by Will Jordan
‘Norway,’ Mitchell finished for him. She had to admit, the idea wasn’t entirely without merit. With a large coastal area and low population density, and an easy trip across the North Sea, Norway was a logical place to retreat to.
Hawkins jabbed a finger at Argento. ‘Contact Langley and have them plot the shortest route from Edinburgh to the Norwegian mainland, then concentrate all available surveillance assets on that area – satellite, drones, whatever. Look for any vessel matching the one stolen in Scotland. And tell them to have an aircraft standing by for us at Menwith Hill. Everyone else, get ready to move! We’re heading north.’
As the rest of the field team loaded their remaining gear into the vehicles on standby, Mitchell approached the officer who had so abruptly assumed command of the operation. Hawkins was about to make a call on his cell phone, no doubt to report in on his findings, but paused for a moment to regard her.
‘Something I can help you with, Mitchell?’
‘I’d like a word.’ Her voice was calm enough, but the look in her eyes was quite different. ‘Now.’
‘You’re in my good graces right now,’ he said, though it sounded like more of a threat than a compliment. ‘Be a shame to ruin that.’
‘I’m not here to make friends.’
His smile was one of amusement and, she thought, faint mockery. Slipping his cell phone in his pocket, he folded his arms and looked at her for a long moment. ‘Okay, you have thirty seconds. Talk.’
That was more than she needed. ‘Let’s be clear about one thing – just because I’m cooperating with you, doesn’t mean we have the same agenda. I’m here to make sure that whoever killed three of our men last night is brought to justice.’
Hawkins raised an eyebrow. ‘And that’s different from me, how?’
‘Because I’m not out to settle old scores, or become an executioner. This woman you threw into the mix earlier; the one with no name... She might be everything you say she is, or she might not. Either way, she deserves a chance to tell her side of the story. So does Yates. So I’ll help you catch them and bring them in, but we bring them in alive.’
Hawkins regarded her in thoughtful silence, as if trying to get the measure of her. ‘People have tried to capture her alive before. Didn’t work out too well.’
‘That was then, this is now. And my point still stands. I’m a cop, not an assassin. We clear on that?’
The smile was back. It was the smile of a man who knew a hell of a lot more about what they were up against than she did. A man who knew she was going to fail.
‘Crystal.’
Saying nothing more, Mitchell turned and walked away, her back straight and her chin up. She could feel Hawkins’s eyes on her the whole time.
Chapter 18
Vaguely Alex became aware of a voice. A woman’s voice calling out to him, saying something he couldn’t quite make out. Curious, he began to rouse from the darkness that seemed to be swallowing him up.
‘What?’ he mumbled, forcing his eyes open with great effort.
Straight away he found himself staring into the face of a woman. A woman with short blonde hair and intense, haunting blue eyes. A woman who was hard, cold, beautiful and terrible all at once.
Anya.
He watched as her right hand was drawn back, and frowned for a moment in confusion as it swung down towards him.
The sudden impact as her open hand collided with his cheek sent shockwaves of pain reverberating through his head. The effect was akin to being doused with cold water in the midst of deep sleep, and he let out a gasp as his eyes snapped wide open.
‘What the fu—?’ he began.
‘Quiet!’ she hissed. ‘You fell down the slope and into the river. Are you hurt?’
‘How did you find me?’
‘Are you hurt?’ she repeated, shaking him.
He thought for a moment, trying to collect his wits. The slap had temporarily jolted his brain back into action, but his body felt heavy and numb. Still, even in this condition he could feel the waves of pain radiating outward from his ribcage.
‘My chest,’ he said, sounding unsure. ‘I think I hit a tree.’
She nodded, her expression grave. ‘You may have cracked a rib. Your breathing seems unaffected so I don’t think you punctured a lung. I’ll look at it properly later, but first we have to get you out of here before you freeze to death.’
‘What about… a fire?’ he asked, having to focus hard on each word.
Anya shook her head. ‘There’s no deadfall nearby, and no time to strip tree branches. You have five or ten minutes at most before hypothermia sets in.’
Leaning forward, she unzipped the heavy waterlogged jacket he was wearing and pulled it off, though she left the woollen sweater in place. Even wet, it would still retain some body heat. This done, she took off her own jacket and helped him into it. It was a little small for him, but it was warm and dry, and straight away he began to feel the difference.
‘This will help, for now at least,’ she said. ‘Can you walk?’
‘I… I think so.’
‘Good. Hold on to me.’
Placing his arm around her neck, she pushed herself up off the ground with some difficulty, having to support most of his weight as well. With awkward, unsteady steps, they started forward through the long grass.
‘I can’t make it across that river again,’ Alex gasped, knowing how close he’d come to drowning last time. Attempting to swim it again would be suicidal, though if his mind had been in better order he might have questioned how Anya had made it to him without getting wet herself.
‘No need,’ she assured him. ‘There is a crossing point nearby; that’s how I got to you. The slope on the other side looks like an easy climb.’
‘Easy… for you to say,’ he said, managing a weak laugh. The physical exertion of walking combined with the warm and dry jacket around his torso was helping to generate a little body heat, but it was a temporary reprieve at most.
Sure enough, a couple of minutes of unsteady walking, with Anya doing most of the work, brought them to the edge of the river, where a bridge of sorts crossed the narrow waterway. Little more than several felled tree trunks lashed together, it looked unstable and slippery, but it was an awful lot better than the other option.
‘Hold on to me,’ Anya said, helping him across. The logs creaked and sagged visibly beneath their weight, the swirling water beneath seemingly eager to engulf them, but nonetheless the improvised bridge held firm.
Once across, they started up the far bank. As she’d described, the terrain here was much easier than upstream, and there was even a rough path winding its way through the trees. It seemed this area was used from time to time, perhaps by hikers.
‘I’m sorry, Anya,’ Alex mumbled as they trudged step by step up the hill. His chest was tightening, making it hard to draw breath. ‘For… taking it out… on you. I was being an arsehole earlier. You didn’t… deserve it.’
The woman said nothing right away, and he couldn’t see the expression on her face.
‘I pushed you too hard,’ she finally admitted. It was as close to an apology as he was likely to get.
Despite himself, Alex couldn’t help laughing in amusement at the exchange. ‘Well, this is… a beautiful moment. Brings a tear to my eye.’
‘Just concentrate on getting over this ridge.’
Alex couldn’t rightly say how long it took them to ascend that slope, since all concept of time quickly became irrelevant to him. All he could focus on was putting one leaden foot in front of the other, forcing his lungs to draw breath that never quite seemed to be enough to satisfy his body’s craving for oxygen.
In reality the path they were following was probably an easy five-minute walk for anyone of moderate fitness, but in his battered and exhausted condition it felt like trying to scale Mount Everest. Every step became harder than the one before. Twice he stumbled, and twice Anya saved him from falling, her quiet but commanding voice urging him to kee
p going.
He was gasping for breath by the time they finally crested the ridge, with spots of light dancing across his eyes and the world swaying uncontrollably around him.
‘The road is close,’ Anya said, trying to urge him forward, to make one last effort. ‘You can rest when we get there.’
Alex tried to take a step forward, but the lights in his eyes suddenly coalesced into a lightning flash that sent him stumbling forward, his legs giving way beneath him. There was no thought of getting up this time, no matter how much encouragement Anya might give him. He was done.
‘No more,’ he gasped, shaking his head. ‘No more.’
Anya looked down at the bruised and bedraggled young man, knowing he was almost out of time. He had given everything he had left just to get up the ridge, but his body could carry him no further. Already it was beginning to shut down as cold and exhaustion gained the upper hand.
For a moment she just sat there, kneeling by his side as she weighed up what to do next. The logical course of action was to leave him here to succumb to hypothermia, cut her losses and make good her escape. She was confident she could vanish back into anonymity just as she had done before.
It was a cold and clinical choice, but then it wouldn’t be the first such decision she’d been forced to make. Survival often required both ruthless thoughts and actions.
And yet, looking at him now, she realized that he was in this position largely because of her. He had inherited the memory stick she’d given to Sinclair, through little more than bad luck. But she had started the process that had destroyed his life.
His life, and his death, was her responsibility now.
The distant sound of an approaching vehicle on the road finally decided her. She drew the automatic from her jeans and quickly checked it. It was a Heckler & Koch USP .45; a big, powerful, German-made weapon that was popular with both the Agency and special forces units worldwide. The grip was a little too big for her hands, but it was a reliable, accurate weapon that could put down any unarmoured target within thirty yards.
Pulling back the side far enough to check that a round was in the breech, she pushed it down the back of her jeans to hide it from view, then leaned in close to Alex.
‘Stay here, Alex,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll come back for you.’
He would have to take his chances for now. Either she would return to him in time to save his life, or he would succumb to hypothermia and die right here. For now, there was nothing she could do about it.
Leaving him, she turned and sprinted the short distance down the slope to the nearby road, backing up against the solid trunk of a spruce tree. The car was getting closer now, she could see the glow of the headlights flitting between the trees to illuminate the tarmac road nearby. The engine note was too high to be a truck or heavy-goods vehicle; she guessed it to be a mid-sized family car, which was both good and bad news. Such a vehicle would be less obtrusive, but then it might well contain an entire family; all of whom would have to be dealt with. Even she would struggle to control three or four people while she retrieved Alex from the nearby woods.
Still, there were some things in life that simply couldn’t be planned for. It was the ability to improvise and overcome such problems that made the difference.
The car was almost on her now, driving at a steady forty or fifty miles per hour judging by the low revs. The driver was cruising, unhurried, perhaps weary after a long night behind the wheel. They wouldn’t be expecting what happened next.
Taking a breath, Anya pushed herself away from the tree and staggered out onto the road, waving her arms frantically and doing her best to look terrified.
‘Help! Help me!’ she cried.
Straight away she heard the squeal of brakes and the crunch of tyres skidding on tarmac, and suddenly the headlights dipped as the vehicle’s momentum carried it onward. She was standing more or less in the centre of the narrow road, so unless he felt like running her over, the driver was left with little choice but to stop.
At least she knew the car was fitted with good brakes, she thought, as it skidded to a halt maybe twenty feet away. Straight away she was moving, closing the distance between her and the car before the driver had a chance to recover his wits.
She was counting on surprise and perhaps a misplaced sense of chivalry to aid her. From the driver’s point of view, Anya was a woman in distress, alone on a dark road in the middle of the night. She might have been the victim of a sexual attack, a car-jacking, or even a simple traffic accident further down the road. Either way, he was unlikely to perceive her as a threat. Not yet, at least.
As she approached, she recognized the car as a Volvo S40; a solid if unspectacular family saloon manufactured in neighbouring Sweden. She heard the buzz of an electric window coming down, followed immediately by a gruff Norwegian voice.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ the driver demanded in Norwegian. ‘I almost knocked you–’
He stopped mid sentence as Anya drew the USP and levelled it at him. Approaching the window, she peered inside to get a look at the driver.
The face staring back at her was old, easily in his eighties, deeply tanned and lined like old leather. His silvery white hair, combed straight back, was matched by a neatly trimmed moustache of similar colour. To Anya’s surprise, there was little fear in his expression, just a moment of alarm at the sight of the weapon, followed by a kind of weary acceptance of what was clearly going to be a difficult night.
‘First time I’ve been held at gunpoint by a woman. Are you going to kill me?’ he asked, his voice flat and completely calm. Then again, she supposed if she lived to be as old as him, death would hold little fear.
‘I just need your car. My friend is hurt,’ she said, speaking in Swedish since she was far more fluent in it. Anya had never had much reason to learn Norwegian, but fortunately the two Scandinavian languages were similar enough to be mutually understandable.
‘I could drive you to a hospital.’
She shook her head. People asked questions in hospitals. ‘Get out, slowly.’
This prompted a wry smile. ‘Young lady, I’m eighty-three years old. Slow is the best I can hope for these days.’
Anya might have smiled too if her situation had been less serious. It had been a long time since anyone had referred to her as ‘young lady’.
With surprising dignity, given the duress he was under, he unbuckled his seatbelt, eased himself out of the car and backed off a couple of paces. Despite his age, he was still a big man, easily standing six feet tall and with the broad shoulders of a man accustomed to physical activity. Only an expanding midriff betrayed his advanced years.
Anya kept him covered the whole time, more out of professional habit than because she expected him to try anything. He was old enough and wise enough to know better, and he certainly wasn’t going to die over a car that was insured anyway.
Moving forward, she quickly patted him down, making sure he didn’t have a cell phone or weapon on him. The last thing she needed was for him to call the police the moment she left the scene. As expected, he made no effort to resist.
Satisfied he posed no immediate threat, she removed the keys from the car’s ignition, hit the remote fob to lock the doors, then slipped them into her pocket.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
‘Jostein.’
‘Jostein, I want you to turn around and go back the way you came. Don’t look back or try to return to your car. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if you disobey. Do you understand?’
The old man glanced back down the empty road. ‘You know I will report this to the police as soon as I can.’
Anya nodded. ‘I’m sorry I had to do this. Now go.’
Sensing she wasn’t going to relent, Jostein turned and began to walk away at a measured, unhurried pace. However, he stopped after a few yards and glanced at her.
‘I hope your friend is all right.’
With that, he turned away and resumed his wal
k. Anya waited until he was about thirty yards down the road before shoving the USP down the back of her jeans and sprinting into the woods, leaping over tangled brush and gnarled roots just waiting to trip her. Every second she left her companion alone increased his chances of death by exposure.
Alex was lying exactly where she had left him, his eyes closed and his face deathly pale. His soaking hair was plastered to his head. His body was a limp weight in her arms when she tried to lift him.
‘I’m here, Alex. I came back for you,’ Anya said, trying to rouse him. ‘There is a car waiting for us on the road.’
There was no response. The young man didn’t stir. Anya felt an unfamiliar knot of fear tighten in her stomach at the realisation that she might be too late. Danger to herself was of little concern, yet she felt a sense of guilt and responsibility towards this man.
Forcing those thoughts aside, she tilted her head down so that her face was just inches from his. And for an anxious second or two she waited.
There! Her heart leapt as she felt the momentary warmth of his breath on her cheek. It was faint and shallow, but nonetheless real. He was alive, but he wouldn’t stay that way for long if she didn’t get some warmth into him. And there was no way he could reach the car under his own power.
There was only one course of action. Summoning up what reserves of energy she had left, Anya took a couple of deep breaths to get more oxygen into her bloodstream, then hooked her arms beneath Alex’s unconscious body and, muscles straining with the effort, heaved him up from the ground.
Anya was no stranger to physical exertion, and still exercised regularly to keep herself as strong and fit as possible. But all the training in the world couldn’t give her the muscle mass and brute strength of a man. That fact weighed heavily on her mind as she struggled through the dense forest, doing her best to sidestep the obstacles she had leapt over with such ease mere seconds earlier.
Alex was a leaden weight in her arms, his size and shape making him difficult to balance, and threatening to overcome her more than once. Ignoring the burning ache in her muscles, Anya forced herself down the slope step by step, concentrating on nothing but raising and planting her feet firmly in the soft ground.
