Ghosts by Matt Rogers (ap literature book list txt) 📕

knew? She was as interested in staying alive as the rest of them, so it probably didn’t. She’d willingly keep quiet so she could get handed back over to Ray, a man who served her and trusted her. There was a clear path to her own freedom in front of her, but could she be trusted to take it? Would she self-implode and bring her kidnappers down with her just to be petty?

King didn’t think so.

The surrounding lights grew further interspersed until there was almost nothing but dark desert in every direction. King pulled off Blue Diamond Road, and the overhead streetlights along the roadway fell away. Now there was only the occasional light amidst the industrial zone, the whole neighbourhood quiet for the night, the machinery powered down, the workers having returned to their homes and their families.

A hot wind blew.

Violetta said, ‘Here.’

King turned into a smaller street within the community. Dormant buildings loomed on all sides — blue silhouettes against a black starry background.

One building had exterior lights on.

A warehouse, stuffed between two larger compounds, eerie in its isolation. Bulbs on the outer awnings bled weak spheres of overlapping light across the largely empty lot out front. There were a couple of black SUVs nosed up to parking spaces — brand-new, King noted, but scuffed and dirtied to look older and blend into the surroundings.

Pretending Ward was still a prisoner against his will, King said, ‘Alan, is this it?’

Ward nodded reluctantly.

Violetta said, ‘He nodded.’

King slowed to a crawl and inched his way forward.

Further details became apparent.

Namely, the presence of a big old man out front, holding a gun to the head of a younger woman.

There was no one else in sight.

King thought, Please show restraint, Slater.

This can all still go smoothly.

He pulled to a halt in front of the warehouse.

52

Slater showed restraint, alright.

He refused to do anything that might jeopardise his cover. Outside of that…

Well, things were a little more flexible.

He used night-vision goggles to ensure no one had eyes on him in the dark as he stuck to the shadows of West Gary Avenue. The wonders of common GPS technology installed on every current smartphone allowed him to memorise a grid view of Arden beforehand. There was a silenced MP5 sub-machine gun strapped to his back, but he had no intention of using it. The Ka-Bar combat knife in a thigh holster on the outside of his khakis would do the trick.

Knives were quiet. Guns were loud. A suppressor is effective, but doesn’t come close to what it’s like in the movies. There’s still a visceral cough — which, in a place like this, would alert everyone in the vicinity to his presence.

This was what he’d always wanted. Detachment from the main objective, uninvolved in the trade itself, free to find openings and weaken Ray’s forces however he could before the swap went down and everything turned to chaos.

That was his only purpose tonight.

Stay quiet. Stay mobile. Eliminate any and all targets without sounding the alarm.

Simple enough.

These boys didn’t have his training.

He swept every corner, every nook and cranny of his field of view. The goggles turned everything to shimmering grayscale, punctuating any sort of movement amidst the scenery. He found nothing. He knew Ray was somewhat competent, so there’d be at least a couple of scouts manning the back of the warehouse, spread out across Arden, but they weren’t this far out.

No matter.

Onward.

He turned into the property of a concrete contractor, most of the space taken up by mountainous towers of rusted construction piping. He moved through the steel wasteland without making so much as a footfall.

He crouch-ran to the closest pile — at least four times taller than he was at its apex — and leant an inch around the corner.

The feed from his goggles flared with light.

He retreated back behind cover, slow and smooth, making no sudden movements. Not an ounce of panic displayed in his gestures. Safe behind the pipes, he replayed the last five seconds of his life in excruciating detail, and came to the right conclusion.

It was a cigarette.

Someone was smoking, the burning tip weak and tepid in the dark, enhanced by the goggles.

Slater thought, Who’s out here at this hour?

He took the Ka-Bar from its holster.

No mercy. No second chances. He’d never operated that way and he never would. Ray wasn’t holding dirt on his men. He’d used Alan Ward as a desperation move, so he’d threatened the kid to get a temporary hold over him. But his men themselves … they were here of their own free will. They would have sat back and let Ray have his way with Alexis. They facilitated a sex trafficking ring, they assisted in the disappearance of witnesses. They were complicit to Josefine Bell getting eleven years in lockup — and she wouldn’t have been the first.

Slater thought all that through, and decided.

He looped round the back of the mountain of pipes and came up on the cigarette smoker from behind. The guy was short, at least four inches shorter than Slater, and impressively muscular. Slater’s goggles revealed all. He had a crude Kalashnikov AK-47 swinging on a shoulder strap, its magazine curved and full. He was disgruntled. Breathing heavy, sucking in smoke like his life depended on it, grumbling to himself. Probably cursing how unnecessary this protection work was. He knew he was just there as a deterrent, to discourage any wise-guy friends of Kerr’s kidnappers who got smart ideas and thought they’d sneak up on the warehouse from behind. He wasn’t taking his job seriously.

Bad call.

Slater took his goggles off when he was six feet away so he could see clearer up close. In the darkness he reached out with a gloved hand and crushed the cigarette into the guy’s mouth, planting his palm over the lips to muffle all sounds. The guy saw red and yelled into Slater’s palm, but the iron grip nullified all sound. All that came out was a weak and timid ‘Hey!’ All that show