Rogue

by James Swallow

  Those terrorists and their plans for a biological attack in Europe had ultimately been foiled, but for McFarlane the end did not justify the means. She continued to push for a full decommissioning of the group, crossing swords with Solomon again and again as she demanded insight into the SCD’s activities, even if that put their operations at risk.

  ‘I know you like your privacy,’ she said, ‘but I thought it better we speak outside the office.’

  Solomon pushed away a flash of irritation. He was a man who prided himself on his appearance, taking pains to present his best face to the world. Coming here now, McFarlane was deliberately showing that she didn’t care for any of that, literally catching him underdressed. It seemed petty for her, and out of character. In the torchlight he saw the hardening of her jawline and knew something was wrong.

  But he was too tired to do anything more than dispense with formalities.

  ‘What is so important that you need to bring it to me out here at sunrise?’

  She offered the folder, and Delancort took it, opened it. Solomon saw pages of redacted files, and blurry scanned images of a swarthy, middle-aged man.

  ‘I’d like to know how much it cost us to buy this crooked bastard,’ said McFarlane.

  Solomon recognised the man immediately. Mateo Garza.

  Formerly the chief accountant for a brutal South American criminal cartel called La Noche, Garza had been extracted from Colombia by Rubicon operatives in the previous year, after the money man had gone on the run from his masters. In exchange for a new identity, he had turned over gigabytes of financial data. In turn, the SCD had used that to impede La Noche’s ambitions to expand and consolidate their hold on the drug trade.

  Much of the vital information had gone into Rubicon’s intelligence database – a system Solomon christened the ‘Grey Record’ – and even now it was still working for them. Garza was a repellent man, but his defection had allowed Rubicon to drag a piece of the criminal dark net into the light.

  Solomon gave Delancort a warning look. As far as the rest of the world knew, Mateo Garza had perished in a plane crash. The fact that McFarlane had this file, that she knew something of the man’s fate, was a serious problem.

  ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘You’re not going to deny it,’ said the woman, ignoring his question. ‘Well, at least you’re not insulting my intelligence by saying otherwise.’

  He took a moment to frame his reply.

  ‘Garza supplied us with a strong intelligence take, which was of great use to our operatives and our contacts in the US Drug Enforcement Agency. Many lives have been saved because of it.’

  ‘The drug war in Colombia. Extremists in Europe. Criminal gangs in South-east Asia. Domestic terrorists in America.’ McFarlane ticked them off one by one. ‘You’re using Rubicon assets to play black ops in flashpoints around the world and you put us in danger every time you do it.’ She shook her head. ‘How many times do we have to have this conversation, Ekko?’ McFarlane pointed at the file. ‘You bought a criminal a new life with money from our company coffers. Do you have any idea what would happen if our competitors got hold of that information? Or, God forbid, those animals Garza worked for?’

  ‘It had to be done. The opportunity presented itself. It could not be ignored. And good has come of it.’

  ‘That’s debatable. These are not opportunities, they’re your addiction.’ She came closer, and her tone briefly softened. ‘There’s so much Rubicon can do that doesn’t need us to break the law. I believe in this organisation. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. But your vigilante crusade is going to ruin it.’

  ‘You do not understand,’ he told her. ‘I built Rubicon for . . . my crusade. It is not some game. It is our responsibility.’

  ‘It’s really not,’ she replied, shaking her head. ‘Six months ago you said you would reel this in, but you haven’t, have you? The SCD is still operating. You’re still intervening in other people’s fights.’

  ‘Someone has to. We have the means, we have the clarity.’

  ‘Is that so? Then where does it end?’ McFarlane shot back. ‘If you decide you don’t like the North Koreans playing with nukes, is Rubicon going to invade Pyongyang? What if America’s president crosses one line too many on your moral compass – are we going to shoot him?’

  ‘We take what actions we can.’ Solomon’s irritation flared again. It annoyed him to continually have to justify himself to her. ‘Small acts with large consequences.’

  ‘Consequences are right.’ McFarlane drew back. ‘I brought this to you first so you can think about your next decision, Ekko. I’ve called a meeting of the board, to review the situation regarding the SCD in the coming days. I wanted to give you time to prepare a full response.’ She turned as she walked away. ‘Don’t waste it.’

  Solomon snatched the folder from Delancort’s hand and held it to the naked flame flickering at the head of the torch.

  ‘How does she know about Garza?’ The folder caught alight and he watched it burn.

  ‘I do not know,’ said Delancort. ‘Our security is airtight.’

  Solomon threw the ashen remnants of the file into the surf.

  ‘It would seem otherwise.’ He looked back at the other man and saw a flicker of anxiety in his eyes. ‘There is something else,’ he surmised.

  ‘I thought it best not to say anything while McFarlane was listening—’

  ‘Tell me,’ snapped Solomon.

  Delancort frowned. ‘Lucy Keyes and Marc Dane are missing.’

  THREE

  Lucy crawled her way back to consciousness, rising up through foggy layers of awareness until she could open her eyes.

  Hard sunlight penetrated the rough cloth bag over her head, enough to give her the vaguest impression of where their abductors had taken them.

  The air was still, damp and stiflingly warm. It lay heavy in her lungs and it smelled of earth and rotting vegetation.

  Farm, said a voice in the back of her mind, as her combat instincts kicked in and the odours connected with old memories. You’re on a farm.

  That made sense. There were hundreds of olive groves in southern Portugal, places away from the main roads where bad things could happen that no one would know about. If that assumption was on the money, it meant that Lucy hadn’t been taken far from where she and Marc had been snatched.

  Lucy took stock, mentally checking over her body the same way she would have with a loaded firearm. Inwardly examining herself, she looked for the places where it hurt. Her joints ached, and there were plastic ties around her wrists and ankles. She was secured to a heavy wooden chair that creaked underneath her. Good. Wood was better than metal. That was something she could work with.

  Her tongue was furred and she felt slow, still gripped by fading effects of the powerful sedative from the tranquiliser dart. Pentobarbital, she guessed, by the speed and force of the drug shot. It was tricky, and could kill if not administered in the correct dose.

  That gave her another piece of the puzzle. The people who took them had to be professionals, not just hired hands.

  This felt like an agency takedown, she decided. The Russians, maybe? They liked chemical interventions. Mossad were another possibility, but she dismissed that quickly. The Israelis wouldn’t have stuck around.

  She shifted in the chair, feeling it move slightly beneath her. Through the hood she could make out another slumped form close by.

  ‘Marc? That you?’

  ‘This place smells funky. Ugh.’ He slurred a few words, then shook it off. ‘Shit. Let my bloody guard down and now look at us.’ She could see him rolling his head, trying to dislodge his hood. ‘How long . . . you think we’ve been here?’

  Lucy felt an IV line taped into the vein in the crook of her arm, and dimly she pulled up recall of darkness, a night’s chill, of someone putting the needle in her.

  ‘A day? At least.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Both of them fell silent, listening
to the world around them. Faint birdsong and the sound of a jet passing over were the only noises. She cocked her head.

  ‘Not a military plane,’ she offered.

  ‘No. Airliner,’ confirmed Marc. ‘If we’re still local, it could be coming from or going to the airport at Faro.’

  ‘Okay.’ Having another fragment of information gave Lucy the impetus to strive for the next, to keep building up the jigsaw. ‘Sun’s not overhead yet, so it’s gotta be mid-morning.’

  ‘You get a look at the creeps who grabbed us?’

  ‘That’s a negative. They were masked up. Didn’t recognise the kit either.’

  From somewhere off in the distance, they both heard a door slam.

  Marc’s next words echoed Lucy’s own thoughts. ‘If they’re pros, they’ll know how long the sedatives last. They’ll come back.’

  ‘Copy that.’ Lucy shifted and pressed her feet into the ground. ‘I’m gonna try something.’

  She could make out the cannula tube from the IV line hanging near her head, which meant there had to be a stand behind her, out of sight. Lucy rocked forward and back, getting momentum, and sunlight flickered off the dangling pipe as it moved with her.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Quiet! Need to concentrate.’

  Motion overcame gravity and the chair tipped forward. Lucy put her weight in the direction of the tube and landed face down on the earthen floor. The arm of the chair caught the cannula tube against the dirt and held it there, close enough for Lucy to get her fingers to it. Slowly, she wound the thin plastic around them and felt the needle inserted in her arm pull at the skin. Lucy worked at the tube, gathering a loop of it in her palm, gently tugging. It was hard to do face down with her ass in the air, but with a stinging sensation, the IV needle finally popped out.

  She smiled. ‘Jackpot.’

  The needle was thin but strong, and she manipulated it until the tip was in the strap-lock of the closest cable tie.

  ‘I hear someone moving around outside,’ whispered Marc.

  The needle found the right angle and Lucy used it like a shim, manipulating the locking bar on the tie around her wrist by feel. Her right hand flopped free and she used it to pull the hood off her face.

  Earth and stale plant smells assailed her as she rolled onto her side and used the needle on the other ties. The guess about the olive grove was dead on. They were inside a disused growing space, a metal-framed half-cylinder draped with thick polythene sheeting, and through the dirty plastic she could see stands of trees and the side of a low, shabby farmhouse. Plant pots and bags of fertiliser were stacked nearby.

  Once she was free, Lucy crouched at Marc’s side and got him loose, discarding his hood and using the needle trick on the ties again. He pulled the IV line in his own arm and winced.

  ‘Two ways to play this,’ he noted. ‘We peg it, get to a road, put as much distance as we can between us and these pricks. Or . . .’

  ‘We fuck with their program.’ She found a shovel and weighed it in her hands, considering how much damage she could do with it.

  ‘I thought you might prefer that option.’

  Marc stood up unsteadily, then kicked out a leg of the chair he had been sitting on, twisting it off where it broke to create a makeshift side-handle baton.

  Lucy heard the scuffing of boots and turned towards it. Through the grimy polythene, she could see two shadows approaching. She threw Marc a warning nod and they both shrank back, out of sight.

  There was a sheet-metal door built into the greenhouse’s rickety frame, and it slid back on poorly greased runners. A white woman with a bandana holding up a shock of dark hair entered first, a bigger guy with East Asian features coming in right behind. They both wore jeans and sweatshirts of the same deliberately unremarkable style, and the man had a dart gun in his hand.

  The woman was two steps into the greenhouse before she saw that the chairs were empty, and jerked to a halt. She paid dearly for her hesitation.

  Down low, Lucy swung the heavy shovel out at kneecap level and smacked the woman hard in the backs of the legs with the flat of the blade. She fell down in the dirt with a pained yelp, and at the same time Marc attacked the guy with his chair-leg tonfa.

  The Brit hit the gunman twice in the head, rolling the other man away in pain and confusion. Marc let his improvised weapon drop and grabbed for the dart gun, trying to wrestle it out of the man’s grip.

  Meanwhile, Lucy was already on her target, getting a chokehold around her neck. She pulled it tight and felt the woman claw and kick as the blood flow to her brain was strangled. She tried to choke out something, but Lucy held on, counting off the seconds. Keep the hold going for the right amount and she would put her abductor out for the count. Too long and it would be a death sentence.

  Lucy considered it. In the moment what stopped her was that the attackers had used non-lethal weapons against her and Marc, and reluctantly, she decided to return the courtesy. Hope I won’t regret it later, she thought.

  From across the greenhouse, she heard the pneumatic pistol cough and saw that Marc had forced the man to fire a dart into his own thigh. The second assailant exhaled half a swear word and sank into a heap. In a few moments, he was dead to the world.

  Marc and Lucy checked the pockets of their abductors, collectively coming up with a few reloads for the trank gun, a walkie-talkie, a pack of Marlboros and a disposable lighter.

  ‘No pocket litter,’ Marc noted. ‘Nothing to identify who they are or where they’re from.’ He glanced at the radio. ‘This kit is generic.’

  Lucy pulled up the woman’s sleeves, looking for tattoos or identifying marks, and came up empty.

  ‘Just a pair of nobodies, huh?’

  Marc opened the door a crack and peered out.

  ‘I see the van. No sign of the Audi.’ He frowned. ‘You know if I lose that car, Delancort will never let me forget it.’

  ‘Priorities,’ she admonished.

  ‘Yeah, yeah . . .’ Marc handed the dart gun to Lucy. ‘Here, I’m a decent shot, but you’re better.’ He picked up the shovel as she looked over his shoulder.

  ‘Don’t jinx me,’ she told him. Across the way, Lucy saw a single door leading into the farmhouse. ‘Okay, dynamic entry right there. I’ll shoot anyone who gets creative.’

  ‘Leave one talkative.’ Marc’s expression hardened. ‘We’ll have a nice chat.’

  ‘Copy that.’

  Lucy eased the sliding door open and gave a count of three, then ducked out, low and fast.

  They had ten metres of open ground to cover. The key to turning the tables on their captors would be speed and surprise.

  But it went to hell when a third man came around the corner of the farmhouse with a cigarette in his hand, a shotgun hanging off a strap over his shoulder and one arm done up in a makeshift sling. He had to be the one Lucy had introduced to the table knife back in the cafe. The man blinked in shock at the sight of the two escapees and Lucy had the measure of him in an instant – a thickset white guy, short-haired, with the gait of a soldier.

  He fumbled at his gun, at the same time shouting ‘Oi! ’ as loud as he could in a rough British snarl, and that was the end of any kind of sneak attack.

  Lucy squeezed the trank gun’s trigger, but the weapon was light and it pulled off to the right. The dart whistled through the air and missed.

  Marc ran at him, swinging the shovel at his head, and he brought up his other arm to deflect the blow, falling short because of his earlier injury. Lucy ratcheted the dart gun’s slide to put another trank in the chamber.

  The farmhouse door slammed open and two more figures burst out into the daylight, each armed with the same weapon as Lucy. One was a shorter woman, hard-faced and angry, the other a man in his late forties with the look of a veteran about him. A light went off in her head; she’d seen the older man before, but couldn’t place him.

  The veteran saw them and immediately held up his gun.

  ‘Stop! E
veryone stop!’ Another Brit by the accent. ‘Dane, just hold it!’

  Marc locked eyes with the older man and he stopped dead.

  ‘What the hell?’

  ‘Put it down, love,’ said the angry woman, never taking her gaze off Lucy.

  ‘Blow me,’ she retorted, aiming the dart gun at the other woman’s chest. She wouldn’t miss a second time.

  ‘John?’ Marc said the other man’s name like he was waking up from a dream. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘You know these people?’ Lucy asked, still glaring at the other woman.

  She and the others were British, which likely meant MI6, the UK’s external security and intelligence service. Marc Dane’s old crew.

  ‘John Farrier,’ said Marc, nodding at the veteran. ‘Recruited me into K Section at Six, a dog’s age ago. And the lady there is Tracey Lane. Don’t know the rest of them.’

  ‘Charmed,’ sneered Lane. ‘Tell your girlfriend to drop the gun, Dane, or I will shoot her again.’

  ‘That’s Pearce,’ said Farrier, nodding at the man with the shotgun. ‘Who you stabbed.’

  ‘All right?’ said the bigger guy in an agreeable tone.

  Farrier went on. ‘The other two are Regis and Suresh, and I’m really hoping you haven’t done them any serious damage.’ He walked forward and put his hand on Lane’s gun, forcing her to aim it away. ‘Tracey, let’s not escalate this.’

  Marc still had the shovel in his hands, his knuckles white around the wooden shaft.

  ‘What. The fuck. Is going on?’

  ‘This is OpTeam Paladin,’ said Farrier. ‘I’m running on-site command and control. You’re our target, mate.’

  Lucy knew only bits and pieces about the MI6 Tactical Operations Team programme, and most of that had come from Dane. Before joining Rubicon, he’d been a member of a unit like this one, codenamed Nomad.