Sharks, Matt Rogers [shoe dog free ebook TXT] 📗

out with. He knew he was a pawn in the larger game.

Again, he didn’t care.

A thought worked its way through the red haze. How’d ya end up here, ya fool?

He ignored it.

The driver said, ‘Five minutes out.’

LaQuan tried to take a deep breath but it caught in his throat.

The driver looked over. He was maybe forty, with grey hair and grey eyes and deep wrinkles. He’d seen some shit, that was for sure. He smiled like nothing was wrong. ‘Not used to this, are you?’

LaQuan said, ‘Nah.’

The driver handed over a pill bottle. ‘Take four.’

‘What’s dis?’

‘Dexies,’ the driver said. ‘Amphetamine. They’ll give you a hell of a kick. That leg of yours looks nasty. You need full range of motion.’

LaQuan took six.

When they went down he wondered if they’d give him a heart attack, then realised it was unlikely he’d make it out alive anyway. That’s what these good old boys were counting on. For him to charge in there like a man possessed, absorb most of the reactive gunfire, and then move in behind him to capitalise.

He should protest, get them to pull over, get out, carry on with his life.

What life?

It was probably placebo considering he’d swallowed the pills a minute ago, but his blood turned hot and sweat flowed freely.

The driver said, ‘Two minutes out.’

Mechanical clicks and snaps came from the back seat. The operators, diligently checking their weapons.

LaQuan didn’t check his weapon. He didn’t even want to fire it. He wanted his bare hands on that bitch’s skin.

‘Scratch that,’ the driver said, veering into a side street that led to the beach. ‘This is the street. I thought it was further up. Thirty seconds.’

They went by fast.

Tick-tick-tick-tick-done.

Go.

The driver stamped the brakes, pulled to the kerb, and nodded.

LaQuan burst out of the car with his veins throbbing and his teeth grinding.

He sprinted for the perimeter wall, and adrenaline helped him climb it with a simple run-up. He spilled over and ran all out for the bungalow in the middle of the grounds.

He made it to the front door and threw all his weight into it, maybe breaking his own arm or shoulder.

Too juiced to care.

It caved in, the lock snapping, his bones maybe snapping too.

Ruger in one hand, knife in the other, he caught the girls with their guards down.

They both had guns. Shiny fancy Glocks with cool suppressors.

Some good that would do them.

The blonde one was at the kitchen island, and she whipped round and fired a shot.

It went into LaQuan’s shoulder, smacking him right in the meatiest part.

He screamed in delight as he spotted the dark-haired one with the green eyes.

The one who’d killed Zidane.

He barrelled across the room, hot blood flowing down his arm, and tackled her down to the sofa.

Another shot hit him in the lower back.

Maybe in the spine.

He didn’t feel it.

He grabbed the dark-haired girl’s throat in a supercharged double-handed grip and started squeezing the life out of her.

53

King shot Vince in the thigh as he dove into the driver’s seat.

The loan shark jerked like he’d been electrocuted, which for all intents and purposes he had. He let out a little shriek as he slammed his door shut, but blood from his leg had already spilled down the lip of the door frame and coated the bitumen. It was a bad wound, likely severing an artery. He wouldn’t last long.

But he didn’t need to last long to get the hell out of there while his senses were still firing.

The Crown Vic’s tyres ballooned smoke as Vince gave the old engine everything it had. With no one in the jeep to distribute pressure in the other direction, the Crown Vic pushed the SUV out of the way and it spun a chaotic half-revolution.

King shot out the driver’s window, then the passenger’s, then sent three more rounds whizzing through the cabin.

Vince was below the line of sight. Only his hand was visible on the bottom of the steering wheel, jerking it back and forth.

King gave the utmost thanks for his genetic abnormality as he shot Vince through the middle of his hand.

Reaction speed is handy amidst chaos.

But the Crown Vic was no longer pinned to the wall, and it escaped out the side in a blaze of tyre smoke.

King wheeled to Slater, everything else falling away.

He didn’t know what he’d do if the worst had come true.

Slater was already up on his knees, clutching his upper arm with a blood-soaked palm. His eyes were hazy as pain rolled over him in sickening waves, but he had the wherewithal to shout, ‘Superficial! It’s my shoulder.’

That was all King needed to know.

He spun another hundred and eighty degrees to deal with the last sentry.

Who had his Ruger up, pointed at King’s head, but his whole body was shaking as he took a knee. His right leg was an unstable mess where King had put a bullet in it. The colour was almost gone from his face and panic compounded all of it. The guy had the jump on this seasoned operator, but he knew if he missed his first shot that’d be it. It was hyperintention, the same way you can only think about elephants when you’re told not to think about elephants. The pressure made him shake more and he fired and King saw it all in harrowing slow-motion.

The bullet missed him by two feet.

It went laughably wide.

King had dealt with his own combat shakes decades ago.

He didn’t waver an inch off-target when he returned with a shot of his own.

It nailed the sentry in the forehead and he joined his buddy in the grave.

Slater was already on his feet, stripping his own shirt off, revealing sweat-soaked musculature. Bare-chested, he wrapped the whole garment around his shoulder and pulled it so tight it made him grind his teeth together. But it meant he wouldn’t die from blood loss, and in live situations like this you need to take small victories. King could see Slater had no idea how bad the wound was.

Slater said,