Badge of the Death Game

Chapter 034

The next morning, with Mark's connections opening the right doors, Hank tracked down a black-market currency broker in the city and converted the remaining bonds into cash. By mid-morning, Soren had Cody and Hank with him on the street, moving toward a g*n shop that didn't ask for licenses.

The reasoning was straightforward. The plan required clean weapons, ones that had never been seen before and couldn't be traced back to any of them afterward. Every firearm Soren currently carried had already been seen by the wrong people. For what came next, they needed a fresh kit.

Sunvale had no shortage of legitimate g*n retailers. Private ownership was legal, and the shops were easy enough to find. Most of them required documentation, but a few operated on a more flexible understanding of the rules. No one, as a general principle, turned away a paying customer. Mark, whose years in the private security trade had introduced him to most of the relevant people in Bangkok, had pointed them to the right address.

A small bell above the door chimed as they pushed it open.

The woman behind the glass counter looked up with the unhurried expression of someone who had been awake for just long enough to be functional. Dark circles under her eyes, hair loosely pulled back, leaning against the display case with her arms folded. The walls around her were covered in firearms of every configuration, pistols and carbines and shotguns mounted in neat rows, the lighting catching the metal in clean, flat gleams.

Hank stepped forward and addressed her in Thai. "Hello. We were referred by someone. We're looking to purchase some equipment."

She listened, then glanced past him at the other two. "Want me to walk you through what we have?"

Hank translated. Before he finished, the woman's eyes had already narrowed slightly.

"Mainland Chinese?"

Soren nodded. "That's right."

A slow, knowing smile spread across her face. Foreigners couldn't obtain legal firearms permits in Sunvale under ordinary circumstances. That meant this was the kind of transaction that came with a premium. She straightened up and extended a hand across the counter.

"Welcome to Sunvale. I'm Kelly."

Soren shook it. "Snyder."

He took a slow pass around the room, eyes moving across the wall-mounted inventory, and stopped at a compact carbine hanging near the center. "Can I see that one?"

Kelly lifted it down and set it on the cloth-lined counter. "MCX Rattler. Good eye."

The MCX Rattler was a short-barreled, gas-operated carbine, built for close-range work. Soren picked it up, worked the charging handle twice, then brought it up to his shoulder and tracked across the far wall in a smooth, practiced motion, checking the sight picture, testing the grip angle, rolling through a few dry-handling drills.

Kelly watched him. "You know what you're doing."

Cody, standing beside him, had already spotted something of his own. He pointed at a compact submachine g*n on the adjacent rack.

Kelly handed it over without comment. MP5 submachine g*n, standard configuration. Cody turned it over in his hands, ran through a basic handling check, and nodded. He had spent most of his time in the Fringe Territories behind full-length assault rifles. Compact weapons were newer territory for him. But the balance was familiar enough, and the controls were where he expected them to be. "Works for me," he said.

Soren had moved to the handgun case. Kelly leaned over the glass and smiled. "You're already running an MCX. Why not pair it with a SIG P226?"

She drew out a matte-black pistol and set it beside the carbine. "Same manufacturer, SIG Sauer. Nine-by-nineteen millimeter, fifteen-round magazine, compatible with optics, laser, and light attachments. It's not cheap, but it earns every dollar."

Soren racked the slide twice, settled it into his grip, and ran through a brief dry-aim. Solid. Balanced. He set it aside and let his gaze move to the shotgun rack on the opposite wall.

Kelly's eyes lit up. "Big job," she said.

"Something like that. Semi-auto shotguns, what do you have?"

She pulled two down and laid them side by side. "Remington M1100 and Beretta 1301. Both twelve-gauge. The Remington runs five-plus-one, the Beretta four-plus-one."

Soren picked up the Remington M1100 and worked through the same handling routine. The weight was right, the action smooth. The barrel length was on the longer side for indoor work, which gave him a moment's pause. But the job might require breaching, and anyone inside that hotel running security was likely to have body armor. A shotgun that could handle a reinforced door and punch through a vest was not optional equipment. It was insurance.

"I'll take these three," he said. "Box them up. And what do you have for accessories?"

Kelly smiled like she'd been waiting for that question.

________________________________________

Mark had rented a three-bedroom apartment in Mason Ward several days earlier, originally intended as temporary housing for the people Uncle Mike was sending his way. The situation had evolved somewhat since then, and Mark himself, currently without a dollar to his name, had ended up sleeping on the living room sofa.

Evan was at the kitchen table when Mark shuffled in, a laptop open in front of him, a small notebook beside it covered in handwritten figures.

Mark attempted a smile. "Busy?"

Evan glanced at him, then looked back at the screen without responding.

Mark settled onto the sofa and turned on the television, finding a news channel and staring at it without taking much in.

About fifteen minutes later, the front door lock turned.

Soren and Hank came in carrying bags, Hank still muttering as he set his down. "Seventy thousand dollars for this much equipment. That woman runs a racket."

"It's fine, Hank." Soren dropped his bags near the wall. "As long as the hardware holds up."

"You're back." Evan looked up. "Where's Cody?"

"Said he needed to stop by the hospital."

Soren crossed the room and looked over Evan's shoulder at the laptop screen. "What's all this?"

Evan turned the notebook around. "I went back through two years of publicly reported police incidents in Bangkok. Calculated the average response times. For a standard call, it's around seven and a half minutes. Shooting incidents run longer, somewhere between eleven and fifteen. After the ten-minute mark, you're usually not dealing with regular officers anymore. That's when the tactical unit shows up."

Hank studied the notebook with a thoughtful expression. "That's actually useful."

"Good work." Soren straightened and turned toward Mark. "Mark. The thing I asked you to handle. Where are we?"

Mark reached for his briefcase. His hand stopped halfway.

He looked up, something working behind his eyes. "Soren... do I actually have to be there? When it happens?"

"You don't have to be."

A flicker of relief crossed Mark's face. It lasted less than a second.

"But if you're not," Soren continued, "nothing we take from that job has anything to do with you. Whatever we walk out with, you still owe me one million and fifteen thousand dollars. I'll waive the interest, out of respect for the introduction Uncle Mike made. But you have three years to clear the full amount."

The relief was gone. Mark sat very still.

One million and fifteen thousand dollars. In three years. He wasn't sure he could earn that in ten, especially with the company on the edge of collapse. And if he lost the job entirely, which at this point seemed more likely than not, he had no idea what he would have left to offer.

As for simply not paying, he knew better than to let that thought go anywhere.

Soren let the silence run for a moment, then spoke again, his voice even and unhurried. "Mark, think about what happens if we go in and don't come out. If we're dead, Julian comes straight to you. You know better than anyone what those people do when they want something back."

Mark said nothing. But the calculation behind his eyes had already resolved.

He exhaled slowly. "I know."

Soren walked over and put a hand on his shoulder, not hard, just steady. "I could have walked away yesterday. I had every reason to. I stayed because of Uncle Mike, and because it was the right thing to do." He paused. "I'm not asking you to repay a debt. I'm asking you to be worth the trust your old sergeant put in you. We're in this together now. All of us."

Mark was quiet for a long moment. Then he gave a single nod, reached into the briefcase, and began laying documents on the table in organized stacks.

At the center of everything he placed down, flat against the surface, was an original architectural floor plan of the Crownline Royal Hotel.