Sacrifice

by Will Jordan

  Chapter 2

  Washington DC, twelve hours later

  It was a warm, humid Friday evening in the nation’s capital, the sky glowing vibrant orange in the west as the sun set, with the first stars starting to appear in the deep azure expanse to the east.

  It was the tail end of the rush hour, but traffic was still heavy as the last government employees filtered home after a long week. Row after row of bland, efficient saloons, SUVs and the occasional limousine rumbled along the main drags, looking as tired as their drivers.

  And amongst the weary procession, a silver sports car weaved in and out, changing lanes, accelerating and braking hard, jostling for position like a racehorse in the midst of a pack.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ Ryan Drake said under his breath, gunning the accelerator to get in front of a GMC Yukon that was trying to block him out. The stressed-looking office worker at the wheel gave him a look of pure disgust.

  Drake ignored such censure, took an off-ramp to escape the crowded freeway and hit the gas, pushing the Audi TT hard. The powerful German sports car wasn’t great on corners, but with 250 horses under the hood, it more than made up for it on the open road. The 3.2-litre VR6 engine roared as he accelerated through a set of lights that had just changed to red.

  He glanced at his watch and swore under his breath. He was going to be late for his rendezvous. And this was one meeting at which tardiness would not be tolerated.

  ‘She’s going to kill me. I know it.’

  Seeking to divert his thoughts from this unpleasant prospect, he switched the radio on. It was the financial round-up.

  ‘The Dow Jones fell in afternoon trading again today, closing two hundred and fifteen points down, with analysts predicting another major slump in prices amidst growing concerns of insolvency in major investment banks. Overall the Jones has fallen over twenty per cent since this time last year, with further turmoil in European markets …’

  There were a lot of reports like this nowadays, all using terms like ‘sub-prime mortgage crisis’ and ‘unsustainable debt burden’. The truth was obvious even to those who didn’t understand the finer details – the economy was rapidly going from bad to shit to worse, and nobody knew how to fix it.

  It was funny how much things could change in a year, Drake thought as he turned left at an intersection.

  He soon found himself in a world of plush suburban houses, vibrant green lawns and immaculate SUVs. The whole place had the feel of a planned community, as if Walt Disney had designed it all.

  Every block or two he’d pass fashionable coffee houses with tinted-glass windows and stainless-steel tables; regular hangouts for people with thick-framed glasses and hair they’d spent half an hour styling for the just-out-of-bed look, pretending to be doing something important with their laptops as they sipped their moccaccinos.

  But not now. Now the tables stood empty, with scarcely a laptop or pair of designer glasses in sight. One place even had its shutters pulled down, as if the world were bracing itself for a gathering storm.

  Pushing those thoughts aside, he made a hard right turn at the next junction, changed down into second gear and stamped on the pedal.

  He arrived at his destination an hour and fifteen minutes late. Not bad by his standards, but unacceptable for the people he was meeting.

  Killing the engine, Drake stepped out into the warm evening, the chirp of crickets and other night insects plainly audible. Tiny flies buzzed and flitted back and forth around him, circling each other in lazy arcs like ancient biplanes locked in an endless fight for supremacy. A house on the opposite side of the road had the stars and stripes flying above their porch – it was that kind of neighbourhood – but the flag barely moved in the still air.

  He inhaled, tasting the scent of fresh-cut grass, the fragrant bloom of flowers, the sharp tang of newly sawn wood and above all, the smoky aroma of meat cooking on a nearby grill.

  Or perhaps burning was the more accurate definition.

  Hoping his olfactory senses were mistaken, Drake jogged up the brick driveway to the front door and knocked. There was no reply.

  He knocked again, louder this time, only to meet with the same result.

  ‘Oi, John! Anyone alive in there?’ he called out, backing up a little so his voice could be heard in the backyard.

  At last he was rewarded with a reply.

  ‘Round back, buddy! Gate’s open.’

  Vaulting over a shrub at the edge of the porch, Drake headed for the side gate and let himself in.

  John Keegan’s home, in stark contrast to his often dishevelled personal appearance, was a neat, well-ordered suburban house in Brookeville, a small town about 15 miles west of central DC. Indeed, ‘small town’ was the perfect description of this place. It was the sort of area where people left their cars unlocked overnight, where everyone knew each other and stopped to shoot the breeze when they passed in the street.

  Drake doubted he’d spoken to his own neighbours more than a dozen times in all the years he’d lived there.

  As he’d smugly admitted on more than one occasion, Keegan had picked up this place for a song, buying it at auction when the previous owner died. The fact that the roof had leaked, the electrics had been shot and it hadn’t been redecorated in twenty years hadn’t fazed him for a second.

  Keegan was an eternally practical man, throwing himself into the renovation with the kind of patient confidence that somehow reminded Drake of his grandfather. Guys like that belonged to a different generation; one that just seemed to know how such things were done.

  But the house was a mere side-show tonight. Keegan’s pride and joy was the solid brick grill he’d built for himself in the backyard. True to his Southern roots, it was a genuine mesquite wood-burner rather than gas or propane.

  In his own words, gas was for pussies – real men cooked with wood.

  It made little difference in Drake’s opinion, but then he supposed his palate had been ruined by his days as an SAS operative. Their barbecues had consisted of an oil drum cut in half lengthwise and filled with just about anything that would burn. And if they’d been struggling on that score, there was usually a jerrycan of gasoline on hand to help things along.

  Keegan grinned like a lunatic as he worked the barbecue, beer in one hand and spatula in the other. His scruffy mane of blond hair was hidden beneath a frayed baseball cap emblazoned with the Carolina Panthers team logo. Even his bushy moustache looked like it needed trimming.

  His DIY abilities were unfortunately not matched by his cooking skills, and he seemed to have an innate desire to cremate everything that had once been alive.

  ‘Nice of you to join us, mate,’ he remarked. For some reason, he seemed to find it amusing to say the word ‘mate’ in his distinctive Southern drawl.

  Keira Frost, standing a safe distance from the billowing smoke, wasn’t quite so subtle.

  ‘Where the hell have you been, Ryan? You stop for dinner on the way?’

  Drake forced a smile and nodded at the grill. ‘Can you blame me?’

  Of course, there was another reason he’d been late tonight. It was the same reason he was late for almost everything outside of work, even if he wasn’t prepared to admit it. Burying himself in work helped him forget what had happened last year.

  And it helped him forget the woman behind it all.

  Frost didn’t look convinced, and seemed on the verge of saying something else when Keegan, perceptive enough not to push the issue, nodded to the steel bucket off to his left. Beers of various brands floated in the icy water. ‘Well, you’re here now. Grab yourself a beer, man. I’m almost done.’

  Drake smiled and grabbed a Corona, wiping most of the water off before popping the lid open. He was more of a Peroni man, but when his throat was dry and the beer was plentiful, he wasn’t complaining.

  ‘So what’s the deal, John?’ Frost asked, taking a pull from her own bottle. ‘Were you taking a shit when they taught us all how to cook or what?’

 
The older man grinned. ‘Damn. You’re on fire tonight, Frost.’

  ‘So are those burgers if you leave them any longer.’

  Drake smiled at the banter between the two specialists. They had served together on a dozen operations over the past couple of years, and despite their differences, a certain grudging affection had developed between them.

  That was part of the reason Keegan had taken to hosting occasional barbecue evenings, particularly when the team had just finished their debriefings and wrapped up another operation. It was like a wrap party; something to bring an op to a definitive end.

  Or in Keegan’s case, it was an excuse to open the tequila and put the world to rights.

  A slow smile spread across Keegan’s face as he turned to look at Frost. ‘Hey, I meant to ask you – how’s that car of yours?’

  Even in the dim evening light, Drake could see the colour rise to Frost’s face. The young woman had bought an old, beat-up Ford Mustang at the start of the year, hoping to turn it into a restoration project. The last time Drake had had the heart to ask about it, the entire engine block had been lying in pieces in her garage.

  ‘Doing just fine,’ she replied, but there was no conviction in her voice.

  Keegan paused in his work, his expression pensive. ‘You know, my daddy once said never let women near guns, cars or VCRs. Sometimes I think he was wiser than he knew.’

  Frost wasn’t rising to the bait. ‘Yeah, well, I suppose that kind of attitude was common in the 1930s. You know, when you were a kid.’

  Seated at the edge of the garden’s decking area – another flawless creation built from scratch by Keegan – Drake took a pull on his beer, closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.

  After a day of flickering computer screens, ringing phones and whirring printers, it was a relief to be outside in the fresh air, just listening to the sounds of the world around him.

  ‘Hey.’

  Drake opened his eyes as Frost sat down beside him.

  He winced, already bracing himself for another verbal assault. ‘Listen, Keira. About tonight –’

  To his surprise, she shook her head. ‘Don’t worry about it. You’re here now, at least – that’s the important thing.’

  Drake raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t like her to be so forgiving.

  Her unexpected conciliatory attitude had caught him off guard. He felt awkward, unsure of what to say, but he didn’t want to let the conversation falter.

  He recalled something about her moving house, yet the details remained elusive, like a half-formed idea long since discarded. His mind was a jumble of reports and classified documents and deadlines and a dozen other work-related problems that seemed to swallow up everything else.

  ‘So how are you doing with the new apartment?’ he asked, deciding to chance his hand. ‘Moved your stuff in?’

  The flicker in her eyes told him he’d made a big mistake. ‘Ryan, that was three months ago. And it was my sister who was moving.’

  Drake’s heart sank. He worked with these people almost every day, spent far more time with them than his own family, yet at times like this he felt he barely knew them. The only reason he was even here tonight was because Frost had parked herself in his office and refused to leave until he agreed to come.

  Her excuse had been that she didn’t intend to suffer Keegan’s food alone, but even then he’d sensed a deeper motivation. She’d wanted to keep him involved, to make him focus on something outside work.

  It was a valiant but futile effort.

  ‘I’m sorry, Keira,’ he said, taking a pull on the beer to hide his embarrassment. ‘My mind’s been all over the place lately.’

  In truth, his mind had been in one place, and one place only – Iraq, last year. After being hunted as a fugitive by his own people and travelling halfway across the world, he had uncovered conspiracies and corruption that went almost to the very top of the Agency.

  Then it had all unravelled. The one man who could help them had been executed, while those behind the entire thing had not only survived, but prospered. Drake himself was only alive because of a deal struck by his friend Dan Franklin, buying his security in exchange for silence.

  Drake’s life was now in limbo; he was unable to leave the Agency, yet knew that one day his luck would run out. He understood now how Damocles must have felt at that banquet table, trying to enjoy his roast beef with a bloody great sword hanging over him.

  ‘Easy mistake to make.’ Frost was silent for a few moments, contemplating something. Or maybe weighing up whether the time was right to say what she wanted to. ‘Mind if I ask you something?’

  He looked at her, wondering what was coming. ‘You’ve never let it stop you before.’

  ‘Why do you push yourself so hard?’ she asked, dead serious.

  Drake hesitated. Keira Frost was a straight talker who wasn’t afraid to voice her opinions, but it wasn’t like her to get into this deep and meaningful stuff.

  ‘You’re in that office working until Christ knows when,’ she went on. ‘You barely do anything in the real world. I mean, shit, I had to practically hold a gun to your head to get you here tonight. My company that bad?’

  ‘I’ll take the Fifth on that one,’ he said, hoping to lighten the mood but soon realising it was a wasted effort. She wasn’t about to let this one go. ‘Look, it’s just the way things are with work …’

  ‘Ryan, there’s always going to be too much work if you want there to be.’

  Drake was careful to avoid her gaze. ‘I imagine you’re going somewhere with this,’ he prompted, wishing he didn’t sound so defensive.

  ‘You’re burning yourself out,’ she said simply. ‘It’s like you’re trying to punish yourself, or prove something. Either way, it’s not good.’

  ‘For who?’

  ‘For anyone,’ she answered. ‘If you’re exhausted and strung out, you’re not thinking straight, which means you put all our lives at risk next time we’re in the field.’ She fixed him with a searching look. ‘And as much as I’ll hate myself for saying this, I’m worried about you. I don’t want to see you burn out. You don’t deserve it.’

  At last Drake turned to look at her, his vivid green eyes shimmering in the glow of electric lights nearby.

  But before he could reply, he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. Out of habit he fished it out and checked the caller ID.

  It was George Breckenridge – the officer in charge of the CIA’s Shepherd programme, and Drake’s immediate superior. The man who’d previously held that post, Dan Franklin, had been promoted to director of Special Activities Division last year, leaving a power vacuum that had to be filled.

  Drake had little contact with his former friend now.

  There was little choice but to take the call. In the Agency, if one’s boss called outside work hours on a Friday night, chances were the news wasn’t good.

  And yet, for once, he welcomed the distraction.

  ‘Yeah, George?’ Drake said.

  Breckenridge was, as always, brisk and to the point. He had little time for grunts like Drake, and made no attempt to hide that fact. ‘We need you to come in. Where are you?’

  ‘Brookeville. Keegan’s place. Why, what’s going on?’

  ‘We’ve got a situation here. We want your input.’

  Which told him nothing at all. Not that he was surprised – this was an open line, and while Drake doubted the Russians or Chinese were listening in on his every phone call, there were still rules. More than one op had been compromised in the CIA’s history by casual conversations on unsecured lines.

  ‘How urgent is it?’

  ‘I’m sorry, did I give the impression this was a dinner invitation?’ Breckenridge asked, employing his most patronising tone. ‘We want you and your team here five minutes ago. Exactly what part of this is unclear?’

  Not for the first time, Drake found himself seriously questioning Franklin’s choice of successor. Whatever the vetting process for that position, it clearly wasn’t de
signed to filter out arseholes. ‘Abundantly.’

  ‘Good. I’ll see you in Conference Room One in thirty minutes.’ He hung up without saying anything further.

  ‘Prick,’ Drake said under his breath as he closed down his phone.

  Frost regarded him suspiciously. ‘Trouble in paradise?’

  ‘SNAFU, as your Marine cousins are fond of saying.’

  She nodded sagely. SNAFU – Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.

  ‘What does he want?’

  Drake tipped back his beer and downed it in one gulp.

  ‘Well, the good news is you’ve escaped Keegan’s food tonight.’

  Chapter 3

  CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

  One thing Drake had to commend the Agency on was their sense of irony. The George Bush Center for Intelligence (itself a contradiction in terms) was where some of the most important decisions in the world of espionage, counter-terrorism, clandestine operations and global politics were made, yet the place reminded him more of a garden centre than an intelligence-gathering hub.

  Set within acres of well-maintained parkland, there were trees and flower beds and neatly trimmed lawns everywhere. The main entrance was even a long glass-covered archway with plants and expensive decor. All they needed to complete the look was a coy pond and a café selling overpriced coffee and pastries.

  There were two main elements to the CIA’s headquarters – the Old Headquarters Building (OHB) and the imaginatively named New Headquarters Building (NHB). The OHB was a double H-block arrangement that dated back to the Agency’s beginnings in the 1950s, while the NHB consisted of a pair of six-storey office towers that dominated the landscape like a pair of modern-day castles.

  Drake and his two companions were headed for the northernmost of the two towers. After passing through the main security checkpoint and traversing the length of the glass tunnel, they took a left at the T-junction.

  ‘This had better be fucking good,’ Frost hissed, striding along beside her two companions with a look in her eye that would give most guard dogs pause for thought. ‘I’m talking alien invasion or Presidential kidnapping here.’