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

could step out of a side room and put bullets in our backs.’

‘What happened instead?’

‘Slater sprung him first.’

‘Judging by the report in front of me, I take it it didn’t go smoothly.’

‘It did not.’

Alonzo thought hard, absorbing the information he had on hand. ‘You need me to kill the passport alert so nobody sees them.’

‘Can you?’

‘It’s not something I can automatically program, or they’ll have physical evidence that I was aiding the four of you.’

‘Who will see it?’

‘Them.’

The hunters, Violetta realised. ‘Go on.’

He said, ‘I’ll need to manually kill the alert as soon as it enters the feed. As in: see it come in, highlight it, get rid of it, erase any trace of it ever being there. But that’ll be in real-time. There’ll be a second — maybe longer — when it’s there for anyone to notice.’

Violetta paused, ruminating, her stress levels skyrocketing. She tried to lower them intentionally, putting her mind to it. Stress in any form couldn’t be healthy for the baby growing inside her.

She said, ‘Is there any other way?’

She noticed King’s ears perk up at that line.

Alonzo said, ‘Not that I can think of. The digital blanket over your identities took me weeks to set up. Here, I only have hours. Can’t you stay in-country for a while?’

‘They’ll track us down,’ Violetta said. ‘You told us that yourself.’

‘I did,’ he muttered, clearly uncomfortable. ‘Okay. I’ll do it. But if any of the higher-ups are watching the feed of incoming alerts at precisely that moment…’

‘It’s all of our lives,’ she said.

It might have been prudent not to bring that up, but she needed Alonzo to understand the stakes, to know what he was getting himself into. If he made a rash decision, failed, and regretted it, she’d carry that burden with her for the rest of her life.

Alonzo said, ‘We’ve come this far, haven’t we?’

‘You don’t have to do this.’

‘I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I turned you away. And maybe it’s tipping the scales, you know. I signed up to serve my country to help people. What I’m doing now … it’s only helping the elites. Not the masses. Maybe if I help you, there’ll be karmic rewards down the line. The light at the end of the tunnel and all that.’

Violetta said, ‘We’ll let you know when we’re in line.’

‘Make sure you do. If I erase it too late, they’ll have already seen it, and it’ll be obvious I’m colluding with you. Then it’s all our heads on the chopping block.’

‘Thank you, Alonzo. From the bottom of my heart.’

‘Anytime. From the bottom of mine.’

He hung up first.

She pressed the top of the sat phone to her forehead, closed her eyes, and exhaled.

King said, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘He has to kill the alert in real time.’

The concept didn’t require further explanation. Everyone in the car understood, even Alexis. King and Slater had a slightly better grasp on it, so they fell into concerned silence.

Alexis decided to think out loud. ‘So for that brief moment it appears, anyone can see.’

Violetta nodded slowly, which Alexis saw through the gap in the headrest.

Slater said, ‘They’re narrowing in on us. We don’t have another choice. We bunker down here and they’ll find us. They’re probably already combing Bloomington Heights for forensics.’

King said, ‘But they don’t have this car. Not yet.’

Violetta said, ‘You don’t know that.’

‘Either way,’ King said, ‘we get on a plane out of here, or we don’t.’

42

They parked at McCarran, knowing it would be the last they would ever see of the Kia Optima.

King hoped it would be found eventually and returned to its rightful owner. They’d taken care of it for the brief time it was in their possession.

Wordlessly, they followed the procedures they’d drilled for this very predicament. They separated right away, moving individually to different shuttle bus stops in the sprawling car park. Slater and Violetta boarded the first bus that came, sitting as far away from each other as was feasible. King and Alexis caught the next one. Inside McCarran’s international departure terminal, they kept separate with their heads down and their demeanours unsuspicious.

They met up again at the last second, just before stepping into the line for check-in.

Violetta hit SEND on a pre-written text message with the sat phone in her pocket.

It went to Alonzo.

“Get ready.”

43

The soft hum of intelligence analysts deep in concentration trickled down the corridor.

In his windowless office, Alonzo scrutinised one of the monitors on his desk with fists clenched.

There were dark sweat patches in the pits of his polo shirt. He kept his arms pinned to his side in case anyone important strolled past. These offices in a bland skyscraper in Manhattan were home to some of the most influential assets in the country. They were those who weren’t elected, who stayed put for as long as the job required them, who controlled the swaying opinions of the masses, and then were phased out when their time was up, retiring as anonymously as when they began their careers. They were more powerful than the highest tier of celebrities and politicians.

They were the surveillance world.

And if any of them caught wind of what he was doing — who he was aiding — there’d be hell to pay.

Everything was set up the way it should be. There was an incoming alert tracker displayed on his screen, currently blank, the white text box glowing brightly enough to make his eyes water. But he didn’t dare blink or look away, in case the notification that King and Slater had been identified at McCarran appeared in that exact moment his vision was dark. He recited the commands he needed to execute to wipe the alert from the feed, over and over again.

Any second now…

Nothing yet.

He reached blindly for his coffee mug, fumbling with it, bringing it to his lips and sipping the lukewarm brew. It was godawful, and he wasn’t sure why he was funnelling more stimulants into a nervous system already overrun with stress, but he did it anyway.