The Export by J.K. Kelly (read along books txt) 📕

the phone very slowly from his jeans pocket. The info on his phone that gave the name and location of the target also contained the code to the keypad that Matt proceeded to punch in. Hearing the latch release, he slowly opened the door and entered the dark hallway.

“Uncle Thomas doesn’t have any dogs, does he?” Matt asked half-jokingly and continued down the hall and into the massive living room. Motion sensors set off the ceiling lights as Rogers followed him in, closed the door, and entered a code to relock the device. His uncle had thought of everything – if he didn’t want someone to leave, they didn’t. Both men walked farther into the space, and Matt headed straight to the window to admire the view. Rogers remained at a distance, gun trained on Matt the entire time.

“So, what’s the next move here?” Rogers asked.

Matt turned and smiled. He gestured toward the black leather sofa. “Mind if I take a seat?”

Rogers gestured with the gun, giving him permission. Sitting down across from his captive, Rogers took a deep breath, looked around the room, and smiled as he nodded his head.

“Here we are, sitting in my uncle’s hideaway.”

Matt smiled. He was confident, and his expression and body language showed it. “Now we wait, Billy. We wait until the man who ordered the hit to show up. I was simply directed to bring you here.”

Rogers looked confused, and Matt watched, assuming Rogers was running the scenarios through his head over and over.

“You still don’t get it, do you, Billy?” Matt asked. “You don’t know where you fucked up and brought your uncle into this, do you?” Rogers shook his head.

“MI5 found you because there was only one person in British intelligence, even at the low pay grade patronage job your mighty Uncle Thomas got you, who asked the question ‘Which CCTVs are inoperable in Central London’ five times. You typed in that question five times. And five times, underneath one of the locations that were identified, a woman’s throat was slashed.”

Rogers began to reconstruct the days in his head. He began to rerun the interrogations, and none of it added up.

“Let me give you the short version of it all,” Matt suggested. “MI5 found you because of the questions you posed regarding the CCTV but couldn’t pin you down because you always had an alibi. And there was never any physical evidence to tie you to any of the crimes. Your uncle never vouched for your whereabouts those five nights, but some of his connections did. Unfortunately, as time went by, and those connections were leaned on and scrutinized by MI5 and the London Police, the heat started to come from them back to him. He’s a big, powerful boy, alright, but having his nephew flagged as a murder suspect, a slasher of women’s throats no less – that has caused him problems. He now owes five huge favors. Some of the women in their lives are getting a bit worried for their own well-being. In summary, you’ve put him and many others, like Mick Jagger says, between a rock and a hard place.”

“So, he’s put a hit on me through the covert side of American intelligence?”

“Yes, he has, Billy. But there’s a way out of this mess.”

“Yeah, shoot you in the bloody face, and I’ve got my way out of here. I can’t believe you came here unarmed. How was it you were going to kill me then? Pour a soda in the kitchen and then stick a butcher knife in me?” Rogers looked to the front door, thinking he heard the keypad activate.

“No, I like my idea better,” Matt laughed. “You take out your uncle since he’s the one who ordered the hits on those five women. Confess to me and me alone that you killed them, and then I hand you a shiny new passport and a plane ticket to Tahiti.” Gesturing to his inside jacket pocket, Matt slowly reached in, pulled out an envelope, and tossed it to Rogers as he sat across from him. Rogers fingered through the packet and poured a Canadian passport, a plane ticket, and a stack of Canadian hundred-dollar bills out onto the coffee table in front of him.

“You always carry foreign money with you?” Rogers asked.

“Not usually. I do have accounts at banks around the world so cash, any type of cash, is never far away. That’s the money your uncle paid to have you killed. Ten grand.” Rogers seemed to consider his options for escape.

“Think of all those bikinis out there in the Pacific, Billy. Those legs of yours would do just fine in warmer climates.”

“The bloody passport, where the hell did this come from?”

“Charlie Chaste. He asked me to get involved to help you. His gut was screaming that your uncle was behind all of this madness, and he offered me this solution. Get him to confess, he said, and I’ll give him another identity and a way out of this.”

Billy pushed back. “His job is to put criminals behind bars or in front of a firing squad. He wouldn’t just let me run loose. There’s no way.”

“Politics, my friend. Politics. Apparently, he’s had a hard-on for your uncle for years. Once he was sure he was involved in these killings, he was like a dog with a bone. He wouldn’t let it go. He worked it and worked it, found the connections from the victims back to people your uncle influenced in some way. I tell you, Billy, he’s determined to get him. But you don’t have to get burned with him.”

Matt let the explanation soak in and, when he got no response, continued. “Charlie feels, and I agree, that ultra-powerful Thomas Sinclair took advantage of a tormented nephew suffering from a physical injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. He got you to eliminate or punish any threats to him or his band of buddies.”

Rogers looked crushed. His uncle had taken him in as a teenager and encouraged him