Outlaws by Matt Rogers (phonics books TXT) 📕

Slater repeated, ‘I’ll try.’

King could see the man holding back. Neither of them felt the need to dive into lengthy speeches reminiscing on their shared adventures. They both knew what they’d been through with each other. Repeating it was useless.

Slater nodded.

King nodded back.

He watched his closest friend, his brother-in-arms, his comrade, walk out of his life forever.

40

Slater stepped outside.

Violetta was standing by the elevators with her back to the wall. Waiting for him. She eyed him off down the corridor and said, ‘Are you going to California?’

He shook his head.

She said, ‘So you’ll stay here. King will go.’

A nod.

She said, ‘You’ll run.’

He looked at her.

Thought about lying.

But she’d know better. So he didn’t lie, but he didn’t tell the truth either. He simply let his stare turn icy, and he didn’t blink, and he hoped she understood.

She did.

She said, ‘I won’t report this.’

He’d been about to walk back to his own apartment, but he froze.

He said, ‘Don’t lie to me.’

She said, ‘I’m not.’

‘They’ll kill you if they find out you knew in advance.’

‘They won’t find out. Here’s what you need to know. There’s an off-the-books tier-one crew watching Alexis. There’s a separate, equally talented crew watching this building. If you can slip past both groups, you’ll be away, and you’ll be a step ahead, but that’s a tall task. These are legit special mission units who aren’t publicly disclosed. And if you get out from underneath them, they’ll never stop hunting you.’

‘Special operators whisked out of the usual elite units?’ Slater said, seeking confirmation. ‘Delta, DEVGRU, 24 STS?’

Violetta nodded. ‘Serious players. They’re special sanction tactical teams.’

‘Tell me where the crew watching this building is set up,’ he said. ‘That’s all I need.’

She said, ‘I can’t do that. I’d be contributing to their deaths.’

‘You have my word I won’t kill any of them.’

‘You’ll have to. If that’s what it comes to.’

Slater shook his head. ‘They might have been assigned to keep tabs on me and neutralise me if necessary, but that doesn’t make them bad men. They could have been told anything about me. They don’t deserve to die.’

Violetta stared at him from down the hall. ‘But if you’re both aiming at each other, and it’s you or them…’

Slater said, ‘I won’t kill them. If I say it, I mean it.’

She bit her lower lip.

Indecision seared her from the inside. He could see it weighing her down, drenching her in misery.

Finally, she said, ‘They’re in the building. Seventh floor. Room 732.’

‘How are they watching it at street level?’

‘Cameras, obviously. Human sentries are a thing of the past.’

‘Are they expecting me?’

‘Hell no.’

‘Is the room fortified?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many?’

‘I’m not sure. I think there’s five of them.’

‘They’re all inside?’

‘I have no idea. Don’t move now. They could very well be scattered all over the place. When King leaves tomorrow morning, then you do it. Because they’ll be expecting you to make a run for it, so they’ll be bunkered down watching every camera. That’s when you’ll catch them.’

Slater said, ‘If the upper echelon finds out you told me this…’

‘I can’t get any more dead, can I?’

‘Why are you doing this for me?’

She said, ‘Because you deserve a life.’

Then she turned and thumbed the elevator panel. Instantly, the nearest doors whispered open, and she stepped in. She didn’t turn back to look at him. She let the doors close on her hunched frame, whisking her out of sight.

She’d just put her life on the line for him.

Slightly unstable, he went to his door and unlocked it. An observer wouldn’t be able to tell, but he felt the slightest hint of a tremor in his fingers.

Tomorrow, it’d all blow up.

The stage was set.

There was nothing left to do but execute.

41

King’s alarm sounded at five a.m.

The plane to California, for which he had a one-way ticket, was due for takeoff at nine.

One way, because there was no knowing the extent of the job until he was in the thick of it.

He clambered out of bed with the knowledge that Violetta and her entire team had pulled an all-nighter. They’d told him as much the previous evening, working until the early hours of the morning to get all the documentation and a bulletproof cover story in place. He knew if they’d pulled it off in time, a foot soldier would have slipped the fresh passport and briefing dossier under his door sometime during the night. Violetta would have provided him with access to King and Slater’s level of the tower.

With a slight sense of foreboding, he padded barefoot through the main space and into the entranceway.

A passport and a manila folder rested on the tiles, a foot from the locked front door.

King sighed.

Game time.

He picked up the passport first, and committed the details to memory. Now he was Liam Kingsley — thirty-eight years old, born in Dallas. Generic details. He knew the dossier would contain the juicier information.

He went through his predictable morning routine, including the workout, but he halved the intensity. He needed plenty of gas left in the tank when he made it to Los Angeles. The operation had been sprung on him out of nowhere, but that didn’t mean it was any less dangerous. In the field, the slightest mishap could leave you with a bullet in the back of the head, so he held off on scrutinising the dossier until his head was clear. He showered, packed several changes of clothes and an assortment of toiletries, shoved a decoy laptop into his backpack that Violetta had hand-delivered the previous evening, and then went straight to the door.

She’d arranged transportation to the airport, too.

Everything was being arranged on the fly, so when he made it downstairs and slipped into the rear seat of the waiting town car, he savoured the quiet. He exchanged a brief nod of greeting with the chauffeur, and then pointed to the roof above his head. The driver understood. Wordlessly, the guy thumbed a button on the console and the privacy screen — made of thick tinted glass —