Contracts by Matt Rogers (i like reading txt) 📕

clandestine matters.

Perry opened his mouth to speak, but Slater held up a hand. ‘Give me the laptop.’

‘What?’

‘The laptop. Give it to me. I’m going to find this file you keep talking about, put it back in the cloud, and then we can leave the laptop in the bin. It’s caused us more trouble than we need. One less thing to worry about as we sort out a way to get out of here.’

‘There’s more than the one file on there. Aidan has other—’

‘Then I’ll put it all in the cloud. I’m good with computers. I’ll figure it out.’

‘Aidan wouldn’t want you to mess around with his personal—’

‘I don’t give a shit what Aidan wants,’ Slater said. ‘We can’t have this risk hanging over our heads any longer.’

‘It’s a matter of principle,’ Perry said. ‘It’s a private—’

Slater said, ‘Are you really going to refuse? Is that where we’re going with this?’

Perry didn’t answer.

They stood there in a makeshift triangle, King and Slater equidistant from one another, watching the bodyguard closely.

Slater noticed the mounting tension.

Then Perry said, ‘Fine,’ and handed it over.

He threw his hands up in the air, silently bemoaning their decision, and crossed the room to sit on the other single bed. Muttering something to the effect of, ‘He’s going to fucking kill me,’ the whole time.

Slater understood. It’s one of the fundamental rules of black operations. Don’t ever let anyone mess around with your gear, especially if it contains sensitive information. The fewer eyes on it, the better. There’s too much on the line, too much at stake, too many variables to be exploited and—

And none of that mattered.

This was bigger than rules.

That’s why black-ops existed in the first place.

To be flexible.

Slater placed the laptop on the small wooden table in the corner of the room and dragged the whole thing over to the edge of the nearest bed. He sat down on the mattress, opened it, and ushered to King. ‘Give me the phone.’

King handed it over without a word of protest.

Slater dialled. It rang, and rang, and rang. The dial tone was tinny and faint, but it seemed to echo in the room.

Then it went to voicemail.

Slater thumbed the End Call button and stared at Perry.

The bodyguard stared back. ‘What?’

‘Do you know something we don’t?’

Perry scoffed. ‘Oh — you think I’m acting suspicious?’

‘I don’t know what to think.’

‘I’m rehearsing what to say to my boss before I hand in my resignation,’ he said. ‘That laptop was not to be touched by anyone other than Aidan Parker under any circumstances. If you think I look off, it’s because I feel off. Take that as you will.’

Slater dialled again.

It rang, and rang, and rang.

And Parker answered.

‘Do you have her?’ was the first thing he said.

A jolt of unease rippled through Slater. He chewed his bottom lip, deep in thought, wondering when was the right time.

Not now, he concluded.

‘Not yet,’ Slater said. ‘But we’re close. We managed to retrieve your laptop.’

‘Oh, thank God.’

‘I need the password.’

‘What?’

‘I need to get into it.’

‘No you don’t.’

‘Yes,’ Slater said. ‘I’m afraid I do. If you refuse, I’ll bring the full wrath of our government against you. I don’t care how senior you think you are.’

He sensed Parker stiffen on the other end of the line. ‘You should be careful who you play those sorts of games with before you—’

Slater said, ‘Do you want your daughter back, or not?’

Silence.

‘Her life is in our hands.’

‘You wouldn’t dare…’

‘The password, Aidan, or we turn around.’

‘You fucking—’

‘Stop,’ Slater hissed. ‘We’ve nearly got ourselves killed a dozen separate times for you. You’re going to do this for us, no matter how sensitive you think the data is or how unqualified I am to see it. Frankly, I need to see it, because I need to get it back into your encrypted cloud and then destroy this thing before it costs us any more attempts on our lives.’

‘Do you know how to do that?’

‘Yes,’ Slater lied. ‘Violetta’s walked me through it.’

‘She shouldn’t have granted you access to that sort of—’

‘Well, she did.’

‘W-8-2-U-V-9-3-R-4-T.’

Slater paused, repeated it once in his head, and then once out loud.

‘Is that right?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Parker said. ‘But don’t go around spewing that out. It’s an incredibly important piece of information.’

‘I know,’ Slater said. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

He hung up.

King was staring at him.

Perry was staring at him.

He said, ‘What?’

King said, ‘That’s his daughter, Will.’

‘I know.’

‘She’s dead.’

‘I know.’

‘I don’t like that one bit.’

‘I need this laptop taken care of,’ Slater snarled. ‘I’m sorry if I offended either of you, but this thing is going to keep putting us in danger until we get rid of it. I don’t have time to sit around all day playing games with Aidan Parker. If you want me to, I’ll be the one to tell Parker about Raya. To make up for it.’

No one answered.

King turned away.

Parker kept staring.

It seemed a little odd, but Slater ignored it and fished around in his own duffel bag for the appropriate adapter. He plugged it into a power socket in the wall, and waited for the laptop screen to light up in response. Then he tapped in the ten-digit password and found himself on a dull featureless home screen. He brought his finger to the trackpad and started scrolling through folders, diving into the contents of the hard drive.

The room fell quiet.

77

King was the first to notice Perry getting fidgety.

Slater couldn’t have been fiddling with the laptop for more than a couple of minutes, but in that time Perry went from picking at his nails, to cracking his neck, to pacing the room.

When Perry shuffled over to the far corner of the room, searching for anything suspicious, King took a subtle step to the right.

Putting himself between Perry and the laptop.

And his heart started to thump in his chest.

Slater squinted, trying to make out the small digital pixels spelling names for folders, documents, files. He said, ‘Do you know where Parker left these documents?’

King turned to Perry, who shrugged noncommittally. ‘Not sure. My boss’s