the cloud?’
Silence.
‘You and Winston were in the other room, Perry.’
Silence.
‘What made you freak out?’
Perry didn’t respond.
He was caught up in too many lies.
He needed time to sort them out.
King knew immediately something was wrong, and went for his gun.
But Perry had been anticipating that.
King had his palm around the P320 when Perry lunged across the room and tackled him in the mid-section. He took his hand off the weapon to make sure he didn’t shoot himself in the foot, but the momentum of a pair of two-hundred-pound men falling backwards prevented them from getting off any further strikes. They crashed into the metal bed frame and sprawled across the concrete between the single beds.
King made to leap to his feet, but two things weighed him down.
First, his condition. He was firmly on the decline, and no amount of adrenaline could fight through the fatigue of total exhaustion for very long.
Second, he’d smashed the back of his head on the bed frame.
He didn’t even realise in the heat of the moment, but now he got to one knee before his vision jerked to the right, throwing him entirely off-balance. He came down on his rear and scrambled for purchase on the cold hard floor, but he couldn’t find anything fast enough.
He got his hands underneath his body and tried to lever to his feet, but Perry kicked him in the face before he got halfway through the motion.
Then Perry spun and ripped his own handgun from his waistband so he could get the drop on Slater, but King saw none of it.