by James Samuel
“I know,” said James, excitedly. “That’s why we should do it.”
“Let’s keep them so we can save our arses if we ever need them, okay? I’ve got a place where I keep all of my outs.”
James shrugged. His friend could have his victory for now. As much as he wanted to bring this whole rotten system down, Sinclair’s argument was the logical one.
“What did your boss say about what happened?” asked Dylan, changing the subject.
“He wasn’t happy that I shot Blake in the leg, but he couldn’t deny that we’d done a good job. We finished the contract and that was that. He had nothing else to complain about.”
Dylan raised a smile, a false one. The young American now found himself unemployed and essentially homeless. Sir Richard would have already put a target on his back for betraying the organisation.
“Is your boss hiring?” he asked at last.
“You don’t want this job. If you think your boss is an asshole, you should meet mine.”
Everyone chuckled at that. What went unsaid was that Blackwind would never give Dylan a job. He’d betrayed his last organisation, and even though Blackwind despised Xiphos, they wouldn’t hire each other’s traitors. It was a security risk.
“Where are you going to go?” asked Sinclair.
“I don’t know yet. I’m going to get out of Asia first and see what happens. May go back to the U.S. and see my folks, or I might just hop around the world for a while until everything blows over.”
“You’ll be alright,” said James. “Just make sure you keep your nose clean and don’t draw any attention to yourself. One day Xiphos will get tired of looking for you.”
Dylan shrugged. “I should go now. I’m flying to Thailand first. Better make the flight. Thanks for everything. The both of you. I wouldn’t have made it out of here alive if it weren’t for you.”
Both James and Sinclair exchanged hugs with Dylan. None of the men were particularly emotive. It was the best sort of goodbye they could manage. James assumed he would never lay his eyes on Dylan again, a man who’d owed a life debt to him, but a man he still barely knew.
The American walked into the airport with his suitcase trundling behind him. When he rounded the corner, his life began again. Dylan was now a freelancer and a freelancer with a price on his head.
“You think he’ll survive?” James lit a cigarette.
Sinclair waved the smoke away from his face. “He’s more talented than he gives himself credit for. He just needs more confidence, that’s all.”
“I hope you’re right. Sometimes I wonder if I should stop working for Gallagher and go freelance myself. It might suit me.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Sinclair warned. “It’s a much harder life than you have now. People like that are always looking over their shoulders. At least with Gallagher, you can take a break and relax.”
“It was only a joke.” James shook his head. “Where are we going anyway?”
“Europe. We’ve got a new contract. Now put that cig out and come on.” Sinclair entered the airport.
James watched Sinclair fade into the crowded terminal, too, and then lingered on the forecourt of the airport. Maybe quitting his job with Blackwind would free him like it had freed Dylan?
James mulled over his position and how the world would react if they ever released those documents. He took in the stifling humidity of Cambodia for the final time. He finally turned away and entered the airport, hoping he could put aside the scars Cambodia had left on him.
End of Book Two
Keep reading for a preview of Interdiction (A James Winchester Thriller Book 3)
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Interdiction Chapter One
Sarajevo, Sarajevo Canton, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Night fell over Sarajevo. Death moved within the traumatised capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the outskirts of the city, overgrown trees masked the rickety houses. Some had been rebuilt after the Yugoslav Wars, others still had the holes from shrapnel bursts as a grim reminder of what had been lost.
Darko Borisov and Goran Pejakovski sat in an idling grey Honda Civic. The model from the 1990s blended in on a street like this. Few residents on the fringes of town owned a car made after 2000.
Darko scratched at his heavily gelled hair. "Almost midnight. He still has his lights on in the house."
"I told you, he stays up late," Goran replied in his native Bosnian. "He's a soldier. Maybe he knows something is wrong."
Darko withdrew a Marlboro from the packet in the glove compartment and lit it. "Soldiers are paranoid. We always had to be during the war. If you're not paranoid, you die. Bosnian soldiers are weak but not stupid."
"Then he knows how to fire a gun." Goran gripped the steering wheel. "Maybe we should come back in a few hours."
"No. This is a war. In war, people fire guns."
Goran drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and kept pushing his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose. Darko noted his friend's nervousness. He'd always been like this, jumpy and anxious, yet when the fighting started, Goran always did what was necessary.
"You are lucky," Darko continued. "You just never die."
Goran turned to him. "Don't tempt fate. Only God decides when my time has come."
Darko held the cigarette between his tobacco-stained teeth and reached down into the footwell of the vehicle. He removed his semi-automatic Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistol. Darko had chosen the model himself. His contacts could get him anything he wanted, but he preferred smaller weapons. They made less noise. He affixed an AAC TiRant Suppressor to the end of it.
"Let's go, Goran."
"Darko, not now."
"Out of the car," he said calmly.
Darko waited for Goran to sigh and turn off the ignition. Like Darko, Goran wielded the same suppressed pistol.
"Kadrić only wants the soldier to die. Nothing more. The war hasn't started yet," Goran said as he turned to open the door.
"Kadrić is not here. This is my operation, Goran, don't forget that."
Darko didn't wait for more of Goran’s protests and climbed into the cool evening air. The old streetlights did little more than cast small pools of light on the street. Gaping cracks and full puddles pockmarked the shattered concrete.
He scanned the street for anyone watching from their windows. Nearly every home had overgrown trees and bushes, making it near impossible for residents to see the street. In the low orange lights of Sarajevo's outskirts, Darko stepped into the shadows.
They moved along the street for another look at the two-storey home. Two wooden chairs sat on a neglected patio. The low chain-link fence surrounding the garden had no gate. Many of the chains were rusted and twisted into pretzel-like shapes.
"He lives with no one?"
"Yes," said Goran. "I saw nobody go in and out in the last week. Maybe his elderly mother or father?"
Darko shrugged. "No threat. I will go first. Check your weapon."
Goran clicked his ammunition into place and removed the safety.
Satisfied, Darko led the way across the uneven street and advanced on the garden. A light burned in the living room, casting a weak glow over the tufts of scraggly grass. It illuminated a rusted children's tricycle, flakes of red paint clinging to the metal.
He leapt up the three steps to the front door. One of the brass numbers nailed to the door had disappeared, leaving only the number four. Darko took a deep breath and planted his foot into the door. The aged door gave way, the lock snapping. It flung open and crashed against the wall.
Darko rushed through to the living roo
m on his left. A young man jumped up from his slumber to meet him. His eyes went wild with fear as Darko fired his weapon at the soldier’s leg. The soldier went down screaming and writhing on the stained carpet.
"Good evening," said Darko through gritted teeth. "Goran, check the house. No witnesses."
Goran ran off to sift through the house. Poorer Bosnians had large families. A visiting relative could ruin their plans.
"Benjamin Alić?"
The soldier screamed in pain at the foot of the sunken sofa clutching his leg. Blood spilled from his thigh and he mewled like a wounded animal.
"Benjamin Alić?" Darko repeated, levelling the gun at his target.
"Yes," he cried.
"Good."
Darko sighed and sat on the adjacent armchair covered in cigarette burns. He planted his feet only inches from Benjamin's face.
Goran's feet thundered back down the stairs, and he returned, breathing heavily. "Nobody here."
"Excellent. Sit down." Darko gestured at an armchair on the other side of the glowing electric fire.
Goran hesitated for a moment, then obeyed his boss. He kept both hands on his weapon, as if the soldier might stop spurting blood across the stained floral-patterned carpet and spring into action.
"You are a soldier?" asked Darko.
Benjamin had managed to shuffle across the carpet with great effort to put his back up against the sofa. Pain etched across his face as he sat in a pool of his own blood.
"Yes."
"How long?"
"Five years. What do you want from me? I don't know you."
Darko left his weapon unattended on the arm of the armchair. Benjamin's eyes darted to it, a ray of hope for the soldier. Darko ignored the crippled man and stretched himself out in the armchair.
"You don't need to know me." He eased his arms behind his head as if he were in his own home. "You are a soldier, and that's enough for us. What do you fight for?"
Goran's shoulders moved up and down as his breathing grew more rapid.
"What?"
"What do you fight for?" Darko snapped.
"For Bosnia."
"For Bosnia, eh?" Darko turned to Goran. "What –"
Benjamin jumped for Darko's weapon. He saw it coming and swiped it away, leaving the soldier flailing at the side of the armchair, his stricken leg collapsing beneath him.
Darko smirked. He'd set the whole thing up. A little game of his to give his victims hope, only to snatch it away. The agony on Benjamin's face was like pornography for him.
"What a shame." Darko shot a bullet into Benjamin's other leg.
Benjamin screamed as his hands grasped for the new wound. Once again, blood spurted onto the carpet as Darko stood and ventured to the mantlepiece. He paid no mind to his writhing victim as he inspected the family photos. Some were in colour, the rest in black-and-white. He picked out a photo of the whole family and turned back to Benjamin.
"Are these your relatives?" he asked.
Benjamin yelped as the blood continued to pour unabated. Greasy red smears dirtied the carpet.
"You fight for Bosnia, then. Are they alive? Nod or shake your head."
Through the agony, Benjamin nodded.
Darko held the photo away from him and then hurled it across the room. The frame and the glass shattered before skittering away into the darkened kitchen.
"Then I send them my condolences," said Darko. "Goodbye, Benjamin."
Darko raised the weapon. Benjamin's mouth opened to shout something, but the suppressed weapon soon put an end to the youthful soldier. His body went limp, the projectile blazing a streak of hot metal through his flesh.
"Was that necessary?" asked Goran.
"No, but sometimes you have to take some time to enjoy life."
Goran's face remained impassive, but his mannerisms told the story. His jittery friend had always disapproved of his slow, methodical way of dismantling his victims. Not that it mattered, it had never compromised them.
"Are we done?" Goran snapped to his feet. "Someone may have heard. These weapons are quiet, not silent."
"The flag, like Kadrić said."
Goran rooted around in his pocket and removed a flag pin. He handed it to Darko. The red, white, and blue horizontal stripes of Republika Srpska caught the light for a moment before he tossed it at Benjamin's body. It rested on his belly, a depressing marker of what this meant.
Srpska wanted war. Srpska wanted its freedom from the yoke of Bosnian oppression. Srpska would have it, soon.
