by Will Jordan
His colleague, a sergeant and the most senior officer on site, had the honour of calling it in. ‘Unit Six here, we’ve got negative contact. Repeat, negative contact.’
‘Confirm that, Six,’ Command demanded. ‘You should be right on top of him.’
‘Confirmed. He’s not here.’
Somehow, through some means that none of them could comprehend, their prey had slipped through the trap. It would be some time before they discovered the source of his deception, by which point Drake and his sister would be long gone.
Chapter 24
Five minutes earlier
As the BMW roared down the Rotherhithe Tunnel deep beneath the River Thames, the temperature gauge was at redline and wisps of steam were trailing from beneath the hood. Drake could feel overheated components grinding against each other, the engine’s steady rumble turning to a shuddering, rasping growl.
It didn’t matter now. The car had gotten them as far as it needed to. Waiting until he was at the tunnel midpoint, Drake glanced over at his sister.
‘You ready?’
Jessica nodded, bracing herself.
Drake jumped on the brakes, bringing the BMW to a screeching, shuddering halt amidst a cloud of steam and tyre smoke. The driver of the white Vauxhall Corsa tailing behind reacted instinctively, braking hard and leaning aggressively on his horn as he came to a stop just yards from the ailing BMW.
Opening his door, Drake leapt out and strode over to the Corsa’s driver, who opened his window to yell at him.
‘Oi! What you playing at, you prick?’ the overweight thirty-something driver shouted. ‘Almost ran into the back of you!’
Ignoring him, Drake drew his weapon and shoved it in the man’s shocked face. ‘Out of the car. Now.’
People can react in a variety of ways to situations like this, sometimes with disastrous results, but most of the time they simply freeze up, paralysed by fear and disbelief. Drake used that moment of shock to his advantage, grabbing the driver by his T-shirt and hauling him out.
‘Don’t kill me! Please!’ the man stammered, cowering against the tunnel wall.
‘Fuck off,’ Drake replied, leaping into the driver’s seat and slamming the door shut. Jessica was waiting for him.
Saying nothing more, Drake threw the car into gear, rounded the crippled BMW and accelerated away.
‘How do you know this is going to work?’ Jessica asked as the road sloped upwards and the tunnel exit drew closer.
‘I don’t,’ he admitted. ‘But it’s all we’ve got.’
‘How reassuring.’
‘No matter what happens, stay close to me. Okay?’
If all else failed, they would ditch the car and make a run for it, hoping to disappear into the hive of back alleys and side streets. He was under no illusions about their chances, but it was better than nothing.
He felt her hand on his arm as they approached the exit, concrete walls rushing past until suddenly the roof above them disappeared, revealing the vast night sky. A sky that looked mercifully clear of aircraft.
‘It worked!’ Jessica gasped, glancing around in amazement.
Drake’s phone started ringing within moments.
‘Good work, Keira. Didn’t doubt you for a second.’
‘You should have,’ Frost replied, her annoyance obvious. ‘That fucker went down to the wire.’
Though the tech specialist was unable to penetrate the formidable cyber defences around GCHQ, she had been able to target the far more vulnerable traffic camera system that was being used to pinpoint their movements. Feeding some dummy license plate hits into the system was enough to convince them that Drake had doubled back while out of visual contact, and was heading north once more.
‘Next time I’ll schedule something in the diary.’
‘Very fucking funny. I suggest you make like the proverbial tree,’ the young woman continued. ‘It won’t take them long to figure out what happened.’
‘Copy that. We’re out of here.’
Frost sighed. ‘I’ll expect a full explanation later, you know.’
‘That could take a while,’ Drake advised. ‘I’ll contact you once we’re clear.’
‘Bet your ass you will.’
As Drake ended the call, Jessica gave her brother a wry smile. ‘Not bad, Ryan.’
‘Save the champagne,’ Drake warned her. ‘We still have to get out of the city.’
Chapter 25
Jerusalem, Israel
Jerusalem’s Old Town is a warren of ancient streets and buildings hemmed in by fortified walls erected millennia earlier to defend against invading armies. The result is a densely compressed ecosystem of houses, shops, restaurants, cafes and hotels quite unlike anywhere else on earth.
In one particular hotel room amongst this urban clutter, a young man sat hunched over his laptop computer, intently watching the decryption program it was busily running.
He was engaged in a fierce and contentious struggle, the course of which could change at any moment. A conflict waged not with swords or guns, but fought across the digital battlefield of cyberspace.
And his opponent tonight was a challenge indeed.
Someone had been surreptitiously probing for him online, sending out digital feelers that would search for his virtual presence, trying to discern his physical location. He’d been tagged somehow – some tiny vestige of a tracking program buried deep within his system registry, hiding far beyond any diagnostic tool or manual search.
At first, he’d been able to swat away these attacks for the petty irritations they were, but his adversary had been growing in both persistence and sophistication, learning from her mistakes and seeking out weaknesses.
And he was quite certain his adversary was female. Keira Frost, the fiery, abrasive young woman whose cockiness was, in his opinion, entirely unwarranted given her limited abilities.
Frustrated by her growing interference, Alex had decided to go on the offensive. Turning the tables against the would-be hunter, he had managed to trace her attacks back to their source, allowing him to deploy his full arsenal of hacking software. Once he’d broken in, he intended to drop a couple of the most destructive viruses available into her system.
It would take weeks before she could come after him again. By which time he’d have finished his work and disappeared, perhaps for good.
A prompt appeared on screen, advising him that the first layer of her firewall had been compromised. He smiled and gulped down the tepid remains of his coffee, waiting for the inevitable breakthrough.
Then something strange happened. A new window popped up in the centre of his screen. An encrypted chat window, with a single sentence.
WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?
To say Alex was surprised would be an understatement. After weeks of surreptitiously hunting for him online, Frost was now reaching out to him directly, as if calling for a truce between two warring armies.
The question was, why?
Was it a genuine attempt to open a dialogue, or a desperate effort to buy herself time? Alex’s fingers hovered over the keyboard as he debated what to do, whether to continue the attack, respond to her query, or break off altogether.
He had specific instructions not to engage with Drake or any member of his team. It was the absolute demand under which he was currently working, and one that he was extremely wary about disobeying. Because one thing his employer didn’t tolerate was insubordination.
But did she have to know? Why was Frost reaching out to him? Was there some news she wanted to impart? Something Alex needed to know?
He was interrupted by a loud knock at the door, jarring him out of his thoughts.
This was a choice he would have to make another time. Hurriedly shutting down the computer, he reached for the Beretta 9mm automatic on the table beside it and checked the chamber, catching the glint of brass in the breech.
Alex could vaguely remember a time when the mere sight of a real firearm would have made him nervous, never mind t
he prospect of using it. That time was long past, and deep down he knew it would never return.
Shoving the weapon down the back of his jeans, he crossed the room and removed the chair he’d wedged against the door.
His heart was beating faster, as it always did at times like these. Every new day was a risk, every knock on the door could be the last. Gripping the weapon, he unlocked the door and allowed it to swing open on the chain.
The woman facing him was tall, standing almost eye-to-eye with him. In her early forties, blonde haired, with Nordic features and sharp, intense blue eyes.
Anya.
‘You alone?’ he asked, unable to see more than a few inches to either side.
‘No.’
Alex relaxed. Had she said yes, it would mean she was under duress. And he’d have been forced to leap from the hotel room window into the branches of a tree below.
Not an option he relished.
He unlocked the door and stepped aside, allowing the woman to enter, feeling the familiar yet contradictory mixture of apprehension and relief that she evoked in him.
When the group had fractured a couple of months earlier, Alex had been faced with a stark choice – stay with Drake and the others, or join with Anya. In the end, it hadn’t been a difficult choice.
Anya had saved his life on more than one occasion, just as he had saved hers, and though it would be optimistic to call her a friend, there was no question as to where Alex’s loyalties lay. Making contact with Anya hadn’t proven difficult. In fact, she had found him. She needed his help one last time.
‘I was starting to wonder if you’d make it back,’ Alex said, relaxing his grip on the weapon. ‘You’re late.’
‘I ran into trouble,’ Anya explained, dumping her pack on the bed.
‘What kind of trouble?’
‘Nothing I couldn’t handle.’
Alex’s eyes widened as she shrugged off her jacket. A bloodied dressing was wrapped around her left shoulder.
‘Jesus, you’re hurt,’ he exclaimed, moving forward to help her.
Anya waved him off. ‘It’s nothing. Just a flesh wound.’
‘Didn’t Shakespeare have something to say about that?’
Anya gave him a sharp look. One thing he’d come to appreciate about her – if she didn’t want a conversation to continue, then it wouldn’t. It was that simple.
‘Fine,’ he conceded unhappily. ‘What about Russo? Did you find him?’
Tracking down Russo’s home address in Tel Aviv hadn’t been easy. Needless to say, men like him were careful to keep such things hidden, but Alex was skilled, motivated and persistent – a potent combination that had eventually yielded results.
‘I did.’
‘And?’
Anya lowered herself onto the bed, letting out a sigh of fatigue. She had changed since the events in Afghanistan, he realised. She looked older now, weary both in body and spirit, as if some vital spark within her had been dampened.
‘He gave me a name,’ she explained, peeling away the dressing. ‘Vizur.’
Alex frowned. ‘Mean anything to you?’
The woman nodded slowly. ‘Vizur Qalat was the ISI agent that Cain met with in Pakistan last year.’
‘When Drake and the others got captured?’
A dark look passed over her at the mention of Drake’s name.
‘The same,’ she confirmed at length. ‘Clearly the two men have a history.’
‘Makes sense, I suppose. But why would a Pakistani agent want to betray you?’
The look of cold determination in her eyes provided all the answer he needed. Alex sensed a trip to Pakistan looming.
‘We will find out when we find Qalat.’
He had no doubt that she would. However, another worrying thought occurred to him.
‘What if Russo tips him off?’
‘Russo won’t be talking to anyone now.’
Alex felt his throat tighten. He’d expected her to put the screws on Russo, rough him up and interrogate him, but it hadn’t really occurred to him what she would do afterward. A man was dead, and he had made it possible.
‘Do you have a problem with that, Alex?’ she asked him bluntly.
‘I didn’t think it would come to that.’
His online forays on Russo had included an inspection of the man’s personal history. Chanan Russo had a daughter, grandchildren. A family who would mourn his death.
‘This is what we do, Alex. This is the world we live in now,’ Anya said, her voice quieter yet somehow harder and more compelling as she took a step towards him. ‘It is a world that doesn’t reward compassion. If you can’t live with that, then you should leave.’
The world we live in, he thought. He had ceased to be some outsider looking in. Now he was up to his neck in this mess with her, blood on his hands and no way out.
Her gaze was penetrating. ‘Are you in or out, Alex?’
There was no getting out of this, he knew. Not until it was over. Alone, he would be hunted down and killed. The only option was to keep moving forward.
‘You know I’m in,’ he said, giving her the truth. That was all Anya would accept.
She held his gaze a moment longer before nodding. ‘Good. Then pack your gear. We leave in twenty minutes.’
Alex blinked, caught off guard. ‘We’re leaving tonight?’
‘It’s not safe in Israel now. We can’t afford to stay any longer.’
Alex didn’t respond. His gaze lingered a moment too long on the laptop, weighing up the message from Frost. A message he had neither replied to, nor mentioned to Anya.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘Hmm? No, not really.’ Then, remembering that Anya was adept at sensing lies, he added, ‘You should know, there’s talk about you online. The Russians have raised the bounty on you.’
Anya sighed and nodded grimly. ‘So I’ve heard. Pack your gear. I’ll be back soon.’
She was just picking up her pack when Alex spoke up again. ‘Tell me one thing. Did he deserve it? Russo, I mean.’
Anya was silent for a time, weighing up the question.
‘We all deserve it, Alex.’
Saying nothing more, she let herself out.
Chapter 26
Amesbury, UK
Located deep in rural Wiltshire in the south-west of England, the small town of Amesbury was a place of thatched roofs, small fields and country lanes flanked by high unkempt hedgerows. A world away from the frantic bustle – not to mention the pervasive threat of surveillance – of central London. More importantly, the area was dotted with British military installations and garrison towns, which saw a frequent turnover of personnel from all corners of the UK.
This was the kind of area where two new arrivals would attract little attention. In short, it was the perfect place to lay low and regroup.
Scouring local hotels, Drake had found one on the edge of town that still had vacancies. Some quick excuses about a broken-down car had been enough to allay any suspicions about the late hour, and before long he and Jessica were ensconced in a cramped, cheaply furnished room on the top floor.
Drake was by the window, staring out across the darkened rural landscape. He couldn’t see it from here, but he knew that somewhere out there in the darkness to the west, amidst the wide grassy expanse of Salisbury Plain, stood the ancient Neolithic monument of Stonehenge.
The nocturnal tranquillity was bisected by a thin ribbon of road in the distance, but otherwise all seemed quiet. There should have been comfort in that, but he found none. The silence felt heavy, the stillness foreboding.
Reaching for the takeaway pizza box beside him, he pulled free a slice that reluctantly parted company from its fellows, and got stuck in.
‘Can’t believe you’re hungry at a time like this,’ Jessica remarked disapprovingly.
He wasn’t, but he knew he needed to eat. One lesson he’d learned in the military was that you took food and rest whenever you could. You never knew when the chance
might come again.
‘Needs must,’ he reminded her. ‘You should eat something too.’
Jessica eyed the greasy conglomeration of meat, bread and cheese, wrinkling her nose in distaste. Instead she held up the miniature of vodka pilfered from the minibar.
‘I’ll stick with this, thanks,’ she said, taking a gulp.
He shrugged. Drinking on an empty stomach wouldn’t do her any favours, but he figured she could use something to take the edge off.
‘How’s the computer coming?’
At Drake’s insistence, they had stopped off at a pawn shop on their way out of London. Situated in one of the arches beneath a railway bridge, the place sold everything from jewellery to cell phones to electric guitars. They took payment in cash, probably because most of their gear was stolen, not that Drake was one to judge. After parting with £200, he’d returned to their car with a well-used but functional laptop.
Jessica had been busy running a factory reset just in case the previous owner had left behind anything that could corrupt the memory stick. They’d also physically removed the laptop’s wireless card to prevent it sending out any signals. It was unlikely, but ops had been compromised by less.
‘Almost ready,’ she announced. ‘Five minutes.’
She sighed and leaned back against the wall, allowing herself to process everything that had happened.
‘None of this feels real,’ she said quietly after a time. ‘I told myself I knew what I was getting into, that I was prepared for it. I’d spent four years preparing for it. But…’
‘It’s a different story when it’s actually happening to you, right?’
His sister smiled bitterly. ‘You always were a smart arse, Ryan.’ The smile soon faded however as she looked at him, trying to work him out. ‘How did you… get past it? Stop being afraid?’
‘I didn’t,’ Drake admitted. ‘I just got good at hiding it.’
Jessica laughed at this. ‘Well, I’ll try to hide it better next time.’
The laptop pinged to notify them its task was complete.
