Savages: A Jason King Thriller (The Jason King Files Book 3) Page 13

  They weren’t involved. If they interfered with one incident, by general principle they would need to save them all.

  And even both of them together couldn’t save everyone.

  ‘I didn’t think this was something I’d ever have to think about,’ King said. ‘It’s hard to deal with. I don’t know what to think.’

  ‘Your last operation,’ Brody said. ‘I talked to Lars about it briefly. Tell me about Bryson Reed.’

  King paused. ‘He was a Force Recon Marine. He found a loophole in the third-world supply chain and almost made off with close to a billion dollars in cash.’

  ‘So you saw the pipeline with your own eyes?’

  King turned to look at Brody. ‘You’ve seen it?’

  ‘It’s part of life across Africa. Most of the goods you see avoid tax. That brings up a whole new range of issues, doesn’t it? All the unseen suffering. Extortion, bribery, the windows it opens up for human trafficking. You killed Bryson Reed, but you didn’t even put a dent in one millionth of the industry. Think about that.’

  Silence descended over the jeep.

  ‘You can’t save everyone,’ Brody said as they roared toward Kisangani.

  25

  The door opened on the third try.

  King battled with the lock, shoving the single rusting key forward at a series of different angles until finally the rotting wood gave in and the door groaned on its hinges. He let Brody through first and followed the man into a tiny one-bedroom apartment overlooking one of Kisangani’s bustling streets. Brody had pre-arranged their accomodation before they’d arrived, finding a rundown block of tenement housing across the street from the venue he’d be fighting at later that evening.

  King dumped his gear down on the floor, sat on a faded armchair in the corner of the room, and contemplated how drastically his psyche had shifted in the space of a few months.

  A cage fight might have triggered a wave of nerves just half a year ago. Now he considered it an afterthought — simply something to keep the juices flowing. The fact that he needed violence to keep the momentum going made him question himself — was he truly doing the right thing in this world?

  Then he thought of Joaquín Ramos and Bryson Reed lying dead before him and nodded satisfactorily.

  Of course he was.

  There would be a never-ending list of monsters to go after for as long as he lived. That would never come into question.

  And he happened to have a specific skill set to deal with them.

  ‘Alright,’ Brody said. ‘I’ve got to go across the street to register your details and handle some of the finer details. I’ve got word from Lars that Bernardi arrived this afternoon. He’s staying at an upmarket place only three streets away from here. So keep your head down and stay indoors as much as possible — he knows what you look like, but I’m not sure if he knows I exist. If he realises we’re here early, he might start snooping around to try and work out what we’re doing. Then shit will hit the fan back stateside, and I’ll be crucified. So let’s try to avoid that. You stay here and get your mind right.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘No nerves?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Guess you’ve been living and breathing combat for the past ten days. A sanctioned bout shouldn’t be too much of a stretch.’

  ‘I could get beat half to death and it still wouldn’t hold a candle to what happened in Somalia.’

  Halfway to the door, Brody froze, casting a look back at King before he disappeared into the corridor. ‘I still can’t believe you survived those injuries.’

  ‘I was functioning at a hundred percent within five weeks.’

  Brody shook his head. ‘Maybe all this concern about preservation is unfounded. Maybe you’re the Terminator.’

  ‘Maybe. I wouldn’t rule it out.’

  Brody smirked and stepped out of the tiny apartment, leaving King alone with his thoughts. He stretched out his aching muscles — he still hadn’t fully recuperated from the ten days of relentless exertion. He wouldn’t be going into the bout at his healthiest, but that didn’t matter. He was satisfied with the progress he’d made at Brody’s compound. An amateur bout — no matter how tough the opponent — wouldn’t faze him.

  Worst case scenario: he got the shit kicked out of him.

  No-one would know, except Brody.

  And something told him he would never see the man again after his time in the Congo had run its course.

  He settled into a near-slumber, allowing the fatigue to drape over him as the sounds of Kisangani trickled in through the open window. They had entered the town’s limits at close to four in the afternoon, and immediately King had sensed the streets pulsing with some kind of raw energy. Despite hundreds of thousands of civilians congested into such close quarters, there was a certain air of lawlessness about the place. Not quite the same as the rural villages, where it felt as if King might lose his head at any moment, but an undercurrent of opportunity and desperation ran through the streets, filtering into the humid atmosphere. People moved about with purpose, and speed reigned supreme. Ancient cars whizzed up and down the muddy laneways and Congolese civilians hurried donkeys and goats along dusty tracks.

  There was an urgency in Kisangani that King hadn’t experienced in the rolling jungles of the countryside.

  The noise of a massive engine from the street outside tore him out of his thoughts. Ordinarily such a throaty growl would seem commonplace back stateside, but something about the engine sounded familiar. King levered himself out of the armchair and crossed the dingy room, dodging a puddle of fetid liquid on the kitchen floor. He covered his nose with his hand to mask a pungent smell emanating from the floor and leant forward to search for the source of the sound.

  His heart leapt into his throat.

  The Ford Raptor had screeched to a halt on the other side of the street, its wheels coated in muck and its engine still idling. He watched three occupants get out and hurry across the sidewalk. One of them stood out.

  Wyatt, and a couple of his buddies.

  They headed straight into the unimpressive three-storey building sitting in the concrete lot on the other side of the street. Nothing about the exterior showed any indication that unsanctioned mixed martial arts bouts took place inside its walls, but King imagined that’s what the owners were going for. The three South African mercenaries stormed straight into the lobby and disappeared from sight, as if they owned the place.

  King rocked back on his heels and pressed a pair of fingers to his temple, wondering where he’d gone wrong. Wondering what he’d miscalculated.

  He didn’t know whether Brody had gone into the building or not. He didn’t know where Brody was.

  Realising that he knew very little at all about anything that was going on in Kisangani, he retreated to the armchair to stew.

  Nothing about this felt right.

  26

  Rex Bernardi breathed in the thick rancid air and couldn’t help but smile at his change of fortune.

  He was dressed in a simple plain polo and cargo shorts — a world away from the suffocating bureaucratic tendencies. He stood on a mud-caked street, surrounded by lean Congolese civilians hurrying to their destinations, the entire city teeming with a vigour he hadn’t experienced in quite some time.

  He was uncomfortable here, but that felt natural.

  That felt like home.

  Truth was, Jason King hadn’t been his sole reason for desperately wanting to visit the Congo. He’d simply been fed up with the monotony of Washington, and he couldn’t find a feasible way to dip his toes back in the discomfort associated with his military career. The transition hadn’t been hard — nothing in an office held a candle to SEAL training — but he’d been forced to call in a serious favour to find an opportunity to escape, albeit for a brief stint. He was only here for a couple of days, but that was all he needed.

  A vacation that wasn’t really a vacation.

  A vacation that sent him back to old time
s, to war zones and battlefield decisions.

  Jason King was the cherry on top.

  Everything he’d told Lars about his gut instincts had been entirely true. Something told him King was special, special like no solo operative who had come before him. He had lived his life by valuing experience over anything else, and the opportunity to meet a man in the infancy of his career, who might go on to achieve the stuff of legend in the secret world, was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

  He had no doubt that if he’d waited until King returned stateside, someone would have whisked him off into a new operation before Bernardi had the chance to meet him. By volunteering to travel to the Congo when no-one else would … it set him apart. He wanted Jason King to remember him. He didn’t know whether he would need to call in a favour down the line.

  He lingered by a roadside stall selling fresh meat and native cuisine — some kind of stew simmering in a pan. He paused, contemplating buying a serving. He took a moment to savour the unhinged nature of the region. This was what he’d come here for. Washington advanced his career and ticked boxes on his list of aspirations, but the rigidity of the regime got to him.

  He could live out here.

  It had only taken a precursory glance at Brody Hartman’s file to understand why the ex-spec ops legend had decided to bury his head in the Congolese jungle. One day Bernardi longed for something like that. When he had left his mark on the secret world and achieved everything he wanted, then he would turn his attention to finding some barren corner of the world to live out the rest of his days.

  Until then…

  Then something in his peripheral vision seized his attention — the side profile of a civilian a hundred feet down the street. Bernardi froze on the muddy sidewalk and stared, checking a list of boxes in his head.

  Ponytail.

  Pronounced jawline.

  Cold, efficient movement.

  It was him.

  Bernardi had only laid eyes on a single military photo of Brody Hartman in a file Lars had provided him with, but there was no doubt that the man himself was crossing the street, directly in Bernardi’s sight.

  What does it mean?

  Brody was in Kisangani early. Which meant, in all likelihood, Jason King was here somewhere.

  But that wasn’t the issue.

  The problem lay in the deception — if Brody had informed Black Force that he and his pupil would be arriving a day early to see the sights, no-one would have batted an eyelid. But the pair of them weren’t supposed to be here.

  And, by the way Brody carried himself across the mud-caked street, darting between stationary vehicles, Bernardi noticed all the signs of a man trying his best not to be seen.

  Brody moved fast, stopping short of a jog but power-walking with enough intensity to minimise his time out in the open. He ducked through a side gate across the street and disappeared into a concrete lot with a giant three-storey building resting in the centre. Bernardi would have to hurry over to get a better look at where he was headed, and that was a risk he was unwilling to take.

  He stayed where he was, thinking, calculating, scouring the busy street for any sign of Jason King.

  Nothing.

  Whatever Brody was doing here, Bernardi had been deliberately left out of the loop. That enraptured him, piquing his curiosity. It would be simple enough to intercept the man on his way out of the building by hanging around the front, but something told Bernardi that would ruin whatever he and King had come here to do.

  No.

  Rex Bernardi had experience under his belt.

  He could wait out the rest of the day.

  Unseen.

  He shrunk into the shadows of the nearest alleyway and began formulating a range of ideas as to what Brody Hartman and Jason King were doing in secrecy.

  27

  Dusk fell over Kisengani, and the city came alive with energy.

  King sensed the shifting atmosphere roll in through the open window, as the sun set and the scent of something aggressive and palpable washed in. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the nondescript building across the street that hid darker secrets, or if all of the city lit up with this kind of mood. Or perhaps it was a placebo — his own psyche charging with cortisol and adrenalin as he geared up for a true bout of combat.

  Brody took his time sorting out the finer details across the street, but King didn’t concern himself with that. He took himself through a series of vinyasas, transitioning from “upward dog” to “downward dog” and loosening his limbs. The day had been entirely absent of physical exercise, and the short window of rest had provided him ample opportunity to recover.

  He was young and hungry.

  Twenty-four hours was all he needed.

  Brody returned as the sky turned a shade of dark blue, barging into the room with a handful of signed documents in his hand and a perplexed look on his face.

  ‘What’s up?’ King said, immediately sensing all wasn’t as it seemed.

  ‘I … think I saw something in there.’

  ‘In the building?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You don’t look too pleased.’

  ‘Those South African thugs. Who guard the mine. A few of them walked past the room I was waiting in. They didn’t see me.’

  King paused, mulling over what Brody had said. ‘You got a proper look at them?’

  ‘Yeah. Brief, but it was them.’

  ‘Was Wyatt in there? He’s the only one I know by name.’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘What the hell are they doing all the way out here? They been following us?’

  Brody shook his head. ‘They should have seen me. But they were too caught up in whatever they were doing. They’re here on their own business. I think it’s an odd coincidence.’

  ‘What do we do?’

  Brody shrugged. ‘Carry on as usual, I suppose. Nothing to get too worked up over. They might watch you fight. Shouldn’t concern us.’

  ‘It threw you off, though,’ King said. ‘Is this because of what happened two years ago?’

  Brody shot him a dark look. ‘No. Don’t be ridiculous. I made a mistake discussing that with you. There’s no proof they had anything to do with it.’

  ‘Nothing else makes sense.’

  ‘Yes, but…’

  ‘Now’s your opportunity to question them about it,’ King said. ‘No-one knows you’re here. I’d take that if I were…’

  Brody exploded, surging across the room and shaking King by the collar, hurling him back into the chair.

  ‘Don’t ever suggest anything like that again! Fuck!’

  He released his hold on King and retreated to the kitchen, the anger returning.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ King said, realising his mistake. ‘That was stupid of me.’

  ‘If I went down that path…’

  ‘You left it behind you,’ King said. ‘You’re not that guy anymore. I made a mistake just by opening my mouth.’

  You’re young and dumb, he told himself. But you can find the right words.

  Brody took what felt like an eternity to respond. When he did, it came in short, sharp bursts of emotion. ‘You have no idea how much I want to lay my hands on them. All of them. But what if one of them’s innocent? What if most of them weren’t involved? What if there were only a couple of guilty parties who’ve long since left the Congo? I have no way of knowing, and they won’t talk. I’d have to do terrible things.’

  ‘It can’t be good news if they’re here. If they try anything — anything at all — I’m going to lash out. You can keep your conscience clear, but I don’t care. I’m not going to sit back and let them do whatever they want.’

  ‘You don’t know why they’re here.’

  ‘Neither do you.’

  Brody shrugged it off. ‘Everything should go as planned. Your opponent’s name is Francis. I’ve got the feeling we’re going to ruin a few people’s days with the fight, so once it’s over find me in the back and we’ll get
out of there as soon as we can.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘I spent a couple of hours in there with various promoters, and they’re all talking like Francis is the next big thing. You’re being treated as the sacrificial lamb.’

  ‘Do they know what they’re in for?’

  ‘They haven’t got a clue.’

  ‘What if there’s a riot?’

  ‘I doubt it’ll be that bad. I had to show a photo of you to a couple of curious promoters. Word is there’s some heavy money going on you to win, though. I think I carry a reputation — like, anyone who trains under me is just expected to win…’

  ‘Did you have a good track record? Years ago?’

  Brody nodded. ‘A couple of my fighters are in the big leagues now. I don’t keep in contact, though.’

  ‘So I can’t let you down.’

  ‘I’d prefer you didn’t. For your own health more than anything else.’

  ‘How long until we’re due there?’

  ‘We can head over in an hour. I want some time to warm you up in the back — old rituals, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Are we the first bout?’

  ‘Third, I think.’

  There was nothing more to be said. King settled into a steady rhythm pacing up and down the cramped apartment, listening to the distant, muffled roar of a crowd. He’d glimpsed the upper lip of a soccer stadium when they’d first driven into Kisangani — there must be a game on. The energy carried over the town, invigorating him, making him feel alive.

  There was a more violent, higher risk sport set to take place across the street just a few hours from now.

  And Jason King was the main attraction.

  28

  With a single string of syllables, Brody kicked the night into action.

  He checked his watch, nodded once, and said, ‘Alright, let’s do this.’

  It had gone completely dark, the only illumination coming from the odd street light scattered throughout Kisangani, most of them in various states of disrepair. There were only a handful on the street below their apartment complex, all of them flickering and weak, plunging most of the muddy trail into shadow.