Drawpoint (Blake Brier Thrillers Book 4)

by L. T. Ryan

  They were going to Suramare, a rooftop bar overlooking the White City section of Tel Aviv. Haeli knew it as well as Wan did. Not because it was a usual haunt, but because out there in the desert, they made plans to go there when they got back. It was Ornal’s idea, whether he remembered it or not. At the time, none of them were sure they’d actually get the chance to go anywhere, ever again.

  “You okay?” Wan said. “You seem a little, I don’t know, affected. It was hairy out there. If you wanna talk about it—”

  “It’s not the mission. I mean yeah, it was a disaster, but I’m good with that. It’s just…”

  Wan waited for Haeli to finish her sentence.

  “It’s my father.”

  “Your father?”

  “I’ve been thinking. What kind of life is this?”

  “Look, things go bad sometimes, but it’s not always like that.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” Haeli gathered her thoughts. “What if you could take a break? See what else is out there for you. Would you? If you could.”

  “No. I’ve seen what else is out there. So have you. That’s why we do what we do. And we’re good at it.”

  “I know,” Haeli said. “Forget it. I’m just tired. You go ahead. Let me go freshen up and I’ll join you guys in a couple.” She kissed him. “Bye.”

  “See you later, then.”

  As Wan walked away, Haeli felt the urge to call out to him. To thank him for saving their lives. For everything he had done for her. But it was too late. He was gone. And she wasn’t sure she would ever see him again.

  18

  Haeli racked the slide and let it spring back into place. “Can’t believe you got all this.” Haeli tucked the pistol into the small of her back and reached back into the duffle. She pulled out an extended magazine, already loaded with 9mm rounds.

  “I told ya he’d come through,” Wan said.

  “So you did.” Haeli hoisted the bag off the floor and tossed it into the back seat. “How far?”

  “GPS says ten minutes.”

  “Great.”

  Aside from the pit stop to meet Wan’s contact, they had made good time on the road. Haeli wished the same could be said for the rest of the journey.

  The only flight they could get on such short notice was a red eye on Blue Air, which left Tel Aviv at 1:30 AM. Unfortunately, a long layover in Bucharest turned a sub-five-hour direct plane ride into a sixteen-hour trip.

  Although she had hoped to get to Bender sooner, at least they were out of Israel. It should, if nothing else, buy them some time.

  Haeli had been skeptical about the idea of flying but, with a duffle bag full of guns in hand, she was happy Wan won the argument.

  That’s not to say the trip wasn’t without its difficulties. Customs was a little dicey. And the lack of communication with Wan was unnerving.

  To limit the possibility of raising any red flags, she and Wan had to book separately, sit separately, and avoid any contact in the airports. Haeli was traveling under a false name. Wan was traveling under his own. It was a wonder to her that a man who took enough precaution to maintain a secret apartment didn’t own a fake passport. As well as she knew him, there were some things she could never figure out.

  “How are we gonna get in touch with him when we get there?” Haeli asked.

  “We’re gonna walk in the front door. What have we got to lose? If Sokolov’s men are already watching Rick, then what does it matter? It’s not like we’d be leading them to him.”

  “Not sure I follow the logic, but I’m on board. We don’t have time to waste by trying to be stealthy.”

  “What, you don’t want to follow him to a take-away place and drag him into an alley?”

  “Na.” Haeli laughed. “That’s no fun. It’s been done already.”

  “Cute. So, are you ever going to tell me what happened to you? Why everyone thought you were dead?”

  “You know what? Yes. When this is over, I will tell you everything. But I’ve gotta warn you, it’s a long story, and you’re not gonna believe a word of it.”

  “We’ve got five minutes before we get there.”

  “Yeah, not enough time. Not by a long shot. Trust me though, I’ll tell you. I owe it to you.”

  Wan looked at Haeli sideways.

  Haeli smiled. “I promise.”

  Wan seemed to settle on the fact that he wasn’t going to pry anything else out of her at that moment. He focused his attention between the road and his phone’s screen.

  After a few minutes, they saw the sign for the “Techyon Training and Development Center.”

  From the road, the building, or buildings, were not visible. The driveway disappeared into the heavily wooded area.

  Haeli had never been to this facility, nor any number of Techyon-owned properties scattered throughout the globe. She had been trained entirely in-house and worked exclusively out of headquarters. Not that it would have mattered. This facility, like the Frankfurt satellite office, was only five years old anyway.

  Wan turned down the driveway and snaked through the forest. It was still early dusk, but the heavy growth darkened the path and caused the automatic headlights to turn on.

  “Look at this place,” Wan said.

  “I don’t see anything but trees.”

  “My point exactly.”

  The path lightened and the edge of a building came into view. As it grew into a whole building, the parking lot also became visible. A handful of cars remained in the lot.

  “Heads up,” Haeli said, “we’ve got someone moving.”

  A large statured man wearing a red polo shirt and black cargo pants was walking across the parking lot toward the grouping of cars.

  “Not someone.” Wan chuckled. “The someone.”

  Wan picked up the speed, then turned into the row of parking spaces. He opened his window and hollered, “Little Ricky, fancy meeting you here.”

  Bender turned and squinted, as if he couldn’t place the face so far out of context.

  “Mike?” Bender moved closer. “What the hell are you doin’ here?”

  “Not just me, I brought you a surprise.”

  Haeli leaned over Wan’s lap. She waved. “Hi Rick.”

  “Haeli? It can’t be!”

  Wan put the car in park and stepped out, leaving the motor running. Haeli got out of the passenger side, ran around the car, and threw her arms around Bender.

  “Holy crap,” Bender said. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

  “So people keep telling me,” Haeli said.

  “What are you two doing in Germany?”

  “I’d like to say we came for a visit, but it’s a little more unpleasant than that,” Wan said. “Something’s happened. We would have called but we didn’t want to blow up your spot if he wasn’t already on to you.”

  “Who?”

  “Sokolov,” Haeli said.

  “Sokolov? What about him? Something to do with Botswana?”

  “We’ll fill you in on all the details,” Haeli said, “but the long and the short of it is that Sokolov found Goldmann and Goldmann pointed the finger at us. Now Sokolov thinks we have his diamonds and he’s giving us an ultimatum. We have reason to believe he has Chet. We needed to get to you before he did.”

  “That makes no sense,” Bender said. “How does he know who we are? Goldmann didn’t even know our names. Not to mention the fact that Goldmann escaped with the diamonds still handcuffed to his wrist.”

  “Well, Goldmann’s dead, I can tell you that much,” Wan said. “And maybe Chet too.”

  “No.”

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Haeli said. “But we could use your help, Rick. We’ve gotta get somewhere safe where we can regroup and figure out how we can put an end to this. Or to Sokolov.”

  “We can go to my place,” Bender said.

  “No good,” Wan said, “they tracked Haeli down in the U.S. and they found my apartment. My other apartment.”

  “Seriously, they fo
und the penthouse?”

  “The penthouse?” Haeli asked.

  “Yeah, Mike keeps a separate apartment, so when he picks up a chick at the bar he doesn’t have to take her back to his house. That way she can’t find him when he doesn’t call her back. We call it the penthouse.”

  Ugh. Figures.

  Wan shot Bender a disapproving look. “That’s not important. The point is we need to be untraceable. To buy ourselves some time.”

  Haeli opened the rear door of the rented sedan and put one foot on the frame. She turned back to Bender. “Hop in the front. We’ll leave your car and take this. It’s under my name. Which, of course, isn’t my name.”

  Bender’s gaze twitched. It moved past Haeli and toward the wooded driveway.

  Haeli turned to see a pair of headlights cutting through the darkness under the tunnel of trees.

  “One of yours?” Wan asked.

  “Everyone should be leaving for the night. Don’t know who this could be.”

  The deep blue BMW stopped, a quarter of a football pitch away. A tall, slender man with either a bald head or tightly cropped hair and a dark shiny suit stepped out of the passenger side of the vehicle. The man took two steps toward them, then stopped. Three other men got out of the car and started moving to join the first.

  It was difficult to tell for sure, but it appeared to Haeli as if the man had a deformity. As if he was missing an ear, or else the dimensions of his head were disproportionate.

  “This isn’t good,” Wan said.

  “No. It’s not.” Haeli reached into the back seat and slid the duffle back onto the ground. She pulled the pistol from her waistband and held it at the low ready, using the car to conceal the weapon.

  “Is that Sokolov?” Bender asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Haeli pushed the front driver’s side door all the way open and called out over the roof. “Can we help you with something?”

  The man in the front turned his head as if saying something to his companions. Although Haeli couldn’t hear what he said, the gist of it became obvious. The three men swung their arms out from behind them, each displaying a matching H&K MP5 submachine gun.

  “Get down!” Haeli yelled.

  Bender and Wan dove to the ground as bullets blew out the windows of the sedan. A few 9mm rounds passed through the skin of the car on both sides but managed to miss all three of them. Other rounds were absorbed by the seat upholstery, or door panels. A cloud of foam particles filled the passenger compartment.

  The gunfire ceased.

  “Not the woman!” Haeli heard the man yell. His accent was Russian. This wasn’t Sokolov, but it was most definitely one of his men.

  Haeli reached inside the vehicle and shifted it into drive. “Grab the bag.”

  As the car started to roll, Wan scooped up the bag and dug into it.

  The three crouched as they moved, keeping pace with the car as it inched closer and closer to the wood line at the end of the lot. Wan passed a pistol to Bender then pulled out another for himself.

  Haeli popped up over the top of the car and fired a few blind rounds down-range. Before ducking low again, she caught a glimpse of the men. They were closer and continuing to advance.

  “We’re going to have to make a break for the woods,” Haeli said.

  “You go first. I’ll cover you,” Wan said.

  “No. Did you hear what he said? ‘Not the woman.’ I can buy you both a few seconds to get into the trees. I’ll be right behind you.” Haeli looked to her left. In another few feet, the front tires would hit the curb separating the grassy apron from the lot. From there it would be only twenty feet to the wood line. “As soon as the car stops, run.”

  “Haeli Becher,” the Russian man said. “You come with us and your friends will live.”

  “Give me another.” Haeli held out her left hand.

  Wan pulled another pistol from the bag and slapped the grip into her palm. “It’s loaded. They all are.”

  The sedan rocked back and forth as it hit the curb.

  “Now.” Haeli popped up and with both hands began firing. She moved from behind cover and twisted her body, firing to her side as she ran for the wood line. Before she dove into the brush and rolled behind a tree, she could see one of the men clutching his side and dropping to his knees. “I got one.”

  “Where’s Rick?” Wan pressed his back against an adjacent tree trunk.

  Haeli peeked out toward the sedan. Bender was lying in the grass. Motionless. “Rick!”

  Still no movement.

  “He’s down,” Haeli said.

  “No!” Wan twisted to get a look. “I’m going to get him. Lay down some cover fire, I’ll drag him in.” He tossed the bag toward Haeli.

  “They’re too close,” Haeli said. “You won’t make it. I’ll go.”

  “I love you, Haeli. Don’t forget that.” Wan stood up and barreled through the brush and out onto the grass, firing rapidly.

  “Michael, don’t!” Haeli spun out from around the tree and fired both pistols. She saw another of the men go down as the tall Russian dove behind the trunk of the sedan.

  The rest seemed to happen in slow motion. One painful millisecond at a time. The slides of her pistols locking back. The spray of blood jetting out from Wan’s back. The path his body took as it careened toward the ground and came to rest, a few feet from Bender.

  Haeli dropped her hands to her sides and let the two empty pistols slide out of her fingers and onto the ground. In her mind she was screaming at the top of her lungs, but the words came as no more than a whimper. “No, Michael, No.”

  For a brief second, Haeli wished she could walk out onto the patch of grass, lay down with Wan and Bender, and die. But the motion of the approaching men snapped her out of her temporary psychosis. Her innate drive for survival took over. Fight or Flight. Only, she wouldn’t have to choose. She would opt for both.

  She grabbed the handles of the duffle bag, and of her rage and hate, and darted further into the woods.

  19

  Haeli lifted her head and peered over the rotting tree. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. Each inhale vacuumed fungi spores into her nostrils. The odor of damp mold and mushrooms overwhelmed her sense of smell.

  She hadn’t gone far before finding the fallen tree and the depression between it and a cluster of low-lying vegetation. She had hoped her pursuers would have figured she kept moving, trudging deeper into the woods. It might have given her the opportunity to backtrack and escape to part of the Techyon property. But that hadn’t been the case.

  The men milled about, pinning her in. As any remaining light fizzled out, and the forest dipped into an inky blackness, more vehicles had arrived. More men with flashlights. Combing the forest floor.

  It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. The waving lights allowed Haeli to keep tabs on each of their positions. To count their numbers.

  Before long, she would be forced to move. But not yet. Not until it was necessary.

  Haeli thought she saw two more flashlights flickering, further in the distance. She realized it was the headlights of a vehicle.

  Great. More of them.

  Haeli cursed herself for not studying the map. In fact, she had no idea how deep the woods went or what was beyond them. She knew nothing about the area.

  It occurred to her that her smart phone was in her pocket. Turned off since she left Virginia, it probably still had battery life. If she could get a signal, she could use the mapping app to find her way out of there.

  The problem was the light from the screen would be a dead giveaway. She would have to move. She’d have to risk it.

  After a few moments, three more lights grew closer. These were definitely flashlights. Over the past hour, their numbers had grown from two to six, and now nine. She wondered how many more there would be.

  One of the lights moved away from the line and appeared to be growing brighter than the others. It was moving toward her. One light, one man, moving in her direction.
<
br />   She squeezed the handle of the pistol in her right hand. If she were forced to use it, the rest of the men would immediately descend upon her. But if she was spotted, she might have no choice.

  The light stopped moving, about fifty feet to her east. Then the light blinked out.

  Haeli’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and she thought she could make out the silhouette of a man. He appeared to be standing with his feet spread apart and his arms at his sides.

  What is he doing?

  The answer came as his voice broke through the relative silence.

  “Haeli.”

  The Russian accent. The same man from the lot.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  No, it wasn’t the same man. Similar, yes. But this man had a smoother tone. His English was less broken. The fact that he seemed to believe she should know him was proof enough.

  Sokolov.

  “Why don’t you come out, Haeli. There is little hope. You cannot hide forever.”

  Haeli held her breath.

  “No? Okay. Do you know what I am holding in my hand?”

  He paused.

  “No, of course not. I will tell you. It is my mobile. Why do you care, you ask? You care because right now, at this moment, my men are waiting for my call. Waiting outside your boyfriend’s home in Virginia, USA.”

  Haeli fought the urge to spring out of her hiding place and charge at him, right then and there.

  “All I have to do is give the word and Blake Brier is a dead man. And this will be your fault, no? When all you have to do is give me what is mine. So you will come out now, Haeli Becher. You will tell me what I want to know.”

  Reaching into her left pocket, she felt the contour of the burner flip-phone. Trying to avoid even the slightest noise, she carefully shifted her weight, transferred the pistol to her left hand, and reached into her right pocket. She drew out her personal smartphone and pressed the screen to her chest. Her thumb found the power button and squeezed.

  “You leave me no choice,” Sokolov said.

  Haeli could see the faint glow of his screen as it lit the underside of his chin.

  She was out of time. With her left hand, she slid the pistol into the small of her back.