Black List

by Will Jordan

  A lifetime ago, when she’d still been a young woman undergoing the rigorous training needed to prepare her for the career she’d chosen, she had taken part in more forced marches than she cared to count. Weighed down by heavy equipment and forced to slog through wind and rain for hours at a time, her only defence had been to retreat into her own mind, shutting out the pain and the cold and the discomfort and focussing only on what was absolutely essential.

  In her mind, she repeated the mantra that had been drilled into her again and again during training, the words that had kept her going during her darkest hours.

  I will endure when all others fail. I will stand when all others retreat. Weakness will not be in my heart. Fear will not be in my creed. I will show no mercy. I will never hesitate. I will never surrender.

  It had worked for her then, and it still worked now.

  I will endure when all others fail.

  Plodding steadily onward, she let out a sigh of relief as the road finally came into view. Mercifully the car was still there as well, Jostein having kept his promise not to return for it.

  ‘Almost... there, Alex,’ Anya said through gritted teeth, as she staggered the last few yards across the paved road and practically collapsed with her unconscious companion beside the passenger door.

  Alex let out a pained grunt as he hit the ground, but otherwise didn’t stir. At least she knew he was still alive.

  A quick fumble with the key fob was enough to disable the central locking. Breathing hard, she hauled the door open and with a last great effort heaved Alex into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut.

  Freed from the heavy burden of his unconscious body, Anya felt like she was floating on air as she rounded the car, slipped into the driver’s seat and started it up. The engine rumbled back into life, and she cranked the heaters up to maximum before throwing the Volvo into gear and accelerating away from the scene.

  The car’s climate-control system was nothing if not efficient, and within seconds the temperature in the enclosed space had risen to a sweltering twenty degrees. Already warm from her exertions, Anya was soon sweating as hot air blasted her face and body. She reached out and angled the air vents towards Alex, knowing he needed it far more than she did

  Anya wasn’t driving with any particular destination in mind yet. Her main concern was putting as much distance between herself and Jostein as possible, which was just as well because she saw no forks or junctions in the road as it wound between rocky escarpments and dense evergreen forests. Occasionally she caught glimpses of the moonlit sea far off to the west. For now however she was interested only in putting as much distance between herself and the site of the car theft as possible.

  Her actions would certainly result in follow-up by local police, though she wasn’t particularly concerned about that. She had made a career out of evading the best intelligence services in the world for the past two decades, and even with Yates to worry about she was confident she could give the Norwegian police the slip.

  Of greater concern was the prospect of the Agency making the connection between the car theft and the stolen trawler, and redirecting all their resources here. This was exactly the scenario she hoped to avoid. If it happened, everything she had gained by fleeing the UK would be undone.

  Still, she had Yates, and with him a chance to find the answers she so desperately needed. It was a risk, but she had faced and overcome many such risks in her life, and she hadn’t come this far to give up now. Her only option was to press forward.

  A low moaning from the passenger seat directed her thoughts back to more immediate matters, as Alex began to show signs of regaining consciousness. It seemed the threat of death by hypothermia was abating, but nonetheless she wanted to check him over properly. If he died from exposure or the injuries he’d sustained in the fall, all of this was for nothing.

  Spotting a turn-off into a narrow forest track up ahead, she swung the wheel left, taking the car off the main road. The vehicle bumped and wallowed through dips and potholes before coming to a halt about thirty yards from the main road. As soon as they’d stopped, Anya switched off the headlights but left the engine running.

  With hot air continuing to pump from the heating system, Anya switched on the internal light and twisted around in her seat to examine her patient. He was a sorry-looking sight – wet, bedraggled, bruised and smeared with mud and dead leaves that had stuck to him while lying on the forest floor. Still, she thought she saw a hint of colour returning to his face.

  Even if his clothes were still damp, the warmth would be seeping through to the skin beneath, helping to raise his core temperature above the critical level needed to maintain his vital functions. At least he didn’t look as deathly pale as before.

  His breathing was shallow and laboured, reminding her of the injury he’d sustained during his fall down the hill. Reaching out, she unzipped his jacket and pulled up the thick jumper beneath.

  As she’d feared, the skin down one side of his chest was badly discoloured, with patches of haemorrhaging clearly visible. The blunt-force trauma of a high-speed impact with a tree trunk was more than sufficient to snap ribs and propel the jagged ends into the delicate internal organs they were supposed to protect. If he was bleeding internally, then he was in serious trouble and there was little she could do for him.

  Gently she reached out and touched around the injury, starting with the base of his chest and slowly working her way up, feeling the protrusion of each rib bone as she went. There were no obvious breaks or fractures that she could detect, but her examination certainly prompted a reaction from the patient.

  His eyes fluttered once, opened a crack and seemed to falter, then finally flew open as his consciousness returned and the first wave of pain hit him.

  ‘Ow, Jesus Christ!’ he groaned, clutching his chest and blindly pushing her away as his mind struggled to reassert itself. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘Trying to find out if you’ve broken any ribs,’ Anya explained, sounding more patient and understanding than she felt at that moment.

  He pulled the jumper back in place, covering his chest. ‘And?’

  She shrugged. ‘You will live, I think. How does it feel?’

  ‘Like Mike Tyson’s been wailing on it for fifteen rounds. ‘He tried to sit up straighter in his seat, but immediately thought better of it. ‘Remind me not to go picking fights with pine trees any time soon.’

  She would rather he remembered to stay close to her and watch where he stepped, but decided now wasn’t the time for such rebukes.

  ‘You should recover in a few days,’ she said instead, thinking it would raise his spirits.

  ‘Assuming I live that long,’ Alex remarked with sour grace. He glanced around, taking in the interior of the Volvo. ‘By the way, where did this car come from?’

  ‘It’s not important now,’ she said, seeing little point in telling him that car-jacking had been added to the list of crimes he’d become embroiled in. Instead she decided to focus on their objective. ‘What matters is getting you to a computer so you can finish what Loki started. Tell me what you need to make this happen.’

  ‘I need you to head east,’ he said simply. ‘To Drammen, near Oslo.’

  ‘And what will we find there?’

  She could have sworn she saw a faint, knowing smile. ‘A man who knows about these things.’

  That wasn’t making her any happier. ‘Do you trust him?’

  ‘I don’t trust anyone, including you,’ he said truthfully. ‘But we need his help, and his computers. Well, mostly his computers.’

  ‘And if you find this man, then you can break the Agency’s firewall?’ She needed to know for certain that he wasn’t stalling for time or trying to mislead her. If so, she wouldn’t hesitate to dump him here and let him take his chances.

  ‘If it’s possible, I’ll find a way.’

  Anya said nothing further. In matters like this, she had little choice but to defer to his experience. Dram
men it was, then.

  The only problem was that Drammen was easily a six-hour drive away, and she hadn’t slept in over two days – a fact that her body had been reminding her of with increasing urgency of late. She was no stranger to fatigue and sleep deprivation, but even she couldn’t keep going forever. Sighing, she put the car into reverse and backed up onto the main road.

  Stealing a glance at Alex, she noticed that his eyes were already starting to close. The combination of exhaustion and the sudden warmth of the car was threatening to overwhelm him.

  ‘I need you to stay awake, Alex,’ she warned.

  ‘Come on, mate,’ the young man groaned. ‘If you need a navigator, trust me, I’m not your man.’

  ‘Hypothermia is still a risk. I need you to stay awake, at least until your core temperature is up.’ She didn’t look at him as she swung the wheel over, threw the engine into first gear and accelerated away. In truth, she could use something to focus her attention on besides the sleep-inducing monotony of a dark and winding road. ‘Talk to me.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Anything.’ She paused a moment, struck by how difficult she found it to think of a conversation starter. She’d never had much interest in making small talk, and that situation hadn’t been helped by four years spent in solitary confinement in a Russian jail. ‘Tell me your favourite movie.’

  At this, Alex laughed in amusement, though it ended in a painful wince as his bruised ribs reminded him of the fall he’d taken earlier. ‘Are we really having this conversation?’

  ‘Come on. Tell me,’ she pressed him. She wasn’t really interested, but if it kept him awake then it was good enough.

  Alex was silent for the next few seconds. Clearly he was giving it more thought than the situation really warranted. ‘Well, Flash Gordon is up there for sure, but I’d have to say Big Trouble in Little China,’ he decided at last. ‘That’s the best film ever.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked, feigning interest. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Well, it’s about a truck driver who stumbles into the middle of a gang war in Chinatown. I like it because it’s not what it appears to be. Most people assume he’s the main character because the story’s told from his point of view. But he’s not. He’s just the sidekick. It’s his mate who does all the work and the fighting, and who gets the girl at the end...’

  Anya said nothing to this, content to let him talk now that he seemed to be on a roll. Pushing a lock of blonde hair back from her face and doing her best to focus on the darkened road ahead, she settled down for a long night behind the wheel.

  Chapter 19

  RAF Menwith Hill, North Yorkshire

  Although technically classed as a Royal Air Force base, RAF Menwith Hill was British in name only. In reality the sprawling facility was America’s biggest electronic surveillance hub in Western Europe. A key element of the ECHELON global monitoring system, its distinctive white radomes worked ceaselessly to intercept electronic signals of all kinds, from emails to telephone calls and coded radio messages.

  Operations there had started during the dark days of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union had been the main enemy of the West, but these days the remit was much broader. The enemies of the twenty-first century didn’t sit behind neatly defined borders, didn’t possess armies and navies and air forces that could be tracked. They existed everywhere and nowhere, making places like Menwith Hill more vital than ever.

  The base was home to nearly 2,000 signals technicians, with contingents from the US Air Force, the National Security Agency and, of course, the CIA. Mitchell had been based here for the past six months, and although the damp and windy climate on the Yorkshire moors was a far cry from the Arizona sun she’d grown up in, it had become a home of sorts. At least, it was about as close a thing to home as she needed right now.

  Home however was the last thing on her mind as she filed into the small briefing room along with several other field agents who had been with her at the murder site. It was just past 6 a.m. and nobody was feeling very enthusiastic. Beside her, Argento ran a hand through his short dark hair, stifling a yawn as he gulped down some coffee.

  As Mitchell had expected, Hawkins was there waiting for them, looking just as slick and composed as he had the previous day. She wondered if he even needed sleep.

  ‘Okay, we’re short on time so I’ll make this quick,’ he began. ‘For the past few hours our air assets have been combing the Norwegian coast looking for signs of the missing trawler. Initially they turned up Jack shit – no vessels matching the description anywhere in the area. It wasn’t until the sun came up that one of our drones spotted an oil slick a couple of hundred yards offshore, near the town of Egersund.’

  Hitting a couple of keys on the laptop in front of him, he brought up a satellite image of what looked like a remote stretch of rocky, jagged coastline fringed by dense forest. Sure enough, a slick was visible in the choppy waters offshore.

  ‘Satellite radar imaging confirmed the wreck of a fishing boat lying in shallow water nearby, matching the one stolen in Scotland. Looks like they scuttled it and made their way ashore in a small boat or life raft.’

  Mitchell glanced at Argento, sharing a look of surprise at this revelation. Whatever she might have thought of him, Hawkins was ruthlessly efficient when it came to pursuing his goal. He also must have wielded some serious clout within the Agency to have such high-value assets tasked to this operation. Another sign – if it were needed – that this was far more than just a hunt for a murder suspect.

  ‘It seems things didn’t go according to plan, though,’ he carried on. ‘Local police just filed a report from a Norwegian citizen that his car was hijacked at gunpoint on the road south of Egersund during the night. The perp was described as a tall blonde woman in her forties, who claimed she had an injured friend she was trying to help.’

  Mitchell sat back in her chair, amazed by this sudden turn of events. Yesterday Alex Yates and his mysterious companion had been a dead end, any clues to their whereabouts and intentions rapidly drying up. Now they not only had a location, but a possible insight into the man’s state of health.

  ‘So if we’re assuming Yates was hurt as they made their way ashore, what about local doctors and hospitals?’ Argento suggested. It was an obvious enough idea, but their line of work was all about covering the bases.

  Hawkins shook his head. ‘Unless her IQ’s taken a dip lately, there’s no way she’d risk exposing herself or Yates by taking him to a hospital. And it’s not like there are many backstreet doctors in Norway she could look up.’

  ‘So what’s our play?’ Mitchell asked. It seemed obvious that Hawkins hadn’t called them in here just to bring them up to speed on current events.

  Hawkins regarded her with a cool, assessing gaze. ‘We’re going over there,’ he said simply. ‘We’ve flagged all our assets in-country to be on the lookout for her, but we need a team on standby to take her down. I picked the six of you because you’re the most experienced field agents available, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t prove me wrong. Now, our comrades back at Langley have already prepped a diplomatic flight to Oslo, which leaves in –’ He glanced at his watch – ‘just under thirty minutes. If you’re not ready by then, you’re not going. Questions?’

  ‘Have we told the Norwegians anything about this?’ Argento asked.

  ‘Any serious questions?’

  ‘They’re an asset we could use,’ the younger operative pointed out, though he looked daunted by Hawkins’s withering gaze. ‘Better to have them on side than against us.’

  ‘Unless she has sources inside their government or police service, or the fact we’d have to admit that one of our own operatives has gone rogue and is on the loose in their country.’ Hawkins shook his head. ‘No, we take care of our own problems. We go in as a small, flexible, secure team, we get the job done and we come home the same way.’ He looked around the room. ‘Any other questions?’

  Nothing further was said.

&
nbsp; ‘Good. Now grab your gear and get ready.’

  Part Three – Termination

  In 1996, the U.S. General Accounting Office reported that hackers attempted to break into Defense Department computer files some 250,000 times in 1995 alone. About 65 per cent of the attempts were successful, according to the report.

  Chapter 20

  Drammen, Norway

  Alex awoke to the sound of birds singing. He couldn’t remember when he’d drifted off last night; only that the monotony of the darkened road and the gentle hum of the engine had gradually overcome the pain of his injuries and the clammy dampness of his clothes. Opening his eyes a crack, he peered around, trying to make sense of his surroundings.

  It was morning, and their car was parked in a grassy clearing overlooking a small lake, its still waters reflecting a pristine blue sky unmarked by even a wisp of cloud. Tiny insects flitted back and forth, briefly glowing iridescent as they passed through the bright shafts of sunlight that filtered down through heavy tree cover.

  Such was the peace and tranquillity of the scene which confronted Alex in those first few moments that he just sat there staring, mesmerized by the simple, unspoiled beauty of it. In a place like this, he almost thought he could forget the dark turn his life had taken over the past few days.

  Remembering his female companion, he twisted around in his seat to look for her, stifling a groan of pain as his injured ribs protested. He was suddenly very conscious of his tumble down that hillside the night before. After lying motionless for several hours, his muscles had seized up and the various cuts and bruises were making themselves felt.

  Still, he managed to turn enough to look at her. Anya was still behind the wheel, though it was clear she’d done enough driving for one night. She was leaning back in the seat with her head resting against the window, her eyes closed, her breathing slow and regular.