Sacrifice (29 page)

But right then, he didn’t care. It had to come out.

‘If you want to walk away from all this, I understand,’ he said quietly. ‘I won’t stop you.’

He felt a hand on his arm, and looked up to see Samantha’s face close to his. So close that he could make out the tiny flecks of green in her hazel eyes.

‘Ryan, I don’t pretend to know what happened back then. I don’t know who you were or what you did, but I know who you are now. You’re a good man,’ she said, squeezing his arm as if to emphasise her point. ‘You can’t blame yourself for the things Anwari chose to do here. Whatever your reasons, you gave him his life. The rest is on him. Don’t ever forget that.’ He saw just a flicker of that same smile that had caught his eye the first time he saw her picture. ‘And you can forget about me walking away from this. I want answers just as much as you do. I’m staying.’

Drake said nothing more. There was no need. He had given her a chance to walk, and she had decided to stay. And he was glad of that – more than he was prepared to admit.

He turned his eyes back up towards the sky, and the mountains in the distance. For all its troubles, Afghanistan was a starkly beautiful country – a strange, hot, barren land that people had tried and failed to conquer for centuries. He thought about those abandoned Soviet tanks he had passed yesterday, thought about the children playing on the wrecked machines of war, thought about Anya and Carpenter and Horizon and Kourash, and the tangled web that bound them all together.

His attention was drawn to a Black Hawk helicopter coming in to land, its massive rotors beating the air as
several troopers clustered in the crew compartment waiting to disembark.

Drake took a final drink of whisky. He didn’t know where this was leading, what truth lay hidden deep beneath the surface.

But somehow he would find it.

In October 2001, US and British forces invade Afghanistan, ousting the Taliban from power, severely damaging Al-Qaeda and securing major cities and towns. However, armed insurgency begins almost immediately.

Despite ongoing unrest, full withdrawal of British and American troops is scheduled for 2014.

Total Casualties (as of 2012):

2,862 Coalition troops killed and 22,618 wounded

981 private military contractors killed and 12,272 wounded

Approx 10,000 Afghan security forces killed

Approx 40,000 Taliban and insurgents killed

Approx 30,000 civilians killed, unknown number wounded

CIA Training Facility ‘Camp Peary’, Virginia,

21 November 1985

Leaning over the sink, Anya spat, leaving a smear of bloody phlegm on the white porcelain. A couple of hours of unarmed combat training had taken their toll on her body, leaving her battered and bruised, and in more pain than she cared to admit.

Lifting up her T-shirt, she saw dark discolouration down her side where Carpenter had laid into her, taking great pleasure in explaining the deficiencies in her fighting technique as he knocked her down again and again.

Anya was no stranger to fighting or the injuries that came with it. She had spent three years in a juvenile prison back in Lithuania, having to fight nearly every day just to survive. But Carpenter was no inexperienced teenager driven by anger or jealousy; he was a trained killer, a man well versed in the art of war. Whatever fighting skills she had once learned did not serve her against him.

She couldn’t understand why he seemed to hate her with such vehemence. From the moment she had arrived here she had been nothing but respectful and obedient. She had jumped to every order, had fulfilled every task given to her, had done everything in her power to earn his respect. But nothing was good enough. If anything, her attempts to please him only seemed to deepen his animosity.

She appraised herself frankly in the mirror, seeing the greasy, dishevelled hair, the cut lip, the bruised face, the sunken cheeks and the hollow, staring eyes. Her fellow recruits were growing stronger with each passing day, their bodies and minds moulded and sculpted into something newer, something more dangerous. Little by little, day by day, they were becoming soldiers.

Anya by contrast was growing weaker. Her muscles burned from constant marching and running and climbing, her bones and joints ached constantly. She was only twenty years old yet she felt fifty. Sleep deprivation and constant humiliation at Carpenter’s hands were slowly sapping her mental reserves too.

Little by little, day by day, she was losing.

Why are you doing this, she asked her reflection. What are you trying to prove? Why did you ever think you could do this?

‘He’s testing you,’ a voice remarked, as if in response to her silent plea.

Whirling around, Anya found herself looking at Recruit 4. Tall, dark-haired, well built, he was one of the oldest, most capable and promising of the group. He spoke with a Belorussian or Ukrainian accent, she couldn’t tell which. But like all the recruits, he was not American.

That was the whole point of their unit – deniability.

She didn’t know his real name. She didn’t know any of the recruit’s names. They never spoke with her except to exchange necessary information, and even then it was done only grudgingly.

To them, she was a waste of time. Sooner or later they knew she would fail and instinctively they avoided her, as if that failure were a disease that could be passed on to them.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked, taking a step back. The last time someone had cornered her in a washroom she had been fifteen years old. She was not keen to repeat the experience.

‘He is testing you, trying to make you break.’

Anya might have laughed if her mood hadn’t been so bleak. ‘As if I didn’t know that already,’ she said, her eyes flashing with anger at what she saw as patronisation. ‘He hates me. What more is there to say?’

‘You’re missing the point. He is trying to push you over the edge.’ He folded his arms, making no move to close the gap between them. ‘Let him.’

Without saying another word, he turned to leave.

‘What is your name?’ Anya asked before she could stop herself.

She shouldn’t have done that, shouldn’t have opened up on a personal level. Still, the question had been enough to make him pause, and she realised she had committed herself now. ‘Your real name, I mean.’

‘We have no names here. Remember?’ She saw a flicker of a smile. Not fierce or malicious like Carpenter, but something else. Something approaching compassionate. ‘But before, my name was Luka. And yours?’

Just like her question, the answer came of its own volition. ‘Anya.’

‘Anya,’ he repeated, as if trying the name out. He nodded, seemingly satisfied with it. ‘I’ll remember it.’

With that, he turned and walked out, leaving her alone.

Central Hotel, Kabul, 12 August 2008

The CNN anchor was, as always, immaculately dressed, her blonde hair expertly coiffed, her make-up flawless. It was about 10 p.m. on the East Coast of America; the end of another news day. Very little of which had been good.

‘A video released through Al Jazeera earlier today
apparently showing the execution of a Central Intelligence Agency operative has been condemned by the White House,’ she said, her expression deeply serious. ‘The authenticity of the video has yet to be confirmed – however, this execution is believed to have been carried out by the same group responsible for shooting down a US military helicopter in eastern Afghanistan several days previously. With us now in the studio to discuss this is our defence expert Glen Richfield.’

The camera immediately switched to a man in his early thirties, with a pudgy, affable face and curly brown hair. By the looks of him, the closest he’d been to Afghanistan was viewing it on Google Maps.

‘Glen, what are the implications of this video?’

‘Well, this is the last thing either the CIA or the White House needs right now,’ he began, speaking with the clear articulation of someone who had been briefed on the question well in advance. ‘With President Bush approaching the end of his second term, these last few months in office are going to be crucial in our evaluation of the War on Terror and his Presidency as a whole. Any new administration that comes in next year is going to have to answer one key question – when are we bringing our troops home? And that’s not to mention the financial implications—’

The screen went black as Anya hit the standby button on the remote control. She had heard enough.

She had already received the bad news from Drake’s cellphone, his simple message explaining only that Mitchell was dead, and that it happened long before they got there.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes for a moment and gripped the back of her chair, her hold growing stronger until the cheap wood creaked under the
pressure. Mitchell was gone. A man she had known nearly twenty years was dead; another entry in the long list of people who had paid for that association with their lives.

Let it go, she said to herself. Let it go. His death would not go unpunished, she would make sure of it. Releasing her hold, she strode through to her hotel bathroom to check her appearance in the mirror.

Her short blonde hair was gone now, replaced by long brown locks that fell well past her shoulders, with a thick fringe covering her forehead.

Her steely blue eyes were also gone, hidden behind a pair of brown contact lenses that she had to fight not to rub at. Still, they served their purpose, combining with a pair of thick-framed reading glasses and the wig to considerably alter her facial appearance.

It wouldn’t be enough to defeat facial recognition software, but that couldn’t be helped. In any case, no one but Drake knew she was here.

At least, she hoped so. Not for the first time, she found herself debating the wisdom of making contact with him again. He was a constant danger to her, yet she had lived most of her life facing such dangers and still she lived.

Drake was a useful asset, perhaps her only remaining ally in Afghanistan. And as much as she hated to admit it, she wanted to see him again.

Leaving the bathroom, she returned to the bedroom, booted up her laptop and accessed a program called
DataKill
. Another little gift from Loki, it would thoroughly wipe everything from the hard drive, preventing even the most skilled technician from reconstituting it.

She no longer needed the computer. She wouldn’t be coming back.

The few items she’d take with her were packed into
a simple canvas rucksack on the bed. An old habit – she always made sure to travel light.

As
DataKill
went to work on the laptop, she snatched up the bag and strode out of the room.

CIA compound, Bagram Air Base

Drake turned to regard his three teammates, feeling if possible even more strung out than yesterday. He had slept little, brooding over yesterday’s failures and mistakes. Still, he had called the team together once more, determined to have at least one more crack at it.

‘All right, you don’t need me to tell you we’re in trouble,’ he began. ‘We’ve lost Mitchell, we’re no closer to finding Kourash, and we still don’t know how Horizon fit into this. Unless we can come up with something today, it’s over.’

With that none-too-optimistic appraisal, he turned his attention to Frost. ‘Keira, where are we on that convoy list?’

‘Up shit creek.’

That wasn’t the answer he’d been looking for. ‘Hit me with some optimism here.’

The young woman spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘There were forty men on that convoy. The names for twenty-eight of them were blank.’

Drake was starting to get an uneasy feeling about this. ‘Why?’

‘Because they weren’t US Army personnel – their names and ranks weren’t listed. They were there, but as far as the official records go, they weren’t there.’

Keegan tilted his chair back, one boot wedged against the table. ‘I’ll give you twenty bucks if you can tell me which outfit they belonged to.’

The answer was as obvious as it was disturbing. ‘Horizon.’

‘Bingo.’

Drake headed for a whiteboard fixed to the wall at the head of the table. Snatching up a pen, he began to write. He could have used a laptop linked up to a projector to make such notes, but the act of writing it down helped him think.

‘So we’ve got a supply convoy with Horizon personnel running security, none of whom are listed on the official manifest,’ Drake said, scribbling down the words
Convoy
and
Horizon
.

‘They leave Bagram with four Stinger launchers, they somehow find an opportune moment to offload one of them, then they doctor the inventory and hand over three launchers at Salerno, with all the official documentation in the world to prove it,’ he added, writing the word
Stinger
next to them. ‘And, lo and behold, the Stinger ends up in the hands of Kourash and his terrible chums.’

He added the word
Kourash
above
Stinger
.

‘And I bet if we ask Horizon for a list of their operatives on that convoy, it’ll be conveniently lost,’ Frost remarked cynically.

Having been involved in covert operations for several years now, she knew just how easy it was for people to forget incriminating facts, for important information to be lost, for documents to go missing. Governments did it all the time to avoid answering uncomfortable public questions.

‘That’s a pretty serious accusation,’ McKnight warned. ‘We’re suggesting they willingly stole weapons from the US military.’

Drake turned away from the board to look at her. ‘It’s one that fits the facts at hand.’

He knew he was skating on thin ice. There was such a thing as ‘cooking the proof’ in situations like this – placing unreasonable weight on evidence that supported a particular theory while marginalising that which didn’t. It was an easy trap to fall into, and a voice in his head warned him he was about to do just that.