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

King said, ‘But for how long?’

She looked over at him. ‘What?’

‘How long will we have money for?’

‘Years. Decades.’

‘I thought Slater gave it all away.’

‘Weren’t you listening back in The Bahamas?’ Slater said. ‘The four hundred million was in the other account. We’ve still got the rainy day fund.’

‘And just how rainy of a day are we prepared for?’

‘Three and a half million worth of water damage.’

King nodded slowly to avoid aggravating his splint-covered nose. ‘I think we’ll survive, then.’

Slater said, ‘This is a pointless conversation.’

‘Why?’

‘We’re going to El Salvador. We need money, I’ll just go rob a cartel.’

Alexis rolled her eyes, but said nothing. It looked like she was about to make a sly dig, but she reined it in. She was atypically reserved. He turned to her across the rear seats. ‘You okay?’

She nodded, but her face was a little drained of colour. She touched a hand to her ribs. ‘I’ll be fine.’

Slater had EMT-B level training as a combat medic — it was a requirement for his old career. High-value assets had to be kept alive at all costs, and the government couldn’t afford its elite soldiers fumbling around in the field without specialist knowledge. He still retained most of the knowledge, so he’d taken Alexis through a thorough examination earlier in the day. Through assessing pain levels, applying different levels of pressure to her mid-section, and diagnosing whether it was difficult to breathe in different positions, he’d been certain there were no broken bones. That didn’t change how crippling it felt, but they couldn’t exactly go to a hospital to determine which muscles she’d torn or bones she’d bruised.

As soon as they were in El Salvador, they could bribe a local doctor.

Until then…

Slater’s nose was in bad shape but he’d reduced the pain to a manageable level by detaching himself from it, accepting it as something that was happening to him rather than something that consumed his entire being. He was sure King was implementing similar practices.

They drove to Jada’s in silence, continuing up I-15 to the border to Utah.

Slater said, ‘I was asleep when you organised this. Where exactly does this woman live?’

‘St. George,’ Violetta answered. ‘Just over the border. An hour’s drive.’

‘How convenient.’

Slater despised coincidence.

Violetta twisted in her seat. ‘Now you think I’m a double agent?’

‘Cool it,’ King said, his voice low.

Slater said, ‘Almost four million square miles of landmass in this country and the one resource we need right now is located forty miles from us? I’m just being cautious.’

‘You think she’s the only forger that’s ever worked for the government?’ Violetta said, her tone leeching disbelief. ‘There’s a reason I made the call to her without any hesitation. How do you think I got our original passport backups when we first moved out here? I’ve used her before. She’s the forger who lives closest to Vegas. There are others. But we don’t exactly have time to road trip to Delaware, or Alaska, or anyplace else that my old contacts have bunkered down in.’

‘Is she the best?’ Slater said.

‘Yes,’ Violetta said. ‘That’s the only coincidence here.’

Ten minutes later, they were at Jada’s front door.

36

They took the Crosby Way exit off I-15, which dumped them in St. George, then Violetta navigated to the quiet suburban neighbourhood of Bloomington Hills North.

There were big lots with big sprawling houses, and the air shimmered in the early evening heat. There were tennis courts and a park and a church, all of which they drove past. They ended up in Vermillion Avenue, a curving expanse of asphalt whose homes overlooked the Virgin River. When they pulled up to a modern cookie-cutter two-storey dwelling with no soul, King raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘This is it?’

It had looked better in the satellite photos.

The front lawn was barren. The house itself was in decent shape, but that was only because it must have been constructed less than a year ago. The materials were cheap and plain, the paint-job tasteless.

Violetta said, ‘You were expecting an evil lair?’

King said, ‘Keep driving.’

‘What?’

‘Drive away. Now.’

Violetta didn’t ask a second time. She still had no idea what he might want, but questions could wait in case he knew something they didn’t. She pulled away from the house and continued down the avenue. The road looped all the way back round until it faced the way they’d come from, like a giant teardrop, with the land in the middle occupied by two rows of identical modern houses. Some roofs were ochre, some brown, some black. That was the only distinguishable difference between the properties.

When they reached the base of the teardrop, King said, ‘Let me out here.’

She glared at him. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Making sure we don’t get our heads blown apart when we knock on the door.’

Violetta said, ‘Could someone in this car just trust me for once?’

‘We do,’ Slater said. ‘But we’re not careless. You get careless, you get killed.’

King said, ‘Wait here. Keep the engine on. I’ll message if it’s clear.’

He slipped out and found himself at the start of a thin unpaved trail. The rocky path weaved between the two rows of houses in the middle of the teardrop, a detail he already knew from perusing satellite images. Jada’s house was on the left-hand side, halfway down the trail, facing away. He’d be at her back fence in seconds without needing to leap over fences.

He ghosted through the dark, implementing his training, barely making a sound. He knew which was Jada’s fence without having to look — he’d simply counted the number of houses they’d passed whilst driving away, and now he counted the same number of back lots and arrived at the rear of her property. He waited with bated breath in the gloom, anticipating anyone lying in the shadows to grow restless after such a prolonged period of silence. But no one came, so he gripped one of the rear fence posts and levered himself up until he could see a sliver of the backyard.

The