Ciphers, Matt Rogers [a court of thorns and roses ebook free TXT] 📗

up and help the man to his feet and offer to buy him a beer.

Again, this was real life.

This man had come here to put a bullet in Slater’s head and spit on his corpse.

So Slater dropped the same elbow four more times, where it smashed home over and over again in the same spot, as brutal and uncompromising as a steel piston. He gave thanks that it was dark. He felt the guy’s throat caving in. He didn’t need to see it.

He climbed off the body, panting, and went to fetch the Glock he’d discarded. No one had followed the three armoured mercenaries into the building. The lobby fell quiet, and the sidewalk outside stayed empty. He knew they’d come from the bank building, which meant there were probably many more reinforcements simply waiting for an opportunity to use their considerable arsenal.

He found the Glock, and the fresh fifteen-round magazine lying alongside it, and bent down to pick them up. He stretched his fingers out, and leant forward, and—

Pain seized him, so strong and sudden it made him audibly gasp.

He straightened up and clutched at his shoulder like he’d been shot. At first he thought it was the open wound above his collar bone, but the bleeding had stopped minutes ago. He moved his shoulder an inch, rolling it backward just a touch. The socket screamed in agony.

Dislocated, he realised.

Shit.

The extent of his troubles didn’t strike home immediately. It was only when he reached up with his left hand to try and poke and prod and shift it back into place that it hit him. Cold sweat beaded on his face, and the headache ballooned into a full-blown migraine, and even the slightest brush of his fingertips against the shoulder sent pain bolting through the limb. He couldn’t raise his right arm an inch.

And he couldn’t shoot well enough with his left.

Sure, he was respectable at it. An untrained observer might have considered him ambidextrous. But against trained hostiles, he’d fail.

Unnerved, thrown off, he bent down and fetched the Glock with his left hand.

His fingers shook as they clenched it.

Moving slow and tentatively, he chambered the fresh magazine. It took him nearly twenty seconds, and the pain made his vision waver. He kept his right arm pointed straight at the floor, pinned to his side. It was about all he could manage.

The full-strength elbows into the last mercenary had done the trick.

Slater realised that if he’d held back on the last couple of elbows he wouldn’t have dislocated his shoulder. And, to make his decision more frustrating, the last man would have still been alive to answer questions in an interrogation. With enough restraint, Slater might have discovered exactly who was behind this, and why.

Now, he had three dead bodies on his hands and a useless right arm.

He figured that was about as bad as it could get.

Wrong.

Movement, on the sidewalk, right outside. He locked his gaze onto the source, and blanched.

No way.

It was three of the sicarios from Palantir. Which spelled potential disaster, if they were here and King wasn’t. Sure, they were down two men, but they were otherwise untouched. Either they’d seen Slater fleeing with Rico and taken off in pursuit, or they’d overwhelmed King in the alcove and shot him to pieces, then moved on.

Slater’s heart skipped a beat.

But he had his own life to preserve, first and foremost.

The sicarios were racing for the revolving door, guns in hand. They must have seen Slater entering the building. He furrowed his brow. That didn’t add up — that meant they had surely witnessed the three hulking mercenaries following in stride, and he didn’t think they’d hurry into a war zone so willingly.

Unless…

There wasn’t much, if any, light outside. If they’d seen Slater run into the building, then they might already have been in pursuit as he was chasing Rico. So they might have seen the kid’s head explode, and figured he was the one behind it.

In which case, they were dead men walking anyway, as Rico’s father would slaughter them when they got back to Mexico for failing to fulfil their sole responsibility of protecting his son.

The cartels didn’t mess around with that sort of thing.

They’d be made an example of. Dead no matter what. But maybe if they turned over the body of Rico’s killer, they’d be spared a long and torturous demise. That way, the elder Guzmán would make it quick.

And there was nothing more unpredictable than dead men walking.

Slater saw them reach the entrance. They piled into the revolving door, guns up, ready to fire.

Slater had no choice.

The same survival mechanism kicked in, taking into account his mangled shoulder and pounding head and the lack of confidence in using his left hand to shoot with.

So he turned and sprinted for the stairwell.

Retreat.

45

He almost didn’t make it in time.

His shoulder screamed for relief with every step. Each footfall on the hard floor of the lobby sent agony spearing through him, making his vision waver and throwing his equilibrium off. He could barely keep his feet underneath him. His brain yelled, Stop moving! Stop fucking moving! But he couldn’t listen. He heard the sicarios piling into the lobby, far behind him. They shouted and hollered in Spanish as they spotted him across the space. No more than an outline in the dark, but that was enough.

A couple of them fired shots. The rounds went wide thanks to copious amounts of adrenaline shaking their hands, but Slater ducked and weaved all the same.

‘¡Pinche gringo!’ one of them shouted.

Slater raced into the stairwell and collapsed on the bottom stair, just out of sight. He tried to suppress a gasp, but couldn’t. It came out in a short rattling moan, discharging all the pain he was in. It was indescribable. Like needles behind his eyeballs, impeding his every move. He used every ounce of mental toughness he had to suppress it, and then steeled his grip on the Glock and fired five rounds out the stairwell entrance.