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

invoke terror. But it didn’t. Slater didn’t so much as register a rise in his abnormally low heart rate.

That put Garcia on the back foot. He cleared his throat. ‘So you’re a ruthless operator. You also think you have morals, if you choose not to associate yourself with “scum” like me. What are you, then?’

‘You’re not going to get the answers you want.’

‘You used to work for your country?’

It was a decent guess, and maybe Slater’s eyes betrayed the truth, because Garcia smiled. ‘Yes, you did.’

Slater sealed his lips.

Garcia said, ‘So you think you are noble. You are an outcast, then, no? Like a cowboy. And now you are using me to get back into the country that threw you out. Do you know who I really am, boy? No, you must not. You must have convinced yourself I’m not so bad. So here you are…’

He paused, and hunched forward. Slater didn’t recoil, or look away. He stared hard into Garcia’s eyes.

The man said, ‘I supply meth and heroin to tens of thousands of junkies. Pregnant women, teenagers, you name it. I fuel their addictions with cheap product. Some of it is tainted, or too concentrated, and they OD. I don’t care. My cartel is responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths every year. We cleanse entire Salvadoran villages that don’t fall into line. Women. Children. They all go.’

Slater knew exactly what Garcia was doing, but it didn’t make it any less uncomfortable.

‘By taking advantage of our resources,’ Garcia said, ‘you are no better than we are. You should rid yourself of this silly idea that you’re morally superior.’

Slater said, ‘I know who I am.’

‘And what does that mean?’

Slater took a long look at him. The ageing man was practically frothing at the mouth for an answer.

Slater said, ‘You just don’t get it.’

‘What am I missing?’

‘The fact I don’t give a shit what you, or anyone on this plane, thinks about me. Go ahead. Try to convince me I’m scum of the earth.’

Quiet.

Slater said, ‘I know what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. Sometimes to get things done, compromises must be made.’

Garcia stared at him.

Slater cocked his head to the side. ‘Go on. Keep listing all your atrocities. I’m all ears.’

Whatever Garcia had been expecting, it wasn’t this.

The cartel head didn’t say a word as they touched down on U.S. soil.

The Cessna bumped and jolted, found traction, and coasted to the end of the relatively short runway. There was no terminal awaiting it, only a couple of unlit hangars looming, locked up for the night. Slater took one look at the signage and realised the airfield served as a skydiving dropzone.

Garcia appeared slightly defeated as he got to his feet.

You wouldn’t think he was making seven figures of illicit profit from the flight.

Slater understood. To a man like Garcia, money had lost its value. These days, adding a digit to his bank account meant far less than triumphing over a foe, even if the victory was mental rather than physical.

But in Will Slater, he’d hit a brick wall.

Garcia led Slater to the exit door, already opened by one of the sicarios, and they stared out into the balmy night.

Garcia said, ‘What else do you need from me?’

‘Guns,’ Slater said. ‘A ride. And two of your men.’

The lack of response was eerie.

Slater raised an eyebrow.

Garcia said, ‘No.’

‘No?’

‘That wasn’t the deal.’

Slater didn’t verbalise the consequences of a “no.” Instead he took his smartphone out of his pocket and cocked his arm back like he was about to throw a fastball.

Garcia said, ‘The fuck are you doing?’

With his other hand, Slater gestured to the dark void that was the unlit runway. ‘I throw this away, there’s no confirmation call. My allies publish everything. You lose it all. All the airfields, and all your ability to export along with it. Think about that.’

Garcia thought about it.

Slater didn’t get a response as fast as he wanted. He twitched, like he was making to follow through on the pitch.

Garcia called his bluff. ‘You throw that phone, you’re dead. You know that.’

‘So we’ve got a gun to each other’s heads,’ Slater said. ‘Who’ll yield first?’

No response.

Slater made the pitch.

Put his whole arm into it, which would have destroyed the phone beyond salvation when it finally came down on the tarmac dozens of feet from the plane.

Garcia shot his hand out and caught Slater’s forearm mid-swing.

Slater clutched the phone tight, saving it millimetres from release.

Garcia said, ‘What guns?’

Slater paused to disguise how hard his heart thrummed in his chest. ‘You must understand your men won’t make it back. For the two you choose, it’s the end of the road.’

Garcia said, ‘Fine.’

‘You can guarantee that?’

‘I will tell them if they don’t obey, their families will be killed back home. I know where they live. It’s how I guarantee loyalty.’

‘I’ll need one more thing once I’m in Manhattan. You have people there? Heroin mills, street dealers?’

A slow nod. ‘I know people.’

Slater told him exactly what he needed.

Garcia said, ‘I’ll make it happen.’

Slater nodded. ‘Then it’s done.’

Garcia offered a hand.

Slater put his phone away, and shook it.

78

Slater could cover the 110 miles from Eagleswood to Manhattan in eighty minutes if he floored it, but he obeyed the speed limit.

He didn’t want to make it this far only to be thwarted by a highway patrol.

The two sicarios sat in the back, unusually shaken. Garcia and the rest of his death squad had stayed behind in New Jersey to unload the heroin. The cartel head had selected two of his most devoted troops and informed them in hushed Spanish what was required of them. Slater wanted to feel empathy, but he physically couldn’t. Dozens of his past operations had revolved around cartels. He’d seen up close the sheer savagery they were capable of, and the memories of what he’d seen them do to innocent people who were merely in the way would never leave him. The pair in the back had to have slaughtered dozens, if not hundreds, of people just