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

the way their world works,’ Alonzo said, his eyes aflame with passionate intensity. ‘Don’t you see it? There’s the shadow people at the very top. The grand architects, so to speak. They shape the country. But they need workers like me to implement their sweeping ideas, which is what I was very good at doing. They know how to use the system. They know nothing about how it was designed. There’s back doors I created that no replacement is going to find. I’m sure they have their best people scouring for it, but they’ll never find it. No one is me.’

‘You think that highly of yourself?’

‘You have to in our game. I’m sure you do, too. Even if you don’t say it.’

Slater didn’t respond, which was a response in itself.

Then he said, ‘Are you telling me you can order the troops to stand down the moment they go to breach the doors?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then get ready to do that.’

‘I already have. I wasn’t asking for your permission. I was trying to make you understand why I did what I did. When they go to take us, I’ll stifle them with orders that look like they’ve come from the very top.’

Slater shook his head slowly in disbelief. ‘You tech guys are something else.’

Alonzo nodded slyly in return. ‘Tell King to hold off. He might not be needed.’

Slater said nothing as Alonzo retreated back to his quarters.

105

Maybe this will be the one.

That’s what Deckard Cross thought, sitting in the grimy darkness of the cheap Brooklyn motel room, his features obscured by the drawn curtains. Only thin slivers of light leaked into the sad space. His face was all that was illuminated, drenched in the harsh glare of a laptop screen. He hunched over it, tapping the “Enter” key at regularly spaced intervals, each command sending a virtual online slot machine spinning on-screen.

Each hit gave him the chance to win a jackpot, but usually just sucked another portion of his savings out of his bank account.

Savings. The word carried grim nostalgia. I used to have something to show for myself.

They were considerable back in the day. He did elite-calibre work, after all. Now they were dwindling, and not because of an absence of jobs. There were always jobs for someone with his skillset — the government was a twisted, corrupt demon of an entity, and people who knew the truth always needed disappearing. That work would never dry up.

What would dry up, however, was any hopes he had for a future if he continued on this course.

He stabbed the “Enter” key and lost another two grand.

Just like that.

In the dopamine-fuelled hangover he had a rare moment of lucidity. He reflected on his life for once. He guessed this depressing spiral had started with the rejection handed down to him by a man who went by the moniker “Onyx.” You see, Deckard Cross had never been rejected from anything in life, probably thanks to genetic blessings that made him the furthest outlier in physical advantages. He was strong and lean, he had the ability to endure, his mind was sharp, and above all he was fast. They liked that in the secret world — his reaction speed trumped practically anyone else’s on the planet, and in a situation where saving a hostage came down to a millisecond of decision-making, that was important.

So he’d ascended, and excelled, and been promoted, and been paid gross sums … without much real effort.

What destroyed his fellow brothers-in-arms in training was nothing to Cross. He could run forever, he could out-bench colleagues who outweighed him by fifty pounds, and his focus never seemed to waver. His reserves never depleted, and most of the instructors throughout his life had given up on trying to punish him for insubordination with physical tasks. They simply didn’t work on Deckard.

So he’d never met real resistance, and now he saw that for what it was.

A curse, not a blessing.

A couple of months ago Onyx screened him for the elusive “hunter” force, a prestigious and feared wing of the black-ops world that struck awe into anyone who’d ever heard a whisper about it. Before he went for the audition, Cross already knew he had the gig. He knew that’s when the real party would start. He’d always liked the drink, the drugs, the girls. As the best Tier One operator in the United States, that would only be amplified.

Then it wasn’t.

Cross failed every psychological test and Onyx gave him the boot the very next day.

And now, he thought, here I am.

He stifled the self-hatred with every dopamine hit he could find, which wasn’t a problem in the modern world. Everywhere you turned there was a quick fix, but nothing hit the spot quite like online gambling. Sitting in front of this shitty laptop in this shitty motel, he could win or lose millions, and no one was the wiser.

Mostly lose.

He tapped “Enter,” four more times.

Cha-ching.

Nothing.

Another eight grand gone.

He slammed the screen shut and sculled the last of his Monster Energy can, hoping the caffeine would kick in soon. Then he shoved two pieces of extra-strength nicotine gum into his mouth and chewed hard, rolling his neck until he heard cracks on both sides.

When he sighed, it came out loud.

He knew he was unravelling.

Thank God his genetic gifts still counted for something.

It meant there was still work…

His phone chimed a familiar tone. The unique notification sound had been paired with only one number, and whenever he heard it he knew it was time to go. He checked the message, nodded slowly to himself, and lurched up off the armchair. He snatched his jacket off the seatback and the loaded assault rifle from its position propped against the wardrobe doors.

Manhattan. The consulate. Guatemala? El Salvador?

One of those in the Northern Triangle.

He’d visited all of them. Not pleasant places. He wondered if that was due to his line of work…

Anyway, a couple of idiot traitors needed putting down.

He’d do that.

It’d buy him another night of gambling. Or, even better,