Easier to kill them here, he decided.
Nothing would be gained by keeping them as live prisoners, especially given the SCD team’s propensity to defy the odds. Khadir’s gaze took in Grace and he considered her as well. Glovkonin’s orders regarding her were clear. She was a loose end to be tied off. When the time came to execute Dane and the others, the last bullet would be for her.
It would be a clean, efficient end, and it would leave Khadir the freedom to decide what he wanted to do next.
The door opened and Vine entered with one of the militiamen following on behind him. He carried two steel-shell briefcases, placing them on a table. Khadir unlocked them, watching Simbarashe come closer. The man’s greed was palpable.
He opened the cases to reveal dense wads of crisp US currency, stacked bundles of hundred-dollar bills.
‘You’ve earned it,’ said Khadir, but Simbarashe did not pick up on the sneer in his words.
‘A pleasure doing business with you,’ said the colonel, fingering the cash.
He shot a look at his men and barked out a command, and in turn, they picked up the ammunition crate and the body bag, carrying them away towards the landing pad and the waiting helicopter.
Khadir closed the lid of the nearest case with a snap, causing Simbarashe to flinch.
‘Our business is not complete,’ he reminded him. He patted the semi-automatic pistol at his waist. ‘The other prisoners?’
‘Of course!’ Simbarashe was grinning widely. ‘They’re all yours!’ He spat another order to one of his soldiers. ‘Dahma, bring them here!’
‘Yes, Colonel!’ The other man nodded, and set off.
Khadir shifted position, seeing what had to happen next unfolding in his mind’s eye. He would make the kills quickly and cleanly. There was no merit in prolonging the death of a defeated enemy.
Simbarashe gave him a sly look, nodding at the pistol as another of his men carried away his payment.
‘Perhaps you would like some privacy to complete your transaction? I only ask you keep the mess to a minimum.’
He made a move to walk away, but Khadir held his arm.
‘You should remain. A man should know who he is in business with, yes?’
Simbarashe’s grin faltered.
‘Of course.’
*
The darkness came quickly after sunset, and parts of the mansion compound were still thick with shadows where exterior lights had not come on.
Malte took point, with Marc and Solomon behind and Lucy at the rear. The Finn had their one weapon, the steel boot knife, keeping it poised and ready to strike as the group moved slowly from cover to cover. They stayed in the lee of the blockhouses, working their way around, avoiding the guards and the places where the lights from the house spilled out into the early evening.
Several hundred metres away, Marc caught sight of the intimidating shape of the Hind, sitting silently on the helipad. At rest, the long rotor blades flexed gently in the breeze, and by the glow of the instrument panels, he could pick out the pilot and gunner in the cockpits.
‘Can we take that from them?’ Solomon said quietly.
‘You get me in there, I’ll fly it,’ Marc replied.
Lucy dropped into a crouch next to them.
‘Bad idea,’ she said. ‘Zero cover from here. Even if that guy with the gun pod didn’t open up on us, the grounds are crawling with locals.’
She pointed up at the roof of the mansion house, and for the first time, Marc spotted shooters up there.
‘Yeah, fair point.’ Marc frowned. ‘We don’t know their numbers or weapons. There has to be a back way out of this place.’
‘Company coming,’ growled Malte, drawing back to the shadows. ‘There.’
He pointed out three militia soldiers, one of them awkwardly carrying an ammo crate, the other two dragging a body bag between them. All of them had rifles over their shoulders, and they were talking among themselves, paying little attention to their surroundings.
‘Heading towards the helo,’ noted Lucy. ‘Gonna pass right by us.’
‘That one has the box containing the backup drives,’ added Solomon. ‘We cannot allow them to leave.’
‘So how do you want to do this?’ said Marc.
Lucy gave a shrug. ‘We only need one that can talk, right?’
*
She stepped out of the bushes as the trio came closer, as casually as somebody out for an evening stroll.
‘Can you fellas help me?’ Lucy feigned confusion. ‘I’m hitch-hiking to Wakanda and I got a little lost.’
The leading militia soldier dropped his end of the body bag in shock and fumbled for his weapon. In the same moment, his buddy with the ammo crate found himself in a neck-lock as Malte came out of nowhere and grabbed him in a sleeper hold. Marc and Solomon burst from their cover and ran for the third guy, who dithered over dropping his end of the bag.
The lead soldier brought his rifle up, but Lucy stepped in, getting close, and cracked him across the face with the hilt of Malte’s boot knife. He recoiled and she punched him in the solar plexus. It was enough to put him on his ass, and she got an arm over his throat, following the Finn’s lead to choke off the man’s air and put him out for the count.
Marc tackled his man to the ground and tore his rifle off him. With Solomon’s help, they had the guard face down in the dirt, holding him there with a knee in the back.
Malte and Lucy dragged their unconscious targets out of sight into the deeper shadows, securing them with their own belts and taking their AKs. The whole thing was over in less than thirty seconds.
Lucy squatted next to the captive.
‘Hey. Shithead. Pay attention.’
He swore at her, the words muffled as Marc kept him pressed into the ground.
‘Answer her questions and you may live,’ Solomon told him.
Malte upended the dropped crate. The lid had cracked open and he peered inside.
‘The drives,’ he noted. ‘All here.’
They exchanged a wary glance, and Lucy inclined her head towards the body bag. Malte gave a nod and moved to check it.
‘Where’s our friend?’ she asked.
The guard gave a nervous chuckle.
‘The Arab did it.’
‘Yeah, he’s an Arab,’ said Marc. ‘Where is he?’
‘Not that Arab,’ grated the captive. ‘The other one, the soldier.’
‘Jumalauta!’
Lucy didn’t know the meaning of the Finnish curse, but the tone of Malte’s voice told her all she needed to know. The ex-cop stood over the body bag, holding the zip half-open, and his pale face was hard as stone.
She had to see for herself. She took a step towards Malte, but he waved her off.
‘Don’t,’ he told her. ‘Assim . . .’
Malte stopped, unable to find the words, and finally he shook his head.
‘You bastard!’ Marc slammed the guard’s head into the dirt. ‘He was no threat to you!’
‘Not me, not me!’ bleated the guard. ‘Ones from helicopter. The colonel beat him but the soldier, he kill!’
‘Help me get him up,’ demanded Marc, and he and Solomon pulled the guard into a kneeling position, holding his arms back. ‘This Arab, he have a name?’
‘The colonel call him Khadir.’
‘Son of a bitch.’
Lucy’s skin prickled. Four years ago, Omar Khadir and his terrorists had almost killed them, and while the rest of the world believed the man was dead or in hiding, she had always believed that they would cross paths again.
‘We suspected Glovkonin had a hand in keeping him alive,’ Solomon said gravely. ‘He must be here as an agent of the Combine.’
‘Who else?’ Marc snarled the question. ‘From the helicopter, who came?’
‘Two white men. A woman. Like you, English.’
‘Has to be Grace,’ said Lucy. ‘They’ve come to cross us off. Finish it.’
Marc wasn’t listening to her. His voice
turned ice-cold as he spoke into the guard’s ear.
‘We need a vehicle. You’re going to take us to the garage, get it? You want to live, you won’t fuck around.’
‘Yes, yes.’ The guard nodded frantically. ‘I take you.’
‘Move.’
Marc gave him a shove and let the man go. With Solomon, Lucy and Marc now brandishing AK-47s, the guard set off at a quick jog, throwing fearful looks over his shoulder.
Malte bent down and gathered up the body bag by himself, hoisting it over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
‘We don’t leave him,’ he said.
Solomon picked up the ammo crate and followed on, as Marc and Lucy went after their petrified guide.
She fell in step with Marc, who walked eyes-front, lost in his own dark thoughts.
‘It’s not on you,’ said Lucy, her voice cracking as she spoke. ‘We should have left him back in Monaco with Delancort.’ She ran out of words and took a breath.
It was hitting her harder than expected and Lucy tried to get a grip on the surge of grief that churned in her chest. She’d lost friends and squad-mates before – every soldier knew that feeling – but this moment felt sombre and heavy. So soon after losing Ari Silber, so soon after being forced on the run by their enemies, in this moment Lucy felt the weight of it. A nagging, toxic thought sickened her: she’d gone into this unfit for field duty and people were dying because of it. She wanted the earth to open up and swallow her whole.
‘No,’ Marc was saying. ‘Assim came with us because he believed in what we are. So did Ari. We didn’t make them do it, Lucy, they chose to. So we push through. We keep fighting, for them.’ He looked her way. ‘Right?’
‘Right,’ she repeated, and the affirmation was what she needed to force the fear and the grief back where it belonged.
‘Vehicle is here,’ called the guard, from up ahead. He was looking around, trying to see in every direction at once, desperate to find some way out of his predicament. ‘I help you, you let me go.’
Marc shouldered open the doors that opened into the barn-like garage. Inside, work lights illuminated the shape of the big yellow Hummer Lucy had seen out on the road that morning.
‘This’ll do,’ said Marc, as Solomon and Malte vanished inside.
‘You let me go,’ repeated the guard, his voice rising. ‘Now!’
‘Calm down,’ Lucy growled, throwing a look towards the mansion. He was going to attract attention if he didn’t shut the hell up.
And then it went to shit.
The guard saw what he thought was an opportunity, with Marc distracted at the doors and only Lucy standing in his way. He threw himself at her, shoving her as hard as he could, snatching at the barrel of the AK-47 she had taken from him. He grabbed at her hands and tried to get his fingers around the assault rifle’s trigger.
The weapon brayed, a wild burst going high and wide, and the guard cried out in surprise. He started shouting, and it was only a blow from the butt of Marc’s rifle that silenced him, dropping the man into the dirt.
Voices called out from the roof of Simbarashe’s mansion, and shadows moved up there.
‘Damn it, we’re blown!’
She shoved Marc into the garage and pulled the door shut behind her, leaving the semi-conscious guard where he had fallen.
*
‘Kalashnikov,’ said Cord, cocking his head like a dog, automatically parsing the sound of the weapon discharge. ‘Close by.’
Khadir’s pistol leapt into his hand and he spun to place the muzzle of the Beretta squarely between Simbarashe’s eyes.
‘What are you doing, Colonel?’
To his credit, the warlord seemed as surprised as Khadir was.
‘I am doing nothing!’ He recovered his composure and snarled as his second in command came rushing back into the room. ‘Who is shooting?’
‘Sir!’ Dahma gave a sloppy, distracted salute. ‘The cages are empty! Solomon is gone.’
‘What?’ Simbarashe exploded with rage. ‘Find him, you idiot!’
Dahma nodded, running out into the hall, calling out to his men. Khadir glanced at Cord and Vine, and without a word, he indicated for them to follow.
‘Copy,’ said Cord, dropping his M4 into the ready.
As the mercenaries set off, Simbarashe retreated deeper into the room, his eyes darting around as he measured his options.
‘You’re not trying to fuck us over, are you, Surtur?’ Grace used his first name as she picked up one of the discarded Rubicon sidearms. ‘Because that would not go well for you.’
‘Huh.’ Simbarashe forced a sneer and took on a defiant posture. ‘I am wondering if it you who are trying to fuck with me!’ He waved at the air, looking towards his soldiers in the room, playing to them. ‘Foreigners are all the same. Come and throw your weight around. All you are good for is talk and money, and I don’t like to talk to you. You think we are fools!’
‘You should be more concerned with fulfilling your part of our agreement,’ Khadir told him. ‘If you fail in that, I guarantee there will be nothing left to discuss.’
*
‘Best bet is to put as much distance as we can between us and that Hind,’ said Marc, searching a rack for the Hummer’s ignition key. ‘Once they get the gunship in the air, our odds of survival will be a lot worse.’
He found what he was looking for and ran to the driver’s side door.
Behind him, Malte gently laid down the bag containing Assim’s body in the rear cargo bay. Beside it, the crate of hard drives was lashed in place with webbing, and Marc found himself caught on the moment.
A box of secrets and lies, and we’ve already traded two good friends for it. The grim conclusion to the thought followed inexorably. How much more is it going to cost us before this is over?
Marc recalled Assim’s eager grin and his mile-a-minute enthusiasm, and it seemed unreal, impossible to accept that the keen young hacker was gone.
He shook himself out of the reverie and climbed into the vehicle. Lucy was in the back, checking her weapons.
‘You know where to go?’ she said.
Marc looked to Solomon, who stood on the Hummer’s running board, listening to the shouts from outside.
‘What she said.’
‘If you can drive, I will guide you,’ he replied.
‘I can drive,’ Marc promised, and the Hummer rumbled into life.
The noise from beyond the garage doors grew louder, and then suddenly the wood was cracking and splintering as Simbarashe’s militia blind-fired into the outbuilding.
Bullets spanked off the bonnet and the windscreen, cracking but not penetrating the toughened glass. Marc heard Lucy swear and Solomon flinched, lurching into the front passenger seat and out of the line of fire. Simbarashe had clearly spent the extra cash to pay for protective upgrades, but Marc had no desire to test the limits of its durability.
‘Doors!’ he shouted, throwing the Hummer into gear.
Marc held the brake for half a second and put it into a burnout, sending up a cloud of white fumes that filled the garage as the rear wheels spun and shrieked.
He let it go and stood on the accelerator pedal, the vehicle rocking forward like a charging bull. They crashed through the shredded doors, turning them to matchwood, and soldiers too slow to get out of the way thudded off the chrome-plated grille.
Gunfire sparked as Marc went into a skidding turn, pitching them over a dusty ornamental berm and down a wide track towards the compound’s rear gate.
Lucy fired back, keeping low, using the door frame as cover, while Malte was standing on his seat, head and shoulders above the line of the open sunroof. Their AKs kept up a steady chatter of burst fire, directed to discourage any immediate pursuit.
Some of the militia were running towards a pair of technicals parked close by, looking to get on the heavy machine guns in their flatbeds and put .50-calibre rounds their way, but Marc had already put them in the rear-view, leaving them in a dusty backwash.
In the split second as they converged, Marc didn’t read the faces of the mercenaries, but he knew the gear and he knew the guns.
M4 carbines and low-signature tactical rigs.
The same kit used by the Special Conditions Division, the same kit that their doppelgängers had used to double them back in Cyprus.
‘See ’em!’
Behind him, Lucy switched angles to squeeze off a few more shots towards the gunmen, knocking off the aim of the one on the right.
The man on the left showed the cool hand of a professional soldier, and paced his shots. Marc realised he was aiming for the tyres.
Keeping the hammer down, Marc shoved the vehicle into a snaking motion over the track, as if he was passing through an invisible chicane. Bullets clanked off the framework and one of the headlights blew out, but then there was the shriek of tortured metal as the Hummer connected with the gate and threw it clean off its hinges.
Malte narrowly avoided decapitation, dropping back into the cabin as part of the metal barrier split and screeched up and over the top of the vehicle.
They bounded out onto the highway and the wheels bit into the asphalt.
‘East,’ said Solomon, panting with exertion. ‘Go east!’
*
Khadir strode into the humid night, listening to the familiar chaos of gunshots and battle. He knew this music intimately, and if he was honest with himself, he missed it.
Striking from the gloom, killing the unwary – that was the assassin’s way. As capable as he was of that, Khadir remained a soldier at heart. He had a soldier’s longing for contact, for the moment of true conflict.
Militiamen were firing at Simbarashe’s vehicle out on the road, the gaudy yellow thing hurtling past the compound walls at full throttle, disappearing into the dark. Khadir’s lip curled as Cord and Vine came running back to meet him. Cord was wounded, binding up the injury on the run with a gauze bandage.
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