Lars had spent the majority of his career behind a desk, which was why he hesitated. The correct course of action would be to unload the gun on the two people in front of him and dive for cover. He did neither of those things, determined to find the sniper in the trees.
It gave King more than enough time to scramble over to Kitchener’s dead body, ignoring the throbbing pain in his foot. He snatched up her M&P and had its sights trained on Lars before he even had time to turn around.
‘That all changed pretty quickly,’ he noted.
Lars turned to him. ‘Well, you got me this time.’
‘There won’t be another time.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘Drop the gun.’
Lars seemed to hesitate for a moment. He didn’t respond to the command, which meant he was not co-operating, which meant King’s finger tightened on the M&P’s trigger, half an ounce of pressure away from hammering the pin and sending a round through his old handler’s skull.
Then the man let go of the rifle. Just as expected. It clattered to the tarmac and lay useless.
‘Step away from it.’
Lars stepped away from it.
‘All clear!’ King yelled. The words echoed into the forest, audible from hundreds of feet away. On cue, a figure emerged from between two pine trees, previously shrouded in shadow, clutching an enormous bolt-action rifle in one hand, dressed all in black. He stepped onto the runway and headed for their position.
Dirk Wiggins.
They’d spent two years as squad members in Detachment-Delta of the United States Special Forces. King had met with Billy the night before, waking him from a deep sleep in his small living quarters above the post office. He’d used his phone to call dozens of old friends who he’d formed connections with at some point during his military career. Most were halfway across the world.
Dirk was mid-holiday in Sydney.
The man had rented a car and made the eight-hour drive as soon as King had called. Some favours required that sort of commitment.
And King had done Dirk plenty of favours in the past.
‘Brother,’ Dirk said, striding up to King with an outstretched palm. He stood roughly the same height, but a little stockier. He wore his hair long and dreadlocked, tied back when on the job. In any other setting he would be indistinguishable from a festival hippie. Truth was, he was one of the most accurate marksmen on the planet.
They clasped hands.
‘It’s been a while,’ King said.
‘Too long.’
‘You doing alright?’
Dirk looked down at Kitchener’s nearly-headless corpse.
‘I’ve had better days,’ he said. Then he looked up at King. ‘So have you by the look of it.’
‘I’m a bit of a mess, aren’t I?’
‘What are you doing in these parts?’
‘Recommendation from a friend,’ he said, shaking the pistol in Lars’ direction. ‘Hasn’t been a great trip.’
‘This your old handler? From that secret post-Delta project you could never discuss?’
‘Uh-huh.’
Dirk strode up to Lars, towering over the slight man. He wrapped a hand around his throat and hurled him back into the monoplane’s chassis. Lars bounced off the metal and collapsed to the ground, coughing from the sudden violence. He stayed on all fours for a long moment, then spat blood on the tarmac beneath. Then he got to his feet.
‘Pleased to meet you too,’ he said, just as sardonic as always.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ Dirk said. A man of few words.
‘Glad to know that I’m still smarter than you two idiots,’ Lars said.
He brought one hand out from behind his back, revealing a small remote roughly the same size as an car key fob. His thumb rested on its centre, touching a thin circular button. Keeping just enough pressure on it so as not to set it off.
‘Know what this is?’
‘I can guess,’ King said, his gut sinking.
‘Kitchener might have been useless but she got one thing right. Guess so much has gone on that you haven’t had time to check your belt, Kate?’
Kate stared down at her leather belt, frantically searching for something. King watched her out of his peripheral vision, keeping most of his attention focused firmly on Lars. Dirk stood directly beside the man, unmoving, hesitant. Unsure as to the validity of the threat.
Confirmation came a moment later.
‘Fuck,’ Kate whispered. He thought he heard a sob.
‘What is it?’ King said, refusing to look away from Lars.
‘A small metal cylinder,’ she said, voice shaking. ‘Clipped to the back of my belt. It looks like some kind of bomb. She must have put it on me last night while I was asleep.’
‘That’s exactly what it is,’ Lars said. ‘Heptanitrocubane. The boys at DARPA were experimenting with the stuff, so I grabbed a few on my way out the door. It’s a very powerful high-explosive. Your girlfriend will cease to exist if I push this button a few millimetres more.’
King kept the gun locked on target. He didn’t move.
‘You shoot me and it’ll go off,’ Lars said. ‘You move suddenly and it’ll go off. I can’t get much closer to setting it off that I currently am.’
Silence.
‘I’m leaving now.’
King said, ‘No you’re not.’
Lars cocked his head. ‘Want to test me? Games are over. I’m getting in this plane and taking off and if I see you take a single step towards me I’ll blow her up. You’re close enough to her that you’ll die too. Either instantly, or you’ll lose a few limbs and bleed out slowly.’
‘That’s two of us. If you take off in that plane there’ll be hundreds of thousands dead.’
‘I don’t think you’re ready to die yet, King,’ Lars said. ‘A lot of people say they are, but you’re not. That’s why you quit. You kept coming too close to death. That’s why you came here.’
‘So much for that.’
Lars smiled. ‘You know, I still can’t believe you actually came. All I did was say you should check the area out sometime.’
‘I had nowhere else to go. Nothing else to do.’
‘Well, I’m glad you did. This has been fun.’
No response.
‘I’ll be off now. Might blow her up after I take off anyway.’
King tightened his finger on the trigger.
‘Go on,’ Lars said. ‘Pull it.’
‘I might.’
‘You won’t. I know you inside and out. I know how your mind works. You’re thinking there’s still a way out of this situation. You’re thinking of a million different ways to win, as always. But you’ll keep standing there, because…’
A flash of movement. A grunt of exertion. Mid-sentence Lars flinched. King made to squeeze the trigger but something made him hesitate. He heard the sound of a small object skittering across tarmac, and he knew the remote had left Lars’ hand somehow. It had happened too fast to ascertain exactly what had occurred. Dirk now stumbled past Lars, attempting to correct his balance. He must have swatted the remote away. The action had been blindingly fast, so fast that even King hadn’t seen it fully.
All he knew was that the remote had landed somewhere behind Lars.
Dirk stood in between them, blocking a clear shot.
There was no time to re-adjust his aim.
Reacting in a split second, King powered past his old friend and crash-tackled Lars into the runway. They sprawled across the ground, tangled in limbs. Lars wrapped his arms around King’s gun hand and wrenched with surprising power. King hadn’t anticipated that kind of strength from such a slight man. He lost control of the M&P and Lars’ movement sent it spinning away.