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

demonstration had to be made regardless.

Alexis eased the choke off fully, so her arm draped without pressure over Vásquez’s throat.

Immediately he jerked upright, his ego bruised by getting manhandled by a woman, trying to charge his way back to his feet. At the same time he let out another short, sharp shout. No words, only unintelligible noise. Within half a second Alexis reapplied the choke with full pressure, practically popping his eyes out of his head. He fell back against her and slapped feebly at her forearm, which rippled with muscle and sinew.

Violetta said, ‘Ease off again.’

She dropped the pressure, but not by much. He could breathe, but it took considerable effort.

This time, he didn’t try going anywhere.

Violetta lowered herself into the kneeling position, getting closer to his face. ‘You’re going to do something for us.’

He wheezed for every syllable, his face bright red, sweat popping from pores. ‘Get … off me.’

Alexis muttered, ‘No,’ in his ear.

Pulled the choke tighter for a couple of seconds.

Tears materialised from their ducts, despite his best attempt to save face.

He was more uncomfortable than he’d ever been. Already his throat was red and tender. Soon it would bruise and swell, if the life wasn’t choked out of him beforehand.

Violetta said, ‘Let’s try that again. You’re going to do something for us.’

Vásquez tried his hardest to maintain his integrity, despite the tears running from his eyes and the snot running from his nose. ‘I called for help.’

‘No you didn’t,’ Violetta said softly. ‘You shouted twice. We planned for that.’

He recalled what he’d told his guards before they’d gone into the bedroom.

‘Fuck,’ he wheezed.

‘Mm-hmm,’ Violetta said. ‘They’re not going to answer a sound from this room for at least an hour. How long do you usually last?’

‘Not that long.’

Violetta met Alexis’ smirk. ‘You hear that? He’s emasculating himself to try and get out of this.’

Vásquez got angry, which was good. Violetta needed all that anger squeezed out of him.

He sucked in a half-breath to try and shout again, but Alexis saw it coming, and choked the outcry dead in his throat before it left his lips.

When she eased off the pressure for a third time, he was battling to stay conscious.

Violetta made her voice hypnotic. ‘You’re going to do something for us.’

‘Anything,’ Vásquez whimpered.

Alexis said, ‘There we go.’

Violetta laid it out.

If they’d simply held a gun to his head, it wouldn’t have worked. They needed him clinging so desperately to air that he’d do anything, say anything, compromise any relationship, just to find that next breath.

So he didn’t even hesitate. ‘Sure.’

‘Where’s your emergency phone?’

He told her.

She went to his chest of drawers, extracted the sat phone from under the pile of clean boxer shorts, and walked it back across the room. He was still in the same position, Alexis’ forearm like a steel bat across his tenderised throat.

Violetta handed him the phone. ‘I have no doubt you’ll stress the urgency of the situation.’

Vásquez sucked in a ragged breath, then said, ‘Of c-course.’

Spit ran down each corner of his mouth.

Violetta said, ‘Tell me what you’ll say. Give me confidence. Or when my friend puts you to sleep you’ll never wake up again.’

The concept terrified him, as it terrifies anyone with an oversized ego. Death is something inconceivable, and Vásquez would sacrifice everything material to cling to life.

The old man said, ‘I’ll deliberately sabotage the infrastructure of this country, plunging it into economic disaster, unless the President demands immunity privileges for Will Slater and Alon…’

He trailed off, trying to remember all the details Violetta had fed him.

She said, ‘Alonzo Romero.’

‘Right. Alonzo Romero.’

‘Do it now.’

He had to do it now, because if he had any more time to soak in the ramifications of holding the President verbally hostage, he might reconsider.

But he got on the line and he said his spiel.

They waited impatiently for an answer.

Violetta tried not to throw up from the uncertainty.

92

Slater could see the walls closing in before his eyes.

He got the Mustang up to forty miles per hour on the sidewalk, racing in the opposite direction to the adjacent lane. Alonzo gripped the edge of his seat, a physical representation of the tension in the car. One of the operatives who’d tackled the junkie dealer managed to sort out his priorities, and he took a knee and brought the carbine’s stock to his shoulder as Slater and Alonzo roared past.

Slater said, ‘Down.’

Alonzo complied.

Rounds thwacked into the side panel, horrendously loud. Slater could only duck halfway down — he still had to see where he was going or he’d flatten a pedestrian. Already the sea of commuters were parting, some diving out into the stationary traffic to avoid the roaring Mustang.

The front windshield cracked in a spiderweb pattern, obscuring his vision, so startling and sudden he jerked back in his seat with recoil.

A sniper? he thought. Firing from ahead?

If so, they were boxed into a death trap, and it would get ugly fast.

Then his mind connected the wash of air against his right ear to the windshield cracking, and he realised one of the carbine rounds had blown out the rear passenger window, whipped between Slater and Alonzo, and exited the windshield from within.

A problem, but better than resistance ahead.

But it meant his vision went to shit.

He hunched forward, straining his eyes to try and see through the glass spiderweb. Pedestrians in close proximity were blurry shapes morphed grotesquely, and any second he’d hit one of them.

He hovered his foot over the brake, about to stop the car.

He’d rather put his own life in harm’s way than take an innocent civilian’s through reckless negligence.

But Alonzo figured out what was happening and pulled his knee up to his chin, freeing it from the footwell, then he kicked out hard.

The first time the sole of his boot slammed into the glass it didn’t do anything, but the second rocketed the compromised windshield out of its frame. The glass bounced down the hood and disappeared under the Mustang.

Wind whipped in, and Slater squinted to see—

A cluster of pedestrians.

Dead