Hunted: A Jason King Thriller (Jason King Series Book 6) Read online

  ‘I’ll take care of it.’

  He coasted the panel van up to the checkpoint, coming to a stop directly alongside the booth. Both guards stepped out of the small hut simultaneously, their arms raised to indicate for Slater to stop. He shifted the gearstick into “park” and yanked the handbrake on.

  Slowly, he rolled down the window. ‘What’s up, boys?’

  ‘No,’ one guard said in stunted English, shaking his head from side to side. ‘Not here. Go back. No…’

  Slater jerked a thumb toward the van’s main cabin, gesturing to unseen goods. ‘Delivery for Roudha Abdullah. He says it’s urgent, buddy. Ain’t my problem if he doesn’t get it.’

  The guards froze, perplexed. Then they continued to shake their heads. Their instructions had obviously been clear — do not let anyone through this checkpoint that hasn’t previously been approved.

  ‘No,’ the guard repeated. ‘No today. Maybe tomorrow. You go.’

  Slater feigned ignorance, scrunching up his face in disapproval and throwing the door outward with a huff of distress. He stepped down onto the asphalt, coming within half a foot of the pair of guards.

  King watched him tensely.

  ‘Look, buddy!’ Slater yelled. ‘I don’t know what the hell your deal is, but Mr. Abdullah has expressly asked me to—‘

  The nearest guard jabbed a finger hard into Slater’s chest, cutting him off with a crude string of Arabic. Slater grabbed his hand out of thin air and twisted it to the side. He punched the guy in the stomach hard enough to take his legs out from under him, winding him.

  The second guard stepped in, attempting to tackle Slater into the side of the van. Slater spun effortlessly out of the way and shoved the guy forward, continuing his path. Carried by the burst of momentum, the man face-planted the side of the panel van, hard enough to echo off the interior walls. King grimaced at the noise.

  Slater climbed back into the driver’s seat, visibly frustrated. ‘Thought I might have been able to intimidate them into letting me through.’

  ‘Didn’t work.’

  ‘Evidently. Didn’t want it to come to that.’

  ‘They’ll be fine,’ King said. ‘Maybe sore for a few days.’

  ‘They sure will be.’

  He slammed the van into gear and gently rolled it through the checkpoint, unobstructed by any words of protest. King checked his side mirror and saw the guards sitting there on the concrete, stunned and intimidated by the sudden violence.

  ‘Think you scared them,’ he said. ‘Doubt they see much action out here.’

  ‘I hit hard,’ Slater replied. ‘That’s why I didn’t want to do that. I’d rather people who deserve it get that treatment.’

  ‘You’ll have all the opportunity in the world to give a deserving beatdown if we’re right about this.’

  They continued down the winding road until their surroundings on either side were swallowed up by the towering buildings. They blocked out the sun, casting long shadows across the empty asphalt.

  ‘If we’re seen now, they’ll know something’s up,’ Slater said. ‘I doubt any of them would accept that construction workers were allowed through.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  Just a tiny speck in the distance, King saw the limousine turn into the entrance to an underground parking garage. Above it rested a multi-faceted skyscraper with a curving glass exterior. The post-modern architecture stood out like a sore thumb amidst the dull commerciality of the other buildings. This tower had been practically completed, evidently receiving a much-faster production schedule than the others.

  ‘Think that’s Abdullah’s building?’ he said.

  ‘I’d hazard a guess,’ Slater replied.

  Slater slowed the van to a crawl and kept to one side of the road, trying his best to minimise their chances of being spotted.

  ‘How heavily do you think it’s guarded?’ he said.

  King checked the digital watch on his good hand. ‘We might have fluked this. I didn’t see any other vehicles on the road. They might be the first arrivals. Could still be setting up shop. What if we’re early?’

  ‘Then I’ll be happy,’ Slater said. ‘Easier for us.’

  ‘I can’t do much,’ King warned. ‘My left hand is completely fucking useless. This’ll be mostly on you.’

  ‘I can handle it.’

  ‘I don’t like this. It felt too easy.’

  ‘We’re not there yet.’

  ‘How are we doing this?’

  ‘Brute force,’ Slater said. ‘Only option I can see.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  Slater punched the gas pedal, quickening their pace in the space of a couple of seconds. They were close enough to the building for anyone peering out the windows of the upper levels to see them.

  It was too late to hide.

  As soon as they passed a wide concrete fountain — lying dormant, without any water in it yet — the grand lobby came into view. Three armour-clad paramilitary troopers patrolled the empty space in front of the building, clutching heavy assault rifles at the ready. Against the urban backdrop, it was a strange sight for the men to be openly wielding automatic weaponry.

  King had to remind himself that this wasn’t an ordinary city.

  It was empty. Artificial. Lifeless.

  He kept that in the back of his mind as Slater turned onto the sidewalk and gunned it toward the trio.

  42

  As the three men noticed the approaching panel van in unison, Slater handed King the Glock. He pressed both hands on the wheel and made a beeline for the sidewalk where the trio stood.

  King felt the grip of the weapon in his palm — and for some reason, he hesitated. He stared out through the windscreen at the three men they were speeding toward. They were hard men, with cruel faces and soulless eyes — much like the hordes of mercenaries and soldiers of fortune and guns-for-hire that King dealt with on a seemingly daily basis.

  All motivated by one thing.

  Money.

  Willing to bend to the needs of the highest bidder.

  He despised them just as much as all the others, but something made him reconsider. As he went through the motions, winding down the passenger side window and leaning his upper torso out into the Dubai heat, he thought of attempting non-fatal shots. A round to each man’s leg, which would hopefully put them down for enough time to press into the building.

  Then one of the men began to raise his assault rifle, and all that melted away.

  Reality set in.

  These crooked bastards were going to shoot them to pieces, just to please their employers — employers who took great pleasure in watching innocent kidnapped foreigners beat each other to death in the bottom of an abandoned gold mine.

  It was all sick. This facet of society was cruel and twisted and remorseless. King had operated in its jurisdiction for most of his adult life, and he would be happy to see the end of those days. In the beginning, he’d thought the world was fixable.

  Something about the three men in front of him hammered home the realisation that there would always be people like this. People willing to take lives away for the value of paper.

  So he raised the Glock 22 and blasted their heads apart.

  It took five shots in total. First he focused on the man who had reacted the fastest, letting off a cluster of three bullets. The rounds tore through the man’s oesophagus just as he raised the Kalashnikov AK-47 in his hands to level height.

  He died gruesomely.

  The other two were slow. Either inexperienced, or overwhelmed by the emergence of a situation they hadn’t imagined would actually occur.

  King took careful aim, conserving ammunition. He watched their heads jerk back before he was even aware of the subtle adjustments in his forearm. The fast-twitch muscle fibres fired, slicing his aim millimetres through the air to switch from one target to the other.

  He was a machine of destruction.

  The three men were dead before Slater had mounted the sidewalk.<
br />
  King felt nothing. He had dealt with the doubt in the second or two before pulling the trigger. Once the bullets left the barrel of his Glock, he had been content with any outcome. In his eyes, these men deserved to die.

  Because of what they were involved in.

  Because of who they were taking blood money from.

  Because of the countless tasks they had carried out for similarly-minded employers in the past.

  In the world of vigilante justice, King’s opinion was all that mattered.

  He was judge, jury and executioner.

  The only law was his own morals.

  The first man squeezed off a rapid volley of shots in his death throes, his finger spasming against the AK-47’s trigger.

  He was uncomfortably accurate for a dead man.

  King ducked back inside the cabin and Slater flattened himself underneath the line of sight as Kalashnikov rounds shredded the front tyres and shattered the windscreen.

  The panel van sent up a flurry of sparks as it crashed onto the sidewalk, grinding to a halt due to the lack of rubber on the front wheels. King took a moment to realise he was still alive, then let out the breath that had caught his throat.

  Slater sat up, exhaling in similar fashion.

  ‘That was too close,’ he said.

  ‘They would have heard that,’ King said. ‘You think that’s all the security they had?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Me too.’

  King pushed the passenger door outward, stepping down onto the pavement. As he did, pinpoints of blinding light needled his vision. His legs faltered and he fell back against the seat, panting hard.

  The pain in his wrist and across his upper back and in the pit of his stomach reached a crescendo.

  Before he could get to his feet, Slater had skirted round the front of the van and had a firm hand clamped on King’s shoulder.

  ‘Steady yourself, brother,’ he said.

  King nodded, eyes wide and skin pale. His vision swam. He saw Slater’s face in two separate locations, both of them distant and unfocused.

  ‘What’s wrong with me?’ he muttered.

  ‘You’re badly hurt,’ Slater said. ‘Ignore it as much as you want, but you need a doctor.’

  ‘I’ll get one. After this.’

  Slater shook his head. ‘You’re not going in there.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ King said sarcastically, and attempted to push off the side of the van’s passenger seat.

  Slater thrust him back into a seated position.

  ‘Stay here,’ Slater said, his tone suddenly commanding. ‘I’ll deal with this myself. Make sure no-one follows me in, okay?’

  ‘I…’ King began, but he couldn’t find the words.

  ‘Your back’s bloody as all hell from whatever you did in Sweden. Your arm’s completely fucked, in case you didn’t notice. You’ve probably lost more blood than it takes to stay conscious — but somehow you’re still going. Just stay here and keep a lookout. Okay?’

  King nodded. He wasn’t in the right state to protest. ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’ll sort this out.’

  ‘If Abdullah’s there,’ King said, ‘kill him. And any of the oligarchs he’s meeting with.’

  Slater smirked. ‘You didn’t need to tell me that.’

  ‘I know. But I thought you might feel better if you had my blessing to do it.’

  Slater tousled King’s hair jokingly. ‘Thanks, big brother.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  The sound of distant vehicles surfaced from the silence of the empty city. The drone came closer with each passing second. More of Abdullah’s friends, no doubt. King and Slater noticed the barely-perceptible coughing of a party of vehicles trawling closer. Nothing was visible yet. Just an empty road spiralling back to the residential sector of Dubai South.

  ‘You got it?’ Slater said.

  King nodded. ‘Got it.’

  ‘Keep the gun. You need it more than I do.’

  King watched Slater take off at a sprint across the bare concrete ground. The man forced open one of the translucent glass doors lining the exterior of the building’s lobby and disappeared into its depths.

  King sighed and turned his eyes towards the sound of the forthcoming engines.

  He adjusted his sweaty grip on the Glock 22 and braced for whatever was headed his way.

  43

  Will Slater experienced the same roaring in his ears that always came to him in the midst of war.

  He’d experienced it twice lately. First onboard a superyacht on the island of Corsica, where the rage he’d felt upon discovering a sex slavery ring had led him to decimate a small force of hired mercenaries under contract with a local politician.

  Then in the Russian Far East, when a brief and ultra-violent conflict had unfolded in the production room of an abandoned gold mine.

  Countless men had been mown down by his wrath whenever his blood ran hot. He recognised the same sensation now, utilising all the anger and frustration he’d felt whilst locked in the brig. He wanted to unleash on the men who had put him there, and the men who had tried to take his life over the last few days.

  Roudha Abdullah’s a real piece of work, he concluded.

  Slater thought that the man could be trusted after what he’d done for him. He’d selflessly put his own life on the line to protect Abdullah’s, a man he had hardly known back in those days.

  Turned out he still hardly knew him.

  The guy clearly had sadistic tendencies in his private life. If King had never wandered into Abdullah’s penthouse, Slater would never have known. He had full faith that the man would have helped him through the situation if not for King’s presence.

  Now that he knew what the man was like behind closed doors, he felt wretched for ever rescuing him in the first place.

  He should have let those Japanese hitmen tear him apart back in Ibiza. It might have saved the lives of the countless innocent hostages who had been forced to fight to the death for Abdullah’s personal entertainment.

  Seething with those thoughts, he crossed the deserted lobby and powered into the concrete stairwell that led up through the building. Faint white light seeped from the occasional LED bar fixed into the walls at random intervals, providing temporary illumination while the finer details of the building were completed over the next year or so.

  Slater hustled up the steps, flexing his wrists with each bounding stride, loosening his muscles. He was unarmed, but that hadn’t stopped him in the past.

  A few floors above him, he sensed movement. Like three or more men were moving in a tight unit — either to protect themselves, or someone else.

  He slowed his pace, pushing off his toes rather than the balls of his feet.

  It silenced his advances entirely.

  They wouldn’t hear him coming.

  He caught an initial glimpse of their backs a few moments later. He slowed even more when he realised that they were moving at a snail’s pace. Three of them total. The men to the left and right of the central member had their arms looped around him, helping him slowly up the flight of stairs.

  Slater paused.

  The man in the centre was elderly, with a crop of outrageous white hair sticking out at various angles and a hunched back. Something about his frailty infuriated Slater. This was one of the men who had paid handsomely to establish the mine operation. Despite his old age and weakness, he was clearly a powerful man — otherwise he wouldn’t be here. His sociopathic tendencies had ruined the lives of so many — and here he was, hindered by his fragility. He needed stronger men to do his dirty work.

  Those minions existed in every dark corner of the globe — tough mercenary-types who were obviously being paid handsomely for their twenty-four-seven bodyguard positions.

  Slater harnessed the rage he felt as he burst up the final stretch of stairs, concluding the sprint less than a foot behind the trio.

  They turned far too late.

  By the time
either of the two thugs reacted, Slater was on them. He gave the guy on the left a close-quarters, double-handed shove into the concrete wall, hard enough to crack the side of his head off the concrete.

  While the other man fumbled desperately for his weapon, Slater reached down and wrenched the handgun out of the disoriented man’s holster.

  It was of Austrian make. Slater recognised the gun as a Steyr M-1A. This version of the handgun had a manual safety catch in the form of a small white button near the trigger guard.

  Slater assessed the gun in a half-second. While slicing the barrel through the air towards the second guard, he depressed the safety button, making the gun live.

  He fired twice at point-blank range into the second guy’s face.

  The results were grisly, but Slater didn’t have time to focus on the bloody aftermath because a fist crashed against the side of his head. As soon as the impact rattled his skull, he realised the gravity of his mistake.

  Even as his limbs wobbled, he recognised that he’d been punched in the temporal lobe. The knuckles had sunk into the soft flesh just above his ear — one of the more precarious locations to absorb a strike.

  There was a reason why mixed martial artists targeted the area in attempts to deliver a knockout blow.

  He battled for control of his senses, fully aware of the ramifications involved with blacking out. He would be at the mercy of the previously-stunned bodyguard, who no doubt had combat training given the pinpoint-accurate punch he’d delivered.

  Slater opted for the lesser of two bad outcomes. He voluntarily tipped backward, falling down six or seven steps and sprawling across the small square platform in between flights of steps.

  He was rocked.

  Badly rocked.

  The last remaining bodyguard surged at Slater while the elderly man sat down on one of the steps, cradling his head in his hands and cowering away from the action.

  Slater scrambled to one knee, struggling to form a cohesive train of thought. He was out on his feet, clutching at mental handholds as important neural connections in his brain struggled to snatch onto consciousness.