Sacrifice (21 page)

‘Why?’ Drake asked.

‘They don’t operate like a normal PMC. Companies like Blackwater handle low-level protection details out here, like guarding roadblocks or watching over politicians we can afford to lose. Horizon are organised more like a front-line infantry regiment, or maybe a Special Forces unit. These guys are set up for full-on combat ops. In fact, they’ve already been used for house raids, snatch and grabs, and assaults against Taliban strongholds, all with an excellent success rate. They’ve got the manpower, the resources and expertise to run just about any operation they need to, fully independent of ISAF.’

‘Like a private army,’ Drake mused, unsettled by her revelation.

‘Pretty much,’ Frost agreed. ‘But an army that isn’t governed by the normal rules of engagement.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, for a start they’re able to hire characters like your friend Vermaak with no questions asked,’ Frost explained, for some reason looking like a kid who had just found the hidden cookie jar. ‘I did some digging on the guy when Sam told me what happened at the crash site.’

Flicking through her heavily annotated dossier, she found the page she was looking for and began to read.

‘Piet Vermaak, born in Pretoria in 1961. Joined South African Defence Force in 1980 before moving to Special Forces Brigade in 1984. He was heavily involved in the Border War for the next few years, even led his own covert strike team until he was discharged, apparently for executing prisoners. After that, there’s almost no official record of him for the next decade. He went dark, probably working the freelance mercenary circuit. Then a few years ago he pops up again, this time working for Horizon. Now he’s one of their most senior ground commanders.’ She glanced up from her report. ‘In short, the guy’s bad news. He shoots first and asks questions later.’

Drake didn’t need Frost to tell him that Vermaak wasn’t a man to be trusted, but this put a whole new slant on his actions at the crash site.

However, there was one name she hadn’t mentioned yet.

‘What about Carpenter?’

At this, the young woman grinned conspiratorially. ‘I’ve saved the best for last,’ she said, flicking to the final
page in her dossier. ‘Richard Carpenter. Enlisted US Army 1963, aged twenty-one. Served two tours in Vietnam before joining a task force of the 327
^th
Infantry Regiment, better known as Tiger Force.’

That was enough to get Drake’s attention. Tiger Force had been a special composite unit formed to wage guerrilla warfare against the Viet Cong, employing many of the same methods and tactics as their enemy. Unfortunately the unit became rather too good at their job, eventually descending into brutality and mindless killing. Countless rumours had circulated about them over the years, from torturing civilians, to rape, murder and mutilation.

‘The unit was disbanded in ’69. They were rumoured to be involved in all kinds of weird shit, like wearing necklaces made from human ears,’ she said with a disdainful curl of her lip. ‘Anyway, our friend Carpenter was apparently cleared of any wrongdoing. He carried on working in various Special Forces outfits, then got promoted to colonel in 1980. But it’s not until ’84 that things get interesting.’

Drake frowned. ‘How so?’

‘Because nothing happened. His service record just stops. There’s no mention of any deployments, any operations, any transfers. Nothing. It’s like a black hole in his life, from ’84 up to ’89. Then, around the time of the First Gulf War, it just starts up again like nothing happened.’ She laid down her folder and looked at Drake across the table. ‘Read between the lines on this one, I’d say he was involved in some kind of black op – something so dirty that they expunged the whole thing from his record.’

‘I want to know what he was up to,’ Drake said.

In some part of his mind he knew he was allowing himself to become distracted, that he was allowing his
encounter with Anya to intrude on his investigation, but he didn’t care. He wanted to know her history with Carpenter. He wanted to know why she was really here.

‘Hey, I can’t find what isn’t there.’ She hesitated, having seen something in his expression that went deeper than mere professional interest. ‘Anyway, why the focus on Carpenter all of a sudden? Even if he is hiding something, who cares what he was up to twenty years ago?’

Drake glanced away. He could say nothing further on the subject without revealing his meeting with Anya last night, and that was one road he was unwilling to go down.

‘It’s just a hunch,’ he lied. ‘Something about the guy doesn’t add up.’

Frost eyed Drake hard. ‘You know, if I was the cynical type, I’d say you know something you’re not telling us.’

‘Then I should be grateful you’re not the cynical type, Keira,’ he said, returning her gaze. ‘What are the chances of you accessing Horizon’s computer network?’

Her brows rose at this. ‘You mean hacking in?’

‘I didn’t hear anyone say the word “hacking”, did you?’

Their remit as special investigators granted them a certain amount of latitude in matters of covert intelligence gathering, but hacking into the computer system of a major DoD contractor was crossing the line.

She weighed up the matter for a moment or two. ‘Dicey,’ she concluded. ‘I can try, but I’d guess they’d have some pretty serious firewalls in place.’

Drake rubbed his jaw, wondering whether it was worth the risk. ‘All right. See if you can scope it out. If it looks too dangerous, forget it.’

‘No problem.’ The young woman rose from the bed, heading for the door.

‘Oh, and Keira,’ he called after her. ‘Get some sleep first. That’s an order.’

She looked over her shoulder at him. ‘Yeah? What about you?’

He shrugged. ‘That’s my problem.’

As soon as she was gone, Drake threw himself back into his work. The whisky lay untouched now – he had no desire for it and was angry at himself for his weakness. Anya had almost been killed tonight while he’d been sitting here getting drunk.

For the next few hours he remained hunched over the computer fruitlessly trawling through photographs of other attacks staged by Kourash’s group, reading intelligence reports, crime scene files and analysis until the words blurred and began to seep into one another.

He checked Anya’s phone over and over, searching for a text message that never arrived, then angrily turned his thoughts back to his work. The images and memories were still bombarding him, but with less cohesion and purpose now; one scene blending into the next as the consciousness governing them began to fade.

He looked at his watch – 04:13.

He replayed his encounter with Vermaak, with Carpenter, with Cunningham, and most of all with Anya. He saw the woman smiling at him from the shadows of that room above the tea house, then a moment later saw her as she had appeared a year earlier, suddenly raising a weapon and putting a round in his stomach.

And yet, again and again his thoughts drifted back to Mitchell, to his hostage tape. Over and over he saw the man’s eyes flicking open and shut with unnatural regularity.

He was missing something, he realised then. Something his subconscious mind was trying to tell him. Something he had seen without really
seeing
.

And at last, an idea struck him.

Once more he accessed Mitchell’s hostage tape and hit the play button, immediately finding himself looking at the same dingy room with a battered Mitchell secured to a chair in the centre of the frame. He was staring right at the camera, his eyes wide with fear as his masked captor came into view.

Kourash was soon busy launching into his tirade against Western imperialism, growing more animated as he got into full swing. Mitchell, however, continued to stare into the camera, his eyes flickering in a seemingly random fashion. A cut over his left eye was apparently troubling him.

Or was it?

Frowning, Drake leaned in, looking closer at the bound captive. He was still blinking, but there was something unusual about the eye movements. Sometimes they would flicker rapidly, other times they would close for nearly a second at a time.

‘What the fuck …?’

There was purpose in the seemingly random gestures, he realised. Mitchell, bound and gagged as he was, was trying to communicate using the only means still available to him – his eyes.

Blink, close, blink. Dot, dash, dot …

‘I’ll be damned.’

It was Morse code, he realised now. Mitchell had been talking in Morse code. Drake was far from an expert in such an antiquated form of communication, but he recognised enough of the letter patterns to understand the intent behind them.

If only it hadn’t taken so damned long. It had been there this whole time and nobody saw it, Drake included.

He had seen without truly seeing.

Hastily reaching for a notebook and pen, Drake moved the pointer back to the start of the video and hit play again.

In 1979, the Soviet 40
^th
Army crosses the border into Afghanistan. Despite their securing major cities, Mujahideen fighters wage a vicious guerrilla campaign against the Red Army, leading to an eventual withdrawal in February 1989.

The Soviet Union will formally dissolve two years later.

Total Casualties:

14,000 Soviet soldiers killed and 54,000 wounded

18,000 Afghan government soldiers killed

90,000 Mujahideen fighters killed (estimate)

Up to 2 million Afghan civilians killed and 3 million wounded

CIA Training Facility ‘Camp Peary’, Virginia,

3 November 1985

Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight …

Forcing her burning, aching muscles to obey, Anya heaved her body up from the muddy ground, only to lower it back down again, going through the same motion again and again without rest, without relief.

Freezing rain hammered the back of her head to run in rivulets down her face and into her eyes. Limp strands of dirty blonde hair hung down around her, soaking into the mud every time she lowered herself to start another press-up. The full equipment pack she was wearing felt like a boulder pressing down inexorably upon her, crushing the life out of her.

All night long they had been at it. Running, marching, fighting, and finally this grim, unrelenting test of endurance.

She was falling behind. The dozen other men in her unit were pulling ahead of her, their movements still fast, efficient, mechanical, as if all concept of pain and weakness was foreign to them. All strong, fit, capable men in their prime.

Next to them she was nothing. And every day, with every march, every drill, every test of strength and endurance, she was made to feel it.

Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six …

‘You ladies aren’t getting tired, are you?’ a deep, powerful voice called out.

‘Sir, no, sir!’ they replied in unison. A dozen men shouting out together, proclaiming their collective strength and defiance and support of each other.

A dozen men and one woman, her voice virtually drowned out.

‘Good. Because what we have here is a lesson – endurance. One of many qualities it’s my sorry duty to instil in you worthless sacks of shit,’ the voice went on. ‘What’s the first promise you made when you joined this unit?’

Again the reply came at once, twelve men and one woman crying out, ‘I will endure when all others fail!’

Forty-one, forty-two, forty-three …

Every movement was agony. Her lungs heaved, her heart pounded, her vision swam as exhaustion clawed at her.

‘Again!’

‘I will endure when all others fail!’

Anya barely had the strength to cry out, could barely find breath in her lungs to make the sound. Every nerve ending in her body was on fire. Every muscle screamed at her to stop.

Forty-four, forty-five …

‘Again!’

‘I will endure when all others fail!’

This time no woman’s voice cried out. This time she could summon up no words. It was all she could do to raise herself up again on trembling arms.

Through her blurred vision she saw a pair of boots splash through the mud towards her, coming to a halt so he could kneel down in front of her.

Carpenter.

She didn’t look at him. She could already picture the
expression on his lean, chiselled, terrifying face. It was the same mixture of disdain and simmering resentment he’d given her the first time they’d been introduced six weeks earlier.

‘What’s wrong, Recruit Thirteen? Did you forget your promise?’

There were no names here. They hadn’t earned the right to their own names yet. She was merely Recruit 13. Lucky 13.

Forty-six …

‘Sir … no … sir!’ she managed to gasp.

‘Then why the fuck didn’t you sound off? Are you disrespecting me?’

She couldn’t speak, couldn’t escape the pain and exhaustion that consumed her, burned away all rational thoughts like an inferno the rain was powerless to stop.

‘Why are you slowing down, Recruit Thirteen?’ Carpenter yelled, his face so close that she could feel his warm breath on her cheek. ‘All I asked for was fifty push-ups. Fifty! Can’t you even give me that?’

Forty-seven …

‘Are you tired? Are you hurting?’ he taunted. ‘Pain and weakness are nothing. Nothing! They’re beating you because you don’t have what it takes to overcome them. How can you be a soldier if you can’t endure?’

Muscles trembling, chest heaving, she tried with desperate strength to push her body up again. The pack pressed down on her. The rain hammered her skull. Blood surged in her ears, and stars and strange lights flitted across her eyes.

With an exhausted, defeated sob, she collapsed in the mud, utterly spent.

Satisfied that she was beaten, Carpenter rose to his feet, staring down at her without a hint of compassion or remorse.
Saying nothing, he turned and walked away, leaving her shaking and crying in the mud.