Something to Die For

by Will Jordan

  ‘Dan, you got a minute?’ Kennedy asked.

  ‘Can it wait?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Sighing, Franklin gestured to the chair opposite. Closing the door behind him, Kennedy approached and sat down. And, typical of the straight-talking Shepherd operative, he wasted no time.

  ‘I don’t like this.’

  ‘What’s to like?’ Franklin countered. ‘Cain’s dead, the intelligence world’s losing its collective mind, and the people behind it have vanished into the wind.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ Kennedy went on. ‘Who’s really responsible for this?’

  ‘I haven’t slept in thirty hours, Chris. If you’ve got something to say, just say it.’

  Kennedy leaned forward. ‘Look, I’ve been trying to pull security footage of Cain’s murder. Churches are like every public building – they’ve got surveillance systems. But every camera was turned off, every database wiped.’

  ‘So they covered their tracks,’ Franklin acknowledged. ‘Both of them are professional operatives. They know what they’re doing.’

  ‘Which means we’ve got nothing except Starke’s word that they’re the real killers.’ He clenched his jaw, clearly not relishing what he was about to say. ‘It doesn’t sit well with me. Cain dies with no evidence about what happened, and within the hour Starke’s right here, pressed and dressed, telling us exactly how it went down. Like he was ready for it.’

  ‘You’re suggesting Richard Starke had Cain murdered, and blamed it on the others?’ Franklin asked him. ‘Why the hell would he do that? He doesn’t stand to gain anything from the man’s death.’

  ‘I don’t know. But I’m telling you there’s something more going on here. Starke knows more than he’s telling us,’ the man pressed. ‘And if they find Drake and take him down before he has a chance to tell his side, then we’ll never know.’

  Franklin looked at him. ‘What exactly do you want from me?’

  ‘If we get a lead, send my team after him. Give us a chance to bring him in alive, instead of handing him over to Starke.’

  ‘You mean go behind his back?’

  The Shepherd team leader shrugged. ‘Call it what you want. But I’d rather give the man a chance. He deserves that much, at least.’

  Havana, Cuba

  ‘No fucking way,’ Frost said, shaking her head. ‘Forget it, I won’t do it.’

  Returning to the apartment with Alex Yates in tow, Drake had related everything the young man had told him about his final meeting, concluding by announcing his decision to travel to Lithuania and intercept Anya.

  ‘I can’t make you do anything,’ Drake acknowledged. ‘I came to tell you what I’m going to do. Whether you come with me is up to you.’

  ‘And if you do find her?’ Jessica asked. ‘What then? What is she to you now – a friend, or an enemy?’

  ‘I wish I knew,’ Drake admitted. ‘I won’t know for sure until I see her.’

  ‘Goddamn it, haven’t you had enough? Both of you?’ she asked, looking accusingly at each man. ‘Haven’t we lost enough already?’

  ‘She needs our help,’ Alex stated.

  ‘Fuck off, Alex,’ Dietrich growled. ‘We needed her help in DC, and guess what? She wasn’t there for us. Why should we be there for her now?’

  ‘Anya warned you about the ambush at the garage,’ Alex said, then turned his attention to Jessica, who was standing by with her arms folded. ‘She’s also the one who sent Samantha to rescue you in the UK, and get you out of that subway tunnel. Neither of you would be alive if it wasn’t for—’

  ‘Spare me the Monday morning quarterback routine,’ Frost snapped. ‘You’re not one of us, Alex. You don’t know jack shit about McKnight or what she did, and you sure as hell don’t know what happened at that garage. Maybe if your little warning hadn’t been a day late and a dollar short, Mitchell would still be alive.’

  That was enough for Alex. Hurling his chair aside, he leapt to his feet and would likely have swung for her if Drake hadn’t intervened, forcibly holding him back.

  ‘Fucking say that again!’ Alex shouted, his face colouring with rage as he tried to break free. Even Frost seemed taken aback by his outburst. ‘Say it, I dare you!’

  Mitchell had saved his life in Istanbul years earlier. He had, in fact, known her before any of the others had even met her. None of them had felt her death as keenly as he.

  ‘That’s enough, both of you!’ Drake commanded, jabbing a finger at Frost. Turning his attention to Alex, he leaned in close, his voice low and faintly threatening. ‘Take a breath and back off. We’re not doing this here, yeah?’

  Exhaling, Alex reluctantly nodded and turned away to compose himself. Leaving the young man to cool off, Drake turned to face the others.

  ‘Whether we like it or not, Anya’s the only ally we have left. We need her,’ he reminded them. ‘I’m going, alone if I have to. Like I said, I can’t make anyone else do this.’

  ‘When are you leaving?’ Dietrich asked.

  ‘As soon as I can get transport arranged.’ Drake sighed and looked at each of them in turn. ‘Think it through, but don’t take long. If Alex is right, we don’t have much time.’

  Chapter 67

  Lithuania

  It had been thirty-four years since Anya had set foot in this place – fully two-thirds of her life. She couldn’t rightly say why she had avoided it for so long. Certainly there had been plenty of opportunities to come back over the years, especially once the Cold War ended and the country regained its independence. And yet she had never once returned.

  Perhaps she hadn’t wanted to be reminded of the life she’d left behind. A simple, innocent, contented life, full of promise and potential and dreams of the future that might be. The kind that might someday have yielded a family, children, a home of her own.

  A life she was destined never to have.

  So much time had passed, so many tumultuous events had drastically reshaped her future, that this land and the carefree childhood tied to it had long since faded into a half-forgotten past that she thought of simply as Before.

  Before the agonising loss of her parents. Before the KGB and the CIA and their endless struggle for supremacy. Before the Circle and their webs of deceit. Before Cain and his betrayals. Before she started on her path to the person she was now.

  So deeply had Anya buried this place that she’d actually struggled to find her way here today, taking wrong turns down unfamiliar roads she’d once known intimately, walking in a daze through forested glades that stirred only the shadow of memories, the vague sense that they had once been familiar.

  But in the early hours of morning, with the sun just creeping over the horizon, she’d made it, finally arriving at the entrance to the winding, unpaved road, long since overgrown and unused. That was when she felt it. The rush of familiarity, of memories long forgotten, of a life once lived.

  She was lost in a haze of wistful emotion as she silently compared her present surroundings to the place she used to know. She remembered driving this way in her father’s car, the bump and jolt as the suspension rattled over potholes, the faint smell of petrol and oil and old leather.

  To her right, the ground sloped gently downhill towards a lake a couple of hundred yards away. She could still see the rocky outcrop where she used to jump in as a child, emerging from the cold water laughing and gasping for breath.

  To her left was the high ground that dominated the area, the slopes heavily wooded but the hilltop itself bereft of cover. That was where she’d sit on the grass, read books and stare out across the wild, empty landscape, daydreaming of the far-off places and adventures that awaited her.

  The pine and spruce trees that grew there were bigger now, their soaring branches reaching high into the morning sky. Or maybe the rest of the landscape felt smaller somehow, closer together.

  Straight ahead, maybe fifty yards further on, stood the building that she’d once called home.

  There wasn’t much left
now. Decades of neglect had seen the roof sag noticeably, many of the tiles missing. The windows and doors were gone, looters having long since carried off anything of value. It was a shell now, slowly rotting and decaying away.

  But it had once been something very different. Just like her.

  Anya turned off the remains of the road and into the long grass beyond, now surging with new spring growth. Discarding her heavy pack, she lowered herself to her knees, allowing the green stalks to sway gently around her in the breeze. There was something deeply calming in it, watching the wind shimmer and flow through the sea of grass.

  A moment of peace in a lifetime of war.

  Reaching out, she allowed her hands to brush the blades of grass, feeling the movement, the life within. It had rained during the night. The grass was still damp, leaving her fingertips coated with moisture.

  As she had done so many times before, Anya gently wiped her hands across her face, the cool water refreshing and reinvigorating her, clearing her thoughts and focussing her mind. Closing her eyes, she inhaled, tasting the scent of wildflowers coming into bloom, damp earth and moss and wet leaves. The living world around her, which had survived and thrived long before she had walked the earth, and would continue long after she’d ceased to be.

  It occurred to her then that the only times in her life when she’d felt truly comfortable had been in places like this, far away from cities and noise and people. Places that reminded her of Before.

  The sun was coming up now, peeking over the distant mountains off to the east, rising into a perfect blue sky. She could feel its warming rays on her face, driving off the early morning chill. The dawn of a new day, perhaps her last.

  Anya smiled faintly as she opened her eyes, knowing she was ready for it. Perhaps it was fitting that it ended here, where it had begun so long ago.

  With that thought lingering in her mind, she reached for the cell phone in her pocket.

  * * *

  Drake was preparing to leave the apartment in Havana, on his way to meet with the man who could arrange transport for them, when he felt his cell phone buzzing in his pocket. He frowned, instantly on guard. The only people in the world who knew this number were in the room with him.

  The others sensed it too, and waited expectantly as he took the call.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Ryan,’ Anya said, her voice soft, quiet, tinged with sadness.

  Drake closed his eyes, doing his best to compose himself. He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed the sound of her voice until this moment, hadn’t allowed himself to admit it. But here she was, speaking with him now.

  Realising the opportunity that had just presented itself, Drake looked over at Frost and snapped his fingers. Straight away she set to work, running a trace on the call.

  ‘Keep her talking,’ she mouthed.

  Turning away, Drake moved towards the balcony overlooking the Havana waterfront.

  ‘Anya. Where are you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘Yes, it does,’ Drake promised her. ‘We can help you.’

  ‘No, Ryan. No more.’ There was an air of finality in her voice when she said this. A sad acceptance of something she’d always known. ‘I don’t want you to come for me. That’s not why I called.’

  Opening the door, Drake stepped out onto the balcony. ‘So what do you want?’

  ‘To say that… I’m sorry. For everything. I took something you can never get back. And I wish…’ She sighed, searching for the right words. ‘I wish things had not been this way. I wish we had met in a different life.’

  Drake swallowed and nodded, feeling like a weight had lifted from him. The weight of guilt and remorse he’d carried since learning the truth of his own past.

  ‘I’m tired, Ryan,’ Anya said, her voice betraying just how much of a toll this life had taken. ‘Tired of running, tired of fighting… tired of losing. I just want it to be over. And I think that soon, it will be.’

  Taking his eyes off the moonlit bay stretching before him, Drake turned his gaze upward, taking in the great dark sweep of the night sky.

  ‘Don’t do it,’ he said suddenly, putting forth everything in a last-ditch plea. ‘Whatever you’re planning, whatever you’ve got in mind, don’t do it. Please.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because…’ Drake let out a breath, holding nothing back now. ‘Because I don’t want you to die. Not now, not for this. Don’t let it end this way.’

  The woman was silent. And as the seconds stretched out, Drake began to wonder if his words had struck a chord. For a moment, he allowed himself to hope she would change her mind.

  ‘Do you remember what I told you once?’ she finally said. ‘I would rather die for something, than live for nothing. Some things are worth dying for.’

  Drake gripped the rusted balcony railing tight as the woman spoke. She wouldn’t be swayed. Her mind was made up, her fate decided.

  ‘I know what I have to do now, and… I’m not afraid. Not anymore.’

  ‘Anya…’

  ‘Goodbye, Ryan. Live a good life.’

  As the line went dead, Drake released his white-knuckle grip on the railing and swept back into the apartment.

  ‘Tell me you found her.’

  Frost, glancing up from her laptop, nodded confirmation. ‘I’ve got her.’

  NSA Headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland

  Deep within the huge, monolithic black building that was the NSA headquarters, Richard Starke stood with his arms folded, waiting expectantly while technicians worked to decrypt the phone call they’d intercepted. They were backed up by networks of supercomputers running the most sophisticated codebreaking software humanity had ever produced. This one building contained more computing power than NASA, the FBI and the CIA combined, and all of it was under his command.

  ‘Well?’ he prompted as the senior analyst scanned the results.

  ‘We’ve got her,’ the young man confirmed. ‘GPS tracking is locked in. The call originated in Lithuania.’

  Starke smiled, amused that Anya should have succumbed to nostalgia. ‘Son of a bitch. She’s going home.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Never mind,’ he amended. ‘Get a full surveillance package on this. Aerial and satellite. I want to see every move she makes.’

  ‘We’re on it, sir.’

  Turning away, Starke fished out his cell phone and put through a call to a man who, he knew, was eagerly waiting for news.

  ‘Get your team ready, Jason. It’s time.’

  Havana, Cuba

  Less than an hour after his call to Anya, Drake arrived at a small private airfield on the outskirts of the city, with Alex in tow. Little more than a single dusty runway and a cluster of support buildings overlooked by a decrepit air control tower, no commercial flights would go near it.

  It was perfect for the man he was here to meet.

  ‘This had better be good, Drake,’ Cesar Rojas warned, descending from the Gulfstream 500 executive jet with the same cat-like grace as always. ‘And by good, I mean well paid.’

  Cesar Rojas was a former CIA assassin who had retired years previously, using his lucrative earnings to invest in more ‘questionable’ businesses. Anya had recruited him in Rio de Janeiro several months earlier.

  He had parted company with the team after events in Afghanistan, going his own way. But true to form, the man had landed on his feet, quickly establishing a new business for himself in Cuba. Well-groomed and impeccably dressed, he looked more like a movie star returning from vacation than an assassin-turned-drug smuggler.

  Drake, however, was less interested in the man’s unsavoury business ventures than in the private jet he used to conduct them.

  ‘Fifty thousand dollars,’ Drake said. ‘Deposited in your account once we land. Good enough?’

  The money left to him by his mother had proven very useful indeed. Much as he was loath to waste it lining the pockets of a man like Rojas, there was little choice if he hoped
to get to Anya in time.

  He was under no illusions that their call would have gone unnoticed. Starke, with the unlimited resources now under his command, would certainly be gathering his forces to crush her. But in doing so, he just might leave himself vulnerable.

  Rojas grinned, always happy to relieve a man of cash. ‘Fair enough. Care to tell me what this is about?’

  ‘Anya’s in trouble. Every intelligence agency on earth wants her dead. We’re going to stop them,’ Drake stated simply.

  ‘I see,’ the man said, raising an eyebrow. ‘How many men do you have?’

  ‘Just us,’ Alex answered.

  Rojas threw back his head and laughed. ‘One hired gun and a computer nerd?’

  ‘Geek, actually,’ the young man put in.

  Ignoring him, Rojas took a step closer and lowered his voice. ‘Look, Drake, I will be honest. I like you. In fact, I’d love to have a man like you working for me,’ he added. ‘So let me give you some advice – take your money, go home, sit this one out. No good will come of it.’

  ‘I’ve got enough regrets to live with already. This won’t be one of them,’ Drake said, staring the former assassin down. ‘If I have to go alone, I will.’

  He had already parted company with the others, recognising he could ask no more of them. Jessica would stay with Frost until he was able to reunite with them. If not, he had left his sister enough money to make a fresh start under a new identity.

  It wasn’t much, but it was the best he could give her now.

  Rojas was about to respond when his gaze suddenly flicked over Drake’s shoulder. Catching his look, Drake spun around and watched as a car pulled up. One of the old, brightly painted but decrepit taxis that plied their trade here, usually ferrying tourists around the impoverished island.

  But it was no tourist who stepped out.

  ‘You didn’t think we’d trust you assholes to handle this alone, did you?’ Frost said, hoisting a rucksack over her shoulder and striding towards them. She glanced up at the jet parked nearby. ‘They better have snacks on this flight.’