Contracts, Matt Rogers [phonics reading books TXT] 📗

too much to handle at once. He looked over at Perry, who was clutching the laptop tight.

‘Keep that thing close,’ King said.

Perry nodded.

King slipped the P320 under his jacket, but kept a tight grip on it. He checked to make sure Slater had done the same, then pushed the door open and stepped out into Lukla.

74

The first thing Slater noticed was how much warmer it was.

They’d covered over twenty miles since departing Gokyo, and the altitude had plummeted the whole way. Now they were comfortably below three thousand metres, and he could immediately taste it in the air. His body cracked and groaned and protested as he swung himself out of the cabin, but each inhale drew glorious oxygen into his system. He touched down in the dirt on shaky legs and ducked low to avoid the rotors screaming above his head.

One of the workers saw him struggling to stand and reached over with outstretched hands.

Slater darted away from them, almost bouncing off the side of the chopper in his haste to protect himself.

When he realised the guy just wanted to help, he held up his hands in apology and set off hobbling for the edge of the field.

King came over and grabbed him by the arm. ‘You okay?’

‘Yeah, actually,’ Slater said. He could feel the vigour returning, ounce by ounce. ‘I just… need time.’

‘How much time?’

‘Shouldn’t be long, right? Just need to… get oxygen in.’

They made it a dozen paces from the chopper before they pulled to a halt. Together they turned and saw Perry skirting around from the other side. The bodyguard flashed a thumbs-up through the windshield and Drew returned the favour from the cockpit.

Slater raised an arm in farewell, and King did the same.

Drew nodded to them all, worked the controls, and the helicopter lifted off and rocketed back toward Gokyo.

Gone.

Just like that.

‘Let’s get you somewhere safer,’ King said, still holding up most of Slater’s weight. ‘That reminds me — I need to change the bandages on your arm.’

Slater tried to mumble something in return, but he saw stars. He froze on the spot and waited for his vision to return and the light-headedness to dissipate. He knew what it was. His body, now flooding with oxygen, was struggling to process the development. It had just been acclimatising to Gokyo’s altitude, and now it was back in favourable conditions.

King said, ‘What’s wrong?’

When his vision returned, Slater felt half-human.

‘Nothing, actually,’ he said, suppressing a smile. ‘I feel brand new.’

He flexed his hands and feet and breathed audible relief. It was the first time since they’d stumbled into Gokyo that he’d felt a marked improvement in his condition. He was nowhere close to a hundred percent, but he might as well have been.

He might as well have been flooded with superhuman strength.

Because Will Slater at fifty percent was still a force to be reckoned with.

And now he could move without worrying his body would snap.

He ushered Perry over and said, ‘Let’s get a room somewhere while we figure out what to do next.’

Perry regarded him warily. ‘You seem more energetic.’

‘It’s the air.’

‘You had altitude sickness?’

‘Of sorts.’

Perry paused for thought and said, ‘Let’s get to the nearest teahouse, then, and stop standing around in this field.’

King said, ‘Can you walk?’

Slater nodded. ‘Take the lead.’

King and Perry made a beeline for the corner of the heli field, where a short flight of chipped concrete steps led up to one of Lukla’s cobblestone streets. From there it spiralled into the town, weaving through teahouses and general stores all made of the same faded wood. Slater followed in their stride, letting his body warm up before committing to anything drastic. He shook out his legs with each step, each aching muscle relaxing as he kept inhaling deeply and fully. He figured it was vital to pump as much oxygen through his system as possible for the foreseeable future.

But it made him slow, and it allowed King and Perry to gain a considerable lead, so Slater saw everything that happened as if watching it through a wide-lens camera.

He was still shaking out his muscles when he noticed one of the workers staring at the laptop under Perry’s arm.

The guy had the same high-vis vest and hard hat, but his complexion was more cracked and weathered than his colleagues. At first glance it seemed he’d had the hardest life of them all, which you wouldn’t chalk up to anything suspicious unless you knew he’d come down from the mountains.

But which mountains?

Slater put two and two together and broke into a sprint in unison with the worker.

It was going to be close.

His body wasn’t ready for it. He stumbled and faltered a couple of times as his oxygen-deprived muscles pined and pleaded for him to wait, to let him recover first before trying anything drastic and—

‘Perry!’ he yelled, realising he wasn’t going to make it.

The bodyguard spun around and lunged away, but the worker was right there in his face. The guy didn’t bother to throw a strike. He knew he’d probably lose a fight with Perry, and with King right there it was a guarantee. But he was small and fast and strong, so he reached out and snatched the laptop and wrenched it out of Perry’s grip before anyone could react.

Then he doubled his pace and ran away like a pro sprinter.

Slater understood the ramifications of shooting an unarmed man dead in front of a dozen potential witnesses, so he didn’t draw his gun yet.

But he timed the trajectory to perfection.

He picked his interception point, aimed for it, waited for the right timing, and ran flat-out.

Then lunged.

He wrapped his arms around the worker’s mid-section and used his own weight and momentum to crash-tackle the guy into the side of a holding shed. They hit the thin aluminium with a noise akin to a bomb going off, and both of them sprawled into the dirt. Slater rolled over and smacked the worker with an open palm directly in the nose, either breaking it