Sacrifice (7 page)

One advantage of working with the Agency was that they were actually allowed their own cellphones out here. Regular soldiers had to leave them at their embarkation area back home. Of course, the door swung both ways. The obvious downside to always being in touch with one’s superiors was dealing with constant requests for updates and information.

Steeling himself, Drake dialled Breckenridge’s number. Afghanistan was about nine and a half hours ahead of Langley, making it just after midnight on that side of the world.

It rang only once before it was answered. The man must have been hovering over the damn thing. Drake was beginning to wonder if he ever slept.

‘Talk to me, Drake,’ was the curt greeting.

Drake’s reply was equally brief. ‘We’re on the ground. We’re en route to the crash site now.’

‘Good. Keep me updated. I want a written summary of your findings by the end of the day.’

Drake frowned. ‘I’ll update you when I can.’

It wasn’t as if he was going to be sitting in an air-conditioned office while he was out here. Finding Mitchell was the priority. Writing up reports could come later.

‘No, you’ll update me when I say so,’ Breckenridge corrected him. ‘I have to report in just like you, and I can’t do that if I’m in the dark. Is this in any way unclear?’

Drake’s grip on the phone tightened. ‘No, George. As always you’ve made yourself very clear.’

His tone was lost on the older man. ‘Good. I’ll expect to hear from you after you’ve surveyed the crash site. Out.’

Shutting down the phone, Drake shook his head. ‘Prick.’

‘Christ, and I thought Dietrich was hard to work with,’ Keegan remarked. ‘This guy makes being an asshole a full-time job.’

Dietrich had been a specialist drafted into their team for the ill-fated prison break operation last year. Though he had ultimately proven his worth in the tumultuous events that followed, he had been a nightmare for Drake during the planning stage, clashing constantly with him over important decisions.

Still, Drake would rather have dealt with a dozen Dietrichs over one Breckenridge at that moment.

‘Well, he’s halfway around the planet,’ he reasoned. ‘Be grateful for that.’

‘Not far enough for me, buddy. I can’t believe Franklin picked a dumb REMF like him to run the Shepherd teams. I guess shit rolls downhill, huh?’

‘Dan’s not a bad guy.’

‘He makes deals with bad people,’ Keegan reminded him. ‘Same thing in my book.’

At this, McKnight frowned and glanced over at Drake. ‘Something I should know about?’

‘Long story with a not particularly happy ending,’ he evaded.

This prompted an amused smile. ‘We’ve all been there.’

McKnight turned off the main road shortly after clearing the base’s outer security perimeter, and wasted no time putting her foot down. Soon they were careening at breakneck speed down a dusty, cracked, barely paved road that snaked through the network of small villages clustered around Bagram.

The woman drove like a lunatic, churning through the gears, keeping the engine revs high and flooring it around corners, leaving clouds of dust and burned rubber in their wake.

Leaning forward, Keegan tapped her on the shoulder.

‘You got yourself a death wish, Sam?’ he asked, having to brace himself against the seat as they bounced through a pothole. The suspension groaned under the strain.

‘Standard precaution,’ McKnight called over her shoulder. ‘We move fast so the Taliban don’t have time to set up IEDs on the road ahead.’

IED stood for Improvised Explosive Device – basically anything the insurgents could slap together that would go boom and put chunks of metal in Coalition soldiers. They could be anything from coffee cans filled with plastic explosive and nuts and bolts, to 105mm artillery shells buried underground.

‘That’s them, over there,’ she added, nodding casually towards a group of men standing on the second-floor balcony of a dilapidated-looking house off to their left, perhaps 50 yards distant. There were three or four of them, all sporting long beards and civilian clothes, just standing there watching the vehicle speed by.

‘That’s who?’

‘The Taliban,’ McKnight explained, perfectly nonchalant.

‘You’re fucking kidding me.’

She shrugged. ‘They’re spotters, reporting our movements. One of their buddies in the back is probably calling his superiors right now. We know they’re Taliban, and they know that we know, but they also know we won’t detain them without evidence,’ she said, giving Drake a significant look. ‘So, we watch them, and they watch us, and most of the time that’s all that happens. It’s just the way things are out here.’

As if on cue, they passed a couple of burned-out vehicles abandoned by the side of the road, their blackened chassis so twisted and warped by the extreme heat that it was impossible to tell what they had once been.

Keegan leaned back in his seat and stared at them, saying nothing.

Unknown to the three occupants of the Explorer, another pair of eyes was watching them through a high-powered telescopic lens. The single observer was protected from the intense sun, and any aircraft that might be circling overhead, by camouflage netting strung over the low depression in which he was crouched. Flies buzzed around him, and the oppressive heat caused droplets of sweat to form at his brow, but he didn’t care. He was used to such things.

Situated on a low hill about half a mile north of the road, the man who had become known as Kourash Anwari watched as the big vehicle bounced and jolted across the uneven surface. Even through the haze of dust, he was able to make out the driver and passengers.

Two men and a woman, all dressed in civilian clothes.
He didn’t recognise the other two, but the man in the passenger seat up front was very familiar to him. His was a face that Kourash would never forget as long as he lived. After all, how could one forget the man who had cost him everything he’d ever cared about?

Ryan Drake.

It had taken no small amount of time and effort to learn what had become of the man who ruined his life, who took everything from him in a single day. But patience was a virtue he had learned a long time ago.

Half a world had separated the two men until yesterday. And now here they were, barely 300 yards apart. Drake had arrived just as Kourash had known he would, ignorant of the work and planning and calculations that had brought him here.

As the Explorer roared past on the dusty road below, Kourash reached for the cellphone resting in the depression beside him. It was a specialised encrypted unit, firing off its transmissions in a randomly cycling burst of data that was next to impossible to lock down.

Shielding the screen from the bright shafts of sunlight peeking through the camouflage netting, he powered the phone up. No numbers were stored in its digital memory – they all had to be learned and held within one’s mind. It wasn’t easy, but Kourash prided himself on his mental discipline.

Discipline was the core of a man’s being, a source of strength more potent than the strongest arm or the stoutest heart. Kourash had learned this truth from a young age.

His father had been a common labourer who flattered himself with dreams of success and wealth, lacking both the intelligence and the motivation to succeed. As his fledgling business failed and his money vanished, he
had turned his anger and frustration on his own family.

His mother by contrast had been a quiet, melancholy woman who endured the beatings he doled out without complaint, who would not even say a word against him when those same fists were turned against her own children. She would just get up and silently leave the room, her eyes blank, seeing nothing.

Both of them had been weak and deserving of their miserable lives. Kourash would despise them to his dying day.

Dredging up the familiar number from memory, he punched it in and waited for the call to be answered.

As always, it didn’t take long.

‘Yes?’ came the curt greeting.

‘The CIA are here. They are on their way to the crash site.’

‘This is it. The chopper’s on the other side of that ridge,’ McKnight said, slowing the Explorer as they approached a couple of armed men up ahead, part of the security detail charged with protecting the crash site.

One look at them was enough to confirm they weren’t US Army, or any branch of the armed forces for that matter.

For a start they were much older than twenty-five, the average age for a US infantryman. Neither had seen less than forty years by Drake’s estimate. Still, they were serious-looking men. Both tall, both bulked up from heavy weight training, both with thick necks and grim, unsmiling faces. Neither man had shaved for several days judging by the thick growth along their jaws.

Instead of the standard MultiCam patterned Army Combat Uniform, they were clad in black T-shirts, with sand-coloured combat trousers and body armour that was some kind of hybrid design Drake had never seen before. There were no identification marks anywhere on their clothing. No unit badge, no rank marks, not even name tags.

Both were armed with M4A1 carbines; a modern replacement for the old M16. Designed around the modular weapons system concept, they were very much the military equivalent of Lego blocks allowing the user
to add all kinds of attachments, from silencers to grenade launchers. In this case, both weapons were fitted with M68 close combat optic sights, and foregrips for easier carrying.

‘Who the hell are these guys?’ Keegan asked, eyeing the nearest man as he approached the Explorer, weapon at the ready.

‘Mercenaries,’ Drake said, an edge of disdain in his voice.

‘Private military contractors,’ McKnight corrected him. ‘They work for Horizon Defence. One of our biggest security companies these days.’

‘Creators of all things bright and beautiful, huh?’ Keegan prodded.

She shrugged. ‘Supply and demand, I guess. We supply the war, they supply the soldiers.’

The Explorer came to a halt, its engine ticking over. McKnight rolled down her window to speak to the perimeter guard. Both he and his companion were wearing mirrored shades, and neither man seemed inclined to remove them.

‘ID please, ma’am,’ the man said, sounding bored and wary at the same time.

His gloved hand was resting on the windowsill, and as he moved a little, Drake spotted a tattoo on his forearm. A sword intersected by three lightning bolts.

Drake recognised the tattoo well enough; it was the unit symbol for US Army Special Forces.

McKnight handed over her ID card. ‘We’re here to inspect the crash site.’

The guard’s head swivelled to stare at Drake and Keegan.

‘And your passengers? I’ll need IDs for them too.’

‘No, you don’t,’ Drake informed him.

The man’s head snapped back towards Drake in an instant. ‘Yeah, I do. This site is locked down. Nobody gets in or out without authorisation.’

‘How about the Director of National Intelligence?’ Drake challenged him, irritated by the delay. ‘Is that good enough? Or should we take it up with your CO?’

The guard stared at him a moment longer, saying nothing. Drake was quite certain the man was glaring at him behind those mirrored sunglasses, though he returned the stare with equal intensity.

Without saying a word, he turned away, retreated several paces and spoke into his radio, keeping his back to them. His companion stood in front of the vehicle, barring their way and making sure his assault rifle was plainly visible.

Several seconds passed, during which no words were spoken. Drake glanced at McKnight but said nothing. Now wasn’t the time for voicing his thoughts.

Then, just like that, the guard turned to face them, marched over to the driver’s side window and handed McKnight her ID back.

‘Go on through, ma’am,’ he said, practically spitting the words at them.

‘Appreciate it,’ McKnight returned as she revved the engine and hit the gas, forcing the other perimeter guard to dodge aside as the big vehicle lurched forwards.

‘What an asshole,’ Keegan remarked, glancing back at the two men from his window seat.

Drake had been thinking along similar lines. ‘Is it always like this, dealing with PMCs?’

McKnight shook her head. ‘This is frontier territory. You can’t blame them for being cautious.’ She gave him a sidelong smirk. ‘Anyway, I thought you Brits were all about politeness and fair play.’

‘Only in cricket. And I don’t play.’

Cresting the ridge at low revs to keep from skidding on the loose dirt, the Explorer’s nose dipped and they began their descent of the reverse slope.

At last they saw the crash site.

The Black Hawk, or what was left of it, lay about 50 yards from the base of the slope, having come down in flat open ground that had once been a broad floodplain in wetter times. These days it was a barren expanse of rocks, dirt and dry scrub, all of it blending to the same washed-out brown as everything else.

All of it, except a wide swathe around the wreckage. There the stones had been blackened, the brush incinerated, the dusty ground itself charred by the intense heat. Bits of twisted wreckage lay everywhere, most so badly burned and deformed in the explosion that it was impossible to tell what they had once been.

The airframe itself was still recognisable, barely. Two of the massive rotor blades had sheared off, probably during the crash, but the other two remained attached to the engine assembly.

Clustered around the wreck were half a dozen men in similar attire to the two guards they’d just encountered, all armed with a mixture of assault rifles and sub-machine guns. The protection detail was backed up by a couple of armoured 4x4s that Drake recognised as RG-33s.

Made in South Africa, they were popular with the UN and other peacekeeping forces because of the excellent protection they offered, and it seemed Horizon felt the same way. These ones both had 50-calibre remote weapons stations mounted on their roofs, allowing operators inside the vehicles to track and engage targets without ever having to leave their seats.

These weapon mounts were much sought after by US Army vehicle crews, though the cost per unit made them as rare as gold dust.