Messiahs by Matt Rogers (bookstand for reading txt) 📕

record of his cooperation in something as evil as this. From what you explained, it’s some sort of extremist cult. Gaia, Bodhi … that Maeve woman. What was her name?’

‘Maeve Riordan,’ King said. ‘That’s what the kid said.’

‘Jace,’ Slater said. ‘Let’s stop calling him “the kid.”’

He said it with a wavering pitch to his ordinarily atonic voice, like he was fighting for control.

King nodded. ‘Jace.’

Violetta said, ‘Whatever they’re doing in Wyoming, it’s working. You know what lies at the end of the road for violent cults. They either fizzle out, or they head toward an endgame event. Violent revolution in some way, shape, or form. We can’t sit back and wait for something to hit the news we knew we could have prevented.’

Slater had to be sure.

He said, ‘What you said earlier today…’

Violetta said, ‘I’ve had a change in perspective. My baby is one life. What this is … what it could be … it outweighs any concern I have for my personal safety and the future of my child.’

Slater said, ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

She didn’t hesitate.

Slater looked at King.

King maintained a calm facade, but underneath something burned. He wanted, more than anything else in the world, to find whoever was responsible for brainwashing Jace and rip them limb from limb.

Slater wasn’t about to get in his way.

He said, ‘Then let’s get packing.’

12

After a stopover in Florida, they landed back in Nevada less than twenty-four hours after reaching their agreement in Nassau.

King half-expected to see their estate reduced to rubble when he turned into their street in “The Ridges,” a private gated community in Summerlin, west of the Strip. He wasn’t sure why — maybe it was inconceivable that life had gone on peacefully, with normality, while they’d been away. So much had happened in The Bahamas, such utter madness spanning nearly the entire archipelago, that it wasn’t conceivable for things to be quiet and uneventful back home.

But the house still stood, untouched and unblemished, with its beautiful exterior facade and the water feature that usually flowed from the second-floor landing to a pool at the top of the circular driveway. Now it lay dormant, switched off in anticipation of a long stay in The Bahamas.

King closed the gate via remote control as soon as they were within the grounds, and had to wonder whether he was paranoid. Alastair Icke, Gloria Kerr, Keith Ray … they were all gone. There was more to organised crime than just those individuals, but a certain vile subsection of the underground network had been reduced to ashes. No one had traced it back to them, and after a quick scan of local news Violetta revealed that their war against corrupt cops and judges never came to light.

Powerful people in the know had swept the grittier details under the table.

There were certain matters the public didn’t need to know about.

Now they piled out of the car and went inside to see whether anyone had forced entry while they were gone. Before they’d left for Nassau, they’d placed stray hairs in surreptitious locations throughout the house, most importantly on the doorknob to the room that served as Violetta’s intelligence centre. Every hair was still in place, exactly where they’d left them. Given their history, they had to be so cautious it bordered on paranoid. Their enemies were in the highest tiers of black operations, and the only thing that separated them from discovery was Alonzo. They trusted him, but he could be compromised at any moment, so they had to employ due diligence.

Satisfied the compound was secure, Violetta said, ‘I’ll get to work pulling up anything I can find on Mother Libertas. You two have work to do.’

King looked at Slater. ‘A trip to the doctor’s?’

Slater said, ‘You read my mind.’

He dropped his suitcase on the sofa and fished inside a small sealed pocket for the two vials of Bodhi, which they’d already scrubbed clean of their saliva. He and King had tucked a vial each into their gums for the short trips through airport security on each leg of their journey back to Nevada. With body scanners unable to see through human skin — only clothing — all it came down to was their ability to act like everything was normal.

The number one giveaway of drug smugglers is nervousness, irritability, odd behaviour.

After the lives King and Slater had led, the pressure of a TSA screening was minimal, if nonexistent. They’d been their charming, charismatic selves, joking and smiling with the agents without so much as the slightest slur to their speech, and no one had given them a second look.

Now Slater said, ‘I’ll ring Pressfield, let him know we’re coming.’

Violetta said, ‘You sure he’ll be okay with this?’

‘You know what he’s already doing for us, right?’

‘I’m sure he has limits, no matter how nonsensical they might seem. Be careful not to overstep your boundaries. He’s okay supplying you two. He might not like it happening the other way round. He might not want you bringing drugs to him.’

King said, ‘You don’t understand.’

She looked at him. ‘What?’

‘He’ll do whatever we ask him to.’

‘And why’s that?’

‘Because his reputation’s on the line. The first time we approached him with our requests for performance enhancers, it was bribery. As soon as he accepted our offer, it became blackmail. Because if he refuses, we threaten to bring him down with us. He’s carved out a nice life for himself. He’s making a good living for his family. There’s no way he’s going to jeopardise that.’

‘Is that fair?’ Alexis said. ‘I mean, ethically.’

Slater said, ‘Come on. You should know by now you can’t get anywhere in our world without compromising.’

He saw her eyes, watched her flashing back through her recent kills.

A mercenary in the upstairs bedroom of this very estate.

An enforcer on Grand Bahama who’d stormed their villa.

And finally a Bahamian labourer named Zidane. She’d killed him accidentally, punting him in the jaw with the toe of her boot after he’d tried to rape her. In suitably unpredictable fashion that was