Outlaws by Matt Rogers (phonics books TXT) 📕

I care about Will.’

‘So what did your people find?’ King said. ‘With Donati?’

‘It’s early stages,’ she said. ‘But there’s something happening in California.’

‘What?’

‘We came across what we believe to be a live criminal operation. There were … how do I put this? There were discrepancies in some of the files we dug up in the wake of Donati’s death.’

‘I told you there would be.’

‘But as this unfolds…’

She trailed off.

He said, ‘Just tell it like it is.’

‘This is horrible timing.’

‘I know. But the timing’s never right, is it?’

She said, ‘We might need you.’

He massaged his temple with two fingers spaced wide.

She said, ‘There’s a unique opening. Alonzo found it. Before I tell you more … I need to know whether you’re in or not.’

‘What if Slater needs me?’

‘That’s the problem.’

‘How urgent is it?’

‘You don’t have to accept,’ she said. ‘But…’

But.

It said everything.

But this is still your job.

But innocent people are in danger.

But bad people will get away if we don’t act now.

The same old story.

This time, a little different.

But ultimately the same.

King said, ‘What are his chances?’

‘Slater’s?’

He nodded.

She tightened her mouth, but her eyes remained kind. The age-old “your guess is as good as mine” expression.

He tried to weigh it all up, analyse it logically, come up with the most optimal solution. Just as he’d done his whole life. It only took him a couple of seconds to realise it wouldn’t work here. There were too many variables. Too much pressure. He’d simply have to decide, and commit to his decision.

He looked at her.

He thought about Slater.

But Slater wasn’t standing here. The man had made his own choices. He’d put himself in a volatile situation. Violetta was still here, doing her job, persevering in the face of hardship. He respected both choices, for different reasons.

He said, ‘I’m in.’

‘Are you sure?’

He nodded. ‘Let me guess. It’s a one man job?’

She nodded back. ‘There’s only a window for one operative. You just came back from Moscow. Ordinarily, if these were normal circumstances, I’d ask Slater. So you two were even. But…’

But.

As always.

He said, ‘California, you said?’

She gave a barely perceptible nod.

He said, ‘So, if I get killed in California, it’s Slater’s fault?’

She didn’t answer.

Just stared at him.

Then said, ‘You know, maybe you’re not in the right state of mind for this gig.’

‘You got anyone else?’

‘Of course.’

‘You got anyone else like me or Slater?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘That I don’t have.’

‘There’s got to be dozens of SF boys with the same reaction speed as me,’ he said. ‘You’ve had over a decade to screen for it. I pioneered the division, but surely I’m a relic of the past.’

‘Not yet. There are younger men with the same reflexes as you. But they don’t have the experience. They don’t have the cool-headedness. You’ve been on hundreds of solo operations and you’re still alive. That’s the real unicorn.’

He said, ‘You honestly need me?’

She said, ‘Yes.’

He said, ‘Then it doesn’t matter what my state of mind is, does it?’

She said, ‘That’s the answer I wanted.’

‘I’m tired. I want to go to bed. Can we turn work mode off?’

‘Not yet. We need to wait.’

‘For what?’

Her silence answered the question.

He said, ‘How do you think he’s doing?’

After a long pause, she said, ‘I don’t know.’

35

The Navigator’s driver was the only occupant.

Slater got in diagonally behind him, sliding into the rear passenger seat. He sized the man up, which revealed nothing. The guy was almost deliberately ordinary — shapeless, flabby, and white, with thin sandy hair and a pair of faded spectacles resting on the bridge of his nose.

Slater said, ‘Are you my boss?’

Keeping both hands on the wheel, the driver looked over his shoulder. Behind the spectacles, his pale eyes were ice. ‘What?’

‘I was making a joke.’

‘Okay.’

The guy turned back to the road, put his blinker on, and carved the Navigator away from Slater’s tower.

It was late enough that they made good time. Good for Manhattan, at least. They took FDR Drive north until it became Harlem River Drive, and then crossed the Hudson River via George Washington Bridge. The late evening traffic receded, and then the driver wordlessly got on the Palisades Interstate Parkway. It ran parallel to the Hudson for eight miles and then weaved north-west, crossing the New Jersey/New York border. They were heading toward Bear Mountain. Slater had done the occasional hike up there.

Quiet country.

Backwoods.

His stomach twisted.

The view out the window of estates and industrial zones dissipated in density as they moved through Mt Ivy, and then the darkness became all-encompassing as they plunged into the woods of Bear Mountain State Park.

They hadn’t been on the road for any longer than an hour, but to Slater it had been an eternity. He ran a finger restlessly over the cool metal of the Glock, feeling it there in its holster. The driver hadn’t confiscated it, or even demanded to frisk him.

Which meant they didn’t care that he was armed.

They were either so far ahead that any resistance he attempted would prove futile, or they simply wanted to talk.

He had never been the optimistic type.

Dark tree trunks flashed by, framing the Navigator, threatening to swallow it whole.

Halfway through the state park, Slater said, ‘Just where the hell are we going?’

‘You can’t honestly expect me to tell you that.’

‘What if I put a gun to the back of your head and asked politely?’

The driver didn’t turn around, or even register the threat.

His dark silhouette remained fixed in place.

Quietly, he said, ‘Then they’ll know you did, and when we get there, they’ll bury you.’

Above the low hum of the motor and the whoosh of tree trunks flashing past, the silence was deafening.

Slater took his finger off the Glock.

Killing the temptation.

He sat a little straighter, and breathed a little deeper, and hoped like hell he’d live to see the sunrise.

They burst free from the woods and crossed back over the Hudson at Purple Heart Memorial Bridge. From there they drove up through Garrison, then Cold Spring, until finally they were racing further north with the dark, silent river on their left.