“Safe and sound, Kat — just… hurry up!”
Mason spun around and powered a fist into Knuckle Duster’s face. He fell on his knees and grunted in pain, but Mason wasn’t done with him yet. He brought his right leg up and powered a solid kick into his ribs. Never kick a man when he’s down, his instructor used to tell him.
Except when they’re trying to kill you, old son.
And then anything goes.
Mason judged the kick’s aim and power as if he was trying to launch a rugby ball over the crossbar from the halfway line. Ribs cracked and the man cried out as he rolled over on his back and clutched at his broken bones.
Mason padded forward and fired a no-nonsense right cross into his face. He belted him hard enough to knock him out. He turned on the other man who was swinging the scimitar in his face once again.
The blade slashed past his head with millimeters to spare, and his only play was to use the bag as a defense. He pulled it from his shoulder and held it up like a shield. The man slashed the blade a second time, slicing through one of the straps like a hot knife through butter. The bag fell out of his hands and tumbled over onto the floor.
His opponent lunged forward, but this time Mason was ready and side-stepped to the left before powering a punch into his face. His head cracked back and Mason smacked the sword out of his hand before unleashing a brutal volley of punches into the man’s stomach. He finished things off with a head butt and then the chopper finally arrived.
As it descended down toward the roof, he sprinted over to it, snatching up the canvas bag on his way. Back at the door, another man had joined the man with the sword and they were sprinting toward him.
“Throw the bag up!” Kat yelled.
Mason scrambled for the bag and tossed it through the chopper’s door. Kat grabbed it and put it in the co-pilot’s seat.
“You need to come lower!” Mason yelled, but his voice was drowned out by the roar of the engine and the tremendous downdraft of the rotor wash. He knew it was dangerous for her to come any lower because of the risk of the rotors hitting the many aerials. “Lower the rope!”
Now the men were pounding across the roof toward Mason.
Kat leaned out of the open window and called down to him. “Goodbye, Jed. It’s been nice knowing you, but it’s time we went our separate ways.”
Mason stared up at the chopper almost unable to believe what he had just heard. “What are you talking about? They’re going to kill me!”
“Say goodbye to the other Raiders for me, won’t you, darling?”
He felt the chopper power up and move away from the skyscraper’s roof. The rotors speeded up and increased the downdraft. It knocked him off his feet and blasted him back onto the roof. He watched helplessly as Kat Addington, the love of his life, lifted the Robinson high above the Sapphire and made a sharp turn to starboard, peeling away into the bright Turkish sunlight with the asset in his bag right next to her.
“What the hell’s going on?”
Milo’s voice.
“She’s gone,” Mason said, his voice weak and confused.
“Speak up, Jed.”
“I said she’s gone!”
“What are you talking about?”
“Kat… she just took my bag and flew away.”
“Jesus…”
“I’m in trouble, Milo. I need back-up.”
“On it.”
And he would be on it. They were asset extraction specialists after all, and now he needed extraction, but still, he could hardly believe what Kat had just done.
Had he imagined it?
He felt gutted. He felt hollowed out.
He felt two heavy hands grab him by the shoulders and heave him up to his feet, and then a savage punch in his stomach. He collapsed forward with all the air knocked out of him and began to cough wildly.
The other man tore the mic and earpiece from him and ground it to dust under his boot heel. “You won’t need this.”
“And now you come with us,” the other said. “Your girlfriend might not love you anymore, but now you have a date with a trash compactor.”
CHAPTER NINE
This time, the strike knocked him clean out of his chair. He fell back onto the floor and his skull smashed into the concrete. The blow had almost dislocated his jaw and made him lose focus for a few seconds. For a moment, it looked like he was seeing the world from the bottom of a swimming pool.
Jed Mason shook it off and took a deep breath. An hour ago he had told the others that it would be a dangerous mission but the pay off would be worth it — but now he was starting think again. There are some things that are not worth five million dollars, and as the heavy-set man punched him in the face and hauled his chair upright again he was starting to think this was one of those things.
The smell and taste of his own blood washed over him as he scanned his new surroundings. As expected, the men had dragged him into the mechanical floor directly below the penthouse. These were the places that housed the building’s electrical generators and HVAC systems. Through a beaten, swollen eye he saw a series of metal tubes leading from a water-cooled chiller plant in the corner and vanishing in the ceiling above his head.
And the trash compactor.
Mason had been in tougher scrapes, but this situation could easily get out of control.
“Who are you working for?”
Mason fixed his good eye on the man. “I’m a self-employed man.”
The men looked at each and started to laugh. “You’re a dead man.”
Without warning, the man rushed him and powered a mighty punch into the side of his head. His felt the blood froth up in his mouth and spill over his swollen lip. It felt like he was drowning in hot copper, and as he spat the blood out it ran down his chin and almost made him throw up.
“Mr Omar is a nice man, but it was a mistake coming here and stealing from him. If you tell us where the item is, we will feed you into the trash compactor face first. If you don’t tell us where Mr Omar can retrieve what belongs to him, you go in feet first, Trust me, that’s not nice.”
“Well, I can see I’m spoilt for choice.”
The man smashed him with a left jab. Mason couldn’t duck, bob or weave anymore. He was too badly beaten. He barely knew what day it was, but one thing was still very clear in his mind — the sight of Kat Addington smiling at him as she turned the R22 into the sun and flew away, stranding him on the roof.
Leaving him for dead.
Letting these men feed him into an industrial trash compactor.
How could she do such a thing? The betrayal was so raw it hurt more than the beating he was getting at the hands of these men.
Another blow to the face, this time delivered by the smaller man. The impact cut his upper lip and knocked his head back hard. Stars flicked in front of his eyes like pieces of shredded aluminum sparkling in the sunlight. He felt sick again.
The nausea climbed higher inside him every time he saw her face… the face he had loved, the lips he had kissed. She was the woman he wanted to marry, and yet she had stolen the ultimate prize from him — from them all, torn it away from him the way she had ripped his heart out.
“So… where is the item?”
“I don’t know…”
It was the truth.
“Feed us lies, and we feed you into the compactor — feet first.”
“She robbed me — you saw it. I threw the bag into the chopper and she just flew away and left me for dead.”
“She left you for dead all right, but I don’t believe it when you say you don't know where she is. Where did the chopper come from? Where is it going?”
“Are you deaf?” Mason said, raising as much energy as he could muster after such a savage beating.
Another blow, and another. Brutal fists rained down on his face. He felt the men’s knuckles smashing into his swollen cheek bones, and now he was seconds from passing out. “I… don’t know… where she….”