Something to Die For

by Will Jordan

‘Looks like we’re ready.’

  Drake produced the memory stick and moved over to join her. Inserting it into a spare port, Drake opened the video file, skipped to the point where they’d been obliged to abandon their viewing, and hit Play.

  Once more his mother’s face appeared on screen.

  ‘—seemed almost like we shared the same mind, like there was nothing we couldn’t do if we worked together. I’d never met a man like that before. And… I suppose what happened next was inevitable.’

  Berlin – October 3rd, 1990

  The atmosphere on the streets of the German capital was one of euphoric celebration, music blaring from countless buildings, fireworks bursting overhead, and ecstatic crowds bearing the national flag. Tens of thousands of people marching through the Tiergarten Zoo and along the great avenue of Unter den Linden, all of them converging on the Reichstag building, the symbol of German government.

  And Marcus Cain had a front row seat, standing at the balcony of his hotel suite in the Westin Grand, facing out towards the Brandenburg Gate. The energy on the streets below was infectious, and he couldn’t help but feel a swell of excitement and elation, and perhaps a little pride at what he’d accomplished.

  An entire country, an entire continent reunited after generations of repression and division. Freedom, democracy and opportunity spreading to millions of people who had known only fear and suspicion.

  And as for the once-powerful empire that had kept them behind the Iron Curtain, the Soviet Union was in its death throes – a spent force, bankrupt and exhausted, riven by internal strife and division, teetering on the brink. A giant that had finally been felled.

  Because of him. And the woman beside him.

  ‘Here,’ Shaw said, handing him a flute of champagne as she glided in beside him. Cain could smell the scent of her perfume, feel the warmth of her body.

  ‘No James tonight?’ Cain asked, looking around for her ever-present assistant.

  The woman chuckled. ‘James has other business now. I wanted to share this moment with you, and you alone.’

  He took a sip, relishing the taste, relishing the moment.

  ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ Shaw whispered.

  He looked over at her. She was staring out across a city united in celebration, the fireworks bursting in the night sky, her lips slightly parted, eyes shining in triumph and wonder. She was like a drug, dangerous and intoxicating, and the more time he spent with her, the more he wanted her.

  ‘The end of the old world,’ Cain said, reflecting on the Wall that once divided this city, now being joyfully demolished. A whole way of life, the balance of power that had held for half a century, gone in just a few short months.

  ‘And the beginning of the new.’ Shaw turned towards him, moving a little closer, her eyes searching his as she gently reached up and touched his chest. A touch that sent electricity through him. ‘For us too, Marcus. We’re going to do incredible things together, you and I.’

  You and I, he repeated to himself. Yes, they would do incredible things together, he realised in that perfect, exhilarating moment with the whole city before them. As the crowds below sang and cheered and waved their flags, he pulled Freya Shaw to him, her body melting into his as he kissed her.

  * * *

  Drake and Jessica watched, numb with shock, as their mother went on to describe something that should have been impossible. Something neither of them had ever considered.

  ‘Marcus was different back then,’ Freya said, her expression one of sorrow and regret. ‘Younger, brighter, always with an eye on the future. It must sound hopelessly clichéd and romantic, but it really felt like something special. Like it was meant to be. I thought he and I were going to take on the world together.’

  She stopped to clear her throat, and Drake could see her struggling with what she was about to reveal.

  ‘And for a while, it seemed I was right. We lived and worked together… well, as much as we could, at least. But things began to change once we had a child.’

  The word was dropped in so suddenly, so abruptly, that neither Drake nor his sister registered it immediately. It took a second or so for it to sink in, for each of them to process what she’d said.

  Their mother had had a child in secret. Marcus Cain’s child.

  Drake watched in utter silence, not moving, not even breathing as his mother, clearly pained by the memory, leaned back in her chair.

  ‘I’m sorry you had to find out this way, Ryan. I really am. But I tried to keep the truth from you, from Jessica, from everyone. It was the only way to keep her safe. But now…’ She sighed. ‘You deserve to know. You have a half-sister. Her name is Lauren…’

  Reaching out with a trembling hand, Drake hit the pause button to stop the video, stood up and walked over to the room’s minibar.

  ‘Ryan…’ Jessica began.

  Drake didn’t respond. Opening the minibar, he popped the lid on a miniature of whisky and downed it in one gulp. The cheap alcohol blazed a heated trail down his throat, lighting a fire in his belly that sent a chill through him. He needed it at that moment, because he knew something about Lauren Cain, the half-sister he’d never even realised he’d had.

  Not until it was too late.

  ‘What is it?’ Jessica persisted, moving closer. ‘Talk to me.’

  Downing a second whisky, Drake looked at his sister.

  ‘She’s dead,’ he said bluntly.

  ‘Lauren?’

  He nodded.

  A moment of dismay passed over her. The confused emptiness where there should have been wrenching grief. The loss of a sibling she would never get to know.

  ‘How did it happen?’

  The only thing he could offer was the truth.

  ‘In Berlin,’ he admitted. ‘When our team got captured in Pakistan, Anya used Lauren to trade for our lives. But the trade went bad, things went wrong. You remember what I told you about Berlin, don’t you?’

  ‘I remember,’ she confirmed darkly.

  ‘People died, and Lauren was one of them.’ He closed his eyes, hardly able to conceive the cruel twist of fate that had conspired to make this a reality. ‘Jesus Christ, it was my fault. She’s dead because of me.’

  The death of an innocent young woman had weighed heavily on Drake ever since that day, but what he’d just heard had recast the whole thing in a terrible new light. A tragic casualty of war had become a personal loss.

  Jessica shook her head. ‘No, Ryan. You didn’t kill her. This isn’t on you.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for me.’

  ‘Maybe not, but bringing her there wasn’t your choice. That was on Anya, and Cain. They created this whole mess, and they pulled us all into it. Including Lauren.’ She glanced away and swallowed. ‘Whatever she… whatever Lauren might have been to us, she’s gone now. We can’t do anything for her.’

  Drake sighed. Jessica might have been able to make that emotional break, because she hadn’t been there. She hadn’t been involved. Lauren was just a name, an abstract identity with no grounding in reality. For Drake, she had been flesh and blood. A person, a life, a future.

  He was almost afraid of what he might learn next, but he knew they had to see the message through to the end. Collecting themselves, they sat down to watch the final segment.

  ‘Things began to change after that,’ Freya continued. ‘Marcus became distant, detached, obsessive about his work. He was determined to rise through the ranks, both at the Agency and within the Circle. It wasn’t until later that I began to understand what was driving him. Or rather, who.’

  A shadow passed over her then.

  ‘Anya. As hard as he tried, he could never let her go. But she had her own path to follow by then. The Circle had seen her potential, her growing power and influence, and they wanted her as their next rising star.’ She allowed herself a bitter, sardonic chuckle. ‘They were like children, competing against each other for their parents’ favour. Each trying to outdo the ot
her. I tried to turn Marcus around, but… he wouldn’t hear me. I imagine he had grander plans in mind. So… I left. Just like that. I ended it. And they continued their little cold war.

  ‘By the end of the decade, Anya had amassed even more influence than Cain himself. He couldn’t outdo her, so I suppose he took the only option open to him – he fought dirty. He sabotaged her unit, turned them against each other just as she was preparing to join the inner Circle. He destroyed everything she’d built in a single night. He broke her.’

  Drake knew the grim tale well enough, having heard it from Anya herself. Convincing her chief lieutenant that she was planning to take her unit rogue, Cain manipulated a coup against her, resulting in the virtual destruction of Task Force Black.

  ‘That was the breaking point for me,’ she went on sadly. ‘Something had to be done, not just about Cain, but the Circle themselves. They had changed, I realised. The rot had been slow to set in, and maybe that was why I didn’t see it, but now I understood they’d become something very different. They had been created to change history, to build a new world that was better than the one we overthrew. But when the moment finally came, they failed. They became short-sighted and ruthless, starting wars for money or resources, amassing power for power’s sake. I didn’t recognise what they were anymore.’

  Her expression hardened with grim, unyielding resolve then.

  ‘That’s why I’m going to destroy them.’

  Chapter 27

  Berlin, Germany – October 3rd, 1990

  Marcus Cain might have been lost in his greatest triumph, but there was one person in the crowds below who wasn’t celebrating that night.

  Standing in a doorway on the opposite side of the busy thoroughfare, a hooded jacket hiding her face from view, Anya was silently watching the man she had once loved.

  She had come here tonight to seek him out, fully expecting him to grant her an audience. Whatever their differences or difficulties, Cain had never once refused to speak to her, and she’d never doubted that he would see her tonight.

  After all, so much of this was happening because of her. She was the one who had risked her life to venture into East Berlin, to threaten the Stasi officer into letting the Alexanderplatz rally go ahead. Just as she was the one who had risked her life time and again in Afghanistan.

  She was certain that Cain would embrace her, congratulate her on her accomplishments, thank her for everything she had done and sacrificed. And in some tiny, barely acknowledged part of her heart, she’d hoped that reconciliation might have led to something more.

  Time had passed for both of them, and her anger had cooled a little. She’d begun to reassess the choices she’d made over the past few years, whether she’d pushed him away too hastily, dealt with him too harshly. And tonight she’d resolved to reach out to him.

  But it wasn’t to be. She’d barely entered the hotel lobby before being accosted by a pair of burly security operatives, who had informed her in no uncertain terms that she was not welcome there.

  She’d felt it straight away. The disapproving stares, the curious looks, the muttered comments from the other guests as they took in her torn jeans, scuffed shoes and frayed leather jacket that blended in so easily on the streets of Berlin. Now they marked her out as someone different, someone beneath them.

  How dare they? She’d thought. She wasn’t some piece of trash off the street, some stupid girl to be idly dismissed. She could have taken them both on, armed or not. But even if she’d won, what good would it have done?

  They were simply messengers, and the message was clear – she wasn’t wanted.

  She should have just left, gone back to her temporary apartment and let it go, but she hadn’t. She couldn’t. Instead she had slunk outside and waited in the shadows of an empty doorway across the street, ignoring the cold and the revelry all around, focussing her attention on the balconies above.

  And now she saw why she wasn’t wanted tonight. As Cain pulled his female companion close and embraced her, Anya felt her cheeks flush with jealousy. And worse, shame. Of course Cain would take a woman like that, she told herself angrily. Beautiful, sophisticated, intelligent and captivating; the sort that any man would be drawn to.

  She felt suddenly angry – not at them, but at herself. Angry at her own foolishness and naiveté, angry at the ridiculous hopes and myopic ambitions she’d nurtured. Next to them in their majestic hotel suite with their grand plans, she was a child. A child playing at adult games, flattering herself that she could be part of their world.

  Were they laughing at her, she wondered in a sudden, excruciating moment? Finding amusement in the silly young woman who wanted to play soldiers and spies? Joking about how she’d tried to intrude on their evening?

  She could watch no more. Turning away from the heart-breaking sight, Anya strode off down the street as the city celebrated and fireworks blossomed in the skies above, her head down to hide the tears in her eyes.

  Jerusalem, Israel

  Splashing cold water on her face, Anya straightened up and looked at herself in the bathroom mirror, surveying the face staring back at her.

  You’re getting old, she thought to herself with a kind of reluctant acceptance. Vanity had never been one of her vices, yet even she recognised the subtle, inexorable changes that were taking place within her. The life she’d lived had been neither short nor easy, with few occasions in which she could recall true happiness, and it was beginning to show.

  She was almost at the end of her long road now, her best and brightest years behind her, a dark and uncertain future ahead. And if she was honest with herself, who would really miss her when she was gone?

  Anya inhaled deep, gripping the sink tight and tensing her muscles, rallying her strength and resilience, just as she’d done so many times before. She’d been betrayed, written off, used and discarded by almost everyone she’d ever put her faith in. She was a relic of another time, a ghost haunted by old failures and mistakes.

  But she wasn’t finished yet. She had one last mission to complete, and she wouldn’t stop while there was breath in her lungs and blood in her veins.

  She heard the patter of something on the sink, and looked down to see a spot of blood smearing the white porcelain. The dressing around her shoulder must have come loose, she realised, surprised by the chill of foreboding it sent through her.

  Turning away from the mirror, she removed the bloodied dressing and inspected the wound. It wasn’t all that severe, but it had required stitches and would leave a scar for sure. Another to add to the list, she thought with a grim smile.

  Changing it for a fresh dressing, she found her cell phone and dialled a number from memory, waiting a few seconds while the encryption software did its work.

  ‘I’m here,’ the recipient answered. No greetings, no preamble, no emotion. All business. That was the nature of their relationship.

  ‘What’s your situation?’ Anya asked.

  ‘I’ve found him.’

  Anya closed her eyes, letting it sink in.

  ‘Is he… what’s his status?’

  There was a short, questioning pause. ‘He’s active, and unharmed. I can make contact…’

  ‘No,’ Anya said right away. ‘Keep him under observation for now.’

  ‘Understood.’ Another pause. ‘What about you?’

  Anya thought for a moment about what she’d learned from Russo tonight, and the next man on her list.

  ‘I have another lead. I’ll be following up on it soon.’

  Chapter 28

  Amesbury, UK – April 27th

  It was dawn, the April sun just rising over the open moorland of Salisbury Plain as Jessica approached her brother. He was standing with his back to her, facing out towards the towering megaliths of the ancient henge, lit by the glow of the new day. Lost in his own thoughts.

  They both had much to think about. They had listened to the remainder of their mother’s message; her growing suspicion and distrust of the Circle, her f
ear of Marcus Cain’s ruthless ambition, and finally her resolution to bring an end to them both. She had even identified a few others that she’d recruited to her cause, who might be able to help.

  This recount of her life had ended with a chillingly pragmatic conclusion.

  ‘If you’re watching this video, then it’s safe to say my efforts failed. I can only hope it was quick.’

  Jessica had felt her brother’s tension, the anger and pain eating away inside him as Freya’s final words played out.

  ‘I wanted you to know all of this, Ryan. Because you deserved a lot more than you got from me. I’ve spent most of my life dealing in secrets and lies, but for once I wanted to give you the truth. I know that can’t begin to make up for everything I’ve done, the people I’ve let down, but maybe it will help make sense of it. And as for you… I can’t tell you what to do next. I won’t tell you to finish what I started, or let it all go and leave this whole mess behind. All I ask is that you take care of your sister. I can’t protect her anymore; only you can do that now. But whatever choice you make, I want you to know that I loved you both, right to the end. And I’m sorry… for all of it.’

  Jessica’s memory of what had happened afterward was hazy. She remembered crying, drinking some more, and finally surrendering to a restless, troubled sleep.

  She’d awoken with the dawn, and Drake had been gone. But she had an instinct about where she would find him.

  She moved up beside him, taking in the view. The ancient monument that had stood here for hundreds of generations before they were born, and would still be here long after they and all their cares and worries had crumbled to dust.

  ‘We were here once before,’ she said quietly. ‘When we were children. Mum and Dad brought us. I couldn’t have been more than… five, maybe six years old.’

  Drake didn’t respond. His expression was glacial, his gaze lingering in the distance, his mind harbouring dark thoughts.

  ‘You took me climbing on the stones,’ Jessica carried on. ‘I suppose you were allowed to do things like that back then. I was afraid to climb up. I was little, and I wasn’t used to things like that. I never had been. But… you gave me your hand, and you told me there was nothing to be scared of. Not while you were around.’