by Kaylea Cross
“What do you want?”
He heard the calculation in the man’s voice. He glanced over to where the woman slept. He’d given her enough drugs to knock out a horse—for her own benefit.
“Follow the instructions you receive. Get my family out of Russia, get my grandson a new liver, give them new, better lives in Europe or America. I’ll keep your dirty secret.”
There was a long pause followed by a snort. “That’s it?”
That was everything. “You only have forty-eight hours. If you fail in this I’ve arranged a dramatic…news event…that will ensure I have the world’s attention when I tell my story about two British spies I encountered years ago in Afghanistan.”
“How do I know you’ll keep your word after I get your wretched family out of Russia?”
“I’ve kept it for this long, mudak. Unlike you, I am a man of honor.” A rustle brought him around, his finger tightened on the trigger of his rifle. The woman was awake. She met his gaze with keen brown eyes that looked sharp enough to pick the secrets out of his soul.
He turned away. His secrets were the only thing he had left.
* * *
Jonathon Boyle sipped brandy in the Vauxhall Cross offices of the Chief of MI6. He tapped his fingers impatiently on the glass. Everything was falling apart. Just as he was about to pull off the biggest coup since the Cold War, this phantom rose from the grave and threatened everything. He needed to stall Dmitri’s “event” until after he’d visited Aldermaston’s top-secret division—a few days at most. Agents were scouring Russia for what remained of Volkov’s offspring and they would find them. Once Volkov was dead he’d make sure every one of them followed the same path. In the meantime, he had to at least look like he was toeing the line. A lifetime of toeing the line was starting to grate on Jonathon’s elderly nerves.
“You’re telling me that in 1979, Dmitri Volkov shot Sebastian Allworth in cold blood while you and he were distributing anti-Soviet material in Afghanistan?” Christopher Gleeson’s eyes gleamed as he fingered the typewritten pages of the old file one of his lackeys had finally unearthed in the murky depths of the building. “What were you doing while he was getting shot?”
Jonathon put down his glass and tented his hands meekly over crossed knees. “Running for dear life, old boy.” He gave an exaggerated shudder. “I was lucky. I made it to the ridge and caught up with the local guides who had the horses.”
“You outran a squad of Vympel soldiers?” The director’s eyes narrowed a fraction.
“It was thirty years ago.” Jonathon pointed to his thinning pate. “Don’t let the gray hair and short legs fool you—show me a gun and I’d still be able to outstrip you in the hundred-yard dash.”
Gleeson grunted.
“There was a rock fall. It caused enough of a distraction to let me get away.” Jonathon shuddered. “Poor Sebastian wasn’t so lucky.”
“Our new PM thinks his father died in a plane crash over Kashmir.”
Jonathon nodded and sipped his drink slowly, trying to savor the smoothness of expensive brandy, ignoring the heartburn he knew would follow. Old age wasn’t for wimps. Maybe Sebastian was the lucky one.
“And now Volkov has surfaced again only weeks after David Allworth is elected Prime Minister? It does seem like an odd coincidence.” Gleeson pursed his lips. “You know, of course, that there are people searching for him?”
Jonathon lifted one lazy lid. “They don’t know the threat he poses to Britain’s national security.”
“Do you know where he is?” Gleeson watched him closely.
His nostrils flared. “If I knew where he was, I wouldn’t need you,” he retorted.
Gleeson laughed. “Still got connections with some of the more unseemly side of the Foreign Office?”
Jonathon’s smile thinned. “Don’t pretend those in SIS are all law-abiding citizens, Director.” His eyes narrowed. “We’re both too long in the tooth to bother with such a preposterous two-step.”
Gleeson held his gaze. “Why didn’t you work here rather than for the diplomatic corps?”
Jonathon swirled the golden liquid in the heavy crystal glass. “I admit I prefer life’s creature comforts—plus, I had a family at the time.” His brow plummeted. “The point is if the SAS do capture this Russian alive and we end up putting the bastard on trial, it puts our PM in an extremely awkward position.”
“Whereas if he’s dead no one can accuse the PM of acting out some personal vendetta.”
“Exactly, because no one will know there’s cause for a vendetta.” Jonathon nodded. “As long as Allworth remains ignorant of how his father died, then he can maintain his righteous indignation because we both know…”
“Allworth can’t act worth a damn.” Gleeson chuckled.
“How he ever became Prime Minister I’ll never know. The man is far too honest.” Jonathon swilled back the rest of his liquor and stood. David Allworth was a soft-hearted idealist. Would that change if he discovered his father had been shot in the back? Always interesting to force people up against their principles.
Gleeson leaned back in his leather chair and rubbed a jaw that needed the kiss of a razor. “I’m not sure the SAS will go for an assassination assignment.”
“Don’t they take orders from you?”
Gleeson looked down at his desk. “I wish.”
Jonathon knew the man had E Squadron to use if he wished. Plausible deniability. Black Ops. It was a question of whether he’d pit them against their own operational SAS soldiers and risk a friendly-fire incident.
Morals were a bitch.
Jonathon had dedicated his whole life to Moscow. He wouldn’t waver just because no one else knew how to make a sacrifice. “What about those weaponized drones?”
“Even if we knew where he was for sure, we have more important targets to focus on.” Gleeson arched a brow.
“More important than the man who killed our Prime Minister’s father and taught Islamic militants the fine art of explosives?” Jonathon gave him a sardonic smile. “If you think so.” He pulled on his jacket. “Anyway, I’ve done my duty. I’ll leave the decision in your capable hands as the whole incident is still covered by the Official Secrets Act.”
Gleeson inclined his head and Jonathon strode out of the building wishing, not for the first time, he’d been born less of a ruddy patriot.
* * *
The blizzard smashed him in the face like a C-130 transport. He stopped and pulled on more layers of clothes, including his white snow gear. He held tight to the horse because it was spooked now the wind had started to bay. Tracks were obscured and he knew his squad would need to find cover or hunker down.
It was so cold the air sank into his lungs and burned soft tissue. Dempsey pushed on, needing to get himself and the horse out of the elements and into some shelter before they fell off the side of a cliff. He shielded his face against the onslaught and stilled as he saw a movement off to his right. For a split second there was a mirage of the tall spare-framed man they’d been chasing for days. A sweep of horizontal flakes obscured his vision before clearing again and the figure was gone. He stared harder through the whiteout. There was a narrow fissure in the side of the mountain—a fissure where someone had stood moments before.
Holy fuck. He pulled out his GPS unit and entered the coordinates of where he stood, along with an estimate of the position of the cave, then he pulled the horse onward, grateful for the gelding’s smoky coloring that faded into the blizzard, and the howling gale that blew their trail into oblivion. He rounded a craggy boulder, his boots slipping over the slick surface, and spotted another opening in the side of the mountain big enough for himself and the horse to squeeze into. His boot crunched and he looked down to see pale bone shards scattered about the floor. The horse’s nostrils flared.
“Easy, buddy, relax.” Dempsey rubbed his hand over the animal’s soft nose until he settled. In the dimness he saw more bones and scraps of fur. The irony of ending up in the lair of a s
now leopard wasn’t lost on him.
He kicked the bones out of the way and walked a little further into the cave, letting his eyes adjust to the murk. There was an empty, unused feel to the den. Maybe it belonged to one of the poor bastards the Russian had shot.
He undid the horse’s girth, sliding the saddle free from the animal’s back and taking it to the opening of the cave where the blizzard battered his face and made his ears hurt. He dumped the saddle and his bergen on the floor and pulled out the satellite phone. He tried the PRR first but got nothing but static. The rest of the team was miles behind, possibly days away in these conditions. He was on his own.
His thoughts turned to Axelle. Was she hurt? Of course she was hurt. Shit, she was in a cave, which was her worst nightmare—not to mention having been kidnapped. Anger squeezed him inside and he forced himself not to think about her. He’d get her out of there. He’d save her and catch the old bastard who’d been running them in circles for days.
He dialed HQ in London and was surprised to be patched straight through to the CO of the Regiment.
“You’ve got a definite sighting on your target, Alpha Alpha One Nine?”
“Yes, sir, holed up in a cave a few hundred feet from this position. We’ve been hit by a massive snowstorm.” He relayed the coordinates of the cave and his present position.
“He’s likely to stay put for a couple of hours?”
“With a female hostage, sir.” The freezing air that whipped into the cavern didn’t cool his anger. “He’ll be stuck here as long as the blizzard continues and maybe some time after that, depending on how much snow gets dumped.”
“Good job, Alpha Alpha One Nine. Stand by for orders. Out.”
Shit.
Dempsey stared at the phone. He was stuck in a cave mere meters from his target and had no idea whether Axelle was being raped and tortured or even if she was still alive. He didn’t like those images in his brain.
But he had no clue how many people were involved or how big the cave system was. If he acted alone he might get them both killed faster. What if Volkov got away from him again?
It could take weeks if not months to find one man in this staggeringly difficult terrain. Time Dempsey didn’t want to spend away from the men in his troop. Time terrorists could use to blow up marketplaces and schools. The image of his sister, her hand tightly clasped in his, flashed through his mind. Siobhan Dempsey would have been a beautiful woman if she’d lived. She’d have championed the peace process, maybe even persuaded his family to abandon their deeply rooted hatred.
Dempsey pushed the images out of his head. Memories of his sister always stirred when he was in the mountains. Maybe he was closer to her God up here. Or maybe the lack of oxygen affected his brain.
He was done with the God and religion that had torn apart generations of people. He was done with family who murdered and blamed the authorities for bloodshed and violence. He was done with everything except trying to prevent the same thing happening to someone else’s sister or daughter—people like Axelle who tried to help snow leopards.
He put the phone away and explored the back of this cave but found a dead end. His fingers were too cold to grip his rifle so he blew on them. He braced his carbine against the wall and started a series of jumping-jacks and running in place, getting the blood flowing as he planned his next move. He gave the horse a drink and fed him a bit of flat bread he had in his pack. Next he pulled out some rations and took a swig of water before he started stuffing flash-bangs and spare ammo into his webbing.
Presumably the Russian wanted Axelle for a reason and would keep her alive until he’d attained that objective. It didn’t mean she wouldn’t be hurt. Shit. Dempsey swallowed and eyed the entrance. The Provos always claimed they wanted to end British rule and occupation, but his father had been driven by hatred, pure and simple. Dempsey didn’t know what had motivated an elite Russian soldier to defect and join the jihadists. Money? Revenge? Social conscience? Some said he’d betrayed his homeland and his family… The parallel with Dempsey’s own life gave him a jolt, but there the similarities ended. Dempsey wasn’t a soulless destroyer. Sure, he shot bad guys. You pick up a gun, you become fair game. But civilians? Children? Young women in the first flush of love? No way. No fucking way.
But things were never black and white, and no one knew that better than him.
His father had lost three fingers and killed more than two hundred people with his so-called skills. Yet Dempsey remembered some of the best moments of his life making sandcastles with that same man on the beaches near Wicklow. He’d grown up with Semtex and ArmaLite rifles in the pantry, and as a little kid had been thrilled with the idea of fighting the British. As he’d grown older he’d seen his father’s hatred twist the lives of his older brothers.
After his sister’s death he’d turned his back on his family and taken revenge by joining the most despised group of soldiers in the Province. He’d never gone home again. Never spoken to his relatives. He’d seen his brother Declan once while on patrol in Crossmaglen. The hatred blazing from his brother’s eyes had told him there’d be no forgiveness. Decimate shoppers on a busy market day—fine. Join the enemy? You were better off dead.
Dempsey was fine with that. Absolutely fucking fine. He’d do whatever it took to stop the violence using as much force as necessary on whoever got in his way.
He stopped exercising as heat started to bloom and he braced his hand against the wall. Bottom line—it was the least he could do to even the score for his shitty relatives.
He shook himself out of the past. Thinking about it didn’t get the job done. He was here for Dmitri Volkov who had taken a woman Dempsey could care about, from right under his nose.
The Russian had fallen off the terrorist map after 9/11 but that didn’t mean he didn’t have friends in low places. The next cave over could be milling with Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Dempsey checked the chamber of his carbine. Decided it was time for a little reconnaissance work.
* * *
She opened her eyes slowly, her lids crusted and sore. Her tongue swept the inside of her mouth, searching for moisture, instead finding fur. She made out the cavernous roof above her head and the huge dome of rock, and her bones shook and sweat drenched every inch of her skin. Memories filtered back. The roar of the explosion, the massive force of the blast, shaking walls as the building started to collapse. There’d been no chance of escape.
She squeezed her eyes closed and wished she’d never woken. Except then she’d be dead and the evil old man would have won. She forced her eyes open again and searched for him. There—a shadow in the corner, hunched over a small fire.
A sharp ache scored a line between her shoulders, and a shallow pounding settled deep inside her skull. She swallowed her fear. She wasn’t going to lose it in front of this mean sonofabitch. She shoved the terror and immobilizing panic to a small corner of her brain and concentrated on how the hell to get out of there. Her wrists and ankles were bound. Her fingers burned with cold, and she kept the blood flowing by flexing her fingers and toes every few seconds.
He glanced over, then stood.
A fierce gust of wind blew a swathe of snow inside the cave and she realized they’d been hit by a blizzard. They might be stuck here for days. The thought grew talons which latched onto her insides like retractable claws.
From what she’d overheard when she’d woken briefly from her drugged stupor, the man was trying to blackmail someone, presumably her father. But the chance of her being released before she was abused and her body dumped was as remote as this wilderness. She couldn’t hope for rescue from Dempsey’s soldiers because who knew when they’d returned to camp—and in this blizzard, they wouldn’t find any trace of where she’d been taken.
She was on her own.
The ache of despair solidified into determination. She tensed as he came toward her carrying a tin mug and a handful of jerky, which he tossed on the ground beside her.
“I can’t eat u
nless you untie me.” She hid the anger by keeping her eyes downcast.
He laughed. “You don’t have to eat.” He held the mug to her lips and forced her to take a swallow of salted green tea. Then, with his dirty fingers, he held a piece of jerky to her lips.
His eyes met hers in challenge and his brows lifted. Did she want to live? What would she do to survive? The thump of her heart sounded overloud in her ears. This sonofabitch had killed her leopards and kidnapped her.
Hatred stirred as she held his gaze. His eyes were bleak. Not just cold—empty. She opened her mouth and he fed her, slowly, patiently. Like she was livestock.
She chewed and swallowed and inside she smiled. This wasn’t his victory, it was hers. She needed sustenance to escape. Giving up wasn’t an option. Don’t think about the thousands of tons of rock suspended over her head or the disgusting, despicable old man. Think about getting away.
After he fed her two pieces of dried meat, he gave a satisfied nod and walked away.
She glanced around, still mechanically chewing the tough jerky. The cave entrance cut through the mountain as if it had been slashed by a knife. At least there was light. She didn’t think she could sit here without screaming if there hadn’t been some light.
The man started feeding the pack animals. Steam came off their backs, which helped warm the dank cave. Her body was conflicted by panic on the inside and frigid temperatures on the outside. Fear opened her pores and sweat heated her back, but still she shivered from the icy blast of the blizzard. She was being torn apart. She watched the man from beneath her lids, flexing her hands to try to keep the blood circulating. The sat phone was near the entrance. How could she get it? He caught the direction of her gaze and strode across the cavern and grabbed it and plunked it down beside the yak. Hostility bled into her gaze.
The man stretched to his full height and smiled. “Now you begin to understand.”
Bitterness wrapped itself around her bones. She understood all right.
