Flick (The Black Sentinels MC Book 4)

by Victoria Johns

  Picking up some odd leaves from a basket by my feet, I looked down and murmured, “Got it,” before sauntering off. I was taking a huge risk by circling the market again, if she was being watched they’d be on me, but I had to take the chance. I needed this last opportunity to see if I’d just outed us both, or worse, she gave me up. Hopefully, the exact reason she’d given me twelve minutes was a plee to be careful and go check my six. When I was satisfied, I headed over to the horse and cart parking lot, when was like something from the middle ages. Fucking Arabs.

  I hid a few carts down, just in case she was followed, or worse, came with reinforcements. When I was sure she was alone, I intercepted her on her way to her own cart. “You have to get me out,” she pleaded, the desperation on her face was next level, and she thrust a bag of spices at me. “Here you forgot your fucking saffron.”

  “Hold on, where’s Iqbal?”

  “Away for another six days, but you won’t get near him.”

  “Why haven’t they extracted you?” I was keen to understand her answer, after all, I’d just part exposed my mission and she’d gone straight on the defensive, if I was considering throwing myself under the bus for her, I wanted to be sure she hadn’t been turned.

  Poppy looked around nervously. “I don’t have long.”

  “Best fucking tell me what I want to know, or you’ll be here a whole lot longer.”

  Her bottom lip wobbled. “They came to get me a while ago, months, or so I thought, but then they made a deal instead, and I was part of that fucking deal.”

  “What deal?”

  I scanned around, just in case anyone had come to their cart and we’d failed to spot it, I noticed she was also doing the same thing. As I checked behind her, she did the same for me.

  “Some fuck from the agency needed a bomb putting on a Saudi plane. Seems that’s common ground with my husband, so they made a deal with Iqbal and he did it in exchange for weapons.”

  This news should have taken me to my knees, pulled the rug from under my feet and made the earth holding us all up, crumble and disappear, but it didn’t. After all, I’d killed more American nationals than rebel fighters and war lords, this was how they did business. The army went in under the guise of war, figured out who needed to be eliminated and who could be useful. We’d make some deal that was relevant at the time and then, I’d be sent into end that business relationship and eradicated any evidence of it ever existing.

  Well, not this fucking time.

  This was confirmation about why they wanted her dead, she knew too much. Like the rest of us, Poppy was an expendable liability.

  “I can’t take you home.” She looked at me deflated. “They want you dead.”

  I saw her fists clench, she got it. “I won’t go home. But if you leave me here, I’m worse than dead. I’m basically a female slave, a fucking sex toy. I got a break the other night, which would have been great if it didn’t come at the expense of a nine-year-old girl.”

  I thought of Lila. I didn’t want to think of Lila, any thoughts of her being subjected to that kind of treatment made me want to scorch the earth.

  “We have to take him out first, otherwise we’re both dead. But you still can’t go home. You have to die too, you get me?”

  “I’ll do it.”

  I wouldn’t let her do it though, I knew what it felt like to not sleep over the things you’d done, and the by the sounds of it, she was going to have a hard enough time with that as it was, I’d even say she was at her limits.

  Just then a hustle of voices sounded off to our right, a few carts down.

  “It’ll have to be around the next market, he’ll definitely be here then.”

  “No, it needs to be before then.” I couldn’t wait another fucking month out in the open, the potential of exposure or risk of discovery was too high, not mention another month away from Flick and the kids, she’d give up on me, I was sure of it.

  “No. You can’t kill what isn’t here, and I don’t have enough time to plan for when he’s next back.” Poppy was insistent as she turned her head and shouted, “Coming, coming!” First in English and then in Arabic. I stepped back and hid under the cart beside hers as she began to rummage around in boxes and bags of spices.

  Two pairs of male feet appeared on either side of her as the shouting began. Poppy tried to back away, but they weren’t going to allow it. The voices laughed, even sneered as one pair of feet positioned behind her, fuck, they were going to rape her here out in the open. The power these animals had was just immense. You didn’t do this kind of thing out in the open, everyone knew it happened behind closed doors, but under Sharia law, this kind of thing would get all of them stoned to death. They felt so powerful they didn’t even care about their own laws, the same ones they subjected everyone else too. A woman being caught with two men though, she’d probably be burned alive.

  Agent Poppy’s voice was muffled as her protests escalated and just when I thought it was over, the other guy took his turn. It was all I could do to stay put under the cart and not slaughter them both in broad daylight. Finally, when they’d both had their fill, one slapped her about some more, before belittling her by forcing her to her knees. I was so close to her, I could grab her, kill them and run, but it would be suicide for the both of us.

  “How this for English lessons? Know your place, western whore.” I guess she was teaching them to speak English. They laughed as she laid her head on the floor in submission, her eyes connected with mine, present yet devoid of emotion at the same time. A single tear snaked down her face, and even though she looked at me, I knew she was anywhere but here right now at this very moment.

  A few minutes later, they waited as she got up, grabbed the spice supplies and I watched as all three of them walked off back to the market.

  She was right. I couldn’t leave her here.

  Just like me, she was a pawn in someone else’s game, only her suffering was physical as well as mental.

  I wouldn’t leave her to that. For all the killings and senseless murders, the unshakable death that I’d never lose, knowing I’d left someone to that fate would be the thing that tipped me over the edge, the thing I’d never recover from.

  The mission had most definitely changed.

  Kill Iqbal.

  Blow shit up.

  Get me and Poppy out.

  I’d go home and put other plans into play.

  She could go anywhere the fuck she wanted as long as she stayed completely off the radar.

  I went off plan. She told me I needed to wait for the next market, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t staying in this fucking hole for another month. So, after she went back to the market, I placed a tracker on the back of the cart and went back to my truck. From there, I watched the signal so I could follow. It would probably go better for her, if she didn’t know what I was planning. Surprise was always the best form of defense.

  Three days later, I kept watch from a hillside position, which was pretty much where I’d been since I loaded up on supplies; food and water at the market. Wherever Poppy was living, it wasn’t on a map, it was like a pop-up village, and it was fucking bandit country. No one left without a minimum of two guns attached to their person and it was always the men who moved around. Some women skulked around in back yards, but I figured most were cooking, cleaning and fucking on demand indoors. One thing I did notice was that there were no children. Odd really, because with all that fucking, there should be heaps of them around.

  A couple of days passed, and I hadn’t seen any sign of Poppy, the other women still moved about, but not her, and I prayed that she’d show her face soon. I needed to get to her, before Iqbal and then leave. I knew if I had to leave her behind, this would be the one mission that would haunt me more than most. She had asked for me to save her and being unable to do that would kill me. I would make sure it would. There was always the possibility that I’d fucked up, and put a tracker in the cart that she hadn’t actually left in.

  So, the
current situation report was no sign of Iqbal yet and no sign of Agent Poppy.

  I tab’d back to my Jeep at night to sleep, approaching it cautiously in case it had been discovered and thankfully it hadn’t. I knew this in the first instance because it was still there, I’d set a number of booby traps around it that would have seen off both the Jeep and the intruders. While it would have left me with zero transport and weapons, it would have been like signing my own death warrant because I’d have had no way out and no way to defend myself.

  I had a routine. By day, I was occupied watching routines, comings and goings, committing the people and which houses they entered to memory, and by night I was haunted by thoughts of Flick, alone, scared, and worried about me.

  Soon, baby. I’m working my way back to you.

  The problem with time was that you had nothing else to do but think and besides being a distraction, there was no way to take immediate action. Once you’d thought on something, night after night, you were left with the waiting until the time was right. Solace and thinking time were always bittersweet.

  On day fuck-knows-what, a whole troop of expensive 4x4’s, Nissan Patrols, Escalades and Pajero’s appeared on the horizon north of the village. The convoy was also surrounded at each end by what looked like a private army; low loader trucks laden with men all tooled up ready for a gunfight. My blood sang with the knowledge that this was it, this was something big. This was the change in circumstance I could use to my advantage.

  Surprise, motherfucker… I’m coming for you.

  All the villagers came out as soon as the convoy cleared the village’s outer walls, I scanned each and every one of them, methodically and quickly searching for Poppy, and saw her nowhere.

  “Fuck.” It was one of the few words I’d actually said out loud in days. What if I’d wasted all this time thinking she was here, only to have got it wrong? I would have to wait for the market again, pretty much backtrack and start over. As the thought caused panic inside me, the armed Afghani’s decamped from the pickup trucks and the doors in the expensive motorcade opened simultaneously. I situated my Binos one by one, checking them all out until I recognized the passengers in the Escalade.

  One was Iqbal. The other was Agent Poppy. Fuck, he kept her close, had I read her wrong?

  All the time I’d been watching, she’d never been here.

  They greeted him like he was royalty, which to them he was. He may not have the formal title of King, but he definitely held as much power.

  This was it. Game on.

  I watched where they went and knew getting her out was going to be impossible. My only chance would be to watch her for a few more days and see if she came out routinely and gave me an in.

  For the next two nights she appeared at a bathroom window at exactly the same time, if she did it for the next two, I’d take that as my opportunity to get her out. One of the self-reflecting conversations I’d had with myself over the last few days was that no one was worth dying for, apart from my family and friends, and people like Agent Poppy who had been dealt a shit hand in the guise of duty. Those kinds of people were worth it.

  I hustled down the mountain quick. Every so often I stopped and checked the guards in the village, making sure that no one had changed positions, in case they were onto me and knew I was coming, but as I got closer, I heard the distinct sounds of a party.

  I got as close to the back of the property as I could and watched.

  As I made to go and look closer, instead of seeing Poppy appear at the window, I saw a body climb out of it, and lower herself to the ground. When she climbed over the wall like Cat Woman, I followed her, only intercepting her when it was safe.

  “Fuck!” She jumped.

  “Where were you going?”

  “Got sick of waiting, would rather die trying than die here as part of that back there.” When she flicked her head back, I got the message. Poppy was probably part of the main entertainment. Despite her downtrodden condition, she kept pace for a while until her wheezy breathing forced us to slow. “What happened to waiting for the market?” she asked.

  “Surprise element works better for me.”

  “How did you know where I was?”

  “Put a tracker on the cart.”

  She then laughed. “I put one in the spices I gave you. It’s supposed to be for contacting the firm but figured it would be good to see where you were at.”

  I then understood it was me she was signaling when she kept looking out of the window.

  “What’s the plan?” she asked, slowing up just a bit. Being a female agent under an oppressive regime was difficult, you could hardly go for a ten-mile hike to maintain your fitness. They liked their women meek and mild, not in fighting shape, especially if they were a threat to their manhood.

  “Back to the Jeep. It’s about five miles out.”

  “Wait! Aren’t you coming back to kill him? We have to end that sadistic asshole. Coming back is too dangerous, he’ll know I’m gone by now.”

  “I’ve got a plan, but let’s get you out first.”

  That seemed to appease her, or at least I thought it did until she said, “Give me a knife.” I wasn’t sure she’d be able to kill me with it, but she’d been on the inside for so long it would be silly of me to not be wary.

  When it was in her hand, she pulled up the sleeve of her abaya, and felt along the bicep before sticking the point in. Poppy winced and swayed. “What are you doing?”

  Poppy dropped the knife and steeled herself as her fingers dug into the slice and routed around. “Tracker.” Between her bloody fingers she produced what looked like an old-fashioned fuse before bringing it to her mouth and biting on it hard, with her molars.

  “Can’t believe those fucking Neanderthals do that shit.”

  “They don’t. This is one of ours.”

  Since when did we do that to our assets? This was another level of fucked up.

  Back at the Jeep, I knew they’d have noticed she was gone by now, there was probably a gap in their whoring schedule for the night. As we climbed in, I pulled out a small but still apparently being tested, satellite phone. Tech had come a long way, but with the money the American government threw at it, there was probably a lot more to come, all in the name of killing people and keeping tabs of enemies who become friends and then flip back to enemies again. Our people could starve but we’d still have WMD’s and enough tech to take down a country. I pumped a button twice and static sounded. “Shadow to base. Shadow to base, come in. Over.”

  Nothing.

  “Shadow to base come in. Over.”

  “This is base. Over.” The voice crackled back and I breathed in relief.

  “MOAB requested in three zero, repeat three zero minutes at the following co-ordinates. Over.” I rattled them off and repeated them just for good measure.

  “Mission complete? Over.”

  “Yes. Completely over after you drop the payload. Too dangerous for hand to hand. Over.”

  “Roger that. Get clear. Over.”

  “Understood. Over.” I went to shut the sat phone down when the static sounded again.

  “Secondary mission. Confirm?”

  I looked to my right and prayed she stayed quiet. “Agent Poppy eliminated as ordered. Over.” I wanted her to know exactly how valued she was, and that this was fucking serious.

  “Affirmative. Get to extraction. Over.”

  “Roger that. Over.”

  I pulled the phone apart, if we were discovered now, they’d need a genius to put it back together, it would just be bits of plastic lying around the car.

  Poppy was still silent. “They were really going to do it, weren’t they?”

  I didn’t answer her obvious question. “You can’t go home. You show up in the USA, you’re killing me and my family too.”

  “Those fuckers were really going to hang me out to dry.”

  “You know too much.”

  Poppy started to shake, she was out and all the things she’d b
een through were starting to come forward and show on the surface. “I was just a toy, a bargaining chip.”

  “You were, but that’s over, you’re out now.”

  “I meant a toy of our fucking government,” she screamed, and once again there was no point in replying, we both were.

  “We’re gonna head over the border into Tajikistan, I’ve got a contact there, he’ll get you out.” I turned the key on the engine of the Jeep, trying to ease her worries by making what we were about to do sound easy, but it was nowhere near easy, we’d got to get out of Afghanistan first.

  “What will you do?”

  “Head back across the border and call for an evac in country.” We both fell silent as we got moving, constantly sweeping the surroundings and checking mirrors for anything that felt off. “There’s some food and drink in the back. It’s only dry stuff, nuts, seeds, and stuff, but we need to keep our energy up.” She reached around to the back, grabbed what she wanted and after having a bit of a feast, she crashed out in the seat next to me. I knew I should have pulled over and slept too, but the adrenaline was buzzing, and I needed to get us as far away from there before the drones came and dropped their payload.

  I knew it was more than just the adrenaline though.

  I was planning.

  And my plan would finally put an end to all of this. Make sure that this was all behind me. Someone needed to pay for what they’d done to my life.

  Flick

  Month one, I kept it together, that’s about as much as I could say. I even held my shit together when I had to lie to Ben and Lila. Kids, they were so gullible, they completely trusted that Beckett had gone to care for a sick friend, and he would be back when the time was right. Had they have been older, they would have questioned why he never called, but they didn’t. They completely trusted their uncle. It was only at night that Lila was unsettled, the last time anyone left her for the day, they never came home, and it was her mom. Over the few months we’d been living here, it was like the memories of her mom had gotten hazy, almost a dream that felt too real not to be true. Eventually, I realized it was the feeling, the emotion that she really remembered and even at such a young age and I could tell she was keen to avoid felling like that again. When the poor kid awoke crying at night, she didn’t know what she was avoiding or that her subconscious was gearing up to protect her if Beckett never came home.