Sacrifice (50 page)

Summoning whatever strength she had left, she drove her right knee up between his legs. She was half blinded by the muddy water but her aim was true, and she felt the satisfying impact as her knee connected with his groin.

Carpenter let out a gasp of pain, and for a brief moment his grip slackened. That was her chance. Throwing another punch that connected flush with his jaw and jarred her arm, she managed to stun him long enough to shove him sideways, using her leg to kick him off her.

She was on top of him in a heartbeat, and almost before she knew what was happening she had unsheathed his knife and
pressed it against his throat. Now she was the one with murder in her eyes.

For a long moment they remained frozen like that, their eyes locked, rain sluicing down on them both. Carpenter was staring at her, but she didn’t see the usual disdain or resentment in him now.

For the first time she saw fear, and some part of her relished it.

Just as Luka had said, Carpenter had been trying to make her snap. Well, today he had finally succeeded and this was the result. It was as if another person had taken over her. She ached to kill him, to revisit on him all the months of torment he had inflicted on her.

‘I will show … no mercy,’ she hissed, raising the knife above her head and plunging it down with all the strength she could summon, driving the blade into the muddy ground only inches from his head.

‘Remember this,’ she said, releasing her grip on him. ‘Remember what I could have done to you.’

‘I did what you asked.’ Carpenter surveyed Anya across his desk. ‘It’s over.’

She remained unmoved by his attempt at supplication. ‘No. It’s not over, Richard. Not yet.’

She looked around, slowly surveying the plush office; the expensive furniture, the books, the computers, the big floor-to-ceiling windows and the expansive view beyond. Spoils of war.

‘I know what you did,’ she said, her voice low and quiet now. ‘Twenty years ago. I know it was you who sold us out.’ Seeing the look in his eyes, she smiled in satisfaction. ‘You thought your dirty little secret would never come out? You ought to choose your business
partners more carefully. My captors at Khatyrgan prison took great pleasure in telling me all about the deal you two struck. They even played me a recording of the conversation.

‘We were loyal to you. We risked our lives for you, and you sold us out for a few extra zeros in your bank account. And when I made it home, like the coward you were, you blamed the whole thing on Luka. He was my brother in arms. He was a friend, a father, and you sent me to kill him.’

She looked at him again, and for a moment the mask slipped aside. He saw the depth of the hurt and betrayal that still lingered in her soul.

‘He took it, Richard. He took the blame, for me. He let me kill him to save my life. He was a better man than you could ever be.’

He took a step towards her, hands raised. ‘Anya, what happened was—’

‘Don’t,’ she warned, raising her weapon. She regarded him with a look of utter contempt. ‘You disgust me, Richard. You’re a coward and a liar. You had no right to ever call yourself a soldier. In fact, the only reason you are still alive is because I want something from you – a name.’

He frowned. ‘Whose name?’

‘The Russian you sold me out to.’

‘Anya, you don’t understand. This … this is bigger than you or me. There was more at stake …’

Jerking the weapon left, she squeezed a single shot that tore into his office chair, blasting away leather padding and fragments of wood. She made a show of training the weapon on him, aiming low, not to kill but to maim. He got the message.

Sighing, he at last gave her the name she wanted.

Straight away the colour drained from her face, and she felt her heart begin to pound. He hadn’t lied when he said this was bigger than both of them. What would a man like that want with her?

‘Whatever they paid you, I hope it was worth it,’ she said at last.

He knew what was coming, knew any attempt to placate her would be futile. Reaching for the glass of whisky on his desk, he took a long slow drink, savouring the taste. He knew it would be his last.

‘You still don’t get it, do you?’ he said, making no effort to conceal his hatred now. ‘You were expendable, Anya. People like you are always expendable.’

Anya realised now that he would never understand the depths of his crimes. He had betrayed people willing to fight and die for him; he had used them up and thrown them away when they had served his purpose. And she had allowed herself to be part of it.

Just for a moment she thought of Luka’s final words to her, right before she took his life.

It’s all right, don’t be afraid. You’re doing what you must, proving your loyalty. You were always the best of us. Remember that.

But he’d been wrong. Luka had been the best of them, not her. He had been willing to sacrifice his life, to destroy the trust and loyalty she had always felt towards him, to see his memory tarnished and his accomplishments forgotten.

And he had done all of it for her. Taking careful aim, she squeezed off another shot. The round struck Carpenter on the right side of the chest with such force that he was knocked backward, collapsing onto the thick carpet with a muted thud. He coughed, trying to draw
breath, but it felt like a lead weight was pressing down on his chest, crushing the life from him. Foamy blood oozed from the hole in his chest.

Anya walked forward to look at him as he tried pathetically to rise. ‘The air from your punctured lung is escaping into your chest cavity. Every breath you take is killing you. But you might survive yet, if someone can get to you and insert a chest drain in time.’

In desperation, he looked up at his desk, at the phone sitting on the polished surface that could summon a dozen of his operatives into the room. Anya followed his line of sight and guessed his thoughts.

She knelt down, eyes still on him as he started to crawl towards his desk. ‘You can make it, but you must hurry. You’re haemorrhaging internally,’ she informed him. ‘Your lungs are collapsing. By my guess, you have about sixty seconds to live.’

Slowly, painfully, inch by inch, he crawled forward. He coughed, blood staining the carpet. His limbs numb as his consciousness started to fail.

‘Come on, you can do better than that,’ she taunted. ‘If you won’t fight for your own pathetic life, how do you expect others to fight for you?’

He reached out for his padded leather chair, hand flailing. He almost managed to pull himself up before his waning strength failed him and he collapsed against it with a ragged, defeated sigh.

‘That’s what I thought,’ Anya concluded.

The old man coughed, spraying frothy blood on the carpet. His vision was growing dim as his body surrendered to the enveloping darkness.

‘That was the one thing you never understood about
our work. Sooner or later, everyone is expendable.’ She rose to her feet and looked down at him with a mixture of pity and contempt. ‘You’ve just pissed yourself, Richard.’

With a final strangled gasp, he convulsed and then lay still.

Her work done, she turned and strode out of the room. She left the briefcase where it was – it was blood money and she had no interest in it.

The chopper was still waiting patiently, engines idling, when Anya pushed open the door and strode out onto the roof, assault rifle in hand.

For a few moments, the pilot merely stared her, perplexed as to what this woman was doing on the roof when he had been ordered only to pick up Carpenter.

Moving with long confident strides, she walked over to the cockpit window as if to have a word with him, then calmly raised her weapon and levelled it at his head. There was little need to explain herself. She preferred to let the gun do the talking.

Thirty seconds later she was strapped into the co-pilot’s chair, keeping her new friend covered while he spun up the engines and quickly ran through his pre-flight checks.

She should have felt elated as they lifted off and the Horizon compound slowly receded beneath them, yet her mind remained troubled. She had won a victory today, but a small one. If Carpenter was right, there remained a far larger war to fight.

But she was a soldier. No matter what else they had tried to make her, she was a soldier. Fighting wars was
the only thing she had ever been good at.

And she would give them a war unlike any they had ever known.

‘A war begun for no wise purpose, carried on with a strange mixture of rashness and timidity, brought to a close after suffering and disaster, without much glory attached either to the government which directed, or the great body of troops which waged it. Not one benefit, political or military, was acquired with this war.’

– Reverend G.R. Gleig, British Army chaplain, speaking of Afghanistan in 1843

CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia, 26 August 2008

‘Well, I think that just about covers it,’ Franklin said, closing the thick file that represented Drake’s final report. The two men had been in a closed meeting in the Special Activities Division leader’s office for the past two hours, during which Drake had done most of the talking.

Laying the folder aside, Franklin surveyed his friend across the desk.

Two weeks of rest and rehabilitation had done much to restore Drake’s health, though it was clear he had taken a great deal of punishment. His ribs were mending well, and his many cuts, bruises and gashes were also much improved, but some wounds went deeper than that.

He had lost something out there; something of great value. Franklin could see it in his eyes.

‘Naturally you’re going to be asked to testify in front of Congress,’ he warned. ‘They’re already kicking up a real shit storm about this.’

Much of Mitchell’s evidence had been destroyed in the desperate battle outside Kabul, but what remained had been more than enough to prompt a full Congressional hearing – behind closed doors, of course. Horizon’s activities worldwide had been suspended pending the results of the investigation.

Carpenter himself, however, was unable to appear before Congress. He had been found dead in his office in Kabul, killed by a single gunshot to the chest.

Frost had also been recovered from the building, remaining holed up in the impregnable security room while she waited for an Agency assault team to retrieve her. The building’s formidable security systems had presented no threat after she disabled them, though she had been unable to explain what had happened to Carpenter. All security camera footage of her escape from the holding cells, as well as his death, had been conveniently lost.

‘Better late than never, eh?’ Drake remarked cynically.

‘That’s the way things work on the Hill. Fix the barn door when there are enough people around to see you do it, and let the horses take care of themselves.’ Franklin sighed and rose up from behind his desk, moving stiffly as his injured back protested. ‘You did a hell of a job out there, Ryan. Nobody could have asked more of you.’

Drake said nothing as he stood up. Perhaps nobody could have asked more of him, but Keegan, Crawford and Mitchell were still dead. They might not have asked for it, but they deserved more from him.

Rounding the desk, Franklin laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about Keegan. He was a good man.’

Drake looked his friend in the eye. Whatever water had passed under the bridge for both of them, he meant what he said.

‘Yeah. He was,’ Drake agreed.

Franklin glanced away for a moment. ‘Listen, if you need time off, take as long as you want. The same goes for Frost. You both earned it.’

Hearing Frost’s name brought a pang of guilt. The young woman had learned of Keegan’s death only after
being retrieved from Horizon’s headquarters building, and he knew it had hit her hard. She had barely spoken to him or anyone else since their return to Washington.

Drake shook his head. ‘Thanks, but I’ve rested enough.’

The prospect of sitting alone in his house with nothing to do but brood on his mistakes didn’t sit well with him. Here at least he could be useful.

Today, however, the paperwork could wait. He had something far more important to attend to.

Keira Frost sighed as she pulled the bike into her driveway and killed the engine. She had been out for most of the day, wandering the streets of DC without really seeing anything, watching the tourists gawking at landmarks, before riding down the I95 to the coast and back.

It was a route she was quite familiar with, and normally enjoyed, but not today. She felt as if all the life and energy had been sucked out of her. Nothing held her interest, nothing gave her enjoyment any longer.

Pulling off her helmet, she frowned, suddenly wary. She could hear the distinctive tap of a hammer against metal. It was coming from her garage.

Opening the storage compartment beneath the seat on her bike, she removed the Smith & Wesson .38 revolver she always kept there. Unlike automatics, revolvers could be kept loaded for long periods without any maintenance, making them ideal as backup weapons.

Checking that all six chambers were loaded, she advanced towards her garage, keeping the weapon low. The banging continued. Someone was definitely in there, and now that she was closer, she could see that the padlock on the door had been unlocked.

If someone was trying to steal her car, they were in for a disappointment. The damn thing hadn’t run since
the day she brought it home and dismantled the engine.

Frost backed up against the wall, taking a couple of deep breaths to get more oxygen in her bloodstream. Then, cocking the revolver, she gripped the edge of the door and hauled it open.

‘What the hell?’ she gasped.

Glancing up from the engine bay of her Ford Mustang, Drake held up his oil-covered hands in mock surrender.

‘I know you weren’t happy with your raise this year, but that’s a bit extreme, don’t you think?’

Frost lowered the gun, feeling faintly ridiculous with it in her bike leathers.