by Will Jordan
‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’
She stopped for a moment and turned to face him.
‘Munro. He’s the reason we’re here. He might have the same goal.’
She thought about it for a moment. ‘Maybe,’ she conceded. ‘But I can’t trust him. Munro would see me dead long before he moves against the Agency – I have no doubt about that.’
She turned to walk away.
‘And what about my sister?’
That stopped her in her tracks.
‘She’s innocent. She doesn’t deserve to be caught up in this. Those were your words. Or have you forgotten?’
She didn’t look at him, but he saw her head tilt down, saw the look of grim determination on her face. ‘I haven’t forgotten.’
‘If we don’t hand Zebari over, she’s dead. He’ll execute her.’
Anya said nothing.
‘Who is this Munro?’ Zebari asked, nervously watching the confrontation brewing between his two would-be saviours.
‘Stay out of this,’ Drake hissed, in no mood to explain the situation. ‘You know what I said was true, Anya. Can you live with that?’
‘I have lived with a lot of things, Drake,’ she assured him. ‘If I must, I can live with one more.’
She started walking away again, keeping her back to him.
‘Well, I can’t,’ he said, reaching for the AK slung over his shoulder. No way was he letting her walk with the one man who could save his sister’s life. If need be, he would take Zebari himself.
She was way ahead of him. Spinning around, she charged, summoning a terrifying burst of speed, her eyes burning with cold fire. Even as he brought the rifle to bear, she closed the distance between them, swept her hand up and seized the barrel, twisting it aside.
Before he could yank the weapon clear, she delivered a stinging right cross that snapped his head back, leaving stars dancing across his vision. His grip slackened, and an instant later he felt the rifle torn from his hand.
‘Don’t try to stop me, Drake,’ she warned, tossing the weapon aside like a toy. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’
Focused on each other as they were, neither of them heard the sharp, vicious hiss of an inbound missile travelling at close to the speed of sound. Neither of them thought to look up, to watch for the telltale white streak of exhaust gases.
But what happened next was more than enough to get their attention.
Their first impression was of a blinding white flash, followed almost immediately by a horrific orange glow that lit the ground around them. The next moment, the concussive blast wave hit like a physical blow, knocking them both to the ground. A deafening roar filled the air, tearing through them as if to split them apart from the inside.
Chapter 66
‘THERE’S NOTHING I can do, Frost,’ Dietrich said irritably as he lit up another cigarette. ‘Franklin says to stand down, we stand down.’
‘Fuck Franklin, and fuck his orders! Are you just going to abandon Drake? Is that right?’ she demanded. She was bristling with anger, oblivious to the fact that he was almost a foot taller than her. ‘You know, for a minute there I was actually starting to think you weren’t a complete asshole. Shows how fucking wrong I was.’
Suddenly he rounded on her. ‘What do you expect me to do?’
‘What’s right,’ she replied simply.
Dietrich turned away in disgust.
Going against orders would spell the end of whatever career he had left, destroy any future he had a hope of building. She was asking the impossible.
He wasn’t going to do that. Not now. Not for Drake.
‘Drake could have left you behind in that prison,’ Frost reminded him. ‘Instead he risked his life to save yours. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’
Dietrich closed his eyes, willing himself not to listen. He was going to lose everything. With one stupid, emotional decision, he would lose everything he’d fought to regain.
‘I guess I was right about you all along, Dietrich,’ Frost concluded, turning to walk away. ‘You’re a coward. You always were.’
Dietrich said nothing as he took a deep pull on his cigarette.
It took Sinclair all of three minutes to climb two flights of stairs and sprint down 50 yards of corridor to Franklin’s office. He was red faced and out of breath by the time he entered.
Franklin rose from his desk and walked over to join him, keeping his voice low. ‘Sinclair, I want you to listen very carefully to what I’m about to say. Whatever else is going on here, Director Cain is pursuing his own agenda.’
‘Y-yes, sir,’ the young technician replied hesitantly.
‘He’s the one who shut down our satellite coverage.’
Sinclair’s eyes lit up.
‘Something’s about to happen that he doesn’t want us to see.’ Franklin leaned forward and eyed him hard. ‘I want two things from you. First I want you to monitor all incoming and outgoing communications from Cain’s office.’
You just crossed the line, a voice in his head told him. There will be no coming back from this.
Sinclair swallowed, daunted at the prospect of hacking the divisional director’s computer. ‘If I get caught …’
‘If you get caught, you’ll tell them that I specifically ordered you to do it. I’ll take full responsibility for everything.’ He gripped the man by the shoulders. ‘Now, can it be done?’
Sinclair thought it over for several seconds, his mind racing. ‘There’s a back door in the firewall I can exploit,’ he finally admitted. ‘Nobody else knows about it. It won’t be pretty, but it should work.’
‘Good. Get on it.’
‘And the second thing, sir?’ Sinclair prompted.
Franklin chewed his lip. ‘I need that satellite link back.’
‘Sir, are you sure you want to do this? If Director Cain finds out …’
Franklin sighed, took a step back and glanced over at the framed picture again. ‘You see that photograph? Five years ago my Humvee hit a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. When I came to, the vehicle was upside down and on fire. I couldn’t move my legs, couldn’t get out. I knew then I was going to burn to death. But one man came back to pull me out. Only one.’ He turned to look at the young man again. ‘Drake risked his life to save mine. I owe him.’
Sinclair stared at him, shocked by what he’d heard. But at last he nodded. ‘I understand.’
‘Good. Then get to work.’
Drake was in a fog. A world without dimension, with only the pounding of his own heartbeat to interrupt the dull ringing in his ears. With great effort he forced his eyes open, finding himself lying face down on hard stony ground. Anya was a few yards away, her face obscured by a tangle of blonde hair.
What the hell had happened?
Groaning in pain, he managed to get an arm beneath himself and sat up, his back cracking as he did so. He could feel blood on his arms and face where sharp rocks and debris had cut him, but he didn’t seem to be seriously hurt. Everything still worked.
The Hilux was another story. Almost nothing remained of the vehicle, save for a few smoking, twisted scraps of metal embedded in the 5-metre-wide crater where it had sat. It had been obliterated by high explosives, but from where? And by whom?
Hearing movement at his side, he turned to see Anya pulling herself upright, wincing in pain. A growing red patch stained her shirt just above her left hip, perhaps a piece of shrapnel from the destroyed vehicle. He couldn’t tell how bad the injury was.
She looked at him, her expression a mixture of uncomprehending shock and pain.
Then suddenly her eyes flicked over his shoulder, and he saw her tense up. She had seen something. Her hand went for the assault rifle lying beside her.
‘Don’t move!’ a voice cried out. It was male. American.
Twisting around, Drake found himself staring at a man in black fatigues and full combat gear. He was covering them with an M4 carbine, the US military’s standard assault rifle.
&n
bsp; Another man rose from behind a boulder next to him, armed and dressed in similar fashion. Within moments, they were surrounded by six operatives, all carrying automatic weapons.
Anya remained frozen where she was, her hand poised in the midst of reaching for the AK.
‘Lie the fuck down right now!’ the man commanded. ‘Lie down with your hands behind your heads. Do it, or we open fire.’
To resist would be futile. As fast and dangerous as she was, even Anya couldn’t defend herself against six men who had the drop on her.
Withdrawing her arm, she eased herself down onto her stomach and placed her hands behind her head. Drake did likewise, staring into his erstwhile companion’s eyes as footsteps crunched on the stony ground towards them.
He saw no fear there.
Nearby, Zebari was whimpering in pain as his hands were bound and he was hauled roughly to his feet.
One of their captors, perhaps the leader, keyed his radio transmitter. ‘Targets secure. We’re coming in.’
Chapter 67
THE OPERATIONS ROOM was almost empty, save for Franklin and Sinclair. He had ordered all other personnel to leave, explaining that their part in the operation was over, just as Cain had instructed.
‘We’re in,’ Sinclair said, speaking low and urgent as if afraid someone might overhear. His fingers danced across the keyboard, a blur of frantic movement. ‘I’m through the firewall. Access server routing grid, redirect incoming feed, and …’
The viewing window in his laptop sprang into life, showing an overhead video feed from the site in Iraq where Drake’s vehicle had parked up.
‘Bingo.’
Franklin leaned in close, ignoring the aching pain in his back as he studied the screen.
‘Oh, shit.’
Drake’s vehicle was gone, replaced by a smoking, wreckage-strewn crater. It must have been hit by some kind of high-powered explosive ordinance, because almost nothing remained of it.
But there were other vehicles nearby; two of them. 4x4s of some kind, though he couldn’t identify them from the air. Black-clad figures were sweeping the area, escorting three prisoners towards the nearest vehicle. Two men and a woman.
It had to be Drake and Anya. He couldn’t tell who the third man was.
Bundling them into the truck, the remaining armed men mounted the second vehicle and, in a spray of dust and sand, they took off, heading north.
‘Son of a bitch.’
Turning away, he dug his phone out and dialled Dietrich’s number.
‘Yeah!’ the older man answered, yelling to be heard over a muted roar in the background.
‘Jonas, I can barely hear. Where the hell are you?’
‘I’m outside. It’s a sandstorm here. What do you want, Dan?’
Franklin closed his eyes for a moment, straightened his shoulders and raised his chin a little, steeling himself against the recriminations that would one day descend on him.
‘Change of plans. You have a green light to go after Drake. I say again, you have a green light.’
He couldn’t have sworn to it, but he thought he heard the man laugh. ‘I was hoping you’d say that. We’re airborne now and en route. It seems we “borrowed” a Saudi Army chopper.’
The son of a bitch had ignored his instructions and launched the operation on his own initiative. Franklin might have been angry were it not for his own blatant insubordination.
‘They’ve been taken prisoner by some kind of Black Ops team. I don’t know who they are, but we can assume they’re working for Cain. They’re currently heading north in a pair of 4x4s. We’re downloading the satellite feeds to you now.’
‘Got it. What are the rules of engagement on this one?’
‘Don’t fire unless fired upon. They might be working for Cain, but we don’t know their intentions yet. I won’t kill our own men without good reason.’
‘And if they do engage us?’
Franklin exhaled. ‘Do what you have to.’
‘Understood.’ Dietrich hesitated a moment. ‘Oh, and Dan?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Thanks.’
He couldn’t help but smile. He was staring at the end of his career, and he had never felt more certain that he was doing the right thing.
‘Good luck.’
Drake was jolted forward in his seat as the vehicle screeched to a halt amidst a cloud of swirling dust. Gloved hands grabbed him and hauled him outside, giving him his first proper look at his surroundings.
It was an airfield, or had been once. Blackened, bombed-out buildings, ruined vehicles and concrete runways pockmarked with deep craters were everywhere. The place hadn’t been in use for years, no doubt bombed into submission prior to the invasion.
An aircraft boneyard stretched away to his right; line after line of ancient MiG-23 and 25 fighters lying abandoned, most of them hacked apart and broken up so that looters could salvage the valuable components inside. All that remained were the empty air frames, rusty and weathered.
Jerking him forward, his armed captor led him towards the nearest building, probably once used as the base’s air control tower and operations centre. The steel doors at the main entrance had been blown open, lying twisted and broken on both sides of the corridor beyond.
It was dark inside as they carried on, the electric lights having long since stopped working. The only illumination came from a couple of glow sticks dropped at regular intervals, investing the passageway with an eerie green light.
Anya was somewhere behind him, shoved from time to time if she didn’t move fast enough. She said nothing, and neither did he. These men were here to bring them in, not to answer questions.
They were approaching a room at the far end of the corridor, perhaps once the operations room. He could hear voices within, along with the hum of machinery. The flickering glow of computer monitors played against the wall opposite.
Shoved inside, he stopped only for a moment before a sharp blow between his shoulder blades dropped him to his knees. A grunt of pain to his right told him that Anya had been made to kneel in similar fashion.
He twisted around to look at her. Her hair had escaped the tie at her neck and hung in disarray, she was covered in small cuts and grazes, and her face was tight with pain from the shrapnel wound in her side.
Beyond her, Zebari had also been thrown to his knees, though he was unable to balance on his crippled leg and pitched forward to land in a heap. He was trembling with unconcealed terror.
‘Well, well. Ryan Drake,’ a familiar voice taunted.
Glancing around, Drake watched as Munro walked into the room from another doorway to the left, smiling with pleasure while his glass eye glittered in the glow of computer screens. Like the others, he was dressed in black combat gear, his heavy boots crunching through the debris that littered the floor. He was a big man, both tall and physically strong judging by his broad chest and the tight corded muscle in his arms and shoulders.
But it was more than that. There was a presence about him, a charisma, a dominating air of command and that went far beyond physical size. Munro had been a leader of men, born to take them into battle, and despite everything, he remembered that.
‘It’s good to finally meet face to face.’
Drake glared back at him. ‘I wish I could say the same. Where’s my sister?’
Munro smiled. ‘Family loyalty. It’s so fucking touching.’ Turning towards the doorway he’d just come through, he raised his voice. ‘Barnes, bring her in.’
Drake’s breath caught in his throat as a woman in dirty, sweat-stained office clothes was pushed roughly into the room. Her captor, a middle-aged man with a shaved head and a long grey goatee, was just a pace or two behind, keeping her covered with a Glock pistol.
Her hands were bound behind her back, just like Drake’s. Her shoulder-length brown hair was in disarray, stray locks falling in front of her face, grimy with sweat and dirt. She had clearly been kept in poor living conditions for the past couple of days, yet he co
uld see no obvious signs of abuse. No bruising, cuts or grazes. Her eyes, vivid green like his own, were locked on him.
‘Ryan!’ she cried, trying to run to him. A hard blow to the back of the neck dropped her to her knees, dazed and moaning in pain.
‘You fuck,’ Drake spat, glaring at Barnes with absolute hatred. His wrists strained against the cuffs with bruising force.
‘I’m a man of my word, Drake,’ Munro said, unconcerned with the casual violence. ‘I said you’d be reunited with your sister. If you have anything to say, I’d do it now.’
‘Jess. Jess, look at me,’ Drake implored her, his voice softer now, gentle and coaxing. It was the same voice he used to use when they were children, and she was angry with him.
Blinking to refocus her vision, the woman looked up at him. Her eyes were wet with tears. ‘Ryan … I’m sorry,’ she managed to say, struggling to hold it together now that they were so close.
It was more than he could bear to see her like this. His voice was thick, his throat tight when he spoke. ‘It’s going to be all right. I promise. We’re here now. They’ll let you go.’
Tiring of the game, Munro nodded to Barnes. ‘Get her out of here.’
Moving forward, Barnes gripped her beneath her arms and lifted her right off her feet, dragging her back towards the doorway. Jessica bucked and kicked, lashing out with her feet and catching him several times across the shins, but the blows lacked power or purpose.
‘Ryan! Ryan!’ she screamed, her frightened voice echoing off the bare concrete walls.
‘It’s going to be all right, Jess!’ he shouted after her. It was a futile gesture, but it was all he had. ‘I promise! I’ll find you.’
Munro stood with his arms folded, watching the drama play out as if it were a soap opera. ‘Very touching, Drake.’
‘You got what you wanted,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Let her go.’
The older man shook his head. ‘You know I can’t do that. You knew it from the moment I took her hostage.’
That instant, Drake’s last kernel of forlorn hope flickered out. Munro was right; as much as he hated to admit it, he knew the man wouldn’t release her. He’d always known. He just hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself.
