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

idea of human decency. I’m not letting a man like that suffer and die. It’s just not happening.’

He didn’t care what King and Violetta thought of his stance. The only reason he was vocalising his case was to convince the love of his life.

He lifted his eyes to Alexis, and saw there was no resistance in hers.

She said, ‘Of course.’

He smiled.

Violetta said, ‘I hate being the bitch, but someone needs to point out the obvious. You smuggle yourself back stateside, you directly attack a government black site — probably getting yourself killed in the process — and on the off chance that works, you and Alonzo become the most wanted men in the country with no way to get yourself back here. It’s literal suicide. I’m all for heroism, but there’s selflessness and then there’s getting yourself killed for nothing but nobility. Which doesn’t help Alonzo in the slightest.’

Slater held up the last sheet in Antônia’s intel folder. ‘There’s a way for all of this to work. All we need is the resources.’

‘How?’

‘She had a backup plan. In case seducing Torres didn’t work. Here are clear, explicit instructions on how to get into his estate. Past the holes in his security perimeter, through the blind spots, straight to his bedroom.’

Silence.

Slater felt the buoyancy of excitement pulling him out of the energy slump. ‘This is going to work, because you three are going to get Fabio Torres. Then we’ll have a whole goddamn country behind us.’

Violetta thought it through.

A devilish smile played at her lips.

There was a chance, no matter how small.

Then her brow furrowed.

‘Antônia will know what information she left behind when she fled. She’ll tell Opal and Topaz. There’s still three hunters out there who’ll be able to predict exactly what we’re going to do.’

King said, ‘As soon as these painkillers wear off … I’ll get every last one of them. Even if I have to do it with one arm.’

Slater said, ‘So let’s go.’

76

The airfield was in a lawless dead zone west of Santa Ana, close to the Guatemalan border.

Deep in the jungle, where survival of the fittest reigned supreme.

There were many of those zones in El Salvador, but even the common criminals and gangsters knew there were particular regions you didn’t traipse into if you remotely enjoyed being alive.

It was nothing impressive, but it didn’t need to be. An uneven runway overrun with weeds, surrounded by choking tree lines on all sides, and a couple of industrial-sized warehouses on either side to temporarily store product. Sicarios for Cártel de Texis patrolled the perimeter, keeping a keen eye out for antagonists, but they were sloppy. They believed in the might of their network, pumped up by the false confidence of the automatic weapons in their hands. They thought that made them invincible.

Slater made it past the outer perimeter guards without so much as a hackle raised.

He could have killed them all, but conserving energy was more important than exacting wrath on these thugs, and it would serve him well to make it to his destination without racking up a body count.

He would be in a better position to negotiate if he didn’t enrage them from the get-go by leaving bodies in his wake.

He came up on the airfield like a ghost in the cloudy early afternoon, and surveyed the men on the tarmac from a distance.

There were eight of them, all heavy-hitters. Decked out in combat gear, wielding carbines and automatic rifles. There were HKs and Kalashnikovs and even a couple of M4s. Serious stuff, but they didn’t look so serious to Slater. They looked mean and scary, but that didn’t mean a thing at the highest levels. It was important for intimidating petty gangsters who didn’t know any better, but Slater knew Cártel de Texis had operated ruthlessly in Santa Ana and Chalatenango for at least two decades, and with a lack of competition comes a lack of urgency.

Top dogs often get complacent.

They were rusty for the simple reason that no one had challenged them lately.

A Cessna 525 CitationJet sat on the runway and workers streamed towards it, their hands loaded with heavy duffel bags. Slater was under no illusions as to what was in them. They were packing the plane with drugs.

He soaked it all in, made a decision, and executed.

He stepped out of the foliage and strode straight for the enforcers.

He made sure they could see that his hands were empty, his demeanour calm. There was nothing more off-putting than total confidence in the face of a threat, so they didn’t bull rush him and shove him to the ground as they would to anyone else who walked toward them in the middle of a confidential meet.

Slater identified the leader of the pack based on body language alone and stared at him as he walked across the deserted airfield.

He came within twenty feet of them and stopped.

The leader seemed like an ordinary Salvadoran guy, which was the point. The rest of the enforcers were psychotic killers, but the top dog went to the business meetings and the charity functions to cosy up to the socialites and the politicians.

But there was still venom in those charismatic eyes.

The guy took a long look at Slater, then motioned to one of his henchmen, who didn’t have to be so restrained.

The psycho’s eyes went wide as he levelled his HK rifle at Slater’s head. High class modern weaponry. Top shelf. Cártel de Texis spared no expense.

The leader said, ‘Make sure you have a good answer for this. Who are you?’

Slater didn’t skip a beat. ‘If I don’t send the right code to my people within the hour, certain information will be made public regarding the location of every airfield you use to smuggle drugs out of El Salvador and into the United States. That includes the deals you have with law enforcement on my side of the border. I know everything.’

The guy’s eyes went wide, but not from fear. There was a certain visceral excitement in his expression.