by Will Jordan
Just once.
‘Eyes front.’
She didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge the command.
A sharp elbow to the ribs was enough to remind her who was in charge, and she turned to glare at the guard beside her. He was overweight, perspiring visibly in the hot air. She could taste the stink of his sweat.
‘I said eyes front, convict,’ he repeated, spitting out each word. ‘You got a goddamn problem with that?’
Her hands slowly curled into fists as she stared back at him in silent hatred, wishing with all her heart that the cuffs and chains holding her back would slip away. Just a few seconds would be enough. Enough to strike upward, palm open, catching the base of his nose, driving it upward into his skull. Enough to shut the fat prick up forever.
It would be worth any beating she had to take. Worth anything they might do to her. After all, what did she have to lose now?
She saw him reach for the taser holstered at his waist, saw him thumb back the retaining strap holding it in place, and readied herself for the pain that was coming.
But it didn’t come. Something else did.
A violent, thunderous boom resounded outside, sending a shiver through the chassis around them. Debris ricocheted off the truck’s armoured exterior.
‘What the fuck?’ her guard yelled, looking around in fright.
She was pitched sideways as their driver threw the wheel over, trying wildly to evade whatever obstacle lay in their path, but another loud thud accompanied by the crash of a reinforced windshield giving way told her his efforts had been in vain.
‘Oh shit! We’ve been hit!’ the other guard screamed as their truck slewed sideways, the road disappeared beneath them and they rolled over.
The next few seconds were filled with terrifying, painful chaos as the truck pitched over and tumbled down an embankment, its reinforced chassis all that kept it from buckling entirely. The three human passengers were hurled against the walls and floor and roof with bruising force as their world turned upside down.
When at last the stricken vehicle rolled to a halt, she was lying on what had once been the wall. Heart pounding against her chest, body bruised and aching, she opened her eyes, looked around and moved her limbs experimentally. Nothing seemed to be broken.
The truck’s engine had stopped, but the dim internal lights were still flickering uncertainly. Something was dripping down her cheek. She thought it might be blood, but the acrid smell told her otherwise. It was gas from the punctured fuel tank.
Her survival instinct kicked in. She was alive, the truck was crippled and at risk of burning up. Anything beyond that was irrelevant. What mattered was what she did right now. She had to get clear before it ignited, perhaps make a break for it.
Wild, unfettered, irrational hope rushed through her like a raging torrent.
She heard a low, pitiful groan beside her, saw a fleshy face smeared with blood and contorted in pain, and lashed out viciously with both shackled feet, knocking the guard unconscious. She wished she had more time to appreciate the visceral satisfaction of that, but survival was the priority now. Scrambling over to him, she felt around his belt kit for his set of keys.
The other guard was lying sprawled near the rear doors, his head bent at an unnatural angle. A broken neck, instantly fatal. Maybe he’d been a good man. Maybe he had a wife who loved him, children who would mourn his passing.
Maybe. But she certainly wouldn’t.
Her search was interrupted by a sudden thump against the doors. She froze, straining to listen, hearing movement outside. Footsteps moving quickly through undergrowth. Another thump.
She returned to the guard’s belt kit, unlatching his set of keys and getting to work on her restraints. Another noise outside as the handcuffs clicked, and fell away. She attacked her leg irons with eager, frantic haste.
She heard a faint click as the lock was disabled, and yanked the metal links off her ankles. But no sooner had she freed herself than the interior reverberated with what sounded like the boom of a shotgun discharge. An explosive breaching device, planted on the doors. She flattened herself against the floor as the lower door collapsed outward and harsh, blinding sunlight streamed in.
Eyes watering in the stinging cordite smoke, she watched as the other door was hauled open, revealing a lone figure silhouetted against the searing light outside. A figure clutching a weapon. She tensed up, wondering if this was it. Wondering if this was how she would finally die.
Maybe it wasn’t so bad, given the alternative. As far as the world was concerned, she’d been dead for a long time anyway.
‘Go on, then,’ she spat, straightening up, staring defiantly at her executor. Ready to take what was coming. ‘Do it! I’m not afraid of you.’
‘Good,’ a hauntingly familiar voice replied. ‘Because I need your help, Samantha.’
Samantha McKnight gasped in disbelief, unable to comprehend how the person standing there could possibly have found her. Or why they would risk their life to free her.
‘Well?’ Anya prompted. ‘Are you coming?’
* * *
‘Anya saved my life, when everyone else had given up on me,’ McKnight said, her tone one of distant sadness.
‘Why you?’
She looked at him then, her expression one of grief and longing. ‘Redemption.’
Drake couldn’t begin to understand Anya’s reasoning. They had given up on McKnight for a reason – she had betrayed the team, cost them their chance at bringing down Cain. If she expected redemption from him, she was looking in the wrong place.
‘She never gave up on you,’ McKnight went on. ‘No matter what happened, she wanted me to keep you safe. I’ve been shadowing you ever since London.’
Suddenly Drake was reminded of that night just after crossing the border, when he’d stood outside the motel and stared off into the darkness. That feeling of being watched. It hadn’t just been some erroneous intuition, then. It had been real. McKnight had been tailing them, unseen and unheard.
‘I don’t expect you to forgive me, but—’
‘Never mind that,’ he cut in. Their past would have to wait. There were bigger issues at play now. ‘Why did you interfere tonight? Why are you protecting Cain?’
‘I’m not. I want that son of a bitch dead as much as you.’ McKnight pointed down to the bridge below. ‘But that wasn’t Marcus Cain. It was a trap.’
Drake shook his head vehemently. ‘Bullshit. We tracked his cell phone.’
It wasn’t possible, he told himself. They had covered every eventuality tonight. The confirmation ceremony, the contact with Starke, the motorcade route, the cell phone hack. Everything told them Cain was here.
‘His cell phone, but not him,’ she countered. ‘Don’t you understand, Ryan? The motorcade was a lie, just like everything else. He knew you were coming to kill him, when you’d make your move, and he was ready. Just like he always is.’
Drake’s mind was racing as he replayed the events that had led him here. The attempted abduction of his sister, the raid on the Vault, the near miss as they crossed the Mexican border. Cain had tracked his movements across the world, guessed his intentions, and set the perfect trap to draw him in.
And he’d fallen for it.
‘How do you know all this?’
‘Because I’ve tried to play Cain’s game myself,’ she said, and he caught the flash of pain and anger. ‘It’s a game you don’t win.’
Her expression told its own story, but it was one that would have to wait for now. ‘Anya sent you to watch over me. Which means she couldn’t,’ he reasoned. ‘So where is she?’
McKnight glanced away, torn about what to do.
Tossing aside her empty weapon, he drew the Smith & Wesson automatic hidden inside his jacket and turned it on her. Her gun might have been unloaded, but his wasn’t.
‘You might be telling the truth about Cain, or you might not,’ he reluctantly conceded. ‘But don’t think for one second I’ll hesitate to put
you down if you hold back now.’
McKnight tensed as he thumbed back the hammer.
‘Where is Anya?’
Chapter 54
Golyanovo District, Moscow – March 10th, 2003
Standing in the midst of that lonely, abandoned construction site, with a chill night wind sighing through crumbling concrete and only an old enemy for company, Marcus Cain waited for Viktor Surovsky to state his demands.
‘Let me tell you what I know. I know that you had an American-trained special forces team operating illegally against Soviet forces in Afghanistan fifteen years ago, and that many of my countrymen died as a result.’
‘Mr Surovsky, even if I—’
The Russian waved a bony hand dismissively. ‘Do not waste your breath. I care nothing for them. Young men die – there will always be more of them.’
Cain fell silent, struck by the man’s callous disregard for human life. Even amongst the hardened echelons of the Agency, the deaths of one’s own servicemen were still mourned.
‘But what I do care about is the team itself. Specifically the woman who served with them,’ Surovsky went on. ‘A woman answering to the codename Maras.’
The chill that ran through him had nothing to do with the cold. This man knew all about Task Force Black, formed to wage a guerrilla war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The group that had helped win the war, ultimately hastening the downfall of the USSR.
But more importantly, Surovsky knew about Anya.
‘Your reaction tells me I’m not wrong,’ the old man remarked shrewdly. ‘I know she and her team are still active. They have been a thorn in my side for a long time. One that I wish to see removed.’
‘Suppose you’re right,’ Cain said. ‘Why now?’
Surovsky took another drink from his flask, shuddering a little as the liquid settled on a troubled stomach. An ulcer perhaps, or some other complaint common in men of his generation. Hard men, who lived harder.
‘I have plans for my career in the FSB,’ he explained cryptically. ‘Plans that will soon make me more… visible.’
Cain took his meaning well enough. Viktor Surovsky, who had dropped off the map since the end of the Cold War, was planning a major power play.
‘But a man does not rise to that level by leaving loose ends untied. And Maras is a loose end I have been meaning to tie off for some time now.’
At last Cain understood why Surovsky wanted her so badly. Anya had been an asset of the KGB once, back in the dark days of the Cold War. Sent to the West to infiltrate the CIA, only to turn her back on her former masters. Even worse, she had gone on to wage a brutal and very effective war against them.
Anya had been the KGB’s biggest failure, and doubtless there were plenty of men in Moscow who still wanted her dead. One of whom was standing before him.
Surovsky straightened up, having said his piece. ‘That is my price, Mr Cain. Give me Maras, and I will give you Hussein. It is a good trade, I think.’
Even Cain, a man for whom very little was surprising, had to take several seconds to compose himself. Task Force Black was still one of his best deep strike assets, particularly now, with the War on Terror in full swing. And aside from their military value, they were real people who had served him faithfully for decades.
More importantly, how could he possibly sacrifice Anya? How could he betray her, giving her up to this brutal, vengeful man? Her death at his hands would be neither quick nor painless.
‘You ask a lot of me.’
‘And I offer a lot in return,’ Surovsky reminded him. ‘Think on it – the man who helped take down the dictator of Iraq, prevented a war, saved thousands of lives. You would be a hero in your country, and heroes get rewarded.’ He shrugged. ‘In a position of greater power, you could do even greater good. Isn’t that what it always comes down to in the end – the greater good?’
Cain looked away for a moment, utterly torn. Anya and the others had carried out countless missions for him, done everything that was asked of them and demanded little in return. Could he really abandon them to this Russian bent on revenge? Could he live with himself afterward?
But balanced against the lives of a dozen operatives were the thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, that would die in the coming war. Not just American soldiers, but Iraqi civilians. Women and children, whose only crime was being born in the wrong place.
Could such cold and pragmatic arithmetic really condone what he was being asked to do? As far as justifications went, it was pretty poor, but for Marcus Cain, standing in that cold wasteland that night, perhaps it was enough.
Washington DC – May 1st, 2011
‘Welcome to Meridian, Mr Cain,’ the receptionist said, smiling in greeting as Cain ascended the stairs into the building’s plush main foyer. ‘It’s a pleasure to have you with us.’
Cain had to commend his contact’s sense of nostalgia. The name on the door might have changed, the artwork and furniture might have been updated to reflect changing fashions, but this was still the same place he’d stepped into twenty years earlier.
It had been called L’infini back then, and the woman who had once summoned him was long dead, but here he was. Preparing for another meeting.
‘It’s good to be here,’ he replied, striding confidently across the marble floor.
The hesitation and self-consciousness that had gnawed at him back then was gone now. He was no longer an uncertain young man taking his first steps into a new world. Now he was something very different.
His journey here from Langley in a plain, anonymous car without escort or protection had passed without incident, just as he’d known it would. Drake’s attention would be focussed on the official motorcade making its way towards Capitol Hill, allowing Cain to go about his real business tonight.
‘I presume my associate knows I’m here?’
The woman nodded. ‘He does, sir.’ She indicated the arched doorway leading into the club’s main room. ‘If you’ll follow me, he’s waiting for you.’
‘Lead the way.’
Cain followed as the young woman conducted him through to the expansive, high-ceilinged dining area, which was about half full. The steady hum of conversation accompanied by the clink of glasses and cutlery echoed off the marble pillars and the grand vaulted roof overhead.
Unlike last time, when his arrival had gone largely unnoticed, he sensed eyes on him now, conversation faltering a little as he passed each table. He wasn’t just some anonymous DC worker this time. He was a man of standing and power, well known both in Washington and elsewhere. A man whose arrival was always remarked upon.
In turn, Cain’s eyes swept the room, seeking out his contact, wondering which table would be his. The leader, the peak of the vast pyramid that Cain had slowly but surely climbed over twenty years.
Turning right, the young woman led him to a table in the centre of the room. A table at which a lone diner sat waiting for him, glass of wine in hand and a half-eaten meal before him. A man whose appearance here almost caused Cain to laugh out loud, struck by the absurd irony of this moment.
‘Mr Cain to meet with you, sir,’ the woman said, excusing herself.
Dabbing his mouth with a napkin, the man rose to his feet and smiled in greeting, amused by the look of astonishment on Cain’s face.
‘Marcus, good to see you again. It’s been a long time.’
Pakistani Airspace
Hanging onto his restraining harness as the Black Hawk yawed hard to port, following the tortuous contours of the mountain valley, the SEAL team leader could do little more than trust to the skill and competence of the two pilots as they wrestled with the heavily laden aircraft.
The Chinooks and close assault aircraft had parted company with them about ten minutes earlier, peeling away to land and remain on standby. They were on their own now.
Outside the dimly lit interior, he could see only darkness. They could be ten feet off the ground or ten thousand for all he knew. The other Black Hawk could be
right in front of them, or a thousand yards behind. What he did know was that they were pushing the chopper’s twin turbo-fan engines to the limits of their performance. Speed and concealment were everything now as they strove to reach their target before they were detected.
The Pakistanis didn’t know a thing about this mission, and might attempt to shoot them down if they were discovered. Stealthy or not, a pair of Black Hawks laden with troops and equipment would be easy prey for a surface to air missile.
These grim thoughts were interrupted as his headset crackled into life.
‘Viper One, Actual. This is Eagle. What’s your status?’
‘This is Viper One Actual. We’re ten minutes out. All elements are green. Good to go. Repeat, good to go.’
‘Copy that, Viper One.’
Ten minutes, the team leader thought to himself. Ten minutes until they made history.
Washington DC
For a few seconds, Cain said and did nothing. He just stared at the man standing opposite, taking in every detail of his appearance. A man he hadn’t seen in almost two decades.
He had certainly changed a good deal since their last meeting. The thinning brown hair was mostly gone now, leaving just a few close-cropped, silvery strands around the sides. The skin around his face was sagging noticeably, the cheeks hollow, the forehead lined and creased, the eyes framed by a pair of expensive glasses. He was also considerably less trim around the midsection now.
And yet he was unmistakably the same man who had conducted him to his first meeting in this club in the summer of 1989. James; Freya’s loyal assistant and bodyguard. The man willing to follow her every order without question. This man was the head of the Circle. The summit of the pyramid. The most powerful and dangerous man on the face of the earth.
The realisation was as fascinating as it was incongruous.
‘What’s the matter?’ James asked, smirking. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
