by Matt Rogers
‘How could I?’
‘You know what this looks like to me?’
‘Enlighten me.’
‘It’s not some elaborate conspiratorial scheme by professional killers. Not like what happened to us in Vegas, when the Special Activities Division shot up the house and then the hunters came after us. No, this is like … a group on the edge of madness. They’re taking risks to try and snatch our families, they’re turning on each other, killing each other. It’s a mess.’
Slater understood where King was headed. ‘They have nothing to lose.’
‘Which makes whoever’s left unquestionably dangerous.’
Night flashed by the windshield as Slater raced north toward the Charles River. King watched him tap away at his phone one-handed, sending a brief message to Alexis. Probably explaining what had happened to their home.
King looked away and said, almost to himself, ‘The only question left is how far they’re willing to sink.’
38
Alexis got the text and suppressed a shudder.
Not for her own sake, but for Tyrell’s.
She met Violetta’s gaze across the dining table and tilted her chin in a nod. She didn’t want to even whisper a confirmation, in case Tyrell overheard. He was still in the sleeping area, behind the Japanese-style partitions, but sound travelled effortlessly in what was effectively a big concrete bunker.
Violetta bowed her head. She knew exactly what the nod meant. She’d been trying to reach King, but he wasn’t answering. She’d figured he and Slater were in the middle of something … violent. There was a silver lining, though. At least a text from Slater meant both he and King were still alive.
Alexis mouthed, ‘I need to tell him.’
Now it was Violetta’s turn to nod.
Dread clung to Alexis as she rose, the chair scraping on the hard floor. She tried to walk quietly to the makeshift bedroom but her heels still tapped on the cold concrete. Tyrell was sitting up on the mattress when she rounded the partition, bleary-eyed after being roused from a nap. He’d heard her coming.
He took one look at her face and said, ‘You got some bad news. Just say it.’
She could see the lump in his throat, the emotion draining out of his eyes as a protective mechanism. He was bracing for the worst.
She patted the air immediately. ‘Will’s fine. He’s not even hurt.’
Visible relief. Pure and total and genuine. He breathed out. ‘Then what?’
‘The house,’ she said, talking slowly to carefully choose her words. ‘There was an accident. It’s, uh … it’s bad. Everything’s gone.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Right. An accident.’
She lowered herself to the mattress beside him, brain racing. What to say?
He answered that for her. ‘Just tell me.’
‘The guys who tried to grab you…they knew where we lived. They burned the house down. Jason’s too.’
His eyebrows shot upward. He jerked a thumb at the partition and mouthed, ‘Does Violetta—?’
‘Yes,’ Alexis said. ‘She knows.’
He nodded, lowered his head to stare at the blanket beneath his crossed legs. After a moment of computation, he shrugged and said, ‘Oh, well.’
He didn’t seem to be faking it.
She said, ‘We’ll replace everything. I promise.’ After a pause she added, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t promise anything. And for sure don’t be sorry. Ain’t nothin’ to apologise for. I didn’t lose as much as you two.’
‘There shouldn’t be a comparison—’
‘You’re not gettin’ it. There ain’t nothin’ there that I cared about.’ He paused, furrowed his brow. ‘Nah, wait. That makes me sound ungrateful. I mean, like, deep down is what I’m talkin’ about. Where I came from, what I grew up with … I’m just happy I’m alive and I got people like you and Will in my life that actually give a shit about me. Y’know?’
Alexis nodded. ‘I know.’
‘So all that other stuff … whatever. You don’t have to replace it. That’s not what I care about.’
She smiled at him in the poor light. ‘Where the hell’d we find you?’
‘On a street corner.’
‘I meant—’
He smiled back. ‘I know what you meant. I’m just givin’ it my best. That’s all.’
‘I can’t put into words how good your best is.’
He managed a wink. ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet.’
There was a moment of pure stillness.
Then a noise from the other side of the partition. A heavy thud, promptly followed by another, then a third.
She leapt off the mattress and rounded the screen, saw Violetta desperately ramming her shoulder into the door. Even from the other end of the basement, the panic was unmistakable across her face, drawing out her pale features.
Violetta stepped back and gave the door a kick, but it was metal. It wasn’t going anywhere. She wheeled round, aghast, and met Alexis’ eyes. ‘Some hunch made me try the handle. Nothing. Won’t budge.’
Alexis’ blood ran cold.
She watched Violetta sink into a calculated handler’s demeanour as she said, ‘It’s the only way in or out.’
From the high chair by the dining table, Junior started crying, prescient to his mother’s distress.
Amidst his shrieks, Violetta said, ‘We’re fucking trapped.’
39
Everything in life happens for a reason.
Ronan sat on a public bench along Commonwealth Avenue, staring vacantly out at the scenic greenway separating the two lanes. There was a historical monument at each end of his peripheral vision — the William Lloyd Garrison Memorial Statue to his left, and the Boston Women’s Memorial to his right. He’d sauntered past both and read their plaques before sitting down, just to give his racing mind a distraction.
There was no longer any getting around what needed to be done.
He clutched a burner satellite phone in his hand. There was a call to be made. He’d spent the better part of half an hour weighing up whether it was the right decision, the course he really wanted to take.
It all came back to that fateful night in Afghanistan in 2007.
It started as a thought experiment, a simple, What if? Like, can we actually do this? Are we capable of plunging to these depths? It turned out they could, and they left a swathe of villagers dead in their wake. Women and children without a hurtful bone in their body, just trying to peacefully toe the line so they didn’t make an enemy of the U.S. military or the Taliban. If Ronan admitted it, the fact he’d taken part in the slaughter was the reason he’d spiralled. Brad went on to do great things, and Otis was sick and twisted from the day he was born, but Ronan was left to wallow in the memory for a decade. It affected him the way it had affected Dom and Zach and Troy, and they didn’t even take part.
But now. Well, now it meant everything. Because he knew he could do it, knew he had it in him to kill anyone.
Anyone.
And in the high-stakes world of combat and violence and revenge, that was the key. It was often the difference between winning and losing. There were none of those tricky morals to make you hesitate.
Ronan knew, if it truly came down to it, he could push the button.
He kept that knowledge at the forefront as he punched in the number his contact had provided. If he dialled it, he’d be speaking to Jason King within fifteen seconds. That was if the man answered, but Ronan knew he would, eventually. He’d simply keep calling until he got through.
His finger hovered over the green Call symbol.
His heart started racing, and he placed the phone face-up on the bench and lit a cigarette with shaking hands. He sucked the smoke in like he was trapped underwater and it was pure oxygen. The occasional passerby flitted past along the avenue’s broad sidewalk, but most people were at home, tucked up in bed. Ronan peered at their faces through the smoke that framed his face, wondering what they were doing out so late at n
ight.
Then he saw the black-robed priest.
The old man — early seventies, maybe — tottered up the sidewalk, gaze fixated past the bench that Ronan sat on. On a slow midnight stroll. It wasn’t inconceivable; these were affluent parts, so walking the streets late at night wasn’t to be completely frowned upon. It was merely inadvisable, instead of downright foolish. But Ronan still had to snort to himself. What are the odds?
Quite high, he should have realised. This was Boston. Irish, Catholic Boston. Every damn block had a church on it.
As the priest hobbled past, Ronan said, ‘Would you have a moment, Father?’
The man stopped and turned to study the source of the voice. Ronan knew how he looked. One bloodshot eyeball suggesting he was a chronic alcoholic, and the other socket hollow. He’d cleaned up well before he went to abduct Slater’s kid, not wanting to attract attention by appearing homeless, but he’d let his ponytail go and his blonde hair hung in knotted clumps down past his ears. The priest would see someone who looked awfully like a vagrant.
If the priest was a true man of God, he wouldn’t discriminate.
The old man cleared his throat and said, ‘What is it?’
Ronan realised he was tapping a calloused fingertip against the phone beside him, a restless tic, so he shoved both hands in the pockets of his windbreaker, bracing against the chill. ‘I have a question for you.’
The priest relaxed a little, the fact that he hadn’t been mugged yet stripping him of his reservations. ‘Go on.’
Ronan felt the handle of the sheathed combat knife, deep in the right-hand pocket. The North Face jacket was baggy enough to disguise it.
‘Say, Father,’ he said, fingering the ribbed material. ‘All that talk about repenting your sins. I’ve been dwelling on it lately. You, uh … you think it’s really possible?’
‘Well…’ the priest said, bringing his stubby and wrinkled hands together in front of his black buttoned-up shirt. His eyes grew kinder by the second. ‘Us Catholic folk believe that no matter the sin, it can be forgiven. If there were unforgivable sins, it would undermine the power of God.’
‘Right.’
‘Man’s capacity for evil isn’t stronger than God’s capacity for mercy.’
‘I understand.’
‘It’s simply a matter of acknowledging what you have done, and seeking forgiveness. Both those things take careful thought and consideration. It’s often difficult to do them with a genuine attitude, and in the eyes of God that’s what’s most important.’
A harsh wind blew up the avenue. It rippled off the greenway and across the asphalt, lashing the bench.
Ronan said, ‘I see.’
‘Your sin,’ the old man said quietly, taking a step closer to the bench. ‘Or sins. Did you know what you were doing at the time?’
Ronan bristled. ‘Of course.’
The priest half-smiled. Ronan could see the toughness behind his eyes. He seemed a genuine man of faith, but you don’t spend your life preaching in Boston without witnessing the depths that man is willing to sink. ‘What I mean is, were you impaired? Alcohol, drugs, rage, envy … anything that could cloud your judgment.’
‘No,’ Ronan said, sniffing as the cold made his nose run. ‘I have no excuses, Father.’
‘Then it is a serious sin. But in some ways that makes it clearer, simpler. There’s no need to discuss your diminished responsibility. If you take full responsibility, and you ask for divine mercy, it will be granted. But only if you are serious.’
Ronan finished his cigarette, hunched over against the wind to light a new one. As the flame lit his face in the night he smirked, lips curling upward as smoke slipped out on either side. The breeze caught the grey plumes and whisked them away.
‘Those,’ Ronan said, pulling the butt from his mouth, ‘are very lovely platitudes, Father.’
The old man paused. ‘I wouldn’t call them platitudes.’
‘Oh, but they are. I think some things just shouldn’t be forgiven. Some things are hopeless.’
The priest seemed at a loss for words.
‘With what I’ve done,’ Ronan mused, ‘it would only be cocky, egotistical, to try. No. I chose my fate. But thank you for your time.’
It was as blunt a dismissal as you could get, but the old man didn’t go anywhere. He took another step closer, now hovering over the bench. It tickled Ronan in all the wrong ways. More than anything, he hated judgment. He began to tap his heel restlessly against the sidewalk, emotions rippling through him.
The priest’s eyes were still kind, but Ronan didn’t see.
He said, ‘Is there something you want to tell me, son?’
The boot heel went, Tap-tap-tap-tap.
Ronan sniffed, shivered, still hunched. Sucked down smoke.
The priest said, ‘Anything at all.’
Ronan felt the warmth in his armpits, his cheeks flushing hot. Like there was a spotlight on him. He took another drag. Coughed into the crook of his elbow. He wrapped the hand still tucked in his pocket around the knife’s hilt.
Then clarity struck him, and he released his grip.
Backed away from the invisible edge.
‘No, Father,’ he said. ‘But I appreciate the talk. I best be getting to work.’
The priest bowed his head before he reached out and touched Ronan briefly on the shoulder. Ronan flinched. Then the old man was gone, hobbling away into the night.
Ronan had closure, at least. Understanding. He’d never known if he was capable of asking for mercy, if he had the ego to dare to believe that what happened in Afghanistan was forgivable. But in a way this fate was beautiful, the acceptance of his evil.
At least he’d go to the grave knowing who he was.
Unlike any of the other cowards, begging for mercy on their deathbeds.
Fuck mercy.
Ronan picked up the phone, and with buoyed confidence he sent a text to a contact named “Arnold.” It read: Do it now.
Thirty seconds later, with a great whomp, all the streetlights around him went out, plunging the avenue into the blackest night. All of Back Bay was dark, including Marlborough Street, where Ronan had just laid his trap.
With the only illumination anywhere nearby coming from his phone screen, Ronan dialled King’s number.
40
A large shape brushed past Alexis, nearly making her jump out of her skin.
It was Tyrell, rushing out from behind the partition. Junior’s screaming had fired him into motion.
With a palm against the door, Violetta stared all around the basement, from corner to corner, floor to ceiling. She seemed to be recognising it for the prison that it was. No windows. There used to be a door against the back wall that led up to the house, but the owners had sealed and filled it long ago. There was an exhaust fan with a ventilation pipe in the ceiling, so at least they wouldn’t run out of oxygen after being sealed in, but it was far too small to squeeze through.
Violetta said, ‘Call—’ but she stopped short when she noticed Alexis had already pulled her phone out, brought up the shortcut to her list of close contacts and punched Slater’s number.
Nothing.
No bars.
A lump spasmed in her throat as she looked up from the screen. ‘You got service?’
Violetta’s cheeks had drained of colour even before she’d checked her own phone. She shook her head.
Alexis looked all around. ‘Sat phone … we’ve got one here, right?’
Another shake of the head. ‘We had to rush here…’
Alexis said, ‘How the fuck did they even find us?’
Tyrell was taut as steel, standing still, looking all around. ‘What’s going on?’
‘What is this?’ Alexis shouted across the room, shaking her phone in a two-finger pincer grip. ‘What, they’re killing phone towers? You really think they’re capable of that?’
Violetta lifted her gaze from her phone screen. Softly she said, ‘I don’t know.’
Tyrell said, ‘What’s going on?’
Junior wailed.
All the lights went out.
Plunging them into darkness.
Sealing them in a black tomb.
41
King sat solemn as Slater weaved the car up through South End, toward affluent Back Bay and its townhouse-lined streets, all walking distance from the Charles River.
Slater said, ‘Anything?’ through gritted teeth.
King shook his head. Calls weren’t going through. Not to Violetta, not to Alexis. He wanted to let out his frustration with a grunt, but he thought it might betray a lack of control. Slater might become tenser than he already was, which wouldn’t be good for anyone.
King said, ‘That text you sent Alexis about the house … that went through?’
Slater drove one-handed through claustrophobic city streets, apartment buildings enclosing them like giant Tetris blocks. With the other he tapped away at his phone, eyes flitting between the road and the screen. ‘Yeah. That delivered. But I’m calling her now, and nothing. Straight to voicemail.’
‘So, what?’ King said, barely controlling himself. ‘It’s not like if they were attacked, their phones would stop taking calls. So it’s an outage? You got a signal?’
‘Yeah,’ Slater said, stepping on the accelerator. ‘I got a signal.’
They were less than a mile from the safe house now, but there’s traffic in central Boston even at midnight, and Slater found himself stuck behind a long line of cars at a light. He leant over to check the sidewalk, but there were three or four vagrants sprawled on the sidewalk. He slammed a palm on the horn, more from frustration than an attempt to clear the way. ‘Fuck.’
King’s phone rang in his hand.
He jerked his gaze down to it, already flooding with relief. But the brief hit of dopamine fizzled out into nothingness when he saw not Violetta’s number, but: No Caller ID.
A dark premonition twisted his guts.
Slater must have sensed it. ‘What?’