Jed saw the object in King’s waistband and withdrew the Beretta. He tossed it away into the overgrown grass. Disarming him.
King began to laugh. At first, sniggering. Then that built to a crescendo, until he was cackling in glee. He made sure to make eye contact with Jed’s weapon.
‘What the fuck is so funny?’ Jed said.
‘You guys really are amateurs.’
‘You say that, but you’re the one on your knees.’
‘You’re not going to kill me.’
‘Pretty sure I am, you dumb fuck.’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘And why is that?’
‘You’ve all got the safety off.’
King said it with such disdain that for a brief, panicked moment… they believed him.
Both Jed and Skinny’s eyes darted to their weapons, searching for the safety near the trigger, wondering if they really had made such a colossal mistake.
It was a fraction of a second of hesitation.
All that a man like King needed.
He exploded off his knees. A single burst of energy, tapping into something deep within, some kind of primal rage. It lent him a strength and a speed that he knew no common civilian could match. A rush that he’d trained himself to unlock when a split second could mean the difference between life and death. He reached up and snatched Jed’s gun with unrestrained power. The sudden movement shocked the man, causing an involuntary reaction. A flinch. His grip loosened.
That would do.
King ripped the gun away and spun it around and slotted his finger perfectly into the trigger guard and pulled down. All in a single swift movement. Streamlined, with the practiced flow of a trained professional. Something these men were very far from.
The weapon fired instantaneously. Safety off.
It had never been on, but the statement had made the bikers pause. Made them question their decisions. Made them hesitate for that minuscule amount of time that — in combat — meant death.
He unloaded the entirety of the thirty-round box magazine before the other three had time to aim. They all died in a blaze of gunfire, jerking like marionettes on strings, blood spurting from their torsos like a grotesque fireworks show. King saw all four collapse. Their limbs hung limp, signifying that they were all corpses. Their weapons cascaded away, eliminating any threat of danger.
He knew he had escaped catching a stray bullet by a hair. He also knew that a hair was all it took. King thrived in the milliseconds separating life and death. He’d been there too many times to count. That talent had kept alive all these years. Once again, it had yet to fail him.
Unloading a full M4 cartridge created a deafening rattle. He knew it would be heard for a mile in any direction, and he hoped this section of the forest was largely uninhabited. But it didn’t matter either way. If anyone was drawn to investigate the noise, he would be long gone by the time they arrived.
He let the sudden energy fade away. By now, the steps had become a practiced ritual. He’d calmed himself after the incident with the sniper, and he would ensure he calmed himself now. The blood-pumping rush of a firefight was useful in the moment, but now he had to remain level-headed. Calm. Rational. Saner heads prevailed when the rush that came with killing had dissipated.
The four bikers had sprawled out over the grass, spread around Billy’s sedan. He checked each body. All were stone dead. Blood blossomed across their torsos, soaking their filthy clothes. Each man had taken at least three bullets. Most in the chest. Some in the head. Whatever the case, they had all died fast, probably before they even realised what had happened. Even though all four were degenerate pieces of shit, King never wanted anyone to suffer more than was necessary. They’d tried to kill him, so it was within his right to try to kill them. That was his version of justice.
The law wouldn’t see it that way.
Therefore, he had a job to do.
He stared past the dead bikers and saw the cylindrical machine sitting in the middle of the factory floor. Already home to four dead men.
Its occupancy rate was about to double.
CHAPTER 20
The job was messy, but King had dealt with far worse in the past. As he carried each man into the bowels of the factory and levered their bodies over the edge of the cone, he thought back to the Special Forces. The bikers’ deaths had brought old memories to the surface, taking him back to times when killing was nothing more than second nature to him. When it was natural. Years spent working in the upper echelons of the military meant he had done a lot of good, but often that meant bypassing standard operating principles. It meant killing a lot of people. He liked to think that they had all been scum, but after all he had done, there was bound to be some innocents thrown into the mix. People who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, recruited into third-world mercenary forces through lies and deceit.
There was a reason King’s entire career was off the books.
When he was finished, eight men lay in the machine. Six he had killed himself. Once again, he told himself they had all deserved to die. But as he left the factory and slipped back into the driver’s seat of Billy’s sedan, a familiar thought began to niggle in the back of his mind.
You’re a murderer.
It had come to him hundreds of times before. In his line of work, inner demons were unavoidable. You could only kill so many people before it became impossible to convince yourself that it was all for the greater good. No matter how pure your intentions were.
He accelerated out of the clearing with all four of the carbine rifles scattered across the back seat, and the Beretta returned safely to his waistband. If there was a federal investigation into what had happened, the thirty bullet casings would inevitably be discovered. By then, King would be in another country. Far from this hellhole.
Dust from the gravel path blew in through the shattered windscreen. He coughed and wiped sweat from his brow. He ignored the doubt nagging at him and forced it to the back of his mind. Likely an unhealthy thing to do. But an action that was necessary right now. He had a single lead, and little time to follow it. Self-reflection could come later.
When the path met the mountain trail, King slammed on the brakes and screeched to a stop by the side of the road. As usual, there was no traffic. He was alone.
He slid the phone from his pocket and unlocked it once again. The battery had almost entirely depleted. It would shut down at any second. He quickly checked the messages.
Empty.
He clicked back to the home screen and opened the call history.
Empty.
No contacts. No leads of any kind. Nothing. King wondered just why on earth Buzzcut and his friend had gone to so much trouble to get this phone. In one last desperate attempt, he began to open apps at random.
When the notes application flashed onto the screen, a single document sat in its folder.
A message. Two sentences, short and sharp:
Room 32 at the Discount Inn, Queensbridge. Already booked.
King let out a sigh of relief. He had a lead. It wasn’t much, but it was better than moving on from Jameson, helpless to stop witnesses being murdered as he continued on his travels.
He reversed onto the asphalt, turned the wheel in the other direction and made for Queensbridge. The sedan coasted past the same looming pine trees which seemed to cover every inch of empty land in these parts. An inkling of claustrophobia crept in. He passed the stretch of road where his troubles had all began. Spotted the exact place he’d decided to sit and listen to the night. An exercise that had led to witnessing the death of David Lee and Miles Price. Ale House flashed by next. Three cars sat idly in its lot. A popular place, given its location.