Rogues: A King & Slater Thriller

by Matt Rogers

  Slater stared.

  Drew studied his expression. ‘Family, right?’

  Slater grabbed him by the throat.

  King snatched Slater’s arm and wrenched it downward, breaking the grip. For good measure he shoved Drew in the chest, sending the man stumbling back. He stepped between them, facing Drew and the rest of the apartment, quarantining Slater by the door.

  Drew staggered to a halt and smirked. ‘Yeah. Family.’ He touched a pair of fingers to his throat, the skin reddening in real-time. He looked past King’s shoulder, directly at Slater. ‘Anger speaks for itself, you know.’

  King said, ‘We weren’t with SOG. We were levels above that. Solo ops. Several hundred each.’

  Drew stopped in his tracks, taken aback by the admission.

  King said, ‘Happy?’

  Niccolò hadn’t budged, but Ethan and Harris had recoiled a little, that subtle body-language admission that they believed what someone had told them and were slightly intimidated by it.

  Drew studied King’s expression for any hint of exaggeration. He must not have found anything. ‘That’s all I was looking for.’

  ‘Good,’ King said. ‘Anyone got any problems with the plan we proposed?’

  Drew shook his head, and it was clear he spoke for the whole team.

  King said, ‘Then let’s gear up and get moving.’

  Drew glanced sideways at Newton, very obviously disdained. ‘And what’s Sarge doing?’

  Slater said, ‘He knows what he’s doing. I’ve assigned him a task.’

  ‘If this is as dicey as you say it is,’ Drew said, ‘we could use any help we could get.’

  ‘Is Sarge a door kicker like you?’ Slater asked. ‘Or is he a desk jockey drunk off his own power, lording it over his underlings and getting away with shit you know wouldn’t fly if he was anyone else?’

  Drew paused. The way he looked at Slater changed. A mutual understanding passed between them, a recognition that they’d had similar experiences that a piece of shit like Dominique Newton would never comprehend. Based on the Roxbury cover-up, Drew Reyes sounded like just as much of a scumbag, but at least he was taking the risks Newton never would.

  ‘On second thought,’ Drew said, staring directly at Newton, ‘we don’t need him.’

  From the look on Newton’s face, Slater could tell he’d never been spoken back to.

  Niccolò said, ‘How do we know he’s not gonna run, rat us all out?’

  Slater waited until Newton met his gaze. ‘He wouldn’t dare.’

  Newton bowed his head.

  With that, they all shuffled out of the crash pad, leaving the sergeant to dwell in his self-pity.

  Part III

  59

  Behind the wheel, speeding north, Drew said, ‘What were you gonna do if your buddy didn’t tell me?’

  Beside him in the passenger seat, Slater said nothing.

  They were alone in the unmarked cruiser.

  King, Niccolò, Ethan, and Harris were together in the other vehicle, serving as the assault’s spearhead. Slater had insisted on teaming with Drew as the roving mobile unit, to track and eliminate anyone who fled the initial barrage. The pincer movement had the best chance of overwhelming Ronan and his reinforcements. No matter the help he had, there’d be the lowest chance of one of them having the wherewithal to trigger the detonator.

  Drew said, ‘C’mon. We’re going into battle together, like you said.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You didn’t have to outright say it. When you were talking about Sarge…’

  ‘You respect him?’

  ‘I listen to him. He’s never given us idiotic orders, so I guess I respect that. I thought I respected the fact that he had dirt on us and never shared it or used it against us, but that’s gone up in smoke.’

  ‘Shouldn’t have taken that money.’

  The top of the steering wheel creaked and groaned as Drew squeezed it, working out his frustration. ‘You got some nerve.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘You’re telling me you were a black operator for what sounds like years and years, and you’re so morally pure to be up on your high horse? Give me a fucking break.’

  No response.

  Drew said, ‘That’s it? The silent treatment?’

  Nothing.

  Then Slater said, ‘You said I was telling you something. Really, I’m not telling you a thing. Never have been. I couldn’t give any less of a shit what you think about anything. But carry on having a conversation with yourself, justifying your bullshit to someone who never asked.’

  Drew snorted, the signal of someone who didn’t want to think too hard about what was said. ‘Right. Just remember we’re about to be fighting side-by-side.’

  Slater smirked in the darkened interior, and Drew must have noticed it out of the corner of his eye.

  The cop said, ‘What?’

  ‘That was a threat, I take it?’

  ‘Take it however you want. I couldn’t give any less of a shit what you think about anything.’

  Now Slater’s smirk was genuine. ‘Nice.’

  ‘So…’

  ‘So?’

  ‘What were you gonna do if your friend didn’t answer my question back there? Fight me?’

  ‘Why would I have to do anything?’

  ‘Because we were in a standoff.’

  ‘No we weren’t. You think I care if you’re mad at me? Remember who’s following whose orders.’

  ‘I follow my own orders.’

  ‘Cute. But you don’t. You follow your sergeant’s, and now you follow mine.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Keep talking like you’re gonna do something. But you won’t do shit. You’ll drive to Dogtown, you’ll go where I tell you to go, and you’ll do what I tell you to do.’

  Slater didn’t need to say why.

  Drew stewed for a couple of miles of highway, then said, ‘You would’ve taken that money.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘With what we make … I’m sure you can relate.’

  ‘Can I?’

  ‘Black ops sounds fancy, but I’m sure it involved just as much servitude on your part as this job does on mine.’

  Slater shook his head. ‘I was the best of the best. They paid handsomely. I don’t expect you to believe that.’

  ‘Good, because I don’t. Now let’s say, hypothetically, that I hauled Čapkovič in that night. Would’ve saved those two women he was roughing up, sure, but you ever heard about cutting the head off a Hydra? Two more would grow back. There would’ve been a war — probably that night — to figure out who was going to take over. And that’d shed a hell of a lot more blood than those Eastern European chicks, neither of whom had hope for a good life anyway. And we could get paid too, support our families, send our kids to college? Shit, I’d take that deal any day of the week. You would too. You can’t convince me you wouldn’t.’

  Slater turned to observe Drew as he spoke, and he saw everything he was searching for in the man’s eyes. ‘It’s nice to figure out an excuse retrospectively, isn’t it?’

  Drew stuck to his guns. ‘You’d take that deal.’

  ‘You were scared,’ Slater said. ‘In over your head and terrified of biting off more than you could chew. Staring an opportunity in the face, and you wilted in front of it. Caved instead of taking the leap. Then, because it’s who you are as a person, instead of working through that, you immediately jumped to, “Well, I did it, so everyone would.”’

  Drew worked the wheel in his palms. Slater listened to the leather squeaking.

  ‘You got this button-down system in place, right?’ he asked. ‘All this dirt on us ready to go to the media if you don’t check in on time. That’s what you said?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘That’s what everyone says.’ An introspective pause. ‘If you’re as special as you say you are, I don’t know if you’d bother. I think you’d just hope I believe you.’

 
; ‘Whatever you think,’ Slater said, nonchalantly, but under the surface he prepared for a fight to the death in a speeding vehicle.

  Tension reached boiling point.

  Drew sat forward.

  Slater braced.

  Then the cop relaxed, as best you can when you’re screaming toward a firefight with parties unknown. He settled back in his seat, took some of the strain out of his forearms, exhaled a breath.

  He said, ‘After this is over, you tell me if I got it right.’

  ‘I will.’

  60

  The atmosphere wasn’t any more pleasant in the tailing car.

  King drove, and beside him Niccolò stared angrily across the centre console. Ethan and Harris took the rear seats, a little more stoic and reserved than their counterpart. A solemn calm radiated from the back; from the passenger seat, pure hostility.

  Ethan was the first to address it. He seemed to be the peacemaker.

  ‘Niccolò,’ he said. ‘Face forward.’

  ‘You don’t fuckin’ tell me what to do,’ the cop fired back. ‘Not for a fuckin’ day of your life have you told me what to do.’

  Harris said, ‘Niccolò,’ with a certain sternness.

  Two on one.

  The Italian didn’t care.

  It only made him angrier.

  He jabbed a finger in King’s face. ‘Guy thinks we’re gonna be martyrs for him.’

  ‘If that’s what I wanted,’ King said, ‘I wouldn’t be here. I’d be sending orders from a safer place, not joining you for the fight.’

  Niccolò scoffed.

  King said, ‘You think I need to be here?’

  ‘Like hell you don’t. You can’t keep us in line from the sidelines.’

  ‘I could kill you with one hand and keep the car in a straight line with the other.’

  Niccolò stiffened, and tension washed up from the back. If it came to that, who would Ethan and Harris side with?

  ‘But that’s not what’s keeping you in line,’ King continued. ‘It’s the fact that your lives and reputations will be over without me laying a finger on you. That’s much worse. If I killed all of you right now, which I could, at least you’d die heroes. That’s what everyone else would think, and, really, the opinions of others are all that matters.’

  Harris said, ‘Wouldn’t go that far.’

  ‘If you didn’t care what others thought of you, you’d have already shot me.’

  Silence.

  King said, ‘Easy enough, right? Ditch your families. Don’t read the news. There’ll be a string of scathing headlines, and everyone you’ve ever made an acquaintance with will speak foul of you, call you all sorts of names. But who cares? Take that money you made and go off to Puerto Rico, start again.’

  No one budged.

  King said, ‘That’s right. You care about opinions more than you care about yourselves. So shut up and do what you’re told.’

  Niccolò pulled his sidearm, a 9mm Beretta.

  Ethan said, ‘No.’

  King kept both hands on the wheel. Faced forward. Kept driving through the night. Didn’t so much as blink.

  Niccolò twirled the gun in his hand, staring into space. ‘Hadn’t thought about it that way. My wife … she’s asking for a divorce, custody. What do I care what she thinks? I ain’t got much to go back to…’

  From the back, Harris said, ‘We do.’

  Ethan said, ‘And what’s Bella going to think? Growing up without a father, hearing all those rumours. When she’s old enough to read, and to understand, someone’ll show her a headline.’

  King was a statue.

  Niccolò thought it over.

  Harris said, ‘And for fuck’s sake, don’t do it here. He’s doing seventy. The crash’ll kill us all.’

  Ethan said, ‘Don’t do it at all. Or I’ll kill you. I got too much on the line here.’

  Finally, Niccolò spoke. ‘Whole lotta talking, fellas. Not a whole lotta doing.’

  He put the barrel against the side of King’s head and pulled the trigger.

  61

  Click.

  The firing pin shot forward inside the Beretta, finding no round in the chamber.

  King’s heart leapt violently in his chest. He didn’t let it show. He kept his exterior cold as Niccolò laughed and said, ‘But you boys are right. I’ll play nice.’

  Ethan punched the back of the passenger’s headrest, rattling the whole seat. Niccolò kept chuckling, undeterred by his colleagues’ fury.

  Harris’ voice was like thunder. ‘I should kill you now. You’re a liability.’

  Niccolò patted the air. ‘Relax, relax. Just having a bit of fun. And you see his reaction, or lack thereof? Maybe he’s tellin’ the truth about who he is, what he does. I thought at least he’d swerve off the road.’

  King kept quiet, letting the rage in his chest dissipate with each second that he spent refraining from speaking. By the time Niccolò had finished babbling, he was calm.

  Harris said, ‘Probably. So shut up and do what you’re told.’

  ‘I’ll do what I’m told,’ Niccolò said, grinning ear to ear. ‘For tonight, at least. But I ain’t ever shutting up.’

  King said, ‘You three all know your roles? You’re crystal clear on that?’

  Ethan and Harris said, ‘Yes,’ in unison.

  Niccolò cried, ‘He speaks!’

  King didn’t take the bait. ‘Niccolò?’

  The cop patted the long barrel of the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle resting vertically in the footwell, on the end of its stock. Its SU-258/PVQ Squad Day Optic scope would be paramount for long-range shooting. ‘Yes, master. I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘And you know the price of failure?’

  Niccolò slapped the dashboard with an open palm, still grinning. ‘Didn’t you just hear? My own blood brothers will kill me. Oh, yes. I know the price of failure.’

  Neither Ethan nor Harris responded.

  The atmosphere hardened.

  King’s stomach churned as they crossed the highway bridge onto Cape Ann, black water like silk under moonlight. Nearby Gloucester’s outskirts were dormant, as expected of a coastal town at four-thirty in the morning. A roundabout took them north toward a wall of forest. From there, King followed Drew’s car up ahead as he veered onto Dogtown Road. The two-vehicle procession followed the claustrophobic tree-lined trail as far as it would let them, both coming to a halt in front of a gate reading NO CONTRACTORS ALLOWED. It barred vehicles from entering the northbound walking trail, which wound its way through the three-thousand acre Commons and up to the Square, each of which served as historical attractions during the day.

  From here, it was under half a mile to Dogtown Square.

  Ahead, Slater and Drew piled out of their ride, clad in vests and armed to the teeth. A visit to the task force’s unofficial armoury in the crash pad’s basement had done the trick. There they’d found Berettas and Glocks and SIGs, automatic rifles, a couple of snipers, state-of-the-art Heckler & Koch submachine guns, and every combat accessory you could imagine.

  King had looked all around the room and asked Newton, ‘You gave them the budget for this?’

  Newton had said, ‘Sort of.’

  Now King killed the engine and the headlights and eased out from behind the wheel in the dark. When Drew’s headlights faded a couple of seconds later, there was nothing but the rustling of branches all around them, all their other senses heightened. The air had a bitter chill to it, but the weight of King’s Kevlar vest kept his blood circulating, his extremities warm. Ethan and Harris piled out behind him and Niccolò rounded the hood with the heavy rifle in his hands, apparently cooperative again.

  King understood.

  The Italian wasn’t happy about any of this, but he’d knuckle down and do what was asked of him.

  They all would.

  The alternative was unthinkable.

  There’d been room for debates and disagreements en route, but the moment they all stepped out of their
cars, everything shifted. Pulses thudded and trivialities fell away, replaced by the adrenaline-fuelled focus of imminent war.

  Everyone had their instructions, and understood the one priority: an overwhelming assault.

  When it kicked off, there’d be no time for thinking, only instinctual reaction, because the slightest hesitation could lead to the worst-case scenario.

  Eyes widening and pupils dilating as cortisol flooded bloodstreams, King and his newfound squad nodded to Slater and Drew, who promptly vanished into the tree line. They would beeline for a predetermined set of coordinates and wait there, absolutely silent, until it all kicked off.

  King shook away intrusive thoughts, that subtle voice in the back of his head whispering, What if that was the last time you see him?

  It was always possible, but dwelling only ever led to paralysis.

  King and his carload of helpers had their own destination to creep toward. Without so much as a glimmer of illumination to light the way, the four of them set off quietly up Dogtown Road, moving the way they had all been trained.

  No one, not even highly trained black-ops veterans, would hear them coming.

  It doesn’t matter how prescient you are.

  You can’t hear that which makes no noise.

  62

  Nearly five a.m.

  Otis shook his head. ‘They’re not coming. They called your stupid fucking bluff.’

  Hunger pangs gnawed at Ronan’s insides. He’d smoked so many cigarettes they no longer had an effect, stewing his guts the way only noxious chemicals can. He felt sick and scattered, like he could see control slipping out between his fingers. It had all gone so perfectly. The setup, the execution, the payoff. Just hearing the panic in King’s voice over the phone had made everything worth it, but from there it had only spiralled. And now he was frozen, locked up like everything in him had cramped at once, psyched out of following through with what he’d promised. Otis could see, and Ronan’s only remaining ally was rapidly losing patience.