Something to Die For

by Will Jordan

  ‘How exactly do you know that?’

  No answer.

  ‘You’re Anya, aren’t you?’ she said, taking an educated guess. ‘You’re the one he’s been looking for. You’ve been here this whole time, right under our noses.’

  Again, there was no response. Sensing she wasn’t going to get anything more from her enigmatic companion for the time being, Jessica rubbed her arms and focussed on trying to get warm and dry.

  They carried on at high speed for a good twenty minutes, gradually joining more substantial roads until at last they stopped at a roadside services area. Alongside the usual fuelling stations and 24-hour fast food outlets, Jessica spotted a small chain hotel.

  ‘This is where you get out,’ her companion informed her. Reaching into her jacket, she held out a keycard emblazoned with the hotel’s corporate logo. ‘Go to room twenty-six. You’ll find some money, a phone and a set of clean clothes.’

  Jessica frowned. ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘What about you? Where will you go?’

  ‘Don’t worry about me.’ Jessica thought she detected a forlorn note in her voice.

  Taking the keycard, she looked back at her masked companion. ‘Come with me, Anya,’ she said. ‘If they really are after us, we should stick together.’

  She shook her head. ‘Ryan wouldn’t want to see me.’

  Jessica sighed but nodded, conceding defeat. She was about to leave, but hesitated after opening the door. ‘Look, for what it’s worth… thank you. For what you did. I wish I could repay you.’

  ‘Stay alive. That’s good enough.’ She looked poised to say more, but instead pointed at the hotel. ‘Now go.’

  Chapter 10

  Vienna, Austria – July 19th, 1989

  Cain heard the sounds of cheering and applause long before he reached his destination. Ascending a short flight of steps onto an expansive viewing platform, he paused briefly to take in the dazzling spectacle laid out before him.

  Sunlight flooded into the hall from great windows set into the arched ceiling, the glow of natural light magnified and reflected off pristine white walls inlaid with intricate stone pillars, sculptures and carvings. Ornate crystal chandeliers hung down, though their illumination was hardly required.

  It reminded him of a cathedral, or some grand palace or museum. But it was no such thing. The purpose of this place was evident as he peered over the balustrade.

  Far below, on a hard-packed dirt floor that appeared at odds with the opulent surroundings, a group of five snowy-white horses were being ridden by men in extravagant formal uniforms, performing a series of complex turns and jumps, even rearing up on their hind legs and appearing to ‘walk’. They moved with the rigid precision of soldiers on a parade ground.

  Cain was no equine enthusiast, but even he could appreciate the training and dedication on display: the famous Lipizzaner stallions, widely regarded as the most highly trained horses in the world.

  If nothing else, he had to admire his contact’s flair for the dramatic. But then, that was something he was coming to appreciate about Freya Shaw – she did nothing in half measures.

  ‘Remarkable, aren’t they?’

  Cain didn’t need to look to know that James had slipped in by his side. Freya’s faithful assistant and bodyguard. He was looking down in approval at the display below.

  ‘I’ve always considered them a perfect example.’

  ‘Of what?’ Cain asked.

  ‘The power of obedience.’

  Another ripple of applause travelled through the spectators as one of the stallions reared up and walked backwards, front legs kicking out.

  ‘Depends on your perspective,’ Cain replied without looking at him. ‘You see obedience. I see horses that have been broken.’

  He heard a faint chuckle. ‘To each their own.’

  Cain hadn’t come here to verbally spar with Freya’s lackey. ‘I’ve got places to be. Where is she?’

  ‘Walk with me,’ James said, unconcerned with Cain’s sharp tone.

  He led the way across the wide balcony, conducting Cain to a more secluded section of the viewing gallery. Freya was waiting for him, observing the display below with mild interest. She was dressed more conservatively than she had been at their last meeting, eschewing the evening gown in favour of charcoal grey trousers with a blouse and matching jacket.

  Reaching into his pocket, Cain laid something on the stone baluster beside her. A set of dog tags, still on their chain. Stained with dried blood.

  He saw her eyes flick to the gory trinket, the faint smile at the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Well done, Marcus.’

  ‘Anya did her job, just like you asked,’ Cain replied. Anya, the good soldier, still doing her duty, risking her life for people who neither knew her nor cared about her.

  Indeed, Anya was the whole reason he’d come to Austria. The guard towers and electric fences that had covered the border between Austria and Hungary had recently been dismantled, allowing tourists, refugees and in this case, CIA assassins, to flood across the mostly unguarded border from East to West.

  Anya had returned to the US embassy only yesterday, grim-faced and subdued, bearing the evidence of her successful mission. And Cain had been there to confirm it.

  Turning towards him, Freya’s smile broadened.

  ‘Now that… business is out of the way, I think it’s time you and I talked about the future.’

  ‘Specifically?’

  She nodded towards the exit. ‘You’ll have noticed a lot of East German cars on the roads around Vienna, yes?’

  That was an understatement. Everywhere Cain looked on the drive here, he’d seen the distinctive boxy chassis of Trabants and Ladas, most of them in poor condition. People from all over the Eastern Bloc were surging into Western Europe, fleeing a collapsing regime.

  Cain leaned in closer. ‘What do you want, Freya?’

  ‘The same thing as you – peace in our time. So do the men I work for,’ she explained. ‘The only difference is how we go about it.’

  ‘That difference being?’

  ‘Your friends in the CIA and the Pentagon see only the problems that are presented to them. An invading army to be defeated in Afghanistan, for example. What’s the saying? If all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail?’

  ‘We had a job to do, and we did it,’ he reminded her, in no mood to be lectured.

  ‘Actually, Anya and her unit did it. And they did it exceptionally well.’ There was a faint trace of mockery in her voice when she said this. ‘But as brave as they were, there were limits to what they could accomplish. A country defeated from the outside will only become harder and more determined to rise up again. To truly defeat your enemy, you have to dismantle their will to resist. You have to beat them from the inside.’

  She glanced down at the Lipizzaner stallions, so dutifully performing for the crowd below. Not one of them dared show disobedience; such thoughts had long since been drilled out of them.

  ‘You have to break them.’

  He could see no reason to dispute that assessment. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘The Soviet Union is on the verge of collapse. They’re out of money, out of troops, out of time. The Iron Curtain, the Eastern Bloc… all of it is balanced on a knife edge. One little push at the right time and place is all it would take.’

  Weakened and demoralised by their humiliating retreat from Afghanistan, there was little appetite in the Soviet military for further conflict. Meanwhile, a dire economic situation had been compounded by devastating accidents like the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl. Worst of all, Gorbachev’s policies of Glasnost and Perestroika, intended to ease the growing pressure for political reform, had instead opened the floodgates for even greater demands.

  ‘Imagine it for a second. No more Berlin Wall, no more missiles, no more proxy wars. The world you and I grew up in, the world as it’s been since the Second World War, is going to disappear.
Who do you think is going to shape the new one? Politicians worried about the next election cycle? Intelligence agencies weighed down by endless committees and congressional oversight?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘That’s where we come in. My organisation represents a different way of thinking – one that isn’t caught up in political point scoring or held back by fear and hesitation. Imagine clearly understanding the root cause of a problem and being able to take swift and decisive action to fix it. With nobody standing in your way.’

  None of this was news to Cain, of course. And yet, listening to her speak in that moment, hearing the passion and excitement in her voice as she shared her grand aspirations of reshaping the world, Cain couldn’t help but feel drawn to her. Not just the woman, but what she represented.

  That same fire had once burned in him: the desire to have a real impact on the world, to leave it in a better state than how he’d found it. He saw that opportunity in Freya far more clearly than he ever had with the CIA. She was a gateway to a new world. A world of limitless potential, unbounded by shifting public opinion, wavering politicians or petty tribalistic concerns.

  This woman standing before him seemed to understand that need in a way no one else ever had. Certainly not Carpenter, the career military man who had first drawn Cain into this, now obsessed with enhancing his own prestige, or the increasingly corporate and risk-averse leadership of the CIA.

  Not even Anya, for all her undeniable abilities. He understood more clearly now the fundamental limitation of her world view, her inability to see beyond her own experiences, to embrace the larger and more complex picture. Set against a woman of Freya’s calibre, she seemed painfully young and naïve.

  ‘We have a chance here, Marcus. To make our own history, redraw the map of the world forever. That’s what we are, that’s why we exist. We don’t just want to change this world, we want to remake it into something better.’

  He couldn’t rightly say how she’d done it, but somehow she had cut right to the core of who he was, perfectly articulating everything he wanted his life to mean.

  How could he refuse such an offer?

  ‘All right,’ he finally said. ‘I’m in.’

  Freya’s smile was radiant. Radiant and victorious.

  ‘Then we have a lot of work to do.’

  Washington DC – April 25th, 2011

  The Hart Senate Office Building was a far cry from the neoclassical faux grandeur of many of DC’s better-known government buildings. A stark, square concrete edifice laid down in the 1970s, it was a utilitarian office space designed to be functional rather than decorative.

  It was also the place where Marcus Cain’s political fate would be decided.

  Starke’s prediction a couple of months back had proven to be accurate almost to the minute. Cain had barely returned to his office before he was called by the director of National Intelligence, advising that he had been recommended to the president for promotion to permanent director of the CIA.

  Not long after, the president himself had called to congratulate him on the recommendation, his voice smooth and his words measured and carefully chosen, as they often were. Cain had done his part, agreeing where it was expected, offering assurances where they were required and even laughing at a few jokes where necessary.

  But what was happening now was no laughing matter. As with any directorial appointment, he still had to face several days of interviews by the Select Committee on Intelligence – the governing body of experienced legislators assigned to oversee and approve the work of the US intelligence services. It was the job of this committee to probe and test him, to ask difficult questions of his career, background, political views and even his personal life, ensuring he was fit to hold the office of director. In the end, his appointment was decided by a simple majority vote.

  He had been assured by Starke that enough of the committee was under the Circle’s influence to get him through the confirmation vote, but they didn’t control every single one of them. There was always a chance that a hostile senator would throw him a curve ball. And as Cain had learned from a long career in this political minefield, nothing in DC was ever guaranteed until the votes were cast and counted.

  He was jolted out of these thoughts by the buzz of his cell phone.

  ‘Make it quick, Jason,’ he said as he headed towards the hearing chamber, the building’s massive central atrium on his right. ‘I’m due to appear in ten minutes.’

  ‘Your hunch was right. Drake’s still alive.’

  Cain’s steps faltered. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘We had strong evidence he’d made contact with his sister over the past few weeks, so we sent in a team to interrogate her. They got ambushed while exfilling.’

  ‘Casualties?’

  ‘Some.’ He didn’t sound particularly concerned. ‘A clean-up crew’s already taken care of it. We haven’t been compromised.’

  Cain’s jaw tightened. Starke’s warning about leaving loose ends untied rose unbidden to his mind. And Ryan Drake was a loose end that had troubled him for a long time now. Despite everything thrown at him, the man simply refused to die.

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘We’re working on it.’

  This was the very last thing Cain needed, with his confirmation vote just days away. He couldn’t afford to fail now. Not after everything he’d done to get here.

  ‘I want this finished, Jason,’ he said, speaking slowly and clearly so there could be no doubt or question. ‘Once and for all. Whatever it takes.’

  ‘It could get messy,’ Hawkins warned him. ‘Drake won’t go down without a fight.’

  ‘I said whatever it takes. You don’t come back until it’s done. Do you understand?’

  Hawkins was silent for a second or two. ‘I do.’

  ‘Good. Now get on it.’

  Shutting down the phone, Cain closed his eyes, took a slow breath to focus his mind, then resumed his walk towards the main hearing chamber.

  Chapter 11

  North Wales, UK

  ‘It was Cain. He sent them there,’ Jessica explained, leaning over a chair as Drake applied a dressing to the bloody graze across her shoulder. ‘They were planning to use me to get to you.’

  Finding the room exactly as described, she had used the burner phone to put a call through to her brother, warning him not to go to the house and giving him her location. A couple of hours later, he was with her.

  The first priority had been to clean her up and tend to her injuries. Jessica had discarded her sodden clothing on arrival, showered and changed, though she’d been quietly shocked by the mess when she saw her own reflection.

  ‘Goddamn it,’ Drake said under his breath.

  ‘I should have been more careful,’ she said, filled with self-recrimination. ‘I should have known they’d be keeping tabs on me. I told myself I’d never let something like that happen to me again.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Jess. It’s mine.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Anya,’ he explained. ‘She took out an Israeli Mossad agent yesterday.’

  Jessica frowned. ‘I don’t understand. What does that have to do with me?’

  ‘Killing him was proof that she didn’t die in Afghanistan. And if they know Anya’s alive, it’s a fair bet I am, too. It was only a matter of time until Cain came after you.’ Drake shook his head, knowing they could play the blame game for hours and achieve nothing of value. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  He listened while Jessica related the story of the attack on her house, her desperate escape attempt and subsequent capture.

  ‘They told me they were going to take me away forever. Torture me, kill me…’ Her voice grew strained, ‘That’s when she showed up.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘I never saw her face. But she was waiting for them. She took out their convoy, got me to safety. She’s the only reason I’m not dead or captured.’

  Drake leaned back, stunned by what he was heari
ng. There were other female operatives he knew of, such as Frost or Mitchell, but they were both accounted for. They wouldn’t have come here without notifying him.

  Based on her story, the only logical conclusion he could draw was that Anya had travelled to the UK after taking out that Mossad agent. But if so, why? Was she hoping to make contact with Drake? Or was there another motive at play?

  ‘Did she say where she was going? What she would do next?’

  ‘Nothing. She told me to contact you and stay safe, then she left.’

  Drake was silent as he considered this, his expression dark, his thoughts in turmoil.

  ‘It’s her, isn’t it?’ Jessica asked. ‘Anya.’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I think you do. You’re like magnets, you keep pulling each other back. Maybe she realised it before you did.’

  ‘Let’s focus on what we know for now,’ he said tersely. ‘We know they’re after me. We know they had you under surveillance. And we know they’ll try to follow this up before they lose us again. That means we can’t stay here long.’

  Today’s events proved the manhunt for Drake was back in full force. They knew he was alive, and they knew Jessica had been in contact with him. In the space of a single day, they had both become wanted fugitives again.

  It seemed that Jessica was entertaining similar thoughts.

  ‘I can’t go back there, can I?’

  When Drake didn’t respond, she turned around to look at him. There was a sad, lost look in her bright green eyes.

  ‘My home. My old life. They’ll be hunting for me now, too.’

  ‘We’ll figure this out,’ he promised her, squeezing her hand. ‘But we’ll have to leave the UK for a while. It’s too hot here, and there’s no reason to stay now.’

  Drake’s mind was already racing ahead, considering his options, trying not to acknowledge that they were growing perilously slim. He was running low on resources, allies, places to hide. His world was shrinking, while his enemies were growing stronger and more numerous.