Outlaws by Matt Rogers (phonics books TXT) 📕

your revenge on the men that wronged you. It’s time to walk away.’

‘I’ve never done things that way. I’m not about to start.’

‘They want you and I dead because we know state secrets. That doesn’t mean the entire country is corrupt. Just look at your body of work. You think you would have done all those things — helped all those people — for a country that was secretly evil? That’s not how it works.’

‘I know,’ King said. ‘I no longer see eye to eye with the people I used to work for. That doesn’t mean I should paint them all with the same brush. Right?’

‘Right.’

‘But how does that change things?’

‘Because this isn’t you anymore.’

‘There’s who-knows how many people in that container back there. Their lives are now forfeited. They were to be handed over to a group of people who would have done horrific things to them before killing them and then either crushing or burning the bodies. Am I supposed to let that go?’

‘You won’t stop the global human trafficking industry with this one operation, and you’ll probably get yourself killed. This isn’t on you.’

‘It is,’ King said. ‘Otherwise I never would have made it two days in Black Force. I’ll never have the mentality you want me to have.’

‘I just don’t want anything bad to happen,’ she said. ‘Not when we’re this close to getting away.’

‘If I leave it with Banks, it’ll take him time to call in backup. That’s inevitable. That leaves more room for the Baja cartel to wise up. They’ll be gone before he gets there. That’s provided he even storms the compound in the first place.’

‘Why wouldn’t he?’

‘Because he doesn’t have a death wish.’

She stared at him. ‘Sometimes I question why the hell I fell in love with you.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

‘You should. It means I care about you.’

She stood on her tiptoes, planted a kiss on his lips, and then patted him on the stomach with a flat palm. ‘Come on. Before I use an iota of common sense or reason.’

He leapt back onto the tractor unit’s step, but before he opened the door he turned back to her.

‘There are people in this world who deserve to die,’ he said. ‘That’s never going to change as long as I’m alive to do something about it. I hope you know that.’

She stared up at him, perhaps pondering a response.

Then she said, ‘I do. But I dread the day your luck runs out.’

‘Hasn’t happened yet. Maybe that’s why you fell in love with me. You know you’re trapped in this savage survival-of-the-fittest world forever. Once you’ve seen it, you can’t go back to the way things were. Maybe it was wise to attach yourself to the luckiest guy in it.’

She stared at him.

He said, ’Or maybe it’s not luck.’

He winked.

Opened the door, swung in, and let her clamber over his lap to sit in the middle of the cabin.

Banks said, ‘All good?’

‘All good.’

‘We’re still laying siege to a compound full of sicarios?’

‘Sure are.’

Banks gave a curt nod. ‘So be it.’

King wrestled with the gearstick and the giant truck rumbled back onto the desert highway.

A civilian observer might have considered them insane. Heading toward what was certain to be a gruelling, vicious firefight, perhaps spilling over into the use of knives and fists and feet, all against hardened cartel killers with beheadings and disembowelments and other various forms of torture under their belts. If only the same civilian could see inside their minds, and what they’d put themselves through to get to the state of stoic calmness they exuded.

Maybe then they’d understand.

They branched off the highway, down an uneven dirt road that rattled the trailer behind the tractor, vibrating the big wheel in King’s hands. They bounced and jolted and bumped over the potholes.

Then they saw it.

The distant outline of a compound — walls and buildings and cars and a big explosive-resistant front gate. In the middle of nowhere, surrounded by chaparral, the perimeter illuminated harshly by floodlights. The Baja cartel couldn’t have made the stronghold more obvious if they tried. Soaking it in from a distance, King rippled with disgust at the corruption. All this focus in the news on harmless undocumented illegals when the real culprits from across the border were rich enough to pay off the right people to look the other way.

Banks said, ‘How do we go about this?’

‘Hide in plain sight,’ King said. ‘I’m still Liam Kingsley, one of Ryan Duke’s crew. Banks — you’re a new guy. Duke isn’t shy about outsourcing muscle, so it won’t be hard to convince them.’ King faced Violetta. ‘And you’re Duke’s girlfriend.’

‘Why would he send a group of fresh faces instead of coming himself?’

‘Why wouldn’t he?’

Silence.

Then Violetta nodded. ‘He doesn’t have to be here. He’s a man of efficiency.’

‘This is all going to come down to confidence,’ King said. ‘Just act like you belong.’

He got a pair of nods in return.

They both knew the drill.

They weren’t novices in this realm.

One slip-up, one misplaced word, and they’d pay for it with their lives. It was the risk they took on each and every outing. The fact that they did it voluntarily was nothing to scoff at.

King mounted the narrow trail running to the compound’s entrance and let the truck’s big headlights illuminate the gate in stark detail. A pair of perimeter guards — cartel thugs, through and through — made straight for the tractor unit as it slowed.

King wound down the driver’s window as one of them — a thirty-something man with intense blue eyes and a shaved head — leapt up onto the exterior step.

King nodded a wordless greeting.

The sicario took out a revolver and stuck the barrel in his face.

78

Slater wheeled Beckham through a communal space with bookshelves and a cluster of chairs that could be arranged in circles or rows depending on the nature of the group activity.

He reached the corridor leading to the entrance lobby, and pulled the wheelchair back in its trajectory at the last second.