Defender: Intrepid 1

by Chris Allen

  “Don’t waste the ‘officer and a gentleman’ lecture on me, sonny. I’ve heard it before.” Lundt was just a few feet away now. Circling. “People die anyway. If it wasn’t me getting the guns, someone else would. So why shouldn’t I get myself a nest egg? But you wouldn’t see it that way.”

  “You’re finished,” Morgan said, fighting to stay alert. “I should have known better. I didn’t believe that a man with your background would serve a colleague up to these bastards, the way that you delivered Collins. How wrong I was.” He paused to catch his breath. “But it’s over.”

  Lundt made his move, sidestepping swiftly past Morgan, snatching the moneybag with the diamonds, and the AKM from the hood of the Jeep. Morgan made a grab for him but stumbled awkwardly back against the vehicle.

  “You should thank me, Morgan,” said Lundt. “I was the one who got these savage bastards to put your mate out of his bloody misery. Watched ’em cut his throat and feed him to the dogs. But you won’t be around long enough to tell anybody.”

  With that, Lundt exploded into action: holding the AKM by the barrel, he swung it like a baseball bat in a vicious lateral strike straight for Morgan’s flank. The heavy wooden butt smashed into Morgan, battering his ribs.

  At that moment, there was the deafening roar of an explosion. The front wall of the building vaporized and they were enveloped in a cloud of thick, gray dust. With the support structure ripped away, bricks, beams and plaster fell on them both. Morgan bore the brunt of the collapse and was smothered by debris. Lundt kicked his way out, crawling over Morgan and clambering through the mess, up into the Jeep.

  “Lie there and die like a good boy, Morgan,” Lundt coughed, as the Jeep sprang to life. “Pray that you do before the rebels find you. I hear they’re on the lookout for some fresh white meat to celebrate tonight.”

  Lundt wrenched at the gearshift and reversed fast out into the alleyway, well clear of the fighting.

  Alex Morgan pulled himself from the wreckage just in time to see the vehicle disappear from view.

  Then he slipped headlong into infinite blackness.

  PART THREE

  TOO MANY LOOSE ENDS

  CHAPTER 34

  GABARONE, BOTSWANA

  SEVEN DAYS AFTER THE COUP

  From: Sagittarius

  To: Capricorn

  “What a bloody fiasco!” said the instant message on the screen.

  Victor Lundt, Capricorn, could almost see the man at the other end of their exchange, Sagittarius, frothing at the mouth while hammering the keys. Pompous git, Lundt thought. He’s in London abusing me, while I’m buried like a tick out here in the asshole of the world.

  “How could this have fallen apart so, so … categorically?” Sagittarius continued. “You’ve had every means at your disposal. Millions of pounds wasted and we’re no closer to securing the mining concessions than we were twelve months ago. Then there’s your London operation – another debacle!”

  My operation? Now Lundt was really angry. How typical of the man to deflect responsibility.

  “Need I remind you,” he typed, “that you didn’t get the information to me until very late in the game, indeed.”

  “It was supposed to be a surgical strike, not a bloodbath, and despite all your chaos, the man survived!”

  Victor Lundt’s hands were stretching and clenching, forming fists above the filthy keyboard as he collected his thoughts. He was enraged by the mess he knew he would have to clean up if he wanted to stay in the big game. He hated to admit it but he needed Sagittarius; needed his connections and money. But that didn’t mean he had to lick the bastard’s boots. Clumsily, and with two fingers, Lundt thumped out his response.

  “All the time and effort that’s been spent distancing you from me would have been better spent just dealing direct like this and accepting the risk. Those two pancakes you supposedly hand picked as your go-betweens were less than fucking useless right from the start. I risked exposure a hundred fucking times to sort out the things that they should’ve had sorted before it got anywhere near me. And when I’m exposed, you’re exposed. Remember that.”

  There was a long pause before Sagittarius responded.

  “This entire adventure is in danger of total collapse. You were supposed to ensure that it went ahead – as planned! So, don’t you threaten me or I’ll shut you down.”

  “Now hang on, sunshine,” Lundt said out loud, glowering at the people in the internet cafe who turned to see who the angry foreigner was talking to.

  “It’s obviously some time since you pulled a uniform on,” he wrote, “or have you forgotten the old soldier’s adage: the best laid plans never survive first contact?”

  “Don’t you lecture me! You need to fix this mess you’ve made, and fast.”

  “And how do you suggest I do that?” Lundt knew what had to be done, but it gave him some sadistic pleasure to see how the smug bastard would word it via an insecure network. It was common enough practice to use email or instant messaging for these types of conversations. Suitably innocuous addresses would be chosen at random, used once, twice at most, and then discarded in the same way as pre-paid SIM cards in mobile phones. Fire and forget, Lundt called it.

  There was another long pause. Come on, you bastard. Lundt was grinning at his own steely reflection in the computer screen, knowing that the man would now be squirming in his seat back in London. Put your money where your big mouth is.

  “I will issue further instructions at our next scheduled communication.”

  *

  The exchange concluded, the man at the other end of the conversation closed the lid of the pink laptop in his daughter’s room at the family’s city house in Belgravia, and let out a long, slow breath. He stood, absently fiddled with a number of magazines nearby, then walked back out to join his wife and her blasted needlepoint in the drawing room.

  “Too many loose ends,” he whispered.

  CHAPTER 35

  ROTA, SPAIN

  “Are you sure you’re going to be OK?”

  “Of course I am,” he replied. “You’ll have to be gentle with me, that’s all.”

  “Gentle! With you?” Ari conjured a playful, yet reproachful, look. “I’m surprised you even know what the word means, Morgan.”

  “Maybe we’ll find out,” he said cryptically, looking into the distance as their taxi rolled away from the sentry post at the entrance to US Naval Station Rota.

  Morgan’s thoughts instantly returned him to the crumbling ruin in Cullentown where he’d confronted Lundt. The man had been within his grasp, but then the odds turned against Morgan. The war had arrived on the doorstep and the building literally fell down on top of him – Lundt escaped. Fredericks and Garrett had arrived, wrenching Morgan back to consciousness. Fighting their way through the carnage of the streets, Garrett had led Fredericks straight to Morgan and, with the help of the Malfajirian lieutenant and his soldiers, pulled Morgan’s bloodied and broken body from the wreckage. In a fighting withdrawal that could have cost them all their lives, they’d prevailed and together, Garrett, Fredericks and Alex Morgan somehow made it back to the US warship.

  “I’ve sure got a lot of people I need to thank. Mike and Adam, of course,” Morgan said. He returned his gaze to her. “But you most of all.”

  “It’s not me you need to be thanking,” Ari replied. “It’s those medics aboard the Kearsarge. If not for them, I think you’d be in a full body cast, getting your meals through a straw for the next month.”

  Morgan knew she was right. Equipped with emergency operating theatres and an intensive care unit, the facilities onboard were world class. When Morgan eventually came to in the ward, Ari’s beautiful face beaming over him, he was convinced that he’d finally expired. While the Kearsarge steamed all the way to Spain, she remained at his side, arranging to stay on the base as he, and a number of other patients, had been transferred for aftercare to the US Naval Hospital at Rota. Despite a nagging presentiment about his job, while aboard the
Kearsarge, Morgan was more himself with Ari than he’d been with any woman, not that he’d ever admit it. Of course, he lamented, his profession would inevitably become an issue, just as it had before. When all was said and done, he didn’t really know that much about Arena Halls and although he had seen her barriers slowly peeling away, her guard was still up, he knew that. Whatever the future held, right now was their time, their chance, and he intended to enjoy it. He’d leave his musings and the specter of complicating factors behind. All he cared about was that she was truly an angel. He told her so.

  “Shut up, Alex,” she chided. “You’re rambling again. I still can’t believe you were able to talk your way out of that hospital. The doctors were adamant they wanted you under observation for another week, at least.”

  “Well, let’s just say that my boss can be very persuasive,” Morgan answered cautiously. “As soon as I got my chance to call him, I had him working overtime to get me the hell out of there so we could have a real chance to … recuperate.”

  “He certainly can pull some strings,” she said. “I mean, you know, for a man running – what do you call it – a private military company?” She watched him carefully, looking for a reaction. She didn’t get one.

  “Well, he’s been involved with governments for a long time. He knows the right people. So, where are you taking me?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “Just try and put that out of your mind and rest while we head to the airport. I let you boss me around on that chopper but I’m in charge now, remember. I’m not telling you anything until we get there.”

  “Well, I’m out of hospital, you’ve wangled time off and we have five days to ourselves.”

  “Couldn’t be better,” Ari said, meaning it.

  Morgan pulled a USS Kearsarge baseball cap over his eyes and fell easily into a light sleep.

  Ari watched him fall asleep, wondering what was going on inside his mind. She thought she knew men pretty well but there was much more to Morgan than met the eye. Exactly what she didn’t know, yet, although the action-man persona was exactly that – a persona. Morgan was much more complex. At his core he was a classic protector or, more appropriately, a “defender”; her psychology degree told her as much: sensitive, caring and incredibly intuitive. He was obviously a man driven by a primal need to safeguard others. But that wasn’t all. Sure, he had no problem, it seemed, putting himself in harm’s way regardless of the risk, and when called upon to react in the face of danger and overwhelming odds, his survival mechanism went into some kind of hyper-drive; the extreme end of the scale for his personality type. But for some reason she couldn’t get her mind off the idea that being a soldier wasn’t really what Morgan was, deep down. She’d seen that in him while they were getting to know each other on the ship. That was what enticed her so much. She needed to know more.

  Suddenly, her assessment turned on herself and she realized it was guilt that she was feeling, but why? Nothing had happened between them, or had it? There’d definitely been a connection forged during their escape from Pallarup. Pretty normal under the circumstances, she thought; being so close to death for such a protracted period and watching Morgan in the thick of it the entire time. They were, to say the least, exceptional, emotionally charged circumstances.

  Ari saw Morgan flinch in his sleep; his body tensed as if gripped by some dream, his breathing became shallow and rapid, and he let out a barely audible groan. The taxi driver looked back over the seat. Ari waved him off. Instinctively, she reached across and tenderly stroked Morgan’s face and, removing the baseball cap, smoothed his hair. Without waking him, she drew him close to her and put her arm protectively around his shoulders. After some time she felt him relax again. Oh God, she thought. How could this happen now? Ari wasn’t ready for it and before leaving London she’d been absolutely committed to avoiding a relationship with any man.

  She reflected on her own negotiations with her acting boss, Abraham Johnson, to secure the time away. There was the guilt. She was, after all, lying to Morgan about what she was there to do. For the few days that Morgan remained confined to a hospital bed, she had been required to maintain regular contact with Johnson as he’d pressed her for every detail of her deployment and, notably, her discussions with Morgan. When she inquired whether she should make her real purpose known to Morgan, now that it was all over, she received a very emphatic “No!” At first, Johnson had been unhappy with her request to take leave, but eventually conceded that, in view of the fact that she was there to surreptitiously support the man from Intrepid, it was smart that she remain at Morgan’s side as he convalesced.

  Uneasiness came over her again. There was something not quite right about all this.

  *

  The following morning, Alex Morgan was looking out across Barcelona from the balcony of the holiday house Ari had arranged for them.

  She had thought of everything. The house was a classic Spanish villa, impeccably restored and spectacularly positioned. From the dusty white finish of the walls to the ocher tiles, black wrought iron railings and balustrades to the shimmering blue glass of the kidney-shaped pool on the lower level, the place was the quintessential British escape: a home away from home, bathed in sunshine. It belonged to Ari’s closest friends, a couple who were back in England while their children were in school. Apparently Ari had travelled with the wife during their university days, and Spain, particularly Barcelona, had become a favorite.

  Dressed only in boxer shorts, allowing the sun the opportunity to help restore his battered body, Morgan sat quietly enjoying the moment, drinking black coffee and crunching into some toast. Ari hadn’t appeared yet, but he was sure he could hear her moving about somewhere.

  “Hello, mister.”

  Morgan felt her soft hand fall upon his shoulder. She was wrapped in a loose-fitting beach dress that still managed to show off her curves. She playfully snatched the last piece of toast from his plate.

  “Hey,” Morgan protested. “That’s my breakfast.”

  “Whatever,” she replied. “This is nice.”

  “Well, I’m glad you like it.” He looked up at her, smiling. “Coffee?”

  “Thanks,” she said between chews, watching as he poured her a cup from the pot on the table and then milked and sugared it without asking. It was just the way she liked it, weak and sweet. “So, it was a bit of an early night for you last night, wasn’t it?”

  Morgan shifted awkwardly in his seat to face her. His ribs still ached like hell beneath the bandages that cocooned the lower half of his torso; it would be some time before they were completely healed. The bruising and general panel damage he’d received when the building collapsed on top of him added to his state of disrepair.

  “Honestly,” he began, “I can’t remember much of last night. I remember you speaking Spanish like a local to the cab driver. I remember arriving here from the airport around dinnertime and struggling upstairs with our bags. Then we had food delivered and had a couple of drinks, I remember that. Next thing I know, I’m stretched out on that sofa, dressed in nothing but these, and my clothes are all over the floor.”

  Ari laughed as Morgan tried to work out whether he had forgotten something important.

  “Don’t worry, cowboy. That’s pretty much it! The doctor warned you to take the first couple of days easy. Don’t forget, apart from being black and blue, you’ve suffered a pretty serious concussion. It only took two glasses of wine with dinner, full to the brim as I recall, to, quite understandably, almost topple you from your chair.” She laughed again as Morgan looked crestfallen. “There was no way I was going to be able to drag you upstairs. So I just got you comfortable on the couch and left you there. How are you feeling?”

  “Like a bloody invalid,” he replied sheepishly. “I need to get myself moving. I can’t sit around here all day doing nothing. I’m likely to pass out again.”

  “Well, it’s better that you do take it easy, mister. I’m going to park you by the pool for the day while I go i
nto town, check out some Gaudí and get some supplies. You need to rest – I’m going to see to it that you do.”

  “But—” Morgan began.

  “Pool, Morgan. No buts!”

  *

  When Arena Halls left the house that morning and headed into Barcelona, it was the first time she’d been on her own since arriving in Malfajiri. And while she’d meant what she said about getting supplies for them, what she really needed most of all was time to think, to reconnect with herself. She had to be away from Morgan.

  She spent the day drinking in the whimsical beauty of Barcelona. It is impossible not to be captivated by the feeling that you’ve escaped the real world and stepped into a fantasy landscape. Ari found the primal lure of Gaudí’s architecture – influenced so much by nature, ignoring the recognized norms – impossible to resist and his influence could be found throughout the city. Ari meandered her way through the avenues and laneways, revisiting old favorites and introducing herself to new ones like a girl in a dream. She lost herself in it all and during the mid-afternoon, when the locals had all gone down for siesta, she reveled in the solitude she discovered within the heart of the abandoned streets.

  In truth, Ari didn’t ponder the Morgan dilemma too much during her excursion into the city. She simply needed the time to be alone and to allow her mind to be free to think about nothing at all. When the time came to gather supplies to take back up to the house, she enjoyed it, was even excited about the prospect of sitting down to a proper meal with the Phantom Major. She decided that there was no sense in over-complicating it. They were just sharing a holiday pad and it was just dinner.