Where Death Meets the Devil

by L. J. Hayward

  “I know.” Jack leaned against the wall, weary now the mad panic and rush was over. “Believe me, it’s required.”

  Those far-too-comprehending blue eyes turned on him. “It wasn’t just one night you were with him.”

  Jack couldn’t meet her gaze for more than a second at a time.

  “Jack. Is anything in that report real?”

  “Sure. Sheila. The homestead. The bit with the dingoes.”

  “But he was with you for those things?”

  “Yes. About ten days total. The rest of the month I spent . . . working out how to get home.”

  McIntosh spun away from the screen. “What am I supposed to tell Director In Charge Lund? That an operative spent ten days careening around the desert with one of the most notorious killers in the world? You don’t need to worry about whether or not I’ll ever trust you again. Be concerned for your own neck, Jack.” McIntosh crossed her arms, turning back to look at Ethan. “You met him for the first time that night?”

  “Yes.”

  McIntosh regarded him closely. “You’ll have to make new statements to reflect the added information. They’ll come part and parcel of more restrictions on your activities on behalf of the Office until the conduct and disciplinary hearings about your actions are finalised. If you don’t agree to them, you will be charged with conspiracy against the Meta-State, interfering with an ongoing investigation, and aiding and abetting a known criminal. Do you understand?”

  Here he was again. His life could go one of two ways, all for a decision he had to make in the next thirty seconds. Delaying would only convince her of his guilt. There is always a choice, Ethan had said, and now Jack felt as if he understood the sadness in his voice.

  The whole fiasco in the desert had been like a psych eval—layers within layers within layers. He’d given McIntosh the top layer upon his return. Now he’d given her another. Anything more and Jack might as well lock himself in the cell with Ethan.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Though it sounded anything but. “You’ll be assigned a security detail and confined to the building until otherwise notified.”

  Great. A shadow with orders to take him down if he so much as sneezed suspiciously. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’ll have that paperwork started. Then I’m going to talk to your friend in there. Feel free to observe.”

  She left then. After five minutes of not watching Ethan, Jack took the stairs from the sublevels to the eighth floor. Most of the office was empty. Only one operations room was lit up, where Lewis’s team was keeping a twenty-four-seven watch on Alpha Subject. Jack avoided them and sat at his desk, contemplating the few personal items he’d brought in.

  A photo of Sherlock, a goofy German Shepard with a floppy ear, dead of snake bite while Jack had been on deployment in India. A police-dog school dropout, he’d proven better therapy than most of the psychiatrists Jack had seen over the years.

  A birthday card made by his niece, Matilda, when she was four. Dear Uncle Jack, Happy Birthday, Luv Tilly! She was sixteen now and hadn’t sent a card for twelve years, not since her mother had decided she didn’t agree with Australia’s involvement in the conflict in Afghanistan. Even after his discharge, his sister hadn’t wanted anything to do with him.

  A frame with his service medals, kept here because he didn’t think his apartment was secure enough and he couldn’t imagine losing them. He’d been prepared to throw them, once, but his father had convinced him not to. One day, Dad had said, Jack might have kids of his own who’d like to know what their father had done to keep them safe. Or maybe Matilda would come to her own conclusions about her uncle’s actions. So, he kept them.

  A life in two frames and a piece of paper smeared with finger painting. Would Matilda ever reconsider if she learned about Ethan Blade?

  Wish you were here?

  “Reardon.”

  Groaning, Jack leaned back in his chair and eyed Maxwell, who’d come to parade rest beside his desk. “You drew the short straw, huh?”

  “Not many wanted the job of taking down an ex-Special Forces.” The HoS paused. “If required.”

  Hoping it was a good, I-don’t-believe-you’d-betray-us pause, Jack forced a smile. “Hungry? There’s cake in the tearoom.” If Maxwell was going to be his personal bad smell, best to at least try to be civil.

  Maxwell grunted and nodded. With the HoS trailing him at optimum tackling range, Jack went to the tearoom.

  His cake was still on the table. About half of it was missing, a stack of plates covered in cream in the sink. The sight stopped him dead. If his colleagues were willing to touch a cake meant in celebration of him, then they hadn’t written him off just yet.

  He and Maxwell had just sat down with coffee and cake when Maria Dioli burst in. She had been Jack’s handler during the Valadian operation, and since his return, she and a couple of analysts had been wading through the intelligence Jack had discovered in the desert. Their main task was to find out why Valadian had gathered an army in central Australia. Jack and Maria had spent a lot of time together after his return, while she scoured him for every shred of information he’d had regarding Valadian. He hadn’t exactly lied to her, but definitely hadn’t told her everything.

  She didn’t look particularly angry with him at the moment. Rather, she seemed a trifle distracted, running hands through her unruly dark hair as she looked from him to the cake before doing a startled double take at Maxwell.

  “Gerard,” she said, her tone sternly neutral.

  “Maria,” he returned just as dryly.

  That done, she sank into a chair next to Jack and ran a finger through the cream on the cake. “So, I got a call from McIntosh,” she began, focused on Jack.

  Jack braced for impact. “And?”

  “Apparently I can expect some new statements from you regarding the Valadian op. That true?”

  Here it came. He’d seen Maria go ballistic over incompetent work and had a good laugh at the hapless person in the line of fire. Karma certainly knew when to deliver a bitch slap.

  “Yeah. Sorry.”

  Her dark eyes narrowed. Then she sucked the cream off her finger and went for seconds. “Because of Ethan Blade?”

  Nodding, he dug a fork into his piece of cake, scooping out layers of sponge, jam, and cream. It tasted like cardboard. No. It was dry and gritty, like a mouthful of sand from the desert.

  “Ethan Blade,” she repeated, musingly. Then, “Ethan Blade. Shit, Jack, you must have balls the size of watermelons to bring in Blade.”

  Across the table, Maxwell snorted into his coffee and pushed his wedge of cake around the plate.

  “I didn’t bring him in,” Jack told her. “He came in on his own.”

  “Because of something you did. I watched the footage from the foyer. He just stood there, let you pat him down and then inject him. I mean, shit!”

  Maria’s awe didn’t make him feel any less rotten.

  “From the tone of McIntosh’s message, I guess she came down on you like the proverbial?” There was a dollop of cream on the corner of Maria’s mouth.

  Jack pointed to the offending smudge of white. “Two tonne.”

  “Shit.” Maria swiped her tongue across the cream. “For what it’s worth, no one on the floor thinks you’re capable of a disloyal thought, let alone conspiring with someone like Blade.” She carefully didn’t look at Maxwell, though it was clear her statement was as much for his benefit as it was for Jack’s.

  A mouthful of cake stopped him from laughing madly. “Thanks,” he finally managed. “And thanks for not being shitty with me for keeping it from you.”

  “Hey, I get it. If I had someone like Blade telling me to shut up or else, you wouldn’t hear a peep from me about anything. Of course,” Maria added, taking another scoop of cream as she stood, “if, when I read those new statements, I find something that could have finished this godawful operation six months ago, I’ll be coming for you.” She licked her finger clean, winked, and lef
t.

  Jack pushed away his plate, unable to stomach any more.

  Maxwell mimicked his move. “Yeah, it’s a bit too sweet.”

  The cake or Maria’s support? If Jack hadn’t rebuffed Maxwell all those years ago, would he be a bit more supportive now?

  Jack eyed Maxwell. Regardless of the past, the man was all Jack had to work with.

  “I don’t mind the sweetness, actually,” he said. “It’s just not what I’m craving.”

  Taking a sip of coffee, Maxwell arched an inquisitive brow.

  “There’s this French patisserie called Gigi’s on George Street. They do this salted caramel fudge I love. That’s what I’d really like right now.” Outright flirting would be laughed at, and deservedly. “I’d owe you.”

  Maxwell regarded him over the lip of his mug, expression guarded, then grunted. “It’s that good?”

  “It’s that good.”

  “You will owe me,” Maxwell promised.

  Coffee finished, they headed down to the sublevels to observe McIntosh’s interview with Ethan. On the way, Maxwell arranged for someone to get the fudge.

  McIntosh and Ethan sat at the table in his cell, a plastic cup of clear liquid between them. It didn’t look as if it had been touched.

  “Aren’t you thirsty, Mr. Blade?” McIntosh asked, tone politely enquiring.

  He didn’t answer.

  “I promise it’s not dosed with anything.”

  No response.

  “All right. I’ll leave it here in case you change your mind. Would you like to tell me why you came here today?”

  Silence.

  Jack winced. Ethan wasn’t helping himself by playing mute. He had to know cooperation would be better than the alternative.

  “I’m sure you’re aware of the list of allegations against you, Mr. Blade. Not only here in Australia. We have extradition agreements with many of the countries where you’ve been indicated in various crimes.”

  If this bothered him, he didn’t show it.

  “Something made you decide to come in. Volunteering your surrender is a good start, Mr. Blade. It’ll help us protect you. But only if you have something of worth for us.” She gave him a suitable space to fill, which he didn’t. “A man in your position is likely to have access to a lot of sensitive information. Is this why you surrendered yourself? Do you have something you wish us to know? Is it about Samuel Valadian?”

  The questioning went on in this manner for another half an hour. McIntosh talked herself hoarse to no effect. All the while, Jack worried about Ethan’s motives and, to a lesser extent, his mental state. He’d seemed all right in the foyer, but that was before Jack had destroyed whatever trust had been between them. Still, Ethan had known what would happen if he ever came face-to-face with Jack again. Could Jack be blamed for doing what he promised he would?

  Finally, McIntosh changed tactics.

  “Okay, Mr. Blade. How about you tell me what you want to get out of this? Protection? A pardon? Money?”

  Ethan finally looked at McIntosh and smiled. The strangely innocent smile didn’t reach his eyes, making the colourless orbs with their too-wide pupils all the more disturbing.

  “Jack knows what I want.”

  McIntosh’s shoulders tensed, only a fraction, but Jack saw it, which meant Ethan did as well.

  “Jack’s busy at the moment, so I can’t ask him. Can you tell me what it is?”

  “No. He’ll get it for me.” That smile again. “I trust him.”

  “We need to leave.”

  Jack sighed. Again, that “we,” and he was starting to doubt it was the royal “we.” He was lying on his belly, enjoying the warmth of the burning truck. Blade was right, but he was thinking sleep might also be right. The cleaning of the knife wound had sapped the last of his energy. He could barely work up the desire to wonder why Blade suddenly seemed to think they were in this together beyond the immediate situation.

  “With the damage we caused the Ka-52, it will take them about an hour to get back to the compound.” Blade was disassembling the Assassin X and tucking the pieces away in his overcoat. “Which means in half an hour he’ll be able to mobilise more of his troops. He’ll send a team back. They’ll arrive within three hours. We need to be well away by then. It’ll be dawn in another couple of hours, and we’ll have to hide while they scout the area.”

  Again, Blade spoke sense. Jack really should care. He couldn’t even trust in the Office coming for him. With his luck, the last location ping probably went off while he was still in the compound. Even if it had gone off here, before he killed his implant, it would take at least eight hours before they could get anyone out here. There was a very good reason Mr. Valadian had his compound in the square fucking middle of nowhere, and that was to stop people from sneaking up on him.

  It didn’t help that Blade was the reason he was here. Without the crazy bastard, his cover would still be solid. He’d be asleep in his warm bed. Possibly he could have found the intel mother lode within the next couple of days and gone home, at long last. He was sick of the desert. Sick of majestic sunsets and sweeping plains and sunburnt bloody vistas. Jack wanted to sleep in a bed big enough for his shoulders and not worry about falling out if he rolled over too enthusiastically. He wanted to run on pavement. To see a tree. A green tree. He wanted the hum of never-ending traffic to serenade him to sleep at night, not the distant howling of dingoes. He wanted to swim in the ocean. He wanted sand—wet Bondi Beach sand—in his arse crack and salt on his lips. What he wouldn’t give to have a single piece of Gillian Golightly’s salted caramel fudge.

  “I did some recon before going to Valadian. I know a cave we can hide in. If we leave now, we’ll reach it before dawn.”

  What would Blade do if Jack refused to move? Leave him? Shoot him?

  Of all the information the Office had gathered on Ethan Blade, a firm physical description was not part of it. The only accounts they had were hearsay and third-hand stories. From such unreliable sources, he’d been described as a slender, dark-haired young man—such as the one with Jack right now—as well as a very tall, muscular blond and a stocky, dark-skinned bald man with missing fingers. Anyone who’d had a good look at the assassin was dead, or had a lot of incentive to keep quiet. Jack was a realist. He didn’t think there were many people who could keep such a big secret. It was highly likely that when Blade decided he didn’t want Jack around anymore, he would kill him. Which made Jack start to appreciate that “we” a little bit more. And if Jack was going to have any chance of not dying by Blade’s hand, he would have to get to his feet, at the very least.

  Groaning, Jack shoved himself to his knees. His splinted arm still ached, but it was manageable now. The knife wound stung from Blade’s field surgery, but it was a clean, scoured feeling, which was better than the growing heat of infection. His T-shirt went back on. Bomber jacket over his shoulder, Jack stood.

  Blade smiled encouragingly and set off, waving Jack after him. Jack wondered why the hell he was considering following Blade. The man would probably kill him at some stage. And yet he was here for Mr. Valadian. Which, if Jack couldn’t get home with the intel, was about the best he could hope for. One way or another, Mr. Valadian would be stopped.

  Tucking the Desert Eagle into the back of his jeans, Jack followed Blade.

  They wound their way out of the field of battle, leaving behind about thirty corpses and the smouldering hulks of the two trucks. The scavengers would have a party until Mr. Valadian returned and took care of his dead.

  Blade angled them to follow the ridge, and Jack trudged along behind him, studying the clear sky, finding the Southern Cross. They were heading southeasterly. With no idea where the torture shack was in comparison to the compound, Jack was firmly at Blade’s mercy. Central Australia was big. And empty. Jack could have picked an arbitrary direction and died of dehydration, snake bite, or sheer loneliness before finding even a hint of human life. He might get lucky and find a dirt track. If the odds were trul
y stacked in his favour, he might even find someone driving along that long shot. In reality, though, it was him, Blade, the poisonous fauna, and a whole lot of absolute shit all.

  The sky over the ridge was turning from black to satiny purple fringed in pale gold when Blade changed direction, heading over the rocky incline towards the ridge proper. Jack held back, watching the other man skip lightly over the uneven ground. Blade moved with the nimble, sure-footed ease of an experienced outdoorsman. How could he not, with those lean legs, narrow hips, and strong arms?

  Crap. One sleepless night, a broken arm, and a piddly little stab wound and Jack was checking out the arse of an assassin with fuzzy-headed bemusement.

  At the top of the scree, Blade stopped. He stood in the shadows of the ridge, overcoat drifting around his calves, looking both ways, up and down and then back at Jack. With a wave, he indicated they backtrack. While Blade scampered along above, Jack ambled over the relatively flat ground until the assassin stopped again. He climbed the final distance to the rock wall and vanished into a deeper shadow. A moment later, he reappeared, motioning Jack up.

  By the time Jack reached the cave, he was thoroughly exhausted. His arm ached and his back was one big knot of tension. Squeezing in through the narrow opening, he half hoped Blade had outfitted his bolthole with a feather mattress and hot tub. Sadly, the light of the assassin’s small torch illuminated a high-ceilinged, sand-floored space about half the size of the torture shack. The walls opened up briefly before narrowing into a tiny crawl space leading back further into the rock. There was the distinctive pattern of a snake track wriggling across the sand. Lovely.

  Blade wedged the torch into a crack in the wall and removed his overcoat and jacket. “We’ll wait out the initial search here. Feel free to sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

  “What about you?”