by Will Jordan
With tears in her eyes, she looked down at the broken, bleeding man lying on the ground at her feet. Their fight had been short but brutal, with no quarter asked or given.
She had fought with a savagery that none could withstand, breaking bones, slashing flesh and tearing muscles without mercy.
Around them, the woods were quiet, a faint mist drifting between the ancient boles. The air smelled of pine needles and damp soil. It reminded her of another place; a place she had left behind in another life.
How many of her comrades were dying at this very moment? Men who had served with her since the beginning, now spread all across the world. How many were fighting for their very lives?
Everything she had worked so hard to build, everything she had sacrificed so much for was being torn apart. Because of this man.
‘I trusted you, Dominic,’ she said, her voice an agonised rasp as she watched his feeble attempts to rise. He was struggling to draw breath as broken ribs pressed against his lungs. ‘I trusted you.’
Anger welled up inside her like a tide. Kicking him in the chest, she sent him sprawling on his back.
The knife was in her hands before she knew it, the blade eager and gleaming as she knelt atop him, pressing her knee into his throat.
‘You took everything I had left,’ she said through gritted teeth, ignoring his pathetic, desperate efforts to push her off. ‘Look at me, Dominic! Look at me, and see what you’ve done.’
His ragged gasps for breath soon turned to agonised screams as she went to work with that keen blade, carving out one eye while the other stared at her, pleading for mercy.
She had none left in her.
‘I let him live,’ she said at last. ‘Even then, I couldn’t bring myself to kill him. But I wanted him to remember me, remember what he’d done.’
Drake had been watching her in silence as she related her grim tale. ‘What happened to the rest of your unit?’
‘Most of the newer recruits were loyal to Munro, or were made to believe I was the enemy. But those who had been with me since the start refused to join him. The two factions fought, and the entire task force almost tore itself apart in a single night. When it was over, only a handful of us survived. I left the Agency soon afterward.’ She exhaled slowly. ‘I was finished.’
She looked at Drake again. ‘It was my fault, Drake. I made a mistake when I let him live, but I won’t make the same mistake twice.’
They spoke little after that. Both were tired and occupied with their own thoughts, and it wasn’t long before Drake’s turned to sleep.
He had no idea how long it had been since he’d slept. His body clock was thoroughly ruined after crossing countless time zones, but he did know he was exhausted.
‘You should get some sleep,’ she remarked, as if sensing his thoughts.
‘I don’t need it.’
‘Yes, you do. Lying is not one of your skills, Drake.’
He frowned, irritated that she seemed so sure about everything. She was right, of course, but he had no intention of going to sleep before her. He didn’t trust her enough for that.
Standing up, he tossed a couple of pillows down on the carpet by the door. With a little luck, the hard floor would keep him awake for a while.
‘You can have the bed. Don’t say I never give you anything.’
To his surprise, she shook her head. ‘I prefer the floor.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘I have lived most of my life without a bed. I’m too old to start now.’ She offered a faint smile. ‘But I appreciate the gesture.’
Feeling guilty and self-conscious, Drake sat down on the hard, lumpy mattress and pulled the Glock out of his jeans. He’d kept the weapon with him throughout the day, chambered and ready to fire, partly in case they ran into trouble, and partly as a deterrent against Anya trying to escape.
Keeping a wary eye on her, he laid the weapon down gently on the bedside table. Anya watched him, and smiled in amusement at his suspicious glance.
‘I don’t intend to shoot you in your sleep.’
‘How comforting,’ he remarked, peeling off his T-shirt. He couldn’t help the sharp intake of breath as the heavy bruising across his shoulder made its presence felt.
Anya saw it too, and stared a moment too long at the discoloured flesh. ‘You’re hurt.’
He flashed a weak smile. ‘It happened when we parachuted into your prison. A close encounter of the air-vent kind.’
‘I did not know.’ She sounded almost touched by his admission.
He shrugged. ‘It goes with the job. I’ve had worse.’
Saying nothing further, she settled herself on the floor near the bathroom. A single pillow was her only nod to comfort.
Lying back with his arms behind his head, Drake stared up at a cobweb hanging from the light fixture overhead, drifting slowly back and forth on some unseen air current. The Artex ceiling, once white, was yellowed with age and cigarette smoke.
‘Typical. Your first night of freedom, and it’s in a place that makes my house look like the Savoy.’
Her voice was soft and quiet when she replied.
‘Most nights in Khatyrgan, I would have killed every man in the prison to be where I am now. It is warm, I can move around, talk when I want. There is food and clean water. I can walk outside and breathe the night air. I can fall asleep without worrying about being raped when I wake up. It is good here.’
Drake sighed. ‘How did you … do it?’
‘Do what?’
‘Survive. Stay sane.’
‘The same way I have always survived – by shutting it out. Keeping a part of myself untouched no matter what happened.’ He heard her faint exhalation of breath. ‘They could do what they wanted to my body. I couldn’t stop them, but my mind was my own. They could never control that.’
He doubted he could have endured what she had.
‘I didn’t mean it, you know,’ he said at last.
She sat up to look at him. ‘Mean what?’
‘What I said earlier, about wishing you were still there. I didn’t. Nobody deserves that place.’
She looked genuinely surprised. ‘Not even me?’
‘I don’t know your history, but I know you’re still here.’ He raised himself up on one elbow to look at her. ‘That has to count for something.’
Anya said nothing, though she held his gaze for several seconds, and he saw that same fleeting look of sadness and vulnerability he’d seen on the flight back from Russia.
When she laid her head down on the pillow again, he did likewise. For the next couple of minutes he heard nothing, just the faint hum of the air conditioner and the sound of his own breathing, until his mind at last surrendered to sleep.
Chapter 42
Drake watched as the windshield disintegrated in slow motion, thousands of tiny spiderweb cracks spreading outward from each point of impact. Miniature fragments blew outward in lazy arcs, drifting like snow in front of his eyes.
And beyond it, he caught a glimpse of blue dress, dark hair and wide, pleading eyes.
DRAKE AWOKE WITH a start, instinctively reaching for the weapon beside his bed. He wasn’t thinking rationally, his mind still caught somewhere in the nightmarish world that had assailed him.
But instead of closing around the cold, rough grip of the Glock, his fingers found only the flat tabletop.
‘Looking for something?’
His head snapped around. Anya was standing over by the door, light from the rising sun peeking through gaps in the blinds behind her. She held the Glock in a loose, easy grip.
Drake felt his throat tightening as he stared at the weapon. She could do anything she wanted. She could shoot him dead and he could do nothing to stop her.
She stared back at him, her eyes still shining faintly with that same predatory look he had seen in Khatyrgan, as if she could sense his fear and relished it.
Then, in the blink of an eye, her gaze softened. She laid the weapon down on the TV s
tand, picked up a cup of coffee that was steaming beside it and approached him, holding it out like a peace offering. Her hair was hanging loose, a little tousled and dishevelled from sleep, but otherwise she looked rested and refreshed.
Lucky her.
He looked at her with a hint of suspicion, then finally took it and gulped down a mouthful. If she intended to kill him, he doubted poison would be her modus operandi.
‘You don’t sleep well, do you?’ She picked up her own cup and took a drink. ‘Bad dreams?’
‘Bad memories,’ Drake replied, avoiding her gaze.
She was perceptive enough not to press him on the matter. ‘I checked the emails on your phone earlier. There was no reply from Typhoon.’
Drake raised an eyebrow. ‘Becoming a real technophile, I see.’
She ignored his jibe. ‘If he hasn’t heard from me in four years, it is safe to say he won’t check his mail every day. In any case, we should leave soon,’ she decided. ‘If Cain and the others haven’t found out about what happened at the gas station, they will soon enough.’
He was in agreement. The question was, where should they go?
His priority yesterday had been mere survival, escaping the immediate search area. They might have accomplished this by the skin of their teeth, but from here their way forward was uncertain. Getting out of the country was going to be problematic to say the least.
‘Well, we can forget about the airports,’ he decided straight away. ‘We have no passports and almost no money.’
Even if he’d had access to his passport, it would have been red-flagged straight away by the Agency. Any attempt to use it would have resulted in immediate detainment and a one-way trip back to Langley. Not to mention the fact that Anya didn’t even have one to begin with …
There was only one realistic solution that he could think of. ‘We might have to try and slip over the border to Mexico. After that –’ he threw up his hands – ‘we either start busking for money, or we’d better polish up our bank-robbing skills.’
Anya however remained unfazed by the numerous problems standing in their path. ‘I know a man who can help us.’
He cocked an eyebrow. ‘Who, exactly?’
Again she gave him that knowing, enigmatic smile. ‘Come on, get out of bed,’ she said, avoiding the question. ‘We don’t have much time.’
After a hasty breakfast of pre-made bagels and instant coffee, they abandoned their room without bothering to check out. They had paid in advance anyway, so their departure was unlikely to draw undue attention.
And now here they were, with nothing but the rumble of their tyres on the road and the muted roar of the wind whipping by to break the silence.
Beside him, Anya looked as if she was having the time of her life. With her window down, seat wound back, feet up on the dashboard and eyes hidden behind her new sunglasses, she was a picture of laid-back calm.
‘Enjoying yourself?’ he couldn’t help asking.
‘It is more enjoyable than my average day.’
It was tough to argue with that.
‘Tell me something about yourself, Drake,’ she prompted.
‘Why?’
‘If we are going to be working together, it’s only fair that we know something about each other. You seem to know a lot about me already, but I know very little about you.’
‘That’s the way I like it.’
‘I don’t.’ She looked at him for a long moment. ‘Of course, I could make a few guesses …’
‘This should be good,’ he remarked.
‘You were in the military, probably Special Air Service judging by the parachute insertion and the tactics you used at Khatyrgan,’ she began. ‘Also, the knife on your webbing that night was standard SAS issue. The notch on the hand guard is designed to snag an opponent’s blade in a knife fight.’
Drake was impressed, both by her knowledge of weaponry and the details she had noticed in the heat of the moment.
‘You are divorced,’ she went on. ‘I see the mark where the ring was. It has faded, so it must have happened a few years ago. You are not in a relationship now.’
‘And how would you know that?’ he asked, irritated by the accuracy of her ‘guesses’.
‘There were no pictures in your wallet. I checked while you were asleep.’ She smiled at his discomfort. ‘And I saw the way you looked at me last night. You haven’t slept with a woman for a while.’
He couldn’t stop the colour rising to his face. He understood now why she’d undressed in front of him. She wanted to see how he would react.
‘You been reading my Facebook page or something?’ he shot back.
This at least put her off balance, if only for a moment. ‘What is a Facebook?’
‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Anyway, if you’ve got all the answers, what do you need me for?’
‘Because there are some things I can’t work out. How did a man like you end up working for a man like Cain?’
He said nothing for a while, and neither did she, but he could feel her gaze boring into him.
‘I don’t work for Cain,’ he said at last. ‘I work for Dan Franklin.’
‘The man with the bad back?’
Drake nodded. ‘He and I served together in Afghanistan. We were part of a special task force sent in to capture Taliban bad guys. We became good friends, and when I left the regiment, he found a job for me with the Agency.’
‘Why did you leave?’
‘I’d rather not talk about it,’ he answered tersely. There were a lot of things about his time with 14th Special Operations Group that he wasn’t proud of, particularly the manner of his departure. He certainly wasn’t going to share such things with a woman he barely knew.
To his surprise, she didn’t push him. ‘Well, it seems we both have things we’d rather not talk about.’
Feeling uncomfortable, Drake switched on the radio. It took a few moments to seek out whatever tinpot station was playing locally, but when it did, the strains of Bob Marley’s ‘Three Little Birds’ filled the car.
‘No, thanks,’ Drake decided, reaching for the tuner.
‘Wait,’ Anya said.
He glanced over at her. She was sitting with her head resting against the seat, her hair whipped up by the breeze from the open window, her eyes closed. There was a look of such peace and serenity on her face that he couldn’t bring himself to change the station over.
‘Never had you pegged as a Bob Marley fan.’
‘It was the first song I heard when I came to America,’ she explained. ‘I was being driven to Langley for the first time, and it was playing on the radio. The driver asked if I minded him listening to it.’ She smiled a faint, wistful smile. ‘I was shocked. Nobody had ever asked for my permission to do anything. Nobody had ever cared what I thought or what I wanted. It was the first time I really felt like I was … free. And it felt good.’
Drake said nothing. There was nothing he could say to that. The best thing he could do was shut up and let her enjoy the song.
Not for the first time, he found himself wondering about his strange, enigmatic passenger; who she really was, where she came from, and where she was going.
They made good progress throughout the day, stopping only once at a gas station in South Carolina to refuel and use the restrooms. Thankfully there were no idiot locals on hand this time, and they left without incident, Drake nursing a large cappuccino and his companion a bottle of Coke.
They ended up driving straight through Georgia without stopping, crossing the state line into Florida by mid-afternoon. As they continued southward, the terrain around them changed, with trees and fields giving way to palm trees and swampland. They were in a subtropical climate now, with high humidity, soaring temperatures and unpredictable weather.
At one point about an hour after crossing over from Georgia, the heavens opened with such ferocity that Drake could barely make out the road ahead. Even the wipers working overtime couldn’t clear the monsoon-like deluge f
rom the windscreen. Traffic on the highway slowed to a crawl as the onslaught continued.
Then, fifteen minutes later, the sun was beating down from an almost cloudless sky, leaving only the steaming tarmac as evidence of the intense downpour.
‘Mind if I ask you something?’ Drake began.
He was coming to understand that there was a right way and a wrong way to question his companion. She didn’t like to talk about herself for long periods, didn’t like answering too many questions all at once. If he pushed too hard, she would clam up and say nothing, simply choosing to ignore him.
Information had to be teased out of her, yielded up in small pieces. She had to be given time to accept it.
‘No.’
‘What’s the deal with you and Cain?’
She stiffened up. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Come on. You know what I’m talking about. You’re not just another operative to him, are you?’
She was silent for a long moment, and he wondered if perhaps she was going to give him the silent treatment again. ‘He recruited me into the Agency, when I first came to America. He gave me a chance when no one else would, and over time we came to respect each other. For a while, I believed there was nothing we couldn’t do together. I think even he believed it too … for a while.’
‘You were friends?’
She glanced away, but he’d seen the look in her eyes. ‘We were close,’ she answered, refusing to elaborate.
‘So what happened?’
‘He was willing to compromise. I wasn’t.’
She would say no more, and he knew better than to ask.
Chapter 43
AN HOUR LATER, Drake pulled into the parking lot of a vast shopping mall and killed the engine. They were on the outskirts of Daytona, a popular tourist trap on the shores of the Atlantic, and a mecca for NASCAR fans the world over. But Drake wasn’t here for racing.
They needed supplies. They had exhausted their food and drink some time ago; a fact that both of them were growing increasingly aware of. But more than that, they needed a change of clothes. Anya had a plan to secure money and passports for them both, but for it to work, she needed something a little more stylish than jeans and a ripped leather jacket.
