Sacrifice (40 page)

Drake paused, jolted out of his musings by that single thought. A safe house.

A secure place where one could meet contacts, plan operations, cache weapons and equipment. Or perhaps, just perhaps, hide classified documents on a major private military company.

In a flash, Mitchell’s coded message suddenly reverberated through his mind, replaying over and over like a tape recorder stuck on an endless loop.

HOUSE FOUR.

Safe house number 4.

Drake could have kicked himself at that moment. Caught up in the frantic rescue attempt, the meeting with Anya and the brutal ambush in the elevator, he had almost forgotten Mitchell’s cryptic message. Now, finally, it made sense.

He
had
been trying to tell them a location, but not of himself. He’d been trying to tell them where he’d hidden his evidence.

Mitchell’s official role here had been to establish a series of safe houses in and around Kabul. Whatever he wanted them to find was stashed away in safe house number 4.

‘I don’t believe it,’ he gasped as the full magnitude of it settled on him. Why hadn’t he seen it before? It had been right there the whole time. He had stood in that very house only yesterday. He just hadn’t known what to look for.

Cunningham stared at him, perplexed by his reaction. ‘What is it?’

Drake felt like a condemned man given a last-minute reprieve. Well, perhaps not a reprieve, but at least the chance of one. But only if he acted on it now, while there was still time.

He looked up at his friend. ‘Mitchell was brought in to investigate Horizon. Before he was killed, he’d amassed evidence against them. According to my source it was much bigger than anything they’d imagined, but Mitchell was so paranoid that he wouldn’t go into any details. He wouldn’t even say where he’d hidden it.’

Cunningham was watching him through narrowed eyes. ‘All right …’

Drake let out a breath. ‘Until now. He left a coded message on his hostage tape. All this time we assumed he was trying to tell us where he was being held, but he wasn’t. He knew he was going to die. He was trying to tell us where he’d hidden his evidence.’

HOUSE FOUR.

‘Safe house number four,’ Drake said. He shook his head, still unable to believe he had missed such an obvious clue. ‘It was there in front of us all along.’

The look in Cunningham’s eyes quickly went from doubt to suspicion, and at last, to comprehension. ‘Fuck me …’

‘We get to that safe house and find the evidence,’ Drake said. ‘And Carpenter goes down.’

It was a couple of miles to the safe house from where they were. An easy five-minute drive in a car. On foot they’d be lucky to make it there in under thirty minutes.

Pushing himself up from his makeshift seat, he clenched his teeth as a wave of pain radiated outwards from the bullet wound at his side, threatening to drop him. Clutching at the crumbling remains of the door
frame for support, he closed his eyes and willed the pain and weakness to subside.

‘You don’t look so good, mate,’ Cunningham said, watching his friend with a mixture of sympathy and doubt. ‘Maybe you should sit this one out.’

Gritting his teeth, Drake forced himself up again. ‘We’re doing this together, Matt. I have to be there – I have to finish this,’ he said firmly, his bright green eyes boring into the older man’s. ‘You understand, don’t you?’

Cunningham said nothing for a moment, perhaps weighing up his chances of forcing Drake to stay behind.

‘You always were a stubborn arsehole,’ he said at last, clearly unhappy.

Drake nodded. His friend might not have supported him, but neither would he oppose him. For now at least, that was enough.

Crawford and McKnight were in the rooftop field ops tent poring over a map of the local area when Keegan hurried in.

‘I know how they got Frost out of here,’ he began, breathless after his rapid climb to the roof.

Crawford looked up. ‘Thrill me.’

‘They knocked her out and threw her down the laundry chute.’

The field agent’s eyes narrowed. ‘Are you shitting me?’

‘She’s small. She could fit down a narrow gap like that, and the chute’s curved at the base. If there was enough padding beneath it she could survive the fall. It’s the only way they could get her off that floor without being seen.’

‘Okay. So what then?’ he asked, still sceptical.

‘They had a truck waiting for her. I checked with the security guards – they had a laundry truck arrive this afternoon, earlier than usual. It left real quick with only one load, then twenty minutes later a second truck shows up. The real one.’

Crawford’s eyes lit up. Clearly Keegan had been busy. ‘Son of a bitch …’

‘The loading dock’s covered by a security camera,’ he carried on, now in full flow. ‘Assuming it works, we
backtrack the footage, pull the licence plate and run a trace on it. We find that truck, we find Frost.’

Crawford was amazed by how much Keegan had deduced in such a short time, but before he could say anything, Faulkner hurried over clutching his cellphone.

‘Just got a call in from the local police. They found a canvas bag matching the one carried out by Drake. They also recovered some bloodstained clothes.’

Crawford was on it right away, gesturing to a map of the city spread out across the table. ‘Show me.’

‘Right around here.’ Faulkner indicated an area of open ground on the western fringe of the city. ‘It’s waste ground, mostly. Some kids found it.’

‘That’s less than a mile from here,’ McKnight observed. ‘Ryan must have been looking for someplace out of the way.’

Crawford looked up at her. ‘You think he’s heading for the hills?’

Aside from a small village to the west, there was a whole lot of nothing for at least 30 miles beyond that point. It was the kind of rough, mountainous terrain where a single man could disappear with ease.

‘I doubt it,’ Keegan cut in. ‘Even if he did disappear in there, there’s no place for him to go. He could be trying to throw us off the scent, maybe double-back on himself.’

Crawford nodded thoughtfully. ‘Either way, we won’t learn anything more here. Grab your gear, we’re leaving.’

But Keegan hesitated, clearly torn between his two comrades. Drake and Frost had gone in different directions, and he could only pursue one. ‘What about the truck?’

‘I’ll follow up the truck,’ McKnight volunteered. ‘You’ll
be more use on site than me, especially if they need someone to pick up Ryan’s trail. You concentrate on him, I’ll find Keira. Go, John. I’ve got this.’

Waiting a moment longer, Keegan finally nodded.

Anya sat alone in the Toyota 4x4, parked near an intersection on the main road leading towards the Horizon compound, the engine idling as she waited for her opportunity.

She wasn’t frightened or apprehensive – she’d been doing things like this for too long to feel such emotions now – but she did feel a certain sense of anticipation, of eagerness to get it over and done with. She had always felt the same before an operation. She could handle the danger, the prospect of injury or death, but it was the waiting that had always troubled her.

The distant, low-pitched roar of a heavy diesel engine announced that the time for waiting was almost over. Reaching into the glovebox, she lifted out a half-empty bottle of whisky and took a gulp, grimacing in distaste as it settled on her stomach. She also dabbed some on her hands and wiped them on her neck and shirt, making sure the smell of potent alcohol was strong on her.

The distant rumble was growing closer now. She couldn’t see it yet, but she knew that sound belonged to an RG-31 Nyala armoured vehicle. Horizon used them extensively for ferrying their operatives around and, she assumed, for conducting patrols.

Each one had a range of about 500 miles under ideal conditions, but the stop-and-start nature of traffic in Kabul combined with frustrated drivers meant they would burn through their fuel supply quickly. Sooner or later, they would have to return to base to refuel.

Without taking her eyes off the road, she pulled her
seat belt down and locked it into place, giving it a firm tug to make sure it was anchored securely. This 4x4 carried no airbags, and the last thing she wanted was to deal herself a serious injury that would put her out of action.

She would be going into this job with no weapons of any sort. No firearms, no knives or clubs – nothing but her bare hands. But as she knew from long years of experience, those could be just as deadly as any weapon.

It was a gamble, to be sure. But one didn’t live this kind of life afraid of risks.

Bright headlights spilled across the potholed road up ahead. Releasing the handbrake, Anya eased the Toyota forwards, slow at first but gathering pace. She kept her lights off, not wanting to alert the driver of the Horizon vehicle.

Seconds later, the hulking form of the RG-31 appeared around the corner, easily moving at 40 miles an hour, the driver no doubt impatient to refuel so he could get out and continue the hunt for Drake.

It was in her sights now. No turning back. Switching the headlights on, she jammed her foot down on the gas and braced herself.

‘Roger that,’ Sergeant Nicholas Rae, the vehicle commander, spoke into his helmet-mounted radio. ‘Alpha Six is inbound for refuel. ETA, two minutes.’

He was just turning towards his second in command when suddenly the driver cried out in warning and jammed on the brakes. Bright light flooded in through the exterior windows, tyres screeched and the big vehicle slewed sideways as their driver tried to avoid whatever was bearing down on them.

Too late. The interior resounded with a loud, crunching
bang as something slammed into them, accompanied by the tinkle of broken glass and the blare of a car horn. Rae was almost thrown from his seat by the impact, saved only by his belt.

As the RG-31 lurched to a halt, he shook his head and glanced at the driver. ‘What the fuck happened?’

‘Something hit us. Didn’t see it.’

‘No shit,’ Rae remarked under his breath. ‘Get out there and form a perimeter. It could be an ambush.’

An immobilised vehicle like this would be an easy target.

Grabbing their weapons, the four operatives in the back piled out the rear doors, rifle barrels sweeping in all directions. There was no sign of a contact. No inbound fire as he would have expected if this was an ambush.

Rae waited several seconds before stepping outside to join them.

They had been hit by a Toyota 4x4. It must have barrelled into them from the adjacent street, hitting them just to the rear of the driver’s cab.

The armour plating had deformed a little from the impact, but as far as he could tell, the vehicle’s chassis remained sound and engine was still running. RG-31s were heavy, durable vehicles designed to survive a lot of punishment – low-speed collisions like this were easily shrugged off.

The same couldn’t be said of the Toyota. The front end had crumpled like a beer can, steam rising from the ruined engine. The driver was slumped over the wheel, long dark hair hanging down around her face.

A woman, he realised with a flash of anger. If this was nothing more than a traffic accident, she was going to have quite a bill to pay.

‘Check the driver,’ he ordered.

Two of his men hurried forward, one covering his comrade while he hauled open the jammed door using sheer brute strength.

The crash of protesting metal was enough to revive the driver, and she looked up, staring in bleary-eyed shock at the weapons now pointed her way. She was Caucasian, perhaps in her late thirties or early forties, and dressed in civilian clothes.

‘Don’t move!’ Private Shaw yelled, covering her with his M4. ‘Keep your hands where I can see them.’

She barely had time to comply before Private Martinez grabbed her roughly by the shirt and hauled her out of her seat, oblivious to any injuries she might have suffered. Aside from a cut above her left eye, she seemed unhurt.

‘Hey, what are you doing? Get off me!’ she protested, her words slurred and her eyes unfocused as she struggled to break free of his grip. No way was it happening – Martinez was easily twice her weight. ‘You almost got me killed! Look at my car, it’s totalled!’

‘Shaw, check her ID,’ Rae commanded, ignoring the torrent of abuse.

‘Christ, she’s drunk as a fucking college student,’ Martinez warned, having caught the reek of whisky on her breath. Even her clothes smelled of it.

Shaw, meanwhile, had been busy rifling through the items scattered across the seats and floor by the crash. ‘Got a bottle of Scotch here,’ he remarked, holding up a half-empty bottle.

Rae gritted his teeth. The stupid bitch must have been driving drunk through the streets of Kabul. No wonder she hadn’t seen them. She probably couldn’t make out the dashboard in front of her face.

At last Shaw found a wallet amongst the crap littering the footwell, and quickly flipped through its contents.
‘Name’s Katrina Taylor,’ he said. ‘American. Business card says she’s a freelance writer.’

This was just getting better and better. No doubt she was another wannabe journalist looking to write that Pulitzer-winning article. Rae hated her kind almost as much as he hated the people they were fighting out here.

‘I see a laptop and a bunch of papers in the back here,’ Shaw went on, resuming his search.

‘Any weapons?’ Rae asked.

‘Can’t see any.’

‘Leave my stuff alone! That’s my property!’ Taylor cried, her voice high-pitched and irritating. ‘You can’t pull this Gestapo crap. I’m an American, I have rights!’

Martinez had heard enough. Balling up his fist, he drove it into her stomach with enough force to double her over. He watched with satisfaction as she threw up on the rough asphalt, struggling to draw breath between heaves.

‘You have the right to remain silent, so shut the fuck up.’

‘Sarge, what do we do with her?’ Shaw asked from the other side of the crashed Toyota, apparently oblivious to what had just happened. ‘We can’t leave her out here. Her car’s fucked and she’s too drunk to find her way home anyway.’

Rae rolled his eyes. With everything else going on tonight, this was the last thing he needed. Still, Shaw had a point. Drunk and abusive she might be, but Taylor was still an American citizen. If something happened to her, it might well be traced back to them eventually.