Hawk, page 21
part #6 of Will Slater Series
The boy broke into tears.
The father rocked back on his haunches, rattled by the explosiveness. And there was something in King’s voice, some added weight. Something palpable in the air. This was not a man to trifle with. This was not a man to take a chance against.
King lowered his voice and said, ‘Just the keys. That’s all I need. Don’t be a hero. Just give me what I need and I won’t hurt any of you.’
He wasn’t going to touch them, but they didn’t need to know that.
Eventually the father nodded, and King saw micro-expressions on his face that confirmed his obedience. The man stood up, and held his palms out on either side.
Trying to signal that he meant no harm.
‘Just don’t touch the kid, man,’ the guy said.
I would never, King thought.
‘The keys,’ King snarled.
The guy bowed his head and sighed, and crossed to a chest of drawers on the other side of the living room. King kept a wary eye on him, watching for any sign of deception, but he found none. The man retrieved a key fob from the topmost drawer and tossed it across the room.
‘Just bought it, man,’ he said. ‘Brand new. It’s my livelihood. Ain’t much money to go around out here, so we take pride in it.’
King listened, then pocketed the key. It was a Volkswagen, judging by the emblem on the key fob.
He said, ‘Do you know your bank details off by heart?’
The man stood in rigid silence, as if he didn’t know whether King was playing a practical joke on him or not.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Your bank details,’ King repeated. ‘Do you know them off by heart?’
‘Yeah,’ the guy said. ‘We don’t have much, though. There’s nothing to take.’
‘How much did you pay for the car?’
‘Thirty five thousand dollars.’
‘Give me your details.’
The man gave King his Bank-State-Branch number, followed by his account number. He uttered the digits as if reading them off a page.
King memorised them, then pulled his own phone out and spent a few minutes organising an electronic funds transfer from the bank he’d been using in Switzerland for the better part of the last two years.
He said, ‘Listen, and listen closely. I just sent you fifty thousand dollars. Consider the extra fifteen thousand interest. For the shock I’ve inflicted on the three of you. As soon as I leave here, you can go to the police, and I’m sure they’d find me on one of the highways within a couple of hours and have me arrested. But there’s no guarantee they’d get me on the first try, and if that happens I’ll come back here hunting for all three of your heads. Or you can chalk the entire thing up to a strange dream and go buy the same version of the car you worked hard for, and then you can use the rest of the cash as an emergency fund for tough times. Two choices. If you choose option two, you will never hear from me again. It’s your call to make. Best of luck.’
Then he turned on his heel and left the room.
No-one followed him.
The family were frozen in place, stunned by what had unfolded, probably wondering if they were going to wake up in their beds a moment later and laugh off the crazy nightmare they’d mutually shared.
King made straight for the garage, and when he clambered behind the wheel of the Volkswagen Tiguan, he had a sneaking suspicion both the mother and father would see the light. All they had to do was open the banking application on their phone. They’d see the funds sitting there. That would make them pause, and ruminate on the options King had given them.
After all, he’d forced himself into their house so effortlessly.
Maybe he was telling the truth when he said he would come back for them.
Maybe he truly did have the capacity to avoid the police for long enough to make them pay for it.
They could pick up a new Tiguan from the same dealership, and no-one would know the difference.
King accelerated out through the open garage door and plunged into dark farmland.
He set the GPS on his phone to take him on a roundabout loop of the South Island, and steeled himself for the long night ahead.
Something told him he had no idea what he was truly in for.
49
At ten in the evening the fleet of armoured trucks pulled into a rural ranch-style compound near Tapanui.
Slater soaked in the details out the rear window. The nature of his imprisonment prevented him from turning around to see what they were approaching, but he watched the long gravel track with a keen eye as it trailed all the way from the perimeter fence to the centre.
Everything he could see appeared unassuming.
He figured that was Hawk’s intention.
As the Brabus handled the terrain, Slater turned to the man and said, ‘Bet you’re not happy about how much carnage we caused back there. Wouldn’t want the aftermath to intrude on your privacy.’
Hawk waved a hand dismissively, shaking off Slater’s attempts to rattle him. ‘That’s what I pay clean-up crews for. I’ve got them on standby for messy situations like this. By now the wreckages will be cleared and any trace of civilian casualties will be eliminated. I’m hearing reports that two innocent people were killed. How does that make you feel?’
‘We didn’t do it. Your men did.’
‘But you caused it. If you went to me submissively like you should have, that wouldn’t have happened. I wonder how you justify that to yourself. You see, being morally pure is horse shit. It’s convenient for you. It’s convenient for the world to pretend they’re doing good, when deep down everyone is a piece of shit just like me. I’m just honest about it. I tell the truth.’
‘I—’
Hawk held up a hand in derision, cutting Slater off. ‘Is this the part where you somehow try to convince yourself that you and King are more important than those civilians that died?’
‘No. I’d never do that.’
‘You would have said something along those lines, in a roundabout way. I know how you tick.’
‘Do you?’
Hawk paused for thought as the convoy reached its destination and the four trucks spread out in a fanning semi-circle across a wide dirt lot.
The driver killed the engine, and everything descended into silence.
The interior light went out, and the only illumination came from the weak porch light outside filtering in through the windshield. Slater couldn’t see the house itself — he was still bolted to the bed.
The driver and passenger quietly exited the car over his shoulder.
He didn’t see them either.
He was left alone with Hawk in the gloom.
The dull lighting exacerbated the shadows.
Hawk didn’t budge.
He said, ‘I think it’s time you and I had a little chat.’
‘About what?’ Slater said.
‘I feel obligated to give you the courtesy of knowing what’s going to happen to you before we go too far down the rabbit hole. I respect efficiency, and you and Jason King are two of the most efficient people I’ve ever seen. You’ve mastered almost every aspect of your lives. So I owe you a great debt. I’ll answer any questions you might have. King won’t be so lucky. He irritated me when he got away, so I’ll keep him in the dark until he’s a vegetable on an operating table. And what I do with both of you after that will be beyond your comprehension anyway. So now’s the time to ask.’
Slater said, ‘Who are you, exactly? Do you have a grudge against us?’
Hawk almost looked frustrated at Slater’s ineptitude. ‘Haven’t we already covered this?’
‘How did you find out about Black Force, then? If you really have no connection to either of us…’
‘By doing my research.’
He said this as if it was the most obvious concept in human history, and Slater recoiled from the conversation.
Hawk said, ‘What?’
‘Just do whatever you’re going to do to me. I don’t want to go round in circles with you. Get it over and done with.’
‘You’re uncomfortable, aren’t you?’
‘Wouldn’t you be?’
‘But I don’t think it’s because you’re chained to a bed. I think you’ve cheated death so many times that barely fazes you anymore. I think it’s the fact that you know you’re not going to win this one.’
‘Is that so?’
‘You seem defeated already. Isn’t Jason King out there somewhere? Isn’t he going to come to your rescue?’
‘I’d hope so.’
‘You don’t seem confident.’
‘Should I be?’
‘Usually you are. I’ve read your files, after all. I know everything that happened between the two of you when you were employed. You were each other’s knight in shining armour. You saved him from certain death in Russia. I know all about what happened in that abandoned mine. Black Force wrote up a report on it before they dissolved. Now you’re expecting him to do the same to you.’
Slater stared across the space.
‘What?’ Hawk said. ‘Not feeling talkative?’
Slater kept his mouth shut.
Hawk said, ‘You know I’m better than him. You know I’m better than both of you. I mean, think about it. You two are a nightmare for someone like me. I didn’t want to have to subdue you halfway across the world and then deal with the gargantuan task of getting you both to New Zealand without incident. Both of you are too dangerous for that. So all it ended up taking was a bullet in the head of King’s girlfriend, and a bit of high-level encryption on a phone I planted on the guy I sent to do it. And then you were here, like clockwork. I wrote that goddamn code myself. That’s who you’re dealing with.’
Slater stared blankly into space.
Hawk smirked and said, ‘And you still know nothing about me.’
‘You’re some kind of genius who figured the two most efficient solo operatives in U.S. government history were a perfect place to start with your experiments.’
Hawk pointed a finger in Slater’s face. ‘Almost there.’
‘Good luck with that.’
‘You sound confident. You sound smug. You shouldn’t be feeling anything like that.’
‘You’re going to put a chip in my head — is that what you said?’
‘That’s the simplified version.’
‘I’m keen to see how well that works. Because I don’t know if you should have targeted the two men on the planet with the amount of willpower we have. I don’t know how well this is going to work out for you…’
Hawk nearly laughed, but cut himself off.
Then the man said, ‘I shouldn’t scoff at you for not knowing anything. That’s wrong of me. I should be helping you understand.’
‘What don’t I know?’
‘You don’t know that it doesn’t matter how much willpower you have. I’m going to fry certain parts of your brain, and you’re never going to be the same. The old Slater isn’t going to exist anymore. You’ll have all that reaction speed, all those priceless reflexes, but the rest of you will be pliable. I’ll shape you into what I want. Your capacity to resist doesn’t even come into the equation. You’re a computer up there — it’s all hardwired in — so I can change parts of you.’
Slater squirmed.
Hawk said, ‘And what you really don’t understand is that you’re not an experiment. I’ve been able to do it for some time now.’
The rear doors of the Brabus opened, and faceless silhouettes reached into the back to manhandle Slater’s bed out into the cool night.
On the way out, Hawk reached over and gripped the back of Slater’s neck.
Hawk pulled him in close.
He said, ‘Jose Delgado removed a bull’s aggressive instincts fifty years ago. Imagine what I’m able to do today. I can’t wait to show you around.’
Then Ali Hawk gave the metal bed a gentle shove from behind and it slid from the truck into the waiting hands of his hired thugs.
50
The first leg of the road trip passed without incident.
King stayed true to his original plan and took State Highway 73 across the mainland. He made a beeline for Arthur’s Pass, and as he headed further away from the coastline, the terrain loomed up out of the dark. He stared in awe out the windscreen at the gargantuan mountains on either side of the highway.
They dwarfed him, and an eerie feeling of inconsequentiality settled over him.
Amidst this landscape, his efforts felt futile. He didn’t think he was going to achieve anything in the first place, given how effortlessly he’d been lured here by an unknown enemy.
But this only added to it — this unease, this quiet, dark desperation.
The snow-capped mountains spread for miles in every direction, like rock golems in the night.
Silently judging him.
Silently criticising him for even attempting to rescue Slater.
A couple of hours later, King breezed past a cop car parked on the side of the highway. Plenty of time had passed since he’d stolen the Tiguan, and he could feel eyes in the back of his head as he imagined the cop running the plates, waiting for approval. If the sirens lit up, he knew he’d have a tough time outmanoeuvring the vehicle in a big SUV on a desolate highway at night.
There was one road to take, and nowhere to hide.
But nothing happened.
The family at the farm had made the right choice for all of them.
King continued through Arthur’s Pass. He left the radio off, and he gripped the wheel with both hands, and he inadvertently got himself bogged down in endless thoughts about how the next day might go, and how well he would operate on no sleep.
But that wouldn’t be a problem.
Back during the foundations of his career, he’d come out of a Navy SEAL Hell Week unscathed.
This was nothing in comparison.
He plunged out of the mountain range and made it all the way to the west coast an hour later. From there he branched left at Kumara Junction and headed south at as fast a pace as he could manage. To his left lay the same impossible scenery, and to his right lay a dark and rippling sea. The Tasman Sea swept away into the black horizon, endless in its vastness.
As the clock ticked closer to midnight, a light rain began to fall.
And then a car fell in line behind him.
He must have dropped his awareness for only a few moments, because it all happened fast. One moment he was alone in the dead of night, and the next there were headlights right behind him.
Ordinarily nothing to stress over, but the speed at which they’d materialised rattled him.
Either the vehicle had approached fast with its headlights off and then flicked them on as it bore down on him, or King’s concentration had lapsed so severely that he hadn’t seen the car approaching at all until it was far too late.
Both possibilities were cause for concern.
Either the vehicle was hostile, or he was experiencing lapses in time.
A common side effect of blunt force trauma.
If he was concussed from the vehicular warfare, and he hadn’t realised yet, it wouldn’t bode well for his chances.
He slowed along the coastal highway, and pulled onto the first available service road, and then continued to slow until he was moving at a crawl through the night. He came to a wide gravel lot functioning as a pit stop for long road trips, devoid of life at this hour.
Totally desolate…
The car followed him in.
He couldn’t make out anything in the darkness aside from the twin headlights, but they unnerved him. He slowed all the way down until he came to a halt in the middle of the service lot, and he flicked his own headlights off.
A long shadow stretched out in front of the Tiguan, accentuated by the glare behind him.
He sat still, and hunched down low, and waited for the inevitable to happen.
He already knew nothing good would come of this. It wasn’t an innocent traveller asking for help or looking for directions. They wouldn’t have trusted him if he’d turned into a service road. And it wasn’t a cop. There were no lights. No sirens. Just silence, and the soft thrumming of both their engines in the night.
The driver’s door opened.
King watched it in the rear view mirror.
All he could see was a dark silhouette in front of the headlights as the driver circled round the door and gently pushed it closed.
It was a man, and he was enormous.
And he had something in his hand.
In both hands, actually…
One object was a flashlight. The other was small and dark.
About the size of a gun.
King reached for the handle, then thought better of it.
He waited.
His pulse rose.
His breath steamed the windshield.
He sunk down lower in his seat.
The silhouette approached.
When the guy made it to the right-hand side of his car, King knew he would approach the driver’s door. The flashlight came on, impossibly bright in the darkness, and the small, dark object came up to head height.
The driver, getting ready to approach the door.
To shine his light in.
To identify the occupant of the Tiguan.
To carry on if it wasn’t who he was looking for, but if it was…
King threw the car in reverse and crushed the pedal to the floor and wrenched the wheel to the left. The Tiguan’s tyres spun on the gravel, and then caught.
When they found traction the three movements combined into a single vicious sweep, consisting of the hood swinging to the right in a near hundred and eighty degree turn.
The silhouette didn’t have time to get out of the way.
Instead he tried to fire a shot through the driver’s door, but the panic surrounding the sudden explosion of movement rattled his aim.
He fired over the hood, missing the car completely.
Then the Tiguan caught him at the waist.
It crumpled him, and King felt the vibration through the chassis. He didn’t concentrate on the results — he just saw the silhouette vanish as it bounced off the car, and then he knew he had to move.
The father rocked back on his haunches, rattled by the explosiveness. And there was something in King’s voice, some added weight. Something palpable in the air. This was not a man to trifle with. This was not a man to take a chance against.
King lowered his voice and said, ‘Just the keys. That’s all I need. Don’t be a hero. Just give me what I need and I won’t hurt any of you.’
He wasn’t going to touch them, but they didn’t need to know that.
Eventually the father nodded, and King saw micro-expressions on his face that confirmed his obedience. The man stood up, and held his palms out on either side.
Trying to signal that he meant no harm.
‘Just don’t touch the kid, man,’ the guy said.
I would never, King thought.
‘The keys,’ King snarled.
The guy bowed his head and sighed, and crossed to a chest of drawers on the other side of the living room. King kept a wary eye on him, watching for any sign of deception, but he found none. The man retrieved a key fob from the topmost drawer and tossed it across the room.
‘Just bought it, man,’ he said. ‘Brand new. It’s my livelihood. Ain’t much money to go around out here, so we take pride in it.’
King listened, then pocketed the key. It was a Volkswagen, judging by the emblem on the key fob.
He said, ‘Do you know your bank details off by heart?’
The man stood in rigid silence, as if he didn’t know whether King was playing a practical joke on him or not.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Your bank details,’ King repeated. ‘Do you know them off by heart?’
‘Yeah,’ the guy said. ‘We don’t have much, though. There’s nothing to take.’
‘How much did you pay for the car?’
‘Thirty five thousand dollars.’
‘Give me your details.’
The man gave King his Bank-State-Branch number, followed by his account number. He uttered the digits as if reading them off a page.
King memorised them, then pulled his own phone out and spent a few minutes organising an electronic funds transfer from the bank he’d been using in Switzerland for the better part of the last two years.
He said, ‘Listen, and listen closely. I just sent you fifty thousand dollars. Consider the extra fifteen thousand interest. For the shock I’ve inflicted on the three of you. As soon as I leave here, you can go to the police, and I’m sure they’d find me on one of the highways within a couple of hours and have me arrested. But there’s no guarantee they’d get me on the first try, and if that happens I’ll come back here hunting for all three of your heads. Or you can chalk the entire thing up to a strange dream and go buy the same version of the car you worked hard for, and then you can use the rest of the cash as an emergency fund for tough times. Two choices. If you choose option two, you will never hear from me again. It’s your call to make. Best of luck.’
Then he turned on his heel and left the room.
No-one followed him.
The family were frozen in place, stunned by what had unfolded, probably wondering if they were going to wake up in their beds a moment later and laugh off the crazy nightmare they’d mutually shared.
King made straight for the garage, and when he clambered behind the wheel of the Volkswagen Tiguan, he had a sneaking suspicion both the mother and father would see the light. All they had to do was open the banking application on their phone. They’d see the funds sitting there. That would make them pause, and ruminate on the options King had given them.
After all, he’d forced himself into their house so effortlessly.
Maybe he was telling the truth when he said he would come back for them.
Maybe he truly did have the capacity to avoid the police for long enough to make them pay for it.
They could pick up a new Tiguan from the same dealership, and no-one would know the difference.
King accelerated out through the open garage door and plunged into dark farmland.
He set the GPS on his phone to take him on a roundabout loop of the South Island, and steeled himself for the long night ahead.
Something told him he had no idea what he was truly in for.
49
At ten in the evening the fleet of armoured trucks pulled into a rural ranch-style compound near Tapanui.
Slater soaked in the details out the rear window. The nature of his imprisonment prevented him from turning around to see what they were approaching, but he watched the long gravel track with a keen eye as it trailed all the way from the perimeter fence to the centre.
Everything he could see appeared unassuming.
He figured that was Hawk’s intention.
As the Brabus handled the terrain, Slater turned to the man and said, ‘Bet you’re not happy about how much carnage we caused back there. Wouldn’t want the aftermath to intrude on your privacy.’
Hawk waved a hand dismissively, shaking off Slater’s attempts to rattle him. ‘That’s what I pay clean-up crews for. I’ve got them on standby for messy situations like this. By now the wreckages will be cleared and any trace of civilian casualties will be eliminated. I’m hearing reports that two innocent people were killed. How does that make you feel?’
‘We didn’t do it. Your men did.’
‘But you caused it. If you went to me submissively like you should have, that wouldn’t have happened. I wonder how you justify that to yourself. You see, being morally pure is horse shit. It’s convenient for you. It’s convenient for the world to pretend they’re doing good, when deep down everyone is a piece of shit just like me. I’m just honest about it. I tell the truth.’
‘I—’
Hawk held up a hand in derision, cutting Slater off. ‘Is this the part where you somehow try to convince yourself that you and King are more important than those civilians that died?’
‘No. I’d never do that.’
‘You would have said something along those lines, in a roundabout way. I know how you tick.’
‘Do you?’
Hawk paused for thought as the convoy reached its destination and the four trucks spread out in a fanning semi-circle across a wide dirt lot.
The driver killed the engine, and everything descended into silence.
The interior light went out, and the only illumination came from the weak porch light outside filtering in through the windshield. Slater couldn’t see the house itself — he was still bolted to the bed.
The driver and passenger quietly exited the car over his shoulder.
He didn’t see them either.
He was left alone with Hawk in the gloom.
The dull lighting exacerbated the shadows.
Hawk didn’t budge.
He said, ‘I think it’s time you and I had a little chat.’
‘About what?’ Slater said.
‘I feel obligated to give you the courtesy of knowing what’s going to happen to you before we go too far down the rabbit hole. I respect efficiency, and you and Jason King are two of the most efficient people I’ve ever seen. You’ve mastered almost every aspect of your lives. So I owe you a great debt. I’ll answer any questions you might have. King won’t be so lucky. He irritated me when he got away, so I’ll keep him in the dark until he’s a vegetable on an operating table. And what I do with both of you after that will be beyond your comprehension anyway. So now’s the time to ask.’
Slater said, ‘Who are you, exactly? Do you have a grudge against us?’
Hawk almost looked frustrated at Slater’s ineptitude. ‘Haven’t we already covered this?’
‘How did you find out about Black Force, then? If you really have no connection to either of us…’
‘By doing my research.’
He said this as if it was the most obvious concept in human history, and Slater recoiled from the conversation.
Hawk said, ‘What?’
‘Just do whatever you’re going to do to me. I don’t want to go round in circles with you. Get it over and done with.’
‘You’re uncomfortable, aren’t you?’
‘Wouldn’t you be?’
‘But I don’t think it’s because you’re chained to a bed. I think you’ve cheated death so many times that barely fazes you anymore. I think it’s the fact that you know you’re not going to win this one.’
‘Is that so?’
‘You seem defeated already. Isn’t Jason King out there somewhere? Isn’t he going to come to your rescue?’
‘I’d hope so.’
‘You don’t seem confident.’
‘Should I be?’
‘Usually you are. I’ve read your files, after all. I know everything that happened between the two of you when you were employed. You were each other’s knight in shining armour. You saved him from certain death in Russia. I know all about what happened in that abandoned mine. Black Force wrote up a report on it before they dissolved. Now you’re expecting him to do the same to you.’
Slater stared across the space.
‘What?’ Hawk said. ‘Not feeling talkative?’
Slater kept his mouth shut.
Hawk said, ‘You know I’m better than him. You know I’m better than both of you. I mean, think about it. You two are a nightmare for someone like me. I didn’t want to have to subdue you halfway across the world and then deal with the gargantuan task of getting you both to New Zealand without incident. Both of you are too dangerous for that. So all it ended up taking was a bullet in the head of King’s girlfriend, and a bit of high-level encryption on a phone I planted on the guy I sent to do it. And then you were here, like clockwork. I wrote that goddamn code myself. That’s who you’re dealing with.’
Slater stared blankly into space.
Hawk smirked and said, ‘And you still know nothing about me.’
‘You’re some kind of genius who figured the two most efficient solo operatives in U.S. government history were a perfect place to start with your experiments.’
Hawk pointed a finger in Slater’s face. ‘Almost there.’
‘Good luck with that.’
‘You sound confident. You sound smug. You shouldn’t be feeling anything like that.’
‘You’re going to put a chip in my head — is that what you said?’
‘That’s the simplified version.’
‘I’m keen to see how well that works. Because I don’t know if you should have targeted the two men on the planet with the amount of willpower we have. I don’t know how well this is going to work out for you…’
Hawk nearly laughed, but cut himself off.
Then the man said, ‘I shouldn’t scoff at you for not knowing anything. That’s wrong of me. I should be helping you understand.’
‘What don’t I know?’
‘You don’t know that it doesn’t matter how much willpower you have. I’m going to fry certain parts of your brain, and you’re never going to be the same. The old Slater isn’t going to exist anymore. You’ll have all that reaction speed, all those priceless reflexes, but the rest of you will be pliable. I’ll shape you into what I want. Your capacity to resist doesn’t even come into the equation. You’re a computer up there — it’s all hardwired in — so I can change parts of you.’
Slater squirmed.
Hawk said, ‘And what you really don’t understand is that you’re not an experiment. I’ve been able to do it for some time now.’
The rear doors of the Brabus opened, and faceless silhouettes reached into the back to manhandle Slater’s bed out into the cool night.
On the way out, Hawk reached over and gripped the back of Slater’s neck.
Hawk pulled him in close.
He said, ‘Jose Delgado removed a bull’s aggressive instincts fifty years ago. Imagine what I’m able to do today. I can’t wait to show you around.’
Then Ali Hawk gave the metal bed a gentle shove from behind and it slid from the truck into the waiting hands of his hired thugs.
50
The first leg of the road trip passed without incident.
King stayed true to his original plan and took State Highway 73 across the mainland. He made a beeline for Arthur’s Pass, and as he headed further away from the coastline, the terrain loomed up out of the dark. He stared in awe out the windscreen at the gargantuan mountains on either side of the highway.
They dwarfed him, and an eerie feeling of inconsequentiality settled over him.
Amidst this landscape, his efforts felt futile. He didn’t think he was going to achieve anything in the first place, given how effortlessly he’d been lured here by an unknown enemy.
But this only added to it — this unease, this quiet, dark desperation.
The snow-capped mountains spread for miles in every direction, like rock golems in the night.
Silently judging him.
Silently criticising him for even attempting to rescue Slater.
A couple of hours later, King breezed past a cop car parked on the side of the highway. Plenty of time had passed since he’d stolen the Tiguan, and he could feel eyes in the back of his head as he imagined the cop running the plates, waiting for approval. If the sirens lit up, he knew he’d have a tough time outmanoeuvring the vehicle in a big SUV on a desolate highway at night.
There was one road to take, and nowhere to hide.
But nothing happened.
The family at the farm had made the right choice for all of them.
King continued through Arthur’s Pass. He left the radio off, and he gripped the wheel with both hands, and he inadvertently got himself bogged down in endless thoughts about how the next day might go, and how well he would operate on no sleep.
But that wouldn’t be a problem.
Back during the foundations of his career, he’d come out of a Navy SEAL Hell Week unscathed.
This was nothing in comparison.
He plunged out of the mountain range and made it all the way to the west coast an hour later. From there he branched left at Kumara Junction and headed south at as fast a pace as he could manage. To his left lay the same impossible scenery, and to his right lay a dark and rippling sea. The Tasman Sea swept away into the black horizon, endless in its vastness.
As the clock ticked closer to midnight, a light rain began to fall.
And then a car fell in line behind him.
He must have dropped his awareness for only a few moments, because it all happened fast. One moment he was alone in the dead of night, and the next there were headlights right behind him.
Ordinarily nothing to stress over, but the speed at which they’d materialised rattled him.
Either the vehicle had approached fast with its headlights off and then flicked them on as it bore down on him, or King’s concentration had lapsed so severely that he hadn’t seen the car approaching at all until it was far too late.
Both possibilities were cause for concern.
Either the vehicle was hostile, or he was experiencing lapses in time.
A common side effect of blunt force trauma.
If he was concussed from the vehicular warfare, and he hadn’t realised yet, it wouldn’t bode well for his chances.
He slowed along the coastal highway, and pulled onto the first available service road, and then continued to slow until he was moving at a crawl through the night. He came to a wide gravel lot functioning as a pit stop for long road trips, devoid of life at this hour.
Totally desolate…
The car followed him in.
He couldn’t make out anything in the darkness aside from the twin headlights, but they unnerved him. He slowed all the way down until he came to a halt in the middle of the service lot, and he flicked his own headlights off.
A long shadow stretched out in front of the Tiguan, accentuated by the glare behind him.
He sat still, and hunched down low, and waited for the inevitable to happen.
He already knew nothing good would come of this. It wasn’t an innocent traveller asking for help or looking for directions. They wouldn’t have trusted him if he’d turned into a service road. And it wasn’t a cop. There were no lights. No sirens. Just silence, and the soft thrumming of both their engines in the night.
The driver’s door opened.
King watched it in the rear view mirror.
All he could see was a dark silhouette in front of the headlights as the driver circled round the door and gently pushed it closed.
It was a man, and he was enormous.
And he had something in his hand.
In both hands, actually…
One object was a flashlight. The other was small and dark.
About the size of a gun.
King reached for the handle, then thought better of it.
He waited.
His pulse rose.
His breath steamed the windshield.
He sunk down lower in his seat.
The silhouette approached.
When the guy made it to the right-hand side of his car, King knew he would approach the driver’s door. The flashlight came on, impossibly bright in the darkness, and the small, dark object came up to head height.
The driver, getting ready to approach the door.
To shine his light in.
To identify the occupant of the Tiguan.
To carry on if it wasn’t who he was looking for, but if it was…
King threw the car in reverse and crushed the pedal to the floor and wrenched the wheel to the left. The Tiguan’s tyres spun on the gravel, and then caught.
When they found traction the three movements combined into a single vicious sweep, consisting of the hood swinging to the right in a near hundred and eighty degree turn.
The silhouette didn’t have time to get out of the way.
Instead he tried to fire a shot through the driver’s door, but the panic surrounding the sudden explosion of movement rattled his aim.
He fired over the hood, missing the car completely.
Then the Tiguan caught him at the waist.
It crumpled him, and King felt the vibration through the chassis. He didn’t concentrate on the results — he just saw the silhouette vanish as it bounced off the car, and then he knew he had to move.
