He regretted ever allowing them to be placed in danger.
He regretted everything.
2
To commemorate a successful operation in Tijuana, Jason King seized hold of the cylindrical shot glass and swept back the measured dose of tequila with a single gulp.
It was his fourth of the night, but at two hundred pounds in bodyweight — almost none of it fat — he had come to learn that he could handle a drink. He sat alone at the bar, a modern slab of smoothed concrete with tribal insignia engraved into the surface. The countertop curved its way around a dimly lit space with a ceiling stretching far above the patrons’ heads. Behind him were dozens of tables arranged in intimate fashion, packed with civilians on a warm Friday night in downtown D.C.
King shot a glance in either direction and found himself astonished at the course his life had taken in such a short amount of time.
Fourteen days earlier, he had been deep in an isolation camp in Wyoming, officially a Delta Force operative. From there he had been whisked into a whirlwind he hadn’t yet come down from, thrust into a new division of the United States military to combat threats of a certain, specific nature that favoured lone operatives. After a brutal stint across the border in Mexico, he had returned to a smattering of overwhelming praise from the select individuals in government who knew of his organisation’s existence.
Apparently, he had overperformed.
There had been much to organise in the aftermath of the trail he had single-handedly carved through Mexico and Guatemala. The formation of this new division, this force of solo operatives, had been a knee jerk reaction to the emergence of a radical new cartel in Tijuana. Everything about the trip across the border had been off-the-cuff, a terrifying coagulation of improvisation that had left King wondering just what exactly he had done over the course of a forty-eight hour period.
He’d left dozens of bodies in his wake.
In the time since, a rudimentary investigation had taken place. His superiors — faceless men he had yet to become acquainted with — had deemed King’s behaviour in Mexico acceptable by black operation standards. Satisfied that they didn’t have a psychopathic killer on their hands, they had turned him loose onto the streets of Washington D.C. to do as he pleased.
Apparently, the upper echelon needed time to establish Black Force and maintain some semblance of order over its proceedings.
So here he was, in a state of limbo, drifting around town while those in charge of his career implemented the bureaucratic foundations. Not that it would involve much, considering the organisation existed away from any official books or records.
But, nevertheless, there were systems that needed to be created before King could do more.
It all rested on the shoulders of the man who had first approached King in that freezing Wyoming clearing two weeks earlier. The man who had offered him a chance to pioneer something new, something that hadn’t been done before, something that would skirt the boundaries of the law. A man who organised the program to forge King into a one man army, capitalising on his strengths and manoeuvring him into a position where he was bound to succeed.
Lars Crawford.
King knew surprisingly little about the man, given the fact that they were now the closest of allies. Lars had materialised in his life silently, out of nowhere, like a wraith drifting out of the shadows. He had come at exactly the right time. King didn’t know how much longer he would have lasted in the Delta Force — the physical and mental strain didn’t phase him, but the isolation and detachment he felt from his fellow brothers-in-arms had set him permanently on edge.
Lars had changed that.
King was still only twenty-two years old. At times he felt unfit for the position that had been bestowed upon him, opting to retreat within himself when faced with the burden of responsibility that lay on his shoulders.
You made it through Mexico, he reminded himself. You can make it through anything else they throw your way.
It had been the most brutal initiation imaginable. He had come within a hair’s breadth of death several times over the course of his time in Tijuana, and the memories played over and over again on a loop in his mind, like an irreparable VHS tape. They kept him awake at night, sweating and squirming in the sheets.
He hadn’t slept much since touching back down in the States.
He signalled for another shot of tequila — the bartender nodded imperceptibly and moved to the top shelf liquor behind him. It would be King’s fifth and final drink for the night. Then he would sink into the same routine he had come to cherish during his brief stint in D.C. — wandering the endless streets and laneways until the early hours of the morning.
He had much to process.
The brand-new smartphone shrilled in his pocket — complement of a government credit card gifted to him upon arrival in Washington. The exact particulars of his salary were yet to be discussed, but until then he had been given free reign of the card to stock up on necessities in his downtime. King often found himself taking the card out and twirling it in his fingers, lost in thought.
He’d never had money before.
This new life would take some adjusting to.
He slid the phone out and answered the call with a swipe of the screen, something that still left him flabbergasted even though he had been carting the device around for a week now. The technology was new, he conceded. The iPhone had only been out for two weeks now. He wasn’t the only one growing accustomed to the changing world.
‘Yeah?’ he said, fully aware of who would be on the other end of the line.
‘Nice to hear from you, too,’ Lars Crawford said, his tone sardonic.
‘How are things progressing?’
‘Painfully slow.’
‘I thought as much.’
‘I hate this part,’ Lars admitted. ‘Grovelling up to bureaucrats and pleading for unlimited funding.’
‘Unlimited?’ King said, bemused.
‘I don’t want to cut any corners,’ Lars said. ‘I told them that if we were going ahead with this, we would do it my way. It’s already cost over a million dollars to get you into the field, and I’m not about to clip coupons right when the government realises they have a human weapon on their hands.’
‘I wouldn’t go that far just yet,’ King said. ‘Maybe I got lucky in Mexico.’
‘Lucky?’
‘You never know.’
‘If it was a single encounter, I might believe that,’ Lars said. ‘But we’re in the process of tracking exactly what you did. Clusters of bodies are popping up at every turn. All of them implicit in cartel dealings. At first they thought you were a raging lunatic, going around lopping off the heads of anyone even suspected to be involved with organised crime.’
‘I’m sure I’d be in a maximum security facility by now if they truly believed that.’
‘Exactly. You’re in the clear. We have CCTV footage of certain incidents. Honestly, nobody can believe what they’ve seen.’
‘How so?’
‘I’m not supposed to disclose this.’
‘Oh, please…’
‘You’re a unique case,’ Lars said. ‘There’s a fine line between doing the right thing in the heat of combat and crossing over into unacceptable behaviour. Elite operatives and psychopaths aren’t easily distinguishable.’
‘We talked about this before Mexico,’ King said. ‘I promised you I wouldn’t go off the rails with my flexibility. And I didn’t.’
‘We know. And it’s uncanny how you react in volatile situations.’
‘That’s what you thought would happen. Based on your tests.’