Outlaws by Matt Rogers (phonics books TXT) 📕

The desperate move kept Beckham out of sight by inches, both of them pressed to the wall beside the big archway.

He’d heard unfamiliar voices.

‘Thank you so much for coming,’ the receptionist was saying. ‘I had no idea…’

A deep male voice said, ’It’s not your fault. Which way did he go?’

‘To visit one of our residents. Jonathan Powell. Oh, God, don’t tell me he was here to hurt—’

‘We don’t know, ma’am. We’ll find out what happened. He’s still in there?’

‘I haven’t seen him since. So, yes, he’s probably still…’

She trailed off as her voice was drowned out by rapid, heavy footsteps. Slater soaked it all in as the footfalls grew louder, rapidly approaching their position, seconds away from bursting out into the communal space and—

Slater iced his veins. These men, whether government employees or not, had come to execute an innocent man with no ability to defend himself. They were lower than scum.

He kept that in mind.

There was a rudimentary attempt on their part to sweep the communal space, but they were too hasty. Everything they’d heard from the receptionist indicated they could catch Slater off-guard in room 52. They weren’t really expecting him to be lying in wait, so they barrelled into the open too fast, barely taking the time to scan the space with their weapons.

Slater didn’t know how many there were — he just burst into motion.

Shot the first man to step into view through the side of the head, showering the opposite wall of the archway with brain matter, and then lashed out and kicked his body to the floor to make room for a follow-up shot. Which went through the face of the second man, knocking him back into the third as the life sapped from his limbs. It gave Slater a half-second to assess features — there were five of them in total, all clad in nondescript mercenary gear, sporting bulletproof vests and thick combat boots and black pants and black shirts. Nothing affiliated to any division of the U.S. government, but being used by them all the same. Maybe active operatives with no morality, called in for an important black op, told to carry out orders with no questions or protests.

The fact that they were here, obeying their masters without a moment’s hesitation, said it all.

Slater fired a three-round burst into the face and throat of the third man — the guy who’d caught his dead partner in his arms. Both of them — now lifeless corpses — toppled, exposing the final pair in mid-lunge.

Not lunging for Slater.

Smart.

They dived behind columns on either side of the hallway before Slater could finish them off. Sensing a bad position, he fired a handful of rounds to give himself covering fire as he ducked back out of sight. He sensed Beckham right behind him, silently terrified, hoping like hell this was all a bad dream.

A quick calculation on Slater’s part revealed the Glock was out.

He ejected the empty magazine out the bottom of the handle and reached back instinctively for a fresh one.

His fingers grasped at air.

His blood ran cold and nervous sweat leached from his pores.

He patted himself down, all around the waist.

The utility belt he used to store spare magazines had been ripped from his waist, probably when he’d crushed himself into Beckham’s doorway to avoid getting nicked by the syringe. Where it had fallen, or how he’d missed it, was entirely lost on him. Adrenaline was a crazy bitch of a drug, and not even a seasoned practitioner like Slater could overcome the occasional mishap. Putting himself into situations like this — volatile, highly reactionary, often tactically improvised — meant it came with the territory.

He maintained a crouch, staring at his feet, running through a dozen different options.

Then he heard murmurs round the corner, drifting down the corridor.

‘Is he still there?’

‘I don’t fuckin’ know. You check.’

Slater ran through hypotheticals. These men were more than likely tier-one, but they wouldn’t have a clue who Slater was. The five here and the two who’d led the charge would have all been summoned simultaneously to the disability centre. Seven total operatives for an assignment that should have taken one guy at the very maximum. Kill a cripple? How much manpower did that really require?

So maybe, just maybe, the pair up the back might have disregarded arming themselves to the teeth.

The five in the lead could get the job done, right?

Slater chanced a look, peeking round the corner.

He caught them halfway through the act. They’d both stepped out from cover in unison, and they were running for the bodies littered across the carpet beside Slater.

The bodies that had dropped guns.

Slater stepped into view, bent down, and snatched up one of the dead men’s Berettas. He got there seconds before the two men did, which might as well have been years in their world. He checked the weapon was ready to fire and then aimed it at the unarmed duo, freezing them in their tracks.

One guy said, ‘Cool it. Let’s talk.’

Slater kept the barrel trained on the dead space between them, ready to flick the gun to either party and fire at a moment’s notice.

Then he sidestepped so he could reach out and grab the armrest of Beckham’s wheelchair and pull the whole thing out from behind cover.

So Beckham could see the pair.

Slater said to them, ‘Here he is. The guy you came to murder.’

They stared at Beckham, unable to mask the guilt. They were seasoned combatants who’d probably seen war, which meant they’d learned to compartmentalise just as Slater had, but they weren’t incapable of shame.

This was their failure, laid out before them.

What was supposed to be a discreet assassination. In and out fast. No witnesses. No judgment.

Now, not only was an enemy combatant judging them, but so was the target in question.

They looked at their feet, one by one.

As if it wouldn’t exist if they didn’t look.

Own your choices.

Slater shot them once each through the tops of their heads.

He got behind the wheelchair and pushed it through