Outlaws by Matt Rogers (phonics books TXT) 📕

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Your family.’

‘Overseas. I haven’t seen them since I came to the States. I have nothing worth staying for. And I understood what I was getting into when I first agreed to see you. I’m not naive.’

He said, ‘I love you.’

‘You, too.’

‘See you soon.’

He lowered the phone to the bedside table, showered, dressed, and then went to the entranceway. There’d be a considerable waiting period, but purposeful observation was second nature to him. He’d packed the night before — a false passport he’d acquired in his own time (of which the government was unaware) and a credit card for an account owned by a shell company the government had no idea about.

That was it.

One might assume his life was hollow and empty if that was all he needed to start fresh, but he considered it freeing that he didn’t have attachment to material possessions. His old phone, his old clothes, old mementos he used for decoration in this penthouse — none of it was necessary, and all of it was traceable, so it stayed behind. Everything he needed to access his hidden fortune — account numbers, passwords — were all in his head. From there he could build out a new life once he and Alexis bunkered down somewhere off the grid.

The penthouse meant nothing to him.

All he regretted leaving behind was the burden King would have to bear as a solo operative.

The waiting ended when he heard King’s door opening, so faint and imperceptible he almost missed it. He wanted desperately to step outside and get one final look at his closest friend, but they’d said their goodbyes last night, and there was no point being extraneous. If he was to survive the day, there’d need to be no wasted movement.

He counted out long seconds, giving King time to step into the elevator, and when he was sure the coast was clear he patted himself down.

Passport.

Credit card.

Compact Glock 19 in a polymer appendix holster with an attached suppressor.

Four spare fifteen-round magazines, and a full one already loaded into the gun.

That now constituted all his worldly possessions.

He threw the door open and strode hard for the elevators, refusing to even give his penthouse a final glance. He made it to the panel, hit the Down symbol, stepped inside when the doors whisked open, and hit Ground. Then he backtracked, leaving the metal box before it could seal him in, and made for the stairwell. Just in case the tactical team in room 732 were tracking the elevator’s motion. He and King’s twin penthouses were the only residential dwellings on this floor of the building, so the crew would know it was Slater on the move after observing King leaving the tower minutes earlier.

They’d be fixated on the lobby cameras for the next few minutes.

The stairwell was too bare and alien to hide security cameras. Everything was cold and concrete, with sharp corners and no shadows. Slater knew the coast was clear, but he remained diligent anyway. He leapt down three stairs at a time, absorbing each impact in stride, covering most of the eighty floors in what had to be record time. He reached the seventh floor fast, and entered it fast, because through the glass of the stairwell door he spotted a Hispanic maid wheeling a servicing cart.

Of course.

These floors are for hotel rooms.

So the crew hadn’t set up shop in an empty apartment. They would have rented a room under a false name. Room 732 was a suite.

As Slater stepped out of the stairwell, he improvised. The maid hadn’t noticed his presence yet, so he tapped into his mind muscle connection and deliberately constricted his throat. He held his breath and strained with all his might until his eyes bulged, turning bloodshot with each passing second.

Blood rushed to his face.

With one explosive breath, he gasped for air.

The maid wheeled around, startled. She was short and plump with a motherly demeanour. He snatched at his throat as he locked eyes with her, wheezing and spluttering and clawing for air.

‘What wrong?’ she said loudly, her accent thick, her English rudimentary.

‘A-asthma,’ he gasped. ‘Asthma attack. Can’t breathe. Oh…’

‘Where is room, sir?’

He forced tears out, letting them stream down his face. He stumbled past her, only a couple of steps, making sure his voice didn’t carry. She put a hand on his elbow to steady him, and he wheezed harder, but quieter. There was a method to the madness. Direct what little noise he made in the direction of the maid, but otherwise rely on bombastic visual gestures. That way, there was little sound to float under closed doors…

He stopped in front of the door numbered 732, and went completely silent, pretending his airways had closed.

He patted his pockets frantically. Then he widened his eyes even more. The widest they could go. He injected mortal fear into his features and then spun to face the maid.

‘Key,’ he gasped, his voice no louder than a whisper. ‘Oh my god. My puffer. Inside. Key… no.’

It worked.

No time to ask for proof that it was his room. No time to do anything but frantically react. And she did, because she was a kind, caring soul that he felt terrible for taking advantage of. He hoped there were no cameras in the hallway. He hoped this didn’t get her fired. Because she lunged for her cart and fished through a small plastic tub of keys and came out with the right one and bounded forward to force it into the lock.

Slater stepped back, and as soon as he was out of her peripheral vision he breathed normally.

Settled back into kill mode.

Then a dark thought struck him.

He kept retreating, putting his back against the far wall, keeping every nearby doorway in his peripheral vision.

The maid kept wriggling the key in the lock, too panicked to make it smooth.

Finally, the door clicked.

It swung open.

An empty room.

Which she thought was normal.

Slater had expected the reveal with seconds to spare, so when the door to