Deception Game (46 page)

‘It’s okay. We’ll rest here...for a while,’ he managed to say between gasping breaths, trying to find something, anything that might offer some comfort. ‘We’ll feel better once...we’ve rested.’

The look in the woman’s eyes made it obvious that such reassurance was as unnecessary as it was untrue. She managed a faint, bittersweet smile. ‘You always were...a bad liar.’

Drake clasped her hand tight, unable to do anything else except be there with her.

‘Listen to me, Ryan.’ She reached up and touched his face, her hand trembling with the effort. ‘You did...your best. You don’t...have to pretend anymore.’

Drake swallowed. At least, he would have done if there had been any moisture left in his throat. ‘It’s not over yet.’

‘Not for you,’ she said, halting a moment before going on. ‘Will you...do something for me?’

Drake leaned a little closer. ‘Of course.’

Her eyes were locked with his, burning with fierce, desperate resolve. ‘Leave me here. Go on without me.’

He felt the breath catch in his throat. ‘What?’

‘I’m done...I’m finished.’ Her tone was one of quiet, resigned acceptance. She had fought her battle and lost. ‘You might...still make it. But not...with me.’

Drake’s reaction was immediate and instinctive, his mind utterly rejecting the notion. ‘Fuck that. I’m not leaving you behind. Never.’

He tried to pull away, but she clung on to his tattered shirt, her grip surprisingly strong given her dire condition. ‘Listen to me. Listen!’ she pleaded. ‘We both...know I won’t make it. You can’t carry me, but...you still have...some strength left. Go on alone. Find...Keira and Cole. Get...out of Libya.’

‘Sam, there’s no way—’

‘Don’t argue with me!’ she cried, pulling him closer. ‘This has...to happen! You know it does. I’m dying...Ryan. You can’t change...that now. Killing yourself...won’t save me.’ At this, she choked back a sob, gritting her teeth to keep her composure. ‘Take...the computer. Get it to Keira. Don’t...let this be for nothing. Please.’

It was heartbreaking to see her like this, watching her fade away in front of him and knowing there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

‘And leave you to die here?’ he asked, shaking his head vehemently as he imagined the pain and delirium she would experience as her body shut down and her vital organs failed. ‘No. I won’t. I...I couldn’t live with it.’

The woman let out a breath, her eyes still locked with his. ‘I’m...not asking you to.’ She raised her chin a little, readying herself as she reached for the automatic pushed down the back of her trousers. ‘I’ll take care...of it. All you need to do...is walk away.’

Oh Christ, he thought as she held the weapon up. She was serious. She meant to do it. She meant to end her own life.

He could have stopped her, could have snatched the weapon and tossed it away. But he didn’t. He didn’t stop her, because he knew deep down that she was right. Unable to go any further and with no hope of rescue, what was the point in prolonging the agony? How much longer could they last anyway? An hour? Two?

McKnight likely had less even than that.

She was right. He couldn’t help her, couldn’t get her out of this. He might well die soon enough as well, but he would make it a little further without her. It was a terrible thought to entertain, but that didn’t make it any less true.

‘I won’t leave you.’

‘Go, Ryan,’ she implored him, holding the weapon in trembling hands. ‘You don’t... need to see this.’

Almost without being aware of it, he’d reached for the pistol and taken it gently from her hands. Struggling to make his fingers work, he disengaged the safety and pulled back the slide to make sure a round was chambered. He heard the ping of a brass casing being ejected.

‘You don’t have to do this alone,’ he promised her.

She saw what he was doing, guessing his intentions. She didn’t resist.

Gripping the weapon in one hand, Drake pulled her close, feeling the rapid beat of her heart, then rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes as he raised the weapon.

‘I’m here, Sam,’ he whispered, his finger tightening on the trigger. ‘I’m here with you.’

It remained there, trembling, straining, a mere fraction of an inch from firing. Drake clenched his jaw tight, willing himself to finish it, to do what had to be done. One pull, and it was over. He would spare her the pain of death that was encroaching by the second.

‘It’s all right,’ he heard her say, her hand squeezing a little tighter. ‘I’m ready.’

He had done all he could, had given it his all. But it wasn’t enough. She’d been right – there was no happy ending for people like them.

Do it, a voice in his mind implored him. Pull the trigger, you coward. Do it now!

No!

With an agonized cry, he threw the weapon aside, off the edge of the wadi. He couldn’t even hear the weapon clattering off the rocks below.

He couldn’t do it. He
wouldn
’
t
do it. Even if it was the right thing to do, even if it would spare them both the suffering of death by dehydration, he wouldn’t just lay down and give up. Even now the will to live, to keep fighting and clawing for survival no matter what the odds, was too strong.

‘I can’t kill you,’ he whispered, shaking his head. ‘I’m sorry, Sam. I can’t do it.’

She looked up at him then. He didn’t see anger or disappointment in her eyes. All he saw was sadness.

‘I understand,’ she whispered. ‘You’re a good man, Ryan. Better than this.’

That was when it happened. Raising herself up from the ground with a final desperate effort, she managed to get her feet beneath her, and for a moment he wondered if his refusal to pull the trigger had kindled some hidden spark of determination, had tapped into some unknown reserve of inner strength.

He watched as she turned and stumbled away from him, moving on unsteady legs towards the edge of the wadi, and only then did he realize what she was planning. She was about to do the one thing he couldn’t.

‘Sam! No!’ he screamed as she pitched forward and disappeared over the edge.

Scrambling forward, he fell by the edge of cliff, staring down at the woman lying in a dusty heap far below at the base of the slope. Too far for him to reach without suffering the same fate. She was gone.

She was gone.

Drake was no longer capable of crying. His body had no tears left in it, but he could feel them stinging his eyes as he looked down at her. The woman he had fought so hard to save, and who had sacrificed herself to give him a fighting chance.

Overwhelmed with grief and shock, Drake bowed his head and closed his eyes as sobs shook his body.

The next hour was the hardest of Drake’s life as he trudged wearily onwards, withered by sun and heat and blasted by windblown sand. At first he’d followed the course of the wadi, trying to find some way down to get to Samantha, determined to recover her body, but as time wore on and his grieving mind wandered, he began to lose all sense of what he was doing and where he was going.

The world seemed to have shrunk around him to the point that simply staying awake became his sole focus. It reminded him of being a kid watching a movie late at night, feeling his eyes starting to droop, then realizing what was happening and pulling himself back from the brink, only for it to start again a few moments later.

But despite his best efforts, it was a battle he was slowly losing. His mental and physical reserves were all but spent, his mind teetering on the brink.

It was then, at the moment of greatest need, that he at last saw something at the crest of a hill up ahead. A shape, vague and indistinct, half hidden by drifting sand. It wasn’t a rock or a hill or a dune. Its lines were straight, deliberate and rectangular. It was man-made.

His eyes opened wider as the realization finally hit him. It was the ruined building where Mason and Frost were waiting!

‘What?’ he gasped, hardly believing what he was seeing.

Somehow his wandering path must have carried him to the right place. Somehow, through some bizarre quirk of luck or fate, his salvation was now less than a hundred yards away. All he had to do now was get to it.

Sand and burning wind whipped into his face, blasting his already exposed skin, but he kept his eyes fixed on the ruined building in the distance. It was the centre of his world now. All his thoughts, all his willpower, all his hopes were focussed on getting there.

The ground beneath him was rocky and uneven, sloping gradually uphill towards the structure. He knew that if he fell, he wouldn’t get up again.

This was it. This was his last chance.

An unknown time passed as he laboured on. Minutes? Hours? He didn’t know. He felt like he had been walking his whole life.

The building crept closer, now tantalizingly near. He felt like he could reach out and touch it.

He looked down at the ground before him, his vision swimming in and out of focus as he stumbled on, all his thoughts now directed towards making each laboured step. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.

Almost there. He had to be.

Left foot. Right foot.

Bone-dry air seared his throat with every breath as his overtaxed lungs fought in vain to draw in more oxygen. Adrenaline and desperate, stubborn resolve was all that kept him going now.

Left foot.

Right foot.

This had to be it now. Chancing his luck, Drake looked up, expecting the ruined archway that led inside to be yawning wide before him.

‘No...’ he mumbled breathlessly, staring in disbelief at the empty, barren slope before him. It was gone. The building that had looked so immediately familiar to him had vanished. How was that possible? How?!

It had been a lie, he realized in some dim, half-understood part of his mind. A mirage. A trick played by his exhausted and delirious brain. There was no building, no ruins, no hope of salvation. There never had been.

The realization that his final hope was nothing but a fantasy was all it took to crush his last vestiges of strength. Letting out an anguished, futile cry, he fell to his knees.

‘It was here,’ he whispered, his eyes stinging with tears that wouldn’t come. ‘I saw it. It...was here.’

This was it, he knew now. After all the risks, all the danger and threats and adversaries he had faced since this all began, he was going to die a miserable death of thirst here on this lonely hilltop in the middle of nowhere. He couldn’t help wondering whether Marcus Cain would feel relieved or cheated when he eventually learned of the ignominious end that had befallen him.

‘Ryan.’

Drake froze, his mind jerked back into awareness by the sound of a voice, faint and distant yet strangely immediate. He reached up and touched his radio earpiece, wondering for a heart-stopping moment if it was picking up a distant transmission.

‘Ryan, look at me.’

A whisper, barely heard, like a distant voice carried on the wind. Although not from his radio, it seemed to be around and inside him all at the same time. He looked around, screwing up his eyes to focus his failing vision as he sought the source of the voice.

That was when he saw her, standing before him, as real and solid as the ground beneath his feet. McKnight, strong and healthy once more.

‘Sam,’ he rasped, almost choking the word out through cracked lips.

Somehow she must have survived the fall. Someone must have found her, given her water and clean clothes. Mason and Frost! They must have disobeyed his order and come looking for them.

His heart swelled at the thought of his two companions, always loyal but rarely obedient. He imagined Frost berating him for keeping them waiting, and Mason watching the drama unfold with his broad, infectious grin.

And most of all, he felt tears of joy and relief stinging his reddened eyes at the sight of the woman before him. The woman he’d fought so hard to protect, who he thought he’d lost forever.

‘I thought you were gone. I thought...you died.’

Kneeling down beside him, Samantha reached out and gently caressed his cheek, her eyes filled with compassion and understanding.

‘Shh, it’s all right,’ she said soothingly. ‘I’m here, Ryan. It’s going to be okay now.’

Drake closed his eyes for a moment as relief washed over him. ‘Keira? Cole?’

‘They’re just beyond the ridge,’ she confirmed. ‘They had a hell of a time finding me. You won’t believe what they’ve been through.’

He couldn’t help but laugh. ‘I’m sure...they’ll tell me all about it.’

‘They will,’ she promised. ‘But you have to get up now. You have to get to them.’

With great effort, Drake opened his eyes and looked up. The slope on which he had collapsed was part of a low ridge running more or less directly across his path, strewn with rocks and sand and small boulders. He hadn’t made it to the top, lacking the energy or the will to go any further when the futility of his efforts was at last revealed to him.

‘Come on, Ryan,’ Samantha said, her voice gentle and encouraging as she took his arm to help him. ‘Time to get up. Get up now.’

Drake took a breath, his throat parched, his eyes dry and gritty, searching deep inside for some final reserve of energy. She was right. He could do this. He could make it.

Managing to get his boot planted firmly, he heaved himself up from the ground. His vision swam for a moment and he staggered sideways, clutching at the rocky ground for support. His knuckles grazed the rough stone, cutting the skin and causing vivid red blood to well up. He didn’t notice the pain. He was beyond that now.

Tired, bruised and battered, the two fighters emerged from their corners for the last round. One was younger, stronger and fitter, but not as confident as he
’
d once been. This hadn
’
t been the walkover that he
’
d expected. It had been a hard, brutal slog, and it was telling.

The other fighter was older, battered and bleeding, chest heaving as he gulped for air. But he remained defiantly on his feet, his jaw set with determination as he moved forward to meet his opponent.

Somehow Drake fought back the darkness that seemed to be encroaching on his mind. Somehow he forced his leaden feet to move as he shuffled up the hill, struggling to keep his balance as dizziness threatened to pitch him over.

‘You’re close, Ryan,’ Samantha coaxed him, staying by his side every step. ‘Just a little further.’

He had to make it. He knew it with a certainty that defied reason. Somehow he had to find the strength to keep going.

The ground was sloping uphill, strewn with rocks that had tumbled or been blown down from above in years past. His foot caught and he fell with bruising force, rocky ground rushing up to envelop him in a crushing embrace.

Ducking beneath a clumsy, tired punch, the older fighter moved in close, drew back his fist and slammed it into his opponent
’
s ribs with enough force to bruise flesh and crack bones. The younger man grunted in pain and fell to his knees as the old fighter moved in to press home his advantage.

‘Get up, Ryan. You have to get up,’ Samantha urged him.

‘I can’t...I’ve got nothing left.’

‘Yes, you do!’ she said, her voice stronger and more forceful now. ‘You didn’t give up on me, I’m not giving up on you now. So don’t you dare quit on me! Get on your feet and move! Nothing else matters now. Get up!’

Coughing and gasping, Drake clutched at the ground, fighting to rise to his feet once more. He lost himself then, lost all sense of orientation and direction. All he knew was that he had to keep moving forward.

That was all that mattered now.

‘Don’t you dare give up,’ she warned him. ‘You’re going to make it, Ryan. I know you are.’

He clambered around a weathered boulder, leaning heavily on the burning hot surface, and with great effort took a stumbling, hesitant step forwards. Every step for him was a grim battle that he was increasingly struggling to fight, but still he clawed and fought his way up the slope, drawing deep on his last reserves of strength in a desperate effort to reach the summit.

Drawing deep,
the
younger fighter rose up and lashed out at his opponent, landing stinging lefts and rights that reopened old cuts. Bright red blood spotted the canvas beneath them.

The older man waded forward, weathering the blows like the old warrior he was. He
’
d been hurt many times in his career, and he wasn
’
t afraid any more. This was the last fight of his life.

‘Ten more feet, Ryan. Don’t you dare quit on me! You don’t get to quit until I say so!’

Now down on his hands and knees, the breath rasping in his throat, the vision fading from his eyes, Drake fought his way up inch by agonizing inch.

‘Five more feet. Keep going!’

The old man drew back his arm to deliver the final blow, the haymaker that would end it. Even through the pain, the exhaustion, the blood and the sweat, his eyes were alight in the moment of victory.

But his attempt to land a final, crushing knockout had left him vulnerable, the moment of his triumph exposing an opening that his younger opponent exploited. Damaged bone and sinew clashed with bruised flesh one last time as the crowd
’
s roars drowned out all else.

Letting out a final, exhausted groan, Drake collapsed at the crest of the ridge, his face resting on the burning sand, his fingers still clawing feebly at the ground.

Through gritty, blurred eyes, he stared out at the rocky undulating landscape that lay beyond, seeing almost nothing.

‘I...made it. I made it. Where...are they, Sam?’ he pleaded.

There was no answer. She was gone.

But before he could speak again, he saw something; a darker shape amongst the blasted rocks and sandy hills.

A shape that was moving towards him.

He heard a shout. A voice. A human voice calling out something, but it was so far away he couldn’t make it out. The world seemed to be closing in around him, details swallowed up and sounds drowned out by the pounding blood in his ears.

Unable to fight it any longer, Drake’s exhausted mind finally surrendered to the darkness that was so eager to swallow him.