Second Chances

by Second Chances (retail) (epub)

  Second Chances

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  Second Chances

  Will Jordan

  Chapter 1

  Central Hospital, Istanbul – 14th May 2009

  She was alive.

  Christ only knew how. With an ugly gunshot wound to the abdomen, severe blood loss, internal injuries, fractured ribs, and enough bruising and lacerations to put your average cage fighter to shame, she should have died when they brought her in. If reports were to be believed, she’d come dangerously close a couple of times on the operating table.

  Yet somehow she had clung to life, fighting just as hard as the team of surgeons who worked tirelessly for six hours to stabilise her condition and repair the damage as best they could.

  And now here she was, lying in a recovery room in the hospital’s intensive care ward not twenty yards away. Frustratingly close, but still impossibly far. The doctors wouldn’t allow anyone near the woman except their own medical personnel; not the Turkish police practically lining up to get access, not the occasional reporter lingering in search of a scoop, and certainly not the CIA field team that had been dispatched to extract her.

  CIA operative Frank Wheeler shifted position on the hard plastic chair that had been his home for the past couple of hours, trying to ignore the sharp scent of disinfectant, and the less savoury odours it was intended to mask. Sickness, sweat, shit… the kind of smells given off by the poor bastards who were admitted here daily. The smell of death.

  He fucking hated hospitals.

  Officially, Wheeler and colleague Greg Krasinski were here as representatives of the US State Department. They were on hand to make sure the patient was treated fairly, afforded the rights and protections due to an American citizen in a foreign country, and given access to legal counsel before the Turkish police got their hands on her.

  None of which was actually true, of course. Their real objective was to get in first, find out what exactly had happened to her, then quietly and quickly extract the patient before she could compromise the Agency. Their superiors at Langley would handle the full debriefing.

  And question her they would, for there was much to answer; like why she had made her way to Turkey in the first place, without official sanction, and how she’d become involved in a deadly shootout at an office complex three days earlier. Hard facts were in short supply, but already rumours were swirling of illegal clandestine operations on Turkish soil.

  It didn’t take a genius to realise that serious shit had gone down that night, though who exactly had been involved and what they’d been willing to kill for remained a mystery. Right now, the only person left alive to explain it was lying handcuffed to a hospital gurney, just down the corridor.

  Wheeler loosened his tie. The ward’s air conditioners were doing their best, but the heat of the late afternoon was oppressive and unrelenting, and seemed to have soaked into the very fabric of the building. The polluted air of central Istanbul was acrid and unpleasant, but Wheeler would happily take it over the smell of antiseptic and illness.

  One of his team’s technical experts had already tapped into the hospital’s security system, allowing them to take control of everything from security cameras to elevators to electronic door locks. From this digital vantage point, he could see and follow everything that was happening in the hospital.

  If necessary, they could shut down the entire building, or seal every exit and trap the occupants inside. However, it was unlikely they’d have to go that far. The chaos caused by a fake fire alarm would provide the necessary cover for their field team, already standing by, to intercept the woman and spirit her away to a waiting car. Then they could be out of this goddamned place.

  Wheeler looked up at the clock on the wall, willing it to move towards the top of the hour, when the specialists would reassess the patient’s condition. No such luck. The minutes crawled by with maddening slowness, as if each were fighting not to relinquish its hold on the present.

  A low groan returned his thoughts to the present, and he looked at his teammate Greg Krasinski seated nearby. The young man, normally possessing the kind of robust good health and tanned complexion that any Californian would be proud off, now looked decidedly pale and unwell. He was leaning forward, one hand against his stomach, jaw clenched tight.

  “What’s up with you?” Wheeler asked. “Montezuma’s revenge?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine,” Krasinski replied thickly, beads of sweat dampening his shirt collar. He took another sip from the cup of water he’d been nursing since their arrival, grimacing as it settled on what was clearly an upset stomach.

  “Like hell you are. You look like you belong in the same ward as her.” He nodded curtly towards the room where the patient was being held. “The specialists aren’t due for another twenty minutes. Go outside, get some fresh air or something. I don’t need you puking or passing out in the corridor.”

  Short and to the point as always. Wheeler had a way of making his thoughts known loud and clear. Anyway, by this point Krasinski was clearly in no condition to argue, as his stomach cramped and gurgled ominously. The only place he was heading was the restroom.

  “Fine, whatever,” he conceded, standing up and making for the men’s room at the far end of the corridor, his steps growing faster and more urgent with each moment.

  Throwing open one of the stall doors, the field operative doubled over and clutched at the wall as the contents of his stomach flew out of his mouth and into the toilet bowl. Unable to do more than gulp for air and brace himself before each heave, Krasinski closed his eyes and clenched his fist as frustration welled up inside him. As if it wasn’t bad enough to have been posted in this shitty hospital for the past couple of days, he’d had the rotten luck to contract some kind of stomach bug in the process.

  Spitting the last of the foul-tasting mucus into the bowl, he hit the flush and straightened up, making his way unsteadily back to the row of sinks opposite. He doubted anyone who looked at him would like what they saw, but as he splashed cold water on his face and rinsed his mouth out, at least the bout of nausea was starting to wane.

  He regarded his reflection for a moment or two, noting with distaste the pale, sallow complexion and bloodshot eyes. There was no getting around it – he looked like a man who’d just spent the past few minutes puking his guts up, and who might well find himself doing so again in the near future.

  “Looking good, hero,” he mumbled, using a paper towel to wipe his face.

  That was when Krasinski saw him. A shadowy reflection, standing right behind him in the dimly lit mirror, eyes fixed on his target.

  “Jesus!” Krasinski started, whirling around instinctively, his heart seeming to leap into his throat. The man must have emerged from one of the other stalls while he was occupied, because Krasinski had neither seen nor heard his approach.

  “What’s the big idea, asshole?” Krasinski demanded, shock at the man’s sudden appearance giving way to anger and irritation. “You like hanging out in restrooms trying to scare the shit out of…”

  He trailed off, eyeing the stranger more closely now that they were face to face. He was dressed in the pale blue surgical scrubs of a doctor; and although he had dark hair and a swarthy complexion, it was clear he was no native of Turkey. What was also clear was that he was not a doctor. His build was that of a man used to heavy physical exertion, his hair cut in a short, efficient style, his green eyes holding a dange
rous gleam that Krasinski knew all too well. Krasinski had learned to trust his instincts about people, and they were all telling him that this guy was bad news.

  “Oh, shit—” he gasped, instantly going for his sidearm.

  He never even got a chance to draw. A hand shot out and clamped around his mouth with terrifying strength, preventing him from crying out, then an instant later he felt something sharp prick the skin on his neck. There was a faint hiss, and a sudden feeling of languid warmth that quickly spread outward from the site of the injection.

  As the world began to lose focus and his limbs stopped obeying his brain’s commands, he felt himself being dragged across the tiled floor into one of the stalls, then darkness closed in and he knew no more.

  Laying the unconscious field operative down on the floor of the stall, Ryan Drake reached out and felt for a pulse at the carotid artery in his neck. The autojet he’d used to administer the paralytic drug etorphine was generally a reliable means of subduing a target, but there were no guarantees. Sometimes the tranquiliser took longer than expected to kick in, while other times the patient could overdose and go into cardiac arrest.

  In this case, however, all seemed to have gone according to plan. The pulse was slow but steady. He’d wake up in twenty or thirty minutes with the world’s worst hangover, but Drake intended to be long gone by then.

  Satisfied that the tranquiliser had done its work, he quickly frisked the man, removing his sidearm, cell phone and concealed tactical radio. The phone was locked with a security code, standard procedure for Agency field personnel, but that didn’t matter. All Drake cared about was making sure the unconscious man couldn’t raise the alarm.

  Locking the door from the inside, Drake pulled himself up and over the top of the stall and landed easily on the other side, his soft-soled trainers barely making a sound. Pausing for a moment to check his appearance in the mirror, he pushed the sidearm down the back of his trousers, making sure it was well hidden by the surgical scrubs, then quietly left the restroom.

  * * *

  Outside, Wheeler shifted in his chair and turned towards the restroom door at the end of the corridor. Krasinski sure was taking his time in there. Then again, judging by the look that’d been on his colleague’s face when he’d left, it was pretty clear Krasinski hadn’t been feeling good.

  He’d be sure to make fun of him when he returned. At least that would help pass the time.

  His thoughts were interrupted briefly as a young nurse walked past, her steps made heavy and awkward by her large, protruding stomach. She couldn’t be more than a few weeks from her due date, Wheeler thought, surprised she was still working at such a late stage of her pregnancy. Still, there was no telling what a country like this might demand from expectant mothers.

  Sparing a moment to give her a look of sympathy as she made her way into the patient’s room, he turned his eyes back down the corridor.

  “Come on, Greg. Pull your goddamn finger out,” he said under his breath, toying with the idea of calling him surreptitiously over the radio net. Officially they couldn’t let the patient out of their sight, meaning he had to stay here until his colleague returned, but that didn’t mean Wheeler couldn’t tell him to hurry the hell up.

  These irritable musings were cut short by the harsh bleep of alarms coming from one of the recovery rooms. His head snapped around, and Wheeler watched in dumb shock as a pair of doctors – a man and a woman – hurried into the patient’s room.

  “Oh shit,” he gasped, abandoning all thoughts of his sick comrade and rushing across the corridor to get a look at what was happening. Was she dead? Dying? What was going on in there?

  The doctors were urgently checking her vitals, while the pregnant nurse relayed information and pointed at the ECG monitor above her bed. Wheeler had no idea what any of it meant, but he’d yet to encounter an alarm that was good news.

  Having seen enough, the male doctor removed his stethoscope and shouted some rapid instructions to his female counterpart. Within moments the hospital gurney had been disconnected from the monitors and secured for transport.

  Wheeler practically had to jump aside as the doors were thrown open and the gurney shoved through like a battering ram.

  “What’s happening?” he demanded, looking at both doctors. “Where are you taking her?”

  The man glanced at him, his expression one of acute concern mingled with anger and impatience. He didn’t look very Turkish, to Wheeler’s eyes. In fact, Wheeler didn’t recall having ever seen him amongst the now-familiar group of doctors and consultants who had drifted in and out of the patient’s room over the past couple of days. Nor had he seen the young woman accompanying him.

  Something about them did seem oddly familiar, however…

  “You, move!” the doctor instructed, speaking in accented but understandable English as he rapidly manoeuvred the gurney down the corridor, heading for the elevator at the far end. “Move aside now!”

  There was little that Wheeler could do. An experienced CIA field agent he might have been, but interfering with doctors trying to save the life of a patient was one step he wasn’t prepared to take – especially on foreign soil. Backing off a pace, he watched as the doctors hurried past, their ailing charge between them.

  “Hold elevator!” the woman called out to the young intern just emerging from the lift.

  The pregnant nurse was following behind them, though obviously at a much slower pace. Guessing she would remain here while a crash team worked to stabilise the patient, Wheeler grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him, checking his force to avoid hurting her, but making it known he could if it came to it. With his other hand, he reached into his jacket and held up his Agency ID.

  “Tell me what’s happening right now,” he said, speaking low and clear.

  The young woman’s eyes went wide for a second before she regained her composure. “She is… she has bleed, inside. It must be stopped or she die. She go to surgery.”

  Even as she said this, the patient and her two doctors disappeared into the lift, the doors shuddering closed behind them.

  “Fuck,” Wheeler said under his breath, wondering if their prisoner might well die before they had a chance to even question her. “What floor is your operating room?”

  She stared at him blankly.

  “I said, what floor?” he repeated, tightening his grip around her biceps and eliciting a gasp of pain. It gave him no pleasure to inflict harm on innocent civilians, but he needed to get his point across.

  “Level three,” she answered at last. “But you not get in there. No access.”

  They’d see about that. Wheeler was moving immediately, abandoning the young nurse and heading down the corridor after the stricken patient as fast as his legs would carry him.

  “Krasinski, we’ve got problems. Get your ass out here ASAP,” he said, speaking quickly and urgently into his encrypted radio unit. But even as he did so, he heard a commotion in the room behind him.

  He didn’t have to stop. Another man might have carried on with his mission, ignoring the minor distraction, but Wheeler was of a different sort. His vague recognition of the two doctors was playing on his mind, and his subconscious was already trying to warn him that something wasn’t right.

  Turning around, he saw a pair of doctors, both in their fifties, angrily remonstrating with each other, gesticulating at the space occupied only moments earlier by the sick patient. Their body language made it clear they were both confused and alarmed by her absence.

  That was when the pieces began to come together in Wheeler’s mind. His subconscious had been trying to tell him something about the man who’d passed him in the corridor moments before. He was no stranger. Wheeler had seen his face before, in a classified list of disavowed Agency field operatives that had only recently been circulated – men and women who for whatever reason had gone rogue, and were now considered enemies of the CIA.

  That man had been one of them.

  Ryan Drake.
A former clandestine field operative with Special Activities Division. The kind of man most Agency employees never even heard of, never mind met face to face. He was wanted for treason and murder.

  Hurrying towards the restroom that his partner still hadn’t returned from, he threw open the door and strode inside.

  “Krasinski! Where the fuck are you?”

  There was no response. Wheeler’s slate-grey eyes scanned the stalls, finding only one occupied. He paused only a moment to draw his sidearm, before a single hard kick sent the cubicle door flying, the lock left hanging loose and broken in the splintered frame.

  “Oh shit,” he growled, reaching for his radio again.

  Chapter 2

  As the elevator slowly rattled down its shaft, Drake reached into his pocket, fished out a simple key on a metal chain and used it to open the access panel directly below the floor buttons, exposing a number of switches that were normally hidden from view. Finding one marked IND, he flicked it to the ON position. Their elevator was now under independent control and would no longer respond to floor calls.

  The next switch was simply marked STOP. Drake waited a few seconds with his eyes on the floor numbers above, then flicked it. The elevator shuddered to a halt.

  Having bought them a short reprieve in which to act, he pulled the surgical scrubs up and over his head, quickly followed by the nondescript blue trousers that he’d made sure were too large for him. All of it was hastily folded and placed beneath the patient’s bed sheets.

  Beneath, he wore a dark blue jumpsuit. The sort worn by paramedics transporting patients to and from ambulances. His female colleague Keira Frost had likewise removed her medical garments. But unlike Drake, she was dressed in a dark grey suit jacket, trousers and flat dress shoes, her white blouse buttoned up almost to her throat. Smart but not stylish, it was the kind of blandly corporate outfit favoured by US State Department employees.

  Had their situation not been so perilous, Drake might have smiled at the sight. Her straight-laced formal attire was about as far from Frost’s typical wardrobe choices as it was possible to be.