Contracts, Matt Rogers [phonics reading books TXT] 📗

That’s what the American people needed, and they’d buy his speeches hook, line and sinker. Randwick already knew it. He’d foreseen it.

And above all, Parker had the experience and the connections.

He knew how everything operated behind the scenes.

In a position like the presidency, that was golden.

So Randwick had put it all into a contract, as he did best. He’d laid it all out in simple, clear terms.

Use your resources to take care of a slight problem I have in Nepal, take a personal risk to demonstrate your loyalty, and I will reward you with unlimited funding.

Parker signed on the dotted line.

The last he’d heard, it was all going swimmingly.

So he pulled into his driveway with a certain optimism he didn’t usually allow room for. Things were looking up. He killed the Bentley’s engine and slipped out from behind the wheel. Which wasn’t a regular occurrence, but he’d told his chauffeur to take the day off. There was a certain power you felt when you were in the driver’s seat, and he wanted to experience it on the day the Nepal problem was cleared. He’d invested considerable funds in the country’s infrastructure, and there was no room for an insurgency when big business was involved.

Not that he had any inkling of what that meant for the soldiers sent in to do his dirty work. He knew the theory, obviously, but his specialty was coordination. He was the ideas man. There was no use getting involved in the gritty details. He simply gave orders, and allowed them to be carried out.

And it had carried him to unparalleled heights.

He went inside and called his wife’s name. He was met with silence. She was probably at the gym, slaving her way through the daily pilates class. He didn’t really care. He was going to savour his alone time.

He put his laptop bag down in the marble hallway and went to the study. Fixed himself a generous serving of fifty-year-old Glenfiddich in a crystal tumbler, dropped into the armchair, and exhaled the stresses of the day. The oak walls gave off a subtle caramel odour, and he drank it in. Outside, it was getting dark. Twilight settled over Washington as the sky turned purple, then dark blue. There was little light in the mansion, so he reached across and flicked on the standing lamp.

There were two men in the corner of the room.

Randwick froze in his seat, the tumbler halfway to his lips.

But then the efficient part of his brain took over, crafting the best solution to the problem over the top of his skyrocketing pulse.

He said, ‘If it’s money you want, I can—’

‘No,’ one man said.

Randwick said, ‘What, then?’

They stepped out of the shadows and rounded the leather couch across the room. They sat down in unison, one of them cradling a sleek black handgun. One was Caucasian, and the other was African-American. They were both big and built like stone-cold killers. Randwick had been analysing people his whole life, and he immediately knew these men were more dangerous than any he’d ever met. Their muscle was not for show. They didn’t have the soft supple frames moulded from commercial fitness routines. Their bodies were hard and corded and their hands were thick and calloused. There were fresh cuts and bruises all over them, which would soon turn to scars. They were built to break people.

And their eyes were ice cold.

The larger man said, ‘How’s business, Jay?’

Randwick gulped.

89

Jason King had also spent most of his life analysing people.

He could see sheer panic rise up in Randwick’s eyes, and he knew it was a foreign sensation. This was a guy who previously thought he was tough, thought he worked harder and longer and more efficiently than anyone else, thought that gave him confidence. But now the mental walls he’d spent his whole life erecting were crashing down in the face of true adversity, and it was tearing him apart from the inside. He’d crafted a whole storyline for himself that had never faltered, never wavered, never been tested by actual difficulty.

It was easy to give orders.

It was hard to face their consequences.

King said, ‘Do you know who we are?’

‘No.’

‘You seem like a reasonably intelligent guy. Take a guess.’

Randwick put the whiskey down and bowed his head.

Thought hard.

In the interim, King reached over and picked up the crystal tumbler. He sniffed. Double-checked the bottle to make sure he was correct in his assumption. Then tipped the contents of the glass back and almost purred with satisfaction as it snaked its way down his throat.

Randwick watched him with suspicion.

Slater did too.

King shrugged. ‘It goes for thirty-six thousand a bottle.’

Slater raised his eyebrows. ‘Well, in that case…’

He reached over, snatched up the bottle, poured himself a generous serving, and tipped it back.

Went through the same reaction.

Randwick said, ‘I doubt you two are happy with me, so why don’t you get to the point?’

‘I asked you to guess who we are,’ King said.

‘I don’t know. Is this because of the Saudis?’

King paused. ‘No, it’s not. But it’s good to hear you’ve pissed them off, too.’

Randwick shrugged. ‘You don’t get a life like this without making a few enemies.’

‘Well, you made the wrong ones,’ King said.

‘What’d I do?’

‘You sent us in to clean up your issue in Nepal.’

‘Oh.’

Slater said, ‘We didn’t appreciate that.’

‘Look, if you honestly think I had malicious intent toward either of you, you’re mistaken. I don’t know who either of you are.’

‘We know,’ Slater said. ‘But now we know who you are.’

‘Are you honestly pissed that I sent you to kill a few savages? I assume you’re elite operatives, right? Isn’t that part of the job description?’

‘No,’ King said. ‘It isn’t.’

‘We were elite operatives,’ Slater said. ‘We retired.’

Randwick said, ‘And yet, here you are.’

‘The government asked us to rescue a fourteen-year-old girl. We take odd jobs every now and then, so we agreed.’

‘Yeah, well, she was in the hands of a bunch of rogue amateurs, so I’m sure—’

‘She’s dead.’

‘Oh.’

‘You got her killed with your little ploy