Deception Game (12 page)

However, it wasn’t hard to guess what had happened from there. RAF bases weren’t known for their vibrant night life, and since Frost had never been to the UK before, he imagined she’d snuck out and travelled to the nearest city to go exploring. The fact that her travels had led her to a pub or two wasn’t surprising either.

‘Give me a second,’ she evaded. ‘I can’t hear shit right now.’

There was the rustling of fabric, and the sound of footsteps. A door opening, and more voices, then at last the background noise seemed to fade out.

‘You okay?’ she asked, able to speak normally now. ‘Where are you?’

‘On my way back,’ he said, deciding not to bore her with the details.

She was silent for a moment. Normally the acid-tongued young woman wouldn’t have hesitated to tear him a new one for interrupting what was clearly turning into a rowdy night out, but not this time. Like the rest of his teammates, she knew what had brought him back to Wales.

‘You...want to talk about it?’ she asked.

Drake almost smiled at the notion. Getting all deep and meaningful came about as naturally to her as cake-baking did to him, but it meant something that she was willing to listen. As it happened, though, he had another reason for calling.

‘Relax, I’m not here to pour my heart out,’ he assured her. ‘I just need a favour.’

Her relief was palpable. ‘Sure.’

‘You sober enough to take this in?’

‘Go fuck yourself.’ Business as usual, he thought.

‘I need a trace put on a UK cell phone.’ Reaching into his pocket, he held up the business card that Faulkner had given him. His phone number was printed on it. ‘Also, I’m going to text you an image of two people I saw tonight. Do me a favour and run them through the usual databases, see if they turn up anything.’

‘You run into trouble out there?’ she asked, suddenly wary.

‘Not exactly, but I’d like to know who I’m dealing with. Can you do it?’

‘Not from a sports bar in Cambridge,’ she remarked cynically. ‘But I can call in a few favours at Langley. Send it on to me and I’ll see what I can do.’

Drake sighed and nodded. No matter what he asked of her, Frost never seemed to let him down. She might have grumbled and protested – at times vociferously – but she always came through for him. ‘Thanks, Keira. I appreciate it.’

‘Ryan, listen...’ She trailed off, not knowing how to express what she wanted to say. ‘I know I suck at this sort of thing, but...we’re all here for you, okay? You need our help, we’ve got your back. All of us.’

He smiled. ‘I know.’

London, United Kingdom – 5 May

Jessica’s home was a three-storey townhouse nestled in a fashionable residential street in Hammersmith. Just a few miles from the centre of London, it was a world away from the remote country homestead in which they’d met yesterday. Even at this early hour, the traffic was already making life miserable.

Since she’d refused to return any of his calls, Drake had thought it best to speak with her face to face. Doing so would likely mean having to deal with her husband Mark’s disapproving looks and barbed remarks, but that was something he could tolerate. Right now, he had bridges to build and answers to get.

He was angry at himself for the way he’d acted yesterday, throwing a tantrum like a petulant child. There were bigger issues at play now, and he needed to deal with them. If he’d dealt with them properly in the first place, perhaps they wouldn’t be in this mess now.

His phone was vibrating. Reaching out, he set the device to hands-free and then hit the Receive Call icon. Straightaway Frost’s voice blared through the car’s Bluetooth system.

‘Ryan, you there?’

‘Yeah, I’m driving right now. How’s the head?’

‘No idea what you mean,’ she evaded.

Despite himself, he smiled a little. ‘How did it go with the trace?’

‘Not good,’ the young woman admitted. ‘The number you gave me belongs to an encrypted cell phone. High-level, government-issue stuff.’

‘Can you break in?’

‘Not without executive authorization. And I’m guessing you don’t want to go down that road.’

‘Shit,’ Drake swore under his breath. ‘How about the image I sent?’

‘No better. Facial recognition turned up nothing on any of our databases. Whoever they are, they don’t belong to us, and they’re not criminals.’

Drake had suspected as much from a man like Faulkner, but it was irritating nonetheless. ‘All right, Keira. Thanks for trying.’

‘Thanks for getting me out of that pub last night. Don’t tell anyone, but I was getting my ass kicked at pool.’

Drake grinned. ‘Your secret’s safe with me.’

Spotting a parking space just up ahead, he brought the Mondeo to a halt and sized it up. The space, sandwiched between a pair of compact urban hatchbacks, was scarcely longer than his car. Added to the fun was an indignant-looking sign overhead warning that these bays were for residents only. Still, parking spaces were as a rare as rocking-horse shit in this part of the world – this was his third trip around the block – so before he knew it he’d engaged reverse, twisted around in his seat, and was soon busy trying to squeeze the big car into the inadequate gap.

Once more he found himself contemplating his poor choice of rental car. From the rough potholed roads of the Welsh countryside to the dense urban sprawl of central London, he’d yet to find any scenario where it excelled.

Still, after a bit of swearing on his part and a near miss with the front wing, he finally managed to ease the car in. He was just straightening up when he noticed movement up ahead. someone emerging from one of the townhouses further down the street.

A woman. Jessica.

She was wearing a black hoodie and grey sweat pants, her dark hair tied back in a haphazard ponytail – a far cry for her usual stylishly dressed self. For a moment he wondered if she might be out for a morning run.

Drake was about to get out of the car and call to her, pleased that he’d caught her just as she was leaving and hopeful that they might speak alone, but one look at her was enough to make him pause.

She was upset. That much was obvious from her fast, agitated strides, the tension in her shoulders, the stubborn jut of her jaw. He’d come to know that expression well after more than a few quarrels as children and adults, and it hadn’t changed.

A moment later, another figure emerged from the house. A man, tall and lanky, with dark wavy hair receding a little at the sides, his once boyish good looks starting to fade now that the big 4-0 was looming. He was dressed in a plain grey t-shirt and pyjama trousers, meaning he likely hadn’t planned on going outside.

Striding after Jessica on his long legs, he reached out and tried to grab her arm, but she shrugged out of his grip and yelled something in his face. Drake couldn’t make out the words from this distance, but he could see the anger flashing in her eyes, the clenched fists, the body readying itself to fight.

Turning around once more, she stomped off in the opposite direction, leaving her husband staring after her in dismay. He shouted one more parting remark, which she didn’t react to, before turning and slinking back into the house.

Drake leaned back in his seat, unnerved by what he’d just seen. As much as Mark had given him a hard time in the past, and naturally Jessica had disapproved, Drake had always sensed the strong bond between them. As the cliché went, they weren’t just husband and wife – they were friends, a unit, a team. They’d been comfortable around each other, easy-going in a way that few married couples were at that age. He’d never seen them so much as raise their voices at each other before, never mind descend into a full-blown argument in the street.

Unbuckling his seatbelt, Drake eased himself out of the car and started off in pursuit of his sister. She had already turned left at the end of the road and was out of his sight, but he had a fair idea where she was heading. He knew her well enough to know where she’d go to cool down after an argument.

He made a point of staying on the opposite side of the road as he passed their house. He didn’t think Mark would observe every passer-by, but he was taking no chances. The last thing he wanted was to be waylaid by a man who clearly hated him, especially not until he knew the lay of the land.

Fortunately there was no movement from inside the house, no twitching curtains or shadows moving behind the front door, and Drake passed by without incident. In under thirty seconds he’d reached the end of the street and turned left, quickening his pace to catch up with Jessica.

He found her in the small public park about two blocks from her home, staring out across the grassy expanse where a group of kids was playing football beneath the leafy shade of towering oak trees. He couldn’t see her expression from this angle, but he didn’t have to be an expert in body language to tell she was still fuming.

Picking his way through the playground with its empty swings and metal slide that looked like it had seen better days, Drake approached his sister with caution, as if she were a volcano that could erupt at any moment.

‘Remember when we used to do that?’ he said quietly, as one of the kids managed to punt the football between the two piles of jackets they were using to represent goalposts.

Jessica whirled around at the sound of his voice, startled by his almost soundless approach. Old habits die hard. He’d become accustomed to moving quietly, and found it hard to shake even when he wasn’t in the field.

‘Ryan.’ She let out an exasperated breath, struggling to regain her composure. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘You wouldn’t return my calls. There wasn’t much choice but to come here.’ He moved forward to stand beside her as she turned her attention back to the park.

‘How did you find me?’

He shrugged. ‘Wasn’t hard. I know you always come to places like this when you need to think. Or calm down.’

She took his meaning immediately and looked at him, a blush rising to her face. ‘You saw it?’

Drake nodded. ‘Just as I was pulling up.’ He was silent for a few moments, watching as two of the kids nearby got into an argument over whether one of them had been offside. He only wished that was the biggest cause of tension in his own life. ‘I know I’m not the greatest talker in the world, but I listen quite well.’ He glanced sidelong at her. ‘I’m listening now, Jess. If you want.’

He watched the muscles in her throat moving up and down as she swallowed, watched her close her eyes for a moment and bow her head, letting out a long slow breath.

‘I’m leaving him.’

She opened her eyes then, and when she looked at him they were clear and focussed, betraying little hint of emotion.

‘Mark. My husband. It’s over, we’re...done.’

Drake was stunned, as much by the cold, matter-of-fact way she’d delivered the news as the words themselves. It was as if she’d simply cut all emotional ties, isolated herself from the reality of what she was contemplating.

‘You can’t mean that.’

A faint, bittersweet smile. ‘We’ve been living a lie, Ryan. These past two years. Doing all the right things, saying all the right things, pretending our life was just like it had been before, when it wasn’t. It’ll never be like it was.
I
’
ll
never be like I was.’

Only now was Drake starting to understand the full extent of the damage that had been done. Jessica; his sister, the lifeline that kept him tethered to the real world while everything around him seemed to be falling apart, who somehow offered the hope that one day he too might find his way back into the light. She too was being broken apart by the dangerous, shadowy world he lived in.

He’d seen it happen to other people; other operatives who found it increasingly difficult to deal with ‘normal life’ when they weren’t in the field. But never had he expected to see it in Jessica.

‘There are people you can talk to,’ he suggested, not knowing what else to say. ‘You’re not the first one to feel like this after...what happened.’

She sighed. ‘I’m done talking. Mark and I...believe me, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about all of it. No amount of talking is going to change how I feel. It’s better for both of us if we spend some time apart,’ she said firmly. ‘God knows, he’s probably sick of me anyway.’

‘What will you do?’ Drake asked, not knowing what else to say. ‘Where will you go?’

‘Mum’s place,’ she said, nodding faintly as if to confirm the notion in her mind. ‘For now at least. It’s out in the open, away from other people...easier to defend.’

Drake felt a chill run through him at that moment. ‘Defend?’

‘I was a victim before, Ryan.’ She turned to look at him again. ‘Don’t you see? When they came and snatched me right off the street, I didn’t even see it coming. I was shocked, terrified, everything you can imagine. But something else happened as well. It was like a light turned on inside my head. I realized then that I’d been living in a bubble my whole life; a safe, stupid, complacent bubble. And when it was gone, it opened my eyes to the real world. Well, I’m not going to be a victim again. Not ever.’

Reaching behind her, she pulled up the hoodie just far enough for him to make out the distinctive shape of a pancake holster at the small of her back. He couldn’t tell what make and model of gun was holstered in it, but he did see the gleam of a stainless-steel frame for a moment or two before she allowed the loose garment to fall back in place.

‘Where the fuck did you get that?’ Drake demanded immediately, shocked both that she’d somehow gotten her hands on an illegal weapon, and that she was stupid enough to be carrying in a public place.

This wasn’t the States, where guns could be bought at the local Wal-Mart by anyone with a driver’s license and a clean record. If she was caught with it here, she was fucked, and there would be nothing he could do about it.

Jessica sighed with impatience, like a teenager vexed by an overprotective parent. ‘Mum gave it to me. Don’t worry, I’m not going to blow my foot off or anything. She showed me how to use it, how to look after it. I’m actually a rather good shot, if you must know.’

Drake couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Their own mother had given her daughter – a woman with two children of her own – an illegal firearm and showed her how to use it? What the hell was she thinking? More importantly, how had she gotten her hands on it in the first place?

‘Fucking Christ, give me that thing,’ he said, making to grab for it. Whatever good she thought she could do with it, she was sorely mistaken. The moment he got his hands on the weapon, he intended to leave this place and dispose of it in central London’s biggest munitions dump – the river Thames.

But there was no way she was prepared to surrender the weapon, and she twisted aside out of his reach. Backing off a pace, she glared at him with her feet slightly apart, fists clenched and arms raised, ready to defend herself. Drake recognized the stance of a trained fighter right away.

Clearly shooting lessons hadn’t been her only project in his absence.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ she warned him.

Drake forced himself to relax, not to provoke her further. This situation needed to be defused right away. ‘What are you going to do, Jess? Shoot me?’

His hard tone and harder stare seemed to cut through her anger. She exhaled, allowed her arms to drop a little, though she remained on guard.

‘I won’t get taken again,’ she said, her voice filled with bitter resolve. ‘I can’t be that person again. Mum understood. That’s why she agreed to help me.’

Drake shook his head in dismay. ‘I don’t understand. Mum was a fucking freelance writer. How was she even able to get a weapon for you?’

At this, Jessica bit her lip and glanced away uncomfortably. ‘She told me not ask where she got it...said she would break off contact with me if I tried to find out. But she knew things, Ryan, and she showed me things. How to use weapons, how to protect myself, how to not be a victim. So I went along with it, I did what she wanted and I didn’t ask questions. Because I needed her.’ She sniffed and wiped her eye. ‘I won’t let myself be a burden again. You of all people should understand that.’

‘Jesus, is that what you think?’ he asked. ‘You’ve never been a burden. Never.’

‘They can get to you through me,’ she countered, unmoved by his words. ‘I’m your weakness. Don’t you understand? As long as I’m vulnerable, so are you. I had to do something.’

Drake had no words. How could he make her understand the magnitude of what she was up against? How could he make her understand that his enemies didn’t employ mere street thugs who would be easily deterred by a show of force? If they came for Jessica, it wouldn’t matter what weapons she possessed, how many self-defence courses she’d attended, how well protected she thought she was. They would take her, or kill her, or whatever else they’d been sent to do, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.