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

his upper lip was purple.

‘Who is he?’ Slater said. ‘What’d you do to him?’

‘I saw you crouched back there, before you made a break for it. I had him at gunpoint, but I knew he’d try to run if I left him alone. I had to make sure he stayed put. All it took was a forearm to the face. He got the message.’

‘Who is he?’ Slater repeated.

King went quiet.

Slater said, ‘What?’

‘He’s a Whelan,’ King said.

Slater froze.

Raised an eyebrow.

King nodded.

Slater said, ‘Oh, shit.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why’s he here?’

‘He was with Rico. I think they met by chance. Convenient that the two most soulless individuals in the city came together, but they did. When you got away with Rico, the sicarios went after you. Left poor Samuel all on his own. But he hasn’t been an easy prisoner. He realised his hopes were vanquished when I got a hold of him, so he lost it. He’s barely sane.’

Realisation dawned on Slater. ‘Hard to answer the phone when you’re wrestling with an uncooperative hostage.’

King nodded. ‘Listen — he can get us inside.’

Slater paused. ‘Wait…’

King nodded again. ‘Do you understand now?’

‘That’s why you said I wouldn’t believe if you told me.’

‘Yeah.’

Slater stood motionless, the gears whirring in his mind. He said, ‘I thought we crushed the Whelans.’

‘We did. You ruined their reputation by putting most of the family in the hospital with your bare hands, and then I killed Tommy Whelan half a year ago. Without the patriarch, what little power they were clinging to evaporated.’

‘But we followed it up,’ Slater said. ‘After we got back from Nepal, we made sure they were finished. They were scattered across the continental U.S. by then. Most of them fled from Manhattan. It’s embarrassing to lose like that. Especially because of who they were before we showed up. They were the largest crime family in New York. And we reduced them to nothing.’

‘We reduced them to something,’ King said. ‘Something weaker. But we didn’t put out the flame. A handful of them are back, and they fucking hate us with every fibre of their beings, and I’ve got a gut feeling they chose to do something about it.’

Slater doubled over and put his hands on his knees.

Breathed in and out, slow and controlled.

Trying to calm himself.

Then he stood up and said, ‘None of this makes sense.’

‘I know.’

‘What do they get out of this if we’re the ones they wanted to punish? They could have sent an army after us with a tenth of the planning that something like this would have taken. And you really think a few stragglers of the Whelan family — a family that runs drugs and carries out union rackets and executions — has the smarts to take control of the power grid? This is some techno-terrorist shit. This isn’t the Whelans.’

‘Supposedly, it is.’

Slater didn’t respond. They kept looming over Samuel, who by now was mostly awake and alert. Slater figured the kid was concussed — every nearby gunshot made him flinch like crazy. Or perhaps he was just wide-eyed and jumpy in general.

Outside the lip of the alley, the war continued. The NYPD exchanged potshots with the bank building’s occupants, and the gunfire adopted a staccato rhythm. King and Slater barely flinched. They’d spent most of their lives in situations like this.

Stress, and panic, and chaos … to them, it was home.

Slater said, ‘What’s he told you?’

‘Nothing substantial. I wasn’t kidding when I said he was barely sane.’

Slater bent down and seized Samuel by the back of the skull and pressed the barrel of his Glock into the kid’s forehead. ‘I know you understand what this is. Do you want to die here?’

Getting restless, King said through gritted teeth, ‘I’ve tried that.’

Samuel opened his mouth wide and laughed in Slater’s face. There was nothing in his eyes — no hope, no optimism. He was resigned to suffer and die, and he damn well wasn’t going to give up any secrets in the meantime. Slater’s stomach twisted as he realised he was faced with the worst kind of hostage.

The type that didn’t care what happened to them.

And, in this case, probably preferred death.

Slater said, ‘Give me everything he told you.’

King said, ‘He only tells me what he wants me to hear.’

‘But you said he can get us into the building? Why would he give that information up?’

King nodded.

Didn’t respond.

Slater looked up.

Realisation struck.

He said, ‘Because he wants to let us inside.’

‘Yeah.’

‘He wants us to see what they’re up to.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Which means it’s probably too late to stop anything.’

‘Yeah.’

Slater put his hands on his hips and stared into the void.

King said, ‘All we can do is try.’

56

King could see Slater grappling with the ramifications.

King had been thinking a whole lot as he wrestled Samuel through the Bowery, and nothing good had come from it. They had to try, because that was the only option, and because, deep down, they both knew all this had more to do with them than they would have liked.

Wordlessly, King hauled Samuel to his feet, and tossed Slater one of the duffels he’d been carrying. Slater extracted the MP7 submachine gun and readied the weapon for use, putting down his own carbine rifle in the process. A wise move. If they actually made it inside, the compact SMG would prove much more useful than the bulky carbine.

King watched Slater go through the motions, focusing on the task at hand. It put the man in a better headspace by forcing all other thoughts out of his mind.

King gripped his own MP7, the select-fire switched to full auto, and kept a tight grip on Samuel’s collar. He said, ‘Lead the way.’

Samuel waltzed forward, further into the alley. There was something close to a skip in his step.

He started to whistle under his breath.

King yanked him violently backward by the collar, choking the breath from his lungs, and then thrust him forward again.

Samuel spluttered and retched, but as soon as the discomfort subsided he went straight back to whistling.

King touched the MP7’s barrel to the