Hunters - Matt Rogers (good novels to read TXT) 📗

King said, ‘That was stupid, too. One of your buddies did the same thing back in Vegas. Fought Slater without pulling his gun. Are you all like this?’

‘Only the purists.’

‘You’re a philosopher in your spare time, are you?’

‘I like to think of myself as a stoic.’

‘So do I.’

Diamond unhooked the holster containing the empty MEU(SOC) from his belt and tossed it in the opposite direction to the mag, removing it from the equation. He clearly felt it would only serve to get in the way.

‘You are entitled to the work,’ he said, reciting a mantra to himself. ‘Never its reward.’

‘I like that.’

‘Uh-huh. Can I ask you a question?’

King offered a fatalistic shrug, like, Sure. No time like the present. Considering what comes after.

Diamond said, ‘You still feel fear at times like these? After everything you’ve been through?’

‘Of course. You don’t feel fear, you don’t understand the stakes.’

Diamond nodded slowly. ‘Fear keeps you alive, huh?’

King nodded back.

No talk, only the growl of the storm.

Diamond said, ‘We’re the same, you and I. This is a shame.’

‘Not quite the same.’

‘No,’ Diamond said. ‘Not quite.’

King didn’t move a muscle. He didn’t consider specifics. If he thought too hard about how to block or strike or catch or obstruct, he would freeze in the moment. Every action, when it happened, had to flow with the intention to kill. Fluid, not restricted. It was the only way he’d survive.

‘Jason King,’ Diamond said, rolling the name off his tongue. ‘Your name is legend. It’s an honour.’

‘You want to fight me because you think you’re enlightened, but really you’re a nobody who thinks they’re special because they read a book once.’

In that split second after the response something flared in Diamond’s sharp eyes. He was a strange yet principled man, willing to show respect in a violent arena. There weren’t many people on the planet who could override the instinct that screams, Survive, and chain together a cohesive thought. That showed experience. He’d been in situations like this many times before. His life on the line, his very existence threatened. But now that animal instinct was back. He’d expected the same stoic respect from King, and hadn’t found it. Maybe he’d imagined this in his head, over and over, and reality wasn’t aligning.

This was a showdown between operatives of the highest calibre. Surely his foe could treat it with the reverence it deserved?

It made him angry.

When Diamond got angry, King charged.

61

Slater watched Antônia stumble out of the jungle, her face a mask of blood and mud.

Red and brown in equal quantities, her mouth open. She was trying not to scream again, but the pain must have been horrific. She was a seasoned operator, after all. Now she was unarmed, reduced to her primal instincts, gasping for air, crying.

Two murky figures followed her, both striding it out across the uneven jungle floor.

Coaxing her toward the ruins.

When the pair emerged from shadow, Slater knew immediately they were hunters. He could barely make out their faces through the rain, but they moved like physical specimens. Not an ounce of wasted movement. Patient, measured, disciplined, which in turn resulted in them gliding over the forest floor.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

Alexis had lifted her head an inch at the sound of Antônia’s scream.

Slater let out a soft deep noise, like a lion’s warning growl, and she stayed put, her face still burrowed in the mud. The hunters were doing this for a reason. They wanted to evoke their prey’s emotions.

Antônia made it to the edge of a building in the corner of the archaeological site and collapsed on her hands and knees in the mud, spitting blood into the puddles underneath her.

Slater stayed put.

You are invisible, he told himself. You are rock. You are earth. You are unmoving.

Experience had taught him there was some subconscious psychological aspect to remaining undetected. Now he used every scrap of mental fortitude he could find. Hopefully Alexis was doing the same.

The hunter who took the lead was like a bull in human form. Almost as wide as he was tall, all of it muscle rippling beneath a three-quarter-sleeve shirt and black khakis. He sported a sickening widow’s peak, forming a razor-sharp triangle atop his head, and when he opened his mouth Slater saw all his teeth were fake veneers, white and gleaming and perfect.

Antônia was barely a dozen feet ahead.

Slater watched her, a black panther in the undergrowth. He didn’t so much as move his irises side to side. Any microscopic inkling of movement was detectable in the hunters’ peripheral vision. He couldn’t allow that.

Opal walked up to Antônia, planted a boot on the small of her back, and forced her down hard into the mud. She landed on her already-damaged face, and howled into the puddle.

Opal spun in a half-circle and roared at the top of his lungs. ‘Come out, Will! Come out to play!’

He backed up three steps, brandished his M45 MEU(SOC) pistol for all to see, and aimed it at the side of Antônia’s head.

Thankfully, he’d backed up in the direction of the undergrowth.

Slater was three feet behind him.

He burst up out of the lush plants like a demon, bringing up the AK-47. He dug the barrel into the back of Opal’s thick hairy neck before his partner could so much as react.

Slater stared daggers at the second hunter, who so far hadn’t said a word. ‘That gun comes up, your buddy’s dead.’

The second hunter stared wordlessly. His identical M45 MEU(SOC) was half-raised, but not pointing in Slater’s direction. It stayed there.

The first hunter sighed, rolling his neck to feel the exact placement of the Kalashnikov barrel. ‘You’re better than I thought, Will.’

Water ran off Slater’s upper lip as he said, ‘What happens now?’

62

Everything happened blindingly fast, like a film reel sped up.

King flicked out a left-handed jab as he barrelled into range just to get a reaction out of Diamond. The giant didn’t have his head in the game the way he wanted, so he was flustered when he