Betrayal (6 page)

His female comrade had been unable to intervene. She was too far away to get involved physically, while a bit of careful positioning on Drake’s part had prevented her getting a clear shot.

Now she was trying to decide what to do; whether it was worth the risk of opening fire. Drake surveyed her, quickly sizing her up. She was young, probably mid-twenties, with a full figure that was tending towards plump, and short black hair tied back tight. Her dark eyes and olive skin suggested Hispanic origin, and the name
Cortez
printed on the tag on her jacket confirmed it. If he had to guess, he’d say she was a rookie, probably partnered up with an older and more experienced officer until she learned the ropes.

Today, however, she was about to learn a different kind of lesson.

‘Forget it,’ Drake said, crouching low to hide himself behind the cop’s considerable frame. Neither of them had seen his face, and he wanted to keep it that way. ‘Lower the gun and step back, and you both get to live.’

She shook her head vehemently. ‘Bullshit. I lower it, you kill both of us.’

She wasn’t about to give up her only leverage. Credit where it was due, she was tougher than she looked. But being tough was a poor substitute for being smart, and he needed her to see that her position was untenable.

‘I’ve got no interest in either of you, Cortez,’ he promised her. ‘I’m not responsible for this attack, but I can’t let you take me in. You can either walk away from this, or you can get yourself and your partner killed trying to stop me. It’s up to you.’

Even as he said this, he was edging closer to the stairwell door, keeping his human shield in front. Instinctively Cortez took a step backwards, keeping her distance. She couldn’t get a decent shot at Drake, so aside from shooting through her partner, there was little she could do to stop him.

‘You’re wasting your time, man,’ the first cop warned him, his deep baritone voice seeming to resonate through his entire body as he spoke. ‘We’ve got backup inbound. You won’t make it two blocks.’

‘Then there’s no reason not to let me go,’ Drake countered, still moving towards the door. ‘Better than getting killed.’

He saw Cortez’s eyes waver for a moment, saw the barrel of her automatic lower just a little. She wasn’t giving up her weapon, but the meaning was clear all the same. She was letting him go, just as he’d known she would.

Movies often depict the heroic cop finding an ingenious way out of such situations, whether it be shooting the hostage-taker in the leg to disable him or using some trick to distract him, but the reality was often far more pragmatic. Cortez didn’t want to die here, and she didn’t want her partner to die either.

Neither death was worth the life of some anonymous nut job, and they all knew it.

He was close enough. Releasing his grip on his hostage, Drake planted a firm kick in the small of his back that sent him staggering towards Cortez, blocking her shot for a few precious moments.

Without waiting to see the results, he turned and sprinted through the door, slamming it shut behind him. The security bar would only allow it to open from inside, and short of blasting the entire door apart, there was little chance of Cortez and her partner giving chase.

Still, Drake wasn’t hanging around to find out. Rushing down the stairwell and back outside, he passed the police cruiser parked outside the apartment block and headed west, away from the freeway and the heavy traffic that was already starting to back up around it.

Once he was sure he was out of sight of the apartment building, he turned south and picked up the pace. His car was two blocks away, and he needed to get to it fast.

Keeping his head down, he turned off the main drag and took a footpath running through a grassy area between two residential buildings, then fished out his cellphone and hurriedly scrolled through the list of apps until he found one with the innocuous title
DateCalculator
.

At first glance it appeared to be nothing more interesting than a personal organiser, but in reality it was a sophisticated piece of encryption software developed by the Agency to allow their operatives to make calls without fear of interception. In Drake’s case, it allowed him to speak freely with other people on the same encryption scheme – even the Agency itself couldn’t listen in.

Inputting his personal access code, he waited a few seconds while DateCalculator enabled secure mode, then finally dialled the number he wanted. Technically it was after hours, but Drake knew the man he was calling didn’t keep to office hours any more than he did. It was one of the perks – or otherwise – of being the director of the CIA’s Special Activities Division.

As he expected, it rang several times before it was answered. The recipient of the call would have to input his own access code to allow DateCalculator to link the two phones and create a secure line.

‘Yeah, Ryan?’ Dan Franklin answered at last, sounding more harassed than usual.

Drake and the director of Special Activities had served in the same composite unit in Afghanistan years earlier, and had forged a strong friendship during their tour together. Their lives and careers had taken different paths since then, and the burden of leadership had strained their relationship more than once, but Drake still considered Franklin a friend. And he had few enough of those nowadays.

In this case, however, he wasted no time on greetings. ‘Dan, we’ve got a problem.’

‘What kind of problem?’

‘The kind when someone caps off shots from a high-powered sniper rifle into a busy freeway.’

That was enough to get his friend’s attention. ‘And you know this how?’

‘Take a guess.’ Drake paused a moment, waiting until he’d passed by a runner out for some evening exercise before carrying on. ‘I was opposite the building when the shooting started. It was overlooking the 395 just west of Garfield Park.’

‘Jesus. Are Metro PD aware?’

‘You could say that. Two of their guys just tried to arrest me.’

His words weren’t lost on Franklin. ‘What do you mean, “tried”?’

Drake winced inwardly. ‘Had to give them the slip.’

‘Christ, Ryan. You’re supposed to be a case officer, not Jason fucking Bourne. You aiming for a spot on
America’s Most Wanted
?’

‘You don’t understand – they turned up right after I did,’ Drake hurriedly explained. ‘Unless they happened to be passing by when the shooting started, there’s no way they could have got there so fast. Which means they were tipped off in advance. Someone was trying to set me up, Dan.’

‘Possible, but who?’

He paused for a moment, wondering whether he was doing the right thing by dumping this on his friend. But he knew he couldn’t sit on it and do nothing. Franklin had to know. ‘Anya.’

At that moment, any lingering doubts Franklin might have had about the severity of this call vanished. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Pretty sure,’ Drake said, recalling that moment up on the roof. ‘She was standing right in front of me. Looks like she was the shooter.’

‘Any idea what the target was?’

‘I saw a pair of luxury Mercs on the freeway that looked like they’d been fucked over. Couldn’t make out the plates, but I think they were part of a diplomatic convoy. Join the dots and it looks a lot like an assassination.’

His friend exhaled, digesting everything he’d just heard. ‘Talk about stirring up a hornet’s nest. What the hell is she up to?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine right now,’ Drake admitted. ‘Listen, I need you to do me a favour.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The police weren’t the only ones to arrive in a hurry. An ambulance pulled up at the crash site within seconds, then left in a big hurry. I couldn’t see what they were up to, but it didn’t look right to me. Can you check around the local hospitals and see if they brought in any crash victims? The closest one from here is George Washington University.’

‘I’ll see what I can do. What about you?’

‘I’m getting the fuck out of here,’ he replied, fully intending to put as much distance between himself and those two cops as possible.

‘Good. Try to stay out of trouble.’

‘You know me,’ Drake assured him.

‘That’s what I’m talking about.’

There wasn’t much Drake could add to that. Closing down the call, he pocketed the phone and pressed on, keeping his head down to shield himself both from bad weather and from curious onlookers.

His car, a black Audi S5, was still sitting where he’d left it. A quick flash of the key fob disabled the alarm. Drake couldn’t get inside fast enough, eager both to escape the biting wind and to get away from the crime scene.

Within seconds he was off and moving. And once again he fired up his cellphone.

With a strained, breathless cry, Keira Frost closed her eyes, arched her back and dug in her nails, the taut muscles of her body held rigid as the sensations within her built to an unbearable crescendo, and then finally exploded with glorious release.

Breathing hard and still quivering with aftershocks of pleasure, she opened her eyes and collapsed on top of her partner, for the moment absolutely spent.

‘Fuck yeah,’ she said, her voice low and husky. She could feel the fast and powerful beat of his heart as she rested her head on his chest.

Rick Berkeley, a mechanic at her local bike shop. Mid-twenties, tall and well built, with scruffy blond hair and a jawline permanently roughened by several days’ growth, he’d caught her eye the very first time she’d met him. She’d known he felt the same way about her, though it had taken him a couple of months to work up the courage to ask her on a date.

Normally she had no time for men who were indecisive or timid, but in his case she’d sensed another motive for his hesitation. He’d been trying to play the gentleman by not making his interest too obvious. Fortunately for him, Frost wasn’t looking for a gentleman.

She’d told him as much about an hour ago.

‘Worth waiting for,’ he said breathlessly, the words rumbling against her ear.

Grinning, Frost sat up, leaned over him and picked up a half-empty bottle of Corona from the bedside table, downing it in one gulp. Still flushed with the post-orgasmic glow, she was feeling pretty good about herself at that moment.

All things considered, she liked Rick. He was smart without being a smartass, confident without being a domineering jerk, and as she’d just discovered, he wasn’t entirely clueless between the sheets either.

Might be worth keeping around for a while, she mused. And maybe putting his skills to the test again later.

She turned towards him, curious as to whether he was ready for Round Two, only to find him staring at her. But his look wasn’t the glassy-eyed stare of a satisfied partner. Rather, she saw curiosity, surprise and even a hint of suspicion in them. And she knew why.

Sitting upright and naked as she was, it was inevitable that his eyes would stray across her exposed body. The demands of her difficult and dangerous job as a Shepherd specialist had endowed her with the firm musculature and toned physique of a professional athlete, but they had also left another legacy that she was less enthusiastic about.

‘What did you say you did again?’ Rick asked, eyeing the jagged knife scar on the left side of her ribcage; a little memento of an operation in Somalia where she’d discovered that stab vests weren’t all they were cracked up to be.

Frost felt a brief flash of annoyance and, much to her chagrin, self-consciousness. She’d never had any hang-ups about her body, had never fretted and agonised in front of the mirror wishing her breasts were bigger or her ass smaller. But in situations like this the physical toll her work was taking was becoming harder and harder to hide, and it wasn’t something she liked.

In any case, what was she supposed to say? She certainly couldn’t tell him that she was a highly trained CIA operative who took part in clandestine operations in foreign countries. For one thing it would put Rick’s job selling engine parts at the bike shop into serious perspective, and for another she simply wasn’t allowed to talk about it.

‘I didn’t,’ she replied, leaning forward and kissing his neck as she allowed her hand to stray down to his crotch. ‘Isn’t it more interesting that way?’

His mind might still have been filled with questions, but it was obvious enough what his body wanted. And as her movements became more forceful, the body began to gain control over the mind.

She was just beginning to feel her own desire rise when her phone started ringing, abruptly shattering the moment.

‘You’re fucking kidding me,’ she said under her breath.

‘Leave it,’ Rick grunted, kissing the sensitive skin on her neck and working his way down to her breasts.

Frost hesitated, looking over at the phone on her bedside table. There weren’t many people who knew her private cell number, and she had worked hard to keep it that way over the years. She had no time for idle chit-chat, and even less for telemarketers.

If someone was calling, it was likely a family member or …

‘Hold that thought,’ she said, pulling away from him and snatching up the phone.

It was Drake.

‘What is it, Ryan?’ she began, unable to keep from sounding a little flustered. And typical of Drake, he picked up on it right away.

‘Caught you at a bad time?’ She could have sworn the son of a bitch was smirking.

‘I’m allowed a life outside work,’ she pointed out irritably. ‘Even if you’re not.’

‘Fair one.’ He was wise enough not to rise to her rebuke. ‘I need your help.’

She heard movement on the bed behind her and felt Rick’s hands encircle her waist, moving upwards to cup her breasts, gently squeezing and caressing. Normally she wouldn’t object to such a move, but right now she needed to concentrate.

‘With what?’ she asked, trying to shrug out of his embrace.

‘There’s been a sniper attack on a freeway in central DC. Looks like a possible assassination.’

Rick wasn’t getting the message. It was time for a less subtle approach. Reaching behind her, she got a good grip of his genitals and twisted; not quite hard enough to cause damage, but enough to show she could if he didn’t back off. Straight away he let go.