Hunt for the Enemy (#3 Enemy)

by Rob Sinclair

  And, potentially, a huge opportunity.

  ‘I’ve been doing this for three years,’ Pinilla said. ‘I’m not just some errand boy. I’m part of the inner circle. Now do you realise why it would be foolish to run?’

  ‘You’re right. It would be foolish to run,’ Logan said.

  Pinilla raised an eyebrow. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘What’s her name?’ Logan asked.

  ‘Erika.’

  ‘Okay, you take Erika. Get her to one of the vehicles. I’m presuming you know where the keys are?’

  ‘Of course. What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to make sure the coast is clear.’

  ‘You can’t kill them all!’ Pinilla protested. ‘Do you know what that would do? You’ll start a goddamn war.’

  But Logan was barely listening. Mackie had sent him to prove himself. This was his chance.

  Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Both men jumped and spun around.

  ‘Is everything okay in there?’ said a man in Spanish.

  Pinilla began to respond but the man wasn’t waiting. He stuck his head around the door.

  It was the last thing he ever did.

  Logan grabbed hold of the rifle at his side, brought the barrel up and fired a quick double-tap. Even with the suppressor, the noise of the rifle was piercing in the quiet house.

  ‘I guess there’s only one choice now,’ Logan said. ‘You need to get Erika out of here. Use your cover for as long as you can.’

  ‘Fuck!’ Pinilla hissed in frustration.

  Logan was already moving quickly toward the bedroom door. He stared down at the man he had just killed as he walked over the threshold. It wasn’t one of the three men Pinilla had named.

  ‘How many guards are there?’ Logan said.

  ‘Seven. Well, no, six now.’

  The four on the gate plus two others, Logan thought. Together with the three senior soldiers Pinilla had named, there were still nine men to get past.

  Logan looked out of the room, scanning the corridor left and right. There was still no noise, no alarms or shouting coming from outside. But he had to assume that anyone else in the house would by now be on the alert.

  He crept along the corridor to the next bedroom. As he reached the door, he stopped and listened for just a second before swinging the door open quickly and rushing into the room, his speed making him a more difficult target.

  The room had much the same layout as Pinilla’s. Logan spotted two figures in the bed at the far side. He quickly lifted his gun and fired. The two bullets hit the man in the chest. He never even got the chance to open his eyes. The woman he had been sleeping with jumped up, screaming. Logan reached for the dart gun and fired at her. Then he turned and left, her wailing cries filling the room.

  Any hope of a silent escape was now well and truly void.

  As Logan edged back into the corridor, he heard quick footsteps approaching from his right, where the staircase was. He pointed the rifle and waited. At the first sight of the bobbing heads coming up the stairs, he fired again. Three shots in total, two more kills.

  Logan was about to turn when he was grabbed suddenly from behind by thick, strong arms. Logan winced as the man squeezed on his neck. He reached down for the hunting knife on his belt and slashed it across the man’s arm. The man screamed in pain and let go.

  Logan spun around, taking only a second to adjust himself. He plunged the knife into the man’s chest and pushed the blade as far as it would go. The man grimaced and spluttered as the knife tore into flesh and pierced his lung. Logan twisted the knife before pulling it out. A spatter of blood hit him in the face. The man slumped to the floor gasping and wheezing. Logan looked down at him.

  Only one target left. Plus four more guards.

  Logan was about to move toward the next bedroom when the door suddenly sprang open. A man jumped out, firing a handgun. Logan threw himself to the floor. Bullets ricocheted off the walls nearby. White paint and plaster dust filled the air. Logan fired a shot. The bullet caught the man in the ankle and he tumbled to the ground, screaming. The next bullet hit him in the face and he went silent.

  For a few moments, there wasn’t a sound to be heard. Three of the cartel’s most senior soldiers had been eliminated in about sixty seconds.

  Logan knew the fight wasn’t over yet, though. He jumped up, turned around and headed back toward the staircase. As he reached Pinilla’s room, he saw the undercover agent was still in there. He was dressed, trying his best to rouse his naked girlfriend.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Logan said.

  ‘I’m not taking her out there like this,’ Pinilla said.

  ‘There’s no time. Grab her and go.’

  Logan headed off to the stairs, his rifle held out. He retraced his steps down to the ground floor, then back to the side door. When he reached it, he peered out into the courtyard. There was still an eerie silence outside. Logan had thought the guards would have gone into red alert – sirens blazing, spotlights searching, men shouting as they rampaged through the property. But there was nothing of the kind.

  Logan took a step out. Just as he moved his head to get a look at the gates, there was a snapping noise as a bullet smacked into the wall an inch from Logan’s ear. He quickly retreated, realising the shot must have come from one of the two snipers in the watchtower. There was no way he was getting out of the house that way.

  Crouching low, he headed back and moved into the first room he came to – a lounge. He crept up to the window, across which thin drapes were drawn. He pulled himself up against the wall. Using the tip of the rifle’s barrel, he lifted the corner of a curtain just an inch. He had to assume the two guards would be busily scoping the entire building, but he seemed to get away with the twitching curtain. Without further disturbing the drape, Logan moved into position behind the rifle and peered out through his scope. He only needed a slight adjustment to spot the guard tower some thirty yards away.

  With his target fixed, he pulled on the trigger twice, then quickly moved the barrel half an inch to the right. Two more shots. Only two men left.

  Just then, Logan heard a car engine starting.

  Pinilla.

  Logan jumped to his feet and rushed back toward the side exit. He only quickly glanced about this time as he ran outside. He had no idea where the remaining guards were. He just hoped they weren’t in sniper positions. The watchtower was clear. He was certain of that. Most likely if he contended with them at all, it would be a melee attack, so moving with speed was as good an option as any. And Pinilla was ready to go, so moving fast was definitely Logan’s preferred option.

  When Logan reached the courtyard, he turned and sprinted toward the waiting Jeep. Pinilla was in the driver’s seat. He turned just as Logan approached and leaned over and pushed open the passenger door. Logan jumped in and Pinilla pressed on the accelerator. The car jerked forward, Logan’s legs dangling out of the still-open door.

  Logan adjusted himself, sitting properly on the seat, and reached out to shut the door. He looked up at Pinilla. The undercover agent had a sour scowl covering his face. He was fuming.

  ‘What happened?’ Logan said.

  Pinilla didn’t say anything. He just indicated behind him. Logan looked. He saw Erika sprawled on the back seat. She was still unconscious. Pinilla had managed to cover her naked body with a thin nightgown but it was covered in thick, wet blood.

  She’d been shot.

  ‘Shit,’ Logan said.

  Pinilla snarled as he pressed his foot further onto the accelerator, pushing Logan right back in his seat. The two men braced themselves as they crashed through the wooden gates. The impact sent a painful jolt through Logan’s body but the Jeep was barely damaged.

  Logan looked behind as they sped away, but then winced when the back window of the Jeep suddenly shattered and glass shards filled the air. The car swerved this way and that. Logan rocked in his seat. They were being fired upon. The two remaining gua
rds. At first Logan thought a tyre had blown, the way the car had violently swerved. But as he looked over at Pinilla, he realised the situation was much worse than that. Pinilla had a gushing wound in his neck.

  ‘Just keep going!’ Logan screamed at him. ‘You’re going to be fine. Just keep going!’

  Pinilla had one hand up against his neck, trying to stem the tidal flow of blood. Logan looked at the man’s groggy eyes. Pinilla was already losing consciousness. The hand he had on the wheel was clumsily steering this way and that. His eyes were glazed and closing.

  Logan sat back in his seat and braced himself for the inevitable. And in the few seconds that remained before the car ploughed into the jungle, Logan couldn’t help but think one thing: he’d failed.

  Mackie had given him the chance. It had been there for the taking. For the first time, the opportunity had been there to really prove his worth. But he’d got greedy. He’d seen a means to take more from the mission than Mackie had asked for; he’d killed three of the cartel’s high-ranking soldiers just like that!

  In the end, it was all for nothing.

  Because Logan knew, even before the oncoming collision with a thick tree, that Leo Pinilla was dead.

  Chapter 43

  Moscow, Russia

  Peter Winter fished the vibrating phone out of his pocket and stared at the caller ID, not quite knowing what to say if he answered. It wasn’t that the call was completely unexpected – he had certainly hoped it would come – but given the events of the last few days, the call had taken on a whole new importance.

  ‘Logan? Is that really you?’ Winter said as he tentatively answered.

  ‘Yes,’ was the simple response on the other end.

  Even from the single-word answer, Winter knew it was Carl Logan.

  His voice brought back a rush of memories. The two men had never been particularly close, but all of a sudden Logan’s familiar voice brought a degree of comfort. How different to the last time he had spoken to Logan, just a few days ago, when Winter had still believed Logan was responsible for Mackie’s death.

  ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d have left my number open,’ Logan said after a few moments of silence.

  Each of the JIA’s field agents had a unique phone number that acted almost like an ID. It didn’t matter whether they used a mobile or a landline or a pay phone, they could call their assigned number from any phone in the world and they would be routed to their commander. Now that Winter had stepped into Mackie’s shoes, calls to Logan’s ID were directed to him. He’d debated in his own mind whether or not to cancel Logan’s account – he had already deleted much of the other evidence of Logan’s existence when Logan had been on the run in Omsk – but in the end he’d left it operational. Given the events of the last two days, he was now very glad about that.

  ‘I was hoping you’d call,’ Winter said as he stood up from the chair and gazed out of the window of his Moscow hotel room.

  ‘Of course you were,’ Logan said, his tone terse. ‘So has Evans filled you in?’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to Evans in more than two days,’ Winter said, frowning as thoughts raced through his mind.

  There was another silence on the other end for a few seconds.

  ‘Logan, have you seen Evans?’ Winter asked.

  ‘He came after me. He didn’t succeed.’

  ‘Is he dead?’ Winter said, not sure what answer he was hoping for.

  ‘He was alive when I left him.’

  ‘Evans was sent to Moscow to trail you,’ Winter declared. He immediately wondered whether or not he should reveal his full hand to Logan. In the end, he carried on. He had to at least test the waters. ‘He went to meet with a JIA asset. That asset, Nikolai Medvedev, was killed in a street in Moscow. I understand the FSB are blaming that on you.’

  ‘I understand that too,’ Logan said. ‘But it’s not true.’

  ‘I know. That meeting was the last anyone saw or heard of Evans. It seemed the FSB captured him.’

  Logan didn’t respond immediately and Winter realised he’d given Logan new information that he was mulling over. Winter just hoped his gut instinct in doing that was right.

  ‘Evans hasn’t been kidnapped,’ Logan said. ‘I can assure you of that.’

  ‘Then where is he?’

  ‘Kazakhstan.’

  That figured, Winter thought. He knew Logan wouldn’t have stayed in Russia for long and would have headed to one of the neighbouring countries. Irina had said the last place the FSB had sighted Logan was near to Volgograd in southern Russia, not far from the western border of Kazakhstan.

  But why would he go there? And what the hell had Evans been doing there?

  Winter stared out of the window, looking across the sprawling Moscow cityscape but not really seeing anything. His mind was too filled with thoughts as to why it appeared his agents were running amok. For the last few hours, he had been sifting through the data he had received from Irina Tarasenko, which had downloaded to his computer seamlessly. It had given him many of the answers he needed while creating many more unanswered questions. And it had confirmed some of his worst fears.

  With what Winter had come to know, his life was very much at risk.

  ‘I’m taking from your more amiable tone toward me that you know I’m not behind whatever’s going on here?’ Logan said.

  ‘I’m starting to come around to the idea,’ said Winter.

  ‘You know I didn’t kill Mackie.’

  ‘I know you didn’t. And I know you didn’t kill those other agents, Medvedev and Belenov, in Moscow.’

  ‘The CIA killed Mackie.’

  Winter was silent for a moment. He knew that now too, yet the words sounded surreal.

  ‘I know,’ Winter said. ‘Jay Lindegaard okayed Mackie’s death. In exchange for the Russians handing over Angela Grainger.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry about that. Looks liked I’ve buggered up that deal then, doesn’t it.’

  ‘It wasn’t my deal.’

  ‘No, but you knew about Grainger. You were only too happy to sell me out. You and Mackie both.’

  ‘You can’t seriously believe that, Logan? Mackie would have fought for you to the bitter end.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘It’s the truth, Logan. I know how important Mackie was to you, but I worked closely with him too. So is Grainger still with you?’

  Logan went silent. Winter took the lack of response as affirmation.

  ‘I can help you,’ he said. ‘Both of you.’

  ‘Evans said he was there to help me,’ Logan said. ‘You really didn’t send him?’

  ‘Sure, I sent Evans to find you. But last I heard he’d been snatched in Moscow. I would say we can both agree that Evans is no longer acting on my authority. And I had no idea you were in Kazakhstan.’

  ‘Who said I still am?’

  ‘Then where are you?’

  There was silence on the other end of the phone once again. Winter turned away from the window and went and sat down on the bed, hanging down his head, which was throbbing with confusion.

  ‘Why me, Winter?’ Logan said. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ Winter responded. There was still so much he needed to figure out. But he knew one thing for certain: Carl Logan was relentless; he would never give up. Exactly what Winter needed right now. He decided to dangle a carrot for Logan to chase.

  ‘Maybe you should take a look at yourself, Logan. Maybe your past is finally catching up with you.’

  ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘I always knew you were different,’ Winter said. ‘I saw the way Mackie treated you. He had a fondness for you that he didn’t have for anyone else.’

  ‘I’m touched that you noticed.’

  ‘The thing is, I couldn’t understand why. I admit, for a time you were a brilliant agent. You had all the talent in the world. But it wasn’t enough for you. You wanted more.’

  ‘I carried out ever
y assignment I was given. I gave my life for the JIA.’

  ‘But you started to question your orders, or at least question your role in carrying out those orders, even though it’s the biggest taboo. You showed signs of life when the JIA expected none.’

  ‘Is there a point to this?’

  ‘Do you remember South America? Venezuela?’

  ‘Of course. I did everything that was asked of me there. I always have.’

  ‘You’re right, you did,’ Winter said. He didn’t add that in addition, Logan had made big mistakes out in the Venezuelan jungle. ‘But you also asked a lot of Mackie. That was the turning point, you see. That was when the chinks in your armour first appeared.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Logan said.

  ‘The questioning, the bargaining for more power. What Mackie should have done was throw you out – you were finished. But instead he gave you the leeway you craved. He was willing to let go of the leash and let you make decisions for yourself, as long as they fitted his need, obviously. Yet that was never the path Mackie had intended for you.’

  ‘You’re saying this has something to do with what happened in Venezuela? Leo Pinilla?’

  ‘No, I’m saying this has everything to do with you. The enemies that you’ve collected along the way.’

  ‘Okay, Winter. Enough of this bullshit. You need to tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘I don’t have all the answers. Not yet. We need to meet. It’s about time we both took our sides.’

  ‘The only side I’m on is my own.’

  ‘Me too. Help me figure this out, Logan. No one else is going to listen to you now. If they get to me, and I have to assume they’re going to try, then you really will be on your own.’

  ‘And who is they?’

  ‘Not over the phone,’ Winter said.

  ‘Then where?’

  ‘How about London?’

  ‘No chance. How would I even get there?’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that. I’ll get you wherever you want to go.’

  ‘I’m sure. You’ll send someone else out to help me, right?’