Hawk, page 4
part #6 of Will Slater Series
Slater said, ‘There you go. Camilla, if you want to prove your accusations, tell your husband to check the tapes after we’re done here.’
Lukas stared up at him.
Slater said, ‘You’re going to want to check the tapes. Just to make sure.’
Lukas scrunched up his face, half pained, half humiliated, and said, ‘What do you want?’
‘I want to know how you managed to afford this place.’
‘I’m a businessman.’
‘Crack? Heroin? What does best on the streets?’
Lukas sighed and bowed his head and said, ‘Crack cocaine. It’s all the rage in Budapest right now.’
‘How do you import it?’
‘Cargo planes.’
‘How do you get away with that?’
‘Pay the right people. Everyone takes bribes if you offer enough.’
‘Are you the brains behind the operation?’
‘No,’ the man said, and Slater knew he was telling the truth.
Slater had first-hand experience with organised crime. Nearly a decade of it. He’d dived deep enough into the chain of command to understand that it effectively functioned like a normal business, besides the illegality. The only difference was the consequences.
If you break the rules in the normal world, you get fired.
If you break the rules in the criminal world, you get dead.
But it wasn’t a dictatorship. Not even close. Competence came out on top, just as it did in the real world. And there was no megalomaniac sitting behind a desk controlling everything. It was an enormous operation with a million moving parts.
It was unlikely that Slater had stumbled upon the two men at the top of the food chain. The opulent surroundings didn’t mean anything. You could do very well for yourself and still exist at a lower rung on the ladder.
Slater said, ‘What do you two do?’
‘We handle operations for the rural HQs. The airfields that are responsible for most of the incoming deliveries. There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work to be taken care of.’
‘You work from there?’
‘No. We work in an office, like regular people. We—’
Then all of a sudden he clammed up, as if the consequences of what he was saying had just hit him. Slater had seen this all before, too. Slater had a certain refined talent in interrogations. Both conversational, yet intimidating. He’d honed it to a tee over the years. Now he could extract information before any of his subjects realised what they were saying.
Now Lukas did, and he shut his mouth tight.
‘You don’t know where the airfields are, do you?’ Slater said. ‘You think I’m going to ask you to direct me there, but you don’t have the actual locations. And you think I won’t believe you. So you’re keeping your mouth shut.’
Lukas stared at him, mouth agape. ‘How the hell did you know that?’
‘A wild guess. Don’t worry — I understand. You’re the equivalent of a system administrator, aren’t you? You keep everything running, and all the lights turned on, but you don’t need to know specific details for that. Like what’s coming in, and in what quantities, and where. You just keep the programs up to date. Better for deniability if you don’t know the details.’
Lukas nodded. ‘We handle the business we’re given, and we’re paid well for it. We don’t worry about anything else.’
Slater opened his mouth to ask another question, but shut it again promptly a second later.
He realised he already had everything he needed.
He had enough to work out this wasn’t the fight for him.
5
Slater said, ‘You realise I could put you away for life if I got that on tape?’
Lukas looked up from his position lying on the carpet. Dejected. Defeated. ‘Did you record that?’
‘No. Not my style. I’m more of a vigilante.’
‘What’s your aim here?’
Slater put his hands on his hips.
He said, ‘In truth, I don’t know.’
‘You’re a weird guy.’
‘I thought this would be more of a challenge.’
‘Are you going to tell me to stop breaking the law? Is that what you’re leading up to?’
Slater gave him a look. ‘Would you listen if I did?’
‘Of course not. And if you leave me alive, I’ll make sure to hunt you down.’
‘That’s not the right thing to say in a situation like this.’
‘I have a reputation to uphold.’
‘And how’s that working out for you right now?’
Lukas went quiet.
‘What’s your friend’s name?’ Slater said, pointing to the half-conscious partner lying on his back with a dazed expression on his face.
Lukas said, ‘Benicio.’
‘Do you have the same job?’
‘We’re business partners.’
‘If I felt like going down this avenue, where would you recommend I start?’
Lukas stared at him. ‘Are you being serious?’
‘Of course.’
‘We’re just one rung on the ladder. You’ll be dead in a few days if you follow this trail.’
‘I’ve heard that a lot lately. I’m still here.’
‘You’d be tackling an entire crime family. You’d be tackling members of the government. Do you have backup?’
‘Just me.’
‘You’re insane.’
‘I thought you were two of the most feared men in Hungary.’
‘We are.’
‘Then I’m not so insane, am I?’
‘What did we do to you? Family got caught in the crossfire? If it’s that, it wasn’t personal.’
Slater regarded him with the utmost contempt. ‘It wasn’t that. But I’m glad to hear it wouldn’t have been personal.’
‘I’m sorry for whatever we did to you.’
‘You didn’t do anything to me. I just thought I’d test the waters. I’ve been out of the game for a few months. I thought this might be the avenue to suck me back in.’
‘I don’t know what any of that means.’
‘Count yourself lucky.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m deciding not to pursue it.’
‘So what happens now?’
Slater went silent.
Choose your battles, he told himself.
He said, ‘Now I leave.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that.’
‘What were you hoping to achieve?’
‘I live a fairly unique life, Lukas,’ Slater said. ‘I don’t know if you figured that out by now, but you should have.’
‘So that’s what this is?’ Lukas said, his speech slightly slurred as it passed through his swollen jaw. ‘You just get your rocks off by kicking the shit out of people?’
Slater turned to look at Camilla and Dani, and he said, ‘Not quite true. I don’t need to do that. I usually just get my rocks off the old-fashioned way.’
Then he picked up his shirt and fetched his shoes from the corner of the room, and gathered up both Glocks for precautionary purposes, and left all four of them sprawled across the master bedroom in a perpetual state of unrest.
Dejection swept through the atmosphere. There would be ramifications. Perhaps a fallout or two. A couple of quick divorces. Or not.
Slater wasn’t about to hang around to see it play out.
Because he’d judged the situation very differently. He’d reacted on a whim, figuring he could sink into the underworld of organised crime resting under the surface of Budapest. But sometimes reality is a whole lot different to what you imagine.
And when he considered the logistics of waging war against a crime family, he envisioned a skirmish that could drag on for months, if not years.
He couldn’t rearrange an entire country’s black market. He didn’t run a firm. He didn’t have a small army of mercenaries working for him.
But he could help people personally.
At an individual level.
So he left, and sauntered down through the townhouse’s three levels, and stepped out into a chilly Hungarian evening.
He took a deep breath, and detached himself from the madness of the last few hours, and promptly let it pass from his mind.
He picked a direction at random and set off walking, figuring he could bunker down in any luxury hotel he came across. He had the working capital for that kind of expenditure. He was deep in the fifth district, but after a few moments thought, the lure of the seventh district called to him. That was where most of the ruin bars lay, deep in abandoned buildings in the old Jewish quarter.
He needed a drink to delay the inevitable hangover and let the evening’s lack of resolution fade from his mind. So he got his bearings and powered towards District VII.
Fifteen minutes into the walk, he figured out he was being followed.
6
It had nothing to do with Camilla, or Dani, or Lukas, or Benicio.
He was certain.
Because the tail was far more adept at keeping to the shadows than a grunt employed by an organised crime family. If it was a typical Hungarian street thug following him, he would have spotted the guy in seconds. But this man was talented. Slater almost didn’t pick up on him for most of the first five minutes. He caught whispers of movement in his peripheral vision, but chalked them up to stray animals, or the street lights reflecting off a car in a certain way. Only when he wheeled on the spot in a quiet residential street did he see a darkened figure dart into the shadows.
Slater froze.
The cold settled over him.
His breath steamed in front of his face.
He folded his arms over his chest, tucking his hands into his armpits. He waited, aware of the compact Glock 19 pressing into the small of his back. He could have the gun out in half a second. He could blast through anyone faster than they could get a beat on him. But he didn’t pick up on any signs of hostility.
Intuition told him this wouldn’t end in a firefight.
Which made him awfully curious about who was following.
He hovered there for another beat, all his muscles relaxed, maintaining nonchalance. Then he broke into a sprint, feet pounding the pavement. He made it to the lip of the alley in a few seconds.
He jammed his boots into the concrete and skidded to a stop, and wrenched the Glock from his waistband and aimed it into the shadows.
There was nothing there.
He stayed where he was, his breath coming out in clouds.
Indecision plagued him.
It wasn’t organised crime. So what was going on? Who had an interest in him? How had they found him?
He went down the alleyway, holding the Glock by his side, at the ready. From the other end of the narrow passage — between two residential apartment complexes — he heard all the familiar sounds of a late-night entertainment district. He pulled up a rudimentary street map of Budapest in his head and figured he would be entering a familiar street he’d walked down a couple of days previously, packed with ruin bars and seedy strip joints, with a couple of expensive haunts thrown into the mix to liven up the choices offered to drunk passers-by.
He ran through the memory, replaying it over and over.
Nothing stood out as particularly threatening.
He doubted he would be walking into an ambush.
But he stayed prepared regardless.
Because this was his life.
A constant stream of indecision. No consistent routine, no familiar locations, no settling for comfort. He’d become used to it, in his own way. He thrived on the uncertainty inherent in constant travel.
He reached the end of the alley, and the shadows receded, replaced by dull lighting spilling out from a dozen nearby establishments.
Slater looked all around, scanning the street. Half the grimy ruin bars were closed at this hour. A handful were still open, drenched in glowing neon, populated by a diverse range of night owls in various states of drunkenness. He passed his gaze over them, searching for all the familiar signs of someone trying to put on an act. It wouldn’t have taken much effort for the tail to leg it to the nearest bar, pick up a half-empty beer and pretend they’d been there the whole time.
But no-one had a thin sheen of sweat on their forehead, or nervous darting eyes, or a forced demeanour. Everyone seemed relaxed, at ease, seized by the alluring effects of alcohol. Couples laughed and danced, clusters of young men roared raucous laughter at each other, and older types sat back and watched the nighttime ebb and flow with a certain serene contentment. Those types had seen it all before. They were drawn to the ruckus of it all.
Slater wondered if he was simply being paranoid.
He studied the bars in a new light.
Searching for a place to continue finding the bottom of a bottle.
His night had been going well before the temporary detour with Camilla and Dani.
But he’d done what he set out to do.
Inject a little adrenalin.
Oil the internal mechanisms.
Kick the engine into gear.
What would it lead to? He didn’t know.
He’d decide over a beer.
He set off, choosing a direction at random, making sure the compact Glock was once again tucked out of sight in the back of his waistband. He stepped out from the lee of the alleyway and found himself drenched in the yellow glow from the streetlights overhead. He merged into the foot traffic, and tried to let the war state of mind recede.
There was no-one following him. He was experiencing the remnants of his past, creeping up to plague him during his downtime.
It’s foolish to always stay on guard, he told himself.
Then he walked past a ruin bar with an inner courtyard packed with flea market furniture, set up in a derelict old building. Neon light spilled out through the open entranceway, and Slater looked past a couple of bouncers to admire the interior.
In hindsight, he didn’t know why he chose that place to stop.
But he would always remember it.
He swept the inner chamber, noting the decor had been arranged to convert the hollow shell of a building into a modern colosseum. Patrons sauntered across the open floor, entering conversations at random, swaying and moving to the rhythmic, pulsating thumping of bass.
His gaze caught on a particular table.
And a particular set of cold eyes.
For the first time in months, he made eye contact with a man he thought he’d never see again.
Sitting on his own. Cradling a drink. His posture ramrod straight. His face set like stone.
Slater had seen that look before.
He gulped back apprehension.
Looking like the hardened killer of old, Jason King lifted a palm and beckoned Slater inside the ruin bar.
7
Like moving through a fever dream, Slater stepped inside the colosseum.
The cylindrical space had ruins on all sides, forming a harrowing perimeter around the bar’s converted interior. Like the centre had been scooped out and drenched in hedonism.
Drinks flowed, music pulsed, and lights flashed on and off. It added to the surrealism. Slater stared hard at King as he moved across the space, wondering if he was making the greatest mistake of his life.
Because he almost didn’t recognise the man he’d formed a brotherhood with over the last couple of years.
The Jason King he’d managed to corral to the Russian Far East had been a reluctant participant. King had resorted to his old ways to mow through an icebreaker packed with mercenaries, but he hadn’t wanted to. The fight had left him, and it took an inhuman effort to bring it back.
Because it was nigh-on impossible to be a ruthless killer and keep your head screwed on straight.
You had to bounce back and forth between the two worlds. Slater had built up a particular skill at that, but King had reached his wits’ end long ago.
He was out of the game.
He’d returned for a brief spell, to prevent another world war, and then he’d disappeared back into self-imposed exile.
He’d told Slater to never try to contact him again, at risk of sending him plummeting into madness.
And right now, there was barely a shred of humanity left in King’s eyes.
Slater pulled to a halt on the other side of the table, and stood there.
Unsure.
King beckoned to the seat across from him. ‘Sit.’
Slater sat.
He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had ordered him around so effortlessly.
They sat there in silence, two of the most feared warriors on the planet. Two solo operatives from a long-dissolved government division. They had a history that couldn’t be summed up unless they sat there for hours, dissecting it, breaking it down. But there was no need for that. They’d both gone through it in the flesh.
They both knew what each other had been through.
Life flowed around them. Civilians laughed. The bass thumped. The lights wandered across the floor, catching their table at sporadic intervals. The rest of the time, the perimeter of the ruin bar was plunged in shadow.
It created a sinister effect. King sat draped in the darkness, but occasionally Slater saw him illuminated, and caught the lethal glint in the man’s eyes.
Finally, Slater worked up the courage to speak. ‘I thought you were out of the game.’
‘I still might be,’ King said.
Slater said nothing.
The music continued.
The bass thumped on and on.
Slater said, ‘You’re not the same. You’re back.’
King said, ‘You can tell?’
‘What happened?’
‘What do you think?’
Slater sat there, deep in a labyrinth of dark thoughts. A waiter drifted over, and Slater pointed to the half-empty pint glass sitting in front of King. A wordless command.
One of those.
He didn’t respond until the man went away and returned a minute later with a full glass of the strong brew. He nodded his thanks, picked up the pint, and drank half the beer in a single gulp. Then he sat back, wiped his mouth, and let out a long sigh.
