Deception Game (55 page)

It didn’t.

Laila’s expression was cold and hard, her posture tense as she stood over the mortally injured man, a pistol clutched in her left hand. Only her eyes betrayed the depth of her emotions, streaming with tears and burning with hatred and vengeance that knew no bounds.

Gasping to draw a breath that wouldn’t come, Faulkner stared up at her, his face betraying his utter shock at what had just happened. Even now, with the woman standing over him, with his life ebbing away, he couldn’t comprehend the events that were playing out.

‘Tarek Sowan was my husband,’ she whispered, her voice strained to breaking point as she struggled to maintain her composure. She raised the weapon once more, aiming for his head. ‘I give you the death that you gave him.’

‘Stop!’ Drake called out, training his weapon on her.

Her head snapped around, dark smouldering eyes taking in the weapon now pointed her way. ‘This man deserves to die for what he did.’

‘I know,’ Drake promised. ‘Believe me, I know. But you can’t kill him. I need him.’

‘He sacrificed innocent lives, killed my husband, tried to kill you and your friends. He will do it again if we let him live.’ She shook her head. ‘No. It has to end here.’

Lowering his aim, Drake squeezed the trigger, sending a round into the ground at her feet. The report of the weapon made her flinch, and she looked at him not with anger, not with accusation, but with sadness. She was disappointed in him. He’d had a chance to prove himself a better man, and he’d failed.

‘Would you kill me to save this man’s life?’ she challenged him.

‘Don’t force me to make that choice.’

That was when he saw it. A faint, bittersweet smile. The smile of someone watching a long-anticipated moment come to pass. Drake could sense what she was about to do, even as he prayed she wouldn’t.

‘Then I will make it for you,’ she said, raising her weapon.

One shot was all it took. One shot to the head, and he put a stop to her.

Drake didn’t watch her body crumple and fall to the ground. He couldn’t bring himself to look. He could hate himself later for what he’d done – and he certainly would – but for now he could only afford to think of the matter at hand.

He rushed over to Faulkner and dropped to his knees beside the injured man, yanking apart his shirt to expose a gory exit wound from which blood was leaking steadily. He was conscious, barely, but how long he would remain that way was questionable. Every breath seemed to be growing shallower and weaker.

‘Shit,’ Drake said under his breath, trying to apply pressure to the wound. ‘Stay with me, Faulkner. Look at me. Fucking keep your eyes open, you bastard!’

He was trying to speak. Drake could see his mouth moving, though his voice was too weak to project the words.

Leaning in close, Drake strained to listen, to discern the barely audible whisper.

What he heard sent a shiver through him, a chill of shock and disbelief as the man’s final words hit home. ‘I didn’t kill Freya.’

‘What? Then who did?’ he demanded. ‘Faulkner. Faulkner, listen to me!’

But there was no response. When he looked into the man’s eyes, they were glassy and lifeless, his breathing grown still, his fight for life over at last.

Letting out a gasp of pain and grief and devastation at what he’d just heard, and what he’d sacrificed to get it, Drake sat back, staring off into the distance without seeing a thing.

‘Ryan!’ a voice called out.

Turning his head slowly, Drake watched as Samantha sprinted over, falling to her knees beside him. Straightaway she took in the scene, both Faulkner and Laila lying dead, and an injured and bleeding Drake apparently in shock.

‘Jesus Christ,’ she whispered, her expression betraying her sadness at the woman’s death. Then, realizing the urgency of their situation, she turned her attention to Drake. ‘Ryan, we have to get out of here.’

She tried to drag him to his feet, but she lacked the strength to lift him.

‘The police are on their way. We have to go.’ Moving around in front of him, she took his head in her hands and stared right at him. ‘Ryan, we can’t stay here. I need you to come with me. Please.’

At last her words seemed to reach him. She was right, of course. He wasn’t sure he deserved to get away after what he’d done, but the rest of his team certainly did. He couldn’t abandon them now.

Wearily he dragged himself to his feet and followed her, pausing only for a moment to look back at the two bodies he was leaving behind. Another two casualties in a war that was growing increasingly bitter and desperate.

It was almost a relief to turn and flee the scene, though he knew that he could never escape what had happened here today.

By sunset that evening, the small group once again found themselves out in the desert, this time gathered around a small funeral cairn in solemn silence. They had retrieved Iskaw’s body from the scene of the battle at Frost’s insistence, refusing to leave behind the young man who had given his life to help a group of strangers.

After tending their own injuries, they had dug a shallow pit in the desert sand and lowered him in, placing him on his right side so that his body was facing towards Mecca as was the custom of his people. With this solemn task accomplished, they had piled sand and then stones on top to mark the grave site.

Leaning heavily on a stick for support, Cunningham stepped forward and laid the final rock atop the cairn, quietly reciting the
j
anazah
funeral prayer as he did so. Though not a Muslim himself, he understood the culture and its rituals enough to honour it as a mark of respect for his fallen comrade.

Amaha, his brother, watched on in silence, his head bound with a bloodstained bandage. He said nothing, but tears were glistening in his eyes.

The words seemed to catch in Cunningham’s throat as he spoke, though with some effort he was able to regain his composure enough to carry on. Only when he’d finished the prayer did he step back and wipe his eyes.

‘I’m sorry, mate,’ Drake said, laying a hand on his shoulder. Whatever his own history with Cunningham, he recognized a man in mourning. ‘He was a brave kid.’

‘Aye,’ the man agreed, his voice ragged with grief. ‘But stupid. Always starting fights he couldnae finish.’ His voice wavered and he looked away for a moment. ‘I’m sure he’s up there right now stirring up shit.’

Drake smiled, though the look in his eyes was serious as surveyed his former friend. Stricken with grief, injured and in pain, he was a far cry from the powerful, intimidating figure he remembered from his days in the Regiment. Then again, a great many things had changed since then, for both of them.

‘You’ve given more than you had to,’ he said quietly. ‘Why?’

‘Because you needed the help.’ The older man sighed and looked at him. ‘And because I owed you. Maybe I still do. I dinnae expect you to forgive me for everything that’s happened, and I know you’ll never call me a friend again, but...I’m trying, mate.’

Drake didn’t know what to say to this. In truth, he couldn’t make sense of his own feelings towards this man. This man who had once been a father figure to him, who he would have trusted with his life, and whose betrayal had cost the life of one of Drake’s closest comrades. This man who had twice saved his life, and lost someone he cared deeply about for his efforts.

‘Tell me something,’ Cunningham went on. ‘Now that it’s over, are you still going to come after me?’

Drake shook his head. What was the point? He already had enough deaths on his conscience without adding another to the list. ‘I can’t say for sure about the rest, but you were wrong about one thing. You don’t owe me anything now.’

Cunningham swallowed and glanced away, saying nothing.

‘What are you going to do now?’ Drake asked. ‘Where will you go?’

At this, Cunningham managed a thin smile. ‘You know me – I’ll find somewhere. I’ll make sure Amaha gets back to his people. He deserves that much, to tell them how brave his brother was.’

Of that, Drake had no doubt.

‘What about you?’ Cunningham asked.

Drake looked over at his three companions. All were hurt and tired after the ordeal of the past few days; their torn clothes, battered bodies and weary faces all showing the marks of what they’d been through. All had been tested, pushed to breaking-point, but all had come through it. His friends...his family.

They were almost the only family he had left now. He would die to protect them.

‘We’ll survive,’ he said at length. ‘It’s what we do.’

His former friend nodded in understanding. ‘Then I wish you luck, mate.’ He reached out and clasped Drake’s hand. ‘If we somehow run into each other again, I hope it’s under better circumstances, aye?’

Drake gripped his hand tight, meeting his gaze not as a friend or an enemy, but simply as an equal. They were both survivors, each owing his life to the other. No matter what else had happened between them, they were bound together by that at least.

Releasing his grip, Cunningham turned, mounted the SUV they had stolen from Faulkner’s group, and fired up the engine. Amaha climbed into the passenger’s seat.

Nearby, Frost was also watching the vehicle and its two passengers depart, though unlike Drake she made no effort to bid Cunningham farewell. Still, her gaze held none of the anger or animosity that it once had, and she made no attempt to stop him. She was unsure what to make of him, whether he was a good man or bad, whether he’d found some measure of the redemption he’d been looking for. For now, at least, she was content simply to let him leave.

When at last they had disappeared from sight into a shallow valley, the young woman turned her attention to matters closer at hand. With her head bowed, she approached the cairn and knelt down before it, staring at the low pile of stones for a long moment in a solemn, uncharacteristic show of respect.

‘Here,’ she said, laying her knife down beside the grave. The knife that had once belonged to her, and which he’d playfully claimed for his own. ‘You earned it.’

Her expression was calm and composed when she rose to her feet and walked away from the cairn, though Drake couldn’t help noticing that her eyes were red and glistening in the evening sunlight. He also noticed the
tellak
, the traditional Tuareg weapon that Iskaw had given her in return, was sheathed at her forearm as it was intended to be worn.

‘You okay?’ Drake asked as she passed him.

‘Fine,’ she replied, though she was careful not to make eye contact. ‘But I’m ready to put this place behind me.’

He wasn’t about to argue, but first he had another matter to attend to.

McKnight was sitting a short distance from the others, staring out across the desert at the setting sun. Only when Drake eased himself down beside her did she glance around, woken from her reverie.

‘How are you holding up?’ he asked.

She sniffed, reaching up to move aside a lock of hair that had blown into her face. ‘I keep thinking back on everything that’s happened. Everything we’ve been through.’ She glanced at the funeral cairn. ‘I keep asking if it was worth it.’

Drake wished he had an answer for her.

‘Mind if I ask you something?’ she asked instead, looking at him once again. ‘Why didn’t you do it?’

‘Do what?’

‘Pull the trigger,’ she said simply. ‘When we were out there in the desert, when there was no chance for us. Why didn’t you end it?’

He looked surprised. Surprised, and perhaps a little ashamed. ‘I didn’t think you’d remember that.’

‘I do.’ Her memory of those final few minutes, as her conscious mind had faded out, was hazy and fragmented, but she did recall Drake reaching for the weapon and pressing the barrel against her. She’d welcomed it at the time; an easy way out for both of them.

Yet somehow life followed her around.

Drake swallowed and looked away. ‘There was always a chance. I wasn’t ready to give up.’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No, it’s more than that. What really stopped you, Ryan?’

It was some time before he answered. Perhaps he didn’t know how to put it into words, or perhaps it was hard for him to relive that desperate decision. Either way, his voice was tense and strained when he finally spoke.

‘I couldn’t do it,’ he admitted. ‘I knew it was necessary, maybe even the right thing, in some ways, but...I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take your life, even if I’d wanted to. You’re pretty much the only thing I’ve got left in the world, Sam. If I lost you, it would...’ He shook his head, as if unwilling to contemplate it. ‘I’d rather have died myself.’

She let out a ragged breath, his words cutting deep as she realized at last the depth of his feelings for her. She had done exactly what she’d been sent to do, and she hated herself for it.

Unable to look him in the eye, she did the only thing she could think of: she pulled him close and pressed her lips against his, her kiss hard and urgent as the conflicting emotions rose to an unbearable peak within her. Taken aback for a moment, he soon responded in kind, his strong arms encircling her and his hands travelling down her body.

Out here, under the stark beauty of the evening sky, it was almost possible to forget everything else.

Almost.

When Drake and McKnight returned to the others a short while later, it was with a renewed sense of purpose. There was something he had to bring before the others.

‘I need to speak with you all for a minute,’ he said, raising his voice.

He waited until Frost and Mason had gathered around, surveying each of his companions in turn. He was oddly reminded of their meeting in a pub in London that had kicked off this entire operation. It was hard to believe it had all happened less than a week ago.

‘You all know why we’re here,’ Drake began. ‘You all know what it took to get us here. We’ve got a choice to make now; all of us. And I do mean
all
of us. This can’t be a majority decision, not for something like this. We all have to be behind it, one way or the other.’

He sighed, reached into a simple canvas pack and carefully lifted out the laptop they’d stolen from Faulkner and his men. The hard drive was still attached, decrypted, its secrets laid bare.

‘So, the first choice is that we fold. We destroy this drive, go home, pretend the last few days never happened, and hope that somehow we can go back to the way things were. We’ll be no closer to stopping Cain, we’ll have gone through all this for nothing, and we’ll probably have a lot of questions to answer back at Langley. And while we’re busy forgetting it all, thousands of people will be dying here in a civil war we could have prevented.’

He paused, giving them a chance to take it in, to think it over. This was no time for making decisions based on a rush of emotion. It had to be done in the full knowledge of what their choice might mean.

‘The other option is that we go all in. We give out all the information on this thing, we take down their entire operation. Destroy it from the inside.’

CIA headquarters – Langley, Virginia

Charles Hunt leaned forward in his chair, eyes glued to the pictures being transmitted via secure satellite link from the strike team’s helmet-mounted cameras to his laptop. The effect was to make him feel as if he was almost there with them, getting ready for the assault.

But he wasn’t. He was half a world away in a comfortable air-conditioned office, while they were skimming along at 150 knots, barely fifty feet above the surface of the Libyan desert.

The interior of the Black Hawk chopper was bathed in red light for night flying, making the heavily armoured soldiers look even more intimidating as they performed their final weapons and equipment checks.

‘We’re almost on station. ETA, sixty seconds,’ Joel Paxton, the strike-team leader reported over the satellite link. ‘Are we still cleared to move in?’

Another window on Hunt’s computer showed him real-time satellite coverage of the target area, which he’d had specially retasked for this mission – no mean feat without drawing Cain’s attention. But Hunt was a man with a long history in the Agency, who could still call in a few favours and draw on formidable resources when the need arose.

The strike team’s target was a small, isolated compound located near the village of Eferi in south-west Algeria. Far from anything approaching civilization, and virtually unnoticeable unless one knew exactly where to look for it. Well, thanks to the information provided by Drake, plenty of people were now looking at it.

Not to mention a dozen other places just like it.

‘That’s affirmative,’ Hunt replied. ‘You’re good to go.’

‘Roger that. Gear up, gentlemen! Thirty seconds!’

Weapons and equipment shifted and clicked as final checks were made.

‘I want a solid perimeter established as soon as we’re on the ground,’ he heard Paxton say. ‘If they try to run, I want all escape routes covered. Force is authorized, but only as a last resort.’

‘No sign of activity.’

‘Ten seconds!’

One of the troopers leaned over and hauled open the sliding door, and then the cabin was filled with the rush of wind and the thudding of rotor blades. Paxton was first to hook on to the descent wire, and a moment later he disappeared out into the darkness. The rest of the team followed in short order, and for a few moments Hunt could see nothing on his screen except blurred movement as they slid down the wires.

The images soon returned to normal as each of the troopers touched down with a bump and unhooked themselves.

‘Move forward! Go! Go! Watch that left flank! Get me a perimeter now!’

On the satellite feed, Hunt watched as the glowing blobs of his own troops fanned out to encircle the compound. Overhead, the Black Hawk peeled off to give the assault team room to work, and to make communication easier.

‘Perimeter secure.’

He switched his attention back to Paxton’s helmet camera as the man rapidly closed in on what looked like the compound’s entrance. ‘Walker, cover left,’ he said, his voice tight with anticipation. ‘DaForte, on me. Ready?’

‘Roger.’

Paxton halted in front of the door, weapon at the ready. ‘Go! Go! Go!’

In a blur of movement the door had burst open and the team surged in, yelling commands and calling out anything they saw.

‘Get down on the ground!’

‘Get down now!’

Hunt’s heart was beating hard and fast now as the team spread out to comb the fortified compound. Even in the harsh glow cast by their weapon-mounted lights, he was able to make out containers piled high against the walls, frightened men with ghostly green eyes viewed in night vision, kneeling on the ground with their hands behind their heads while the assault team swarmed all around.

One of the troopers had moved in to investigate one of the containers, unlatching the metal clasps that held it closed.