Hawk, p.20
Hawk, page 20
part #6 of Will Slater Series
‘That’s never held you back before.’
Slater raised an eyebrow.
Hawk almost looked irritated. He said, ‘What? That really surprised you?’
‘Frankly, all of this is surprising me.’
And he was telling the truth. On top of that, it was terrifying him. Everything from the bed, to the shackles, to the handcuffs — it all seemed like it had been customised to fit Slater perfectly. Like they knew exactly how this would unfold, right from the start. Hawk had been planning this for weeks — maybe months.
Hawk said, ‘If it blows your mind that I was able to get access to blacked-out government files, then you’re in for a world of terror when you find out what comes next.’
Slater said, ‘What do you know about me, exactly?’
‘About you and Jason King? Everything.’
‘Up until retirement, I assume.’
‘I admit, it’s hard to find out what the hell went on after you two went off the radar. It’s a shame that Black Force had such a messy dissolution, especially after all that potential. All that achievement. But in the end, it doesn’t matter what happened afterwards. The two of you are still alive, and I’ve had time to browse your track records, and that’s all I needed to know.’
Slater said, ‘I’m not dead yet. I’m guessing that means something.’
‘Of course it means something.’
‘I assume it doesn’t bode well for me.’
Hawk shrugged. ‘That depends which way you look at it. After I’m done with the pair of you, you won’t have much of anything left upstairs. You’ll be mine.’
Slater didn’t say anything.
He thought long and hard about what that might mean, and a bolt of ice ran down his spine. It started at the top of his neck and worked its way down his back, and he masked a shiver as he lay against the metal.
Slater said, ‘Where are we going?’
But Hawk wasn’t concentrating. He was staring down at his phone, an expression of distaste on his face. But a moment later it vanished, replaced by the same cold calculation Slater had grown used to.
Hawk thumbed something on the touch screen and pressed the phone to his ear and said, ‘Yes?’
There was a muffled reply from the tiny speaker. Slater couldn’t hear it.
Hawk said, ‘The woods?’
Another muffled reply, shorter, only one syllable.
It sounded like, Yes.
Hawk swore, and rapid decisions flashed in his eyes.
When he spoke, it was measured and patient.
He said, ‘Okay. Pull everyone back for now. I’ve read their files and I know exactly what these two will do for each other, so we don’t need to go on the offensive. Jason will come to us. He won’t leave my new friend here behind. So get in touch with Teams C and D back at base and bring them out here. Set them up at regular intervals along the highway and give them everything we’ve got in our arsenal. It’s the only way Jason will get to our complex unless he decides to trek through the backroads, and that’ll take him too long. He won’t be willing to risk it. He’ll come south eventually and we can bag him there. Got all that?’
The same muffled reply. Once again, it sounded a lot like, Yes.
‘Good,’ Hawk said. ‘Give me an exact body count from Teams A and B.’
Another muffled reply. Inaudible.
But Hawk winced.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘When you’re finished setting up the roadblocks along the highway I want the feelers put out for new recruits. Contract work. Maybe a couple of months at the most. We won’t need them after that. I’ve got all I need right here in this truck.’
Then he hung up, and once again Slater felt the same icy shiver work its way down his spine.
Slater said, ‘What is this? What are you running here?’
‘You’ll see,’ Hawk said. ‘Trust me, you’ll see.’
Then he stared at Slater like he was a prized treasure, and some sort of dark passion flashed in his eyes, and he said, ‘I can’t believe I’ve finally met you in the flesh. I’ve been looking for a pair like you for so long. We’re going to do fucking unbelievable things together.’
Then he turned his attention to the road ahead.
Slater could almost see him dreaming of the future.
Slater settled back into the metal bed, and felt his pulse thrumming in his neck.
He wondered where King was.
46
Bunkered down under a rapidly darkening sky, Jason King put a full hour’s thought into his next move.
It was all the time he gave himself. He told himself if he couldn’t reach a conclusion in that time, he would pick the first available option and go for it.
Because time wasn’t on his side, and as the night approached he bottled up his unease and focused on what he could control.
He’d seen them take Slater. At the very edge of his vision, nearly two hours ago, he’d made it to the tree line and watched the silhouette on the road struck with something — maybe a bullet, maybe a taser — and drop without resistance to the asphalt.
Then he’d been manhandled into the back of a truck, legs still kicking, and King knew the man was alive.
The truck had sped off, and King pulled his own Brabus to a halt between two massive conifers with his stomach sinking by the second.
Now he lay submerged under large ferns, draped over him in sheets, his stomach pressed to the cool dirt. He was a hundred feet inside the tree line, in a particularly overgrown patch of forest, and the sounds of wildlife came alive all around him as the evening chill set in.
Crickets and cicadas shrilled and chirped, and with each passing moment he sensed his time running out.
Whoever was behind this was ten steps ahead.
That was the ultimate conclusion he reached, after twenty minutes of going around in circles in his own head.
He didn’t think there was anyone coming, but he had to make sure. It would pay dividends for the five men who’d shot at him to double back and approach the woods from some unseen angle, and he didn’t want to be caught in the open, unarmed and exposed. So if they stalked through the forest around him, he’d get up and slaughter each and every one of them. But he doubted that was going to happen.
Then he got to work, processing and thinking.
Someone had wanted them in New Zealand. Their base of operations was established here, so they figured they’d lure King and Slater to the South Island with a labyrinth paper trail. King’s mind lurched at the level of detail in the plan — they’d known King and Slater were competent enough to go out and get what they needed to decrypt the phone, even though very few people on the planet could do so. And they’d known, somehow, that they would actually do it instead of baulking at the mammoth effort it would require.
So their enemy knew all about who they were, and what they were capable of.
Which meant he’d seen what they’d done in Black Force.
Which meant he had some kind of connection to the organisation, or the files themselves.
Or he was just competent enough to get to them.
So the enemy could predict that King would come for Slater.
Therefore they’d focus all their attention on State Highway 1, but that wasn’t the only way to Tapanui.
King pulled his phone out of his pocket and lowered the brightness so the glare was invisible in the twilight. Then he set to work using the maps application. He figured he could double back to Christchurch, then go north up State Highway 73, through Arthur’s Pass, which would drop him off on the west coast of the island. From there he could make his way all the way down the west coast, passing Fox Glacier and a handful of other natural wonders, and use State Highway 6 to travel back across the mainland and approach Tapanui from the north.
Altogether, it would take nearly twelve hours of continuous driving.
But he’d slept for hours on the plane, anticipating an endurance feat precisely like the one laid out before him.
As the sky grew dark his resolve stiffened, so he gave himself ten more minutes to listen out for any signs of approaching combatants.
But the woods were dead and quiet and dark, and finally he made up his mind and rose up like Bigfoot coming out of the forest. He saw a weak beacon of light deep in the farmlands before him — a low ranch-style dwelling with a cluster of outbuildings around them.
A farmer and his family.
The deck light glowing weak and muted in the middle of nowhere.
King put the phone back in his pocket, and set off at a jog across the empty fields.
‘Hang in there,’ he whispered, hoping the wind carried his voice all the way to Slater. ‘I’m coming.’
47
They drove on and on.
As the sky darkened Hawk fished a Tupperware container out from under the bench and detached a metal fork clipped onto its side.
Slater momentarily thought he was about to be subjected to some sort of medieval torture, but Hawk snapped the lid off the tub and gorged on a collection of smoked salmon, avocado, goat’s cheese and braised beef.
Slater watched him with fascination.
Halfway through the meal, Hawk looked up. ‘What?’
‘You’re not what I pictured an evil mastermind to be.’
Hawk smiled through a mouthful of nutrition and said, ‘Well, that’s because society’s idea of an evil mastermind is moronic. I’m just a guy with enough brain cells to see the way the world’s heading and adapt accordingly.’
‘What do you want with me, exactly?’
Hawk finished the meal, checked his watch, and shrugged. ‘What the hell — right? It’s another few hours’ drive. Are you up for a chat?’
Slater said, ‘You’ve got me chained to a bed in the back of a truck. What else would I be up for?’
Hawk waved the fork in Slater’s face and said, ‘Point taken. What do you want to know? Ask away.’
‘Did you want King and I because of our reaction speed?’
‘Yes.’
‘And our track record?’
‘Yes.’
‘And our ability to dish out violence?’
‘Yes.’
‘Anything else?’
‘No. I’m changing the rest of it.’
‘What?’
‘Your files speak for themselves,’ Hawk said. ‘You’re both morally pure, if you want to call it that. You’re basically prehistoric mentally. You can’t get over the fact that the world is quickly going to shit, so you wrap yourselves up in your own individual brands of vigilante justice. You go from one task to the next thinking you’re making a difference, when really you’re not making a dent in global suffering. A thousand clones of you couldn’t. And you fail to look at anything from the big picture. The world’s population is getting out of control with each passing year, so really the handful of innocent people you save are only making things worse, if you really want to break it down like that.
‘You see, the world’s not going to shit because of suffering. In fact, we’re getting less and less of it than any time in history. But that poses its own problems, because everyone’s going to keep breeding like rabbits until the population peaks, and then everything’s going to hell. If you’ve got two brain cells to rub together you know it, but if you don’t recognise it you’re just living in denial.’
Slater scoffed.
Hawk said, ‘Did I say something funny?’
‘So you’re just another crackpot with a plan for an endgame. What is it — a nuke? A virus?’
Hawk leered, then bent over and tapped Slater’s forehead with a manicured finger. ‘You watch too many movies, kid. There’s too many fantasies swirling around up there.’
‘That’s not what this is?’
‘Not even close.’
‘So what are you doing here?’
Hawk spread his arms wide, to encompass the whole fleet of armoured vehicles racing through the darkness. ‘I’m fascinated by efficiency. I want to build myself an empire. I want to see how far one man can take that concept. How much can one man do in a single lifetime? Because apart from that, what the fuck are we even doing here? What are we living for? Simple pleasures? No, I’m past that. I want to keep expanding until I can just go anywhere and do anything. And that starts with the pair of you. Because you two might be the most vicious bastards I’ve ever heard of.’
‘You’re talking like you’re going to use us.’
‘I am.’
‘Not much chance of that happening.’
Hawk raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh?’
‘You said it yourself. We’re “morally pure.” We wouldn’t help you.’
Hawk edged closer to Slater, until his face was only half a foot away. ‘You’re not going to have a choice in the matter.’
‘What?’
‘I want to actualise something new. I want to create something that hasn’t been done before. It started with supplements like nootropics. Brain enhancers. The archaic versions are just starting to hit the markets today. But behind closed doors, research into physical control of the brain has been going on for decades. A personal hero of mine pioneered the movement. José Manuel Rodriguez Delgado. Have you heard of him?’
With physical fear compressing his chest, Slater said, ‘No.’
He looked down at the shackles around his hands and feet.
Now he tried to budge, but it didn’t do any good.
The ramifications of his imprisonment set in, and for a moment he thought he might have a heart attack. He actually wished for it to happen, because it might free him from whatever the hell Ali Hawk had in mind.
But there was no escape from this fear.
Hawk said, ‘He did most of his work in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. He used electrical stimulation to control the brains of animals. He built a stimoceiver — it was a device that connected to a receiver so he could monitor the EEG waves in a subject’s brain and control them through electrical impulses. This is real shit, Slater. He could stimulate the motor cortex and get actual physical reactions. The fucking madman stopped a bull in its tracks on a ranch in Spain nearly fifty years ago. Can you believe that? Fifty years ago. I read this, and I figured — what the hell could I do with this in today’s day and age?’
Slater sat in horrified silence.
Hawk said, ‘I’m not much of a fan of ethics. And, it turns out, neither are the pioneers of different fields. So I hired the best of the best, and I brought them out here. I let them do their work without restriction. Without all the menial bullshit that goes along with verified studies. It’s a free market out here, baby. I let them thrive.’
Slater stayed silent.
Hawk said, ‘I bet there’s a million thoughts going through your head right now.’
Slater said nothing.
Hawk said, ‘This is the new world, kid. This is real life. Can you believe it? I’m going to put a goddamn piece of technology the size of a pea in your head, and it’s going to give me access to all of you. All of you. All those juicy genetics. All that reaction speed. You can’t program that. But you can find the toughest men on the planet, and you can reel them in with bait, and you can transform them. And when I get your friend — and I will — I’ll do the same to him. You’ll be the muscle. My muscle. I can get rid of all these useless fucks around me. I can have the two of you all to myself. Imagine the places I could go. The things I could do. You two are unstoppable. You’re like the Terminator on steroids, and so is your friend. Jason King and Will Slater — my personal bodyguards. You won’t be able to stop me. I’ll kill that part of you and keep the rest. You’ll do what I say. Every day. All the time.’
Hawk inched forward even further.
‘You’ll be mine,’ the man said.
A sickly smile spread across his face.
Slater physically recoiled from Ali Hawk. The man had a look in his eyes the likes of which Slater had never seen before. Hawk was off the deep end, wrapped in his own head, succumbing to his own genius…
…but he wasn’t bullshitting.
Slater could tell.
Ali Hawk meant every single word he was saying.
This wasn’t the rambling delusions of a psycho.
This was the new wave of terrorist.
This was a technological wizard without a shred of morality.
This was the new world.
48
King stepped up onto the rickety porch.
He took a deep breath, winced, and then did exactly what he needed to do.
Anything else would hinder Slater’s survival, and he couldn’t risk it.
He figured no-one would answer the door at this time of evening, and he also knew about the lack of firearms in New Zealand.
He wasn’t likely to get shot breaking and entering.
So he took a deep breath, tested the weight of the flimsy wooden back door to the ranch, and smashed his shoulder into the wood.
It rattled, and nearly gave.
But the foundations were strong.
It stayed in place.
King put everything into the next charge, and the lock snapped like it was made of plastic. He forced it inwards, splintering the wood around his hand — where it gripped the handle — and charged into an entranceway. He followed the weak light, turned left into a small living room, and came face to face with a horrified family. A Maori husband with a weather-lined face and calloused hands, a white woman wearing a nightgown, and a small boy — no older than six — looking up with wide, terrified eyes.
Sometimes, King hated what he had to become.
He expanded his back so he spread out in the doorway, displaying all two hundred and twenty pounds. He stood up to his fullest high, and he put a look of black rage on his face.
He said, ‘I don’t want to hurt you. I need your car.’
They looked at him like he was a demon risen from hell.
The father started to get out of his chair.
King could see him clenching his fists.
Probably thinking, Protect the kid at all costs.
King roared, ‘Don’t!’
