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

hand that information to my dad. So, you know, I did you a favour with that. And then, well, you know, I’m a Walcott, yeah? I’m sure I’m going to inherit the family fortune. I can pay you a lot of money. Not much use if I’m dead. So how about you put that gun down, okay?’

He wasn’t exactly sure what he was saying — his brain moved faster than his mouth.

All he wanted was another second on earth.

Will Slater looked down at him like he was lower than vermin.

Kane had never been looked at like that in his life.

It broke him.

Slater knelt over him. ‘Your man in there would have shot a small boy in the head if we hadn’t timed this little incursion to perfection.’

‘W-what?’

‘You heard me.’

‘It was one of my men? Not me. My father’s men, actually. I’ve got nothing to do with this.’

‘You don’t?’

Kane was yet to realise that the more he talked, the deeper the hole he was digging for himself.

He started babbling about money, and payment, and fat bank accounts.

That’s what mercenaries are ultimately after, right?

Slater cut him off. ‘Are you responsible for your men?’

‘What?’

‘Again, you heard me.’

‘They’re not my men.’

‘You knew your father was dead. So you knew you were in charge. Come on, Kane. Time to be a man about this. I’ll lose my respect for you if you deflect.’

That changed Kane’s tune.

From the lawn, he started nodding. ‘Yes, yes. They’re my men. My responsibility.’

Anything to earn Slater’s respect.

Anything to keep his life.

Slater said, ‘That was easy. Now, should a leader be punished for the actions of his troops?’

Kane paused.

His thoughts stalled.

He couldn’t keep up.

‘It’s a simple question, Kane,’ Slater said.

‘Yes,’ Kane said.

It’s a trick, he thought. He wants me to admit responsibility. Then he’ll let me go with a newfound respect. Like in the movies.

Slater said, ‘Exactly.’

He rested the barrel of the Glock on Kane Walcott’s eye socket and ended the dynasty with a single round.

87

King, on the other hand, was met with blissful silence.

The merc who’d held a gun to Caleb’s head didn’t plead, didn’t protest, didn’t whine. He knew anything he said would fall on deaf ears.

He went to his death with resigned acceptance.

King dragged him into a spare room, out of sight of the shaking child in the middle of the living room. Caleb had seen enough, been through enough. He didn’t need to see this, too.

King made him face the wall and put his suppressed Glock to the back of the man’s head.

The guy didn’t so much as shiver.

The anger drained out of King. He didn’t want to punish this man anymore, didn’t want to rip him limb from limb with soulless fury.

He just wanted it to be over.

To make sure he wasn’t imagining it, he said, ‘You’re not saying anything.’

The merc shrugged and spoke to the wall. ‘Not about to beg. Had to make a call. Made the wrong one.’

‘Yeah, you did.’

You gave a child a traumatic event he’ll remember for the rest of his life.

King shot the guy through the back of the head, and let the breath in his throat go.

It was done.

He’d spotted the two extra sentries buried in the hedges of the villa’s front lawn, but he’d recognised them as amateurs and deemed the situation non-critical. Dumb lookouts could wait. Slater might have been outnumbered in the house, and that’s where the priority lay. So he’d moved laterally behind the row of buildings away from the waterfront and sprinted through their rear yards, ignoring the traumatised cries of guests sheltering from the gunfire on their back porches. He’d circled to the same side passage Wayne had used to escape, and ran into the grizzled vet hunched against a wall, his face bright red, his chest heaving with the exertion of carrying the shields.

Moving past him, King had said, ‘You hit?’

‘No. Couple of close calls though. Easiest hundred k I’ve ever made. Will I be seeing you?’

‘No,’ King said. ‘You’re done.’

He’d gone in a window above a toilet cistern, found himself in an en suite bathroom, and navigated silently through the house from there. He’d come up on the merc holding Caleb from behind.

Now he cleared the last few rooms he hadn’t yet confirmed were empty, and stood in the last one with sweat pouring off his face.

He wiped his brow, holstered his gun, and backtracked to the living area. Caleb saw him coming down the hallway. The boy’s feet may as well have been concreted in place. He hadn’t moved since before he’d been used as a human shield. There wasn’t so much as a scratch on him, but that was physical. King could see the disorientation in his eyes.

King said, ‘Hi. Me again.’

He could see the boy fighting for control, trying to latch onto something resembling normalcy.

As King stepped out into the main space, Caleb reached up and wiped a few long locks away from his eyes. An instinctive mechanism. A throwback to simpler times.

Then the kid, who knew nothing about the world except for what he thought it used to be, reached into his soul and found composure.

He smiled. ‘Hi.’

King said, ‘Been eating your vegetables?’

‘Yes. What just happened?’

‘Something bad. But it’s over.’

Caleb chewed his bottom lip, then turned to regard Violetta and Alexis, still tied up at the table. ‘Are they your prisoners now? They were nice to me. Please don’t hurt them.’

King said, ‘They’re my friends.’

‘Oh.’

King went over, removed the duct tape over their mouths, and slashed the cable ties with a knife he fished out of the kitchen drawer. Violetta rubbed her wrists as she got to her feet.

King said, ‘Did they hurt you?’

‘No.’

Alexis said, ‘There’s another Walcott.’

King looked across. ‘What?’

‘Dylan has a son.’

Slater appeared at the end of the front hallway. ‘Dylan had a son.’

88

No one spoke.

Caleb furrowed his brow and scratched an itch at the top of his head. ‘What are you all talking about?’

Violetta went to him. ‘Just adult stuff. Is your head okay?’

‘It’s sore. That man pushed that thing into it. Was