Deadly States (Seaforth Files by Nicholas P Clark Book 2) (28 page)

observing. His mind was like a programmable machine but the raw
data that was being fed into it was corruptedand impossible to process
with any degree of accuracy.
Water was dripping from fractured pipes in the ceiling and loose
masonry
periodically
broke free from where it had been holding
on
for dear life. The once sterile, but functional grey walls and white ceiling
had
been
pocked and
pounded—a
millennium’s worth
of
decay
inflicted in a fraction of a violent second. Each piece of plaster that hit
the ground induced a nervous reaction in Jack. Each sound could be
the last sound that he heard before a bullet tore through his brain.
At
one side of the lot two exposed electrical wires were arcing. They generated an increasing hum before discharging in a brilliant flash of blue
and white light. It astounded Jack that the power to the building had
not
been
cut
off
by
this stage. Jack
had
had a healthy
respect for
electricity
ever since he was a young child and he had watched a
public information film in school about the dangers of playing close to
power supplies, or electrical sub-stations. In one part of the film a boy
was flying
a kite too close to power lines, with disastrous results. In
another scene a Frisbee got stuck in a sub-station and a child went in to
fetch it. The film didn’t show the child dying but the sound effects left
them with no
doubt as to his fate.
Jack slowly ushered Robert over towards his car. Damn, he thought,
as he looked into the vehicle. Barry
had gone. Somehow he had been
expecting as much. Yet for some odd reason he wasn’t
entirely angry
about Barry’s escape. Perhaps this was because if Barry was taken into
custody and then released by Jack’s own government, then what Barry
had told him earlier would be true;
or it would certainly have greater
legitimacy.
At that
moment Jack simply
couldn’t take that chance. If
what Barry
had told him was true then where would he turn next?
If the very people who he had trusted with his life for all those years
turned out to be his worst enemy then his life as a spy, and possibly his
life full stop, would be at an end. Even Jack with all of his skills would
find it almost impossible to completely
disappear, and he had tracked
down many
enemies
of the UK to remote places where they thought
they would be safe. A determined, well-funded
organisation such as
theirs would always get their man.
With Barry out of sight and out of mind Jack could content him

self with the thought that Barry was, as usual, full of shit. That Barry
was now somewhere else meant that he was, for the time being at least,
no longer Jack’s concern. He had enough on his plate at that moment
dealing with Robert and his men. During his career he had observed
that nothing was ever quite as it seemed, and that when things started
to go wrong
during a
mission they rarely went wrong in isolation.
Someone,
or something would surely
move in
quickly to fill the hole
left by Barry. At least he wasn’t being betrayed by his own side.

As jack was easing himself into that warm delusion the real world
suddenly came back into focus with alarming speed and violence. The
back window
of the car exploded as a shot rang out. The sharp sound
from the weapon as it discharged echoed around the walls of the parking lot,
masking where it
had
originated. Jack pulled Robert to
the
ground as both men took shelter at the side of the car. Jack sighed.
He
had had
enough
of guns for
one day. If he kept his head down help
would soon arrive and then this whole mess would be someone else’s
problem. However, waiting was not his style and whoever was firing at
him probably knew, or at least suspected, that help, if only in the form
of the South
African police service, would soon arrive.
An expression
of worry spread across Robert’s face as he witnessed manic rage take
control
of Jack—first his eyes, then his entire face, then his
body.
As
Jack got to his feet he struck Robert
on the side of the head with his
gun. Robert fell limply to the ground. Jack pointed the gun straight in
front
of him and he began to walk forwards, in a slow and deliberate
fashion. The shooter would be expecting Jack to duck and dive. That’s
what his training would have taught him—that very act
of anticipation would be Jack’s advantage as there was nothing to anticipate—
though it would be a very short lived advantage as the shooter quickly
adapted. More glass exploded from Jack’s car and it showered his body
as he walked past. With each shot taken by his attacker Jack got a better sense of where the uninvited guest was shooting from. With greater
focus and clarity Jack was able to tune out the distracting echoes from
the walls
of the
parking lot. Both
men were
only
one unlucky
shot
away from death. Jack prepared to fire one last time as his finger began
to squeeze the trigger of his weapon. A lump gathered in his throat—if
the target found by his bullet was Barry, then Jack would feel a little
let down. Barry was an emotionless murderer but the events
of the

day had shown some signs of humanity in him. If he was now trying
to kill Jack then those signs of humanity were nothing more than another diversion, another lie. Jack often wondered what men like Barry
would do if they did get
everything their
own way—if there were no
more battles to fight,
or wars to win? Would they
be happy to settle
back into life as a normal member of society
or would they always be
on the lookout for new enemies to fight and new lies to tell?

If he had been lying then that lie, as strange as it appeared, would
have felt like a
personal betrayal to Jack. The gun kicked back hard
in Jack’s hand as the bullet
exited the chamber with deadly velocity
and accuracy. A lifetime of silence followed with the peace eventually
being shattered as a
man’s lifeless body spilled out from where he had
been taking cover behind a car to fire at Jack and Robert. Jack waited
for almost a minute before continuing towards the dead man.

Jack circled the
man with his gun solidly aimed at
his
bleeding
head lest his dying act be nothing more than that. The man had come
to rest on his side. Jack kicked him onto his back before quickly taking a
step back.
One precisely aimed shot
entered the
man’s chest and tore
through the
man’s heart. If he was feigning death then he could now
relax—the act had just been made a lot easier. Jack tucked his weapon
into the
back
of
his trousers and he knelt
down
beside the
man. A
quick search of the
man’s pockets turned up a hotel swipe card and a
wallet. The wallet contained a SA driver’s licence and more money in
notes than was sensible in such a crime-ridden city. The man’s brown
eyes, black hair and pale skin gave him away. With those eyes and that
hair colour in a sun-kissed country like SA, he should have been sporting a heavy tan. The pale colour
of his flesh told Jack that this man
spent most
of his time in a much colder climate. Northern Europe,
or
Russia. With the sudden strategic importance of the country in the last
few years, there were many countries in Europe who wanted in on the
South
African action, and Robert and men like him were standing
in
the way
of that plan. Robert had no sense of business honour and he
would happily go back on a deal once struck if a better deal walked in
through his door a few
minutes later. This was not how countries in
the West were used to doing business and many
of them wanted to
send a very clear message to the new regime that it would not be wise
to cross them with such shoddy business tactics. It wasn’t beyond the
realms of possibility that a country in Europe would send a hit man
to take Robert out.

And then there were the Russians. It always came back to the
damn Russians. The Irish may have occupied a significant chunk of his
working life, but at least he knew where he stood with them. The Irish
terrorists had a very
clear
mission and for the most
part there were
some
ethical lines that they would not
cross—at least
not without
alienating a significant proportion of their support base. The Russians
were still a complete mystery to him, and they had no problem crossing ethical lines if and when needed. Blowing up a car full of children
on their way to school just to get at the driver
of the car was not unheard of. There was even one report that came back to London which
told
of how they rounded up twenty anti-communist journalists and
crucified them outside Moscow as a lesson to the rest
of their profession. How
much
of such stories was true and how
much was
meant
as a scary bedtime tale would never be known, but Jack had witnessed
enough Russian led horror with his own eyes to believe that anything
was possible. Three Russian soldiers fighting in the Afgan war wanted
to defect. Two were captured while the other soldier made it into the
mountains. He watched as the KGB ordered the men stripped and tied
to the tracks of a tank. The tank then slowly rolled over the men while
their
ordeal was filmed. That film was sold to the Russian people as
evidence of what the
Afghan fighters did to captured Russian troops.
The escaped solider was captured by the
Afghans but before they
executed him he was spotted by a CIA agent. He was allowed to escape
to the US and he shared what he had witnessed with the Americans.
It
didn’t do any good as the Russian government was never going to
admit
to
such
an
horrific
crime.
executed as
deserters
anyway,
so
resources to use their deaths in such a gruesome fashion. When Jack
had read the report from the Americans he completely re-evaluated all
of the dealings that he had had with the Russians over the decades. He
wondered just how
many times he had come close to being used by
them in some deadly
publicity stunt.

To even try to divine why they should want to kill Robert
or himself, Jack knew would be a
pointless
exercise—not least
because one
part of the Russian systemwas completely at odds with the other main
The
soldiers
would
have
been
it
seemed
like a
logical
use
of
part. One part
of that system may have wanted to kill him for one
reason, and the other part would want him dead for an entirely different reason. That they both wanted the same thing was neither here
nor there—a state within a state, and each of those states was divided

into all manner of groups all working to their own agenda. The end
of the communist system transformed one enemy into hundreds of
enemies and the headaches this caused for Jack and his fellow spies
were too large to contemplate fully; certainly not without inducing a
mind-bending headache. What was very clear and very surprising was
just how
quickly and skilfully all sides and Russia had taken to the
capitalist way
of life. Russia became the fastest growing economy in
the world and it wasn’t just because they were excellent businessmen.
The Russians loved to play their games. It was like human chess
with real human lives falling when the pieces were lost. That was why
the Americans had such a hard time trying to fight them during the
Cold War.
Americans liked to kick down doors and spray all around
them with bullets, whereas the Russians preferred a poisoned dart to
the neck, or an apparent suicide in a seedy hotel room. Even after a
lifetime playing both sides at their
own game, Jack still wasn’t certain which style of gamesmanship he preferred. As for the Irish... The
Irish liked to watch. They liked to follow their targets for months, or
years. They liked to be close-by whenever a bomb went off, or to get
involved in the fallout from an atrocity. Whenever there was Irish
violence there was always a violent Irishman close-by, watching his
handiwork or waiting for another opportunity to strike again. British
intelligence said it was opportunistic and depraved behaviour but Jack
viewed it a little differently. With the exception of a very few hardliners Jack did not meet a single IRA volunteer for whom killing came
easy. Standing in the blood and guts and gore of their own explosion
was in some ways courageous. In a strange kind of way it was almost
as if they were taking responsibility for their actions, even if they then
went on to carry out another atrocity a short time later. America liked
to drop bombs and watch from a distance as entire city blocks were
levelled. The power of anautomatic weapon threw their victims to one
side before they moved on to the next room to repeat their actions. It
was impersonal and cowardly.

The meticulously crafted engine of the Range Rover purred into
life as Jack was still deep in thought. It was such a
quiet and pleasing sound that at first Jack
didn’t
even notice it. Nor did Jack notice
when the back door to the vehicle closed with a gentle click after Barry
pulled Robert’s limp body
onto the back seat.
As the engine powered
up Jack
quickly got to his feet. He raised his gun and he took aim in
time to see Barry
driving past with a wide grin
on his face. The vehicle weaved through the concrete pillars as Barry took the most direct
route out of the parking lot. Barry was not making any effort to avoid
being shot at by Jack.
As Jack took aim he wondered why Barry was
so confident. The very
question was enough to make Jack change his
mind. Jack slid the gun into the waistband of his trousers and then he
followed the Range Rover out of the parking lot on foot.
As he made it
out onto the street in front of the building the car was pulling off into a
side street a few hundred yards along the main street.

Frustration and anger pulsed through his body. Once again he had
put his life on the line only to have his efforts count for nothing. Once
again his
own government had let him
down
badly. The team from
the Embassy should have been at his side a long time ago. There was
still no sign of them. Jack went back into the building, with anger and
retribution
playing
on his
mind. He knew that there were protocols
to follow and he knew that the South
African government would not
take too kindly to British agents using their country as a
battlefield,
but he also knew there were always ways around such problems and
that he was left alone was a
decision made by someone very senior.
At the very least they should have sent a small team, lightly armed, to
provide him with an escort back to the safety of the embassy.

He took the elevator back up to his
office. The building was completely deserted. The street
outside was completely
deserted. The city
was accustomed to gunfire in the
middle
of the night
but the fierce
battle that
had just taken
place in the
office
building
should have
alerted someone to the fact that this was something a little out
of the
ordinary. It was a city
of gangsters and drug lords who played their
power games
out in the
mean that the everyday
whenever something
out
went off earlier that day it was only a matter of minutes before the police were on the scene—even if they kept strictly to office hours when
open with guns and bombs,
but that
didn’t
decent folk were too afraid to call the police
of the
ordinary took place. When the bomb
they did arrive. They may have made a dog’s dinner of securing the
crime scene but at least they showed up. Where were they now? Who
was ordering them to stay away? Who would have that kind of power?
None of these questions could be answered in a way that would provide Jack with any
comfort, and so he tried to concentrate
on what
his next move should be—a task made more difficult given the death
and destruction which surrounded him. The uneasy feeling that this
was the final act in some deadly game was something that he could not
shake. There was a lot more going on here than he could comprehend
and if he didn’t get his head around it soon then he would be lying on
the ground with blood streaming out of a hole in his skull.

As Jack looked
out
of the window
of
his
office
onto the
empty
street a chill ran along his spine. He felt extremely lonely and vulnerable. The latter
of those two feelings was something that he was not
used to. It was as if the city was holding its breath in expectation of
something even more terrifying than the gunfights that Jack had just
endured.
As the minutes ticked by and his thoughts turned to the fate
of
his PA, he wondered where it would all
end. He sat in the chair
behind his desk and he waited. He waited, and waited and waited. No
one came. This was more than a simple red tape issue. Not
only had
someone ordered the team from the embassy to wait for clearance, but
they had ordered the team to stand down altogether. Jack banged his
fists on the desks. The Irish, the South Africans, the Russians and now
the British—was the whole world turning on him?

As he left the office and headed towards the stairwell
one thought
was racing through his
mind with brutal clarity. He had been hung
out to dry
by someone on his own side. Until he knew who that someone was and what they wanted then he had little or no hope of moving
against his foreign enemies. To take out the bad guys and save the girl
he
first
needed
to return
to
his
own
side
to
carry
out
a
bit
of
housework.
better at
a

Ammunition from the dead Russian was used to reload Jack’s gun
and a silver BMW from the eighties graciously allowed him to start it
without a key—like everything else from that decade it was all flash
and no substance—it looked the part but it lacked even the most basic