He ran a glass under the tap and sculled it down. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘Fucking shell companies,’ Violetta swore, eyes transfixed on the glare of the screen. ‘It blows my mind that any of this is allowed.’

  ‘What’s allowed?’ King said. ‘In layman’s terms, please. You know I’m an idiot.’

  He wasn’t, and she knew he wasn’t. He and Slater had dealt with their fair share of financial conspiracies when he was employed by the government, so the two of them knew all the terms inside and out. But Alexis didn’t, and King didn’t want her to feel stupid, especially when she had no reason to know about any of it in the first place.

  Violetta recognised all of this, and looked up at King with admiration.

  He nodded softly back to her.

  She said, ‘Métier Bank International is owned by a shell company, which is owned by a shell company, which is owned by another shell company, but I think I just got to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Dylan Walcott.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘No shit,’ she said. ‘You never hear about these people. They quietly become the richest men on earth and they stay that way.’

  ‘He’s one of the richest men on earth?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not even close. He’s a tiny fish in the global pond but he’s the biggest fish in the Bahamas by a country mile.’

  ‘What do you know about him?’

  ‘You’re lucky I have discreet access to Uncle Sam’s search engines,’ she said. ‘Otherwise he’d be a ghost.’

  Slater said, ‘Like Alastair Icke was a ghost? Like Gloria Kerr was a ghost? We found out a whole lot about them real quick.’

  It wasn’t intended to be taken seriously, but Violetta said, ‘They were nothing compared to this guy.’

  ‘I thought you said he wasn’t—’

  ‘One of the richest men on earth?’ Violetta said. ‘Please. Of course he’s not. None of us know who the richest people on earth are. You honestly think it’s any of the moguls you read about in the news? They’re legitimate money. You should see what illegitimate money gets you, money that doesn’t show up anywhere, that doesn’t officially exist…’

  ‘Is this argument circling back to Dylan Walcott?’

  ‘His grandfather was Archie Walcott,’ Violetta said, reading off the screen.

  King said, ‘Is that supposed to mean something?’

  ‘Sure it means something.’

  ‘Who was Archie Walcott?’

  ‘He practically established Freeport.’

  ‘The city?’

  ‘If you could call it that,’ Violetta said, still scrolling, eyes still flying over lines of text. ‘It’s more of a private empire owned by a select few foreigners. You should read this history…’

  ‘Can you summarise it?’ King said.

  It was late, and they had flights to catch in the morning. Again, it highlighted how little detail he needed to commit to something. Backstory, risks, red flags … it was all secondary to the two eternal questions.

  Are there good people that need help?

  Are there bad people that need to die?

  Violetta answered both with what came next.

  15

  ‘Archibald Walcott was an American business magnate,’ she said without taking her eyes off the screen. ‘From what I can gather, he worked closely alongside Wallace Groves in the 1930s to establish Freeport as a city. Groves was an American businessman who seems to have taken the majority of credit for pioneering the city in the thirties. But behind the scenes, Walcott carried out most of the groundwork.’

  Slater said, ‘How exactly did they “establish” a city?’

  ‘Your usual bag of dirty tricks,’ Violetta said. ‘According to official records they formed the Grand Bahama Port Authority Limited, which allowed them to own all of Freeport as private property of the Port Authority.’

  ‘What did they offer the existing government to allow that to happen?’

  Violetta said, ‘What do you think?’

  Slater said, ‘It was a rhetorical question.’

  ‘I’ll answer it anyway,’ she said. ‘Bribes. They transferred a “considerable amount of money” — according to unofficial sources — to key members of the government through a company Groves officially owned, called DEVCO. Stands for the Grand Bahama Development Corporation. They used those payments to get a Certificate of Exemption, which allowed them to drop a metric shitload of casinos and banks into Freeport before anyone else could seize the opportunity. And we’ve just discovered how beautifully casinos and banks work together, haven’t we?’

  King thought of Dean Cohen’s brains plastered on the wall.

  Violetta said, ‘This is all conjecture, obviously, but the late Archie Walcott seemed to form a symbiotic relationship with the casinos and the banks. Everything I’m reading hints at organised crime running smoothly through the casinos, and Walcott turning a blind eye. I’m sure he got kickbacks, but he was awfully discreet about it. There’s not a scrap of hard evidence that Archie was ever dirty, but it’s implied.’

  ‘Where are you getting this?’

  ‘You’d be surprised how extensive Uncle Sam’s records are.’

  ‘And now his grandson runs it all?’ Slater said. ‘He took over the family business?’

  ‘Archie got old,’ Violetta said. ‘He lived a long life, died in the 1990s. He made it to one hundred years old, as a matter of fact. It seems the absence of a guilty conscience is the fountain of youth. Then he handed everything down to the descendant he was closest to. Looks like Dylan expanded on his grandfather’s operation, but it’s like trying to read indecipherable code. I’m looking at a labyrinth of shell companies. He’s keeping his cards close to his chest.’

  ‘Can you find out more?’

  ‘Not unless we go have a talk to him,’ Violetta said. ‘Which I’m imagining will be harder than it sounds.’

  Slater said, ‘Never stopped us.’

  King said, ‘We really only need to know one thing to act on this, right?’

  Everyone’s eyes turned to him.

  He said, ‘Violetta, can you confirm Dylan is fully aware the money he’s laundering from Vegas is dirty?’

  ‘He has to know,’ Violetta said, scrolling through pages of documents. ‘There’s no way he can’t know.’

  King said, ‘Then that’s someone I want to talk to.’

  Slater said, ‘But is it smart to pursue it?’

  A long silence.

  The obvious answer was staring them right in the face.

  No.

  It was a long, complicated financial trail with a multitude of different players. It wasn’t their game. King and Slater usually helped people on the ground floor — desperate people, people who needed urgent intervention. They didn’t busy themselves in the boardroom, sorting through legal documents, trying to deduce who’s at fault within a global conglomerate. It wasn’t in their sphere of influence.

  King didn’t want to say it.

  Slater did.

  He stepped forward and said, ‘We all know the answer. No. There’s plenty for us to handle here in Vegas.’

  Alexis nodded solemnly. She’d reached the same conclusion.

  Violetta nodded, too. She hadn’t wanted to say it first, but now that it was out there, it was the obvious answer.

  King didn’t do anything. Didn’t nod, didn’t speak.

  Just stood there, stewing.

  Slater looked at him. ‘You taken some vow of silence I didn’t know about?’

  King stayed quiet.

  Kept stewing.

  Slater threw his hands up in the air and made to turn away.

  King said, ‘Violetta.’

  She looked up from the laptop.

  He said, ‘This is all just sitting there, right? I was gone forty-five minutes, and you dug up enough dirt on this Walcott guy on official government servers to show he’s rampantly corrupt. Right?’

  Violetta said, ‘Right.’

  ‘So the government knows,’ King said. ‘They just don’t care.’

  Violetta bit her lower lip to stop herself from talking.

  King said, ‘What?’

  She just shook her head.

  He said, ‘Say it.’

  She shrugged. ‘This is how the world works, Jason. This is how it is everywhere. Those in power fuck over those who aren’t and everyone turns a blind eye because they’re in on the racket. You know why I didn’t do anything about cases like this when I was employed by the government? Because a case like this came across my desk every five minutes. Some big-shot businessman screwing over the little people. It’s dirty money. It’s all dirty money. It makes the world go round.’

  ‘You’re saying you’re okay with it?’

  ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘I’m saying we’re never going to fix it all.’

  King looked at Slater. ‘That change your mind?’

  Slater had ice in his eyes. ‘Yeah. It did.’

  Violetta looked up at Slater. ‘What?’

  Slater said, ‘Of course we’re not going to fix it all. But we can fix one thing. We can send a message.’

  King nodded.

  Alexis sat still, reserved.

  Violetta shrugged. ‘It’s your call. I could swing either way.’

  King said, ‘We’re going to the Bahamas.’

  He walked out of the room.

  16

  Nothing more to it.

  Violetta packed her bags alongside King. They didn’t talk. Everything that needed to be said had been said. They could go back and forth all day about the finer details, but she’d realised long ago that King’s style was the same as hers.

  Nothing is complicated unless you make it complicated.

  Sure, the paperwork was a labyrinth, but they had a target in their sights. Dylan Walcott was going to end up answering questions he didn’t want to answer, and the only way that was going to happen was after a one-way flight to the Bahamas. Everything concerning the planning of that meeting could take place later. For now, all they had to focus on was getting there.

  She had a bag full in five minutes. She zipped it up, stepped back, and took a breath.

  King turned around from the closet, clothes in his hands. He smiled. ‘It’s getting easier, isn’t it?’

  She said, ‘It never stops.’

  ‘If you don’t want to do this,’ he said, ‘you can stay here.’

  ‘Of course I want to do this.’

  He rounded the bed, took her waist in his hands. She relished the feeling.

  He said, ‘I know. I don’t know why I said that.’

  She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. ‘You do know. You think you’re crazy for having a life like this.’

  He shrugged.

  She said, ‘You’ll realise sooner or later I’m just as crazy as you are.’

  ‘That’s why we’re a perfect match.’

  She took her bag downstairs and got on the phone to the one man in U.S. black operations she was still in discreet contact with.

  Alonzo answered the phone on the first ring. ‘Been a while.’

  She said, ‘We’re planning a trip.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Grand Bahama.’

  ‘Must be nice.’

  ‘I just wanted to check that we’re not going to get flagged.’

  Alonzo paused, then said, ‘You don’t trust the cover I gave you?’

  ‘If we all go together…’ She trailed off. ‘Better safe than sorry, you know? I don’t want any alarms going off in the system.’

  He said, ‘Do you want me to go into specifics?’

  ‘Layman’s terms, please.’

  ‘Your photos don’t exist in the system. I’ve put a blanket over everything, and it’s airtight. You’ll pass through security and your new identities will disappear like they never existed at all.’

  ‘Seems too good to be true. That’s why I’m checking.’

  ‘And that’s why this country pays me top dollar. Because I can do things like that to make our operations invisible. What this country doesn’t know is I can do that for anyone. I can pull the wool over their eyes just as effectively as I can pull the wool over their enemies’. .’

  ‘You don’t need to do this for us,’ she said. ‘You’re risking your life.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But here I am doing it anyway. Helps me convince myself I still have a soul. Enjoy your holiday.’

  17

  The civilian flight touched down on Bahamian soil early in the morning.

  Coming in on the Bahamasair flight to land, Slater couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen water so blue. He’d read snippets about Hurricane Dorian in the news, and sure enough he spotted a sea of bright blue tarps protecting missing roofs across the east coast where most of the destruction was condensed, but the beaches were still white and Freeport bustled with activity, alive with the spirit of a resilient and determined people.

  After disembarking and moving through the terminal, Slater realised travelling felt too easy now.

  He didn’t like anything easy, but this was the next phase of his life, and it was always going to be different. He had to place trust in others like he never had before, even if all that meant was giving Violetta the reins to organise their trip. They’d strolled through McCarran International Airport in Vegas without anyone giving them so much as a second glance, then they’d stopped briefly in Nassau, and now they were moving through the terminal of Grand Bahama International Airport in the same fashion.

  When they stepped out of the building wheeling their bags, he shook off a giddy sensation.

  Could this be true?

  Are our days of being hunted over?

  Alexis echoed his sentiment. ‘That was weird.’

  She was no stranger to being hunted, despite her civilian life being close in the rear view mirror.

  You live with King and Slater, you catch on quick.

  King said, ‘How so?’ but he knew exactly how so.

  Violetta said, ‘If it means anything, it threw me off too. I had to stop myself from calling Alonzo seventeen times at the airport.’

  King breathed the air. ‘We should do this more often.’

  ‘Find someone like Walcott in the Maldives next,’ Slater said. ‘I like the idea of an exotic world tour.’

  They piled into a cab and the Walcott talk ceased.

  They never knew who might be listening.

  The Caucasian driver took them from the top of Grand Bahama to the bottom, first taking the highway east before turning onto Coral Road, which ran through Freeport’s core. They passed residential suburbs — Sunrise Park and Seahorse Village — broken up by primary schools and a staggering number of churches. There was little evidence of the devastation Slater was sure had razed houses and businesses alike less than a year earlier.

  The driver, making small talk, confirmed as much. ‘Floodwaters rose twenty feet, and that’s no exaggeration. Here we got spared most of it. The east copped a beating — there’s talk that Deep Water Cay may never reopen for tours. And across the ocean the Abacos are still in ruins. That darn storm blew the whole tourist centre away at Marsh Harbour over yonder. But here on this soil, we’re getting back to normal. Eighty percent of the hotels and restaurants are back up and running. And Lord knows we need it. Thank y’all for coming. Tourist support is vital right now. If y’all would be interested in a fishing tour at any point, my brother has a—’

  Slater tuned out, but he appreciated the hustle and the accompanying verbal dossier of information.

  Coral Road deposited them on Royal Palm Way, running parallel to the south shore of the island, before they finally arrived at a private complex with what they assumed were unimpeded views of the water. It was hard to tell with the ten-foot perimeter wall obscuring the grounds from street view, but Violetta had promised them something spectacular after booking the place online.

  They piled out and waited for the cab to drive off before they went inside. Precautions were vital when they knew next to nothing about what they’d be going up against.

  Isn’t that always the case? King thought.

  No, a voice told him. Not like this. This is whimsical.

  He didn’t like whimsical.

  He liked careful, painstaking research — knowing exactly what they were here for. Not floating around looking for clues. It fit with the overall laidback nature of the Bahamas, but they weren’t here to kick their feet up. Maybe Slater was indifferent, but Slater was Slater. He had a little more recklessness in every facet of his life than King.

  Violetta followed instructions from the owner on her phone and found three sets of keys in a lockbox buried in the garden around the wall. She handed one set to King and one to Slater, then used her own set to unlock the gate in the brushwood fencing.

  Empty-handed, Alexis said, ‘What about me?’

  Violetta looked back like she hadn’t even considered it. ‘You can borrow one of ours if you need to go anywhere.’

  Alexis didn’t respond.

  There was a blank look on her face.

  King understood. Alexis had popped her cherry weeks prior. She’d done something she never thought herself capable of. She’d killed someone to protect herself. But that didn’t make her a seasoned veteran, and it didn’t give her priority. There was a ream of difference between your first kill and the moment it all clicks, the millisecond it comes together and you realise you can control your emotions and your impulses in life-or-death situations. She’d get there, because she wasn’t going anywhere. She was in it for the long haul. But she wasn’t there yet.

  She was changing, though.

  A month ago she wouldn’t have thought twice about it.

  They went through, and Alexis’ irritation vanished when she saw the villa.

  It was idyllic.

  It was more of a bungalow than a villa, but the design was for vanity. Nothing about the house was old-fashioned, but it was made to look that way by careful design and use of the right construction materials. The roof was thatched, but King guessed there was modern work underneath. A porch wrapped around the entire structure, covering every square inch of the exterior. The side facing the ocean was mostly floor-to-ceiling glass, and there was no perimeter wall between the manicured grass and the white sand of the beach. Terrible for security, but they hadn’t been followed, and if they were diligent no one would know they were here.