Chapter 2: 2. The Devil Is In front of You!
"Cheetah24... come in Cheetah24?" Rodriguez sprang up from his chair in panic.
The tension radiated off him in a tsunami drowning every person present at the base. People held their breaths, praying that Dwayne was safe.
"Yes Chief?"
"Dwayne.. he has gone in the room on the ground floor. They are not yet aware of his presence. We have lost the contact with him. Hurry... move move move!" The veins in Rodriguez's neck strained as he yelled through the mic.
"Copy that!" Cheetah24 instructed his teammates about Dwayne and approached the ground floor.
He decided to go into that room to find Dwayne because he was convinced King was also in that room. His teammates had to take care of the situation until he gets King.
Everyone agreed with his plan, and Cheetah24 got ready to go into that room. Rodriguez held his breath when the other man jumped from the first floor. But unlike Dwayne, he failed to land swiftly, and one of the men of King noticed him.
Before Cheetah24 could comprehend anything, he was bombarded with bullets.
"Enemy! Enemy!" The man who had fired yelled, alerting the others.
Within the next few seconds, the once easy atmosphere transformed into a battleground.
Cheetah24 hid behind the staircase while retaliating against the shots. But his priority was King.
"Get that bastard first. He is going to escape now." Rodriguez ordered.
Without thinking twice, Cheetah 24 darted for the closed door. A bullet scraped his arm, making him grunt in pain.
"Cheetah24!" Not only Rodriguez but also the people on base gasped in shock.
"I am alright!" He managed to say before pushing the door open.
And a minute later, Rodriguez lost contact with him too.
"Damn it!" He slammed his fist on the table, and the man beside him jumped out of his skin in fright.
Rodriguez could only see helplessly as the remaining 3 members of T5 fought with everything they had but clearly, they were outnumbered and dominated by King's men.
Rodriguez couldn't wait anymore now.
"Get the reinforcement ready!" He decided to go there by himself and drag that filthy rat out of his hole.
"Erm... Ch-Chief..." The man who was frightened before called for his attention.
Annoyed, Rodriguez checked the screen the man pointed at, and his eyes widened in white shock.
"It..."
"was a trap!" He completed that man's words in an unbelieving whisper.
"T5, coming T5. Can you hear me? It is a trap... it..." His words remained unsaid as the three screens went blank.
The cameras used by T5 were either broken or shut off. Everything came to a halt. Rodriguez watched in panic as the small red dots that he could see on one of the screens closed on around the club as if they knew what was going on inside that building. Or perhaps they already knew and were only waiting for the right time?
In the club, King's men caught the three members of T5 and dragged them to the centre of the dance floor. They were all drenched in sweat and had wounds from bullets on their bodies. The tears streamed down their eyes as they could see their end right in front of them.
Now only they noticed a chair in the far back of the large space, hidden in the dark. It spun around with a creak, and a tall man stepped out under the light.
His blue eyes twinkled with wickedness, and the small smirk on his lips was enough to send chills down their spine. With long strides, he carried himself elegantly, and the three people could only watch him in awe with their mouths agape.
His neatly styled brown hair glistened under the red light of the place. He looked down at them as if they were the dirt on his shoes.
"Well well well... look who we have got here! T5! The most efficient, hardworking and best officers of Chief Rodriguez!" he smiled. "Welcome to the King's world!! I hope your journey was smooth?!"
The officers trembled in fear. The man they were searching for, for months, the man who had terrorised the whole world, the embodiment of word danger, was standing right in front of their eyes!
"K-King?" The lady officer from IAD stuttered in shock.
The man smiled, leaning down to her eye level. "I have heard so much about you! And, I also know that mysterious men fascinate you, don't they?!"
Her eyeballs popped out of their sockets and her face coloured pink.
"H-how do you know that?" She asked in utter shock.
The man straightened up and smiled again. "I know many things than you can imagine!"
But the male officer was not impressed by him at all.
"Where the hell are our two officers? What have you done with them, you moron?" He yelled, throwing daggers at the man with blue eyes.
The smile on that man's face faltered, only to turn into a frown. "Wrong choice of words officers! Haven't your Chief taught you to respect the ones with superiority?"
Before the officer could retort, a hard punch landed on his face making him spit blood.
"Nooo!" The lady officers cried in panic.
The male officer somehow managed himself and dared to crane his neck to look up at another man.
A blonde hair man stood towering above him. His grey eyes were something that could have been considered the most striking feature of him, but the pinkish scar that ran from his forehead to the side of his face was enough to make a person gulp in fear.
"King doesn't like abusive words, officer!" He said in a calm voice.
"Pl-please tell us where are our two other officers? Wh-where is Dwayne?" One of the lady officers sobbed.
The blue-eyed man smiled. "Eager to meet Dwayne, are we?"
"King, please! Tell us what you have done with them?" The other lady officer persisted.
"Gabriel they indeed want to know. Should we tell them?"
The three of them stilled hearing that name.
"G-Gabriel W-Wilson?"
"Pleasure meeting you, officers!" The man with a scar on his face smiled politely.
One could have misunderstood him as a successful businessman or even an attorney with his communication skills and vast knowledge of law and order, business and legal stuff.
But only a few knew that he was King's one of the two hands. He was his negotiator. Whenever it came to talks or papers, Gabriel Wilson was there on behalf of King. That man had a sweet tongue and could manipulate any person within minutes.
"You are right! They deserve to know it after everything they have been through." Gabriel nodded as if he was discussing some serious issue in his meeting room.
"But only King knows about it!" he added.
The three officers glanced at each other in confusion. "You are right here King. What are you waiting for?" The male officer asked.
The two men looked at each other and burst out laughing as if they had heard the joke of a decade. The officers were puzzled. They didn't understand what was going on.
Gabriel Wilson was the first one to sober up. Looking down at their captives, he asked in astonishment. "So you think he is King?"
Wasn't he?
The blue-eyed man smiled mischievously and cleared his throat. "Let me give you my proper introduction officers. I am... Cameron Jones! King's face for the world." He introduced himself proudly.
More tears ran down the eyes of the officers as dread began clutching their hearts in a vice grip.
All this time, they were running behind the name King. They thought Cameron Jones was King because the only person the world had seen besides Gabriel Wilson was Cameron Jones.
There was a popular theory that Cameron was King, but he was trying to disguise himself for his safety. But now the secret was disclosed, eliminating another theory which was equally popular- there was no existence of King.
Some considered him a myth that the mafia used to instigate terror in people's minds.
"Wh-where is King?" The lady officer blurted out, still trying to recover from the shock.
"The devil is right in front of you!" Cameron whispered, then smirked.
He stepped aside, revealing a familiar face.
The officer's eyes widened again in stupefaction.
"Cheetah24?"
The officer stood there with a passive face. If only they could see in a proper light the thick layer of perspiration on his face and the excruciating terror in his eyes.
"Ladies and gentlemen... please welcome... KING!"
A bullet passed through Cheetah24's skull, and a loud round of applause shook the walls of the old building.
The officers didn't realise when the screams left some of their mouths, and for some, they got stuck in their throats and lost forever as the officer's body went limp and he fell down.
And behind them stood none other than King himself!
The shock of watching the devil right in front of her eyes was too much for the officer from IAD. Her fragile heart couldn't bore that heartbreak.
"Nooo... noo... what is happening? Please somebody help her... please!" Her friend could only cry, unable to even touch her as her hands were tied behind her.
The male officer only watched in pure shock as, within minutes, their teammate died due to a heart attack.
Cameron tsked, shaking his head. "Poor soul! She indeed admired Dwayne... I mean King!"
The man they knew as Dwayne stood with a gun in his hand. He had changed his clothes into a black suit and on his nose rested dark goggles.
The male officer had too much of it. The fear was unbearable, and the adrenaline rush was messing with his mind.
"You motherfucker! You betrayed us! You... how... I..." Even in the rage of fury, he couldn't find any words.
He couldn't believe his eyes. The man who was working with them since the very beginning and for a long span of months was no one but King himself. None of them... not even Chief Rodriguez could suspect him.
But how?
King strode towards them, taking his sweet time. With every sound of his shoes tapping against the floor, the two officers' hearts were sinking deeper and deeper.
"You think I betrayed you? No, I didn't! I was right in front of your nose but you all failed to recognise me. I thought Chief Rodriguez has indeed selected the best officers this time. Sadly I am greeted with disappointment officers."
The two officers looked at each other in shock. He... he didn't sound like Dwayne. Nothing but his face matched Dwayne's.
"Voice modulation. You can learn it with little practice!" He cleared their confusion.
"H-how we couldn't indentified you?" The lady officer asked through her sobs.
"That is what bothers me. You should have picked up the clues officers. Even tonight... I planted clues for you to pick but every one of you failed."
"Wh-what clues?" The male officer asked daringly.
"You should have known that my men doesn't smoke and King never leaves a trace behind!"
A gut-wrenching cry left the lady officer's lips as King shot her colleague straight in the middle of his forehead.
She trembled and bowed in front of him, begging for mercy.
"P-please... d-don't! Ch-Chief Rodriguez..."
"He can't see anything nor he can listen to anything. Before saying goodbye, don't you want to say your last goodbye to him?"
Gabriel placed a walkie-talkie in King's hand.
The woman could hear the loud voices coming from the other side. Chief Rodriguez was barking orders and was desperately trying to communicate with T5.
"Hello, Chief Rodriguez!"
Everything came to standstill in the base as that deep, cold yet authoritative voice rang in their ears. His mere voice was enough to form goosebumps on their skin.
"K-King?"
"Right here!"
"You bastard! Where are my officers? What have you done with them?" Chief Rodriguez roared like a wounded tiger.
"Shhhh... I hate noise, Chief Rodriguez. We can speak in a more civilised way."
That eerie calmness in his voice froze Rodriguez's soul. He realised the fate of their mission and his officers.
"Please...." He whispered, sounding pathetically broken to his ears.
"Unfortunately, your officers couldn't get King, Chief Rodriguez. And the last mission of your career has completely failed. I just wanted to tell you that I want someone to give testimony of what King is capable of.
You have three minutes and forty seconds to leave the base, or the world would never know about my power. Hurry up, Chief Rodriguez.... the time is ticking fast!"
Another shot of bullet blasted through the speakers, and here in the club, the woman lost her last breath.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone