Savages: A Jason King Thriller (The Jason King Files Book 3) Read online

  ‘And who would pick you up?’

  ‘I’d tell Lars to send a plane.’

  ‘You think he’d listen to you over me?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know who you are. Or what your history is.’

  ‘That’s a story for another day. Right now, I think we should hit the gym.’

  ‘There’s a gym here?’

  ‘You didn’t see it on your way in?’

  The warehouse.

  ‘Oh,’ King said. ‘You got combat stuff? Mats? Bags?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘You a rich man?’

  ‘That’s quite the personal question considering we just met.’

  ‘So was asking whether my parents were alive.’

  Brody shrugged. ‘I’ve got money.’

  ‘Wealthy father?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Tax-free black operation funds?’

  A brief hesitation, but enough to spell out the answer like it was printed out and taped to his forehead. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I know what you’re talking about.’

  Brody smirked. ‘They’re paying you already?’

  ‘Just yesterday. First cheque came in.’

  ‘Big?’

  ‘Massive.’

  ‘Well, good for you, buddy. Won’t mean a thing with your skull squashed to pieces in a desert cave. So, like I said — the gym.’

  He motioned for King to head straight back out into the sunshine.

  12

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Lars said. ‘I understand that. But I owe Rex Bernardi my life, and he won’t budge.’

  Lars wasn’t one to be easily intimidated — in this line of work, it was a death sentence. But a berating from the President of the United States stripped away barriers of defence that people didn’t even realise they had. Lars found himself on the back foot, clawing for the right words, struggling to explain why he was about to send an important U.S. bureaucrat — or, at least, an ex-bureaucrat — into the Democratic Republic of the Congo for no particularly justifiable reason whatsoever.

  ‘What if I personally told him no?’ the President said, his voice low. ‘Would he listen then?’

  ‘You were the first person to offer Rex a role out of the public eye. And you know what he’s like. Hard-nosed. Determined. When he makes his mind up he won’t stop until he gets what he wants. That’s why he’s had such a goddamn spectacular career so far. For God knows what reason, he’s decided he wants to meet Jason King.’

  ‘This operative of yours,’ the President said. ‘You think he’s truly special?’

  ‘He’s unbelievably talented,’ Lars said. ‘But we’ve had thousands of unbelievably talented men and women in our ranks through the years.’

  ‘There’s something else? That sets him apart?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘There must be. Or he’d still be in the Delta Force. You never would have approached him.’

  ‘He has the unique ability to survive situations that would kill almost anyone else.’

  ‘We call that luck where I grew up,’ the President said.

  ‘And that’s exactly what I told Rex.’

  ‘You think it’s justified that Bernardi is so desperate to see him?’

  ‘It’s his gut feeling. He must think King’s some kind of mythical warrior, or something. Wants to get in his presence. Speak to him. See what he’s about.’

  ‘How long will King be in the Congo?’

  ‘It’s not up to me.’

  ‘Who’s got him? And what the hell’s he doing there? I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had the chance to get details.’

  ‘Brody Hartman’s got him.’

  ‘Oh,’ the President said. There was a muffled request from the other end of the line, barely filtering through the receiver. Lars heard the President cover the receiver and mutter a few words. Then he returned to the phone. ‘I have to go. Something’s come up. But … shouldn’t we let Brody live out the rest of his days in peace? After everything he’s done?’

  ‘I floated the possibility of training an operative and he latched onto it. I have to say, I talked up Jason King to the point of deifying him. Brody couldn’t resist.’

  ‘Let’s hope your man lives up to his reputation. It precedes him. Whispers of what happened in Somalia are spreading like wildfire here. Something about an ex-Force Recon Marine named Bryson Reed?’

  ‘King took care of him,’ Lars said.

  ‘How bad would it have been if King wasn’t there?’

  ‘Bad, sir.’

  ‘Then I’m glad we have him.’

  The line went dead and Lars placed his secure mobile on the kitchen countertop. His apartment in Washington D.C. was nothing special, a two-bedroom unit in the quiet neighbourhood of Park View, but it suited his needs just fine. He had no personal life to speak of — work had consumed every aspect of his being for as long as he could remember, from the Department of Defence to the chief handler of a black operations division with unlimited funding. It hadn’t been an easy transition — the workload and level of responsibility had more than doubled in comparison to his last position — but he was getting there.

  And so was the money.

  What he hadn’t shared with King was the quantity of Lars’ cut — an extra twenty percent of the operative’s purse. He couldn’t see his wages go anywhere but up, if King kept his word and honed himself into an unstoppable force in the Congo.

  He bowed his head, staring around the measly apartment.

  Soon, things would change.

  13

  The kick slammed home against the Muay Thai pads with a noise akin to an unsuppressed gunshot. King’s shinbone detonated off the leather and the impact cracked off the walls of the massive warehouse, echoing around the space in impressive fashion. Brody took a backward step as the force transferred through his forearms, rattling his core and forcing him to tense up in response. He corrected his balance and lowered the pads, both of which took up the entire length of his forearms.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Brody muttered.

  They were situated on a vast sprawl of training mats, all a stark blue in direct contrast to the grey concrete floor and grey metal walls and grey metal roof far above their heads. Brody had rolled up a thirty-foot-long roller door on the side of the warehouse facing Lake Kivu, giving them picturesque views of the water while they trained. Half the warehouse was dedicated to combat training, including a dozen separate heavy bags suspended from the ceiling by chains and a corner of the space with padding on the walls, providing insulation to drill wrestling combinations and jiu-jitsu sequences. The other half of the gym — the stretch closest to the open roller door — consisted of a powerlifting gym, complete with enough rusting iron to sink the Titanic.

  I spend eighty percent of my life training and twenty percent living, Brody had said as they entered. You tell me which building I’d rather have the best view.

  ‘I’m not a hype job,’ King said in present time, now changed into workout gear — open-thigh Muay Thai shorts and a sleeveless shirt. ‘I didn’t want to say it at the time but the scuffle on the deck wasn’t the best display of my talents.’

  ‘Don’t get cocky,’ Brody said. ‘All the power in the world is useless if you can’t use it properly.’

  ‘I can use it properly.’

  ‘Two operations made you big-headed. I don’t want to see you after four.’

  ‘I train like a madman,’ King said. ‘All day. Every day. That’s how I’ve got to where I am today. I hate when people call it luck.’

  ‘It’s not luck. But you’re not at the top of the mountain yet.’

  ‘I can do better than what happened on the deck. You caught me off-guard. I don’t want you thinking—’

  Midway through the spiel King noticed Brody yanking his hands out of the pads’ restraints, but he thought nothing off it. When the man dropped both pads to the floor and made a lunging dive across the gym mats for King’s legs, he jolted in surp
rise and lurched out of the way, desperate to avoid a second round of humiliation.

  For a second he thought he’d made it.

  He spent hours on end defending double legs takedowns from the top wrestlers in the United States, thanks to a gruelling schedule Lars had implemented in his downtime. He felt a deceptively strong grip wrap around his right leg and he jerked it out of harm’s way, strafing backwards across the mats.

  He half-sighed in relief.

  Then Brody, now on his stomach, shot out his other hand and seized King’s ankle with fingers like pincers. King squirmed, and made a desperate move to break free, wrenching with a single motion and putting all his might into it.

  Brody used the opportunity to follow King to his feet, still clutching his ankle in one hand. He lifted that leg off the ground then kicked the other leg out from under him, dumping him unceremoniously on his head.

  ‘Fuck,’ King muttered as Brody dove on him, one hundred and seventy pounds of bull-like strength slamming down on top of him, pinning him to the mat.

  King’s jiu-jitsu was good. Great in comparison to the regular combatant, average in comparison to the black belts that hauled him around in training. But he could hold his own.

  Not out here.

  Brody sliced into half guard, lying flat on top of King with both legs hooked around one of King’s thighs. Then he slipped straight into side control, lying horizontally across King’s chest. With the same ruthless elbow he hammered shot after shot home, stopping each strike a hair’s breadth from making contact. Each would have knocked King senseless. He couldn’t move, the breath choking in his lungs as he fought not to panic.

  Then Brody simply slid off King’s chest and got to his feet like nothing had happened at all.

  ‘Repeat performance,’ he said. ‘That’s just the nature of the beast. I’m twenty years older than you — it happens.’

  ‘Shouldn’t that mean I have youth and athleticism on my side? That doesn’t make me feel any better.’

  Brody hauled King to his feet — still manhandling him, despite the height and weight difference.

  ‘Let’s get one thing straight,’ he said. ‘You’re not going to talk yourself up anymore. I get it — trust me, I do. You don’t know a whole lot about why you’re here. You’re being thrust from one place to the next without much order to it. So you feel the need to impress. You can’t be seen as weak. Which is why this whole power display thing is fucking with your head. You’ve gone through everything in life being able to overpower anyone who gets in your way. But don’t worry, okay? I’ve been in your shoes and I know how you feel. But you need to know when to learn from someone who’s simply better than you. Comprendé?’

  ‘Comprendé,’ King said. ‘I’m young but I’m not stupid. Everything you said was spot on.’

  ‘Then let’s get to work. More kicks.’

  Brody eased back into the pads and they carried out a fluid hour of combinations, ranging from basic one-twos to a complicated web of hooks, uppercuts, and twisting elbows. Any time King seemed out of breath Brody screamed for a kick, offering the pads as a stationary target at chest height.

  King never relented.

  Not once.

  Not for a second.

  When Brody finally called time, King dropped on his rear and yanked the gloves off his hands, soaked through with sweat. An outsider would think he’d just got out of a pool. The sleeveless shirt clung to him and salty droplets ran out of his Muay Thai shorts.

  ‘Drink,’ Brody said, tossing him a one-gallon bottle of water he’d fetched from a mini fridge plugged into one corner of the gym.

  King let the ice-cold liquid run down his throat, gulping back mouthful after mouthful. Finally he placed the half-empty plastic container on the mat beside him and breathed deep, sucking in air.

  Brody tossed the pads to the side and sat gracefully on one of the mats opposite.

  He’d barely broken a sweat.

  ‘You’ve looked better,’ Brody said.

  ‘Take it easy,’ King said. ‘You just held pads.’

  ‘Think my arms will be bruised over tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

  ‘You should. You’ve been gifted with one punch knockout power. In your hands and your feet. You’d be surprised how hard that is to come by.’

  ‘Gifted?’

  Brody smirked. ‘That’s genetic, my friend. The rest is hard work. But the ability to drop a man with a single strike doesn’t come easily. You can’t take anyone and hone them into an athletic machine. Most of us have pillow fists.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘No. I could kill you with one punch.’

  ‘Somehow I doubt that.’

  ‘We going to get into this again?’

  The all-out physical exertion had turned King snarky. He loosened up, allowing a smile to break through the mask of sweat. ‘You can’t demonstrate that. You’d have some explaining to do when the boys stateside come calling.’

  ‘I’m sure they’d understand.’

  King laughed. ‘You’re not wrong, though. Some of them would.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I think I know why Lars Crawford is my only point of interaction with the government. The rest disapprove. Or, if they don’t explicitly, then their biases would come through if I met them in the flesh. They don’t trust a twenty two year old out there in the field, on his own. Hell, even I wouldn’t.’

  ‘It’ll come with certain prejudices,’ Brody said. ‘You’ll never be able to shake them free.’

  ‘I can just ignore them. Until I’m old enough.’

  ‘Keep up the injuries you’re sustaining and you won’t make it another year.’

  ‘That’s pessimistic.’

  ‘It’s the truth. I was young and brash once.’

  ‘What are you now?’

  ‘Old and brash. But I can think a bit clearer.’

  They both shared a smirk.

  ‘So,’ King said, ‘what now?’

  ‘You look wrecked. We’re done for today. I think I’ve got all I need to form a rudimentary training schedule.’

  ‘Got what?’

  ‘A rough idea of where you’re at.’

  ‘And what conclusions did you reach?’

  ‘That you’re a force of nature. But, given your track record, you’re not the best at avoiding damage.’

  ‘You should see the people I’m up against,’ King said. ‘I can’t be flawless. You should know that.’

  ‘You need to be flawless. The talents you’ve been blessed with need to be carried a long way. You can do a lot of good with them — I know that more than anyone. But you need to get through the next day. And the day after that. And you can’t do that by banging your head against a wall and trying to break it down.’

  ‘So what do you need me to do?’

  ‘Take things to the next level.’

  14

  The massive Ford Raptor chewed up the rural trail, sending plumes of dust off each side of its wheels. The elevated cabin barely bounced or rattled thanks to the custom suspension system — its occupants sat in luxurious, air-conditioned comfort. Wyatt hadn’t been satisfied with the base model, and he had cash to burn.

  Mining was inherently lucrative in nature, but this kind of operation paid obscene profits. The men in suits found hard labour dirt cheap. Congolese civilians would work for pennies and food stamps — to them, it spelled a life of relative luxury. It meant the executives could burn through traditional workers without hesitation, leaving enough spare cash for the important jobs to provide Wyatt and his men with unbelievable amounts of money.

  At least, in comparison to their ordinary jobs.

  Mercenary work didn’t always live up to the idyllic reputation it often carried. There weren’t scores of diamonds and blood money out there just waiting for an ex-military team to brute force their way into a job and get rewarded handsomely for it.

  This job, however, fit the stereo
type accurately enough.

  Another benefit was the downtime. Wyatt and his crew operated on a twenty-days-on, five-days-off schedule — the security responsibility was handed over to a relief team for that short period. Wyatt had never met them. He and his crew spent the breaks in Kisangani, the capital city of the Congo and a hotspot for economic opportunity.

  They were hard men, after all. They didn’t deal well with downtime. The five days gave them a swathe of new opportunities to exploit. They’d wormed their way into several different aspects of society, one of which they were now set to handle.

  His three closest co-workers — the men he’d spent the morning with when they’d run into that strange American — were spaced out across the Raptor’s interior, staring vacantly out the tinted windows at the lush landscape all around them.

  Wyatt had come to learn many things about the Congo during his time here.

  It was both a place of beauty and horrors at the same time.

  Thankfully he made more money surrounded by horrors.

  Such was the nature of the beast.

  ‘We’re late,’ Link said from the back. ‘He’s gonna be waiting for us. You think he’ll be happy?’

  Thorn scoffed. ‘He doesn’t get a choice.’

  ‘When did the bout finish?’ Crank said.

  ‘About an hour ago,’ Wyatt said.

  Thorn. Link. Crank.

  Obviously not their real names. But the men around him were younger, less experienced, more prone to tantalising espionage concepts like nicknames and big guns and fast trucks. Wyatt had opted to shut his mouth whenever the four of them got gossiping — these three thought they were James Bond characters, making money hand over fist for the seductive jobs left to mercenaries.

  International men of mystery.

  Wyatt had been in this game for long enough to know the truth. They helped rich bastards get richer and picked up the scraps on their way through.

  Which was why his side hustles in Kisangani tantalised him far more than the routine security work at the mines.

  ‘What’s our ETA?’ Thorn said, sitting across from Wyatt.