Betrayal

by Will Jordan

  ‘Well, that’s handy because I’ve got no intention of dying.’

  ‘Neither did Keegan,’ Drake remarked sadly, thinking of the teammate they’d lost during their mission in Afghanistan several months earlier. His death had left a raw wound on the team, particularly on Drake and Frost.

  ‘That’s low, Ryan. Bringing him up like that.’ McKnight folded her arms and stared at him, her eyes filled with simmering anger. ‘Anyway, you sure there’s not another reason?’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You want me to draw you a diagram?’ she said accusingly. ‘It means you’ve been ducking me ever since I got to DC. If you’ve got a problem, I want to know about it. Now.’

  Drake looked up at her then. ‘My problem is that I made it personal in Afghanistan, and I got a good man killed.’ He shook his head, willing those memories to subside. ‘Never again. This is my risk to take, not yours.’

  McKnight stood her ground, undaunted by his refusal. ‘Last time I checked, this was an unsanctioned operation. Which means Keira and I aren’t specialists, and you’re not our team leader. So you can’t stop either of us from coming.’

  ‘She’s got a point, Ryan,’ Frost conceded, looking infuriatingly pleased with herself.

  ‘You stay out of this,’ he said, his attention focused on McKnight. Other people might have been unnerved by his penetrating glare, but she didn’t flinch for a moment. No way was she going to back down now.

  For a moment, the tension in the air between them grew until it became almost palpable, each of them pitted against the other, refusing to give an inch. This was more than just an argument about inclusion in one operation and they both knew it. It was the culmination of months of building frustration and mutual distrust, of disappointment and recrimination.

  ‘We’re all involved now, Ryan,’ McKnight said at last, her voice calmer and softer now. She knew him well enough to know she couldn’t force the issue – she had to persuade him. ‘Whether we stay or go, it makes no difference. We’ve all got swords hanging over our heads, but I think we stand a better chance together. Let us help you. And for Christ’s sake, stop punishing yourself for something that wasn’t your fault.’

  Drake glanced from one to the other, still reluctant to involve them and yet aware that he was both outmanoeuvred and outnumbered. She was right and they both knew it. He did need her help. He needed both of them.

  ‘Fine,’ he said at last, practically having to force the word out.

  ‘Fine,’ she repeated, satisfied at having won this victory but still looking far from pleased. He had conceded the argument, but nothing had truly been resolved. ‘I’ll stop off at Langley to pick up my gear.’ Heading for the door, she stopped and turned to look at Drake. ‘One thing I’ll say about you, Ryan. You don’t make things easy. For anyone.’

  With that, she turned and left, closing the front door a little harder than necessary.

  For several seconds, an uncomfortable silence descended on the living room, broken only when Frost rose from the couch. ‘That was awesome,’ she said with a knowing smirk. ‘Let me know when you guys are ready for Round Two.’

  ‘Piss off. If I want advice I’ll watch Jeremy Kyle.’ Seeing her blank look, he added, ‘It’s a Brit thing.’

  She shrugged. ‘So is soccer. Doesn’t mean I give a shit.’

  Drake didn’t have the energy to follow that one up. Anyway, he had more important things to focus on. ‘Listen, can you access security-camera footage from here?’

  She thought about it a moment. ‘I’ve got remote access to the Agency’s network. The download speed will probably be shit, but yeah, I can probably make it work.’ She interlocked her fingers and bent them backwards to crack the knuckles. ‘What do you want this time?’

  ‘I need to know where Anya went after the sniper attack, but I need you to find out without anyone knowing about it. If this Norilsk lead doesn’t pan out, we need a Plan B.’

  ‘Is there a Plan C?’ she asked with a dubious look.

  ‘Not unless you want to knock on Cain’s door and ask for help.’

  ‘I’ll pass.’ Frost looked at him, her usual cocky arrogance fading. ‘Look, you know I have to ask this. Are you sure this is what you want, Ryan? Even if you find Anya, you really think you can stop her?’

  ‘Nobody can stop her,’ Drake admitted. ‘But she trusts me, and she might listen to me. Maybe that’ll be enough.’

  ‘Yeah, good luck with that.’ She sighed and ran a hand through her short black hair, leaving thick strands of it sticking up. ‘Okay, fine. I’ll see what I can dig up.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Rising from the chair, he grabbed his coat, which was still draped over the edge of the couch. ‘Help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge.’

  ‘You know I will. What are you going to do while I’m working my ass off?’

  Drake needed people he could rely on, and enough of them to make a viable investigative team, but he knew he couldn’t approach any of the other Shepherd specialists through the regular channels. Franklin would shut him down before he’d even made his first phone call.

  ‘We need more manpower,’ he decided. ‘I’m going recruiting.’

  ‘Anyone I know?’ Frost asked.

  ‘Yeah. Agent Off.’

  ‘First name Fuck, by any chance?’

  ‘Got it. By the way, sorry for … interrupting you earlier,’ he added.

  For a moment or two, she actually had the good grace to look embarrassed. He didn’t think it was possible to embarrass Keira Frost.

  ‘It’s cool,’ she said, quickly recovering. ‘Anyway, he’s still chained to the bed—’

  ‘I didn’t hear that,’ he called over his shoulder as he made for the door.

  Chapter 14

  Cole Mason grunted, startled out of sleep by the harsh buzz of his cellphone. He blinked a few times, his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness around him as his mind snapped awake. In his profession, one learned to sleep light and wake quickly.

  The phone carried on ringing and vibrating, moving an inch or so across the hard table surface with each surge. With his head starting to pound as a hangover kicked in, he reached over and snatched it up.

  ‘Yeah?’ he mumbled, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. His throat was dry as sandpaper, and it was reflected in his voice.

  ‘Cole, it’s Ryan.’

  If the fact that Drake had called at such an early hour wasn’t enough to rouse him, the urgency in his friend’s voice was more than enough to convince him something was up.

  Mason frowned, torn between curiosity and lingering resentment towards the man who had only yesterday killed any hopes he had of resuming his career. ‘So what’s on your mind?’

  ‘How’s the shoulder?’

  ‘It works,’ Mason replied, managing to keep from groaning in pain as he sat up and pain blazed outwards from the old injury. ‘Why?’

  He reached for the plastic bottle of painkillers on his bedside table and emptied a couple into his hand. These weren’t the kind you could buy over the counter at the local supermarket, but they did the trick. For a long moment he stared at them in the half-light filtering in through the window blinds. Then, with a resigned sigh, he popped them in his mouth and swallowed.

  ‘I might have work for you, if you’re up for it.’

  ‘What do you mean, work? You refused to reinstate me. Or have you forgotten? Because I remember it pretty clearly, Ryan.’

  Even after half a bottle of Scotch.

  He could almost hear Drake wincing at his stinging rebuke. ‘It’s complicated,’ Drake said tersely. ‘I’d rather talk about it in person.’

  Mason hesitated, unsure what to do. The fact that Drake wasn’t willing to discuss the matter over the phone suggested this was some kind of unofficial job, which immediately started alarm bells ringing. He wanted to return to active duty the right way, not taking on shitty unsanctioned work that might land him in jail, or a coffin.

  And
yet, surveying the cheap, cramped, low-rent apartment that was all he could afford on the half pay he’d been forced to subsist on since his injury, he knew one thing for sure – he couldn’t carry on living like this.

  ‘Okay, let’s talk,’ he allowed at last. ‘Where are you?’

  His response came a moment later with a knock at the front door.

  ‘You’ve got to be shitting me,’ Mason said, killing the phone and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He quickly pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt before heading out to greet the unexpected visitor.

  Drake was waiting for him in the hallway as he unlatched the door, his coat glistening with rainwater and his hair damp.

  ‘A little presumptuous, don’t you think?’ Mason asked, irked by his arrival.

  Drake shrugged. ‘What I have to say isn’t a conversation for an open line. Anyway, I assumed you’d at least hear me out. You’re not that much of an arsehole.’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ Mason remarked, though reluctantly he moved aside to let Drake pass. ‘Lucky for you I’m in a forgiving mood.’

  He’d showered and shaved since the last time they’d met, but there was a drawn and haggard look about Drake that spoke of a long and sleepless night. It gave Mason a faint sense of satisfaction to know that all was not well in the other man’s life either.

  Drake surveyed the dingy apartment, his expression making it obvious how little he thought of it. And for a moment his eyes rested on the bottle of Scotch on the cheap coffee table in the centre of the room. The top was still undone, and the pungent smell permeated the whole apartment. Then again, it was probably leaking from Mason’s pores as well.

  ‘You came all this way to talk to me,’ Mason said, easing himself on to the threadbare couch. He made no move to offer Drake a seat. ‘Well, let’s talk.’

  Drake exhaled slowly, marshalling his thoughts for what was clearly going to be a long and difficult explanation. ‘It’s about Anya,’ he began at last.

  For the next ten minutes, Mason listened in silence as Drake did his best to outline everything that had happened since they’d parted company yesterday. The anonymous text message requesting to meet, the shots fired from the apartment block, the encounter with Anya and the desperate race to recover Demochev before finding him brutally tortured, and finally the trail that seemed to be leading them deep into Russia.

  ‘That’s what we’ve got so far,’ Drake concluded. ‘The next step is to approach Miranova and see if she’ll cooperate.’

  Mason was stunned by everything he’d heard. Never had he imagined the depth of the conflict Drake had become caught up in, or the lengths to which he was willing to go for the woman who had started it.

  ‘So let me see if I’ve got this straight,’ he said, rising from the couch. ‘Your plan is to rock up to the front door of the Russian embassy, ring the bell and say, “Hey, remember me?” Then, assuming they even let you speak to this … Miranova, and assuming she’s dumb enough to agree to help you, you’re going to hightail it to some shitty town in the middle of Siberia on the remote chance that you can find the guys who supplied the explosives to blow up that storage locker. Then, assuming you find them, and assuming they know anything that’s worth a damn, you’re going to use them to track down Anya, make contact with her and get her to stop what she’s doing, all under the very noses of the FSB?’

  Drake shrugged. ‘Like I said, I don’t expect it to be easy.’

  ‘It’s a clusterfuck just waiting to happen,’ Mason cut in. ‘If the FSB find out you knew who was behind the sniper attack the whole time, they will kill you, Ryan. There won’t be any trial or prison sentence for you – you’ll disappear for good. That’s assuming Anya doesn’t kill you first, of course.’

  ‘She won’t,’ Drake said, with a confidence that seemed entirely unwarranted. ‘I’m about the closest thing she has left to a friend.’

  ‘That’s beautiful, Ryan,’ Mason said with unveiled sarcasm. ‘You’re going to die for your friend.’

  Drake looked at him, his eyes hardened with resolve. ‘I’ve made it this far without getting killed – I’ve got no intention of starting now. And as for the rest, finding people is what I do. I know I can get her.’

  Mason folded his arms, leaning back in his seat as he eyed Drake critically. ‘And say you do somehow manage to track her down. What then? What’s your endgame?’

  ‘I get her to stop what she’s doing before she makes things even worse. At the very least, I can find out why she’s doing this.’

  Mason wasn’t convinced. ‘And it never crossed your mind that she doesn’t need or want your help?’

  At this, he saw the stern resolve waver just a little, saw the long-buried pain that his words had drawn to the surface. ‘Anya’s a fighter,’ Drake said at last. ‘She’s been betrayed all her life, broken down, forced into a corner … and she’ll fight back any way she can. It’s all she knows. It’s the only thing that’s kept her alive all this time. But now … it’s the thing that’s going to get her killed. I can’t explain it, but I know it. I have to find her, Cole. And I’m asking for your help. I can’t make you do it, but I came here because you’re one of the few people I still trust.’

  Mason sighed, torn between admiration and pity. If Drake was hoping to appeal to his sense of duty and loyalty, it was misplaced. ‘If I agree to this – and Christ knows there are plenty of reasons why I shouldn’t – what exactly do I get out of it?’

  ‘I can offer you the daily rate for a specialist,’ Drake said, clearly unhappy at the tone of Mason’s demand. ‘Best I can do, I’m afraid.’

  Since this operation was off the books, any payments and expenses would have to come out of Drake’s own pocket. He was hardly rolling in money, but he had savings that he could if necessary use to finance Mason’s services.

  Mason smiled, though it was a cynical, ironic smile. ‘You’re asking me to break the law, disobey orders, take part in an unsanctioned operation and risk my life to help a woman who destroyed my career? If you want all that, you’ll have to do better than standard pay, buddy. I don’t want your money. I want my life back.’

  ‘How, exactly?’ Drake asked, though he had a feeling he knew what was coming.

  Rising from the couch, Mason took a step towards Drake. Even injured and diminished as he was, he remained a large and formidable figure. ‘When this is over, you’re going to bring me in for retesting. You’ll make sure I pass the exam, and recommend that I be reinstated to full active status.’

  Drake felt his heart sink. He’d suspected Mason wouldn’t let this go, but to hear it laid out in such stark, calculating terms was nonetheless far from easy to stomach. What his friend was asking of him was the very thing he’d refused to do yesterday, for very good reasons.

  ‘Consider this job a field trial,’ Mason went on, sensing his doubts. ‘I screw up, we call it a day. But if I do right by you, in the field where it matters, then I want a second chance. I deserve a second chance.’

  ‘If you screw up, there won’t be any second chances – for either of us,’ Drake said.

  Mason eyed him hard. ‘Those are my terms. You either accept them, or we have nothing more to say to each other. Your call, Ryan.’

  He was trying to play the part of the cold, detached negotiator, but Drake sensed an underlying current of desperation in his friend. This was his chance, perhaps his last chance, to get back in. If he failed, his future would hold little beyond unemployment, incapacity benefits, isolation and bitter reminiscing over what once had been.

  For that reason if nothing else, he knew Mason would give everything he had to this operation. And even injured and out of practice, he was still a formidable operative with years of experience to back him up.

  And he was the only man Drake could rely on.

  ‘All right,’ he finally conceded. ‘If you get through this, we’ll talk. Deal?’

  The older man reached out and shook hands with him.

  ‘Deal
.’

  Chapter 15

  Keira Frost sat back on Drake’s couch and rubbed her eyes. They were dry and gritty and unfocused after staring at a screen all morning, yet still she persisted, determined to fulfil the task set out for her.

  Her makeshift workstation had gradually expanded to take over much of the living room in the past couple of hours, now encompassing Drake’s own laptop whose password encryption she had broken with ease, and even the TV in the corner that was now wired into her own unit to provide a bigger screen area. In the absence of Langley’s formidable computer labs, she needed all the resources at her disposal.

  It wasn’t a desire to impress Drake with her technical prowess that drove her on, but rather a stubborn refusal to admit defeat, particularly to someone like Anya.

  In a way, she almost felt relief at the knowledge that she’d been right about Anya since the beginning. From the first time they’d met, Frost’s instincts had told her the woman was bad news; a suspicion apparently confirmed when Anya attacked her and tried to take her hostage mere minutes after her escape from the Russian jail. Only prompt intervention on Drake’s part had persuaded her to back down.

  True to her word, Frost had resumed her painstaking trawl through CCTV camera footage in the area of the sniper attack, trying to discern where Anya had gone after firing those two fatal shots.

  Such a task was daunting at the best of times. There were no viable cameras within two blocks of the apartment building – she knew because she’d wasted an hour trying to find one – and nobody knew which direction Anya had gone after the attack. Thus Frost had been forced to randomly search through traffic and security footage in the general vicinity, hoping to get lucky.

  Truly it was like looking for a needle in a haystack, only there were thousands of other needles mixed in with it, and the limited technology at her disposal only allowed her to view one at a time.