Deception Game (3 page)

He saw a flash of anger in her eyes at his implied insult. ‘How the fuck should I know, Ryan?’

Keira Frost was now in her early thirties, but her short stature and diminutive frame made her look years younger. Much to her annoyance, she was often still asked for ID when buying alcohol – something that provided Drake no end of amusement, and which he made a point of reminding her about at every opportunity.

‘Anyway, you were the one who arranged this thing,’ she reminded him. ‘Then you disappear and stop answering your cell. What happened?’

Drake glanced away. He’d turned off his cell phone in the hospital and must have forgotten to switch it back on again. ‘I was visiting Dan.’

McKnight approached him. ‘How’s he doing?’

‘Ask me in a few days when he gets out of surgery,’ he said, powering his phone up.

‘That bad, huh?’ Mason asked. Having been wounded in the line of duty himself, and endured a difficult and lengthy rehabilitation, he understood Franklin’s situation better than most.

Drake said nothing to this.

‘Well, you’re here now,’ McKnight said, sensing his discomfort and moving to change the subject. ‘What do you say we get drunk and burn some food?’

Despite the tension of his earlier meeting with his friend, Drake couldn’t help but smile a little. God knew, he could use a drink after today.

In short order, Drake had fired up the gas barbecue set against one wall of the yard, and set some of the meat to cooking on the grill. He hardly considered himself a gourmet chef, but even he could work a barbecue without too much difficulty, and before long the group descended on the grilled meat like they hadn’t eaten in a week.

Food, drink and banter are a good combination at any time, and the atmosphere soon became relaxed and jovial, Drake’s earlier tardiness quite forgotten. With the drink flowing, it wasn’t long before they were swapping old stories of past exploits, many of which they’d heard before, but which always seemed to get more entertaining the more they had to drink.

Even Drake found himself enjoying the company, and was beginning to appreciate the merits of hosting such a get-together with his teammates. It was an idea borrowed from their fallen companion John Keegan, who had been killed during a mission in Afghanistan the previous year.

Keegan had made a point of inviting the team to his place for dinner, either to celebrate the successful end of another operation, or just as an excuse to eat and drink. In truth, most of the food he produced looked like it had seen the business end of a flame-thrower, usually prompting mockery and jibes from the rest of the team, but perhaps that had been part of the fun. Perhaps it had even been Keegan’s intention all along, Drake reflected as he sat on his back doorstep, comfortably full and slightly drunk as he stared up at the evening sky.

If nothing else, he hoped the man himself approved of his efforts.

His philosophical musings were interrupted when McKnight approached, easing herself down next to him.

‘So what’s the verdict?’ Drake asked.

‘Nobody’s dead yet,’ she acknowledged with a sly smile. ‘Could have been worse.’

Drake glanced at her. ‘You’re flattering me. I don’t suppose Jamie Oliver needs to start job-hunting just yet.’

‘Who?’

‘He’s a British...’ Drake began, then thought better of it. ‘Never mind.’

She seemed content to let that slide. Instead she took a drink of beer and glanced over at Mason and Frost, who were in the midst of an animated conversation that seemed to lie somewhere between the shared telling of an anecdote and a full-blown argument. Knowing Frost, it was probably a little of both.

Still, both of them seemed to be enjoying it.

‘Thanks for doing this, Ryan,’ McKnight said quietly. ‘Having everyone here. It’s...well, it means something.’

‘You’ve all done a lot for me – more than I had any right to ask.’ He flashed a grin. ‘The least I can do is burn some cheap burgers for you.’

This prompted a laugh, though it soon quietened as her expression turned more serious. She leaned a little closer, her hazel-coloured eyes searching his. ‘Did you hear anything more from Hunt?’

Drake shook his head. It had been several days since his meeting with the former Deputy Director at Arlington; days that had been ominously quiet for all of them. In truth, he didn’t expect to hear much from the man, when he’d made it plain he wouldn’t act until Drake had something concrete he could use.

‘Do you really trust him? What if tries to screw us over?’

The thought had crossed his mind more than a few times. Despite his rigorous background checks, despite the research and the observation and even the gut instinct that told him Charles Hunt was of a different sort from Cain, he couldn’t deny the possibility that this could all go terribly wrong.

‘As far as he knows, I’m working alone,’ he said, knowing that wasn’t what she was really asking him. ‘I’m the only one he can screw over.’

‘You know you’re not alone, right?’ she said, her voice soft and quiet now.

He could feel McKnight’s eyes on him, but tried not to look at her. He knew his answer wouldn’t have satisfied her, and that she might mistake his effort to protect her for mistrust, but it was better than the alternative. Until he knew where things led with Hunt, the rest of the team stayed out of it.

McKnight opened her mouth to say something else, but before she could speak, Drake felt his cell phone vibrating in his pocket. He reached in and fished it out, ready to reject the call if it was anything work-related, but instead frowned when he saw the caller ID.

‘What is it, George?’ Drake answered, making no effort to hide his irritation.

With Franklin out of action, George Breckenridge had taken over as head of the Shepherd Programme, effectively becoming Drake’s immediate superior. Drake knew little of the man’s background except that he’d never been a field agent, his talents lying instead in management and administrative work. In a nutshell, this meant climbing the corporate ladder, taking credit for other people’s work and ingratiating himself with the Agency’s higher echelons of command.

His new – if temporary – position saw him managing half a dozen Shepherd teams and coordinating all regional activity within the programme. In Drake’s opinion, they couldn’t have picked a worse candidate for the job.

A difficult and fractious man at the best of times, Breckenridge had taken an immediate dislike to Drake and his team. The animosity between the two men had only intensified since Franklin’s admission to hospital. Without Dan there to mediate, Drake had a feeling things were only going to get worse.

‘Drake, we need you to come into the office,’ came the brisk summons. ‘As soon as you can.’

Breckenridge always made a point of calling him Drake, for the same reason Drake called him George – because he knew it pissed him off.

‘I’m busy,’ Drake replied, feeling neither the desire nor the responsibility to elaborate. Fuck it – it had been a long day, he was tired and in no mood for talking shop, especially not with a man like this.

‘Do I sound like I give a shit?’ Breckenridge hit back. ‘I’ll make this simple. Find your way here within the hour, or find yourself a new job.’

Without waiting for a reply, he hung up.

Drake let out an exasperated breath, along with a muttered curse. He could have sworn the bastard timed these calls specifically to cause maximum irritation.

‘That was...to the point,’ McKnight remarked. ‘What did he want?’

‘Take one guess,’ Drake said, rising from his makeshift seat.

CIA headquarters – Langley, Virginia

Despite having only clocked off a few hours earlier, Drake once more found himself back at Langley, nursing a cup of coffee and a bad attitude as he made his way through the labyrinth of corridors and small offices that made up the New Headquarters Building. Being on the wrong end of several beers, he’d been forced to hire a taxi from his home in Fairfax. His government security clearance might have worked in his favour at times, but he suspected it didn’t cover drink-driving.

Breckenridge had messaged him advising him to report to his office rather than one of the briefing or conference rooms in the building’s upper levels, which puzzled Drake. Then again, it could just have been his boss wanting to show off.

Halting outside the door, Drake took another deep swig of strong, bitter-tasting coffee. He’d rather have downed a glass of whisky before dealing with a man like this, but doubted it would do many favours for his professional conduct.

Thus armed, he pushed open the door and strode in without bothering to knock.

His first impression was how different this office was from the cramped, cluttered, untidy cubicle in which he did much of his own work. There were no handwritten sticky notes plastered everywhere, no printed sheets and case files cluttering his desk, no coffee-cup stains on the expensive wood surfaces. Everything was very neat, very tidy, very clinical and precise.

Unlike himself, Breckenridge had embraced the digital revolution with open arms, and was happy to use his government expense account to indulge his passion for technology.

Everywhere Drake looked he saw high-end laptops and associated paraphernalia, the latest iPhone charging on Breckenridge’s desk, and the ubiquitous tablet computer he carried around like a preacher’s bible. On one occasion Drake had even witnessed him conducting a call via Bluetooth headset despite both his hands being free.

The big plasma-screen TV mounted on the wall behind him was tuned to Bloomberg, with the latest share prices flashing across the bottom of the screen. Breckenridge liked to stay on top of his business news, though God only knew why. As Drake had learned through Frost’s online snooping, he had no investment portfolio to speak of.

‘Didn’t you ever learn to knock?’ he demanded, distracted from whatever he’d been working on by Drake’s sudden arrival.

In stark contrast to the pristine office and high technology that surrounded him, Breckenridge himself looked very much like what he was – a tired and stressed man fighting a losing battle against middle age. Paunchy, with greying hair, a florid complexion and perpetually furrowed brow, he’d always reminded Drake of Richard Nixon on a bad day.

Drake shrugged. ‘You said you needed me here as soon as possible. Here I am.’

The older man regarded him for a long moment in strained, uncomfortable silence. Then, perhaps trying to assert his professional cool, he gestured to an empty chair.

‘Take a seat.’

Drake did so, feeling like an unruly student hauled into the principal’s office. ‘What can I do for you, George?’ he asked, laying his coffee down on the desk.

‘You can start by using a goddamn coaster,’ his superior replied irritably, sliding one his way. ‘That desk is Carpathian elm, and it costs more than your monthly salary.’

‘It’s a very nice desk,’ Drake said, making no move to use the coaster. ‘Now would you care to tell me why I’m here?’

Breckenridge eyed him in brooding silence for a few moments longer before turning his attention back to his computer. With a few keystrokes, Bloomberg disappeared from the TV behind him, replaced by what looked like a surveillance picture of a man leaving a rundown apartment building.

The subject in question looked to be Middle Eastern, in his mid thirties, well-built and with a few days of stubble coating his jaw. His hair was long and unruly, tied back in a crude ponytail. He had a cell phone pressed against his ear, but seemed to be keeping a wary eye on his surroundings.

‘Say hello to Khaled Arazi. Or, as we know him, Ifzal Fayed,’ Breckenridge began. ‘He’s a captain in the Libyan army, and a former asset of ours.’

Drake glanced at his boss. ‘What’s his deal?’

‘We recruited him about a year ago on the promise that he had contacts within their military-intelligence service. He claimed he could supply viable intel about ISI commanders operating out of Libya, supported by Gaddafi.’

The mention of ISI was enough to get Drake’s attention. al-Qaeda might have been decimated by eight years of attritional warfare, coordinated assassinations and drone strikes, but where one enemy fell, a new one was always waiting in the wings – in this case, the Islamic State of Iraq, better known as ISI.

Less a terrorist network and more a legitimate military force in their own right, they had risen seemingly out of nowhere in the chaos of post-invasion Iraq, capturing key cities and vast swathes of territory, and forcing the US to once more deploy troops in the region to help the beleaguered Iraqi army. A hard-fought campaign had seen them driven out of their desert strongholds, but the victory had been a hollow one at best. Lacking the resources and the political will to pursue their fleeing enemy, the US could do little more than consolidate their position.

Meanwhile ISI’s central leadership were rumoured to have retreated into Syria, Jordan and even North Africa, where they were reorganizing and rebuilding their forces for a renewed campaign.

‘Supported by Gaddafi?’ Drake repeated. ‘I thought he was on our side now. Why help ISI when he knows it would incite a war against us?’

Breckenridge snorted in amusement. ‘Gaddafi’s on no one’s side but his own. He might have cozied up to us since we toppled Hussein, but it’s no secret that he still sponsors terrorist networks and revolutionaries all across the world. He spends more money financing foreign groups than he does on his own people. The stupid bastard probably doesn’t even know who he supports from one day to the next. In any case, even if he’s not in on it, there could well be elements within his government who are. Fayed was supposed to be our way of separating fact from fiction.’

‘So what happened?’

‘The Agency paid him generously for leads on key ISI commanders operating in the country, but after six months of feeding us useless, outdated bullshit, he went dark, took the money and ran. Since then we’ve tracked him sporadically through Romania, Hungary and Austria, but this is the first time he’s stayed anywhere longer than a day or two. NSA intercepted a phone call matching his voice signature in Paris earlier today, and we think we have a location. Looks like he’s set up shop there.’

Drake imagined it had taken no small measure of hard work and resourcefulness to track a man like Fayed, who clearly wanted to disappear. Then again, the Agency was known to be very hard-working when it came to finding people who took their money and fucked them over.

‘So you want Fayed brought in,’ he said, feeling no need to phrase it as a question.

Breckenridge nodded. ‘We need him alive and talking, and preferably without the French government’s knowledge. Maybe then we can get some real answers from him, and our money back.’

It didn’t take a genius to guess what would happen to Fayed after that. The Agency weren’t exactly known for their forgiving attitude towards traitors.

Drake didn’t care too much about the man’s fate, if he was honest with himself. Live by the sword, and all that. What he did care about was why he of all people had been summoned here for what seemed like a simple snatch-and-grab operation.

‘Why us?’ he asked. ‘Surely there must be other teams that can handle this?’

Breckenridge tilted his head. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Is this sort of thing beneath you, Drake?’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘Good, because after the crap you pulled last year, you’re lucky you’re not pacing a cell in Guantanamo Bay, never mind still working for the Agency.’ He let out a sigh of frustration. ‘And as it happens, there isn’t anyone else available. The directors don’t like all the floating resources we’re taking up, so a lot of our specialists are being siphoned off into other programmes. We’re down on manpower, and as much as it pains me to say this, you’re the best of what we’ve got.’

The Shepherd programme maintained a cadre of permanent team leaders like Drake, but the bulk of their manpower was made up of specialists who could be brought in as and when they were needed. The downside was that these skilled operatives were therefore unavailable for other tasks.

‘That makes me feel very special, George. Thanks.’

Breckenridge gave him a disdainful look, then slid a printed dossier across the desk to him. ‘Everything you need on Fayed is in there. We have a plane standing by at Andrews; wheels up in four hours. Get your team together and get on it. Questions?’

How the fuck did you get this job? That was the most pertinent and polite question that came to mind, though Drake decided not to voice it.

‘Good,’ Breckenridge said, taking his silence for compliance. ‘Don’t forget to take your coffee with you.’