Sharks - Matt Rogers (classic books for 11 year olds txt) 📗

hit a pile of construction aggregate he rolled to his side to escape the noise. The sound was straight from a movie trailer — a dull groan and a metallic brrr, both amplified to staggering decibel levels.

Slater hadn’t seen anyone in the crane’s tiny cab, and there’d been no workers around as it came down. So maybe Vince’s half-hearted kamikaze attempt hadn’t done irreparable damage after all.

You can beat metal back into place.

You can order new machines, new parts.

You can’t replace a human life.

Slater couldn’t think about any of that for very long. He was already running for King, half-wanting to close his eyes so he didn’t have to know what had happened. But if his brother-in-arms had a chance of making it, then it was Slater’s duty to assist in whatever way possible. So he ignored the flames rising in tight pockets from the swathes of wreckage.

He jogged to King, knelt down in the sand.

He didn’t want to know, he realised.

He couldn’t take it if—

He froze.

King was looking up at him, concern on his face.

Slater said, ‘Are you—?’

King sat up, reached out and pressed a hand to the bloody shirt wrapped around Slater’s shoulder. ‘You need to get some pressure on that. You’re losing blood.’

Slater rocked back on his haunches, planted himself down on the sand. He was cold, despite the coat of sweat on his skin.

King got to his knees, cut and scratched and bruised and battered, but the foundations were intact. He moved well.

Now he furrowed his brow. ‘What?’

Slater wiped his forehead with a dirty palm. It was cool to the touch. ‘I thought you were—’

King allowed himself a tiny smirk. ‘Well, I’m not. Come on. We’re not done here.’

Slater got shakily to his feet and looked around.

The few workers that remained in the construction yard were beelining for the gates, wanting no part of the administrative nightmare that was the toppled crane. Putting themselves at the perimeter of the property meant deniability, meant they could claim they were nowhere near it when it happened, and therefore devoid of even a shred of guilt.

They all knew it had been unmanned, and if it was only machinery lost, then they didn’t care for proper procedure.

Silhouetted by the backdrop of the twisted wreckage, Slater said, ‘I think we’re done here.’

King shook his head.

Slater said, ‘How the hell did you survive that?’

‘Sand.’

‘You landed correctly,’ Slater said, ‘if that’s any consolation.’

‘Of course I landed correctly,’ King said, dusting himself off. ‘Otherwise my skull would have split like a watermelon.’

Slater massaged his temples. ‘Sometimes I think I’m insane for doing this job. Look, we should get out of here. It’s going to be chaos in—’

‘Not yet,’ King said.

‘Why do you keep saying that? “We’re not done here”, “not yet.”’

King pointed over Slater’s shoulder, at the mangled base of the crane.

Slater turned around. ‘No way.’

61

Wreckage burned.

Construction aggregate smoked.

The crane lay prone across the sand, its frame twisted and broken, a felled titan.

Vince lay in the lee of his disfigured Crown Vic, surrounded by its parts, bleeding from the mouth.

And the nose.

And the forehead.

And the chest.

He hacked up a ball of red phlegm, tinged by the blood pouring from his body, and spat it in the sand next to his face, where it coagulated. He saw them approaching. Sat up, wiped his eyes, and pressed a flat palm to the deep cut slashed horizontally across his forehead. It stopped the flow running down into his eyes, allowing him to temporarily see. He shuffled back in the sand and rested back against his broken vehicle.

King and Slater walked up to him.

They took a knee simultaneously.

It put all three of them on the same level so they could talk. Vince didn’t have the energy to shout. He could barely speak. Most of his conscious effort was focused on remaining conscious.

Slater said, ‘You’re going to die.’

He didn’t say it threateningly.

He spoke like a scientist in the lab announcing an indisputable fact.

Vince cleared his throat, complete with a choked-up gargle of fluids.

It made King wince.

Vince said, ‘Yeah, I know.’

‘You going to help us make sense of this mess?’ Slater said. ‘Or are you going to give us the finger as you go into the great beyond?’

It wasn’t a request. Just a simple question. Slater knew there was nothing he could say to convince the man one way or the other — Vince was going to bleed out from his injuries, so any threat of punishment was now void.

Vince turned his attention to King with something close to curiosity. He said, ‘You respected me.’

‘I still do,’ King said. ‘You batted for the wrong team, but that doesn’t make you any less of a tough son-of-a-bitch.’

Vince smiled at that. It was about all he could do. He said, ‘Might as well talk. Why not, huh?’

He looked down at himself, seemed to wallow in the pain.

More blood ran down his chin.

Slater said, ‘Our intentions might be more aligned than you realise.’

‘I think I understand that now,’ Vince coughed. ‘Isn’t it funny? You always put it together when it’s too late.’

‘Talk to us, Vince.’

‘What—?’ He trailed off, his face contorting into a wince, something sinister wracking his insides. He recovered and managed, ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Who’s behind the coup d’etat?’

‘I don’t know.’

The tough-guy mobster started crying. Tears mixed with blood and snot. He took his hand away from his forehead to wipe his eyes, and more blood ran down. He was a mess.

‘Someone used you,’ King said. ‘You know it. You just don’t want to admit it.’

Reluctantly, Vince nodded, his face a mask of anguish.

Slater said, ‘How’d it start?’

‘Someone was paying me to whack my coworkers,’ Vince said.

‘We know that,’ Slater said. ‘Who?’

Vince shrugged, which took considerable effort. ‘He was anonymous. He used … a voice scrambler. You’d think it was a scam, right? But he always paid, and he fronted me eighty k … via a dead drop. You know, to prove he wasn’t full of shit. I could have taken the money and stopped answering his calls,