by Rob Sinclair
A man appeared, as if coming from nowhere through the wall of snow that was still falling. He was dressed similarly to the guard at the front gate but was noticeably taller. He waved Logan in behind the pickup truck.
Logan switched off the engine and looked over at Grainger. She looked uncomfortable. But it was too late to change their minds now.
‘Come on,’ Logan said. ‘Just follow my lead.’
Logan opened his door without waiting for a response. He stepped out of the car, a shiver running through him. It served as a chilling reminder of the last time Logan had seen his host. Snow smacked against his face and he reached up with his arm to protect himself from the blizzard as he turned toward the approaching guard. Logan was caught by surprise when he saw the man was wielding an AK-47 assault rifle, the barrel of which was pointing at Logan’s chest.
‘Put your hands in the air,’ the man said in Russian, coming to within inches of Logan.
Logan did as he was told.
‘Are you armed?’ the man said.
‘Yes,’ Logan said.
‘Where?’
‘In the car.’
‘And your friend?’
‘Why don’t you ask her?’
‘Get her out,’ the man shouted, off to his left. Another guard came into view and met Grainger as she emerged from the car.
Logan looked over and was pleasantly surprised to see that the expression on her face had changed to one of steely determination.
‘Can we get inside?’ Logan said to the guard. ‘I’m freezing my balls off out here.’
He jumped when he felt hands on him from behind. It was another guard, he assumed, patting him down. Satisfied, the man went over to Grainger and did the same.
Neither he nor Grainger had a gun on them. Logan hadn’t wanted to complicate matters and had insisted they both leave their firearms in the car. The idea wasn’t to come here to fight, even if the guards didn’t quite believe that yet.
‘Okay, follow me,’ the tall guard said after his colleague had finished patting down Grainger.
He lowered his weapon and turned on his heel.
Logan followed after him, Grainger behind, the other two guards at the rear. A total of four guards had welcomed them thus far. And Logan assumed that each of them was armed. Heavy protection for sure.
The guard led them into the expansive building through a side entrance that opened out into a kitchen. Logan sighed with relief as he stepped inside and the snowy air disappeared, replaced by warmth and comfort and the smell of freshly cooked food.
They walked from the kitchen into a hallway and across into a lounge area. The building on the inside was only marginally more attractive than the outside. Although it was clear now that this was indeed a home, the decor was still simple and functional – no elaborate art or ornaments or decorations. The furniture was stoic and dour and purposeful. It almost looked like whoever lived here didn’t fully believe this was their true home – just somewhere to eat and sleep. Temporary accommodation. But it was certainly better than what Logan had become used to recently.
As they entered the lounge, Logan spotted the man they had come to see. He was sitting in an armchair, a thick cigar stuck between his lips.
A wave of emotions coursed through Logan. The man was noticeably older than the last time Logan had seen him, his face even more hardened than before. But he retained a look of power and confidence that told Logan he hadn’t lost any of his appetite for life. He stood as Logan approached.
‘Carl Logan. Well, I have to say, this is certainly intriguing.’
His voice was loud, deep, gravelly. It had taken on a huskiness too since the last time Logan had seen him, but it was still unmistakable. Logan reached out his hand and his host hesitated for just a second before taking it and giving it a bone-crushing shake.
‘You know, I always wondered whether you’d turn up one day. But I have to say, I’m still very surprised you did.’
‘Fleming,’ Logan said, ‘you’re looking good.’
‘It’s Captain to you,’ Fleming responded, smirking.
Chapter 18
London, England
Winter was fast asleep in his bed when the phone call came. It was eight a.m., far later than he’d normally be asleep on a working day. He usually set his alarm for six and was at his desk at the JIA office for half seven, unless he was off on one of his many trips around the world.
The previous night had been anything but usual, though. Having found the startling intelligence on Lindegaard that the Russian FSB agent Lena Belenov was his niece, Winter had at first been on a high. The high had quickly faded, though, as he’d contemplated exactly what it all meant. That was when the anxiety had started to build.
What Winter had found meant a lot of the unexplained events suddenly made more sense. He’d never warmed to Lindegaard, and finding that he had a close family connection to an FSB agent was astonishing. Sure, such a connection was entirely legitimate if appropriately disclosed and if their work for their respective organisations was correctly siloed. But Winter didn’t believe that to be the case at all. Certainly he could see no disclosure of the relationship in JIA records – not that he was privy to the committee’s official papers, although he had managed to hack into the archived databases to check.
He had no way of knowing what disclosures Lindegaard had made to the CIA, but if Winter were a betting man, he’d say there had been none. And given Lena Belenov’s connection to Logan’s imprisonment in Russia and the subsequent negotiations with the JIA and the CIA for his release, finally some answers were falling into place.
Just how far did Lindegaard’s role in this sordid mess stretch?
After some hours of quiet deliberation, Winter had ultimately decided that perhaps what he’d found, rather than being a help, may in fact be a huge hindrance. Because he now knew that he, the JIA and everyone else involved were playing one huge game of cat and mouse, and Jay Lindegaard seemed to be at the centre of it all.
Winter was at a loss as to whom exactly he could trust with what he’d found. In the end, he decided there wasn’t a single person he could share the information with. Not until he’d figured out more of the story on his own.
Winter had spoken to Paul Evans twice in the small hours of the night. Winter had said nothing to his agent about Lindegaard and Belenov. It wasn’t something he could just blurt out over a phone line to someone a couple of thousand miles away. Instead, the two men had discussed at great length Evans’s plan for the following day – the meet with Nikolai Medvedev.
It was Evans who had proposed the meeting; he was Medvedev’s handler after all. Winter had okayed it even though he wasn’t one hundred per cent comfortable with the rushed nature of the organisation – despite his reservations, the time was hardly right to be causing needless delays. Evans had been resolute, calm on the phone. Nothing amiss, as far as Winter had been aware.
He wasn’t sure what time he’d finally fallen asleep, in his chair by the computer. Claire had found him like that when she’d returned home sometime after three a.m. A half-hearted argument had followed over just how much of an arsehole he was. His reluctance to fully defend himself against her drunken onslaught had only seemed to make her angrier, culminating in her giving him a ferocious slap across his face. He’d said and done nothing in response.
As angry as she’d got, as close to the brink he could feel their relationship was coming, his mind was too clouded by the task at hand. In the end, Claire had skulked off to bed and he’d followed not long after, passing out within seconds from mental exhaustion.
When the phone rang at eight a.m., Claire had already upped and left for the day without saying goodbye or attempting to wake him. Winter knew he was in the doghouse. He hoped in time he would get the chance to make it up to her. But as he listened to the voice on the other end of the phone, any thoughts he had about Claire and the work he needed to put into their strained relationship were quickly forgotten.
&nbs
p; Something had gone badly wrong. The man calling Winter, an asset who was a British expat making a living in Russia as a language tutor to the rich, knew little of the details of what had happened. He’d simply gleaned what he could from news reports about a shooting that had taken place in central Moscow, and from making a few phone calls to his own well-connected contacts. Two things were abundantly clear, though: Nikolai Medvedev was dead, and there was no sign of Paul Evans.
After putting the phone down, Winter immediately tried contacting Evans. No response. The early news reports coming out of Moscow were vague and spurious, simply stating that there had been a shooting incident. No identification of the victim or any perpetrators. Certainly no mention of a missing British spy.
The vagueness wasn’t unusual, given the identity of the dead man – a senior official for the FSB. The Russians would be keeping tight-lipped about that for as long as it suited them. In fact, by the time Winter had left his flat, the news channels in the UK weren’t carrying the story at all. What interest was there in the shooting of a single unknown person in a foreign city?
Once Winter had fought his way across London to the JIA office, though, a whole new mess awaited him. By that point, some three hours after the meet that Evans had planned with Medvedev, the shooting was making headlines not just in Moscow and Russia but on every major TV network in the Western world. And the reports coming from Moscow changed the landscape significantly: Carl Logan – identified by the Russians as a British spy – had been named the number one suspect in Nikolai Medvedev’s murder.
Chapter 19
Aktobe Province, Kazakhstan
Many years ago, Logan had vowed revenge against Captain Fleming. Logan’s desire to get his own back on the man who’d left him for dead with a broken leg in the wilds of Scotland had never been fulfilled.
Fleming had dodged a bullet, there was no doubt about that.
For months after the incident in the Highlands, Logan’s hatred for Fleming had remained sharp and front of mind. On an almost daily basis, he cringed as he recounted the many times that Fleming had got the better of him, and he filled his head with thoughts of how he would punish Fleming when he came face to face with him again.
That day had never come. Ultimately, Mackie had been right. The JIA had trained Logan to ignore his emotions. To live, work and fight with a clear head. They had turned him into a robot, a machine, something that on the outside resembled a human being but on the inside was a vast nothingness. Living like that had seen Logan through many years of gruelling and deadly missions for the JIA. And it had eradicated the thirst for vengeance that had clouded his formative years.
In fact, his vengeful streak had only truly been resurrected following his fateful assignment to capture Youssef Selim almost two years ago.
Although Logan had never sought his revenge on Fleming, he’d certainly not forgotten about the army captain. Logan had kept abreast of Fleming’s every move since that day in Scotland. At first, Logan had been plotting, planning his moment of retribution. But he had never gone through with it. The need to exact his revenge on Fleming had dwindled along with every other emotion. Over the years, checking up on Fleming had merely become a habit, one last remnant of his previous life – a feat of curiosity as much as anything else, rather than part of a master plan to track down and punish the ex-soldier.
Right now, though, as odd as it seemed to Logan, Fleming was the only man he could think to turn to. Did he trust Fleming? No. Logan didn’t truly trust anyone anymore. He’d learned to live like that a long time ago and recent events had only further cemented that belief. Could Fleming help him? Yes, he could. The only question was whether he would.
‘I’m assuming you’re not here to assassinate me?’ Fleming said, sitting back down in his armchair.
‘Why? Have you done something that would warrant it?’
Fleming shot Logan a look of disdain. Clearly whatever had happened to Fleming in the years since Logan had last met him, he still had the same air of superiority. He didn’t like to be challenged and he didn’t like people answering back. Once an army captain, always an army captain.
‘That’s your job, isn’t it?’ Fleming said. ‘The super spy. The deadly assassin. The boy wonder.’
‘If you say so.’ Logan shook his head and went and sat down on one of the two brown leather sofas. Grainger timidly followed and sat next to him. ‘I’m not sure I’m exactly in a job right now,’ Logan added.
Fleming took a big puff on his cigar and smiled as he exhaled, tilting his head back so that the cloud of smoke billowed up into the air.
‘Ah, I get it. So that’s why you’re here. They booted you out. What, did you start to enjoy it just that little bit too much? Enjoyed the adrenaline rush of seeing our fellow humans suffer at your hands?’
‘Not even close,’ Logan said.
‘No? But you’re here because you need my help, aren’t you?’ Fleming quizzed.
‘Yeah. I do need your help,’ Logan said, looking down at his feet and then up at Grainger. ‘We both do.’
Grainger simply nodded. She was gazing over at Fleming, her face betraying no emotion.
‘Well, this really is a turn-up for the books,’ Fleming said. ‘The boy wonder needs my help. Again.’
‘I didn’t need your help back then. And I certainly didn’t get it.’
Fleming smirked. ‘You’re saying I didn’t make you stronger?’
‘You didn’t.’
‘Ah, well, it depends exactly how you look at these things. But you need my help now. You know I’m not in the army anymore?’
‘I heard.’
‘So you’ve been keeping tabs on me?’
‘I keep tabs on a lot of people.’
‘Of course you do. You’re a proper James Bond, aren’t you?’
Logan didn’t respond.
‘I’m surprised you just can’t see that I helped you back then,’ Fleming said. ‘I helped that agency of yours mould you into exactly what they wanted you to become.’
‘Maybe the end product was what they wanted, but I’m sure I’ve nothing to thank you for.’
‘No, you’re just bitter because you thought you could beat me.’
‘I’m sure I could have.’
‘Ha, just because I’m a bit older and a bit rounder now, don’t think for a second I’m not just as capable as I was back then.’
‘I’m not here to compare dick sizes.’
‘Then what are you here for?’
Something caught Fleming’s attention over by the doorway. Logan glanced over and saw a man entering. The man did a quick double-take and stopped just a few feet into the room, staring coldly at Logan.
‘What the fuck?’ the man said. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Butler, you remember Carl Logan?’ Fleming said.
‘Of course I do.’
Butler walked over to the empty sofa, one eye on Logan the whole time, and then sat down. Logan wasn’t at all surprised by his presence. What he had said to Grainger had been true – he hadn’t checked up on Fleming in almost three years – but he knew all about these men.
Fleming had left the army five years ago. A dishonourable discharge was the official line, though Logan knew there was a lot more to the story than that. Since then, Fleming had set up shop as a security consultant in Kazakhstan. Butler, who’d long left the army for capability reasons, something about his weak left arm, had tagged along.
Fleming operated as a freelancer, working for the many foreign companies – Chinese and Western – investing in the region to exploit the money-making potential of the country’s vast energy reserves. From the look of his residence, armed guards and all, Logan could only guess that Fleming’s business enterprise was earning him a not-insignificant amount of money.
Butler too had noticeably aged since Logan had last seen him, but the years hadn’t been as kind to him as they had to Fleming, even though he was younger than the captain. He had a defeated look in his e
yes, like many ex-military do. Usually it comes from a combination of the troubles seen in battle and the difficulty in assimilating back into a normal life. For Butler, though, Logan guessed it was the fact his military career – his lifeblood – had been cut short so abruptly. Butler’s facial features had softened and become puffy and his body had also filled out some. Judging by the changes in Butler’s face, the additional weight appeared to be mostly fat, though with the thick clothes Butler had on, Logan couldn’t tell for sure.
‘What’s he doing here?’ Butler said, looking from Logan over to Fleming. Butler’s acidic tone didn’t surprise Logan at all. He was certain that Butler was holding a grudge for his untimely exit from the SAS.
‘We were just getting on to that,’ Fleming said, still exuding calm and arrogance, in stark contrast to Butler’s anger and suspicion. ‘Perhaps you could start, Logan, with who your friend is. It’s a tad rude that you haven’t introduced us yet.’
‘I know who she is,’ Butler said, eyeing Grainger up and down.
‘You do?’ Fleming queried.
‘Angela Grainger. Pretty much the FBI’s most wanted.’
Logan glanced over at Grainger and noticed her cheeks redden. She looked down, as though embarrassed by her notoriety.
‘Then I guess you’ll know why we’re here,’ Logan said to Butler.
‘He might, but I certainly don’t,’ Fleming interrupted.
‘They’re on the run,’ Butler said. ‘They’re on the run from the CIA – the FBI too. And the boy wonder thought maybe you could help him.’
‘Is that so?’
‘You ask me,’ Butler continued, ‘we should feed them to the wolves. We don’t owe this guy anything.’
‘But I didn’t ask you,’ Fleming said to Butler, before directing his attention back to Logan. ‘So is it true? You’re on the run from your friends at the CIA?’
‘I don’t have any friends,’ Logan said. ‘I never had.’
