Something to Die For

by Will Jordan

  The next item was equally familiar. A Glock-17 automatic pistol, set within a foam-lined protective box. A box of 9mm shells and two spare magazines were packed beside it.

  Money and a weapon were standard items in boxes like these, allowing the recipient easy access to the two most effective means of escaping trouble – fighting or bribery.

  But it was the smallest item that interested him most. A USB memory stick, presumably containing data that she wanted him to see. It also explained why the laptop had been provided. Whatever was on that memory stick, it was why they were really here.

  ‘What could be on it?’ Jessica asked as he carefully removed it.

  His attention turned towards the laptop. ‘Let’s find out.’

  Inserting it into one of the spare ports, Drake waited while the machine accessed its contents. Moments later, a single video file became available. Clicking on it, Drake took a seat beside his sister and waited.

  After a few seconds of blackness, the screen changed and he found himself staring at the face of his mother. Seeing her alive and well again brought a sudden chill to him. A message from beyond the grave, as it were.

  He heard a sharp intake of breath by his side. He might have grown estranged from Freya over the years, but Jessica had remained close with her, unaware of the secrets she harboured. She’d felt loss and grief at her death. Drake just felt empty and cheated.

  He pushed those thoughts aside as he scrutinised the video for important details. Judging by Freya’s age and general appearance, this video had been made shortly before her death.

  The background was also immediately familiar, since he had a plain view of the very same wood-panelled walls from where he was sitting.

  ‘Ryan,’ she began, and once more he felt a chill at the sound of her voice. ‘If you’re watching this, it means you understood my message.’ She paused before adding, ‘It also means that I’m dead.’

  She said this without regret or emotion. It was a simple, matter-of-fact statement.

  ‘I imagine you have a lot of questions for me. I’ll do what I can to answer them truthfully now.’

  Drake felt a hand, warm and soft, laid on top of his. His sister, preparing herself for what was coming, needing to feel his presence.

  ‘And the truth, in my case, begins with a lie. My life, my career, almost everything you and your sister were told about me since childhood, was all a lie. I wasn’t a journalist or a writer. I was an intelligence officer working for MI6, recruited not long after I finished university. I went on to serve as a field agent for six years.’ She sighed. ‘I suppose I was exactly the kind of person they were looking for – young, attractive, intelligent and… in my own way, eager for adventure. I became very good at what I did.’

  Drake said nothing as he listened to this. Given her connection to the Circle, it wasn’t surprising that other aspects of her life were shrouded in deception. But to hear her actually say it in such stark, precise terms was still a disconcerting experience.

  ‘I couldn’t tell anyone close to me, of course. Not even your father.’ At this, Drake saw a flicker of genuine regret. ‘Looking back on it, I should have realised a job like that doesn’t leave much space for a marriage. I was trying to live in two different worlds, and I never could bridge the gap between them. That was my failure, not his.’

  Drake found himself struggling to reconcile this ageing, regretful, apologetic woman on the screen with his own memories of a cold, distant, dismissive mother who always seemed to be somewhere else, always had something more important to do, always left early and came home late, if at all. Who always made him feel like an annoying hindrance, an inconvenience to be tolerated.

  Suddenly he was seeing that woman in a very different light. He saw the forces that had been at work behind the scenes in her life, like a shadow looming over everything she did. How could you be expected to make decisions that could shatter or even end lives one day, and take your kids to the playpark without a care in the world the next?

  As Drake knew from experience, few people found a way to reconcile those two vastly different worlds into one life.

  ‘I won’t pretend that I was always a good person, or that things always worked out for the best. You know as well as I do that our world doesn’t operate like that. But I did the job because I believed in it. I believed I could do good with my life. Something meaningful.’

  Her expression changed then, her mood darkening.

  ‘Everything changed when I was assigned to head up an operation in Northern Ireland in 1983, working to infiltrate an IRA cell. An SAS officer named Faulkner lost his nerve and blew the operation, and two of our best assets were executed as a result.’

  Drake felt himself tense up at the mention of that name. He knew David Faulkner all too well, just as he knew first-hand how dangerous and unstable the former SAS officer could be. Drake had shed no tears when the man had been killed a few years ago in Libya.

  ‘Most of the blame fell on me.’ A faint shrug of resignation. ‘I was a senior intelligence officer, and a woman. There weren’t many of us back then, and there were plenty who resented me for it. Plenty who wanted to see me take a fall. Well, they got their wish. I was reprimanded and demoted to a desk job. It was… made very clear that my career in the intelligence service wouldn’t be going much further.

  ‘That’s when I was approached by a representative of a… new organisation – a joint effort between intelligence and military officers from many different countries, operating above and beyond the constraints of their own governments. An organisation that wasn’t subject to the whims of politicians or changing government priorities. They were intended to be something different, something more powerful and permanent. And they wanted me to be a part of it. They had no name at the time, but they’ve been given lots of them over the years. You would know them best as the Circle.’

  Indeed he did. And Drake wasn’t surprised by the insidious manner in which they had recruited Freya, picking a talented intelligence officer whose career had been effectively derailed, and offering her a way out. A chance to restart an otherwise wasted life. The opportunity to make a difference again.

  ‘I’d like to tell you that I saw him for what he was, that my loyalty wasn’t for sale, but I can’t. I’ve told enough lies already. The truth is… I accepted his offer,’ his mother acknowledged, raising her chin a little as she said it. ‘I did it because I wanted my life to mean something again, and I did it willingly. I agreed to work for the Circle.’

  Drake leaned forward. As much as he’d been listening intently to every word, he sensed that what she’d said so far was merely setting the stage. It was what was about to come next that represented her real message.

  ‘I had spent most of my career up to that point recruiting foreign assets. You could say I had a talent for reading people, understanding what they wanted and feared, and using that against them. The Circle recognised that too, and I was brought in to help recruit others to our cause – intelligence operatives, military officers, even diplomats and government officials. I became very good at bringing people in line.’

  Another pause. Drake held his breath, waiting for what was coming.

  ‘That’s when a young CIA case officer came to our attention. A man named Marcus Cain.’

  Chapter 19

  The trio of black SUVs rocketed down the busy London street towards their target, blue lights flashing and engines roaring as the drivers leaned hard on the gas. Traffic parted before them like a river, with many vehicles forced to swerve and mount the kerb as they sped past.

  Hawkins was unconcerned by the chaos in their wake. His mind was firmly fixed on the task ahead. He was under no illusions that it would be easy, for the man they were hunting was both dangerous and resourceful, but he was determined to make it happen.

  ‘What’s the status on the rapid response team?’

  His communications specialist was hunched over a laptop, bracing himself as their driver swerved to
avoid a bus. His radio earpiece was buzzing almost non-stop as various agencies and field teams worked to coordinate their efforts.

  ‘They’re en route now, ETA is just under ten minutes. Local police have alerted all officers in the vicinity. They’re vectoring in now.’

  ‘Have them keep their distance and form a perimeter,’ Hawkins ordered. ‘Drake spots uniformed PD, he’ll bug out.’

  ‘Copy that.’

  ‘What do we know about the target building?’ he asked next, eager to obtain every scrap of information he could. House assaults like this were normally planned days or even weeks in advance, giving them all the time in the world to learn every facet of the building they were assaulting.

  ‘Two-storey town house, built at the turn of the century. Solid brick walls, access from the front and rear. No records of renovations or construction work.’

  There wouldn’t be, of course. Vaults were constructed under conditions of absolute secrecy, often requiring years of patient labour before they went active. Their strength lay in their anonymity rather than the physical security measures protecting them, though they, too, were often formidable.

  ‘We need all entrances and exits locked down,’ he instructed. ‘Nobody leaves that area without us knowing.’

  ‘GCHQ are all over it,’ his comms expert confirmed. ‘They’re monitoring all surveillance feeds. If he tries to leave, we’ll know.’

  ‘What about air cover?’

  ‘The Brits are vectoring in a police chopper as we speak, and the field teams have got unmanned drones that they can deploy.’

  Hawkins held on tight as the driver cut in front of a van and stomped on the accelerator, ignoring the horn blasts in their wake. An idea had already come to him.

  ‘Bring up the blueprints of any adjacent properties,’ he instructed. ‘Find me one with a basement.’

  Chapter 20

  Brother and sister sat silent and enraptured as their mother, her expression calm and her voice composed, laid out the details of her life.

  ‘Marcus Cain had been a rising star in the CIA’s Special Activities Division, but his career had fallen apart after a failed rescue operation in Afghanistan. The Circle could see the potential in him, though, and so could I. I recruited him, we saw to it that his career was restored and he rose quickly through the ranks. He was intelligent, highly motivated and ambitious. The kind of man the Circle had always found it easy to manipulate.’

  She paused before going on, and Drake heard a faint exhalation. She was about to deliver bad news.

  ‘The truth, though, is that he wasn’t the one they really wanted. Cain was useful in his own way, but it was his asset that had the real potential. A woman Cain had almost thrown away his entire career for. A woman named Anya.’

  Drake stiffened up as the name issued forth, the world seeming to slow down around him as he listened intently.

  ‘She was a soldier unlike anything we’d seen before. She had no vanity or ambitions to exploit, she wouldn’t be manipulated or coerced like so many others had been. The only person she would listen to was Marcus. He was the key to controlling her, and I was the key to controlling him. And when we got them working for us, it didn’t take long for them to prove themselves.’

  East Berlin, German Democratic Republic – October 25th, 1989

  Otto Fischer took another drag on his cigarette, the tobacco glowing and hissing, then exhaled a cloud of grey smoke. The car’s wipers swiped rhythmically at the rain as he drove home through the late-night streets of East Berlin, the heating vents blasting out warm air to ward off the late October chill.

  The car itself was new: a recent delivery fresh off the assembly line. One of the advantages of his rank and position. Driving it always made him feel good, especially when he passed an old woman trudging along the sidewalk in a tatty-looking coat, hunched down against the rain and cold. People of her generation were no strangers to hardship and defeat, but not Fischer. He was part of a new breed of Germans; a younger generation unencumbered by the shame and failures of the past.

  But he had another reason to feel good tonight.

  He felt a hand, warm and soft, laid on his thigh, and glanced at the pretty young blonde beside him. He saw the shy, almost girlish smile, the shining attraction in her blue eyes, and felt his pulse quicken at the thought of spending the night with her.

  He’d met her at one of the beer halls he drifted into after a particularly long work day, soothing his worries with a few drinks. Then he’d spotted a tall, attractive young woman with a demure smile and eyes that kept catching his.

  Emboldened by the liquor in his blood, it hadn’t taken him long to approach and strike up a conversation, learning that her name was Annika, she was Lithuanian by birth, and she’d come to East Germany to study medicine. She was supposed to have met one of her fellow students for drinks that evening but, much to her disappointment, he hadn’t shown up.

  His loss, Fischer thought with a grin.

  A few drinks later, and her shyness had given way to a lively personality, an infectious laugh and a radiant smile that was enough to attract the attention of more than a few men nearby, some of whom were already out with their supposed sweethearts.

  Fischer knew well enough how easy it was to capture the imagination of young and impressionable women like Annika, especially ones from rural backwaters like the Baltic states. Country girls, used to the coarse talk and fumbling advances of men who had never travelled beyond their own province.

  Soon enough they were on the way back to his apartment. Fischer was looking forward to fucking the pretty blonde who so many others had watched with envious eyes, just as he enjoyed driving in the warmth of his car while others endured the cold.

  ‘Are we close?’ she asked, an edge of breathless excitement and nervousness in her voice. She wasn’t used to doing this sort of thing.

  ‘We’re close,’ he assured her.

  Her hand strayed a little higher up his leg. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing it.’

  Fischer’s apartment block was an elaborately styled building of Prussian design, rebuilt and renovated after the war, instead of the cheap concrete slabs that had been hastily thrown up everywhere else. A place reserved for men of consequence.

  Parking on the street nearby, he led her inside, the two of them running hand-in-hand to escape the rain. In moments they were in the elevator, heading up to the top floor.

  ‘I’ve never seen a place like this,’ she said, visibly impressed. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘One of the advantages of my job,’ Fischer replied vaguely, his hand travelling down her back to squeeze her buttocks as the doors pinged open. ‘Come, I’ll show you the rest.’

  Unlocking the door to his spacious apartment, whose windows permitted views across the Wall into the brightly lit West Berlin cityscape, he led the young woman inside, eager to be alone with her.

  ‘Take your coat off and I’ll—’

  His sentence was cut short by a grunt of pain as something hard slammed between his shoulder blades, followed by a sharp kick to the back of his knee that buckled his leg. He went down, falling to his knees on the solid wood floor, his mind a whirl of confusion and pain and growing anger as he realised that Annika had attacked him.

  ‘You bitch!’ he growled as he spun to face her, fumbling inside his jacket for the Makarov service pistol he kept there. But even as he whipped the weapon out and turned it on her, he found his gun hand seized in a frighteningly strong grip that twisted his wrist back on itself.

  Muscles and tendons screaming in sudden protest, his grip slackened and the gun was torn from his grasp. He saw something swing around towards him, felt a flash of light and an explosion of pain, and then blacked out.

  When he awoke later, he was lying on his side on his bed, hands and feet bound painfully tight behind his back. A few experimental movements confirmed that his bonds were both strong and securely fastened. Something had been rammed into his mouth and secured with tape, prev
enting him from emitting anything beyond a muffled groan.

  His heart rate soared, a sheen of sweat dampening his skin as his eyes flicked back and forth, unable to see much in the gloom. He heard the click of a light switch, and blinked as Annika walked into view.

  Only this was a very different Annika from the shy, demure student he’d met at the bar earlier. This woman was hard and cold, her merciless gaze fixed on him as she sat down on the edge of the bed, watching him in silence for a few moments.

  ‘You’re wondering if I’m going to kill you,’ she began matter-of-factly. ‘Well, don’t worry, Otto. No matter what happens tonight, I’m not.’

  Fischer flinched as she reached into her pocket and drew out a small but wickedly sharp-looking knife, holding it up so that he had a good view of the blade.

  ‘What I’m going to do instead is sever your spinal cord between the fourth and fifth vertebrae, leaving the major arteries untouched. You’ll still be able to breathe and speak, but that’s all you’ll be able to do from this point onward. You’ll be permanently paralysed from the neck down, you’ll need people to feed and wash and look after every aspect of your life. Oh, and going by past experiences, you’ll probably soil yourself. But that is something you’ll certainly have to get used to.’

  Fischer saw a sudden terrifying image of his future playing out before his eyes. A future of dirty hospitals, disinterested nurses, pitiful visits from his former friends and comrades. Bedsores and infections. Shitting and pissing into plastic bags.

  He shouted into the gag then, trying to plead for mercy as she leaned in towards him, rolling him over onto his front despite his frantic attempts to buck and kick.

  ‘At least it will be relatively painless,’ she said, pressing the blade into his neck.

  Fischer let out a tortured howl of terror and impotent fury that emerged only as a pitiful moan, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his fists so hard that it hurt, waiting for the sudden numbness as the blade severed his nerve endings and rendered him a prisoner in his own body.