Second Chances

by Second Chances (retail) (epub)

  Or driven, as the case may be.

  He glanced over at his companion, who had also drawn his sidearm. It was unnecessary, they both knew. The crash had been staged to take them out of the game.

  “Call it in,” he said grimly.

  * * *

  “Son of a bitch!” Wheeler snarled, punching the dashboard in frustration.

  Yet again Drake had outmanoeuvred them, drawing their pursuit vehicle into an ambush and crippling it, allowing them to make their escape. Every time he reached out to capture Drake, the man seemed to slip from his grasp.

  However, he still had a long reach and a few tricks up his sleeve.

  “Air One, what’s your position?”

  “We have visual on the target,” the chopper pilot confirmed, much to Wheeler’s relief. “They’ve turned south onto Yanyolu, parallel to the main highway.”

  “Any restricted airspace in your path?”

  “Negative. We have a clean run for at least ten miles.”

  “Backup ground units are converging now,” Rogers reported. “ETA, three minutes.”

  Wheeler nodded. More than enough time to get their man, assuming Drake didn’t have another means of countering them.

  “Tell them to hurry. I want that ambulance boxed in.”

  Chapter 5

  They were now travelling due south, on a smaller road that ran parallel with one of the big multi-lane highways criss-crossing the sprawling city. There was little traffic on this minor roadway, and on either side mostly scrub-covered waste ground that hadn’t yet been developed.

  Not a bad place to ditch the incriminating ambulance.

  “You planned that whole thing, didn’t you?” Mitchell said, looking at Drake with surprise and a hint of grudging respect. “The chase, the alleyway… all of it.”

  “Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.” Drake shrugged. “Clichéd, but it works.”

  Mitchell wasn’t inclined to argue.

  “So what happens now?” she asked.

  “Now, we get rid of the evidence.” Up ahead, the road slanted downward slightly, the entrance to a road tunnel yawning open before them. “I hope you’re feeling up to a short walk.”

  “Would it matter if I said no?”

  “Not really.”

  As the ambulance disappeared into the tunnel, McKnight began to ease off the accelerator.

  * * *

  A few seconds later, Wheeler received the report he’d been dreading.

  “Air One has lost visual.”

  He wasted no time replying. “Say again, Air One?”

  “Target has entered a road tunnel on Yanyolu.” There seemed to be little concern in the pilot’s voice. “It’s no more than a hundred yards long, one exit at each end.”

  “Look out for other vehicles exiting,” Wheeler ordered as the seconds ticked by, sensing something wrong. Drake’s route was unlikely to be down to chance. “They may try to switch cars in the tunnel.”

  “Negative, Air One has reacquired visual,” the chopper reported a few moments later. “He’s turning south-west onto Yuce Souk, really moving now. He may have seen us.”

  “Doesn’t matter now,” Wheeler decided, knowing Drake was fighting a losing battle. “Where are those ground units?”

  Rogers, monitoring the situation through the chopper’s onboard cameras as well as radio reports from the other ground teams, was quick to reply. “Thirty seconds. They’re preparing to intercept at the junction of Kale and Naide Aslan.”

  “Weapons free. Try to take them alive, but take no chances.”

  “Copy that.”

  Half a mile away, two unmarked cars came barrelling straight at the ambulance just as it approached an intersection, operating with perfect timing. Unable to find a way through the barrier that had suddenly appeared before it, the ambulance skidded to a halt and attempted to reverse away from the scene. However, Wheeler’s car arrived seconds later, firmly boxing it in.

  The veteran field agent watched as one of his field operatives, weapon drawn, hauled the driver down from the cab. To Wheeler’s surprise, the man was clearly a Turk himself, dressed in full paramedic uniform. His hands were up in surrender, but he was shouting in protest as the field operative threw him roughly against the hood of his pursuit car.

  Moments later, the other two agents had circled around to the rear of the ambulance. Wheeler held his breath as the doors were thrown open, only to let out a single, disbelieving grunt.

  The ambulance was empty.

  * * *

  Two minutes earlier

  Parked by the side of the road just ahead was a second ambulance, identical to their own save for the license plates, though it was unlikely the Agency would have noted them so quickly. Its engine was already turning over, ready to depart at a moment’s notice. Nearby sat a third vehicle: a battered looking Volkswagen Golf hatchback that looked perfectly at home beside the litter strewn-kerb and graffiti-covered walls. As McKnight brought their vehicle to a sudden halt, Drake opened his door and jumped down, running ahead to speak with the driver of the second ambulance.

  “Time to shine, mate.”

  The young Turkish paramedic looked down at him from the cab, fear in his eyes. Drake had already paid him well for what he was about to do, but that didn’t mean he was happy about what lay ahead. “You promise they will not torture me?”

  “Stick to the story, you’ll be fine.” The Agency had no interest in extraditing civilians with no known terrorist links or criminal records, and was unlikely to waste much time on the paramedic once they realised their mistake. “Now get moving!”

  Gripping the wheel tight, the driver stamped on the gas and accelerated towards the end of the tunnel. From the point of view of the chopper overhead, it would appear as if nothing had happened. Their attention would be focussed on the ambulance. Certainly they wouldn’t think Drake had had time to offload an injured passenger and change vehicles.

  That was what he was counting on.

  As the ambulance sped off, Drake turned his attention back to his team. Frost was helping Mitchell towards the waiting Volkswagen, hooking the woman’s arm across her shoulder to support most of her weight. Mitchell was noticeably pale despite the orange glow of the tunnel lights, her steps slow and uncoordinated, teeth clenched tight against the pain of her gunshot wound. A bloodstain on her surgical gown told him the violent ride here had reopened the injury, likely popping a couple of stitches.

  He could only hope the damage wasn’t too severe, because their medical resources were limited until they reached a proper safe house.

  McKnight, meanwhile, had already thrown open the passenger door and was busy winding a traditional hijab around her head and shoulders. The two passengers in the back would be similarly attired, helping them blend in a little better with the evening traffic.

  Drake would handle the driving for this stretch. Turkey might have been a comparatively progressive country with strong ties to Europe and the US, but it remained staunchly Islamic, with the vast majority of its population identifying as Muslim. As such, it was easier to avoid attention by adhering to traditional norms.

  Even as the Agency’s pursuit vehicles closed in on the diversionary ambulance, Drake was already cruising out of the tunnel in the opposite direction, heading directly away from the scene.

  The first stage of their plan was complete. Now all they had to do was rendezvous with Mason, stabilise Mitchell for transport and get the hell out of Turkey.

  Chapter 6

  Thirty minutes after they had failed to capture Drake, the mood in the cramped apartment the Agency had been using as their base of operations could charitably have been described as downbeat. Field operatives sat on cheap wooden furniture staring into cups of coffee, or pacing back and forth as if seeking answers to the question that troubled them all: how the hell had everything fallen apart in such dramatic fashion?

  “How you feeling?” Wheeler asked, kneeling down beside Krasinski.

 
The operative had a bag of ice pressed against the side of his head, and looked as thoroughly miserable as Wheeler had ever seen him.

  “Hell of a hangover,” he said, managing a weak grin. “Just wish I’d had the night out beforehand.”

  “You and me both, pal,” Wheeler agreed. Large quantities of alcohol seemed like a pretty attractive prospect at that moment. “You still in the game?”

  Krasinski swallowed and nodded. “Son of a bitch could have killed me.”

  “Better to shut those thoughts down. They’ll eat you up, otherwise.”

  “No, you don’t understand. Drake probably should have killed me, taken me out of the game rather than risk me raising the alarm. Instead he took a chance to keep me alive. Same deal with our pursuit drivers.”

  Wheeler shrugged, though something in his colleague’s words had struck a chord all the same. “Well, I’d hold off on that Nobel Peace Prize nomination. The guy’s still wanted for treason and murder.”

  Patting the younger man on the shoulder, he turned to address the group of operatives. “I think it’s fair to say we got our asses handed to us tonight. Drake caught us off balance, and he exploited the element of surprise. Nothing can be done about that now, except make sure we don’t make the same mistake again. So, let’s move past it and focus on the problem at hand – how do we find him?”

  “We put the squeeze on that ambulance driver we picked up,” Santos suggested. “He might know something. We can break him.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Wheeler agreed. “But Drake wouldn’t be stupid enough to give that guy anything useful. He’s just an errand runner.”

  “Satellite tracking?” Krasinski put in. “We backtrack and find whatever came out of that tunnel.”

  Wheeler shook his head. “Istanbul isn’t exactly Afghanistan. We had nothing overhead at the time of the pursuit.”

  It was Rogers, still sitting in front of his laptop, who finally offered a solution. “Traffic cameras.”

  Wheeler regarded him with wary interest. “Go on.”

  “We know there were no cameras in that tunnel, so we can’t see the changeover directly. Drake would have made sure we couldn’t.”

  Wheeler folded his arms. “But…”

  Bringing up an overhead map view of the area, including the tunnel where they’d lost Drake, Rogers spun his laptop around to face the others.

  “But there are cameras mounted on the traffic lights at the intersections, here and here,” he said, pointing to junctions at either end of the long road. “Any vehicle passing through this tunnel also has to pass at least one of these junctions. Now, if we’re assuming both the ambulance and some kind of secondary vehicle were waiting in the tunnel for Drake to arrive, they had to have passed one set of cameras, but not the other. So—”

  “We access those cameras and look for a vehicle that passes one junction and stays in the tunnel,” Wheeler said, quickly picking up on his line of thought. “Can you do it?”

  “Traffic camera systems aren’t exactly the Fort Knox of computer security. I doubt if they even have thirty-two bit encryption on their network.” Seeing the blank faces of his fellow operatives, he added, “That means I can do it.”

  “How long?”

  “Hacking the system will be the easy part. Cross referencing all the vehicles passing through the two intersections will—”

  “How long?” Wheeler repeated, his patience already strained.

  Rogers threw up his hands. “Ten minutes? Two hours? Depends how long ago the car was put there and how much footage I have to wade through. I’m assuming it didn’t sit there for too long, otherwise it would have attracted attention from the locals.” He paused for a moment, sensing his explanation was neither needed nor desired. “I should probably stop talking and get started, shouldn’t I?”

  “That would be preferable.” Wheeler turned his attention to the others. “All right, we have another shot at finding Drake. It’s a long one right now, but it’s what we’ve got, so let’s work with it. I want you all to pull whatever resources you need, gear up and be ready to move. As soon as the call comes in, I want everyone ready to roll. Questions?”

  Not a word was said.

  “Good. Then get on it.”

  * * *

  Mitchell couldn’t say how long the journey lasted. The constant motion of the car and the drone of the engine conspired with pain and exhaustion to sap her concentration. She knew it was important to stay awake and aware, to note their progress and mark road signs, but as the miles passed her mind wandered in and out of consciousness. Thoughts and memories blended with the sights around her to create a strange twilight world where nothing was real or solid.

  One moment she was slumped in the back seat of the car, the next she was on a rooftop in Istanbul with her former friend and partner Vince Argento, surrounded by masked men with guns.

  She watched as Argento snatched up a cup of coffee and hurled it at one of their captors, scalding his face and buying her an opening. She saw the fleeting look of triumph and encouragement on his face before one of them levelled a weapon at him and opened fire.

  Next she saw herself stumbling down a hallway, bloodied and bruised, desperately seeking a means of escape. But every door remained defiantly shut, no matter how hard she hammered on it or how many bloody hand prints she left behind.

  Then she was in the security room of an office building, watching the monitors with a vague sense of satisfaction as the two fugitives she’d been tasked to recover made good their escape. As her lifeblood flowed out and her consciousness dimmed, she found herself wondering if this was how Argento had felt in that final moment.

  “Head’s up,” Drake said, jolting her out of her trance-like state. “We’re here.”

  Mitchell looked up, forcing herself awake as their car pulled off the main road, the headlight beams illuminating what appeared to be a disused industrial area. With crumbling concrete walls and rusting gantries overhead, it would have made an ideal location for some post-apocalyptic science fiction movie.

  Manoeuvring the car past the rusting remains of a crane gantry, Drake put his cell phone to his ear. “Prism, this is Vector. Whirlwind. I repeat, Whirlwind.”

  A second or two of silence followed this, before Mitchell heard a tinny voice in the phone’s speaker. “This is Prism. Arizona. Repeat, Arizona.”

  Mitchell knew this exchange was a simple challenge-authentication process, having used such a system many times herself. If Drake had received any answer other than the one he’d expected, he would likely have turned around and hit the gas.

  “Copy that, Prism. What’s your sit rep?”

  “In position and standing by.”

  “What is this place?” Mitchell asked, not liking what she was seeing. In her experience, when people were driven out to remote spots like this by strangers with guns, it rarely ended well for them.

  “Your new home, at least until we can get you stabilised and organise transport out of the country,” Drake explained, turning right into a larger structure that seemed to be mostly intact. “Used to be a cement factory. Now it’s not much of anything.”

  Bringing the car to a halt in the centre of the desolate space that had likely once been a prosperous factory, he killed the engine and sat there for a few seconds, saying and doing nothing.

  Then, just like that, a powerful work light blazed into life right in front of them, illuminating the car and its occupants. Drake opened his door and stepped out, though Frost remained behind to keep an eye on Mitchell. Frost’s expression was one of tense wariness, along with an unnerving trace of hostility.

  With the door closed, Mitchell couldn’t properly hear what was going on outside, but she did detect a pair of male voices talking. Not loud or urgent; just exchanging information.

  “How many in your team?” Mitchell asked, trying to break the silence.

  Clearly this operation had required a good degree of forward planning and considerable resources, making her
wonder why she’d suddenly become so valuable.

  “Enough to get the job done.”

  Mitchell frowned. “How long have you been in Turkey?”

  “You’ll get your answers soon,” Frost replied with an edge of impatience, giving her nothing. “In the meantime, do us a favour and stay quiet.”

  Fortunately, this tense exchange ended when Mitchell’s door was pulled open, revealing Drake and another man she didn’t recognise.

  “Let’s go,” Drake prompted, helping her out of the car. The second man came forward to support her from the other side, and together they carried her over to a makeshift cot that had been set up near the work light.

  The distance couldn’t have been more than a dozen paces, but even this minor effort left Mitchell light-headed, her face etched with pain. She was grateful to sink down onto the cot, though she stubbornly refused to lie back, as if that would somehow represent a backward step in her road to recovery.

  A quick check of her abdominal wound confirmed that she had indeed popped a stitch. The bleeding wasn’t too bad, however, and in short order McKnight had patched up the injury and applied a fresh dressing.

  Mitchell looked up at the group who had gathered around her. None of them said a word, though from one or two she sensed that same edge of resentment and hostility she’d felt with Frost.

  “So… what happens now?” she asked, knowing all too well how little influence she had over what would happen next. Her only cause for optimism was knowing that if they simply wanted her dead, they were unlikely to have brought her all the way here.

  “Introductions first,” Drake decided. “Time’s short, so I’ll make this quick. Frost and myself you know already. This is Sam McKnight,” he said, gesturing to the woman by his side. “I don’t think you two have been properly introduced, so congratulations – now you have been.”

  McKnight nodded in acknowledgement, but said nothing.