by Matt Rogers
‘And what makes you so confident about that?’ Slater said, clutching the rifle a little tighter.
She turned her intoxicating gaze to him and said, ‘Why, because I’m the government, darling.’
37
They all stood there in a square, with each of them taking a predetermined corner.
Regarding each other warily.
King didn’t know what to think.
Finally, the woman said, ‘In the car, please, Foley.’
The driver slunk back to the vehicle, got in the driver’s seat, and gently closed both doors.
Now they were a triangle, and the woman sauntered right up to the pair of them, throwing her hair over one shoulder. Up close, King could see her better. She was in her late thirties, but could have easily passed as younger. She was confident and physically fit and in no hurry to explain herself. The calmness she exuded was somewhat reassuring, but he’d been duped by charm before. He wasn’t about to open up in the slightest.
She said, ‘I’m Violetta.’
‘I’m—’ King started.
She said, ‘I know. Jason King. Will Slater. Great. Introductions over.’
‘You work for the government?’ Slater said.
‘In a roundabout way.’
‘What’s that mean?’ King said.
‘You know damn well what that means. It means I can’t give you a business card, and you can’t look me up in the system, but all that does is confirm that I’m at the right pay grade to have the right conversations. Are you both following along?’
‘We follow,’ Slater said.
‘Doesn’t mean we believe you,’ King said.
She said, ‘Cut the bullshit. You are both hot property right now in the secret world. The train of order has well and truly derailed. Have you seen the news?’
‘We don’t need to check the news,’ King said. ‘We were there.’
‘You were at one isolated event. There’s been five in total. All of them carried out simultaneously.’
‘Executions?’
Violetta nodded.
‘Who?’ Slater said.
‘Depends who you ask. If you ask the news, the victims were wealthy private citizens with no connection whatsoever to the government. Russell Williams was killed in a violent shootout in Lower Manhattan, and the other four were executed in their homes in Washington D.C. It’s a shocking coincidence, but a coincidence all the same. Just an unfortunate crime spree.’
‘And if we ask you?’
‘They were five men who’d united to usher in a new era of ethics to the secret world. This was an endeavour that was largely kickstarted by Mr. Slater’s quest to interfere with every damn program he didn’t like the look of.’
‘I did it once,’ Slater said.
King said, ‘You think it’s his fault you and your people were so shit at keeping the Lynx program under wraps?’
A look flashed in her eyes, but it seemed playful enough. She stared at King, and tapped him once on the chest, and said, ‘I like you.’
He said nothing.
Slater said, ‘So this is supposed to reassure us?’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Of what?’
‘Five people get killed across the country by hired guns. They’re the ones trying to rein in the government’s more reckless ideas, and now you — the government — come to us asking for our help. And you’re expecting us to believe that you didn’t have something to do with it?’
‘If we had something to do with it, you’d both be dead,’ she said. ‘And I don’t exaggerate that point in the slightest.’
King said, ‘You haven’t tried yet.’
She almost laughed. ‘Sounds like if there’s anything that needs reining in, it’s your own egos.’
‘I’m sure you heard about what we did tonight,’ Slater said.
She shot him a withering look. ‘Killed a dozen mercenaries? Congratulations. We have endless soldiers capable of that — of course, that’s all hush-hush. You think just because Black Force died we got rid of the principles that started it? There’s still anomalies out there. Warriors with reaction speeds you couldn’t dream of. But you two are something special, which is why we left you alive, and which is why we didn’t retaliate when you stuck your nose where it didn’t belong. Five of the top dogs listened to you, and tried to change the way the secret world operates.’
‘Then why are they dead?’
‘We don’t know,’ Violetta said. ‘But there’s some serious shit going down and I don’t trust a soul right now. Which is why I’m turning to the pair of you. Because you’re on the outside, and I think you’ve established your moral superiority. So you’re going to help me get to the bottom of this.’
‘Why?’ King said.
Slater nodded. ‘I’d prefer to get to the bottom of a bottle, if you don’t mind. Helps me sleep better.’
She said, ‘For a million reasons.’
‘List some,’ King said.
She said, ‘First, you both care about your country. You’re not going to stand back and watch it fall to pieces, which I fear is exactly what’s going to happen in the next few weeks if you don’t help me immediately.’
They stood there in silence.
She said, ‘Secondly, there are grieving families here in New York, and over in Washington. Kids who watched their fathers get slaughtered in their own homes. Wives who got the news from the authorities. And that was just five men. Five good men … but only five. It’s about to get a whole lot worse. I think the good eggs in the secret world were executed so there’s no-one with a level head to turn to when the country starts imploding.’
Neither of them spoke.
She said, ‘And lastly, I’ll kill you both if you even think about disobeying me. You don’t understand the resources I have access to. Do not test me. We’ve let you get away with endless irritations up until now, but that will all change the second I lift a finger. We’ll wipe you off the face of the planet and no-one will know the difference.’
No response.
She said, ‘Decision?’
King looked at Slater.
Slater looked at King.
They turned back to her.
King said, ‘We’d be happy to help.’
38
Like something out of a dream, they rocketed back toward the city they’d fled from.
King drove again. Slater stewed in the passenger seat. They backtracked through the same sequence of turns, and when the New York skyline loomed up from the horizon, he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
Unrest swept through him.
He said, ‘I fucking hate this.’
King said, ‘That makes two of us.’
Slater turned in his seat and looked out the rear window. ‘They’re a reasonable distance behind us.’
‘So?’
‘We could make a run for it again.’
‘Then what?’ King said. ‘She knows everything about us. She’s government. And she’s telling the truth. I’ve spent enough time in this bullshit game to understand that, and you have too. She will turn all her resources on us if we refuse to help.’
‘Not if the country’s falling apart like she insinuated.’
‘Would you want to be on the run if what she was suggesting comes true? Would you want to sit back and watch that happen?’
Slater said nothing, but the silence said everything.
King said, ‘Me neither.’
Slater said, ‘I doubt she has the capacity to carry out what she promised.’
They’d talked for close to fifteen minutes after the initial agreement, hashing out certain details that made both of them apprehensive to return to New York. But Violetta had made promises, and they’d tentatively agreed. Both of them doubted what she’d said would come true, but they were willing to take the risk of finding out for themselves.
King said, ‘I wouldn’t put it past her.’
‘What if we walk back into handcuffs? That’s the way I�
��d do it if I was the law. Send someone like her to rope us back into the city limits.’
‘She was telling the truth before,’ King said. ‘If they wanted us out of the equation, they would have killed us in rural Pennsylvania. Why risk the justice system for a pair like us? You know what would happen if we spilled everything we have swimming around in our heads at trial?’
Slater nodded. ‘Okay. Let’s find out.’
They navigated to the Upper East Side in the early hours of the morning. A mad sense of déjà vu rolled over them. They went down the same laneway, and pulled up to the same metal gate, and Slater scanned his keycard on the same panel because King had thrown his out the window.
The door to the parking garage lifted.
The darkness beckoned.
They looked at each other and shrugged in unison.
What do we have to lose?
Slater nodded forward, and King drove through. There was no-one waiting for them. The garage was as desolate as when they’d left. They parked in the same space, and Slater got out and hefted the rifles out of the rear seats. King took the black box in one hand and locked the car, and they got in the private elevator and rode it back up to the penthouse level.
When the doors whispered open, the bodies in the corridor were gone.
Where a vast puddle of blood had previously stained the carpet, there was a plastic sheet draped across the floor. It was weighed down by a yellow sign reading: Caution: Cleaning In Progress.
The walls were spotless, and the ceiling was spotless — both had been previously flecked with blood.
Slater followed King into his apartment.
The bodies were nowhere to be seen, and the shards of glass scattered across the living area had disappeared. The penthouse reeked of industrial cleaning products. There was a temporary plastic sheet pulled tight across the jagged hole in the side of the building where the window pane had once rested. So it was quiet — the wind battered the sheet, but didn’t spill through into the apartment.
King said, ‘Jesus Christ. What world are we operating in?’
‘One where we’re above the law,’ Slater said. ‘You know what this reminds me of?’
King shot him a worried glance. ‘Been a while since I’ve been employed.’
Slater shivered. ‘We’re not employed.’
‘The government are doing us favours. We’re expected to return the same goodwill. Sounds a whole lot like we’re employed.’
‘We’ll get through this, then we’ll work it out. One step at a time.’
‘I’ve heard that before.’
‘Yeah, you have. And we’re still alive and kicking.’
There was a knock at the door.
They both turned to look.
King muttered, ‘Maybe not for much longer.’
Slater strode to the door and opened it. Violetta was standing there, sans her driver. She had her hands crossed gracefully behind her back, and she swept past them without invitation.
‘Nice place,’ she said, whistling at the view.
‘Don’t play the fool,’ King said.
She turned, raising an eyebrow. ‘You think I’ve been here before? I mean, I told you I liked you, but I don’t recall—’
King scowled and swept a hand over his surroundings. ‘That’s not what I meant. Was this your clean-up crew?’
‘I wasn’t with them,’ she said. ‘I don’t get my hands dirty. I was chasing after you two, remember?’
‘So what the hell is this?’ Slater said. ‘Why meet us here? Why not just—?’
She raised a hand, and he stopped talking. Not many people had that effect on him. She was confident, sure of herself, supremely calm. She stared at him with those blue eyes and said, ‘It seems the pair of you don’t recall the finer details of your careers.’
‘Maybe we’d prefer not to remember those times,’ King said.
‘You remember the way it worked, though,’ she said. ‘You had a single point of contact, and as far as anything else in the secret world was concerned, you were kept in the dark. You didn’t need to know how the leviathan operates then, and you don’t need to know how it operates now. You’re foot soldiers, after all.’
‘No we’re not,’ King hissed.
She looked at him with nonchalance. ‘Call yourself what you want. For all intents and purposes, you are operatives for me — and, by extension, the United States government.’
‘Not permanently.’
‘Of course not.’
‘Okay,’ Slater said, holding his palms up toward her. ‘So the ground rules are established. You make all our problems go away. We help you — but only because we’re genuinely concerned, too. So this works for all parties involved. So … what now?’
She said, ‘How about a drink?’
39
They sat in a makeshift triangle — King and Slater at opposite ends of the giant sofa, cradling tumblers filled with whiskey, and Violetta in the armchair, cradling an expensive glass of wine.
Slater sipped from his glass, treating it as a rudimentary painkiller.
It burned on the way down.
He relished the relief, but made a mental note not to go overboard.
Violetta said, ‘I suppose I should introduce myself a little better. I know far more about the pair of you than you do about me.’
King shrugged. ‘We’re used to that.’
She said, ‘I’m Russell Williams’ successor. It’s my responsibility to manage a certain wing of black operations. I’ve been sponging information about how to deal with operatives, how to keep a level head, and how to analyse information on the fly for the better part of ten years. I got into this world relatively young, and I’m not just a pretty face. However, I’ve been told that my aura can be reassuring when communicating with operatives in the field, so this is what I do for now. I’ll be relaying information from the upper echelon to you both, and making decisions about what to do with you over the next few weeks. Any questions?’
Immediately, King said, ‘Who were your parents?’
She cocked her head. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘You heard me.’
‘I didn’t say anything about—’
‘I know,’ King said, ‘but the “pretty face” comment was extraneous. You threw it in there because you have something to prove. And it’s not because of your looks. You got into this world young, but no-one gets into this world young unless they’re black operatives with certain specific talents willing to get themselves killed in the line of fire within a year. Then their death wish and natural abilities trump the age factor. That doesn’t happen with the pen pushers like you.’
Violetta said, ‘You’re good.’
‘I’m right.’
‘My father was in this business. He had connections. He believed in me and no-one else did, so they gave me the equivalent of an internship in their world. I did well. So they kept me around. I did even better. So they promoted me. That kept happening until I got to where I am today.’
King said, ‘I didn’t mean to offend you. I was just curious.’
‘If anything offended me,’ she said, ‘I wouldn’t be in this industry, would I?’
Slater said, ‘Okay, okay. We’re all best friends now. What do you have to tell us?’
‘Only what you need to know,’ she said. ‘So, first things first—’
King interrupted, ‘Williams told me it was the Chinese.’
Silence.
She said, ‘Did he now?’
‘He did.’
‘What else did he tell you?’
‘That there’s an active attempt to destabilise the economy. Possibly even ruin the country forever. Now, I’m just a soldier who can react faster than the average grunt, so I guess I’m not able to picture what that would entail. Could you give us a better idea?’
Violetta chewed her lower lip, and flashed an uncomfortable glance out the window. She said, ‘I wasn’t supposed to get into that until a long way down the l
ine.’
Slater sat forward, and gave her a withering stare. ‘Are you the best successor to Russell Williams?’
She said, ‘Excuse me?’
‘You were going to withhold that from us? Do you have any common sense? You come here asking for our help, then plan to drip-feed us crumbs of information?’
King placed a hand on Slater’s chest and shoved him back into the sofa. ‘Cool it.’
‘Don’t fucking touch me. I don’t need to be here. I can see you’re in love with her, but—’
‘Enough!’ Violetta snapped.
Both of them shut their mouths.
She said, ‘Seems like you’ve forgotten how it worked your whole career, Will. You were never given all the details. Only the essentials. Seeing that you both already know the juicy part of the intel, I’ll give you all the details against my better judgment. But don’t even think about pulling anything like that again. Understood?’
Slater stared at her, but rationality prevailed.
He nodded his approval.
Violetta said, ‘We’ve discovered a number of traitors in our ranks over the last few weeks. They didn’t intend to get caught, but we got them all the same.’
King said, ‘Who?’
‘Various members of our community. Men and women who were privy to very exclusive, very sensitive information about the inner workings of the government. They’re the ones who run the show behind the scenes. And they know how to manipulate certain people to get what they want. So they kicked that information out to whoever was paying them to betray us—’
‘The Chinese?’
‘It’s a real possibility.’
‘Based on what?’
‘That’s a story for another time,’ she said. ‘It’s long, and I don’t have time to—’
‘Where are you sending us?’ Slater snapped.
‘Sorry?’
Slater leaned forward and said, ‘Where are you sending us? Right now. This instant.’
She said, ‘In the morning I’ll have you—’