Sacrifice (46 page)

Two guards accompanied her down; the big Hispanic
man named Martinez, one hand clamped around her arm, and his smaller companion Shaw.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, she found herself facing a narrow corridor with heavy steel doors set along each side, each secured by deadbolts. She couldn’t tell if any of them were occupied, but there were no other operatives around, the cells being impossible to escape from.

She almost smiled. Perfect.

Allowing herself to stumble, she pretended to lose her footing and sagged in her captor’s arms; a dead weight, a useless burden.

‘Get up, goddamn it,’ Martinez growled, shoving her forward irritably.

Her time had come. With a single twist of her wrist, she slipped free of the handcuffs and spun around to face him, swinging the now exposed ratchet as a crude, blunt hook.

Her aim was perfect, the rough metal edge making contact in the centre of his forehead, gouging a bloody path across his right eye and down his cheek. Screaming in pain, he twisted aside, clutching his mangled face.

I will show no mercy. I will never hesitate.

Rounding on Shaw just as he swung the barrel of the M4 to bear on her, Anya grabbed the weapon’s protruding foregrip and yanked it upwards, forcing it away from her. An instant later, her right hand leapt out, striking a quick, vicious blow to Shaw’s exposed throat.

When it came to unarmed combat, Anya knew of few more effective ways of subduing an opponent than a hard blow to the thyroid cartilage surrounding the larynx. The intense pain and temporary inability to breathe thus produced was enough to drop even the toughest fighter, and Shaw was no different.

Coughing and gasping, eyes wide with fear, he released his grip on the weapon, staggered sideways and fell to his knees, trying to make for the stairs. It was a futile effort, and soon ended when Anya brought the butt of the M4 down on the back of his neck.

With one opponent now removed from the fight, she turned her attention to Martinez. Injured and half blinded he might have been, but he was still a threat, and threats had to be dealt with.

Keira Frost opened her eyes, startled by the agonised cry echoing from the corridor outside her cell. But no sooner had it started than it was abruptly cut off.

She swallowed, her throat dry, her skin cold and clammy. Bound on the floor as she was, she could do nothing to protect herself. She had chafed the skin around her wrists raw trying to break the plastic cuffs, to no avail. She knew from experience that they were near impossible to remove by brute force.

She had never had much fear of water until today. Even now she vividly remembered the agony of trying to draw breath that wouldn’t come, the terror of knowing she was drowning, the helplessness of fighting in vain to break free.

In the end she had told them what they wanted to know, had given them every detail of her hacking attempt, the information she was trying to access, the suspicions Drake and his team harboured towards Horizon. She had told them everything, and she hated herself for it.

Where Drake was now, whether he was even still alive, she had no idea. More than likely she would never know. They would kill her once they were certain she could be of no further use.

She tensed at the sound of footsteps in the corridor outside. Footsteps, slow and deliberate, coming closer. Coming for her.

In a feeble attempt at retreating, she shuffled along the floor, backing away from the door even as the footsteps halted outside.

This was it, she knew. They had come to kill her.

She stared wide-eyed as the bolt was withdrawn and the door swung open.

But nothing could have prepared her for the sight that now confronted her.

‘Contact!’ Drake yelled, ducking down as a volley of automatic fire sliced through the air above him. The rounds came so close to his head as they whizzed past that he could actually feel the change in air pressure. Taking a rough bearing on the muzzle flash, he fired a short automatic burst in reply.

Beside him, Keegan was capping off rounds with his own weapon, taking his time and aiming well to conserve ammunition. Empty shell casings littered the ground all around them.

Despite their grave situation, Keegan’s face was a picture of calm, as it always was during contacts. Drake could have sworn he was humming a tune under his breath.

As he’d thought, the chopper had come to rest in a dried-up river, its crumpled nose buried in the dust and rocks that had once formed the stream bed. He suspected this had once been an irrigation channel, part of a larger network used to supply farms in this region. Decades of fighting had destroyed many of these delicate water systems, consigning once lush farmland to drought and abandonment.

‘We’re pinned down,’ McKnight hissed. Sighting a target moving amongst the tangled scrub 50 yards away, she swung her weapon around and loosed a long,
sustained burst. ‘We’ve got to find cover. We’re sitting ducks out here.’

‘I hear you,’ Drake agreed.

He glanced around, seeking anything that might provide more substantial protection.

About 100 yards further along the river bed lay the crumbling remains of a farm compound. Like most of the buildings in this region, the dwelling itself was surrounded by a high wall, either for protection from the elements or for keeping livestock penned in.

It was a gamble, but anything was better than where they were.

‘That’s our play,’ he said, pointing to it. ‘Can you make it that far?’

‘Only if you hold my hand,’ she quipped, flashing a wry smile.

Ignoring her remark, Drake turned to the others. ‘We make for that compound over there. Two-by-two formation. John, on me. Sam, Crawford, you follow.’

‘Copy that,’ Keegan replied without looking around. ‘That’s a lot of open ground to cover,’ Crawford warned him.

‘It’s all we’ve got. If we stay here, we’re dead,’ Drake said bluntly. Now wasn’t the time for gentle persuasion.

He took a deep breath, rallying his flagging strength.

‘Okay, go! Go!’

‘You have got to be shitting me,’ Frost gasped, staring in disbelief at the woman now standing in the doorway. Cold blue eyes stared back at her.

It was Anya. The woman she had risked her life to rescue from a Siberian prison. The woman who had threatened to kill her on the flight home, who had dislocated her shoulder during a violent confrontation in
Saudi Arabia. The woman who had shot Drake and left him to die.

She was standing mere feet away, clutching an M4 assault rifle, watching her as a predator might regard its prey. A splash of blood coated her cheek. In her shock, Frost barely registered the fact she now had dark hair, or that her eyes were a different colour.

Saying nothing, the older woman drew a knife from her belt and advanced on her, the blade gleaming in the electric lights.

Frost was breathing harder, her heart hammering in her chest as she tried to back away. She could only imagine what Anya intended to do with that blade.

Then, just like that, she spoke.

‘I am not here to kill you,’ she said, kneeling down beside her. ‘Unless you give me a reason to.’

Frost felt the blade against the skin of her wrist, but only for a moment. With a single firm slice, the plastic cuffs came away, releasing her hands.

Wasting no time, Frost jumped to her feet and backed away, too shocked by this sudden turn of events to say anything for the next few seconds.

‘W-what the fuck are
you
doing here?’ she finally managed to stammer.

‘I did not come here to rescue you, if that’s what you mean,’ Anya replied, quick to quash any such thoughts. ‘But if you want to get out, follow me, stay silent and do as I say. Understand?’

Still too shocked to give any other response, Frost merely nodded.

Satisfied, Anya turned away, reached up and yanked the long brunette hairpiece free, throwing it aside to reveal a mane of short, dishevelled blonde hair. And with a little more care she drew a fingertip across each
eye to remove the contact lenses she’d been wearing. She would need unimpeded vision from now on.

This done, she crept out into the corridor with the assault rifle up at her shoulder. Frost followed behind, noting the two Horizon operatives lying sprawled on the floor, one with blood pooling beneath his head.

With the M4 covering the stairs leading upwards, Anya knelt down beside one of the fallen men and patted down his pockets until she found what she was looking for: a cellphone.

‘What are you doing?’ Frost asked as the woman dialled a number.

‘I presume you forgot what I said about keeping quiet,’ Anya said without looking up. ‘Just be ready to move when I give the word, and stay close to me.’

With the number inputted, she gripped the assault rifle tight and hit the button to connect the call.

In the walled marshalling area outside, Anya’s rusty, battered Toyota pickup truck sat parked near the perimeter wall. With its paintwork faded to a dull, pale blue, bald tyres and an exhaust barely held together by increasingly futile spot-welds, it was an unremarkable vehicle to say the least.

Unremarkable but for its cargo.

Packed into a space between the fuel tank and the transmission was a metal box containing several pounds of Composition 4 plastic explosive. Inserted into it were several electric blasting caps wired into a battery, the firing switch controlled by a simple, commercially available cellphone.

The instant Anya’s call connected, the change in voltage was enough to trigger the switch, which in turn caused electricity to surge into the blasting caps.

Five seconds after dialling the number, her improvised
bomb detonated with enough explosive force to crumple the pickup truck like a toy. The shockwave rushed outwards in all directions, reverberating against the concrete wall opposite with crushing power, while the contents of the fuel tank added to the destruction.

Up in his office, Carpenter flinched at the bright flash off to his right, followed a moment later by a shockwave that seemed to reverberate up from the very core of the building. Rising from his desk, he watched in disbelief as a section of the perimeter wall appeared to lean precariously outwards, before collapsing in a cloud of smoke and broken masonry.

Flames were roaring upwards from a ruptured fuel tank, with a pall of smoke and dust now hovering over the entire scene.

‘What the fuck …?’ Turning his attention back to his desk, he picked up his phone and hit the quick-dial button for the building’s security centre. As always, the call was answered straight away.

‘Wilson here, sir,’ the duty security chief began.

‘Wilson, what the hell is going on out there?’

‘We’re working on it now, sir.’

Only a fool would try to storm the Horizon building. Even with the wall breached, every possible approach was covered with security cameras and emplaced machine guns.

Logically he knew the Horizon compound was, to all intents and purposes, impregnable, but that didn’t stop his gut telling him something wasn’t right.

‘Take every man you can spare and form a cordon around that breach,’ he ordered. ‘Anyone comes within 50 yards of our wall, shoot to kill. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘One more thing,’ he added. ‘Have a chopper fuelled and standing by on the roof. I want to be airborne in ten minutes.’

He was too close to this whole affair. It was time he distanced himself, perhaps left Afghanistan permanently. And if the shit hit the fan, he had no intention of waiting here for ISAF to come and arrest him.

‘Copy that, sir. Ten minutes.’

Hanging up the phone, Carpenter turned his attention back to his computer screen, and the real-time images of the battle unfolding around the ruined chopper. He could still see figures moving near the wreck even as bright blobs of tracer fire arced in around them.

Vermaak and his men were closing the noose.

With Crawford and McKnight covering them, Drake and Keegan rose up and charged along the shallow depression, hunched over to present smaller targets. The ground was rough and uneven, and covered with rocks that made their footing treacherous. Hidden explosives were a constant menace, but there was no time to check for them.

Stopping after about twenty paces, both men dropped to their knees, weapons trained outwards while Crawford and McKnight sprinted past. Nothing was said, because concealment was vital to their survival.

Glancing over his shoulder, Drake saw Crawford and McKnight take up firing positions close to the compound. That was their signal to move. He looked at Keegan and gave a simple nod, pulling himself to his feet again.

They had covered about 40 yards before they were spotted. Bullets whizzed past, slamming into the ground and showering them with dirt and fragments of rock. There was no way to avoid such things; they just had to keep running and hope that luck was with them.

Sighting several muzzle flashes off to their left, Drake raised his P90, took aim and put down half a dozen shots on their position. The kick of the weapon in his shoulder was a familiar sensation, and instinctively he adjusted
his aim with each shot to allow for the recoil. At least one of his shots found its mark, and he heard an agonised scream as his target went down.

‘Go! Get in there!’ Crawford yelled as both men rushed past and into the compound. ‘You too, McKnight.’

He was about to fall back himself when something slammed into his left shoulder. It hit hard – hard enough to spin him around. Caught off balance, he fell to his knees and looked down, noting with a kind of hazy detachment the bloody hole in his shoulder.

‘Shit …’

Keegan was first in through the door to the compound, sweeping his sub-machine gun from left to right in search of a target. The big open area, about 40 feet square, seemed to be deserted. The walls were simple mud brick, cracked and worn by long years of exposure to the elements.

There had once been a roofed dwelling set against the west wall, but it had long since collapsed, taking a portion of the outer wall with it. All that remained were piles of rubble.