Hunters, Matt Rogers [pdf ebook reader .txt] 📗

smile turned playful. ‘Were you recording me? I recall those being my exact words.’

‘My memory,’ Alonzo said, like it was a curse rather than a blessing.

‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Photographic. Of course.’

He said, ‘Did you mean it?’

The weight of his tone indicated he was serious.

After a pause, she said, ‘I did.’

‘I’ve never asked anything of you.’

‘Because you’re not my handler.’

‘That I’m not,’ he admitted. ‘But now I need you. And the only reason you might agree is because you believe it’s the right thing to do. So I need you to trust that I’m a good man, because all you’ll have to go on is my word.’

‘What is it?’

He took a deep breath. ‘I’m still in contact with Jason King and Will Slater.’

Silence.

She said, ‘Really?’

‘If you wanted to, you could have me executed with a single call. I probably wouldn’t live to see the sunset.’

More silence.

She said, ‘I’m still listening.’

‘Hide them for me.’

‘Here?’

‘Yes.’

‘You understand what I’m doing here, right?’

‘I can cover for you. You’re in my division, after all. You can go radio silent for a couple of weeks, blame it on post-traumatic stress. Accentuate the grittier details of your interaction with Fabio Torres. I’ll make sure it’s believed.’

‘King and Slater are domestic terrorists.’

‘Who told you that?’

She paused, thought about it, and recognised the potential bias. ‘They’re not dangerous?’

‘Of course they’re dangerous. But they’re better men than I am.’

What seemed like an eternity of silence elapsed. She said, ‘You’re full of shit.’

‘Am I?’

‘You despise operatives. What was it you called them? “Testosterone-fuelled alpha males”?’

‘Exactly,’ Alonzo said. ‘So ask yourself why I’ve been aiding King and Slater this whole time.’

She said, ‘Have they threatened you?’

‘Quite the opposite. They’re not comfortable that I’m risking my career and my life for them.’

She mulled it over. ‘Hide them where?’

‘I’ll smuggle them into El Salvador. You’ve got your finger on the country’s pulse. You know its back alleys, its dirty secrets, its blind spots. Hole them up somewhere they’ll never be found.’

‘And?’

‘That’s it.’

‘They don’t need babysitting?’

‘They can handle themselves. Right now, they need to vanish.’

She said, ‘I’ll be risking everything.’

‘I risked everything when I called you. My life is in your hands.’

She looked around the shitty apartment, eyes flickering with computation, then she made a decision.

She said, ‘You’d better be the man I think you are.’

‘I am.’

‘Then call me back,’ she said. ‘I’ll take a leave of absence.’

‘I don’t deserve you.’

‘You don’t have me yet,’ she said. ‘We’ll see what happens if I make it out of this career with a soul.’

35

Slater stepped out of the safe house as the sun plunged behind the distant mountains, sweeping pinks and mauves over the flat landscape like the stroke of a giant brush.

He had the energy of a new man.

Their rendezvous with the passport forger had been scheduled for late in the evening, so he’d spent the entire day shut up in the bedroom, the shades drawn, lying on his back with a pillow over his eyes. Of course there’d been the restlessness and the irritability that comes with doing nothing for eight hours straight, but thankfully he had the self-discipline to make it through. He knew he needed it. It gave his senses a chance to decompress. He’d hovered in a state of mindfulness for the entire duration — eight hours of focusing on his breath, in and out endlessly — and his delicate brain thanked him for it now. Lights weren’t as harsh and sounds weren’t as sharp. The lingering effects of the concussion had receded into the deepest recesses of his mind.

Alexis noticed. ‘You look good.’

He pointed to his swollen face. ‘You think?’

‘Your eyes,’ she said. ‘They’re clear.’

The four of them piled into their backup car. The Mercedes was crammed into the tiny single-car garage that connected to the weatherboard house, covered in a blue tarpaulin, its plates removed. Taking it out on the streets in full view of CCTV cameras would be akin to suicide, so they had a second-hand Ford Explorer at the safe house for precisely that reason. It sat idling in the driveway — King had taken it out when he’d hidden the Mercedes the previous evening. Now they got in, all four of them clad in lightweight bulletproof vests under their clothing.

They had no idea what the night had in store for them.

Precautions were paramount.

All four of them sported identical SIG Sauer P226 MK25s in holsters at their waists. The safe house was stocked with an arsenal of weapons, and they brought two Heckler & Koch submachine guns with them, storing them in the webbed mesh behind the front seats. The MP5s were a last resort they had no intention of using. They would go to the forger’s, and then straight to the airport. The sooner they were out of the country, the better.

Slater wondered if it was the last time he would see America.

As they peeled away from the safe house, leaving nothing of importance behind, he asked, ‘Are you sure you trust this woman, Violetta?’

‘No,’ Violetta admitted, her hands gripping the wheel as she navigated through darkening Mesquite. ‘But I don’t need to trust her. Leverage is more reassuring than baseless trust.’

‘What leverage?’

‘Jada’s a rogue like us.’

Silent in the passenger seat, King raised an eyebrow.

Violetta said, ‘Well, not quite. Forging isn’t quite like what you and Jason do. But she’s been running her own racket ever since she parted ways with the government, with neither their awareness or consent. My old colleagues wouldn’t be happy if they were informed one of their old employees was selling fake passports to anyone who had the necessary funds.’

‘If you were the one informing them,’ Slater said, ‘they wouldn’t listen to a word you’d say.’

‘Which is why I’d do it anonymously.’

Slater managed a sly smile. ‘You’re a dirtier player than I thought.’ Then he stiffened. ‘Is this what you told Jada?’

‘Of course not. Do you think I’m stupid? No need for unnecessary hostility. She understands how it works. It didn’t need to be said. And we have the money, so she