Outlaws by Matt Rogers (phonics books TXT) 📕

inside, and maybe even a couple of roving crews in the surrounding area in armoured SUVs.’

‘Whole lotta manpower.’

‘It’s the Baja cartel,’ King said. ‘What were you expecting?’

‘Not for them to be involved in this,’ Banks said. ‘That’s for sure.’

The mountains fell away.

The desert spread out before them, so vast, so empty.

Violetta said, ‘Pull over.’

King looked across. ‘What?’

‘You heard me.’

‘Why?’

‘Just pull over.’

He sensed her tone.

I need to speak to you in private.

He slowed the giant truck and drifted over to the shoulder. No traffic went past them on either side.

The night was dead.

Banks regarded them warily. ‘Everything okay?’

‘Fine,’ she said.

King left the engine running and threw the driver’s door open and stepped down into the dirt, crushing a weed underfoot.

He heard Violetta follow him out and shut the cabin door behind her.

Banks found himself sealed in a soundproof box, alone for the first time since King had accosted him.

He raised a hand clad in a fingerless woollen glove and touched a dirty nail gently to his inner ear.

A connection activated.

A low voice said, ‘Yes?’

‘She’s here.’

‘Thought so. You know what to do.’

‘Yeah,’ he grunted. ‘On it.’

He took his finger away from his ear, and without the pressure the line automatically disconnected.

76

Slater targeted the guy with the Beretta.

The more dire threat of the pair.

He locked in and raised his Glock and blew the guy’s brains out the back of his head with a single shot.

It was all he had time for.

The second guy — the one with the syringe — rushed him, recognising the fact that he’d brought a needle to a gunfight. The only way to proceed, therefore, was aggression and a total lack of hesitation.

Slater’s field of view opened up like he’d been juiced with a massive dose of methamphetamine. The laser focus was the only way he’d survive what happened next. Because the guy was close enough to lunge wildly with the outstretched syringe, his palm enclosed around the barrel, like holding a knife by the hilt. He made the lunging motion even as his partner collapsed with the contents of his skull emptied across the far wall.

Slater threw himself back into the door frame, moving like he’d been electrocuted. He bounced off the wood, taking the brunt of the impact across his upper back. It hurt, but it was a whole lot better than being jabbed with a lethal fluid.

The tip of the needle missed him by inches, displacing air a hair’s breadth away from his chest.

He didn’t really process it, because if he recognised how close he’d come to death the shock would have made him hesitate. Instead he rebounded and sidestepped the outstretched hand and smashed the butt of the Glock into the bridge of the guy’s nose, breaking it clean, making his eyes water involuntarily. The guy swung again with the syringe, but this time he missed by a mile.

Slater had the upper hand.

He figured one unsuppressed gunshot could be attributed to a delivery van backfiring, or some sort of electric panel bursting, or some sort of freak incident, but two gunshots definitely couldn’t. So he refrained from shooting the second guy in the face.

Instead he timed the next swing, anticipating exactly when it would finish its trajectory, then he caught the wrist and wrenched it back and plunged the whole needle into the guy’s mouth. He felt the spongy sensation of the needle inserting into the guy’s inner cheek, and that’s when he smashed the plunger down, unloading the contents of the barrel.

He kicked the guy’s legs out from underneath him and held him down by the throat as he waited for the fifteen seconds of thrashing and foaming at the mouth to come to an end.

The guy slumped, and his eyes glazed over.

Slater grabbed each man by the collar and hauled both bodies over the threshold, back into Beckham’s room. Beckham watched it all unfold with wide eyes. Slater practically tripped over himself to get back out into the corridor in time.

Seconds later, a flummoxed nurse with flushed cheeks came sprinting around the corner.

Slater flooded his face with manufactured disbelief. ‘Did you see that?!’

She careened to a halt, her mouth flapping, rendered incapable of speech.

Before she could fully process the brains and blood splattered across the opposite wall, Slater said, ‘A fox. It must have got in through a window or something. It bashed its head against that wall right there and then ran off. It made the most godawful sound when it hit its head. Jesus… someone could get hurt.’

The nurse looked at the wall for perhaps a second, tops. Then she said, ‘Fuck me,’ turned on her heels and ran off to seek assistance. Instinct had taken over. I can’t subdue a wild fox on my own. Especially not a manic one.

Creating room to overthink is the key to buying time. Slater had been vague enough on the details to instil terror. Her brain was now locked on an endless thought loop — What do I do? A fox. What do I do? — instead of questioning how the hell any of that made sense.

Slater backtracked into the room and found Beckham locked in a surreal staring contest with the two bodies — both corpses wide-eyed, both ugly in their death throes, both turning cold.

Slater said, ‘Lucky I got here in time.’

‘Get me the fuck out of here,’ Beckham said, unable to take his gaze off the dead men.

‘You bet.’

Slater steered the wheelchair with one hand, and kept the Glock raised with the other.

There’d be no more pretending. He didn’t care what anyone here thought of him.

He pushed Beckham out of his room, into the exposed corridor, and set off at a manic pace for the front entrance.

77

Hot wind battered them, howling along the shoulder.

King crossed his arms over his chest and said, ‘What’s up?’

‘We hand this over to the government,’ she said. ‘That’s what we do. We leave it all with Banks. It’s his responsibility.’

‘It’s mine.’

‘You’re a vigilante now, Jason,’ she said. ‘As am I. You got