Something to Die For

by Will Jordan

  ‘Where the hell is Cain?’ Kennedy asked, vexed by the director’s absence. ‘He should be here overseeing this.’

  ‘Keep your mind on the job,’ Franklin ordered. ‘This is bigger than Cain now. Bigger than any of us.’

  Kennedy glanced up at him, but wisely remained silent.

  * * *

  As his car made its way towards central DC in heavy traffic, rain pattering around them, Marcus Cain took out his phone and put through a call to his subordinate.

  ‘Franklin,’ came the terse response.

  ‘What’s the situation, Dan?’

  ‘Strike force is en route to target. ETA, sixty minutes. We’re about to go online with the president and the NSC,’ Franklin reported. ‘You sure you don’t want to be here for this?’

  How he wished he could be. He wanted to be there in that Situation Room with the rest of them, watching events unfold via satellite link, watching history being made. Sharing in the elation and celebrations, just like he’d done twenty years earlier when the Cold War came to an end. When the future had seemed like some great highway of infinite possibilities stretching out before him.

  But he knew he couldn’t. For his plan to succeed, for all of this to be worth it, things had to play out the way he’d intended.

  ‘I’ve got other business to take care of first.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I know, Dan. I know.’

  He glanced out the window, surveying the muddy expanse of the Potomac as they approached the bridge. Not long now.

  ‘But when this is all over, you will.’

  * * *

  ‘Heads up,’ Frost said over the radio. ‘Target’s on the western approach now.’

  Angling the heavy sniper rifle upward, Drake reached up and adjusted the telescopic zoom, focussing on the far side of the bridge. And sure enough, there was the three-vehicle motorcade, moving steadily in time with the traffic. Cain was in there. Heading straight at him, straight into the kill zone.

  ‘Got them in sight,’ he confirmed. ‘Range, five hundred metres.’

  ‘Copy that. Cell phone tracking is locked.’

  Grasping the side-mounted charging handle, Drake racked it back, hearing the crisp click as the first round was drawn into the breach. The convoy was already well within the rifle’s 1500 metre effective range, but he wouldn’t open fire yet. He needed to be sure.

  Ignoring the black SUVs up front and trailing behind, he focussed on the limousine at the centre of the convoy; the windows were darkened, masking the interior from view. Large, bulky and heavy, it moved with the ponderous speed of its powerful V8 engine weighed down by layers of armour and bulletproof glass.

  That was where he would concentrate his fire. His first shot would go straight through the radiator, blasting apart the engine block and disabling the limo. After that, he would unleash everything through the windshield, killing the driver before the high explosive rounds detonated inside. The sealed environment would magnify the effects of the deadly projectiles. If Cain wasn’t killed by direct fire or flying shrapnel, the incendiary effects would immolate him regardless.

  A spare magazine sat beside him, ready to be loaded and used if the opening salvo wasn’t enough to finish the job. Drake had practised and rehearsed the magazine changeover to the point he could perform it blindfolded.

  ‘Four hundred metres. I have good line of sight.’

  Once the limo had been reduced to a smoking ruin and he was satisfied that every living thing inside it was dead, then would come the final phase of his plan – evacuation. This phase would have to be conducted with the greatest of haste, because his position was certain to be betrayed by the noise of the AS-50. Even if it were possible to fit a suppressor to such a massive weapon, it would do no good – the blast of the .50 calibre rounds would be impossible to mask.

  ‘Three hundred metres.’

  They were well within firing range now, and perfectly aligned for a kill shot. Rarely were snipers afforded such an ideal target.

  For barely a second, Drake thought of all the people he’d lost because of the man in that limo. Good people who had died because of him. So many others whose lives had been destroyed. He felt as if each of them was with him in that moment – shadowy spectres hovering over him, waiting for him to act.

  ‘It’s all on you now, Ryan,’ Frost said, her tone hushed and breathless now that the moment had come. ‘Take the shot.’

  Lining up his sights on the limo’s front grille, Drake exhaled slowly, allowing the tension to leave his body as his finger tightened on the trigger. No more questions, no more doubts, no more hesitation.

  Just him and his target.

  ‘Firing.’

  Then abruptly he stopped, alerted by a change around him. A minor shift in the flow of air, the barely audible thud of a boot on the wet rooftop, the faint scent of another human body close by.

  Someone who had been expecting him.

  ‘Don’t move,’ a voice commanded. ‘Take your finger off the trigger.’

  Chapter 52

  The agonising seconds stretched out as everyone in the van held their breath, waiting for the shooting to start. Waiting for confirmation that their target had been destroyed.

  But there was nothing. No distant crack of gunfire. No explosion as the limo’s gas tank ignited. No radio transmission from Drake to report the completion of his grim task.

  Just the drumming of rain on the steel roof.

  ‘Ryan, he’s in range now. I repeat, target is in your sights,’ Frost spoke into her radio. Her voice was carefully measured, but the others could see her hand shaking. ‘It’s now or never. What are you waiting for?’

  There was no response except the faint hiss of static over the radio net.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ Jessica said. She knew her brother wouldn’t hesitate at a moment like this. ‘Pull up the cameras on that rooftop.’

  Switching screens, Frost accessed the security feeds from Drake’s sniping position, which were still feeding looped footage into the building’s system, and brought up the camera covering Drake’s position.

  The moment the footage appeared on the screen, Jessica let out a gasp of horror.

  ‘Oh, God.’

  * * *

  ‘Take your finger off the trigger and put the weapon down.’

  The voice that spoke to him was female, American, slightly muffled by a mask or fabric covering the mouth. Whoever she was, she had the drop on him.

  The convoy was getting close now. Barely 200 metres away, moving steadily amidst the busy traffic on the bridge. Cain’s limo was in his sights, perfectly lined up, but it wouldn’t be for much longer.

  He had just seconds to make his choice.

  ‘You going to kill me for this?’ he asked. ‘For him?’

  He heard the click of a weapon being cocked, smelled the faint odour of gun oil. It could only be inches from his head.

  ‘Don’t make me show you.’

  Drake closed his eyes, letting out a faint sigh as he took his finger off the rifle’s trigger. A sigh of disappointment at what he was about to do.

  It happened fast. Sweeping his arm around, Drake violently smacked the weapon aside, hearing the distinctive clang of metal as it clattered to the ground nearby. He didn’t care where it landed right now; what mattered was that it was out of the fight.

  Now he needed to deal with its owner.

  Rounding on his opponent, he lashed out with a strike to the throat, knowing that a hard blow there would collapse her larynx and drop her like a stone. She saw it coming and twisted aside, deflecting the blow with her forearm. Drake noticed the sudden shift in posture, knew a retaliatory attack was coming, and instinctively threw up his arms to parry it.

  He and his adversary were different but equally matched; one larger and stronger, the other faster and more agile. For a few seconds, they traded blows, ducking and blocking and looking for an opening, a moment of vulnerability.

  Drak
e had no stomach for a prolonged fight; not with the mission hanging by a thread. He had to end this quickly.

  As his opponent tried to grab for his arm, hoping to twist it and force him off balance, Drake countered with a kick to the leg that buckled her knee. An open strike to the centre of the chest sent her reeling.

  But far from being out of the fight, she used her momentum, rolling backward and springing into a crouch. At the same moment she drew a knife from her belt, gathering herself to leap at her opponent again.

  But her momentary lapse had bought Drake the time he needed to snatch up her fallen weapon and turn it on her.

  ‘Enough, Ryan!’ the woman snapped. ‘I’m not your enemy!’

  Dropping the knife, she reached up and tore her mask off, revealing her face for the first time. It was a face that Drake had never expected to see for the rest of his life, and he let out an involuntary gasp of disbelief.

  ‘Sam?’

  * * *

  ‘Unit Two, what’s your status?’ Watts asked as the convoy rumbled over the wet tarmac, approaching the eastern end of the bridge, wipers fighting against the rain.

  ‘Two here. All good. No contacts.’

  ‘That feeling still kicking in?’ the driver asked with a hint of good-natured mockery. Intuitions and ‘bad feelings’ weren’t unknown in their line of work, but they rarely came to anything.

  Her eyes swept the buildings lining the eastern shores of the Potomac up ahead, silhouetted against the sombre grey sky. Hotels, offices and residential blocks were everywhere, but for some reason she felt her eye drawn towards the dominant red brick structure of the Georgetown Car Barn. Especially the big square clocktower that loomed over the entire complex, providing a perfect view across the bridge approach.

  If she were planning an ambush, that’s where she would be right now.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, trying to shake her unease. ‘I guess it was nothing.’

  * * *

  ‘That’s right, Ryan,’ she said, picking herself up stiffly. ‘It’s Sam.’

  Drake’s mind was reeling as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Samantha McKnight, once a trusted member of his own team. The woman he’d once even imagined starting a new life with.

  The traitor who had been acting as a spy for Marcus Cain since the very beginning, who had compromised their mission in Pakistan, betraying them all. People were dead because of her actions.

  Rushing forward, Drake clamped a hand around her throat, virtually lifting her off the ground as he pressed the weapon against her chest.

  ‘Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now,’ he snarled. Whatever shock and confusion he might have felt at McKnight’s sudden appearance had vanished, replaced by years of pent-up pain and fury at her betrayal.

  ‘Ryan, the target’s almost on top of you,’ Frost’s voice buzzed urgently in his earpiece. ‘Twenty seconds, you’re going to lose him!’

  ‘I’m here to stop you,’ McKnight said, her voice rasping as his grip tightened. ‘You’re making a mistake.’

  ‘My biggest mistake was trusting you,’ he spat. ‘You sold us out, you piece of shit!’

  ‘Ryan, what’s going on there?’ Frost pleaded over the radio.

  ‘I didn’t sell you out!’ McKnight protested, grasping at his wrists, trying to pull his hand away from her throat. ‘I want Cain dead as much as you, but it won’t happen this way!’

  ‘Bullshit!’ His grip tightened further, the tendons in his arms standing out hard and sharp. ‘You’ll say anything to save your own life.’

  Then, just like that, she stopped. McKnight stopped fighting, stopped resisting. Instead she went limp, making no attempt to protect herself.

  ‘Then kill me,’ she said, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper now. ‘End it, Ryan. Because that’s what it’ll take to stop me. If you fire on that convoy, this is all for nothing.’

  The two warring sides of Drake’s psyche rose to a crescendo within him. One side was utterly focussed on ending Marcus Cain’s life, and the other was struck by the impassioned plea from the woman standing before him. Would she really go through all this for a man like Cain? Or was he wrong? Was there something about this he didn’t understand?

  McKnight made no further attempt to sway him. She just stood there, waiting for him to make his choice. Ready to accept it either way.

  In the end, her silence was what decided him.

  Drake lowered the weapon and released his grip just as the convoy passed below, moving beyond his line of sight. His chance to take out Marcus Cain had just come and gone. Everything he’d risked and sacrificed, he’d just given up for the woman standing in front of him. All he could do was hope he hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of his life.

  ‘Thank you,’ McKnight rasped, rubbing her throat.

  Raising the weapon once more, he took aim over her shoulder and pulled the trigger. However, instead of the thump of a suppressed gunshot, he heard only a crisp metallic click as the hammer struck an empty chamber.

  Drake let out a breath. The gun had never been loaded. It had been a bluff. She couldn’t have killed him, just as he couldn’t have killed her.

  The woman sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I had to know whether you would trust me.’

  ‘What the hell are you doing here, Sam? What the fuck is going on?’

  He might have relented on killing her, for now at least, but that didn’t mean her betrayal was forgotten or forgiven. What she said in the next minute would determine whether she lived to see the one after.

  ‘I’m trying to protect you.’

  ‘Protect me?’ he sneered. ‘Like you protected me in Pakistan?’

  ‘What happened in Pakistan wasn’t me. I wish I had time to explain it all, but I’m telling the truth.’ She looked away, seething with frustration at all the things she wanted to say but couldn’t. ‘As for now, who do you think saved your sister when they came for her?’

  Drake’s mind suddenly flashed back to the conversation with his sister a week earlier, as she recovered from her near abduction at the hands of Cain’s people.

  ‘They told me they were going to take me away forever. Torture me, kill me…’ Her voice grew strained, ‘That’s when she showed up.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘I never saw her face. But she was waiting for them. She took out their convoy, got me to safety. She’s the only reason I’m not dead or captured.’

  ‘That was you,’ Drake said quietly, his mind racing as a big piece of the puzzle suddenly fell into place. ‘The woman in the mask.’

  McKnight nodded solemnly.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I was ordered to protect your sister,’ she explained.

  Drake looked at her sharply. ‘Ordered by who?’

  Chapter 53

  Two months earlier

  She was dead.

  A ghost; just a vague memory of a life that had ended the previous year. And not with any sense of finality and closure – it had simply stopped, her very existence erased like the markings on a chalk board.

  Remembered by few, mourned by none. Least of all the small group of men and women she had once considered friends. To them she was worse than a ghost. She was a pariah, a traitor whose deception had undone everything they’d worked and sacrificed for. An outcast whose name was spoken only with disgust.

  She had accepted this fact as one must accept all uncomfortable realities one can’t change. She didn’t deserve pity or grief, much less forgiveness. Not from them or anyone else. On balance, she didn’t recall much in her former life that she could feel proud of.

  And sitting alone in a darkened prison cell with nothing but her thoughts for company, she’d certainly had time to ponder it.

  Her captor had more than lived up to his word, promising a lifetime to relive her decisions and mistakes, and realise the cost of betraying him. He’d devoted all the time and resources needed to keep her alive, though she could hardly be called ‘well’.

  She was
watched constantly in her miserable isolation, her food intake carefully monitored, her behaviour scrutinised for possible suicide attempts. She had learned this the hard way when she’d tried to end her life after several days of quiet, logical deliberation, internal debate and grim planning, only for three guards to storm in and forcibly restrain her. She’d spent a week strapped to a bed for that little infraction.

  Unable to live and incapable of dying on her own terms, she had spent her existence trapped in some shadowy in-between as the days and weeks slowly blended into months, and finally all concept of time seemed to disintegrate. The world carried on without her as she brooded alone in the dark.

  She let out a sharp gasp as the truck hit another pothole, jarring her back against the bare metal sidewall and eliciting a stab of pain deep inside. Her body was still recovering from the exhausting ordeal it had so recently endured – an ordeal that had forced her reluctant transfer to a proper medical facility that could deal with her – yet there was little chance to rest and recuperate.

  As soon as her guards could force a discharge order, she was off, bundled into the back of an armoured car for the journey back to the black site where she’d been held ever since that terrible day in Pakistan.

  ‘Vacation’s almost over,’ one of her guards taunted. ‘Soon you’ll be back, home sweet home. Feels good, doesn’t it?’

  The second man sniggered in amusement.

  Ignoring his mockery, she glanced towards the rear doors, where she fancied she saw a sliver of daylight through a gap in the hatch. Not much, just a faint glow of natural light against the metal. She could tell it was hot outside. She could feel the heat radiating through the truck’s metal skin, leaving the interior stifling.

  She imagined a hot sun outside and felt a sudden, crushing pang of longing. She would have liked to see sunlight one more time before she was returned to her cell, just to remember what it was like.