To most men, he would be invisible.
Not this time.
'Hey!' the man screamed to his friend, immediately producing the same pistol from his holster.
King exploded into action. He got his feet underneath him and scrambled around the trunk, disappearing from sight. From the road he heard the familiar sound of a suppressed gunshot. The bullet grazed past the space he had occupied moments earlier. He felt the displaced air, close by. They were good shots.
Most men would panic and run. King stayed deathly still on the other side of the trunk, his pulse barely rising, remaining calm. This would confuse his assailants. He knew exactly how to play mind games.
There was silence from the road. Then voices.
'Where did he go?'
'What the fuck are you talking about? What are you shooting at?'
'A… a man. He was sitting against that tree.'
'You’re sure?'
'Yeah, I’m sure. Scared the shit out of me.'
'And he ran away?'
'He was so fast.'
'You couldn’t shoot a guy sitting on the ground?'
'What do we do?'
'We make sure there’s no fucking witnesses.'
King smiled. They were panicked. The one with the buzzcut seemed to be in charge, and a little more under control. But they were both amateurs. Compared to him, at least. They spoke loud and fast. Adrenalin rushed through their veins, scrambling their instincts. King could hear it in the tone of their voices. They could kill when they were the ones with power, but now he had made them uncomfortable. They would make mistakes.
They would die.
He heard noises. Footsteps on the asphalt. Inaudible to the average person. But King picked up every little nuance of the pair's movements. The man with the buzzcut was on the left. He made less sound. The man on the right had been startled by the sudden appearance of a witness. His impatient footsteps showed it.
King stayed where he was, pressed against the trunk. They would assume he had taken off into the forest when in reality he had moved no more than a few feet. He let adrenalin flood his own system. The added boost of energy was useful to someone who knew exactly what to do with it. He didn’t allow himself to get jumpy.
His hands grew warm, despite the freezing night air. He rolled his wrists and took a deep breath. The footsteps had moved from the road to the forest floor. The two men were unable to walk quietly on the dirt surface. Leaves crunched underneath their heels. They quickened their pace.
The panicked man passed the tree first, moving fast. In his haste, he failed to take a look at the trunk where he had first seen King. He stared ahead, eyes wide, searching for the slightest sign of movement amongst the trees. He thought the witness was long gone.
Now.
King darted forward and wrenched the suppressed pistol from the man’s outstretched arms as effortlessly as plucking a dandelion from the grass. After all, he was six-foot-three and packed with muscle and his attacker was a slight man shaking with nerves. For a moment he almost felt sorry for how unfair the situation was on the smaller man. Nevertheless, he had still tried to kill him. Which, unfortunately, was unforgivable in King’s book.
He slid a finger into the trigger guard the moment he had control of the weapon and drove the barrel up under the man’s chin. He fired a single shot through the base of his skull. It sliced through the guy’s brain and exploded out the top of his head. He dropped like a rag doll. Death was instantaneous.
Just then, the second man with the buzzcut rounded the tree trunk.
King spun and fired a shot but suddenly Buzzcut was no longer there. He had ducked away, assessing the situation and retreating with lightning speed.
King heard scurried footsteps on the road. The man had fled. He rounded the tree trunk and saw the muzzle flash of an ejected round. A loud metallic bang echoed off the surrounding trees. The noise took King by surprise. He ducked back instinctively and paused for breath, confused. He glanced down at his left hand. A second ago, it had been firmly clasped around the dead man’s Glock.
Now it was empty.
Buzzcut’s warning shot had miraculously struck the handgun, blasting it out of King’s palm. Wild luck. Completely unintentional. Nevertheless, the man was smarter and faster than his dead partner.
He would be more of a problem.
King listened until he was sure it was safe, then stuck his head around the trunk.
He saw nothing but a slight rustle of leaves as Buzzcut disappeared into the woods on the other side of the road.
CHAPTER 3
King powered through the scrub, having shed his leather jacket long ago. He knew he was keeping pace with Buzzcut. Every few moments there would be a sign of movement up ahead. Nothing more than a fleeting glimpse of a limb, but it was enough. He flew past pine trees with decaying branches, some torn clean off near shoulder height. Deep boot imprints were stamped into the muddy surface of the forest floor at random. The man had little interest in stealth. He was in a hurry.
The woods were silent at this hour. Chirping crickets and nearby critters had fallen quiet as the pursuit raged around them. King kept a consistent pace. He made sure his mind was calm and his lungs were full of air. Ahead he could hear the panicked breaths of the man who had tried to kill him. The guy was an amateur in every sense of the word. Perhaps he was gaining distance temporarily, but in the long run King would catch him. He could keep this pace up for hours. He doubted Buzzcut could.
It was difficult terrain to traverse. He hurdled fallen logs and twisted roots that lay in his path. This section of the forest lay on a steep mountainside, which Buzzcut was in the process of rapidly descending. King made sure to take care in his descent. It would only take a twisted ankle to incapacitate him. Then his target would get away and he would have no answers.
He knew the man was out of ammunition. Buzzcut’s footsteps were loud and fast. He’d seen what happened to his partner. The pair hadn’t been anticipating a fight. They must have only had a clip each. Otherwise, King would have bullets cutting through the air around him.
Five minutes into the pursuit and he was already gaining. Buzzcut’s sharp inhales became longer, drawn out. The man wheezed for breath. Panicked.
Rookie mistake.
King could see him now. He made out the silhouette just ahead, darting between trunks and tripping on obstacles. He could hear King behind him, his pace measured and even. The woods began to thin, the trees growing further apart as the steep ground evened out. Large areas of grass and undergrowth filled the spaces between the trunks.
They had reached the bottom of a valley.
King saw Buzzcut burst out into an open area devoid of trees. He pressed on. Inhaling through the nose, exhaling through the mouth. Measured breathing was the key to preserving his gas tank. Buzzcut was panting and stumbling up ahead. He had run for his life and exerted all his energy in the process.
The forest disappeared behind King. He found himself in the middle of a large expanse of overgrown grass. It was not a natural clearing. The trees had been cut down to make room for what lay ahead.
An abandoned metal work factory towered over the rest of the forest, constructed in the centre of the clearing. It was a behemoth of a facility, easily surpassing the tops of the tallest surrounding trees. Twisting rusted pipes snaked their way around the exterior of the structure. That was as much as he could make out in the darkness.
For a moment, he reconsidered his previous decisions. He could have just run blind into a slaughterhouse. There could have been dozens of reinforcements within the factory waiting as he jogged obliviously into open ground.