King wondered if, inside, Slater was thinking the same thing.
As soon as he realised he wouldn’t have to dodge bullets, he bent down and snatched the switchblade off the guy he’d already smashed unconscious, and then he got up and charged for the closest vehicle. Instead of adopting any sort of tactical awareness, the trio of SUVs had pulled up maybe a dozen feet apart, so now all three were equidistant to one another, giving King more than enough time to make his way from one to the next.
They didn’t know that, though.
They thought they were dealing with a pair of nosy Americans.
The reality was something a little more visceral to behold.
King made it to the first truck and switched off the merciful part of his brain, like flicking a light switch. It wouldn’t do him any good, not in an environment like this. He wasn’t about to spare anyone that surrendered. They’d come here to kill him, and that, ultimately, was that.
So King got his hands on the first attacker — unarmed — and bundled him up against the side of the vehicle and thrust the blade up through the underneath of his chin. It skewered his brain and killed him on impact. King dropped his corpse and pivoted and found the second guy baring the switchblade, so King rammed a leg kick into the guy’s calf, nearly snapping the bone clean in two, sending him tumbling off his feet and the knife spilling from his grip as he reached for his leg…
So King forgot about him for half a second, just enough time to lunge past and stab the switchblade down so it plunged into the third guy’s chest, who moaned and went pale and crumpled.
King left the knife in his chest and pivoted back and stomped down on the second guy’s head, knocking him clean out, maybe killing him. No way to know for sure without a detailed analysis. And there wasn’t time for that.
King bent down and picked up the second guy’s knife and noticed the other six combatants realising what was unfolding, shrugging off their hesitation, preparing themselves to charge all at once.
King couldn’t let that happen.
Instead of meeting them head-on in battle, he leapt up into the SUV’s open driver’s door and threw it into gear and accelerated and twisted the wheel.
He spotted the shocked look on the original driver’s face, but King wasn’t aiming for him. That guy was useless, a pathetic spineless goon relying on his friends to do the dirty work. He wouldn’t know how to swing a fist in anger to save his life. So King spun away from him and aimed for one of the armed knife-wielders by the second car.
The hood crushed the guy before he could get out of the way.
King twisted the wheel again and crushed the second knife-wielder against the side of the second SUV.
Then he leapt out, barely registering the jarring impact above the guttural roar of adrenaline, and intercepted the third man with a flying crash-tackle.
The third guy wasn’t armed, so when they spilled to the ground in a tangle of limbs King stabbed him twice in the chest, thwack-thwack, and rolled to his feet.
Six down.
An uneasy silence stretched out as the final three men hovered by their vehicle, unsure how to interpret the shocking ballet of violence that had played out before them.
King turned to the original driver, and half-smiled back.
The driver’s own smile vanished, replaced by shock and awe.
‘Watch this,’ King said.
He advanced.
15
Slater kept sprinting flat out, barrelling toward the trio silhouetted in the doorway like a freight train.
Which, despite the fact he was unarmed, can be wholly terrifying when you’re not expecting it.
Two of them backed off. Only a few steps, but enough to show they were hesitant. They’d expected their target to waltz into the dining room, oblivious, and stab him in the back before he had the chance to react. Now one of their own was lying broken and unconscious on the hallway floor, and their target was running directly at them, apparently without a care in the world.
So of course two of them backed up.
They probably wanted the openness of the dining area to work with. They didn’t like the hallway. It was dark and cramped and favoured the guy who was outnumbered.
Like a miniaturised version of the Spartans at Thermopylae.
If all three of them had backed up, it would have been a brilliant strategic manoeuvre.
But one of them stayed right where he was, his teeth bared and his knife at the ready.
Brave.
No doubt about that.
But exactly what Slater wanted.
He slowed right down, leaving a few feet of space to work with, so he didn’t just sprint straight into a knife to the gut. When he slowed, the attacker swung the blade, as Slater expected him to.
It missed.
Not by much.
But it missed.
Slater heard the air whoosh, and the realisation struck him that the knife would have gutted him like a pig if it struck home. But then the blade carried on past, opening up a glorious half-second of opportunity. Slater kicked the guy squarely in the balls — an age-old guarantee of incapacitation — and when he buckled, Slater used the same leg to bend into a knee and drive upwards, impacting kneecap to forehead. It made a horrific noise as it slammed home.
The guy pitched forward and crumpled to the floor.
Slater stepped over him.
Picked up the knife.
Weighed up the distances, and the angles.
Figured he could take the risk.
He threw the switchblade like a fastball, making sure it struck blade-first. It was a small square blade, not a machete, so it didn’t embed itself in the enemy’s throat and stick there. Instead it grazed past his neck, cutting him deep along the way, failing to sever an artery but giving him something to seriously worry about. The guy felt the warm blood flowing down his neck and instinctively reached for his throat, shocked by the sudden pain.
Before he could recover, Slater was right there in
