Something to Die For

by Will Jordan

  Not one of them was brave enough to speak up.

  Nodding, Hawkins looked at the nearest man. ‘Order our strike team to move in now. Kill everyone except Drake. I want him alive.’

  * * *

  ‘Shit!’ Frost gasped, turning to the others. ‘We’re blown.’

  Mitchell, realising the urgency of the situation, didn’t stop to question it for an instant. Turning away, she reached for the makeshift weapon bench and snatched up an MP5 submachine gun.

  Frost, meanwhile, triggered a fast-delete program on her terminal, wiping all trace of what they’d been doing here.

  ‘Jessica, get to the rear office and wait for me there,’ she said, her voice low, urgent, frightened. ‘Hurry.’

  No sooner had she spoken than the lights flickered out. Barely a second later the building reverberated with a sudden, violent explosion from outside. All three women dropped to the floor as the doors were blown off their hinges by carefully placed breaching charges.

  ‘Get down! Cover your ears!’ Frost shouted as a trio of stun grenades were hurled in through the gaping hole.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, Jessica clapped her hands over her ears just as the grenades detonated, the concussive waves rippling through her body and hammering painfully against her skull.

  ‘Move in! Go!’ a voice called out.

  Opening her eyes, she watched as Mitchell upended the steel table she’d been crouched beside just as several figures emerged from the swirling smoke and dust.

  ‘Contact! Contact!’

  The shooting started then, Mitchell angling the MP5 over the edge of the table and spraying a burst at the lead operative, who staggered backwards under the impacts. Reacting to the threat, the others spread out and returned fire, the flashes from their muzzles illuminating the gloom like lightning. Bullets tore into walls and computer monitors all around.

  For a second or so, Jessica froze like an animal caught in the headlights, terrified and mesmerised. For all the dangers she’d encountered, this was the first time she’d witnessed a true gun battle. It was enough to leave her awestruck.

  ‘Jessica, move!’ Frost yelled, skidding to a stop beside her and gripping her arm painfully. ‘Fall back!’

  That was enough to snap her back to reality. She understood Frost’s command, but it made no sense to her.

  ‘Fall back to what? There’s nothing back there.’

  ‘Just go! I’ll be with you soon!’ Rising to her knees, Frost took aim and snapped off several shots from her automatic. ‘Go now!’

  Knowing better than to argue, Jessica leapt up and sprinted towards the small collection of storage rooms and offices at the rear of the building, flinching as several rounds punched through the drywall mere feet away.

  As Drake’s sister retreated, Frost turned towards Mitchell, who had ducked behind cover long enough to insert a fresh clip into her weapon. Another burst rang out from the other side of the room, tearing holes through the metal table.

  ‘We have to fall back!’

  ‘Go! I’ll cover you.’

  Rising up, Mitchell brought the weapon up to her shoulder, sighted her next target and pulled the trigger. But just as she did so, another burst tore through the air, one of them punching through her improvised cover and burying itself in her leg.

  Letting out a cry of pain, Mitchell went down, scrambling to pull herself behind the table as more fire peppered it. Blood was already pumping from the torn flesh, likely a severed artery.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Frost gasped. ‘Hang in there, I’m coming!’

  She tried to rise up, but their enemies already had her position covered and a renewed volley forced her back.

  ‘No!’ Mitchell called out, holding up a bloodied hand. She was trembling as her body started to go into shock, her face pale and tight with pain. But as her eyes met Frost’s, her expression was resolute. Already she’d recognised her hopeless situation, and knew there was only one thing left to do.

  ‘You get out of here,’ she commanded. ‘I’ll give you cover, buy you some time.’

  ‘Fuck that!’ Frost shouted. ‘You’re coming with me.’

  Mitchell glanced down at her injured leg and shook her head. She wouldn’t make it twenty yards in this condition, and she knew it.

  Frost knew it too, as hard as it was. Swallowing, tears stinging her eyes, she uttered her last words to the woman who had become not just a teammate, but a friend.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Nodding, Mitchell readied the weapon and rallied her flagging strength. ‘Go!’ she shouted, forcing herself up on her good leg and opening fire.

  To have hesitated even for a second would have rendered Mitchell’s sacrifice useless. Leaping up, Frost retreated deeper into the building, following the same path Jessica had taken. She didn’t allow herself to look back.

  Behind her, Mitchell emptied the last of her magazine at the nearest operative. Most of the 9mm slugs flattened against his Kevlar armour, but at least one tore into his left arm, taking him out of the fight.

  Her resistance was loud and defiant, but short-lived. As the bolt flew back to expose the empty breech, she sank down behind cover, dropping the smoking, empty gun. The hot surge of adrenaline that had carried her this far was fading. A cold numbness was rising up from her legs, a creeping fatigue clawing at her as her lifeblood seeped away.

  She was dying. She should have felt afraid at that realisation, and yet an odd sensation of calm and equanimity had come over her. She had done what she could, fought to the last, but she could go no further.

  She supposed that, on balance, she’d been living on borrowed time ever since that mission in Istanbul a couple of years ago. Drake and his friends had risked their lives to save hers. It seemed fitting that she was able to return the favour.

  She smiled faintly as a pair of operatives rounded the table, calling out a warning that they’d found one of their targets, and allowed her eyes to close as they raised their weapons.

  * * *

  Drake and Dietrich were speeding towards the scene, all thoughts of maintaining a low profile forgotten now as they raced to reach their friends before it was too late. Maybe it already was, Drake couldn’t help thinking. Maybe they were wasting their time, trying to win a battle that had already been lost.

  ‘Drive faster, mate,’ he said urgently, wrapping a strip of torn shirt around the gash on his arm. The pain was of little concern, but he needed to get the bleeding under control.

  ‘This is as fast as it goes,’ Dietrich warned as they powered through an intersection, jumping a red light and narrowly avoiding a collision with cross-traffic. He glanced at Drake. ‘Ryan, what do you think the two of us can do against a full assault team?’

  Picking up his sidearm, Drake pulled back the slide to check a round was chambered, then checked the suppressor was securely attached.

  ‘Whatever we can.’

  * * *

  Jessica had taken refuge in one of the back rooms that had once contained spare parts and work tools, clutching her automatic in a tight, clammy grip. Her breathing was coming in short, shallow gasps, her heartbeat thundering in her ears, blood rushing through her veins.

  Here, so close to death, her body was now painfully, urgently alive.

  Hearing footsteps outside, she raised the weapon and flicked the safety off, only for Frost to launch herself through the doorway, closely followed by a volley of gunfire that ricocheted off the walls behind.

  ‘Hold your fire!’ she warned.

  Jessica lowered the weapon, glad beyond words to see her comrade. However, the other member of their team was nowhere to be seen. ‘Where’s Mitchell?’

  Frost shook her head solemnly, her expression saying it all.

  ‘Oh, Christ…’

  ‘Mourn her later,’ Frost commanded. ‘Right now, all that matters is getting out of here.’

  ‘How? They’ve got the place surrounded.’

  There were no convenient emergency exits, windows or fire
escapes here. The garage was one sealed unit, with cinderblock walls at the sides and rear. The main doors were the only way in or out.

  ‘There’s another way,’ Frost said, though she didn’t look happy about it. ‘Get down on the ground, open your mouth and cover your ears.’

  ‘What—’

  ‘Just do it!’ Frost snapped.

  Outside, a trio of assault operatives advanced down the short corridor, weapons up and ready, laser sights piercing the air that was now heavy with smoke.

  ‘One tango down,’ the team leader spoke into his radio. ‘Moving up.’

  ‘There’s no way out. We’ve got them cornered.’

  They could hear noises coming from the last room on the left. Signalling by hand, the team moved up, one of them reaching into his webbing for another stun grenade. There was no talk now. They’d done this enough times to know how it would play out.

  Closing in, the team leader raised his hand and silently counted down.

  Three, two, one…

  * * *

  The concussive rumble of the blast was so loud that Drake and Dietrich heard it from two blocks away. As Dietrich brought the car to a sudden stop, Drake leapt out to take in the scene up ahead. Car alarms, triggered by the blast, filled the night air with their shrill electronic blare, and nearby pedestrians were shouting and glancing around in fright.

  But Drake knew what it meant. He saw the distant plume of smoke rising from the garage. The sight of it was like a hammer blow.

  ‘Frost, come in,’ he said, speaking low and quiet into his comms unit.

  There was no response.

  ‘Mitchell, do you copy?’

  Static hissed in his ear.

  Drake swallowed hard, his heart pounding, the pain of his injuries forgotten now.

  ‘Ryan, we can’t stay here,’ Dietrich warned him, taking in the same grim sight.

  ‘Jess, can you hear me?’ Drake closed his eyes, silently praying to anyone who might be inclined to listen. ‘Please.’

  Again the faint pop and hiss of an empty frequency was the only response.

  ‘Ryan…’

  ‘Wait!’ Drake called out. He’d heard something on the comms net; faint, distorted, almost swallowed up by hissing static, but real. Straining to listen, he repeated his hail. ‘If anyone can hear me, acknowledge.’

  ‘Ryan… you… copy?’ a female voice asked.

  Drake’s heart leapt. The voice was too garbled to discern the identity, but at least one of the team was alive.

  ‘I’ve got you. What’s your situation?’ he asked, forcing calm into his voice.

  * * *

  Beneath their feet, Jessica was hurrying along the edge of the underground metro line, struggling to keep pace with Frost in the near-darkness.

  ‘We’re on the metro line beneath you,’ she explained, her voice echoing in the tunnel. ‘We had to blow our way through to escape.’

  A series of small but powerful shaped charges planted on the floor of the garage had been enough to blow through the concrete shell and collapse it into the tunnel below, allowing the two fugitives to clamber down. It had been an emergency escape route devised by Frost before the mission even began; a last-ditch option in the event they were cornered.

  Her ears were still ringing from the blast, her body bruised from the desperate leap down into the tunnel, her skin and clothes coated with a heavy layer of dust. But she was alive.

  For now at least.

  ‘Do not go back there!’ Frost added, pausing for a second to catch her breath. ‘There’s nothing you can do now.’

  Drake paused, perhaps catching her heavy tone. ‘Sitrep?’

  Jessica heard her pained sigh. ‘Mitchell didn’t make it.’

  ‘I see.’ He said nothing more on the matter. That was a conversation for later. ‘Where… you now?’

  ‘The Green Line, by the looks of it,’ Frost said. ‘We’re heading south. Meet us at Anacostia station.’

  ‘Say again?’

  ‘Anacostia station!’ she repeated.

  ‘Negative… breaking up…’

  ‘Goddamn it!’ she snarled in frustration. ‘Fucking subway tunnels!’

  They would have to make their own way out and try to re-establish contact once they were free of interference. Turning away, Frost was about to resume her journey when Jessica suddenly gripped her arm.

  ‘Wait,’ she whispered. ‘Listen.’

  Frost held still, straining to listen. Slowly she turned to look back the way they’d come, though in the near-darkness it was impossible to make out much. In the absence of visuals, her other senses had become heightened.

  There! The faint scuffle of a boot on the concrete floor of the tunnel, the clink of a weapon shifting position.

  Saying nothing, she gently tugged on Jessica’s arm, pulling the woman down into a crouch beside her. No sooner had they done so than the twin flashes of muzzle flares lit up the tunnel about fifty yards back, red-hot projectiles zipping through the darkness.

  Their pursuers had caught up with them.

  ‘Stay down!’ Frost hissed.

  Raising her weapon, Jessica took rough aim at the nearest flash and pulled the trigger, surprised by how hard the weapon kicked back against her wrist. The sharp crack of the gunshot echoed off the tunnel walls to pound her ears again. She smelled the sharp tang of burned cordite, the acrid smoke stinging her eyes, but she ignored it as she pulled the trigger again.

  Beside her, Frost had added her firepower to the desperate battle. Though better trained and certainly more accurate, she was just as impaired by the lack of visibility. That certainly didn’t stop her trying though. In a matter of seconds she had burned through an entire clip, firing almost blind.

  Ejecting it, she slapped a fresh one into place with the speed and precision of the trained operative she was. Rising to her feet, she advanced towards their enemies.

  ‘We can’t win this!’ Jessica warned her, realising this was more than simple covering fire. Frost wanted this fight. She wanted to vent her rage on the men who had killed Mitchell.

  ‘Go! I’ll cover you!’

  ‘Keira, listen to me!’ Jessica shouted, grabbing her arm and pulling her close. ‘If we don’t make it out, Mitchell died for nothing. We have to go! Now!’

  That harsh recrimination seemed to cut through the fog of her anger. Reluctantly abandoning the fight, Frost turned and followed as Jessica retreated down the tunnel, the sound of their rapid breathing mingling with the rattle of gunfire and the occasional whine as bullets ricocheted off the walls. Up ahead, the tunnel began to brighten as they approached an underground station.

  The two women ran with everything they had, pushing their weary bodies to their limits, but their pursuers were both faster and better armed, and the increasing visibility made them easier targets – three factors which inevitably turned the tide against them.

  A dull, heavy thump accompanied by a startled cry of pain from behind told Jessica that her companion had taken a hit, and she spun around to see Frost fall.

  ‘Keira!’ she called out, rushing to her aid.

  Frost was clutching her shoulder, groaning in pain as she tried to pick herself up. Skidding to a stop beside her, Jessica turned her weapon back down the tunnel, sighted a vague shape moving in the shadows and fired off several rounds in his direction.

  She didn’t know how many were left, but she didn’t imagine it was much. Frost too had almost exhausted her ammunition.

  ‘Get out of here,’ Frost said through gritted teeth. ‘Go, goddamn it!’

  Jessica shook her head. ‘I lost one friend today. I’m not losing another.’

  ‘We’re friends now, huh?’ Frost snorted with bleak humour, remembering the contentious start to their relationship.

  However, the delay had given their pursuers time to catch up, and a renewed burst of gunfire forced them to flatten themselves against the cold concrete of the tunnel floor. They were pinned down, unable to retreat, unable to ho
ld their ground.

  ‘We’ve got them!’ a voice called out. ‘Move up!’

  Jessica looked at the young woman beside her, injured and hurting, but defiant to the end. Was this where they would both die, she wondered? In a stinking subway tunnel?

  She jumped as a new burst of gunfire rang out – not in front of them, but from behind. Thinking their enemies must have cut them off, she tensed up, bracing herself for the inevitable torrent of pain as the bullets tore into them.

  But no such thing happened. Instead she heard a muffled cry from further down the tunnel, accompanied by the heavy thud of a body hitting the ground. Twisting around, Jessica froze at the sight of a woman striding past her, an assault rifle up at her shoulder, her face lit by the flash of each gunshot. Spent shell casings, still red hot, pattered to the ground around them.

  Pausing only for a moment, she glanced down at the two fugitives. ‘Get up now.’

  Jessica knew that voice, even if the face had been hidden last time they’d met. It was the same woman who had rescued her back in the UK. How had she found them again?

  Just as these thoughts were flashing through her mind, Jessica felt a sudden gust of air coming from further down the tunnel. Immediately she recognised the phenomenon from her experience on the London Underground, and knew what it meant.

  ‘Hurry!’ the woman commanded, snapping off more shots, keeping their enemies pinned down.

  Heaving Frost to her feet, Jessica turned and ran just as the tunnel behind them began to grow brighter, suddenly resolving into a pair of headlights, blindingly intense. A subway train, coming right at them.

  Their opponents saw it too, turning towards the light and noise, but too late. The sudden screech of brakes was accompanied by a pair of screams as they took the full force of the speeding train, killing them instantly.

  ‘Fuck!’ Frost shouted, realising they weren’t going to make it. ‘Against the wall, now!’

  Abandoning their retreat, all three women leapt over the tracks and flattened themselves against the sloping wall as a DC Metro train rocketed past mere feet away, a blur of bright yellow light and blue sparks from the conducting rail. Wind howled past them, mingling with the screeching brakes into a deafening cacophony. The subway train continued on for another fifty yards or so before coming to a shuddering halt.