Deception Game (23 page)

‘Copy that, Overwatch.’ Drake glanced at Mason, who had just returned from upstairs. His pack looked a little bigger and heavier now that he’d stuffed it with anything useful he could find in Sowan’s office, and he was breathing harder after his exertions. ‘Take Sowan. I’ve got his wife.’

Nodding, Mason grabbed the still-dazed captive and dragged him forcibly towards the door, shoving it open with his shoulder. The SUV was parked right outside as instructed, engine rumbling, tailgate open to provide access to the trunk.

Descending a couple of steps from the front door with his captive in tow, Mason circled to the rear of the vehicle and forced the bound man inside.

The police cruisers were slowing as they approached the compound, doubtless on the lookout for signs of trouble. It wouldn’t be immediately obvious from street level that Sowan’s home was currently the scene of an armed kidnapping, so the police would be taking their time, assessing the situation, making sure they didn’t blunder right into the middle of a shootout.

If they followed the standard practice of law-enforcement agencies, they would take up flanking positions at either end of the street, forming an armed cordon that it would be difficult to break out of without taking heavy fire.

The only way to prevent, or at least delay, this was to strike first.

Raising her silenced automatic, Frost took aim at the closest vehicle.

‘Contact,’ she said calmly, squeezing off the first round. The weapon kicked back sharply, the recoil jarring her wrist as the silencer thudded heavily, a brass shell casing flying out to ping off the wall beside her.

The police cruiser’s windshield was made of toughened glass designed to protect the occupants from thrown missiles and other debris, but the impact of a high-velocity round was still enough to break through and leave a spider web of cracks radiating out from the fist-sized hole. This impact was followed a moment later by a second shot that caused even more damage, showering the occupants with fragments of broken glass.

Adjusting her aim, Frost targeted the second cruiser in similar fashion and opened fire, putting a couple of rounds in the windshield before shifting her attention to the front wheels. Two more shots pinged off the chassis before the third found its mark, shredding the rubber tyre and disabling the vehicle.

The effect of her fire was dramatic. Straightaway both drivers jammed on their brakes, bringing the cruisers to a shuddering, skidding halt. The second driver had the presence of mind to throw his cruiser into reverse and started to back up, bumping and grinding on a flat tyre that rapidly disintegrated under the strain.

With one cruiser in retreat, Frost focussed her attention on the second, this time putting a round through the wing mirror that blasted it apart in a hail of glass and plastic. Another shot shattered the side window.

That was enough for the driver to get the message. Engine roaring, wheels kicking up dust and smoke from burning rubber, the cruiser backed up in full retreat.

Taking advantage of the confusion and panic, Frost reached down for the smoke grenade at her feet, yanked the pin free and leaned out far enough to hurl it down the street. Moments later, there was a flash, a loud pop and suddenly the street was engulfed in a cloud of blinding white smoke. Frost could just make out the glow of blue lights through the haze.

She had done what she could. Rising to her feet, she ejected the spent magazine from her weapon and retreated towards the SUV parked by the front door. Even as she approached, she could see Mason shoving their prisoner into the vehicle’s trunk.

‘We’re out of time,’ she called out, slipping a fresh magazine into her sidearm. ‘We need to go now!’

In the villa’s entrance hall, Drake could hear the commotion outside. Police were on the scene, and unless they wanted to spend the rest of their days alongside the man they’d abducted from Paris, they needed to be out of here now.

Grabbing Sowan’s wife by the wrist, he pulled the woman to her feet and steered her towards the front door. Straightaway she tried to break and run, forcing him to hold her by both arms while she kicked and bucked, screaming into the gag. Her feet lashed out, catching him painfully in the shins a couple of times in what he was sure was a calculated act of reprisal for what he was putting her through.

Struggling to control her, he paused by an arched doorway leading into what he presumed was a living room. Expensive-looking furniture dotted the room, while thick curtains hung from the windows. Plenty of material that would burn well enough.

Reaching into his webbing, he fished out his flashbang grenade, pulled the pin and hurled the little device against the far wall.

He was just shoving his way through the front door when it detonated, blasting out the living room windows, the concussive boom leaving his ears ringing.

Straightaway he smelled ammonium from the chemical reaction, accompanied by the distinctive smell of burning fabric. In addition to light and sound, flashbangs produce a lot of heat, usually setting fire to anything combustible in the vicinity. Given the quantity of fuel in that room, Drake was counting on it turning the house into a blazing inferno within a matter of minutes.

With luck, police and fire units would have to divert their attention to tackling the burning building, perhaps buying them enough time to get clear of the area.

Practically lifting the woman off her feet, Drake carried her towards the SUV that was now waiting just outside, tailgate open, engine idling. McKnight was seated behind the wheel, her face masked just like his own. But for a moment they made eye contact as he approached, and Drake recognized her unspoken relief at seeing him again.

Ignoring the kicks that were still raining against him, Drake lifted his captive over the edge of the sill and dumped her unceremoniously into the trunk beside her husband. She landed hard, clearly not expecting it, and unable to brace herself with her arms bound. He heard a grunt of pain, and what would certainly have been a stream of curses had she not been gagged.

With their cargo deposited, Drake slammed the trunk shut and rounded the vehicle, pulling open the passenger door beside McKnight. On the street outside, the wail of police sirens continued, accompanied by shouts and panicked orders.

‘Let’s go, for fuck’s sake!’ Frost shouted from the back.

Holstering his weapon, Drake hoisted himself up into the seat and pulled the door shut behind him with a resounding clang.

‘We’re clear. Go! Go!’

McKnight needed no further prompting and stamped on the accelerator, kicking up a spray of stone-chips and dust as they hurtled towards the open gate. Behind them, smoke and flames were beginning to issue from the shattered windows on the villa’s lower floor, the flashbang having done its work well.

Ahead of them lay an impenetrable wall of white smoke, the result of Frost’s handiwork.

‘Don’t stop! Gun it!’ Drake commanded. To slow down now could be fatal.

Flooring the accelerator, McKnight took them straight into the smoke screen that now filled the street, throwing the wheel hard left to avoid barrelling into the houses opposite. She was operating by instinct and memory rather than sight, but they served her well all the same.

After a few heart-stopping seconds, the smoke vanished, revealing an open road ahead of them. McKnight wasted no time in taking advantage of their newfound freedom, hitting the gas once more to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the scene of the kidnapping.

‘Jesus Christ, that was close,’ Mason breathed, peeling off his mask.

Drake said nothing. They might have cleared the immediate crime scene, but whether they made it out of the country remained to be seen.

Tripoli International Airport

The business-class lounge was almost empty at such a late hour, save for a scattering of frazzled-looking international travellers nursing drinks while they waited for their flights to be called. With the ambient music turned down low and the lights dimmed, there was a pleasant, mellow atmosphere about the lounge. Nobody was in much of a rush to do anything or be anywhere; they were content to share the space in comfortable silence.

Seated at one end of the bar, Vanil Chandra took a leisurely sip of his coffee; served black with no sugar, as it should be. Adding milk to good coffee was uncouth and insulting to the flavour.

He glanced at the woman sitting on the stool next to him. A flight attendant – he recognized the British Airways uniform well enough – no more than thirty years old, blonde-haired and petite, with the kind of delicate, elfin facial features that were quite unusual in Brits. The name tag on her uniform said Suzanne.

She was staffing a long-haul flight from Heathrow, currently on layover with the rest of her crew. And like himself, she had nothing but time to kill until her next flight departed. Seeing no sense in passing up an opportunity for pleasant company, Chandra had struck up a conversation with her almost immediately. After all, they both flew around the world for a living. It wasn’t hard to find common ground.

‘You know, it is a true crime that you have never visited Rome. A stunning city, magnificent architecture,’ he said with a regretful shake of his head. ‘A woman as beautiful as you would be quite at home there.’

She laughed; an entirely pleasant sound to his ears.

‘Does that line work on all the flight attendants you meet?’

‘That would be telling,’ he admitted. ‘But it seems to be going down well so far.’

She had the good grace to blush a little at his praise, though he was quite certain that, like most pretty girls, she was aware of her good looks. ‘To answer your question, though, I’ve not had the chance to visit. Work is...well, demanding. It takes me to lots of places I don’t particularly want to go, and not many places I do.’

Chandra smiled. ‘My plane is five minutes from here.’

‘Tempting, but I make it a rule never to accept rides from strangers.’ Despite her playful refusal, the look in her eyes suggested she wasn’t unreceptive to his attention.

‘Then we should get to know each other a little better,’ he said. ‘I know this truly wonderful seafood restaurant, right in the shadow of the Pantheon...’

Before he could renew the offensive in earnest, he paused, feeling the vibration of his cell phone. Fishing it from his jacket pocket, he swiped a finger across the screen to unlock it. A text message was waiting for him. A single word printed on screen.

Tempest

Chandra let out a faint sigh of relief. Flirtation aside, he knew he’d just about outstayed his welcome here. Any longer, and he would have been forced to return to his aircraft or scrub his flight plan and risk hours of delays while he waited for a new one to be approved.

Slipping the phone back into his pocket, Chandra glanced at the flight attendant and gave her an apologetic smile. ‘Suzanne, it has been a pleasure being in your company tonight, but I’m afraid duty calls.’

The young woman pouted. ‘Now, that’s just rude, leaving a lady all alone. I’ll have no one to keep me company now.’

‘My employer isn’t one for lateness, I’m afraid,’ Chandra said, draining the last of his coffee. He laid down enough money to cover both their bar tabs. ‘Nice enough chap, I suppose, but always making a fuss over nothing.’

‘I’m seeing blue lights up ahead!’ McKnight warned. Sure enough, the flashing lights of another police cruiser were coming into view about half a mile away. ‘They must know this car’s stolen by now. You think they’re moving to intercept?’

‘I doubt it,’ Drake lied. ‘We’re in a black SUV. We passed half a dozen of these on the way into Tripoli. They can’t know it’s us.’ He pointed to an intersection up ahead. ‘Take a right at the next junction. Get us off the main drag.’

In truth, he had no idea how quickly the Libyan police would react to an armed kidnapping. He was banking on the fact that the smoke grenades combined with the fire rapidly taking hold of Sowan’s house had diverted their attention for now, but it was quite possible they wouldn’t take the bait.

He was far more worried that Libyan intelligence had woken up to what was going on. Police they could handle, but the Mukhabarat were another matter entirely.

‘Found the tracker!’ Frost said, leaning in between the two front seats. Working under pressure, she had forcefully dismantled part of the car’s central console to access the inbuilt GPS tracking device.

‘Kill it.’

A single sharp blow with the butt of her knife was enough to destroy the device. It was possible that others had been fitted in places they couldn’t access, but there wasn’t much they could do about that right now.

‘Cole, give us a position,’ Drake called out. In their rush to escape the immediate vicinity of the raid, they had cut through unfamiliar side streets and slip roads, rapidly losing all sense of orientation. For all he knew, they could be heading entirely the wrong direction now. ‘I need an ETA.’

Mason, sitting in the back, was poring over the screen of his handheld GPS, trying to plot a course to the private airfield where they were to rendezvous with Chandra. Frost had powered down the device during the raid to save the battery, and he’d only just managed to restarted it and get a satellite fix.

‘Looks like we need to bear south-east from—’

Reaching the junction, McKnight swung the wheel hard right, barely taking her foot off the gas. Tyres squealed in protest and the traction-control warning blinked on the dashboard, accompanied by muffled cries from their two captives in the trunk.

‘Jesus fuck!’ Frost shouted, having been slammed against the door by the sudden change in momentum. ‘You trying to get us killed?’

‘Trying to get us the hell out of here.’ McKnight’s knuckles were white on the wheel, her jaw clamped tight. Like the rest of them, she had peeled off her balaclava as soon as they’d cleared the area, but her face was still flushed and damp with perspiration.

As soon as they’d turned at the junction, she spotted an alleyway to her left and turned into it, killing the lights and the engine.

Twisting around in his seat, Drake watched as the blue flashing lights of the police car shot past the junction, carrying on as if nothing had happened. Darkness and distance must have masked them sufficiently so as not to attract attention.

‘We’re good,’ he said.

Firing up the engine once more, McKnight backed out of the alley and onto the main road, giving it some serious gas to put them on their way again.

‘Ease down, Sam,’ he warned, trying to sound calmer than he felt. They were in an SUV, not a high-performance racing car. If McKnight lost control and rolled their only ride, their escape was over before it had even begun.

‘I’m fine. But I’d love to know which direction I’m meant to be heading,’ she replied tersely.

Drake nodded. ‘Cole, get me that position.’

‘On it. I’ve got a route now.’ Leaning forward, Mason handed him the GPS.

Drake studied the screen. According to the inbuilt journey calculator, they were about fifteen miles from their destination. The good news was that they were now heading in more or less the right direction. The bad news was that, even taking the optimal route by road, they’d still need more than twenty minutes journey time.

‘This is going to be tight,’ he said quietly. Chandra had made it plain that he wouldn’t wait for them if they were late, and Drake believed him. They needed to be there in time to light up the runway so he could land safely. If not, they could kiss goodbye to their ride home.

In the trunk, Sowan and his wife had apparently regained consciousness, and were well and truly making that fact known. The vehicle resounded with the muted thumps of feet against chassis, accompanied by strained cries and groans. The chances of them breaking out were non-existent, but the noise was quickly wearing on the team’s already frayed nerves.

‘Deal with them,’ Drake instructed, unable to reach them from the front seat.

Twisting around, Frost folded down the centre armrest and yanked open the little access door leading to the trunk. Before anyone could stop her, she had drawn her weapon and shoved it in through the gap until it made contact with human flesh.

‘Shut the fuck up back there or I swear to God I’ll kneecap both of you,’ she hissed, pressing the barrel of the weapon in harder.

Whether they both understood her or not, a loaded gun has a tendency to cross most language barriers. The shouting and banging subsided almost immediately.

Letting out a breath to calm herself, Frost holstered the weapon, closed up the access door and turned back around, meeting Drake and Mason’s eyes with a faint smile of amusement.

‘Better?’ she asked.

Neither man said anything.