‘Yes.’
‘If your plan doesn’t work…’
‘Give us thirty minutes. That’s it.’
‘Why are you so convinced you’ll have any more success than we will?’
‘Because the man who organised this is weak,’ King said. ‘But I don’t think the people he recruited are. You and your people might resort to waterboarding them, but you’ll just get false information and leads. All they need to do is hold out for twenty-four hours, and they know it.’
‘We have trained negotiators…’
‘That you’ll be using to try and convince them when they’re sitting in cells. Not the right environment.’
‘Have you met these people?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Then what the hell are you talking about?’
‘Have I failed before?’ King said. ‘Have I?’
‘No.’
‘Thirty minutes.’
‘I just need to know what makes you so sure.’
‘I think I know exactly who these kids are,’ King said. ‘I think I understand how we ended up here. If I’m right, we can avoid all the unpleasantries, which wouldn’t work anyway. Please.’
‘Half an hour,’ Violetta said. ‘That’s it.’
‘That’s all we need.’
He hung up, and returned the phone to his pocket.
Gavin Whelan and Will Slater watched him intently, very different expressions on their faces.
Gavin had hope, that it was all still possible.
Slater had doubt.
Slater said, ‘How are you so sure?’
‘That’s what she just asked me.’
‘Well…?’
King turned to Gavin. ‘I know what you did. I might not be the smartest with tech, but I understand people.’
Gavin stared.
King said, ‘What makes them tick.’
Gavin kept staring.
King said, ‘That cartel kid, Rico. The other kid, Samuel. You. It’s all the same, isn’t it?’
Gavin’s look was blank.
King said, ‘You’re disenfranchised. You thought you had it all. Then you realised money and power can go away like that,’ — he snapped his fingers — ‘and there was nothing left underneath. Here’s the thing you missed, kid.’
King pulled him in close.
‘You need to figure yourself out before you go out there and try to own the world. Otherwise you’re just an empty shell when you don’t get everything you want. And that’s when shit like this happens, when you decide to throw it all away and bring everyone down with you.’
King shoved him toward the stairwell.
‘For a smart kid,’ he said, ‘you really don’t have anything figured out.’
73
Slater remained in the background, and suddenly it all clicked.
‘Oh,’ he said.
King turned around.
Slater said, ‘I get it now.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You really think you can talk them out of it?’
‘I can try.’
They made their way up four flights of stairs, plunging back into the dark. Dawn had broken, and now the whole building was shrouded in the ethereal pale blue light that comes before the rising sun, but the windowless stairwell was devoid of the light. So it was back to shadow and paranoia and uncertainty. Slater swept every tight corner as King kept a tight grip on Gavin, making sure the kid didn’t run off.
But both of them knew he wouldn’t.
Just as King had predicted, Gavin Whelan had nothing left. They’d labelled him a kid, but in reality he was a thirty year old man with all the potential in the world, who’d chosen to use it to cause as much destruction as possible when the world hadn’t handed him everything. And that was the cardinal sin. In Slater’s eyes, that was the weakest act imaginable.
Caving in as soon as the going gets tough.
Giving up on all of it.
Trying to bring it down with you in your misery.
He couldn’t relate, and he never would. For over a decade he’d been unshakeable, precisely for this reason. It was a slippery slope. Compromise on your morals once, and you’ve set the precedent. You’ve opened the floodgates. Gavin had never had morality to begin with, or mental toughness, or grit. He thought he was tough, thought he could reach out and seize anything he wanted, but when he realised the world hadn’t been set up to please him, he’d crumbled.
Slater vowed never to break. Never to fall into that kind of despair.
He’d fight against it until the day he died.
He knew King was the same.
Maybe that’s why they were brothers.
Rage against the dying of the light.
74
They reached the sixth floor, and Gavin led them down corridors festering with rot and decay.
It seemed this section of the building hadn’t been touched in years, and age had eaten away at most of the decorative features. The aesthetic cedar log walls had termite-ridden holes in them, and the carpet was torn up in places, and the general stink of uncleanliness hung thick and heavy in the air. There were rooms branching off from the corridors with windows facing the Bowery, and a sliver of the dawn light crept in, but not much. Not enough to shed the gloomy atmosphere.
Slater stifled a shiver as they reached the end of the corridor and turned into an antechamber room that led to a giant steel vault. The antechamber was a narrow space with wood-panelled floors and a window to the right — one small piece of the left-hand façade of the bank building. He glanced outside and saw the intersection in the murky blue light, the sea of abandoned cars, the bodies still sprawled in the street, Alexis’ building across from them.
Then he turned back to the vault.
It was old, but he imagined it was just as impenetrable as when it had been built.
The old-fashioned cylindrical door was firmly sealed.
Beside it rested a newer keypad.
Gavin thumbed in an eight-digit sequence, and a mechanical hiss emanated from the door.
It didn’t swing open, but it was unlocked.
‘So,’ Gavin said, ‘what do you think?’
Slater and King froze.
They both read his tone.
There was something in his voice they hadn’t anticipated.
The burning desire for approval.
Slater stepped forward and took Gavin away from King, putting the MP7 barrel against his stomach to ensure he stayed put. Then he said, ‘Let me tell you something.’
Gavin stiffened.
Slater said, ‘I get it. I get why you did it. All your life you’ve been undermined by your family, but you were always
