He’d been ordered to kill the man.
The bosses hadn’t couched it in exactly those terms, but “terminating the threat” seemed pretty unambiguous to him. He remembered the look of terror on Axelle’s face when he’d found her wearing that suicide vest. Oh, yeah, he could kill the old fucker for that alone.
There, finally, the lean shape of his quarry ran toward them with his head down, clutching his side and dragging his left foot. Still he moved doggedly and determinedly. Dempsey couldn’t see any weapons, but the old guy could have a handgun in his pocket. Or a grenade.
When he got thirty feet away Dempsey stood, sighted the gun, and the old man stumbled to the ground, mud splattering in his wake.
Dempsey walked toward the old man as he lay there panting. “Hands up. Let me see them empty, Volkov, else your grandson will never get the help he needs.”
Dmitri lifted his head and stretched his hands slowly into the air. “My grandson? You have heard from my grandson?”
Dempsey stepped closer. “I know he’s sick. I know he shouldn’t be punished for your crimes. The same way you shouldn’t have hurt an innocent woman to try and force your demands.”
“I didn’t hurt her. I could have blown you all up a thousand times but I didn’t.” Dmitri struggled to his knees, keeping his hands nice and wide. Dempsey did not trust this wily old bastard, but he had a point. He hadn’t set any booby traps and he’d saved the cubs’ lives.
These were not the acts of a completely vicious man.
“I did what I had to do to get my grandson out of Russia. Now what?” The old man’s eyes narrowed and he smiled. “I bet they told you to kill me, didn’t they?” He laughed. “Getting an English soldier to shoot me here in this valley seems like the perfect irony.”
Orders had changed. Why? There were a lot of questions about what was going on here that only this man could answer. Who wanted him dead? More important, why?
Taz raised a questioning brow at him. They were soldiers. They weren’t cold-blooded killers even though some people couldn’t tell the difference. There were rules of engagement. But there were also direct orders.
Dempsey had never failed on a mission and always followed orders…except for rescuing Axelle out of that cave.
He wasn’t paid to make the big decisions. He was a soldier. He was a damn good sergeant, and proud to be part of the best regiment on earth. He took another step and watched the light in the old man’s eyes change from defiant to pleading. Volkov raised his chin. “I don’t care about me, but please help my grandson.”
Dempsey nodded. “You have my word.” Then he pulled the trigger.
***
There had been a delay. The demonstration the scientists had organized hadn’t happened. They’d toured the facilities—nothing new or exciting to report there. And now they’d been stuffed into the nearest hotel and left to twiddle their thumbs overnight. Still, this kept him conveniently out of the way if Lucinda let slip how she’d come by the information about Sebastian’s death to her overprotective son.
He didn’t want his lights punched out.
Jonathon sipped a nice Bordeaux. Maybe he should pursue Lucinda on a more public level… He mulled the idea over. It had merit. An inside track to the PM. Prestige. Regular sex. It was an interesting thought. He pushed his lips out as he contemplated the pros and cons. Trouble was if Dmitri’s little surprise did occur, then Jonathon could be arrested and charged with treason. He wasn’t about to spend the last years of his life in some little cell when he could receive a hero’s welcome back in Moscow. No. As soon as he discovered what secrets Aldermaston was hiding he was going home. Finally.
In the meantime, he savored his roast beef dinner. He might as well enjoy himself at the British taxpayers’ expense.
Really, it was what he did best.
***
“You’re sure he’s dead?” Captain Prentice asked for the fifth time.
“You can dig him up if you like,” Dempsey told the younger man.
Baxter tossed down the spade, making it clear he wasn’t digging up what he’d just put in the ground. It was hot. Too fucking hot for digging graves in this thin shallow soil.
Dempsey handed the officer a bloody shirt and a photograph of the dead Dmitri Volkov. “That should match the DNA we have on file and, if it doesn’t, then what we have on file is bollocks.” He held the man’s gaze. “He’s dead.”
Dempsey wanted no mistakes here. No doubt. He was not a man who’d ever let his bosses down. With his background he couldn’t afford to.
The chopper hovered over the hill and the captain jogged off. Mission accomplished.
Thank Christ for that. Dempsey sat tight for another ten minutes waiting for the next bird. They needed to get back to Hereford ASAP. They needed to debrief inside RAF Credenhill. Frustration squeezed his chest because he wanted to talk to Axelle. Desperately wanted to tell her all the things that had stuck in his throat earlier because he hadn’t known how to deal with everything he was feeling and wanted—and yes, he wanted.
She didn’t exactly work down the road from him even when he was stationed in Britain. Although distance seemed like the least of the obstacles to their relationship.
Crap.
Fuck.
Relationship?
He rolled his eyes skyward. She wasn’t interested in a relationship. But there had been something in her eyes when they said goodbye…something that connected them on a fundamental level. He’d never felt that sort of connection before and he wanted to explore it. It was time to see if it actually meant something. Time to take a chance on something beside the military.
He’d email her, although what the hell he’d say he had no clue. Email wouldn’t look at him the way she did. Email wouldn’t let him touch her soft skin or smell her hair. Shit. Now was not the time to be mooning over a woman.
When he heard the rotors growing louder he nodded to Taz, who stood and pulled away a filthy desert tarp that had hidden the gaunt, bleeding old man who now staggered stiffly to his feet. Time to go. They pulled a camouflage smock over the Russian’s head and gave him a hat. They had to get the man to the hangar where they could stow him with the gear. It wouldn’t be a comfortable ride back to Blighty but it beat a 9 mm round to the temple.
Time to see what the hell was happening and hope he wasn’t about to lose his career because of an unwelcome epiphany. He was a soldier, not a killer. Although it wasn’t the Geneva Convention he’d been thinking about when he hadn’t murdered Volkov in cold blood. It had been his humanity.
CHAPTER 15
On the flight to Heathrow Axelle ignored the man next to her, who alternated between trying to hit on her and angling to stare down the front of her top.
Kabul airport had looked more like a war zone than a commercial airport. She flexed her fingers. Somewhere in that city of ruin and desperation, two tiny cubs tumbled around a dirty broken cage to be prodded and stared at like spectacles in a circus.
It sickened her that the organization that should have been moving heaven and earth to care for them in their natural habitat had buckled under the pressure of sensational headlines and political fallout.
Now she was on a flight out of Pakistan, and the hours of mindless travel had given her time to think about what the Trust had done and her anger kept growing. She’d been trapped under a damn mountain. They had to have assumed she was dead. Rather than celebrate her survival, they’d got pissy because she’d done what she had to do to try to save the leopards.
She turned her head and the man next to her lifted his glance from her nonexistent breasts. Sandy-haired, square-faced, he wore a dark green suit jacket that had a sheen from overuse. His pants were brown cord and his shoes were slip-ons that looked at least a decade old. Axelle wasn’t into appearances, but he was hitting on her in a crowded aircraft and all she could think was he was no Tyrone Dempsey.
“You on vacation?” he asked. The lines on his face put him over forty, possibly over
fifty. He had one of those completely forgettable, nondescript faces.
“Do I look like I’m on vacation?” Her clothes were dusty with travel grime, stained with various unknown substances. She hadn’t showered in more days than she cared to remember but the guy didn’t seem to care. He must be into grunge.
His eyes slid down her face, and he gave her a semi-hopeful smile. Jeez, the man must be simple, or desperate. She eyed him with the sort of expression that made stones squirm. Nothing worked.
“You look like you’ve been on a backpacking adventure.”
She huffed out an exasperated laugh. Understatement. Some of what she’d been through hit her and she turned away and stared out the window. Her fingers clutched each other in her lap. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Dempsey’s smile and felt his lips on hers. They hadn’t talked. Not properly. He’d shoved her on an aircraft, and she’d gone because she’d been too dazed and too proud to do anything else.
Her fellow traveler turned on a movie and she ignored him for the rest of the trip; she wasn’t in the mood for idle conversation. Three of her precious cats had died and it was her fault. Volkov had said her family owed him a blood debt but she didn’t understand. Her mother had been killed by a terrorist bomb. Dmitri’s bomb? Or someone else’s? She didn’t know but maybe her father did.
Finally they were almost in the UK. The sky over London was the sort of solar blue that made you believe in global warming.
“Where are you staying? In London?” The guy next to her asked.
She turned her head to pin him with her gaze. He didn’t flinch. He was goddamn persistent, though obviously not very bright, despite the handsome enough face and modulated English accent.
She buttoned her olive green shirt over her tank top, all the way to her throat.
“Do you have a number I could call you on?”
“My cell doesn’t work in the UK.” A lie. She wasn’t naturally a cruel person. Or maybe she was. Hell, she didn’t even know anymore. But she wasn’t interested in him.
The plane landed with a minor bump. She collected her laptop and bag from the overhead locker and headed for the exit. Seconds later she was striding away along the epic walkways, her legs outstripping most people who were struggling with fatigue and excess baggage.
Agitation swirled. She hadn’t told her father she was coming. She’d wanted to surprise him, but a tiny part of her admitted she was slightly scared of arriving unannounced. He was a busy man. Austere and powerful, his loyalty was always first to his country and second to his family.
She wanted to catch him off his formidable guard. See his reaction when he saw her and she told him about being buried alive—again—and see if he’d had anything to do with it.
The urge to see if she could track down Dempsey was strong, but chances were he was still in the Wakhan chasing that insane old Russian. If she tried to find him she’d probably end up being arrested or something. She bit her lip to stop herself thinking about him. She couldn’t afford the angst of daydreaming about a man she couldn’t have. Why would she even be attracted to a soldier who might die any day? A man who dealt in bullets the way she dealt in academic timetables and GPS coordinates?
It was crazy. After losing Gideon to war, she’d be damned if she’d go down that route again. She knew better than to open herself up to anyone. Getting close led to vulnerability. Vulnerability led to pain. Better to stay alone, then she wouldn’t get hurt.
Except alone felt goddamn lonely.
She hit customs and stood in line, a little disconcerted to see the man who’d sat beside her on the plane, ahead of her in the enormous snaking queue. He hadn’t looked like he could move that fast. She inched forward, a mother and her toddler in a stroller ahead of her. The little girl had hair that stuck up on end and enough food encrusted on her clothes to ensure that she’d survive for days in an emergency. Axelle smiled and the child started to cry.
She rolled her eyes. Story of her life.
She got to the customs agent and handed over her passport.
“Reason for your visit?”
“I’m visiting my father.”
“Do you have an address where you’ll be staying?”
Axelle shook her head. “I’m going to pick up a hotel room in the city. My father is the United States Ambassador.”
The man’s eyes looked completely unimpressed. “Wait here.” He disappeared while Axelle sagged against the counter. She didn’t usually try to strong-arm her way into a country using her connections, but she was tired and just wanted this journey over with. She scrubbed her hand over her face, trying to wake herself up. She should have known it would backfire.
“Follow me.” The guard was back and leading her across the thin gray carpet to a side door. Armed men were stationed throughout the massive room. Nerves tingled despite her weariness and exhaustion. She followed the man and entered another series of corridors. Finally she found herself in a small interview room. Sitting at the table was the man she’d spent the past eight hours ignoring.
“What do they want with you?” she asked.
Those soft eyes and nondescript features sharpened and hardened into something surprisingly ruthless. A quick zip of her heart rate confirmed her error. She’d been set up.
“I’m the one doing the questioning, Dr. Dehn. You can begin by telling me what you were doing associating with a known terrorist in northern Afghanistan.”
Associating? “I was kidnapped.”
“The British and American embassies were never informed of any kidnapping.”
She took a step toward him, wavering between falling over and smacking him in the jaw. “There wasn’t time to tell the authorities and, anyway, do you think it was up to me to alert the authorities when I was the one bound hand and foot?”
“Sit down, Dr. Dehn.”
She snorted. “So you can stare down my top again?”
His smile chilled her. “Not that I don’t appreciate the perks of my job, but no. I want to know everything that happened between you and Dmitri Volkov. Everything he did. Everything he said. Sit. Now.”
She hesitated but the message in the man’s eyes was clear. She wasn’t going anywhere until they had this conversation, and maybe not even then.
***
Dempsey closed his eyes and rested his head against the shell of the aircraft. Two dozen scruffy men dressed just like him were stretched out in sleep or sitting in groups, playing cards. His mouth felt dry. He had a feeling he’d just screwed himself over. Taz shot him a glance. Chances were he’d screwed them all over. He stared at the large flight cases and hoped the old bugger was still alive. Otherwise they’d be burying a corpse in the Welsh hills come midnight.
God help them if anyone ever dug him up.
As the plane landed in Brize Norton, he waited for most of the men to head back to base in the waiting minibuses before he motioned to his captain that he needed a word.
“What is it Dempsey?” The man’s shoulders were slouched with tiredness.
He wasn’t a bad officer. Just inexperienced.
“I’ve got a little confession to make, Captain.” Dempsey stood to attention. “And I need you to know it was my decision and my troop was not in any way responsible—”
“We didn’t kill the Russian,” Cullen piped up.
Taz shook his head. “Though we did shoot him so he’d bleed—”
“All over that shirt you have in your plastic bag, boss,” Baxter finished.
The captain’s impressive jaw dropped and his skin blanched. “You did what?”
“We didn’t kill him.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No, sir!” the three stooges shouted.
His mates. His family.
Dempsey shook his head with an internal sigh. Tapped a crate with his toe. “We brought him back with us.”
The box started talking. “Get me out of this box, stupid mudak. You are torturing me!”
Blood d
rained away from the captain’s cheeks as he stared at the talking box. His hands started to shake. “You disobeyed orders—”
“I followed the rules of engagement—”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” The captain backed away a step.
Dempsey grabbed his arm and stared him dead in the eye. “Something is going on. Something that doesn’t make any sense. I’m almost blown to shit. The American ambassador’s daughter is almost blown to shit. Russian Spetsnaz forces are doing their best to start a war over this guy. He’s been inactive for years and yet we’re ordered to kill the old fecker, rather than apprehend? Why? I mean, he isn’t Bin Laden. No one is going to rally to his war cry. Hardly anyone even knows he exists.” Dempsey could see the cogs turning in the officer’s mind. He kept his voice low and fervent. “He knows stuff that could help in the war on terror. Save lives.”
“I’m not telling you anything until you find my grandson and get him a liver transplant.” Volkov yelled from the box. “Get me out of here.”
The captain looked around to see what everyone else was thinking. Realized belatedly it was just the five of them and the captured Russian.
“The Firm is up to something.” Taz stood by his side.
“Civil serpents,” said Cullen.
Dempsey put his not inconsiderable frame in front of the ranking officer. “I didn’t mention it before now because I didn’t want to be diverted to a black camp or shot down on the way home.” The captain’s eyes flashed. “Because whatever they’re all scared of is worth more than a plane full of soldiers.”
“You really think the Russians would start a war over this guy? Why?”
“That’s what we need to find out.” Although to be fair, he hadn’t said it would be the Russians shooting them out of the sky. “Did you leave your Jeep here?”
The captain nodded. Dempsey tilted his head toward Taz, Cullen and Baxter. “Grab the luggage, lads.” He tossed an extra kitbag to the captain who staggered under the weight. “We’ll bring the rest.”
The Killing Game Page 24
