by Will Jordan
Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Will Jordan
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Part One: Intrusion
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Part Two: Incursion
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Part Three: Intervention
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Part Four: Illusion
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Part Five: Instigation
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Epilogue
Copyright
About the Book
Washington DC. Former soldier and elite CIA operative Ryan Drake is heading out for dinner when he witnesses a sniper attack on the freeway.
A motorcade full of Russian Federal Security Force members – in Washington DC for a conference on greater co-operation with their US counterparts – has been ambushed. Many have been killed, and the CIA suspect the leader of the strike team is Anya – the woman Drake once risked everything for.
Drake cannot believe her capable of such an atrocity but with the Russians baying for blood Drake and his depleted team head for Siberia to discover the truth.
And here he is forced to confront the terrifying possibility that Anya’s betrayal could be greater and more deadly than he could ever have imagined …
About the Author
While studying for a degree in IT, Will Jordan worked a number of part-time jobs, one of which was as an extra in television and feature films. Cast as a Second World War soldier, he was put through military bootcamp and taught to handle and fire weapons in preparation for the role. The experience piqued his interest in military history, and encouraged him to learn more about conflicts past and present. Having always enjoyed writing, he used this research as the basis for his first thriller, Redemption, supplementing it with visits to weapon ranges in America and Eastern Europe to gain first-hand knowledge of modern weaponry. He lives in Fife with his wife and two sons. Betrayal is the third novel in his Ryan Drake series.
Also by Will Jordan
Redemption
Sacrifice
For Susan; who showed me what matters
Acknowledgements
For me, Betrayal was an important story to tell. More than that, it was a story I wanted to tell right. But dealing as it does with sensitive subject matter, I knew it was never going to be an easy book to finish. The fact that it appears before you now is due in no small part of the dedicated and talented people I’ve been lucky enough to work with.
As always, my thanks go to my editor Georgina Hawtrey-Woore for her help and advice in shaping this book, and to my agent Diane Banks for being my guide in the weird and wonderful world of publishing. I’d also like to acknowledge the tireless work of my copy editor Mary Chamberlain, who somehow managed to keep the complex events of this series in some kind of order!
Lastly my thanks go to my friend Irene Houle, who I was finally able to meet in person last summer. Her thoughtful advice and kind words of encouragement on my early writing forays helped me realise how much I wanted to be an author, and for that I’ll always be grateful.
Prologue
Beslan School Number One, 3 September 2004
Numbed by fear and exhaustion, Natasha glanced up from the old scarred wooden floorboards that had been her sole point of focus for the past several hours.
Her captor was standing about 10 yards away, puffing absently on a cigarette, the bulky frame of an assault rifle cradled in his arms as he took another deep draw. His features were crude and blunt, characteristic of the men in this part of the country; all pockmarked skin and stubbly beard. His eyes, grey and soulless, were fixed dead ahead, seeing nothing.
What was going on behind those expressionless eyes?
A muted cough nearby drew her attention back to her immediate surroundings. More than 500 men, women and children of all ages were packed into the school exercise hall, crowded in so close that there was scarcely enough space even to sit down. The heat was stifling. The smell of sweat, fear and stale urine was pervasive.
They had been held for two days and nights without rest or relief, forbidden to move, forbidden even to talk. When they had first been herded in here, their passage marked by shouting and gunshots, many of the children had been near hysteria with panic. Some had pleaded in vain to be allowed to leave, as if this were a sports day that they could somehow be excused from. Others, too young to understand what was going on, had sought the only reassurance they knew and clustered around their teachers like sheep.
But two days and nights of constant fear, lack of sleep and threats of violence had worn the jagged edges of their nerves down until all Natasha could hear was the occasional cough, groan and strangled sob. These were a group of people defeated in body and spirit, grimly waiting for what was to come.
Most of them had their eyes turned downwards, trying not to be noticed, trying not to do anything that would single them out. They had all learned the value of anonymity. On the first day their captors had executed one man simply for failing to kneel quickly enough, and another for speaking in the local Ossetian language instead of Russian.
On the second day they had rounded up twenty of the fittest, most capable-looking men and taken them upstairs to the second floor. Moments later, a thundering boom had rolled through the corridors, followed by the chatter of automatic gunfire. None of the men had come back.
Natasha’s empty stomach growled, the muscles in her abdomen cramping painfully. She hadn’t eaten a thing since this had all begun; a fact that her body was reminding her of with increasing urgency. A slender girl of twelve years, she had had little enough meat on her bones to begin with, but now she was starting to feel weak and light-headed as malnutrition took hold.
She licked her dry lips, trying to silence thoughts of cool, refreshing water. How many times had she pushed her glass of water aside at the dinner table, pestering her father for frui
t juice or a sugary soft drink? She would have killed for that glass now.
Her thoughts were interrupted as shouts echoed from the corridor outside the gym hall, making her and the rest of the captives jump in fright. But despite the sudden pounding of her heart, Natasha strained to listen, trying to discern the cause of the commotion. Despite the obvious anger, they didn’t seem to be arguing amongst themselves. It was more as though they were yelling for the sake of it, venting their frustration and trying to rally their flagging resolve.
They were speaking in Chechen. She couldn’t understand what was being said, but it didn’t matter. Even she could sense the change in them.
Some, like the smoking man nearby, were older, calmer and in control of their emotions. But most were young, filled with fire and bravado. As the uneasy stand-off dragged on without any end in sight, they were growing more frustrated and aggressive. Things were not playing out as they had expected. Something was wrong.
‘It’s going to happen soon,’ Natasha whispered.
‘What are you talking about?’ It was Yelena, the friend she’d known for so long she couldn’t remember a time without her. She was a plump sort of girl – not fat as such, but rounded and soft in body, the kind who would blossom into a voluptuous beauty in her teenage years before growing big and matronly as her youth faded.
The girl, her dark hair hanging limp and damp around her face, didn’t look up from the floor, but Natasha could see her eyes were red from crying.
Natasha leaned in closer and nodded towards the gunman who had discarded his cigarette and was now pacing back and forth in front of the door, his broad shoulders hunched with tension. ‘They’re getting more worked up all the time. They’re going to do something soon.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know.’ She swallowed even though her throat was dry and sore. ‘Maybe kill us all.’
‘They can’t! The soldiers outside will stop them.’ It was a weak protest, delivered without conviction.
Cut off and isolated as they were, neither could tell what was happening outside. Certainly they had heard the rumble of big vehicle engines, the beating of helicopter blades and the occasional shouted exchange with the gunmen, but nothing more. The entire Russian army could be outside, but it didn’t make the slightest difference to them.
‘They didn’t stop all those men being killed yesterday,’ Natasha reasoned. ‘Why would it be any different today?’
‘Maybe they’ll surrender? They can’t want to die here.’
Even Natasha sensed the flawed logic in her argument. ‘Or maybe they’re like the men who flew planes into those buildings in America. Maybe they don’t care about dying.’
Yelena sniffed and shrugged, as if it made no difference to her. ‘So what? What can we do about it?’
That was the question. Natasha wasn’t a soldier. But like all living things, the overwhelming, primal instinct in her young mind was to survive.
‘Be ready to move,’ she said, because wasn’t that what people said at times like this? She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. ‘When it happens, stay by me.’
Seeing the growing defiance and desperation in her friend, Yelena’s eyes opened wider. ‘You’re going to get us killed!’ she hissed.
The girl raised her chin, a tiny flame of anger kindling within her.
‘Better than letting these bastards kill us,’ she said through gritted teeth. She turned her eyes on her friend again. ‘Yelena, look at me. Look at me.’ With great reluctance, her friend’s eyes crept up from the floor to meet her own. ‘I can get us out of here, but only if you trust me. Do you trust me?’
Yelena’s eyes shone with tears, but she nodded all the same. ‘Yes.’
Natasha reached out and clasped her hand. ‘We’ll get out of this. I promise.’
No sooner had they spoken than a fresh round of shouting began in the corridor outside. But this was different from before. The men weren’t just yelling to fire themselves up; they were arguing amongst themselves, their aggression growing in intensity.
And then all of a sudden there were two more gunmen in the gym, both of them young, gaunt and wild-eyed like horses caught in a stampede. They were brandishing their assault rifles like they intended to use them, and sensing this, the hostages tried in vain to shrink away. It was useless. They were hemmed in by the sheer mass of bodies.
The smoking man was weighing in to the argument now as well, standing in their path to stop them getting any closer, trying to make them back down. He was a formidable figure, as tall and wide as a doorway to Natasha’s young eyes, but his younger comrades were apparently beyond such intimidation now.
They had come here to act, and nothing was going to stop them.
It happened fast. The older man reached out to grab the nearest one by the arm, but the young man reacted by shoving him away with enough force to put him off balance. Growling with anger, he waded back into the fray, drawing his rifle to swing it like a club. But the second young gunman was ready for him. Raising his assault rifle, he aimed it dead centre in the older man’s chest and fired.
The resulting cacophony of noise echoed around the gym like the pealing of thunder, mixing with the frightened screams of the hostages as the weapon discharged. The older man crumpled to the ground like a sack of potatoes, his blood staining the floor.
People were scrambling away in terror now as the two gunmen moved further into the room, yelling and screaming as if they had lost whatever self-control they possessed. One of them raised his assault rifle and fired a burst into the ceiling, sending chunks of plaster and broken wood raining down on them.
Natasha gripped her friend’s hand tight. This was it. This was the moment. They had to act now. Her heart was pounding hard in her chest, blood rushing through tired muscles, investing them with new strength.
It started as a faint whooshing sound from outside, barely heard against the screams and shouts of 500 men, women and children. But it soon grew in power and intensity until everyone in the hall could hear it. Natasha turned towards the source of the sound, perplexed despite her fear, wondering what it could mean.
The flash lasted only a fraction of a second, but it was bright enough to burn its way on to her retinas to leave a blurry after-image flashing across her vision. An instant later, the flash was replaced by a ball of fire that tore through brick walls, reinforcing struts, beams, wooden floorboards and fragile human bodies without mercy.
Natasha was thrown off her feet by the blast, her head slamming on to the hard floor with bruising force. For a moment she saw and felt nothing but blackness, sheer and absolute. She was in her own world now, a world without pain or fatigue or fear, a world of nothingness.
Then, as if heard from a great distance, she became aware of sounds around her. Panicked voices, screams of pain and fear, the rhythmic thud of automatic gunfire, the pounding of her own heart, and a distant roar that she couldn’t identify.
With great effort she forced her eyes open. The world around her was a nightmare.
Something had demolished the far wall of the gym, blasting through the bricks and mortar, and turning them into a deadly hail of shrapnel that had torn apart anyone unlucky enough to be caught in their path. There was blood everywhere, and the screams of the wounded and dying mingled horribly with the cries of those now seeking a means of escape.
The explosion had also set the roof ablaze, and fire was already clawing at the wooden rafters, filling the air with thick dark smoke. She could feel the heat even from the other side of the room.
More gunfire erupted around them, both inside and outside the school. A full-scale battle had apparently flared up between the gunmen and the Russian police and army outside. The building shook to its foundations as another massive explosion rocked it.
Natasha stared again at the hole in the wall. It was a ragged, smoking gap about 8 feet wide, partially blocked by fallen rubble and dead bodies. But beyond the haze of smoke, she could see daylig
ht.
That was it! That was their way out! Hope surged through her. This was their chance.
Turning away for a moment, she reached down for Yelena, who was lying on the ground beside her. ‘Yelena! Get up. We’re getting out now!’ she yelled, coughing as the smoke seared her lungs. The fire was raging above them, pieces of burning wood and insulation falling everywhere.
The young girl didn’t move. She lay curled in a foetal position, knees drawn up to her chest, eyes staring straight ahead without seeing anything.
‘Yelena! Wake up!’ In desperation, Natasha drew back her hand and slapped her friend across the face with all the strength she could muster. The shock of the blow seemed to snap her out of her reverie, and she looked up at Natasha, eyes wide with fear.
‘Come on!’ Natasha yelled, pulling her friend up. ‘We have to go.’
People were running everywhere in blind panic, some trying to help injured friends, some just searching for a way out. Still clutching Yelena’s hand, Natasha pushed her way forwards, getting jostled left and right as people crowded in, all making for the gap in the wall.
Her foot caught on something, and she glanced down in time to see the body of one of her friends splayed out on the floor like a rag doll. His torso had been shredded by shrapnel, exposing ribs and charred muscle, and one of his legs had been blasted away. For a moment she found herself transfixed by the shattered bone and torn flesh where his leg should have been. His lifeless eyes stared upwards, reflecting the flames in the roof overhead.
She knew she should have felt horror, should have felt revulsion and grief at the sight, but there was no time to feel such emotions. Her mind was in survival mode, dealing only with the things it needed to deal with to keep her alive. Instead she stepped over the body, pushing the horrific image from her mind, concentrating only on getting out.
The shooting was growing more intense now. She could hear the whoosh of what sounded like rocket launchers, accompanied by heavy thuds as missiles impacted on the school building. Everywhere there was smoke and fire and confusion and yelling, people clambering over the bodies of the dead and wounded in their terror.