Sacrifice (41 page)

In the end, he made the only decision he could under the circumstances. ‘Secure her and put her in the back,’ he said, gesturing to the RG-31. ‘We’ll take her in – she
can sleep this shit off in the cells. And get a tow truck to recover her vehicle.’

‘Come on, puking beauty,’ Martinez said, hauling the woman to her feet. ‘I’ve got a great holding cell waiting for you.’

She was too busy coughing up the remains of that bottle of whisky to resist as he pulled her hands roughly behind her back and snapped on a pair of cuffs.

Darkness had descended on the city by the time Drake and Cunningham reached their destination. Crouched down behind a trickling drainage outlet, both men stared up the stony, scrub-covered slope to the safe house.

The main gate faced south, opening out onto the main road. There was no possibility of making entry from that direction. Even if they managed to get the gate open, their presence would surely not go unnoticed.

Their best chance was to approach from the stretch of undeveloped land that seemed to wind its way along the path of what had once been a river, flanked by housing developments.

From their current position, everything looked quiet and still. There were no lights burning, no sign of habitation, and now that darkness had fallen, the residential street beyond was devoid of traffic.

‘This is your show, mate,’ Cunningham said, then shot a dubious glance at his companion. ‘How do you want to do it?’

Drake swallowed and nodded, wiping a trickle of sweat from his brow. The trip here – a brisk half-hour walk under normal circumstances – had become a grim test of endurance for him. The injury at his side seemed to pulsate in time to his heartbeat, sending ripples of
pain flowing outwards through his body. Already he felt weary and drained by the effort.

Still, they were here now. All their other problems were behind them. The only thing that mattered now was finding Mitchell’s evidence.

In his mind, he imagined them making entry to the house, locating Mitchell’s hidden cache of evidence and exiting without ever being seen, each stage unfolding without mishap. This was going to work. They were going to succeed.

‘We’ll go in that way, over the wall,’ he said quietly. ‘From there we’ll have to pick the lock and disable the alarm.’

‘Got it covered,’ Cunningham assured him, then flashed a wry smile. ‘Just like old times, eh?’

‘Stop it. You’re making me all misty-eyed.’ Taking a deep breath and rallying his flagging reserves of energy, Drake clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’

Keeping low and watching their feet on the uneven ground, they advanced uphill towards the house. It was a balmy night, with a warm and gentle breeze coming up from the south. Drake’s T-shirt was already damp with sweat, brought on by a combination of exertion, stress and anticipation. He did his best to ignore all three, with varying degrees of success.

The property was surrounded by an 8-foot brick wall. There was no razor wire that they could see, but there was always a chance it was topped with broken glass. If so, they would have to hunt around for something thick and durable enough to lay over it – no easy task in a country where virtually anything of value was picked up as soon as it was discarded.

Halting next to the wall, Drake turned to his partner
in crime and nodded, indicating that he would go first. He hardly felt up to a walk across the street, never mind hauling himself over a brick wall, but there wasn’t much choice.

With Cunningham providing a boost, Drake launched himself upwards, threw his hands out and managed to grab the top. To his relief the wall was topped by nothing more sinister than stone slabs, with a shallow lip on either side.

Had this place become operational as a safe house, it was likely the security would have been beefed up massively. As it was, they just might make it inside.

Using his feet for extra purchase, Drake hauled himself up and over the edge, careful to keep his weight on his good side. This done, he lay flat on the top, breathing hard, watching and waiting for any change in their surroundings. If there were floodlights linked up to motion sensors nearby, he’d soon know about it.

Several seconds passed, and nothing happened. Traffic rumbled by on the distant main drag, a dog barked somewhere off to the west, and the chirp and buzz of night insects filled the warm air. He leaned back over the wall, looked down at Cunningham and gave him the thumbs-up.

Rolling over, he allowed himself to drop down on the other side. Cunningham followed a moment later, landing almost without sound.

There were no lights on in the house itself. Everything looked quiet and undisturbed. Good.

Keeping low, they darted across the meagre remains of the garden and halted next to the front door. The lock had been replaced since Crawford had blasted it apart with a breaching gun the previous day, a large section of new wood visible on the heavy door where
the broken, splintered area around the lock had also been removed.

Getting in was Cunningham’s job, and he would be vulnerable while he went about it. Taking the man’s weapon, a Beretta automatic, Drake turned to cover his back, scanning the shadowy courtyard and the street beyond the wrought-iron gate.

Knowing his friend was covering him, Cunningham was able to concentrate his attention on the job of making entry.

The first and most obvious thing to do was to reach out and try the door. The chances of it being unlocked were negligible, but it took only seconds to check. It wouldn’t be the first time an operative had wasted precious minutes trying to pick a lock that was already open.

Still, no such luck in this case. The lock would have to be defeated.

One of the benefits of working for a private military company was having access to all kinds of technology that made it easy to get into secured buildings. Reaching into his jacket pocket, Cunningham produced what looked like a small plastic pistol with a flat metal blade instead of a gun barrel.

Known as a snap gun, the device provided a quick means of picking just about any pin tumbler style lock – a notoriously tricky business using manual tools. The metal blade was inserted into a lock like a regular key, and a single squeeze of the trigger caused the blade to strike all of the lock pins at once, sending the driver pins up into the lock and disengaging the mechanism. It was fast and effective, the only drawback being that it was quite loud. Still, it was their best chance at getting in.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed the blade into the
lower part of the lock with great care. Into the broader upper part he inserted a long flat piece of metal, known as a tension wrench. When the driver pins went up into the lock, the tension wrench would be needed to hold them in place.

A bead of sweat rolled down his brow and into his eye. He did his best to ignore it, concentrating on the task at hand.

He pulled the trigger. There was a dull
ping
followed by a click as the driver pins sprang upward. At the same moment, he pushed the tension wrench in further, feeling it slip past the tumblers.

Removing the snap gun, he turned the tension wrench 90 degrees to the left. The lock clicked once more, and that was it. They were in.

Drake let out his breath as his companion tapped him on the shoulder, indicating that the door was open.

Turning, he watched as Cunningham reached out and grasped the handle. With a single curt nod, he turned it and pushed the door open.

Without hesitation, Drake advanced inside with the Beretta up and ready.

They were in.

‘Some local children were out hunting for rabbits when they found it,’ a small, efficient-looking ANP officer explained as he escorted Keegan and Crawford to the scene. ‘It was buried in shallow ground, but a jackal or some other predator must have been attracted by the smell of blood.’

He gestured to the cordoned-off area of waste ground where the satchel still lay. Beside it, partially buried in a small depression, was a ripped and bloodstained shirt. Both were covered in dusty soil as if they had recently been excavated.

‘They called it in straight away,’ he added. ‘My men made sure not to contaminate the scene.’

‘I’m surprised the kids didn’t just steal it,’ Keegan remarked, having noticed several expensive camera lenses and batteries lying near the satchel. He had no children of his own, but he came from a large family and knew all too well how inquisitive children could be.

The ANP officer gave him a pained smile. ‘Children in Afghanistan quickly learn not to pick up such things.’

Keegan said nothing to this. The look in the man’s eyes told its own story.

‘Let’s take a look,’ Crawford said, ducking beneath the cordon.

Eager to leave before he put his foot in it again, the
old sniper followed, using his flashlight to survey the ground for tracks.

Having been taught to track and hunt animals from a young age by his father, he considered it an art rather than a science. Some people had the innate ability to discern meaning from a bent blade of grass or a scuff mark in the dust, while others didn’t, and no amount of training could change that. Fortunately, he belonged to the former category.

A couple of footprints, small and light, were undoubtedly those of the children that the ANP officer had mentioned. Sure enough, none of them came within 10 feet of the bag itself.

‘Wait here,’ he instructed, circling slowly around the area in a counterclockwise direction, his keen eyes scanning every inch of ground in front of him.

Crawford was smart enough to say nothing. At times like this, he knew it was far better to let people get on with their work.

‘Found him,’ Keegan said at last, hunkering down.

Crawford hurried over and knelt down beside him. Sure enough, a faint boot print was discernible in the dust. The size and shape confirmed it had belonged to a man, but he could tell little beyond that.

‘How can you be sure?’

‘I recognise the tread pattern. Plus he was carrying the bag on his left side, so his weight was on the right foot to compensate,’ he explained, then pointed behind him. ‘He came in this way, patched himself up and changed clothes, then left.’

‘Guess we can forget about picking him up in local hospitals, huh?’

The old sniper raised an eyebrow. ‘I’d say so. He made it this far under his own power.’

‘Great. The question is, where’s he headed now?’

For that, Keegan had no answer.

Crawford’s phone started buzzing. It was McKnight.

‘Go, Sam,’ he said, giving Keegan some room.

‘Looks like John’s hunch was right,’ the young woman began. ‘We got a make on the laundry truck, ran the plates through the police database. It was reported stolen earlier today from a cleaning company on the south side of the city.’

Crawford chewed his lip. ‘Any leads on it now?’

‘We’ve put out an APB, but it could be anywhere by now.’ He heard a sigh at her end. Like the rest of them she’d been operating virtually without sleep for two days straight, and the strain was beginning to show. ‘What about you? Any sign of Ryan?’

‘He was here – that’s about all we know right now,’ he admitted.

‘I’m on my way.’

‘Keegan’s on it,’ he assured her. ‘There’s nothing more you can do here.’

‘I know. But I … I want to be there.’ There was something in her voice, a certain tension and emotion that went beyond mere professional concern for a comrade. He had suspected as much.

‘All right. I’ll call you if the situation changes,’ he promised, hanging up.

Eyes and weapons sweeping the darkness, both men said nothing for several seconds; just allowed their eyes to adjust to the weak moonlight filtering in from outside.

‘Clear,’ Cunningham said quietly.

‘Clear,’ Drake confirmed.

Lowering his weapon, he turned to the right, where a soft green glow was emanating from a plastic keypad
mounted on the wall. It was an ultrasonic alarm unit, and a good one at that – he recognised the make and model as one typically favoured by the Agency for its resilience.

There was no time to consult the phone or any written notes. Drake had watched an agent enter the disarm code the day before and was reasonably confident he had retained it. He just hoped his brain was still cooperating.

The alarm was already counting down, triggered the moment they opened the door. Most units of this type were on a ten-second delay, leaving him with perhaps four or five seconds to input the code before it went off.

It wouldn’t make a sound if it went off. Instead it was linked up to the Agency’s own security service, and would immediately put an automated call through to report the break-in. Within minutes a van full of armed security operatives would come screeching to a halt outside.

Opening the cover on the panel, he keyed in 917214, sent a silent prayer to whatever deity might have been inclined to listen, and hit enter.

The simple LED readout flashed once to acknowledge the code entry, and that was it. The alarm was down.

‘Good job,’ Cunningham said, gently closing the door behind him.

Drake might have looked calm, but his heart was beating overtime. It had all come down to this. Either they would find what they were looking for, and Carpenter and Horizon would fall, or they would find nothing.

He preferred not to consider that possibility.

‘Let’s get it done,’ he said, handing the Beretta back to its owner. ‘You take the ground floor. I’ll go upstairs.’

Normally splitting up was a big no-no in situations like this. They were supposed to advance in pairs where they could cover each other’s backs, but in this case they simply didn’t have time for a room-by-room search. They had a lot of ground to cover, and little time in which to do it.

Every second they stayed here increased their chances of being caught.

Cunningham nodded, well aware of their precarious situation. He fished a small flashlight from his pocket and fired it up, allowing the weak beam to play across the floor. ‘On it, mate. Call out if you see anything.’

‘Good luck,’ Drake said as his friend advanced deeper into the house, heading for what had once been the kitchen.