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

away from Manhattan as humanly possible, to create as much deniability as he could.

Because even a sociopathic ex-SAS mercenary could see the sheer pointlessness of all this after he was paid for his work.

Walker emptied half the Glock’s magazine at Gavin Whelan.

But Gavin wasn’t there anymore.

Slater shoved him with both hands, pushing so hard against his shoulder that the kid went toppling into an empty office cubicle head over heels. Then Slater lunged backward, throwing himself off his feet, switching direction, hitting the floor hard enough to exacerbate his concussion. With a spinning head he rolled to one knee, now firmly behind a cubicle divider, out of the line of fire.

He caught a glimpse of King unloading the contents of his MP7 in Walker’s direction, and leapt to his feet to add to the barrage.

Walker wasn’t there.

King said, ‘He went left.’

Slater turned and bolted.

He ran the length of the entire floor at a crouch, staying below the partitions. When he reached one set of windows overlooking the intersection, he veered right and raced toward Walker’s last known position. The wall with the elevator at its centre lay dead ahead, and he made it there in seconds, favouring speed and shock over a slow, tactical game plan. He pulled up a half dozen feet from the edge of the aisle, just before they gave way to an open perimeter corridor, and swept the space ahead with his MP7.

Slowly, step by step, he crept toward the edge.

A flash of movement.

Someone rounding the corner.

A shin, flying at his temple.

It came out of the dark with such speed that he only managed a half-second depress of the trigger. The MP7 roared, but Walker had planned accordingly, and kept most of his centre mass exposed. Slater went for the easy target before remembering the bulletproof vest, and Walker’s Kevlar absorbed all three shots before the head kick finished its trajectory and slammed home.

It caught Slater above the ear.

In the sweet spot.

His world went dark to match the city.

68

He’d been knocked out before.

Too many times to count.

Slater dreaded what old age might be like, if he made it that far. The long term effects of chronic traumatic encephalopathy — CTE, for short — were widely known. His brain would probably be mush before he turned sixty. But he wouldn’t know for sure unless he made it to sixty, which, right now, seemed implausible.

Because when he resurfaced from the shadow realm, Walker had one arm looped around his throat, and Slater’s own MP7 pressed to his head.

Walker grunted, ‘I think you broke a rib with those shots. Very good.’

Slater didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He was conscious, but not alert. The same depersonalisation effects of the concussion were back in full force, now even worse. Nothing seemed real. His surroundings were distant, hazy, unfocused. He cursed his ineptitude, cursed the fact that he’d allowed himself to get hit so much. At the same time, he should be dead. He’d survived so far. He could survive a little longer.

‘What are you doing?’ he mumbled through bloody teeth.

They were in the same position, at the north-west corner of the floor, crouched behind a divider.

Walker whispered, ‘You mean — why haven’t I killed you?’

Slater nodded.

‘If you raise your voice, I will. But your friend over there is rather talented. I need you as bait.’

‘He won’t bite.’

‘Yes, he will,’ Walker said. ‘You two have been working together for too long, lad. There’s personal attachment there, whether you want to admit it or not. It was going to get you killed eventually. I cut all that off early in my SAS days.’

‘Maybe that’s why you turned out the way you did.’

Walker stewed over that, and then went quiet. Slater could feel his icy anger brimming just below the surface, barely controlled, so close to rage.

And then Slater understood.

‘That’s it, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I’ve met your kind before. You give sanctimonious speeches about the purity of working for the highest bidder, but really you’re just a lonely, isolated, pathetic little man who couldn’t make friends in the military. Didn’t take long when you went out on your own to spiral into what you are now.’

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Walker said.

‘Struck a nerve there?’

‘I told you to shut the—’

Footsteps, close by.

Approaching fast.

Walker jerked up, realising his mistake too late. He was impeccably trained to cover all contingencies, but even the best training in the world doesn’t factor human emotion into account. He was a lonely man, cut off from personal connection for years, and Slater had exposed that weakness. Of course, any competent SF training teaches you to compartmentalise, to go into a state like ice during times of warfare so that nothing affects you. But all it takes is the right pressure point to crack through that outer shell. Walker hadn’t turned irate, hadn’t changed his physical state one bit. But he’d lost his situational awareness, and that was all that mattered in this business.

He pulled Slater to his feet, but the MP7 shook loose, away from Slater’s skull, the barrel slipping off his skin.

Walker went to bring it back so he could secure his hostage but Slater shouted, ‘Clear!’ into the dark surroundings.

Jason King needed no further encouragement.

Muzzle flare erupted and a bullet passed by Slater’s right ear and Walker jolted in shock and fell away from him, his burly forearm sliding off Slater’s neck.

Slater spun, nearly tripped and stumbled, but kept his footing.

Walker had been hit in the collar.

Slater lunged out and found the MP7 with the toe of his boot — it was the best he could manage with his head swimming. If he bent down to pick it up and aim it, he’d waste valuable seconds, and with his equilibrium disrupted he’d probably fumble it anyway. So he eliminated any chances of Walker getting his hands on it by punting it like a pro kicker, just as he’d done to Gavin’s AK47. Then he raised the same foot high in the air and brought it down at Walker’s