When Death Frees the Devil

by L. J. Hayward

  “It could be.” At Jack’s raised eyebrow, Ethan added, “All right, it probably is. But knowing that we can plan accordingly. Do you have schematics of the house?”

  “Not yet, but they got satellite images of the property.”

  For the first time since the chopper crash, Ethan regretted the loss of his implant. It would have been much more efficient for Jack to send him the images than describe them. He did, however, enjoy listening to his lover’s voice as he described thirty square hectares of lush trees and vegetation surrounded by a twelve-foot wall with towers at each corner and a guard station at the front gate.

  “The drive goes around the house to what’s probably a garage at the back,” Jack continued. “There’s a pool in front of the house. Christ, people with money have a really warped sense of perspective. Wait until you see this bloody place.”

  Ethan chuckled. “I asked you to tell me everything, Jack.”

  “I don’t know that I can do this thing justice.”

  “Try, please. The more I know, the better prepared I’ll be.”

  “Ugh, okay. I’ll tell you now though, you aren’t going to like it.”

  When Jack had finished, Ethan had to agree. He didn’t like it. “This isn’t going to be simple.”

  “No. No it is not.”

  They tossed ideas back and forth as they continued south to Goa. Nothing either of them came up with had a chance of working, sadly, considering the nature of the house they were going to attempt to infiltrate. Ethan was starting to despair that they would have to wait another day and lose any element of surprise they might still have.

  As the sun set, Ethan dropped Jack off on a corner in a largish town and drove away. It was Jack’s turn to boost a car. Preparing to ditch the Maruti 800, Ethan wiped down the interior and as he did so, accidentally popped open the glove compartment. A brown faux-leather case fell out. Reflexively, Ethan caught it, feeling small shapes shift around inside it. He unzipped it and found a basic set of make-up. About to put it back, an idea occurred.

  Half an hour later, Jack rolled to a stop at their agreed meeting point in a Nissan Bluebird.

  “You said old and unlikely to be missed,” Jack said as Ethan got in, unable to stop the grimace. “If I’d asked, they probably would have paid me to steal it.”

  Ethan snorted. “It sounds like the engine is going to fall out at any moment.”

  Jack patted his thigh. “I’m sure it’ll be something you can fix.”

  “Your faith is comforting. Before we leave, there is something else we need to pick up.”

  “What?”

  Smiling, Ethan said, “I have a plan.”

  “I’m not sure this plan will work,” Jack muttered.

  Ethan gripped his chin tighter. “I said, don’t move.”

  “I didn’t move.”

  “You’re moving your face and that’s the part I specifically need to not move.”

  “You never said so specifically.”

  With a short, sharp sigh, Ethan let his face go and sat back on his heels. “Jack.”

  Jack couldn’t help but smile. He’d missed the whole-sentence-in-his-name thing Ethan did so well. Even when that whole unspoken sentence was full of frustration and command.

  “Okay. I’ll behave. I just want it on record that this plan has a very thin chance of—” He was cut off by a kiss.

  This plan, he was very much on board with. Especially with Ethan straddling his lap, but before he could take things further, Ethan pulled his mouth away and frowned critically as he looked Jack’s face over closely.

  “Did you mess it up?” Jack asked warily.

  “No, thankfully.”

  “Then why kiss me?”

  “It was the most efficient way of shutting you up. Now, hold still. And I mean everything, Jack.”

  Jack gave one last pained groan then did as told.

  Shaking his head, Ethan dipped the tip of the fine brush into the palette of colours in his left hand. “It’s almost done.”

  Holding still, Jack closed his eyes as Ethan brushed the make-up over his forehead.

  They sat in the front passenger seat of the car, the overhead light on so Ethan could see what he was doing. The car was hidden behind a cluster of trees off the side of the road so the glow wouldn’t be seen by passing traffic. Ethan had been working on him for nearly an hour, trying a few different approaches until he got the desired effects he wanted. For all his doubts about the plan working, Jack was willing to go along with it because it was the best either of them had managed to come up with, given their limited resources.

  After another ten minutes, Ethan sat back again. “I’m done.”

  Jack opened his eyes. Ethan was studying him, frown pinching his dark brows together.

  “It doesn’t look good enough?” Jack asked.

  “No. I mean, yes, it does.” Ethan sucked in a quick breath. “It does.”

  Understanding Ethan’s reaction, Jack just nodded.

  “I always knew you and Ten shared some similarities of appearance,” Ethan said softly. “But seeing you like this . . . it’s . . .”

  “I get it. It’s okay.” It wasn’t okay. Jack hated being the cause of any discomfort for Ethan, but this was his plan. The only one they had.

  Ethan gave a single nod, then scrambled off him, over the centre console and back behind the wheel. Jack angled the rear vision mirror so he could see the final product of an hour’s work and a dozen pieces of pharmacy bought make-up.

  He barely recognised himself. His cheekbones were sharper, eyes darker, eyebrows thicker, and lips thinner. A scar ran from his hairline down towards his right eye. His black curls had been loaded with product and slicked back. He looked leaner and starker.

  “Ten moves differently to you.” Ethan’s tone was neutral as he put away the brushes and pens. “You have this sort of lose swagger when you walk. Ten is more precise. There is intent in every move he makes. He doesn’t gesture needlessly. He’s very . . .”

  Psychopathic was the word Jack wanted to use, but he went with, “Robotic?” so as to not push Ethan further away.

  Ethan’s emotional relationships with his siblings were complicated. Jack had watched helplessly as Ethan mourned Two, one of the main people who’d made his childhood a horror story. He’d chased Ethan across the globe as he hunted vengeance for those other brothers who’d tried their hardest to kill him. While Jack and Meera weren’t exactly poster-worthy when it came to familial harmony, neither had actually ever tried to kill the other. He had no real understanding of the turmoil it had created in Ethan’s head and heart. All he could do was be supportive, and if that meant boldly walking into the enemy’s stronghold pretending to be a deranged, cold-blooded assassin named Ten, then that’s what he’d do.

  After all, he’d already walked back into India for him.

  “Hm, yes. Robotic.” Ethan started the car and headed to the road. “He also speaks with an accent like mine.”

  “No worries. I can do British.”

  “Jack, I’ve heard your English accent. It is atrocious.”

  “Come on, old chap. It’s not that bad.” Jack started out in his exaggerated mimic of Ethan’s accent, then slid into a more natural sounded one. “Never fear, I can pull it out when required. It’s just that teasing you is so much fun.”

  Ethan cast him a sceptical, sidelong glance, sighed, and proceeded to tutor him until he was talking in a monotonal flat voice that bled any warmth out of the accent.

  It had been several years since Jack had done any true undercover work. The stint with the Sydney police hadn’t really counted because he’d gone in as himself, mostly. His soul had been too close to the surface on that job. It had been like having a filling done without anaesthetic. This time, though, it was like it had been in the desert with Valadian’s organisation. A different name and look, new speech patterns and physical attitude. A protective layer of armour over himself was very welcomed.

  Even if the clo
ser he got to meeting Ethan’s expectations, the more Ethan drew away from him. Perhaps it was his own defence mechanism, a coating of ice to shield him from the coming combat. Or perhaps it was that Jack was doing too well in bringing Ten to life in the tight confines of the car.

  Once Ethan was satisfied with Jack’s Ten impersonation, the interior of the car got very quiet. Just the hum of the noisy old tyres over the road and the clattering of the out-of-tune engine. Jack kept pouring over the satellite images of the house where Ten had supposedly taken Jäger to meet with the Cabal bosses. A wall, some guards and piles of vegetation. Jack had been required to get into more fortified places before, and undoubtedly so had Ethan, but he didn’t believe people of the calibre they were dealing with would trust to so few security measures. Whatever else was in place was something he and Ethan would have to discover on their own, taking days or weeks they couldn’t afford. Which was why they’d gone with this desperate subterfuge.

  It was after midnight before they reached Canacona in southern Goa, where their target was situated. They had found a paper map at the same time as the make-up and Jack directed Ethan towards the southern end of the region and into a forested area, the road slowly rising towards the peak in the distance. Even though they knew the house was there, they could see no sign of lights to pinpoint it, probably camouflaged by the surrounding trees. Ethan switched off the headlights and navigated by his heightened night vision alone.

  The road up to the house wound around the hill, a continuous curve that held potential threats every couple of hundred meters. Jack found himself tensing unconsciously, his USP in hand, ready to spring up with a second’s notice. The further they went, the slower Ethan got. At oh dark hundred, the road was deserted.

  As they reached the final side road—more an extended driveway to a property nestled on the slope below them—Ethan pulled onto it and then off into the trees and parked their stolen car.

  “They’ll most likely have passive surveillance from here on,” he said. “Any car on the road ahead should be one they’re expecting.”

  “And any car they’re not expecting is one they can prepare for.” Jack kept up his Ten voice, committing to it so he didn’t slip up.

  “Exactly. Wait here. I’ll see what options we have.”

  Ethan was out of the car and melting into the night shadows before Jack could wish him luck. His man didn’t need luck, but that didn’t mean Jack couldn’t hope it upon him.

  Jack got out and stretched. He’d been sitting for hours on end and while their plan should circumvent the need to fight his way into the house there was no guarantee of that. From his small kit, he slid knives into his boots, into the back of his pants, and hung one around his neck under his clothes. The shoulder harness for the USP went on under his leather jacket.

  A soft night breeze eddied through the trees, bringing a faint hint of salt from the Arabian Sea. He breathed it in deep, using it to convince himself this wasn’t Jharkhand. This wasn’t a secret SAS mission doomed from the start by a lack of intelligence and the willingness of one man to sacrifice the soldiers under his command. No. It was a secret Office mission potentially doomed from the start by a lack of intelligence and one man willing to sacrifice himself for what he thought was the right reasons.

  But Jack trusted Ethan more than he had trusted his COs. Didn’t he?

  The hurt of Ethan’s disappearance from their life was still there. One of those knives they were all made of, poised to thrust or slice at the least little provocation. It hovered close now that Ethan was out of his sight. What was to stop the crazy bastard from simply hiking up the hill on his own, leaving Jack behind again, to confront his personal demons alone? He’d already proven his penchant for self-sacrifice with Two, and then with this reckless hunt.

  “Christ.” Jack spun around, ready to go after Ethan, stealth be damned.

  A low rumble caught his attention and Jack slid back into the deeper darkness amongst the trees. Seconds later a slow-moving car came up the side road, headlights off. It was an Audi of some species. Sports wagon, silver, and rather generic, but probably more in line with whatever Ten might drive than the beat up old Nissen.

  Ethan pulled up, left the car in idle and got out. Feeling a little bad for doubting Ethan’s word, Jack met him between the two vehicles.

  “No one was home,” Ethan reported. “I believe it’s a holiday house and this is probably the car left here for the staff to use.”

  Jack wasn’t hard up by any means. He had a well-paying job, often received bonuses and danger money, and didn’t have family other than his father in a nursing home to support. He did, however, live in Sydney. The idea of leaving an Audi for staff to use was foreign to him.

  “Leave me about fifteen minutes to get into position.” Ethan adjusted his weapons and stretched his arms and legs. “Once inside, I’ll do my best to meet you around the back of the house, but don’t wait for me if you can’t. Our priority is getting in and—”

  Jack cut him off with a kiss. It was brief and chaste because the last thing he wanted was Ethan to get pissy with him for mussing the make-up. But it was enough that Ethan was silent when he pulled back, staring at him with wide, white eyes and slightly parted lips.

  “Seemed like the easiest way to shut you up.” Jack smiled and patted Ethan’s chest. Finding what he needed, he pulled out the sunglasses and slipped them on. The night became so much darker Ethan was just a blob amongst the inky black shadows. Without contacts to make his dark eyes white, however, it was the only option. “I know the plan. I won’t forget it in fifteen minutes.”

  That rogue corner of Ethan’s mouth turned up and he reached out to push the glasses up onto Jack’s head. “Perhaps only put them on just before you reach the gate. I would hate for you to crash the car before we even get inside the wall.”

  “I don’t crash every car I drive you know.”

  “I know. Just a large percentage of them.”

  God. Jack had missed this. So fucking much. The urge to plead with Ethan to forget this risky plan, to forget his need for revenge, rose so fast and sharp it took Jack’s breath away. He wanted to drag Ethan out of this country that had hurt him so much, before it had a chance to hurt Ethan as much, if not more, and go home with him. Jack didn’t care if they lived in his Leichhardt apartment or the Bathurst penthouse, or a ramshackle stable in an abandoned homestead in the middle of the desert—so long as they were together and not facing an unknown enemy in an unknown stronghold.

  But that would be the quickest way to lose him. No one, not even his beloved dad, had been able to stop Jack from doing what he could to get payback for what had happened to his mum. It had been something Jack had to do. Couldn’t imagine his life going forward without making the terrorists who’d killed his mother understand just what they’d taken from him. Nothing dad or Meera had said had broken through his grief and guilt. So how could he expect any different from Ethan?

  “Be safe,” he whispered.

  The smile Ethan gave him was sad and serious. “I will. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Jack managed a wounded “who-me?” expression, then got into the Audi as Ethan melted into the trees. It was hard waiting the fifteen minutes, and just because Jack apparently liked torturing himself, he waited a couple extra to give Ethan a bit more time to get up the hillside. Then he started the car and eased out onto the main road. Headlights on, he wound around the hill, all the tension from before intensified by his imminent arrival at the gates to Balakrishnan’s property. He needed a smoke or three. The pre-combat nausea was right on cue, curdling in his belly.

  Then he came around a final curve and the road straightened out into a direct line to the solid steel gates.

  “Holy fuck.” It would take more than a grenade launcher to get through that barrier. A few rounds from an M1A1’s smoothbore gun to reduce structural integrity, then the tank itself ramming the gates might just do the job. Sans heavy artillery and a tank, all Jack had was the
plan.

  Dropping the sunglasses over his eyes, Jack cruised up to the gates, coming to a stop next to the guardhouse. Two Indian men with the bearing of soldiers emerged and approached the car. Jack hit the button to wind down his window and, remembering Ethan’s lessons on how his brother moved, slowly and deliberately turned to face the guards.

  One visibly stiffened and held back when he saw Jack, hand hovering close to the butt of his holstered gun. The other didn’t notice and rested his hand on the car roof over the open window.

  “Sorry, sir, but this is private property. You’re going to have to leave,” he said in Hindi.

  “No. I’m not.” Jack spoke in Hindi, which Ethan assured him Ten knew. The flat tone got him a double-take from the guard. “You will open the gate before I call Balakrishnan and inform him that I cured you of your stupidity.” He made sure to put no threat on the words. It was simple fact, according to Ten.

  “Mahesh.” The second guard came forwards. “That’s him. You know, the one who . . .” He trailed off as Jack turned his gaze on him.

  Mahesh’s eyes widened and he snatched his hand back from the car. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t recognise the car.” Recovering quickly, he added in a firmer voice, “We will have to check the vehicle before you go in.”

  This was something Jack and Ethan had planned for, so he nodded curtly and faced forward again, patiently waiting for them to do their job. The two guards hurriedly gave the Audi a thorough check, including opening the boot and poking around in it, feeling under the seats, looking under the bonnet and, with a camera on an extension pole, ensured there were no “extras” hitching a ride on the undercarriage. With the car cleared, one of them stepped into the guardhouse and opened the gate while the other covered the area around them with his rifle. Anyone trying to make a dash from the trees through the gate wouldn’t get far.

  Slowly, Jack eased the car through the opening and into the lion’s den.

  It had been tight, but Ethan had made it up the hillside to the wall in time to be in place when Jack arrived in the car. The run had left him a little winded—three months constantly hunting and killing had taken its toll—but he had a chance to catch his breath while the guards confirmed Jack’s identity and checked the car over. They even obligingly gave him half a minute to dash from the tree cover to the car and roll under it. He’d just hauled himself off the ground when it rolled into the combat zone.