Sacrifice (44 page)

Staring into Cunningham’s eyes, Drake saw no trace of the man he had once known. A killer stood before him now; a soldier ready to finish his enemy without remorse, without hesitation.

Something was pressing into his back; something hard
and square. He had barely noticed it amidst the burning pain of his broken rib and the choking fumes that seared his lungs with every breath, but his subconscious recognised it as something significant. A small, hard, square object lying discarded on the floor …

In a flash, his pain-racked brain assembled the pieces and realised the truth.

Even as Cunningham raised the crowbar to strike, Drake rolled aside, reached beneath him and felt his fingers close around the butt of Cunningham’s Beretta.

It must have landed there when he struck it from the older man’s grasp.

With no time to aim, he brought the weapon up in Cunningham’s general direction, flicked off the safety and pulled the trigger.

There was a sharp crack, and suddenly a cloud of red sprayed outwards from the man’s right shoulder, spinning him around with the force of the impact. For a fleeting moment he saw utter shock reflected in his former friend’s eyes.

Squinting and struggling to hold the weapon level, Drake adjusted his aim and capped off another round just as Cunningham disappeared into the smoke and haze. The bullet sailed harmlessly past him, burying itself in the wall opposite.

Get up, a voice in his mind implored him. Get up now!

Gritting his teeth against the pain that blazed as hot as the fire consuming the room around him, Drake rolled over onto his stomach and forced himself up from the ground, muscles trembling with the effort.

On his feet, if only through sheer force of will, he staggered out through the doorway with the weapon raised, rounding the frame in time to see Cunningham disappearing down the stairs clutching his arm.

‘Shit!’

Turning back into the room, he pulled his T-shirt up against his mouth in a feeble attempt to keep the smoke from his lungs. It didn’t do much good, and already he was coughing and gasping for air.

With water streaming from his eyes, he glanced down at the floor. Mitchell’s folder was still lying where he’d left it, its edges curling in the intense heat. One side was already alight as the flames rapidly spread out to consume it.

Cunningham would have to wait. That folder was the priority.

Braving the intense heat, he rushed forward and snatched up the folder, desperately beating it against his leg to extinguish the flames. It was charred and scorched in places, but still intact.

But he wouldn’t be if he stayed here much longer. Already the floor was sagging inwards and flames were licking at the walls eagerly seeking more fuel.

Clutching the documents inside his jacket, Drake turned and fled, bumping into the wall outside before staggering down the corridor. He still gripped the Beretta in case Cunningham returned to finish the job, though his ability to hit anything more than 6 feet away was dubious.

His vision growing vague and hazy, he stumbled down the stairs, almost losing his footing. Smoke was billowing out of the corridor below. Whatever room the thermite had dropped down into must also be ablaze.

There was no sign of Cunningham, but a glance at the front door showed it standing ajar. He had made a run for it, fleeing into the surrounding neighbourhood.

Driven by his own body’s desperate need for oxygen, Drake dashed for the door, kicked it open and staggered outside.

He could go no further. Exhausted, he fell to his knees, still clutching the burned and crumpled folder as though his life depended on it, which it probably did.

Behind him, a tremendous crash announced the collapse of the burning upper floor. Smoke was now streaming from the first-floor windows, and though he couldn’t see it from his position, he was certain flames were now licking at the roof.

With trembling, soot-smeared hands, he laid the folder down. Cunningham had come within seconds of destroying it for ever, yet here it was, safe at last.

Redemption for him, and retribution for men like Carpenter.

The screech of tyres drew his attention to the main gate, where a Ford Explorer had just skidded to a halt, its headlight beams blindingly intense. Moments later, several figures emerged from the vehicle and streamed in through the open gate, all clutching weapons.

‘Ryan!’ he heard a familiar voice call out.

Sure enough, Samantha McKnight came rushing towards him, her eyes flitting between the dirty, injured, haggard-looking man who bore little resemblance to the Ryan Drake she knew, the damaged folder lying beside him, and the burning house behind.

‘Jesus, are you all right?’ she asked, kneeling down beside him.

Despite everything, Drake managed a smile as he picked up the charred folder and held it out to her. ‘Never better, Sam.’

A few hundred yards away, Cunningham backed up against the rough brick wall of a block of flats, breathing hard and bleeding from the gunshot wound to his right arm. The injury was unlikely to prove life threatening,
but he could feel blood trickling down his arm, dripping from his fingertips. Pain burned through him.

Drake had gotten the better of him. Despite Cunningham’s best efforts to mislead him, to stifle his investigation, to keep him safely ignorant, he had found Mitchell’s evidence. He should have killed him outright instead of trying to reason with him.

Now there was no telling how far this would go. It was out of control.

He had to report in. He hated the thought of admitting failure, especially when the stakes were as high as this, but there was no choice. His employer had to know what was going on.

With his good arm, he reached for his cellphone and dialled a number from memory. It wasn’t a number he’d had much occasion to call in the past, but he had committed it to memory nonetheless.

‘Is Drake taken care of?’ a deep, authoritative voice asked as soon as the phone was answered.

Cunningham gritted his teeth. ‘No.’

There was a pause on the other end. Not a long one, but long enough to assure him his news had not been met favourably.

‘What happened?’ Carpenter asked, his voice cold and emotionless. He had commanded men in battle for decades, had sacrificed lives and even risked his own on occasion. He wasn’t about to break down in anger now.

That would come later.

‘We found the safe house. Drake evaded me.’

‘And Mitchell’s files?’

Cunningham sighed and looked down at the ground, hating every word he was about to say. ‘He has them.’

A steady, rhythmic thumping prompted him to glance
up just as a chopper roared overhead, skimming low over the rooftops. He couldn’t make out what type it was, but there could be no doubt it was heading for the safe house.

Nearby, a set of shutters flew open and an elderly man leaned out to watch the spectacle. Cunningham backed up, merging with the deeper shadows at a corner of the wall.

‘The Agency are here,’ he added, having to raise his voice to be heard above the din. ‘They’ve brought in air support.’

It took Carpenter only moments to reach a decision. ‘All right. Get your ass out of there. We’ll talk about this later.’

‘My cover’s blown,’ Cunningham said, knowing how feeble and pathetic he must have sounded. ‘Drake knows I was working for you.’

‘You don’t work for me, Cunningham. Not any more,’ the older man coldly informed him. ‘If you’re lucky you might make it through tonight alive. After that, you’re on your own. Now get the fuck out of there. I’ll deal with Drake.’

With nothing more to say, he hung up.

‘Jesus Christ,’ McKnight gasped, eyes wide in disbelief as she skim-read Mitchell’s report, carefully leafing through the charred pages. ‘It’s incredible …’

Beneath her, the cityscape of central Kabul flitted by at over 100 knots as their Black Hawk helicopter beat a path through the night air towards Bagram Air Base.

The chopper had touched down in the waste ground behind the burning safe house a couple of minutes after McKnight’s arrival, disgorging half a dozen Agency security operatives who had quickly established a perimeter around the building.

After explaining himself and the contents of the damaged folder, Drake had been bundled aboard the chopper along with McKnight, Keegan and Crawford.

‘Carpenter arranged for Kourash to escape from prison,’ Drake said, shifting position to get more comfortable on the hard bench. ‘He was using him this whole time, planning attacks against our people, earning the trust of Taliban commanders so he could take them out.’

In his torn, burned and filthy clothes, his face smeared with soot, he was a pathetic sight. His ribs had been bandaged and a fresh dressing applied to the bullet wound at his side, though further medical care would have to wait until they touched down.

‘And Horizon took all the credit,’ Crawford finished for him.

Drake nodded. ‘They were trying to prove they could do the army’s job. If they take over security in Afghanistan, Carpenter and his mates stand to make billions.’

‘And your buddy Cunningham was in on it, too?’ Keegan said, seated opposite. He could see the hurt and betrayal in Drake’s eyes.

‘He did his best to steer us away from the truth, made sure we failed when we tried to hack Horizon’s computers.’ Drake swallowed a gulp of bottled water. His throat was still parched after inhaling several lungfuls of smoke. ‘He played us all. He played me.’

‘What’ll happen to him?’

Drake paused. He didn’t imagine his friend’s future was looking good at that moment. ‘If he’s got any sense, he’ll disappear for good. If not …’ He shrugged, feeling no need to finish that line of thought. ‘The first thing we need to do is get people to Horizon headquarters. They took Keira. My guess is they’re holding her there.’

‘Unless they’re done with her,’ Keegan said, his face ashen.

‘They wouldn’t do that. Not yet,’ he said, not sure who he was trying to convince. ‘They would want to know how much she’d uncovered.’ He leaned forward, staring Keegan in the eye. ‘We’ll tear that building apart if we have to, but we’ll find her.’

The sniper nodded. He didn’t have to say what he was thinking – Drake knew well enough the bond that had developed between them.

Instead he glanced at McKnight; the woman who had played such a big part in all of this, and who wasn’t even part of his team. ‘Sam?’

She looked up at him, tearing her eyes away from the folder. ‘Yeah?’

‘I never got the chance to say this before, but … thank you.’

‘For what?’

‘For all of it. You risked your life for us more than once. We wouldn’t have made it this far without you. I won’t forget that.’

She nodded, understanding the sentiment and his need to express it. ‘Tell me something, Ryan. Are all your operations like this?’

‘Pretty much,’ he admitted, unable to hide a grin.

But it quickly faded as he glanced outside, catching a fleeting glimpse of something coming towards them, something that glowed bright red like a hot coal. It took him a moment to realise what it meant.

Too late.

There was a blinding white flash, and an instant later the world around Drake was engulfed in chaos. The aircraft heaved violently, throwing them sideways in their safety harnesses with bone-jarring force as a thunderous boom reverberated through the cabin.

Trailing smoke and flame, the stricken Black Hawk yawed wildly to port, swinging in a wide arc as the pilots fought for control and overcompensated in their panic. Blaring alarms mingled with frightened shouts and the scream of tearing metal as the overloaded airframe started to give way.

Snapped right off its damaged runners by the violent movement, the starboard crew door flew off like a piece of cardboard. Drake watched as the ground spun and lurched sickeningly beneath them, his view obscured a moment later by smoke from the crippled engines.

Caught with his safety harness unlatched, the aircraft’s
door gunner fell, slid across the listing deck and disappeared out through the open door with a wild, terrified scream. Drake could do nothing but watch in horror, clutching the cargo straps behind him in a white-knuckle grip.

‘I’ve lost hydraulics!’ the pilot yelled. ‘Can’t hold it. We’re going down!’

The chopper yawed to starboard so hard that Drake could see nothing beyond the door but trees and fields. They had to be listing at 40 or 50 degrees by now. For a moment he thought the chopper was going to tip right over and plough into the ground. Then, in a final desperate effort, the pilot managed to haul the dying aircraft back from the brink.

It was only a temporary reprieve. Still locked in a death spiral, the big chopper ploughed through a stand of juniper trees, its rotors scything through branches and foliage like a knife through butter. Unable to take cover, Drake threw up his arm to shield himself as glass and pieces of tree bark peppered them.

His last sight was of a big area of flat open ground stretching out beneath them. Then his world was filled with a horrible sickening roar as the aircraft ploughed into the ground. The forward bulkhead rushed towards him, there was a flash, and then he knew no more.

Vermaak smiled as the wreckage of the stricken chopper came to rest amidst a cloud of smoke and dust. The Stinger had done its work with deadly efficiency, crippling the low-flying Black Hawk’s engines before the crew even had a chance to react.

It was almost too easy.

Reaching up, he pressed the transmit button on his
encrypted radio unit. ‘They’re down,’ he reported, his voice calm and devoid of emotion.

The same couldn’t be said of Carpenter.

‘Move in,’ he ordered, his voice edged with tension and anticipation. His future depended on what happened here tonight. ‘I want confirmation those files are destroyed.’

‘And if anyone’s still alive?’ Vermaak asked. He knew the answer before he’d even asked the question, but he needed to hear it from Carpenter himself.

‘There were no survivors, understand? No survivors.’

Vermaak smiled again. Fighting and killing had become a mere matter of business for him over the years, but in this case, he just might take pleasure in putting a round through Drake’s head.