Sacrifice

by Will Jordan

  Roused from his stupor, he stared at Drake for several seconds as if failing to comprehend what was happening.

  ‘Who sent you?’ Drake demanded, pushing the barrel harder. His finger was already tight on the trigger. ‘I said, who sent you? Talk or die!’

  ‘Fuck you,’ his opponent hissed, snatching something up from the floor by his side.

  A moment later, Drake felt the sting as two metal prongs were jammed into his neck. The taser, dropped during the fight. It must have come to rest within his enemy’s reach.

  Drake’s reaction was immediate. With the gun still pressed against the cameraman’s forehead, he pulled the trigger before the taser could discharge.

  The round entered at high velocity, leaving a hole no larger than the projectile itself. However, the negative pressure wave created by its passage pulled most of the contents of his skull with it as it exited through the back, now slowed considerably by several inches of bone and brain matter.

  As the dead man slumped sideways, leaving a wide crimson stain on the cheap wood veneer behind him, Drake collapsed against the wall of the elevator, gasping for breath, his heart hammering in his chest.

  He was no stranger to killing, and felt no regret about what he’d done. It was kill or be killed in that moment, and he had done what he had to do to stay alive.

  What shocked him more was the knowledge that these men were both Horizon operatives. He had recognised the Airborne tattoo on the cameraman’s forearm from the day at the crash site.

  They worked for Horizon, and they had been sent here to take him down. The text message from Frost was a trap intended to lure him in. And if they had been ready to kill him, what had they done with her?

  A growing pain on his right side, accompanied by a spreading, sticky warmth, reminded him that he had more immediate concerns. Pulling up his shirt and the T-shirt beneath, he exposed the light Kevlar vest he’d been wearing.

  Even in Kabul he wasn’t prepared to walk around unprotected, and had insisted the rest of his team do likewise while outside Bagram. The Kevlar vest wasn’t strong enough to stop high-powered assault rifle rounds, but it had been enough to save his life today.

  More or less. The vest might have stopped the bullet, but the force of the close-range impact had likely cracked a couple of ribs. He felt as though someone had hit his chest with a sledgehammer.

  Undoing the Velcro straps holding it closed, he found himself with an area of discoloured, haemorrhaged skin about the size of his fist. By the looks of it, the round had just made it through the vest to punch a hole in his side, though it hadn’t penetrated deep enough to cause any serious damage.

  The bleeding was less than he’d feared. The pain was another matter.

  Still, he was alive. That was the important thing right now. With no time or tools with which to treat the wound, he had no option but to strap the vest up tight and allow his shirt to fall back into place.

  His priority was to find Frost and get out of here.

  How he would accomplish that was more of a challenge. He was in an elevator with two blood-covered bodies, and himself bore the marks of his deadly confrontation. He couldn’t expect to stroll out through the lobby uncontested.

  Neither could he shoot his way out. The InterContinental was a well-protected hotel – there were security guards and Afghan police everywhere. He wouldn’t make it 200 yards.

  But one thing was certain; he had to do something quickly. The satchel man had pressed the emergency stop button, halting the elevator between floors. It wouldn’t take long for the hotel management to work out there was a problem.

  He looked up at the elevator controls. There were only four floors to choose from. A locked metal panel covered what he assumed were other buttons reserved for hotel staff only.

  That was all the incentive he needed. Bringing the USP to bear, he took aim at the panel and squeezed off a round.

  There was a heavy thump as the suppressor did its work, and a harsh bang as the lock disintegrated under the impact of a .45-calibre slug. Quickly shoving the weapon down the back of his trousers, Drake flipped open the panel to reveal three additional buttons.

  The lowest was marked B, which he assumed meant the basement. It was a possibility, but the basement was likely to be a service area, perhaps even a kitchen. Either way, there was a good chance he would encounter hotel staff, and he was unfamiliar with the layout.

  The second button was labelled INS, which he suspected was designed to put the elevator in some kind of inspection mode, probably for maintenance.

  The last button was marked R, which had to mean roof access. It was far from perfect, but it seemed like his best – if only – viable option at that moment.

  He pressed it. A moment later, the elevator shuddered into life as the winch went to work. He was on his way up.

  Ten seconds later, the elevator doors slid open to reveal a dingy, bare brick room about 15 feet square. Metal access panels with red warning signs and electricity symbols were fixed against the far wall, the dull glow of their indicator lights providing just enough illumination to make out the shapes of toolboxes, wooden pallets and other discarded crap stacked in one corner.

  The air smelled of oil and machinery and dust, reminding him for a moment of his father’s old garage. He half-expected to see an E-Type Jaguar parked in the middle of the room, red paintwork gleaming in whatever light managed to filter in through cobwebbed windows.

  No such vision presented itself, however, and his mind snapped back to reality an instant later. He was in the elevator winch house, which he guessed was visited only when there was a problem or when routine maintenance was required.

  Off to the right, slivers of daylight strained through the tiny gaps around a steel door. Grimacing in pain, he picked up the broken camera once more and wedged it between the elevator doors to prevent them from closing.

  With the elevator immobile, he turned his attention back to his attackers, quickly rifling through their pockets in search of anything useful. Unsurprisingly, neither man was carrying ID or cellphone. If they happened to get caught or killed, their employer wouldn’t want anything that could be traced back to him.

  However, he did find a couple of hundred dollars’ worth of US currency in the cameraman’s trouser pocket, which he wasn’t too proud to help himself to.

  This done, he picked up the fallen satchel, draping the strap over his left shoulder so that it covered the spreading bloodstain on his shirt. He clenched his teeth as the weight settled against the heavy bruising around the gunshot wound, but nonetheless managed to rise to his feet.

  Armed with his meagre disguise, he exited the elevator and hurried over to the steel door that separated him from the outside world. It was locked. With no time to search for the key, he drew the silenced USP, levelled it at the lock and, turning his head away to avoid flying debris, squeezed off a round.

  The high-powered slug tore through the thin, brittle sheet steel with ease, obliterating the lock.

  Securing the weapon once more, Drake hauled open the door. Harsh, blinding light from the setting sun flooded his vision, almost forcing him to retreat into the cool darkness of the winch room. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he and advanced outside.

  Situated as the InterContinental was on a hillside overlooking Kabul, the view from the top floor was impressive, its panoramic vista broken only by the squat bulk of the elevator winch house behind him.

  But Drake had no time for sightseeing. His eyes quickly surveyed his immediate surroundings in search of a way down. It had to be at least a 50-foot drop to the ground below, removing jumping as an option unless he had a serious grudge against his own skeleton.

  The roof itself was a flat open space the length of a football pitch, liberally broken up by the weathered steel of air-conditioning outlets. In the heat of the Afghan summer, they must have been working overtime to keep the rooms cool.

  However, he spotted something up ahead that might serve. A small inco
nspicuous structure, just white-painted breeze blocks, a flat roof and a single door leading down.

  A fire escape.

  Wasting no time, he sprinted across the 20 yards of open rooftop separating him from escape, doing his best to ignore the stabbing pain in his side and back.

  The fire door, identical to the one sealing the winch house, was also locked, but a couple of shots from the USP were enough to take care of that.

  Shoving the weapon down the back of his trousers, he descended the stairs, pulling the door shut behind him.

  As he’d hoped, this was a communal stairwell for guests and staff to use. One floor down, and he saw signs directing him to rooms 401–425. Ignoring them, he continued down to the next level and eased the door open, glancing both ways.

  The corridor was empty. Most of the guests, it seemed, were downstairs doing whatever journalists did at this time of day. Probably drinking.

  With one hand gripping the pistol, he hurried along the corridor to room 322, with the old-fashioned laundry chute opposite. This time the housekeeping lady was nowhere to be seen.

  His heart was beating wildly as he fished the key card from his pocket. Taking a deep breath, he swiped it through the reader.

  There was a buzz, a click as the lock disengaged, and the light turned from red to green.

  Drake had the door open in a heartbeat, weapon up and ready, sweeping every corner of the room in search of a target.

  There were none. No targets, no Frost. The room was empty. All her computer gear was gone. The only sign of a struggle was the coffee stain on the green carpet near the door.

  The pain of the bullet wound was nothing to the ache of guilt and grief he now felt. He had left her here unprotected, and they had found her. He didn’t know how they’d done it, but somehow Horizon had found her and taken her.

  They must have traced her hacking attempt somehow.

  She’s gone because of you, you stupid arsehole. You should have been here. You should have been watching her back.

  Drake shook his head, forcing himself to refocus. Thoughts like that could come later, and he was sure they would. For now, he had to act.

  Reaching for his cellphone, he dialled McKnight’s number, waiting while it rang out. To his dismay, it carried on ringing for some time until at last she picked up.

  ‘Ryan?’

  But the voice that answered wasn’t Samantha’s. It was male, deep and rough. It was a voice that belonged to Crawford.

  ‘Where’s Sam?’ he asked.

  ‘Ryan, listen, we’ve … got a situation here.’

  ‘Put Sam on the line right now, Crawford.’

  ‘You can talk to her when you come in.’ There was a pause, just a brief one, but long enough for him to hear hushed voices in the background. Technicians trying to set up a phone trace. ‘Where are you, Ryan?’

  Drake had heard enough. Ending the call, he turned and snatched up the satchel once more.

  He was being set up. Horizon had found out about their plan to hack their system and were retaliating, first by taking out Frost, then by having the rest of his team arrested. If Anya was right, and Carpenter and Cain were familiar with each other, then almost anyone in the Agency could be compromised.

  He had to leave, now.

  The idea that phone traces take thirty or even sixty seconds is another Hollywood fantasy. Sophisticated systems like the ones employed by the Agency could do the job in moments. More than likely, a strike team was already scrambling to intercept him.

  Adjusting the satchel on his shoulder, he pulled the door open and hurried out into the corridor, pausing only a moment to drop the USP down the laundry chute. The weapon had been useful so far, but he would never get past security with it.

  Hurrying down the corridor, he dialled another number on his cellphone. The phone was compromised now, but he had to risk it.

  ‘Did it work?’ Cunningham asked, answering the call straight away.

  ‘Get out of there, Matt. We’re burned,’ Drake said, his voice low and urgent. ‘They’ve got Frost. They tried to kill me.’

  ‘Shit,’ his friend hissed. ‘You said it was foolproof. What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Pushing open the stairwell door again, he took the stairs down, trying to ignore the flashes of pain that rocked him with each step. ‘But two Horizon operatives just tried to take me down. Get out of there now.’

  ‘And then what?’ Cunningham demanded.

  ‘Remember the place we met for coffee? Meet me there in an hour, and come alone. We’ll talk.’

  ‘Ryan, wai—’

  Drake wasn’t hearing him. He cut the call without saying anything else, pried open the plastic case and removed the battery.

  Each step was growing more painful as the injury to his side made itself felt, but he forced himself onward, shoving his way through the set of double doors at the bottom and into a long corridor heading towards the lobby.

  Without breaking stride, he pulled his cellphone from his pocket, ignoring the fact that it was powered down with the battery removed, and pressed it tight against his ear. Hopefully it would cover both the cut on his cheek and the fact that the phone wasn’t switched on.

  A group of four middle-aged men, their suits struggling to contain their voluminous beer guts, were ambling along the corridor towards him, each hauling a wheeled suitcase that they could easily have carried.

  Drake waited until they were within earshot before launching into his performance.

  ‘Well, it’s just not good enough, Nigel,’ he said, adopting his best public-school accent and trying to look as pissed off as he sounded. ‘I was told someone would meet me at the airport, and they didn’t. I was told there would be a car waiting and there wasn’t. I’ve been in a bloody taxi round half of Kabul before I ended up in this dump. How am I supposed to submit my reports if I can’t even get proper Internet access?’

  The older men looked at him with a mixture of sympathy and irritation as he passed. No doubt they had been through similar shit themselves.

  Drake didn’t even glance at them, striding by as if he owned the place. He doubted he would win any Oscars for his performance, but playing the part of the disgruntled Englishman was enough to allay most people’s suspicions. He might have been a loud, obnoxious asshole, but that was all they would remember about him. In their minds he was the kind of man one most often sought to avoid.

  He went through the same act in the lobby, giving his imaginary friend Nigel an earful as he passed the tables of journalists and businessmen, most of whom didn’t even look up from their coffees and laptops. They had heard self-important idiots spouting the same stuff a hundred times before, and certainly weren’t impressed by it.

  Even the security men at the doors wanted nothing to do with him, and he was able to breeze past without so much as a pat-down. They were there to ensure no one marched in wearing an explosive vest, not to take abuse from guests on the way out.

  He kept the phone tight to his ear, carrying on a stream of complaints and abuse until the main building was at least 50 yards behind him. Then at last he dropped the act and quickened his pace, eager to put as much distance between himself and those two dead bodies as possible.

  The exit from the InterContinental’s plush landscaped grounds deposited Drake on the Qargha Road; a main drag running from west to east across town. However, east was one direction he certainly didn’t want to go. The British embassy was scarcely half a mile distant, and like the Americans they were careful to keep a close watch on the roads and buildings around their compound.

  Neither could he head west. The Kabul police training centre lay just beyond the hill on which the hotel sat. When the two bodies were discovered, it wouldn’t take the police long to spot him on CCTV footage and make the connection.

  He suspected they wouldn’t be sympathetic to his cause.

  Instead, he headed north-west, towards a range of wind-scoured hills that rose up out of the urban clutter like a
natural fortress of rock. Too steep and awkward to build on, they were more or less devoid of human habitation, which suited him just fine.

  Anywhere was better than here.

  Chapter 39

  Richard Carpenter surveyed the packed press briefing room, standing tall and imposing behind a lectern with the Horizon company logo emblazoned on it. There was a microphone built into the stand, but several others had been hastily added by the news crews in attendance.

  He was wearing a dark blue suit that looked as if it had just arrived from the tailors, his hair neatly combed, his back straight and his eyes framed by a pair of sleek reading glasses.

  ‘Good evening,’ he began, scanning the crowd with his piercing gaze before glancing down to read from a prepared statement. ‘At approximately nineteen hundred hours local time last night, a team of operatives working for Horizon Defence took part in an operation to apprehend the terrorist leader Kourash Anwari. I can now confirm that this man, along with approximately a dozen armed insurgents who accompanied him, was killed in the resulting operation. There were no casualties amongst Horizon personnel. The exact details of this operation must, for obvious reasons, remain classified at this time. However, I can show you a number of pictures taken in the aftermath of the battle. Please be aware that these pictures are of a graphic nature.’

  The projector screen behind Carpenter flickered into life, and a series of still images began to play, showing the interior of a house with dead bodies, weapons and computer gear strewn around. Close-up shots showed several men who had taken rounds to the head and torso, with the gory results clear to see.

  Last of all, the images concentrated on Anwari himself. He was lying sprawled on his back, partly curled around a leather sofa he must have fallen over. By the looks of it, he had taken a couple of rounds to the chest. His eyes were wide and staring, seeing nothing, his expression blank.

  Other shots followed, showing the dead face compared to some still images lifted from the hostage tapes, highlighting key similarities in eye and facial structure, and also showing his hand with the missing fingers.