54

  King led Quinn downstairs at gunpoint.

  The guy had zero combat experience, and was scared out of his mind, but King remained diligent regardless. Sometimes, stupidity results in the most brazen actions.

  Take Aaron, for example.

  As they descended the giant staircase, King said, ‘What the hell was that, anyway?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Aaron got himself killed to give Duke a slightly higher chance of survival. That’s some serious selflessness.’

  ‘Aaron … wasn’t … all there,’ Quinn said. ‘You know, mentally.’

  He took giant pauses between words, as if he still couldn’t comprehend what had happened. It had to be a fever dream. There was no way a hired helper had revealed himself as an elite combatant, killed half of Quinn’s friends, and left the other two potentially brain-damaged.

  King said, ‘He looked high.’

  ‘He was high,’ Quinn said. ‘Every hour of every day. First thing he did when he woke up every morning. For him it kept … the demons at bay.’

  King waited for Quinn to elaborate, letting the silence draw out. He knew Quinn would cave first.

  Quinn said, ‘He was schizophrenic. He was like a … Rain Man type. You saw how good of a shot he was. He gets, you know, obsessed with things. Sort of hyper-focused. But he was irrational. Duke made him do all the risky shit, because he’d do it every time, no questions asked.’

  ‘Sounds like Duke was a real stand-up guy.’

  Quinn shrugged. ‘He hurt some people. Helped some others.’

  ‘You’re saying he was Robin Hood?’ King said. ‘Take from the rich, give to the poor?’

  Quinn tried to ignore the opulence all around them, but couldn’t. ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Yeah,’ King said. ‘You’re damn right “not exactly.”’

  ‘What about you?’ Quinn said. ‘What the hell are you made out of?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Duke shot you three times. You barely flinched.’

  King undid the top two buttons of his shirt and parted the material to the side, allowing Quinn to look over his shoulder and see the armoured plating underneath. It was a Modular Body Armor Vest, utilised by a wide range of Special Forces operators due to its mobility and light weight.

  Quinn couldn’t believe it.

  ‘How the fuck did you get that through airport security?’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t,’ King said. ‘It’s Cal’s. It was hanging on his desk chair. Remember I told you not to turn around.’

  ‘Oh,’ Quinn said.

  King shoved him out the entrance archway and steered him toward the jeep.

  ‘You drive,’ he said.

  Quinn got behind the wheel and King got in the passenger seat, keeping the barrel angled at the man’s face at all times. Quinn reached out and took the wheel in both hands.

  They trembled.

  King said, ‘I’m not going to kill you.’

  ‘You are,’ Quinn said. ‘Or you would have left me back there.’

  Fear swirled in his eyes.

  King slapped him across the face, and then used the same hand to tilt Quinn’s chin toward him. Turning his face to the sun, which made him squint and drew beads of sweat from the corners of his forehead. Disorienting him, and making him even more uncomfortable.

  Good.

  King needed him vulnerable.

  He said, ‘You’re in deep shit, Quinn. But you can come out of this alive if you get me to that container.’

  Quinn squinted harder, confused.

  King said, ‘You know people at the port, right? That’s how all this works.’

  ‘Yes. But they won’t let me in if they see you with me. They don’t know you.’

  ‘Then they won’t see me.’

  ‘I don’t remember the details.’

  ‘I do. Drive.’

  They took the Pacific Coast Highway north, passing designer coffee joints packed with hipsters and surfers and rich white-collar workers staying at their holiday homes. Then they saw those holiday homes themselves — the exclusive real estate between Laguna Beach and Newport Beach with staggering ocean views and permanent sunshine. Then came Huntington Beach, followed swiftly by Long Beach, and after that King knew they’d be approaching Terminal Island.

  He said, ‘Okay, Quinn. Pep talk.’

  Still pale despite the sun beating down on him, Quinn nodded his understanding.

  King said, ‘I’m going to get out of sight. I want you to be as charming as you can. If they suspect something’s wrong, I’ll kill you. If you point out that there’s a person in the back who’s currently holding you hostage, I’ll kill you. If you drive straight to any other criminal buddies you have and try to pump me full of lead before I can retaliate, it won’t work … and then I’ll kill you.’

  Quinn nodded again.

  ‘Any questions?’

  Quinn shook his head.

  ‘I’d like to remind you what happened to your buddies.’

  ‘I know what happened to them,’ Quinn said, like he was trying to hold back tears.

  King said, ‘They were prepared. Duke had the jump on me. It was six on one. You all still failed.’

  Silence.

  King said, ‘Whatever you’re thinking about trying, it won’t work.’

  ‘I know.’

  Resignation.

  Acceptance.

  Defeat.

  King said, ‘Good man. I’m putting my head down now. If I see anything other than Container 55D when I look back up, you’re dead.’

  ‘What’s the rest of the information?’

  King fed it to him, verbatim, reading it off the page he’d memorised.

  As Quinn sped along the Seaside Freeway, King turned and put a foot up on the passenger seat and vaulted over into the rear seats. He grabbed the removable soft top usually reserved for draping over the jeep’s frame when it rained once a year in California. He skewered himself down into the footwell, and draped the soft top over his own frame instead.

  Darkness.

  55

  Bumps.

  Jolts.

  Rattles.

  Muted conversation.

  More bumps.

  More jolts.

  More muted conversation.

  King listened harder.

  He thought he caught snippets of jovial banter — perhaps a half-hearted verbal jab from someone outside the vehicle. Then something very similar to a nervous laugh emanating from the driver’s seat.

  He tensed up.

  If port security smelled something fishy on Quinn’s end, they might overreact.

  Especially if they were on the payroll. Because that made them morally bankrupt, and morally bankrupt people were capable of plenty of unsavoury things.

  King imagined the conversation.

  Where’s the rest of the boys?

  They sent me ahead, to ready the container.

  You drew the short straw, hey?

  Something like that.

  Have a good one, buddy.

  You, too.

  That was the best case scenario.

  That’s not what happened.

  The second muted conversation lasted a whole lot longer than the first. The weight of the soft top pressed down on King, stifling his breathing, absorbing the heat of the sun, cooking him in the footwell. He started perspiring freely — his armpits soaked, his face flushed, his grip on the SIG ever so slightly compromised. If they threw the soft top away and tried to shoot him where he lay, that’d be an issue.

  He tried his best to control his breathing, fighting off the tendrils of claustrophobia.

  Outside the jeep, he thought he heard someone say, ‘How long do you think you’ll be?’

  More questions.

  Not good.

  King tightened his grip. Tried to wipe his palm on his pants, but he couldn’t. The angle wasn’t right. He lay deathly still, not daring to move a muscle. Another voice — a new voice — emanated from the passenger side.

  A second port official.

  Were they surrounding the car?

  He weighed his options. He could sit up, throw the soft top aside, draw a bead on whoever was closest, threaten them until they let him through. It’d work. He doubted port security had the firepower and reflexes to rival his own.

  But as soon as Quinn rolled the jeep through, they’d raise the alarm. King might make it to the container in time, but then he’d have the entire port descending on him. If the cargo was something sinister, and required immediate action on King’s end … well, that’d complicate things. It’d be hard to smuggle a nuclear bomb off Terminal Island with alarms blaring and security in hot pursuit.

  He stayed put.

  It was mightily uncomfortable, but in his profession, what the hell wasn’t?

  The voice on the driver’s side moved closer to King. He realised, two feet above him, the official was looking down at the soft top. Scrutinising. Giving the rear seats a once-over.

  He held his breath, which wasn’t necessary — it caught in his throat anyway.

  Silence.

  Then a grunted affirmation, and Quinn threw the jeep into gear, and it rolled off the mark.

  King let the breath out. It was masked by the rumbling of the engine. He gave it a full minute, counting out the seconds from one to sixty, until Quinn had accelerated to a respectable speed. Then he sat up and heaved the soft top aside.

  Quinn looked twice as nervous as when King had burrowed out of sight.

  King said, ‘How’d that go?’

  Quinn shook his head, scared shitless. ‘That was close.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Duke hadn’t called ahead. He always calls ahead.’

  ‘But they let you through anyway?’

  ‘We pay them more than enough to allow exceptions.’

  King vaulted back into the passenger seat and soaked in the scenery. They were barreling down a giant concrete multi-purpose dock. On either side he eyed a cluster of administrative buildings, a couple of giant warehouse facilities that he guessed were for maintenance, and at least a dozen cranes all around them. In the distance, the rest of the terminals on the island spread out facing the harbour, making up a single conglomeration of industrial sprawl.

  The sky was still cloudless.

  The sun still beat down.

  King used his sleeve to wipe sweat off his face.

  He said, ‘Any idea what I should be expecting?’

  ‘The cargo?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You’re not going to believe me,’ Quinn said, ‘but I honestly have no idea. If anyone knows in advance, it’s Duke. And usually he doesn’t, either. Discretion is key for the clients we work with.’

  ‘Ignorance is bliss, right?’

  ‘I know you hate me.’

  ‘I don’t feel anything towards you.’

  ‘That’s good, at least.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean I won’t kill you if I need to.’

  Quinn shivered. ‘I know.’

  They took a left into a cargo zone filled with stacks and stacks of TEUs. The towers speared into the sky, practically blocking out the sunlight. Quinn navigated down a couple of shadowy laneways, steering with practiced familiarity. He’d done this before.

  ‘55D, right?’ Quinn said.

  King said, ‘Right.’

  Quinn slammed on the brakes.

  For a moment King thought the ferocity of the action was a ploy to throw him against the glove compartment and try to enact a getaway. Then he would have to shoot Quinn, which ruined his chances of streamlining this.

  But it turned out that Quinn was simply desperate to impress. He’d do anything not to overshoot the container, which was right alongside them.

  The jeep skidded to a standstill.

  King looked over at the row of refrigerated containers. There were no plugs in sight — they must have all been hooked up at the back. They were all big and ridged and metal and orange. They sat in their places, dormant.

  Quinn said, ‘You know how it works, right?’

  King nodded. ‘Oh, yeah. I know how it works.’

  He was intimately familiar with Twenty-foot Equivalent Units. A lifetime ago at the tender age of twenty-two, on his second official operation as a Black Force operative, he’d been introduced to the dark secrets of the international shipping industry in Somalia of all places. He knew hundreds of thousands of containers containing illegal items passed through borders globally each and every day, whether that be guns, drugs, trafficked humans, or simply undeclared goods. None of them were searched. It was impossible. Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods passed through the Port of Los Angeles alone. The manpower didn’t exist to screen even five percent of what came through.

  It left all sorts of openings for officials to be bribed, and it was an easy frame of mind to slip into. A lone port worker would think, What’s the point of staying out of the action? The cargo comes through anyway, no matter what I do. Why should I stop something I can’t control?

  So, yeah, King understood how it worked. And he knew how to work a TEU.

  Quinn said, ‘Here’s the key.’

  Handed over a single silver key.

  King said, ‘Where’d you get it?’

  ‘Someone from Donati Group express shipped it to us. I don’t know all the details. Duke handled it.’

  King nodded. ‘Keep your hands on the wheel. If I hear you move, it’s game over.’

  He got out and approached the giant cargo-door lock of Container 55D. There were big leverage handles, easily identifiable, and as soon as he’d figured out the lock he seized hold of them and swung them out. Something clanked and thudded on the left-hand side, then on the right. The lock rods.

  It was open.

  King listened hard, letting his heartbeat settle, letting the sound of the idling engine recede. Kept quiet, until there was just the hot wind blowing through the corridors and the gentle creaking of towers of metal.

  He raised the SIG in a familiar motion, and put his other hand on the edge of the huge door frame.

  He swung the right-hand door steadily outward, moving the barrel along the same trajectory, clearing the space inch by tense inch.

  When he swung the door all the way out, he stopped in his tracks.

  The container was completely empty.

  56

  King didn’t move for a long ten count.

  He sensed Quinn behind him in the driver’s seat, staring in horror.

  King turned around.

  Quinn’s expression was a man looking death right in the eyes.

  He started babbling.

  ‘No, no, wait,’ he said. ‘I didn’t talk to anyone, man. I swear. Please don’t kill me. Oh, God, I don’t want to die here. Please, man, please, you have to understand—’

  King held up a palm.

  Quinn stopped mid-sentence. His eyes were wider than saucers. His face was pale and oily.

  King said, ‘I know you didn’t talk to anyone. I’ve been with you this whole time, remember?’

  Pure relief washed over Quinn. ‘I thought you might have thought, you know…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Thought I talked to those guards.’

  ‘Unless they’re superhuman, and could locate and empty this entire container before we got here, then, no, you’re in the clear.’

  Quinn nodded. ‘I’m just scared, man.’

  King’s mind fired. He couldn’t quiet it down. He was connecting dots, harbouring suspicions, drawing unwanted conclusions.

  He said, ‘Quinn.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Answer me one question.’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘How do you know this job came from Donati Group?’

  Quinn paused, thinking. ‘Because, you know, they came to us. To do it discreetly. Off their books.’

  ‘But what proves it was actually them?’

  Quinn hesitated again. ‘We have paperwork. We have payments.’

  ‘How easily could they be forged?’

  ‘I … I don’t know.’

  ‘Think.’

  ‘I don’t fucking know, man. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you want. I don’t know what’s going on. Help me. Throw me a bone.’

  ‘How easily could it be forged?’ King repeated. ‘Think.’

  Quinn went silent. Stared at the steering wheel, as if it could give him the answers he needed. But King knew he was racking his memory, ticking off pieces of evidence, trying to find anything that didn’t mesh with King’s newfound opinion.

  He couldn’t.

  He said, ‘I guess there’s nothing we saw that couldn’t be forged. We’ve spoken to people, but I guess we don’t have documented video proof that those calls came from bent Donati Group employees. So, yeah, maybe. It could all be a ruse. But who would want to frame Donati Group?’

  ‘Nobody,’ King said, his blood beginning to boil.

  ‘Who, then?’

  ‘The real question is — who wanted me out of New York?’

  ‘What? I don’t understand.’

  King turned and thundered a kick into the side of the empty shipping container. The metal groaned and rattled and the reverberation echoed within, bouncing off the walls, resonating through the bare space. When he composed himself, he turned back round.

  Quinn said, ‘Just because it could be forged, doesn’t mean it is. It’d take an army of experts. Based on the documents I saw.’

  King nodded. ‘I agree.’

  He knew exactly who had access to an army of experts.

  His blood boiled harder.

  He said, ‘Sit there and don’t say a word.’

  He pulled out his phone and dialled a number he didn’t want to dial.

  He wasn’t sure whether she’d answer.

  Whether she suspected anything.

  But she did.

  Violetta picked up and said, ‘Hey. All good?’

  ‘All good,’ King said, staring at the sole member of Duke’s crew still functioning.

  She said, ‘I take it you’ve found a secure location.’

  ‘Why else would I be calling?’

  ‘Relax,’ she said. ‘I’m just making sure.’

  ‘I’m perfectly relaxed.’