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

muscle did nothing. Slater was twice as strong, and he manhandled the guy down to his knees and slit his throat with the Ka-Bar.

The struggling ceased.

Slater lowered his body to the dirt without a sound and walked over it as he moved on.

Any bystanders would consider him a monster if they’d witnessed it.

That was fine by him.

He scaled the back fence of the lot, dropped down on the outer perimeter of the target warehouse, and scanned every window with the goggles returned to his face. All quiet.

Until it wasn’t.

Knocks and bumps emanated from a shoddy portable toilet up the back of the property, only a couple of dozen feet to Slater’s left. It was one man — another big guy — adjusting himself after using the facilities. Pulling his pants up, banging his elbows against the plastic walls. The sounds were faint, barely perceptible in the night.

Slater heard them.

He strode right up to the door and waited for it to open.

It came open slowly. The guy was big and mean and strong-jawed, one of Ray’s trademark helpers. Someone with more brawn than brains, who didn’t have time to think about the sort of suffering he was facilitating. He had something else in common with Ray. His eyes were bloodshot and wide, and there were still remnants of fine white powder intermingled with the hairs in his right nostril. A little pick-me-up for the night ahead.

At least he’d die on a high.

Slater shoved the Ka-Bar’s blade through his forehead and wrenched it out. With his other hand he pushed the guy in the chest, spilling him back into the cubicle. He landed on the seat, his eyes already glazed over.

Slater closed the door on him, making no noise at all. He crouched low and swept the yard and warehouse again.

A flash of human movement, through the glazed window of a rear door.

He vanished behind the portable toilet like he’d never been there at all.

Fifteen seconds later another thug sauntered up to the cubicle. He tried the door. It unlocked. He pushed it open. Saw his buddy stone cold dead on the toilet, a gruesome puncture wound in the middle of his forehead.

He opened his mouth to sound the alarm.

Slater materialised behind him and shoved the blade through his throat. Pulled it out with a counter-clockwise twist and pushed the guy inside on top of his colleague.

He closed the door again, calmly stepped away, and made for the warehouse.

Something stopped him in his tracks, freezing him like a deer in headlights.

Gunshots, rupturing the silence, loud and unsuppressed.

Coming from the front lot.

Slater’s blood went cold.

53

King got out, rounded the hood, and dragged Gloria Kerr out of the passenger seat.

She went willingly.

She kept her mouth shut.

Intuition paid off. Kerr wanted to live. She didn’t want to complicate things. She had all the time in the world to hunt down a traitorous junior officer when she was a free woman. There was no need to enlighten Ray to the deception until after the swap was complete. She trudged across no-man’s-land with King, slouched and placid.

Violetta came behind them with a hand on the small of Ward’s back. He still had his wrists “cable-tied.” He did his best to look absolutely terrified, which didn’t take much effort with the consequences of failure running through his head at warp speed.

The exterior lighting was barely enough to make out facial features. They were six anonymous outlines in a lot. The air ran thick with tension.

King couldn’t make out much of what Ray looked like, but from what he could gather the ex-sheriff was an impressively ugly man. Big, strong, fearsome, with a face like a bad apple.

His gun hand was shaking.

Alexis wasn’t shaking.

She was dishevelled, unkempt, but King didn’t think she’d been touched or interfered with in any way. He’d interacted with too many rape victims to count — both female and male. What he did remember was the hollow hopelessness, the deadness behind the eyes.

Alexis’ eyes blazed with defiance.

‘Hey,’ King said to her.

‘Hey,’ she said.

‘You good?’

‘Yeah.’

Ray said, ‘We haven’t met.’

‘No, we haven’t,’ King said. ‘You want to put that gun down?’

Ray kept the barrel rigid against Alexis’ skull. ‘Not until you give me what I want.’

King said, ‘In that case…’

A SIG Sauer P226 MK25 appeared in his palm like a magician’s trick, and he pressed it to Kerr’s head with the same smoothness. He made sure every action was flawless. He couldn’t afford to make Ray jumpy, prone to pulling the trigger out of impulse.

Ray said, ‘What are you doing?’

King said, ‘Blowing Gloria’s brains out. Should be loud enough to draw attention. How are you going to explain it when the cops find the DA’s body all the way out here in your possession?’

‘Won’t matter to you,’ Ray said. ‘You’ll be dead.’

Silence.

Ray said, ‘And I own the cops.’

‘Really? The whole LVMPD? All six thousand employees?’

Ray went quiet.

King said, ‘You own a few bent cops in powerful positions. Don’t let that make you think you’re stronger than you are. That’s why you need Ms. Kerr here. That’s why you rely on so much help.’

‘You don’t know the first thing about what I do.’

‘I know enough.’

‘So are we doing this or what?’ Ray said.

‘As soon as you take the gun away from her head. Until then I’m happy to stand here all night.’

Ray raised a bushy eyebrow and gave a sick smile. He drifted the barrel up and down her temple. Alexis didn’t waver. Her green eyes stayed locked on King. He was her bastion of calm amidst all this tension. But Ray was getting to her with the charade, and a solitary tear slid down her cheek.

Violetta took a step forward, shoving Ward along with her, so now the four of them were lined up across from Ray and Alexis.

Ray said, ‘Just for reassurances sake — what happens afterwards?’

‘We already discussed that.’

‘Spell it out for me,’ Ray said. ‘Like I’m a kid.’

‘We take Alexis. We leave. We consider everything that’s happened to you so far punishment enough.