Redemption (44 page)

Drake said nothing.

‘Look, I know those people were your friends.’ She was groping for a way to express herself. ‘You would not want to see them hurt, but—’

‘Spare me the lecture, all right?’ he bit back. ‘I’m not in the mood.’

She fell silent, feeling oddly contrite.

There should have been something she could say, some way to reach out to him and rebuild the trust he had shown in her, but she didn’t know how. She wasn’t used to dealing with people in this way.

So she kept her eyes on the road and drove, watching the miles slowly creep by. Relationship problems would have to wait for now. Survival was their priority.

That at least was something she was good at.

Their first goal was to put as much distance between themselves and Hussam’s house as possible. The assault force would be confused and off balanced by their escape, but that wouldn’t last. Soon they would regroup and resume the hunt.

She hoped the old man was all right. He had put himself in great danger by helping her. The Saudi police didn’t have much of a reputation for respecting human rights.

You can’t think about this now, she scolded herself. You have to concentrate on yourself and your mission. That’s all that matters now.

The silence was broken by the buzz of Drake’s cellphone, though he made no move to answer it.

‘It must be Munro. Aren’t you going to take it?’

He shrugged. ‘Fuck him. Let him wait.’

The seconds passed and the phone kept buzzing. Anya was on the verge of reaching for it herself when Drake at last fished it out of his pocket.

‘What do you want?’

‘So you made it,’ Munro concluded. ‘Well done.’

Drake was in no mood for congratulations. ‘How did you know they were coming for us?’

The older man chuckled. ‘Drake, really. A good spy never reveals his sources. You should know that.’

‘I’m not a spy.’

‘That’s a pity. You play the game pretty well,’ Munro cut in. ‘Speaking of which, is your partner in crime there with you?’

Drake glanced at the older woman. ‘She is.’

‘Put her on speaker.’

‘He wants a word with you,’ Drake said, switching the phone to speaker mode.

‘Hello, Anya. I’d ask how you’ve been, but I have a pretty good idea …’

‘What do you want, Dominic?’

‘Now, is that any way to talk to your old friend?’ Munro chided her.

Her grip on the wheel tightened. ‘We haven’t been friends for a long time. Not since you tried to kill me.’

‘I did what I had to do, Anya. It was never personal.’

‘It was always personal,’ she hit back. ‘You were jealous, Dominic. You wanted what I had, and you didn’t care what you had to do to get it.’

‘Fuck you,’ he snarled. ‘I was trying to save our unit, not destroy it. You were hell bent on fighting the whole fucking Agency yourself … You would have got us all killed. I had to stop you.’

The woman smiled a little, knowing she had found a chink in his armour. ‘But you couldn’t stop me, could you? All your scheming and planning came to nothing. You failed, Dominic. I could have killed you that day. I should have killed you, but I let you live. I took pity on you. That was my mistake.’

Munro was silent for several seconds, though they could both hear his breathing on the line. He was struggling to hold years of rage and anger in check.

‘Well, it seems we’re both in the habit of sparing each other’s lives,’ he remarked at last.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I broke you out of that Russian shithole you were rotting in, Anya. You owe your freedom and your life to me,’ he reminded her. ‘If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be pacing that tiny cell, feeling the walls slowly close in, waiting for the next group of guards to come. Waiting for the next beating, the next interrogation, the next rape.’

Drake watched Anya intently as Munro’s words sank in, watched the tiny changes in her facial muscles, the clenched jaw, the gritted teeth, the tightening in her arms and shoulders.

‘Or was it really rape?’ he taunted. ‘Didn’t you tell me once that you can learn to accept anything in time? Was that just another thing you learned to accept? Or did you learn to enjoy it?’

‘Go fuck yourself,’ Drake snapped.

‘Stay out of this, Drake. This is none of your fucking business.’

Anya’s voice was icy cold, devoid of emotion when she spoke again. ‘I did not enjoy it, Dominic. I was wrong. There are some things you can never learn to accept.’

‘Then we agree on something at last,’ he remarked with grim amusement. ‘You have until tomorrow to deliver your source. Don’t disappoint me.’

The line went dead.

Anya said nothing, though her eyes burned with cold fire as she stared off into the night.

Hussam sat with his eyes closed, breathing slow and heavy as he waited for what was coming. His hands were bound behind him, the ropes cutting into his flesh. He paid it no heed. He was no stranger to pain.

Blood flowed from his cut lip, and his left eye had swollen almost shut. He’d been roughed up by the Saudi interrogator already, but had said nothing. Beatings he
could
endure. The more serious stuff would come sooner or later.

Anya must have escaped, otherwise they wouldn’t be working on him like this. He smiled a little. They would never catch her. She was too good.

His smile faded as the door swung open and a man walked into the room. He was no Saudi police interrogator. This was a white man, tall and lean, with dark hair and a stern face. Remorseless grey eyes looked him up and down.

Behind him, another man was busy setting up a laptop computer on the metal table opposite. Hussam frowned, wondering what they were planning.

‘Mr Khariri, I know you can speak English, so don’t insult me by pleading ignorance,’ the white man said. ‘I want to know where the two fugitives you were harbouring tonight were planning to go. If you give me the information I want, I’ll make sure you’re treated fairly.’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ Hussam replied.

The man looked unperturbed. ‘I had a feeling you’d say that.’

Moving aside, he allowed Hussam to see the laptop that was now up and running. It was displaying a video feed.

His eyes opened wide in shock and horror at what he saw. ‘No!’ he screamed, straining and twisting against his bonds.

His wife, his daughter and his son were lined up on chairs one after the other, gagged and bound. They were surrounded by several armed men in black masks. He could see abject terror in their eyes.

‘You get the picture,’ the white man said. ‘Tell me what
I
want to know or watch them die one after the other. Your son will be first.’

‘I … I don’t know anything!’

‘Bullshit!’ he snarled. ‘Tell me what I want to know or your son dies!’

In the observation room opposite, Frost was watching the scene unfold with growing dread. Dietrich was threatening to execute innocent civilians.

He hadn’t briefed her on what he was planning, saying only that he was going to play hardball with Khariri, and that they weren’t to interfere under any circumstances. Now she knew why.

They had their own laptop, allowing them to see the same video as the one in the interrogation room. She could barely bring herself to look at it.

‘Jesus Christ, this is going too far.’

‘He knows what he is doing,’ Rahul assured her.

That was what she was afraid of. ‘Fuck you! I didn’t sign up to watch women and children get executed!’

‘Are you seriously gonna let this happen, man?’ Keegan demanded.

‘Be patient,’ the Saudi officer urged. ‘He will break.’

‘Yeah? What if he doesn’t?’

He said nothing, just stared at the screen.

‘This is your last chance!’ Dietrich yelled right in Hussam’s face. ‘Tell me now. Don’t make me do this.’

The old man had tears in his eyes. ‘I told you, I know nothing!’

‘Fine.’ He’d had his chance. Dietrich reached for his radio and without hesitation, barked a single order. ‘Kill the boy.’

‘No!’ Hussam screamed, staring in horror at the screen. The camera was now focused in on his son Amir, his
eyes
wide with terror as one of the armed men kicked his chair over, drew a pistol with casual ease and fired three rounds into him.

In the observation room, all conversation abruptly stopped. Frost was staring at the image on the laptop, of the small form lying limp and unmoving on the ground. There were tears in her eyes.

‘Oh, Christ …’

She wanted to throw up.

He had done it. He had really done it.

And she had allowed it to happen.

Hussam’s head was down, tears rolling down his cheeks.

Dietrich leaned in close. ‘Your son is dead, Mr Khariri,’ he said quietly. ‘You can’t do anything about that now, but you can still save your wife and daughter. I
will
make you watch them both die. Believe that.’

The old man raised his head, eyes blazing with absolute hatred. ‘You killed my boy! You will die for this!’

Dietrich’s expression didn’t change. ‘But your wife and daughter will die first. Tell me where they went. Tell me now and put an end to this.’

Hussam said nothing.

‘You could save them, but you choose to let them die,’ Dietrich said, reaching for his radio again. ‘The girl next.’

‘All right!’ the old man cried. ‘All right! Make them stop!’

He lowered the radio, but kept it to hand. ‘Talk to me.’

Hussam was broken, defeated when he spoke again. ‘I don’t know their destination. That is the truth – I swear it! They told me only that they intended to cross the border into Iraq.’

‘Give me something useful,’ Dietrich implored him.

The old man looked down, tears still in his eyes. ‘They had a … satellite navigation unit with them. They must be using it to find their destination.’

Dietrich’s eyes lit up. ‘What kind was it?’

‘A Magellan.’

Wasting no time, he turned and strode away, hammering on the door to be let out of the room.

He was back in the observation room alongside Frost, Keegan and Rahul within moments.

‘They’re using a GPS to navigate,’ he said, reaching into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. His hand was trembling. ‘Chances are they bought it after they arrived here. Frost, go back over that security camera footage and find out if they went into any electrical stores.’

‘Fuck you,’ she replied. ‘You murdered an innocent kid, you fucking bastard. You really think I’m going to help you now? I’m done with this shit.’

Saying nothing in reply, Dietrich turned to Rahul. ‘Bring up the feeds from the holding area. The real ones this time.’

A few mouse clicks later, and the image on the screen changed to show all three members of Hussam’s family being untied from their chairs. They looked pale and shaken, and the daughter was sobbing uncontrollably, but they were alive.

Frost stared at Dietrich in disbelief, the realisation dawning on her at last. ‘You faked it.’

All it took was a gun loaded with blanks, and a freeze-frame shot of the boy after his chair had been tipped over, creating the impression that he was lying dead and unmoving. The rest had been accomplished through intimidation and fear.

‘I wasn’t sure if he’d go for it,’ Dietrich admitted. ‘It was lucky he didn’t look too close.’ Lighting up, he
took
a long draw on the cigarette. ‘Now, I need that footage.’

The young woman stared back at him for several seconds, then turned and left the room, saying nothing.

‘Gutsy move, man,’ Keegan remarked, still shaken by what he’d seen.

‘A gamble,’ he said simply. ‘It paid off.’

Turning away, he closed his eyes and let out a ragged, shuddering breath. He wanted to be sick, but he couldn’t stand to see his reflection.

Hate yourself later. Just do your job.

Chapter 61

TURNING OFF THE
main highway about 50 miles short of Hafar Al Batin, they took a smaller single-track road heading west across the desert, making for a town called Al Jumaymah just short of the border. The Hilux was more than capable of driving off-road, but negotiating a desert at night was a slow and wearying process.

Stopping to switch places, they carried on with Drake at the wheel. Their route took them through a procession of small towns and villages, some developed enough to have shops and basic infrastructure, but most little more than clusters of sandstone buildings surrounded by mud walls, all huddled together like life rafts in an endless sea of sand.

Chancing their luck, they stopped at an isolated gas station just outside a town called Limah. The Hilux had been full when they departed, but its 2-litre engine was thirsty on fuel, and they had covered a lot of miles.

However, by 3.00 in the morning, they were both exhausted and could go no further. The adrenalin rush of their earlier escape had long since faded, leaving them drained and weary.

They would attempt the border crossing just before dawn, giving them a few precious hours to rest up.

Pulling off the road about 20 miles south of Al Jumaymah, Drake drove several hundred yards across
rough
ground, manoeuvred the jeep down a rocky slope into a wadi and killed the engine.

It was an ideal hiding place. The wadi was deep enough to obscure them from passing vehicles, as well as shield them from the prevailing winds.

Snatching up his AK from the footwell and checking that a round was chambered, Drake pushed open his door and stepped out into the night. It was cool and crisp, the stars glimmering in an almost cloudless sky with only the barest sliver of moon visible in the east. A light breeze stirred up little wisps of sand around them.

The temperature had dropped to about 10 degrees above freezing, which was fine as far as he was concerned. He’d only been in the country for a day and was sick of the burning heat already.

The river that had carved this channel across the landscape had run dry long ago, but withered scrub and straggling bushes still eked out an existence in the old river bed. Gathering up this kindling, they soon had a small fire going.

Exhausted they might have been, but neither was ready to fall asleep.