by Rob Sinclair
Despite her uncertainty, she felt a flutter in her heart as she looked into his deep-green eyes and couldn’t help but smile – something she hadn’t done in too long.
Their affair, more than a year ago, had been fleeting, but it had affected them both deeply. Yet their relationship had been doomed from the start. She’d lied to Logan. She’d betrayed him. Then she’d shot him.
After that, she’d gone on the run, leaving behind everything she knew – her job, her money, her life that she’d built tirelessly over many years – and with it her capacity to love.
And yet here he was.
Had he come for his revenge? Or to take her back to America to face justice?
No. She didn’t think so.
Not that it made her feel any happier. Because with the door open, she saw the look in his eyes. The blood on his clothes. And the gun in his hand.
‘It’s not safe here,’ he said. ‘We have to go.’
More than anything, on hearing his voice, the feeling that washed over her was relief.
She didn’t need to ask what he meant. She already had a good idea what was happening.
Carl Logan wasn’t there to kill her, or to turn her in.
He was there to save her.
Chapter 3
There had been no gunfight, no ambush from the Russians, no planted bomb ready to tear down the apartment that Angela Grainger had been holed up in. No path of resistance at all.
Perhaps Lena’s parting words as Logan had left her bleeding to death on the warehouse floor had been merely a red herring, one last attempt at deceit.
Or perhaps the final assault was still to come.
Either way, Logan and Grainger had escaped from the apartment in Khoroshyovo-Mnyovniki entirely unimpeded. But both knew their ordeal was anything but over. The CIA, the Russian FSB, even the JIA, to which Logan had been loyal for so many years, would be after them.
They had already fled some two hundred miles from Moscow, quickly escaping the city and heading south, passing through largely forested terrain. Their only plan thus far had been to travel as far and fast as they could – increase the distance between themselves and whoever was now following them. The further they went from the starting point, the wider the arc of where they could be. Although it wasn’t like Logan to run from his problems, right now he wasn’t sure what else he could do. His immediate priority had simply been to get Grainger to safety.
They were travelling in a clapped-out saloon car that had been parked in the frozen apartment grounds and had taken Logan only seconds to hot-wire. Luckily it’d had an almost full fuel tank and in the five hours since their departure from the apartment block, they hadn’t yet needed to stop.
Logan had barely spoken to Grainger during the journey. There was an unease between them; neither was sure how to treat the other after what had happened in America, a whole year before, when Grainger had shot Logan and gone on the run. The longer the silence in the car dragged out, the harder it became for Logan to think of the right thing to say. So he did what he’d always done best: kept his mouth shut. He’d learned a long time ago that silence was better than bullshit.
Despite the awkwardness in the car, standing in the doorway of the apartment, looking at the woman he’d once held so close to him, had been a poignant moment. A brief one, though.
His words to her had been simple: ‘It’s not safe here. We have to go.’
Without saying a single word in response, she’d grabbed her coat and shut the door, leaving behind what little of value lay in the apartment, which Logan guessed had been as much a prison as a home. Then they’d been on their way. She hadn’t asked any questions. He hadn’t volunteered any answers. It was as though she’d fully understood the perilous situation she’d been in, that she hadn’t really expected the Russians to hide her from the Americans, keep her safe, for good.
‘Are you going to tell me what’s happening?’ Grainger said eventually.
‘What do you think is happening?’ Logan responded after a few seconds of trying, and failing, to find words to answer the question.
He looked over at her. There had been something close to disgust in his voice. He wasn’t sure whether that was with herself or the Russians who had pretended to be her saviours but then played their hand and dealt Grainger straight back to the people she had run from: the Americans. The CIA.
She looked down and he couldn’t help but feel bad for having used such a harsh tone of voice.
‘A deal was struck,’ Logan said. ‘The CIA found out where you were. They want you dead. The Russians were happy to give you up.’
She didn’t respond. He thought he saw a tear escape her eye, but it was difficult to tell in the near-darkness of the car.
‘Why did you come for me?’ she asked.
‘What else could I have done?’
‘I knew something would happen eventually. They took me in but I meant nothing to the Russians. I knew I’d just become a bargaining chip for them.’
She wiped her face with her hands.
‘When I saw you standing there,’ she said, ‘outside the door, I thought for a moment it was you who’d been sent. I thought it was you who was going to kill me.’
As much as Logan still wanted to hate her, his heart went out to her. He’d been through his own hell plenty of times, when it felt like he’d been abandoned by the world. He could well imagine the torment she must have gone through over the past year – alone in a foreign country, no one to turn to, not even able to trust the very people who had been claiming to provide her safe haven. And she was right to have felt that way. The Russians had never taken her in for her benefit.
‘If you thought I was going to kill you, why did you just stand there? You didn’t try to hide from me, or attack me.’
‘Because I know I deserve it. And really, it’s inevitable. They’re never going to stop looking for me.’
After what she’d done, it was hard to argue with that. And yet he wasn’t going to let them kill her. Not the Americans, not the Russians, not anyone.
He just couldn’t.
‘I’ll protect you,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘Because I was part of their dirty deal too. The FSB, the CIA, even my own people were in on it. And right now, you’re just about the only person in the world who doesn’t want me dead.’
Chapter 4
London, England
Peter Winter sat on the soft leather chair behind his desk in the JIA’s London office. Until three days ago, the office had belonged to Charles McCabe, his former boss, who’d been shot and killed outside a cafe in the Russian city of Omsk. Mackie, as he was more affectionately known, had been a charismatic leader. Someone whom Winter, despite his vastly different personality traits, had long aspired to be like.
Following Mackie’s untimely demise, Winter had immediately taken over day-to-day management of his boss’s portfolio of agents. It was the step up that Winter had craved for the last five years working for Mackie. It should have been a moment of happiness, of satisfaction. In some ways, despite the circumstances, it was – or at least it would be in time. In a few days, maybe a few weeks, he would open the bottle of champagne his girlfriend had bought him for his thirtieth birthday two years ago that he had been saving for the day when he was finally promoted to commander within the JIA.
But not yet.
Not while there was still so much turmoil, not just in the JIA but in his own mind.
And not while Mackie’s killer was still on the run.
In many ways, the unexpected promotion hadn’t been easy on Winter, despite it being a position he’d long craved. He noticed the looks from other people within the organisation. He knew they saw him as the young whippersnapper, promoted above his level of experience and aptitude, commanding agents who in some cases were many years older than him and had many more years’ experience. Not that he felt he wasn’t up to it. He knew he was. But knowing the doubts that others were surely feeling
only added to the weight of expectation on his slender shoulders.
‘So what news do you have for me?’ Winter asked, looking over his desk at Paul Evans.
Winter and Evans were similar. Both tall and wiry, both of a similar age and service span with the JIA. Both were tech-savvy thinkers, puzzle solvers, brains rather than brawn. And yet they were leading very different lives. Evans was a field agent, much the same as Carl Logan, albeit with very different characteristics. Winter, on the other hand, was essentially a paper-pusher. He commanded a group of agents but rarely had to get his hands dirty. Yet he was now considerably more senior in the hierarchy than Evans would ever be – a specialised field agent really had nowhere to climb to.
‘We have nothing on Logan,’ Evans said. ‘If that’s what you mean.’
‘He’s just disappeared?’
‘It would seem so. It doesn’t help that there’s no way of tracking him now. No IDs, no bank accounts, no phone.’
Winter wasn’t sure whether Evans’s comment was a dig at him. It was Winter, in his new role, just hours after Mackie’s death, who had proposed to the JIA committee that they clear Logan’s bank accounts, wipe away any record of his time with the JIA, his identification, essentially his entire life. To the outside world, it was now like Carl Logan had never existed.
In many ways, to the outside world, he never really had.
The committee had approved the request almost without question. Somehow, after being held captive by the Russians for three months, Logan had escaped and had wound up at the scene of Mackie’s murder. Even worse, he had fled the scene with the Russians. Exactly what was happening wasn’t clear. But Logan was now on the JIA hit list. A rogue agent.
The idea of deleting Logan’s identity and taking his belongings, his money and everything he had was to make it impossible for Logan to continue operating as much as it was to protect the JIA’s position. But Winter was now starting to wonder whether the decision had been too hasty. Whether he’d actually acted with his heart – angered by Mackie’s death – rather than his head. In deleting all evidence of Logan’s existence, had Winter in fact handed Logan exactly what he needed to disappear for good?
For years, Logan had operated like a ghost, in the shadows. Now he was a ghost even to the JIA.
There was a knock on the office door and Winter’s secretary opened it and stuck her head around.
‘Jay Lindegaard is here to see you,’ she said.
‘Shit,’ Winter muttered.
He really didn’t want to speak to Lindegaard, the most senior of the JIA’s committee members and a long-time CIA agent and pain in the arse. Winter was surprised the man hadn’t just blasted his way into the room. That was certainly his usual style.
‘Okay, send him in,’ Winter said.
Moments later, Jay Lindegaard, wearing a light-grey suit that bulged in all the right places, strode into the office and right up to the desk, eyeballing Winter all the way.
Winter got to his feet, coming a few inches short of Lindegaard’s height and a few inches narrower than his muscular physique.
‘Jay, this is Paul Evans. I’m not sure whether you two have met?’
Evans stuck his hand out toward Lindegaard.
‘Yes, I know who he is,’ Lindegaard snapped, ignoring the offer of a handshake. ‘Have you found Logan yet?’
‘We were just talking about that actually.’
‘And?’
‘And we’re at a bit of a loss,’ Winter said, sitting down.
‘A bit of a loss?’ Lindegaard barked in his thick American accent. He remained standing. ‘Do you have anything at all? We have a madman out there killing all and sundry. He’s now running around with one of the most wanted criminals in the world. Do you know he could bring down this entire organisation if we don’t stop him?’
‘We’re trying,’ Winter said, doing his best to remain composed. He looked over at Evans and tried to gauge his response to Lindegaard’s reference to Angela Grainger. Evans hadn’t been brought into the loop yet about that. But there was nothing. Not even a twitch. ‘As it is,’ Winter continued, ‘we haven’t got any agents left on the ground in Russia.’
‘And yet you two are still sitting here,’ Lindegaard said. ‘How do you expect to get anything done if you’re three thousand miles away from the action?’
‘That’s my point,’ Winter said. ‘I don’t think we can. We need to get feet into Russia and tap up our sources from there.’
‘So why is Evans still here then?’ Lindegaard blasted. ‘Why isn’t he in Moscow already?’
‘Actually, that was why I called Evans in,’ Winter said, hearing his voice becoming weaker in the face of Lindegaard’s bombarding manner.
As much as he wanted to fight back, Winter knew that entering into a shouting match with Lindegaard wouldn’t help matters. With Mackie gone, Lindegaard was now technically Winter’s immediate boss, along with the other three committee members. He had to at least try to keep Lindegaard at bay. Which sounded infinitely easier than it was.
‘We were just about to go over the arrangements,’ Evans chimed in.
Lindegaard turned his steely gaze to Evans and stared down at the young agent. After a few seconds, he huffed and spun around, then headed back to the door. He stopped when he reached it and turned again to speak.
‘This is not a strong start you’re making, Winter. I might not have seen eye to eye with Mackie at all times, but he was good at his job. You’ve got some big boots to fill. So start filling. I want Evans in Moscow now. And I want daily updates from you. We need to keep moving before Logan causes any more damage.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Winter said.
‘And if you get even a sniff of where Logan is, you come to me immediately. He’s a threat to you, me, everyone in this organisation. The longer he stays on the run, the bigger that threat becomes. Got it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’ve got to head out of the country but call me anytime to update me.’
As soon as Lindegaard slammed the door behind him, Evans began to get up from his chair.
‘Where are you going?’ Winter said.
‘He just said–’
‘Sit down! We’re not done yet.’
Evans gave a sour look but did as he was told. Winter was surprised at himself for his authoritative tone. Perhaps Mackie had rubbed off on him more than he’d realised. Or maybe he was just riled by Lindegaard’s unnerving presence.
‘Before you go, there’s something we need to discuss,’ Winter said.
Evans stared at Winter sullenly.
‘We lost a good agent out in Moscow,’ Winter said.
He was referring to Jane Westwood, who’d been operating under the alias Mary White. The reports coming back from Russia were that Logan had taken Westwood hostage in Omsk after she’d been sent to bring him back in following his apparent escape from the FSB. She’d wound up dead in a back alley in Moscow. Logan was the obvious culprit, but the picture of exactly what was happening in Russia was becoming less clear by the hour.
‘I know,’ Evans said. ‘I worked with her on her first assignment. She was a real asset.’
‘She was. But I’m more than a little suspicious about how she was killed. Just what went wrong out there?’
‘Logan’s gone rogue. It’s simple, isn’t it? The Russians have turned him. He’s working for them now.’
‘Then why did his killing spree involve taking out numerous agents from the FSB too? It doesn’t look like he’s the best of friends with anyone anymore.’
Evans didn’t respond.
‘I spoke to Logan,’ Winter said. ‘Not long after Mackie was killed. And I spoke to Westwood too. There was something bugging her. She was telling me about the CIA agent she’d been teamed up with out there. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I knew the CIA had been brought into this mess to help find Logan when he’d first been captured in Russia – against the wishes of Mackie, I would add – but it’s the CIA’s
involvement that doesn’t sit easy anymore.’
‘In what way?’
‘Angela Grainger,’ Winter said. ‘You remember her?’
‘Of course,’ Evans said, his face deadpan.
Winter knew Evans and Grainger had never met face to face, but Evans had been involved, along with Logan, in the mission to rescue Frank Modena – the US Attorney General – after he’d been kidnapped in Paris. A kidnapping plot that Angela Grainger had orchestrated. So Evans knew of her. Everyone knew of her. What Evans didn’t know, though, was that since Grainger had escaped from Logan, from everyone, she had fled to Russia to be sheltered by the FSB.
‘And you know that’s who Logan’s with now?’ Winter said.
‘I do,’ Evans said. ‘Because Lindegaard mentioned it and now you have too.’
‘We didn’t know the Russians had been harbouring Grainger. She’d been on the run for over a year. Her presence in Russia only became apparent when we were negotiating for Logan’s release. The Russians, clearly, were using her as a massive bargaining chip.’
‘I can imagine,’ Evans said. ‘And I’m guessing that’s why the CIA took an interest in Logan’s imprisonment.’
‘Exactly. But that’s when things started getting muddy. The CIA took over. After that, I’m not sure what deals were done with whom.’
Winter knew the CIA had been working with Mackie. The JIA was jointly funded by both the American and British government, and working side by side with the CIA and MI6 wasn’t unheard of. When Logan had first been apprehended in Russia, Mackie had been desperate to arrange a deal to get his man out alive. After weeks of making no headway, the CIA had come into the fold to help negotiations. But the deal had never been struck. Logan had escaped – or at least claimed to have escaped – from the clutches of the FSB, only to later draw Mackie out into the open, allowing the Russians to murder him. On the face of it, it appeared Logan had been turned and was now working for the Russians.
But Winter was increasingly getting the feeling that wasn’t the whole story.
