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

There was no way to tell the time by natural means; his room was windowless, and he wasn’t allowed into the main reception area where daylight spilled in through the big windows.

Alonzo was in the next room, which was practically a cupboard, and they were only permitted to converse with each other, not with the diplomats that bled through the corridors all around them on a daily basis. There was normalcy in the staff’s demeanours, but Slater knew it was a façade. Whenever he got too close to one of them, they shrank away like he was radioactive, poisonous to the touch.

It had perhaps been the tensest forty-eight hours of Slater’s life. Keeping his gun close, having to worry about an undercover U.S. operative slipping in one morning under the guise of a diplomat, wearing the uniform to infiltrate and exterminate him and Alonzo. When he’d first stepped foot inside two days prior, he’d memorised every face in the building. Then he’d asked the consul for a list of diplomats who had their shifts over the forthcoming days along with their matching passport photos, and he’d memorised those in turn.

Every time someone stepped foot in the back hallways of the consulate, Slater scanned their face and mentally matched them with a passport photo. If he didn’t recognise them when he saw them, he’d turn his gun on them in less than a second.

So far, it hadn’t happened.

Everyone was familiar.

He knew that outside, in the civilian world, there would also be the façade of normalcy. At surface level, there would be nothing out of the ordinary on East 36th Street. Residents of Manhattan and commuters who’d travelled in from the outer boroughs would go about their day, unaware that behind closed doors there were crack teams of black-ops killers watching their every move as they passed the sidewalk out the front of the consulate.

All of it was surrounded. Slater had no doubt about that.

The entire block.

Park Avenue to the west, Lexington to the east, East 36th to the north, and East 35th to the south.

Nothing would escape the secret world’s cordon.

Every CCTV camera would be commandeered, everything in the vicinity aimed at the front and back entrances of the consulate. There would be no walking out of their own free will. The second Slater or Alonzo stepped onto American soil, they’d be taken. The shadow world wouldn’t show a shred of mercy.

Nor would El Salvador.

Slater was under no illusion that the stranglehold on El Salvador’s President would last forever. It had already been two days since Vásquez ordered the harbouring and protection of the two strange Americans, and there were already whispered rumours that he was getting looser and looser with his terms. Slater knew exactly what was playing out behind closed doors, but no way of eavesdropping. Frantic calls would be placed over and over and over again by a wide variety of important U.S. government officials, and eventually the President of El Salvador’s hardline approach would crack.

Eventually he’d give up and say, ‘You know what? You can have them…’

Alonzo appeared in the doorway to Slater’s claustrophobic quarters. He hovered there, demanding attention.

Slater lifted his eyes off the laptop screen, his bulky frame hunched between the two walls, so close he could reach out and touch them both.

Alonzo tried to wisecrack. ‘Not much different to the prison they had me in.’

Slater rolled his eyes.

Alonzo cleared his throat, took a step back. Slater noticed how ragged the man looked — curly hair greasy with oil, forehead breaking out in acne, deep bags under his eyes — but had to think he wasn’t much easier on the eyes himself. His hair had even grown out a couple of millimetres. He hadn’t bothered to adhere to the regular routine of shaving his head each morning.

Alonzo asked, ‘You been sleeping?’

‘Only when I ask you to keep watch.’

‘That’s only been a few hours in total…’

‘Exactly.’

‘You need the rest.’

‘I need to stay alive.’

‘How much longer do we go on like this? When do we make a break for it?’

‘We don’t.’

‘Do you have word from King? From Violetta?’

‘Yes.’

‘What have they said?’

‘They’re working on something. A way to get us out of here.’

‘When?’

‘Hopefully soon,’ Slater said, ‘because Vásquez will give up today.’

‘You’ve got inside sources on that?’

‘No. I just know how long a weak man’s resolve lasts.’

‘Give up how?’

‘Lift the blackmail. Relinquish the threats. Let the President do what he wants.’

‘Which will be to grant the American authorities permission to storm in here and extract us by force.’

‘Precisely.’

Alonzo glanced over his shoulder. ‘The consul will be pleased with that.’

‘I don’t blame him. We’ve been nothing but trouble.’

Alonzo was frozen in the door frame, leaning against one side of it, a blank look on his face. Like his mind was racing too fast for his features to keep up and show emotion. Slater had seen that analytical look before. It happened when the tech wizard had an epiphany and went deep, connecting logical dots to see if it was possible.

Slater waited a long beat, then said, ‘What?’

Alonzo said, ‘You think the authorities will hit the consulate today? This morning, even?’

‘I don’t see them wasting time. As soon as El Salvador backs off, they’ll breach.’

‘Hypothetically,’ Alonzo said, ‘if I could get contradictory orders to the strike force, we’ll be able to slip out in the confusion. King won’t need to put himself in harm’s way.’

‘Contradictory orders?’

‘I still have access to the system. All of it. I didn’t sleep last night. I spent the whole time seeing if I could get in using the laptop the consul gave me.’

Slater felt his blood run cold. Everything about it was a bad idea. ‘You don’t think they’ll be watching every move you make if you go back in and try to mess around with the system? They imprisoned you for treason, Alonzo. You’re Public Enemy Number One. They’ll be waiting for you to try something.’

Alonzo shook his head. ‘They won’t.’

The man was adamant.

‘How can you be sure?’ Slater asked.

‘Because that’s the flaw in