Rogues: A King & Slater Thriller

by Matt Rogers

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And, just for tonight, that’s not an option.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘There’s a considerable reward in this for you, Gavin.’

  Gavin hunched further forward, stared at his feet. ‘I’ll let Delia take a smoke break when it’s time to pass any calls up the chain of command. Not for long, though, Dom. This isn’t a good look…’

  Newton held up his hands in gratitude and understanding. ‘We won’t need long.’ He lowered his arms. ‘I knew I could trust you.’

  ‘Always.’

  Newton shook Gavin’s hand, looked him in the eyes like he actually cared about him, and then walked out like he had somewhere to be.

  He hustled through reception, got back behind the wheel of his cruiser, and vomited into the passenger footwell.

  Brought up all the vodka sloshing around his stomach.

  He’d barely been able to keep it together.

  But it was done, and there might be a way out.

  82

  King side-eyed Slater as they merged onto Route 1, screaming south toward Boston. ‘That’s what you told him to do?’

  ‘And he’ll do it.’

  ‘There’s no way he’ll get away with it.’

  ‘I beg to differ. He’s been getting away with shit his whole career, most of it much less likely to work than charming a dispatcher. How many victims do you think are walking around out there that he’s used and discarded? None of them have talked. He’s never had a public scandal. He’s been preying on everyone in his sphere of influence for, what, ten years? Fifteen? Whatever his trick is, it’ll work.’

  ‘And then? There’ll be no police response, but that doesn’t solve anything.’

  ‘It gives us time,’ Slater said, fishing his phone out. ‘Which is really all we need. The rest is manual labour.’

  He called Newton.

  The sergeant answered immediately. ‘It’s done, okay? It’s fucking done.’

  ‘Good job,’ Slater said. ‘Now we’re gone, like we were never here in the first place. Over to you.’

  ‘Over to me?’

  ‘You’re on clean-up.’

  The way Newton froze on the other end of the line was palpable. The quiet was overwhelming. ‘What am I cleaning up?’

  ‘Your team,’ Slater said. ‘They didn’t make it.’

  A pause. ‘You motherfucking—’

  ‘It wasn’t us,’ Slater said. ‘No matter what sort of evil shit they’ve done in the past, they went into battle with us. That’s enough to spare them a bullet. It was the enemy we were fighting. They got them all.’

  King went to interject, to correct the tape, then thought, Technically true.

  It was Ronan who ultimately killed Niccolò.

  Best leave it at that.

  Newton didn’t know what to say. Finally he asked, ‘At least tell me you avenged them.’

  ‘We did. There were only two hostiles, but they were ex-military. Highly talented combatants. We killed them both. They’re there, too. In the woods.’

  ‘And you want me—?’

  ‘To clean it all up. Yes. If you have dirty friends who you know will keep their mouths shut, use them for additional labour. I don’t care if you reposition your team somewhere else, wipe the bodies down, make it look like they all shot each other in some double-cross situation. They were corrupt, after all. I’m sure that’ll come out. Anyway, it’s on you. It’s not our problem.’

  ‘Not a chance I’ll get away with that. My entire task force wiped out? The investigation will be...’

  He trailed off.

  Imagining the future, hating what he saw.

  About time he dreaded something, Slater figured, instead of making others dread their own memories.

  ‘If I manage to do this,’ Newton said, ‘I want assurances.’

  ‘No assurances. But the secrets we have on you will remain secrets. You’ll just have to trust us.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Do you have a choice?’

  A pause. ‘No.’

  ‘Then, if I’m not mistaken, this conversation’s over.’

  A sigh. ‘Text me coordinates for the bodies. I don’t want to spend the night stumbling around looking for blood.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘Can you at least tell me who you are? Can you tell me what my men died for?’ A pause. ‘I’m not asking for much.’

  Slater said, ‘No.’

  He hung up.

  After a minute of silence, King said, ‘You’re really gonna let him go?’

  When he looked across the centre console, he caught Slater rolling his eyes.

  Slater said, ‘When did I say that?’

  83

  Nothing was amiss in Back Bay.

  The power had returned and the few residents still out of bed had settled down. Most were oblivious to the blackout, wealthy retirees who were out cold before ten p.m. on weeknights. You don’t need lights or phones in your dreams.

  It took all of King’s willpower not to skid into Marlborough Street at top speed, but a spectacle was the last thing they wanted. He forced himself to obey the speed limit, but he was out of the car almost before he’d put it in park, the tyres still rumbling over the asphalt as he ripped the handbrake and leapt out the door. Slater was even faster, wielding a huge camping axe they’d picked up from Walmart a few months ago and kept in the trunk for emergencies. He launched himself down the short flight of stairs that led to the basement door, leaping all twelve steps in one bound. He landed hard, assessing the state of the door before he’d even come to a halt.

  He breathed a sigh of relief.

  It was a simple job. He’d dealt with worse during his career. With his free hand he deftly removed the blasting caps from the small holes Ronan had punched into the plastic explosive, making sure all the leg wires tied around the primers came out with them. With the Semtex defused, he ran a hand over the putty around the doorframe, which had hardened to the texture of rock, probably moments after Ronan had applied it. Whatever the stuff was, it was military-grade. From the other side, the door wouldn’t budge, but all Slater had to do was swing hard and precise with the axe blade and the putty began to crack.

  Five huge swings on each side of the door frame and the bulk of the hardened goo snapped apart.

  With the Semtex now functionally useless without its primers, Slater had no qualms about kicking the door open.

  Alexis spilled out into his arms.

  He caught a face-full of her wild hair and held her tight as he breathed her scent. He couldn’t see anything, but subconsciously he moved her to the side so King could rush past into the safe house. Through her shallow breathing he heard Violetta laughing with relief, King’s voice inching up an octave as he spoke to his son, feeding the baby reassurances he would never understand.

  When Alexis finally stepped away from Slater, she moved back so Tyrell had room to squeeze out the door. The boy’s first priority was to turn his face to the stars, look up at the night sky. Slater didn’t blame him. Tyrell might have thought he’d never see it again.

  When he finally lowered his gaze, Slater pulled him into a bear hug. ‘I’m sorry, kid.’

  Tyrell shook his head against Slater’s chest. ‘What for?’

  Slater gestured at the basement. ‘This place. I should’ve known…’

  ‘Man, you’re not a god. You can’t predict everythin’. You ain’t gotta apologise to me.’

  They hugged just over the threshold, just outside the basement. Slater looked over the top of Tyrell’s dreadlocked head, through the open doorway. King had Violetta and Junior in a similar embrace. Their eyes met for a moment, acknowledging each other, then they turned back to their families.

  Tyrell said, ‘I heard they got the house…’

  ‘Yeah,’ Slater said with a sigh. He’d almost forgotten about the arson attacks, so much had happened tonight. ‘King’s, too.’

  Alexis touched his shoulder, and he
turned to her.

  She said, ‘Should we get moving?’

  Slater shook his head. ‘Not this second. There’s no one left to worry about.’

  ‘For now.’

  He nodded reluctantly. There was much to be addressed, flaws and openings to resolve, with Alonzo’s collaboration. But that could wait. Tonight, they were safe.

  Tyrell’s face was scrunched, his disappointment unmistakable. ‘We’re gonna have to move, aren’t we?’

  Slater held him at shoulder’s length, looked him in the eyes. ‘Yeah, of course.’

  ‘Out of state,’ Tyrell clarified. ‘As in, we’re not stayin’ in Boston, right?’

  Slater sighed. ‘Unfortunately, yeah. There’s way too much heat here for us to stay.’

  He bowed his head.

  ‘What is it?’

  Tyrell pursed his lips as he shook his head. ‘It’s just … can we move somewhere sorta close? I, um, I made a friend yesterday. I don’t want it to go to waste…’

  Slater stood still for a few seconds, trying to rewind to the morning before all this madness. Despite everything, he grinned. ‘What was her name? Danielle?’

  Tyrell’s eyes widened, and he turned away, immediately embarrassed.

  Slater said, ‘You got her number, didn’t you?’

  Hesitation. Then, ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You want to stay near Boston so you can get some action. Noted.’

  ‘Man,’ Tyrell grumbled, ‘shut up.’

  Slater reached out and ruffled the top of his head. ‘We won’t go far. I promise.’

  Tyrell looked confused. ‘You decided just like that? I thought, y’know, you’d need time to think...’

  ‘There’s perks to working for ourselves. We choose what we want to do and where we want to do it. We don’t need anybody’s permission.’

  ‘Yeah you do.’

  Slater hesitated.

  Tyrell jerked his thumb at Alexis, then turned and went back into the safe house to greet King, leaving them alone.

  Alexis said, ‘He’s prescient,’ with a half-smile.

  Slater stepped closer to her, lowered his voice. ‘Everything’s got to change. I’m not putting either of you through that again. The white picket fence life … I guess it isn’t for us.’

  She hovered inches from his face, not taking her eyes off him. ‘Hell, at least we tried.’

  ‘Suburban middle-class life,’ he said. ‘Who’d’ve thought? We should have known it wouldn’t be permanent.’

  ‘I think we both knew. Deep down.’

  She must’ve been expecting resistance; there was surprise in her eyes when he nodded agreement.

  She said, ‘When should we leave town? As soon as possible?’

  ‘A couple of days, I think,’ Slater said. ‘We can Airbnb somewhere just out of town. We’ll be safe. Everyone connected to this is gone now.’

  Alexis’ gaze wandered off, a faraway look clouding her features. With her brow furrowed she said, ‘I don’t even know what happened tonight, Will…’

  ‘I’ll tell you everything. Every last detail. Just … not here.’ He lowered his voice again, this time to a mutter. ‘Tyrell’s in earshot, and there’s things I need to filter.’

  He looked over his shoulder at King, deep in conversation with Violetta. Her eyes progressively widened after he finished each sentence, and Slater knew he was bringing her up to speed. Junior’s head drooped against the top of her chest, the baby’s eyes softly shut. Slater found himself envious that their kid couldn’t understand them yet.

  ‘Given what he knows, and what he’s been through,’ Alexis said, also in a mutter, ‘I don’t think there’s much that needs filtering.’

  ‘You’re probably right.’ Slater sighed. ‘I’m still trying to figure this shit out. Day by day, brick by brick.’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’

  He hugged her again. Hours ago, total catastrophe had seemed inevitable. ‘I let you down. I put you in danger.’

  ‘Remember what I was doing before I met you,’ she said in return. ‘I would’ve lived a normal life, died normal.’

  She waited for him to meet her gaze.

  She said, ‘I’m the most alive I’ve ever been.’

  84

  Fifteen minutes later they were on the road.

  With King behind the wheel of the lead car, and Violetta feeding him directions from the passenger seat, Slater, Alexis, and Tyrell were able to simply trail in the car behind. Junior nestled under blankets in the back of the first ride, strapped tight into his baby seat, blue eyes and rosy cheeks visible in the rear view mirror.

  King hadn’t stopped talking since he’d first rushed into the safe house, pulling Violetta and his son into an embrace. He finally wrapped up the story as they pulled out of Back Bay onto Huntington Avenue, gunning it west as dawn light ebbed in pale orange cracks over the horizon.

  The previous afternoon, life had been relatively normal.

  How fast it could change…

  He took a deep breath to replenish all the oxygen he’d expended rattling off a summary of the night’s proceedings. It gave Violetta vital processing time. After a brief interim, she said, ‘I wouldn’t believe a word of that if I didn’t know you like I do.’

  ‘It’s what happened.’

  ‘If Alonzo took thirty seconds longer…’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She shook her head, her face pale, her eyes strained. ‘Turn left here.’

  He complied. ‘You booked the place?’

  ‘I used our fake Airbnb account, the one Alonzo set up with the forged IDs. Booked a townhouse in Chestnut Hill. It’s suburbia. We’ll be fine there for a couple of days. That’s all the time Will said he needed, right?’

  King nodded. ‘I think he’s making this up as he goes along.’

  ‘Do you know what loose ends need tying up? That’s the only reason I can imagine he wants to stay.’

  ‘The sergeant. Dominique Newton. He’s clearing the scene in Dogtown as we speak. I’m sure he roped a couple of corrupt cops into helping. But after that, he’ll be done.’

  ‘Which then makes him a loose end?’

  He slowly nodded.

  ‘Devil’s advocate,’ she forewarned, ‘but he lost four of his best men. He’s going to have to come up with a way to explain away their deaths, and there’s no guarantee it’ll work. His career’s probably ruined, and if he was close to any of those cops that died, then there’ll be emotional turmoil, too. Maybe motherhood’s made me too empathetic for this world anymore, but isn’t that punishment enough?’

  King said, ‘I left out what Slater blackmailed him with.’

  She thought back, realising he was right. He’d glossed over it and she hadn’t noticed. ‘Go on.’

  He told her.

  Her shudder came whole seconds after he’d finished talking, a delayed reaction. When he glanced sideways at her, her face was stone.

  She said, ‘Fuck him. Let him rot.’

  85

  Dawn in D.C.

  Arnold slouched in front of his monitors like a zombie, the rising sun failing to snap him out of his trance. His jaw hung slack, mouth open, and the rays arcing in through his condo’s big windows exposed the twin rows of dead-black cavities from all the sugar he washed over his teeth day after day.

  He had no control.

  He’d tried everything.

  Alonzo had taken over his computer, shut him out of his own system, and he was at a complete loss as to how to fix it. It was too late anyway. Nothing he could try would be any good, because Back Bay was up and running, and the surveillance camera pointed at the basement door had provided him with a high-quality video stream of Will Slater ripping the blasting caps out of the Semtex and breaking the door down. Before that, Arnold had tried probably several hundred times to detonate the caps electronically, using every trick his overachieving mind could come up with, all of it to no avail. Alonzo had killed the connection and there wasn’t anything capable of bringing it
back.

  Technologically, he’d come up against someone better than he was, and that had never happened before, not once.

  He could almost feel his ego shatter, the damage irreparable.

  He thought he might be sick. He had to go to work now, reporting for duty by eight a.m., and he hadn’t managed a wink of sleep. Ronan had fallen off the face of the earth, still yet to contact him, and that meant only one thing. So not only had Arnold failed egregiously, but his shortcomings had contributed to the loss of the only man who had ever shown any interest in his monotonous and miserable life.

  To stop himself turning suicidal, Arnold thought, You still have your job.

  He tried not to think about how any satisfaction his work provided him came from the fact that he knew he was the best in the world at it … and now he wasn’t. It ate away at him that there was someone out there who could usurp him at any moment, stop him cold in his tracks.

  His stomach fell as he rose off the chair for the first time in eight hours, nausea eating away at him.

  Someone knocked at the front door.

  His heart missed a beat like the scratching of a vinyl record. A dawning resignation fell over him as he trudged into the hallway, went to the door and opened it without even checking the peephole. He’d already accepted his fate.

  His direct superior, a man known only as Grey, stood on the front porch. He was pushing sixty, bald and pale with fair eyebrows and deeply wrinkled skin. His head had the texture of a white prune, his eyes narrow and cold, devoid of anything resembling human emotion. Confidentiality measures prevented anyone beneath him in the intelligence community knowing his real name, but having it wouldn’t mean anything anyway. He embodied his role in the way men who carried dark national secrets had to, spending almost all his waking time at work, in the bowels of the military underworld. If he left the office, especially early in the morning, it was for matters so grave and serious they couldn’t possibly go unaddressed.

  All Arnold’s hope for the future — of which there was little — vanished.

  Grey was framed by two large men in black suits. Arnold had never seen them before.