The Black Hornet: James Ryker Book 2

by Rob Sinclair

  Ryker passed by closed doors to his left and right. He didn’t know why but he was focused on the door at the end of the corridor.

  Outside were four red plastic chairs, a waiting area of sorts. Ryker came up to the door. It was closed. There was no hint of what lay beyond, but the small metal plaque in the slider in the centre of the door told Ryker who normally occupied the room: Colonel Lincoln.

  Ryker stood to the side of the doorway and reached out for the handle. He turned it. The door wasn’t locked. Ryker flung open the door and sidestepped away, expecting raking gunfire to crash out of the room.

  There was nothing.

  Ryker crouched down further toward the ground and peeked his head around the edge of the doorway, taking the briefest of glances into the room before whipping his head back to safety.

  Still no shots, but he’d spotted Lincoln was right there, behind a desk at the far end of the room. He was casually sitting back in his chair like it was just a normal day at work, and his office door hadn’t just unexpectedly crashed open, and there wasn’t a massive gun fight taking place right outside.

  What on earth was he doing?

  Ryker lifted the rifle and sprang into the doorway, the barrel of the M4 pointed at the centre of Lincoln’s head. Lincoln was staring straight ahead, his eyes locked on Ryker’s. His manner was calm, almost detached. He seemed oblivious to the mayhem surrounding him.

  ‘And you are?’ he asked.

  Ryker noted the papers on Lincoln’s desk. Lying on top of them was a black revolver. Lincoln’s hands were down by his side. No way could he get to that gun before Ryker got off several rounds.

  Ryker took a step forward.

  Then spotted movement to his left.

  56

  Ryker knew whoever was there, off to his left, was making a move on him. Without thinking, he swivelled and fired just as a squat, barrel-chested man thumped into his side. Ryker’s shot was off the mark and he stumbled two steps back as he took the weight and force of the attack.

  Ryker had no room to shoot at the man at such close quarters but the M4 was still a good weapon. Ryker lifted the rifle and smashed the thick and heavy butt into the back of the man’s head. The man wobbled from the blow and Ryker hit him again, then thrust his knee up and caught the man under his chin. His head lifted and his body jerked backward. As he hurtled through the air his skull smashed against the corner of Lincoln’s desk. His head flopped forward.

  The fight was over.

  Ryker’s brain was already a step further ahead than the rest of his body. The man who’d attacked him was down, but Ryker knew Lincoln was still a threat. The problem was he simply couldn’t get his body to react as quickly as he wanted it too. He was a sitting duck.

  ‘No,’ Lincoln shouted as Ryker tried to whip the barrel of the M4 back toward the original target.

  Ryker froze mid-twist and he fixed his eyes on Lincoln. The Colonel was still sitting calmly in his chair, but his right hand was clutching the revolver, his knuckles white from the force of the grip. Ryker stared at the man. He exuded arrogance despite the situation that was unfurling on his base.

  ‘It’s over for you,’ Ryker said. A fact which hadn’t yet seemed to register with Lincoln.

  But, Ryker knew, looks could be very deceptive.

  He saw Lincoln’s hand moving. Ryker threw himself down to his left. He pulled up the M4. His finger moved onto the trigger.

  There was a single shot. A boom reverberated in the small space.

  Ryker looked at Lincoln. Almost in slow motion, the Colonel’s head thumped down onto the desk. The wall behind him, the stars and stripes of the American flag that was draped across it, were now covered in streaks of red and the bloody mush of brain and skin and hair that used to be part of the Colonel’s head. A trail of smoke snaked upward from the barrel of Lincoln’s revolver – the gun that had just been fired.

  Beyond the thick silence of death in the office, Ryker once again became aware of the shouting of men and the gunfire from outside – though it sounded as though the fighting was now dying down and becoming less frenetic following the initial onslaught. Ryker didn’t know who was winning, but he was sure he would be an unwanted guest regardless.

  He considered turning and hotfooting it out of Lincoln’s office and going in search of Powell, but a niggling thought held him back.

  The American. Vasquez was already dead and gone, and now the identity of the secret broker may well have just died with Lincoln – if Lincoln had ever known who the American was.

  Was it really Ryker’s fight to carry on searching for the truth? No, it wasn’t, but he was there, as close as anyone else had come to finding the answers.

  Ryker moved forward to the desk and searched through the scattered papers, now splattered with blood. There was correspondence and documents, much like those he’d seen on Ashford’s laptop, strewn out in the open. Ryker found himself frowning in disbelief.

  The evidence of the illegal dealings with the Mexicans was right there, it seemed, as though Lincoln had laid the papers out deliberately as an abstract confession.

  Ryker took in as much of the information as he could. He rifled through drawers. He took DVDs, thumb drives, a plug-in hard disk, and flung them all into his backpack. Lincoln’s secrets, the answers to the identity of the other parties involved – the American in particular – would be contained somewhere in those items, Ryker hoped.

  Then something in Lincoln’s desk drawer caught Ryker’s eye. A pile of papers outlining a complex trail of cash payments. Ryker recognised a lot of the references from the information he’d already scoured on Ashford’s laptop, and from what Powell had shown him in Mexico. Numbered offshore accounts and names of shell companies and bogus individuals. Much of it was pretty meaningless on its own, but there was something else: a name Ryker recognised.

  The missing link.

  The American.

  ‘No,’ Ryker caught himself saying out loud.

  Just then, he heard the faintest of noises from out in the corridor. He ducked down, lifted the M4 up and looked over to the doorway. There was no one there. Ryker remained still and waited. Nothing could come through that door without him getting off several rounds with the rifle.

  Whoever was on the outside obviously came to that conclusion too.

  ‘Find what you were looking for?’ came a voice from the hallway.

  Ryker couldn’t see the speaker, and he didn’t need to. He knew immediately who it was: Marcus Powell.

  57

  ‘I’m impressed, Ryker,’ Powell said, not waiting for a response. ‘I truly am.’

  Powell came into view in the doorway, seemingly not bothered by the fact that Ryker was pointing a gun at him. He must have assumed, correctly, that Ryker wasn’t about to gun him down without first getting some answers. Powell was dressed in black tactical gear, the same as the man Ryker had fought outside, and the same as the armed man who moved through the doorway a step behind Powell.

  Ryker noticed Powell wasn’t holding a weapon, though he had a sidearm close to where his right hand hung by his side. The man behind Powell was holding a handgun up close to his face, the barrel trained on Ryker. Powell stayed close to the doorway, his man two steps to his side. Ryker didn’t move from behind the desk.

  ‘I could say the same to you,’ Ryker said. ‘It’s a hell of a brave move, attacking a US Army base like this.’

  Powell shrugged. ‘Just doing my job.’

  ‘Which is what, exactly?’

  ‘I think we covered that before.’

  ‘Not quite. So what now?’

  ‘I came here to finally put an end to Lincoln and Ashford’s operations.’

  Ryker realised the sounds of bedlam from outside were dying down. He could only assume, given Powell’s calm manner, that it was his team that were coming out on top.

  Powell indicated over to Lincoln’s bloody corpse. ‘It looks like I’ve achieved my aim. In part thanks to you.’

  �
�Actually you’ve the Colonel himself to thank for that outcome. As for Ashford–’

  ‘Alive and well. I know, but–’

  ‘But you made a mistake with him. Ashford’s not the American.’

  Ryker’s left-field comment seemed to knock Powell back a step. Ryker could tell Powell didn’t quite know how to react to the statement. ‘Don’t feel bad. You’re not the only one who got it wrong with Ashford. The JIA did too.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Ashford wasn’t part of this. He was trying to blow the whole operation open. Just like you.’

  Ryker could practically see the cogs turning in Powell’s mind.

  ‘I don’t know where the lines got crossed,’ Ryker continued. ‘The intel both you and the JIA got hold of placed Ashford neck-deep in this mess. And he was neck-deep in it, but only because he was desperately trying to uncover Lincoln’s partner. I don’t know what Ashford’s game was, or why he apparently held onto what he knew for so long. He was under the threat of the cartels for sure, I’ve seen the evidence of that myself, emails to his attorney among other things. Maybe he just stumbled over what Lincoln was doing one day, and thought it would further his career if he could bring it all crashing down. Whatever the events, it ran out of control for him. But Ashford’s not part of what’s been going on here.’

  ‘That’s bullshit,’ Powell said, his eyes squinting in anger.

  ‘No. It’s not. You shot the wrong man. Just as well you didn’t kill him, I’d say.’

  ‘I heard what happened to your friend. That was Ashford’s men who attacked you. Aaron Mitchell is the ringleader of a group of ex-army guys involved in all sorts of questionable activities. Mitchell is Ashford’s old buddy. You still gonna tell me he’s a good guy?’

  ‘When you say my friend, you mean Willoughby? I’m betting she’ll be fine. And I didn’t say Ashford was good, exactly. Just that he’s not the bad guy here tonight.’

  Powell took a minute, as if contemplating what Ryker was saying and whether he should believe it.

  ‘So what now?’ Powell asked eventually.

  ‘Vasquez is gone. Lincoln is gone. You’ve still got the ringleader, the American, out there.’

  ‘The American who isn’t Douglas Ashford?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But you know who it is now?’

  ‘I know a lot of things,’ Ryker said.

  ‘Go on, so who is it?’ Powell asked, trying to sound disinterested, though it was clear from his voice and from his body language that he really wanted to know. Because he had no clue as to the identity of the American.

  But Ryker knew. He smiled. ‘Looks like now we both have information that the other wants.’

  Powell’s face screwed up. ‘Lisa? You’re telling me you trekked hundreds of miles from Mexico City to here just so you could confront me about that?’

  ‘Just for that? It’s a pretty big that if you ask me.’

  ‘Ryker, just tell me what I need to know. If you do I’ll consider letting you walk away from Camp Joseph alive.’

  Ryker shrugged. ‘One thing, Powell. Who do you really work for? I mean, given what happened at Santa Martha, I’m guessing you’re in bed with the Santos cartel one way or another.’

  Powell raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that so?’

  ‘I don’t know how you knew about me to start with, but you heard I was in Mexico and that Vasquez set me up. Then the Santos crew got caught in the middle when I was put inside. You saw an opportunity to use me. You had the cartel sweat me, attack me. You were trying to break me so you could roll in and pretend to be my saviour.’

  ‘Go on,’ Powell said, smiling as though impressed with the mess he’d created.

  ‘You saw me as an asset to help you bring Vasquez and Lincoln down,’ Ryker said. ‘You needed a fall guy. Someone you could hang out to dry afterwards. Someone who could take the shots you needed. I wouldn’t have missed the shot on Ashford. You needed someone like me.’

  ‘But it’s just as well we did miss, according to you.’

  ‘Yeah. But you went to a lot of effort to rope me into your plans.’

  ‘It wasn’t that much effort.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. But you don’t work for the Santos cartel. You’re not one of them. You were just using them like you used me. So who do you work for? Some offshoot of the CIA?’

  ‘You know what? It really doesn’t matter,’ Powell said. ‘You’ve seen what I’m capable of...’ Powell circled his hand in the air, indicating the destruction he and his men had waged on a base controlled by the US Army. ‘I’m with the good guys, and that’s all you need to know.’

  ‘Everyone loves to put people into those two camps, don’t they? Good and bad. In my experience most of us don’t fit into either. Not really.’

  ‘You’re right about that.’ Powell lifted his wrist to look at his watch. ‘Okay, Ryker, it’s getting late. Or early. Either way, my work is done, and I need to get out of here while the mess is cleaned up. So just tell me what I need to know. Who is the American? I won’t ask nicely again, and you know I’ll get the answer one way or another.’

  ‘But you haven’t found out so far. So how about you go first. Tell me what you know about Lisa. Where is she?’

  There were so many other questions Ryker had for Powell, but he’d settle for just knowing that. One simple thing.

  Powell chewed on Ryker’s request for a few seconds. But he never got the chance to answer.

  A second later, two gunshots blasted.

  58

  At the first sound of the gunfire, Ryker ducked down behind the desk, pulling on his M4’s trigger as he fell. He’d kept his finger on the trigger the whole time he’d been speaking to Powell, and the shot he took as he hunched down was nothing more than a reflex, a tiny twitch of the finger. A fourth shot blasted as Ryker was still moving.

  The bullet from Ryker’s rifle hit Powell in his centre mass, where he was surely wearing a vest. Ryker heard two thuds – then groaning – as he hunkered down behind the desk waiting for an onslaught of fire from Powell and his man.

  None came.

  After a few confusing seconds, Ryker peeked over the desk to where Powell and his man had been standing a moment earlier. There was now only empty space.

  Ryker lifted further up, his M4 pointed out and at the ready. Powell was lying in a heap on the floor, on top of his colleague, who was already dead. There was a bullet hole in his forehead. There was only one place that shot could have come from...

  Ryker burst forward around the desk. The man he’d knocked unconscious earlier – Lincoln’s man – was still there, but there was now a bloody hole in his neck where Powell’s friend had shot him, though not before the guy on the floor had sprung back to life and fired twice himself.

  Four shots had been fired. Two men were dead.

  Powell wasn’t one of them.

  Ryker looked over. The bullet Ryker had fired had hit Powell in his vest. He’d been less lucky with the bullet from the man on the floor. It had come at Powell’s side and snuck under the edge of the Kevlar – simply a matter of relative positioning of shooter and victim within the room.

  Powell was staring up at the ceiling and gasping for breath. Ryker moved up to him and kneeled down. He could tell from the rasping noise of Powell’s breaths that the bullet to his side had pierced a lung. Not only was Powell bleeding heavily from the wound but his body was quickly being starved of oxygen.

  With immediate expert medical attention, Powell still had a decent chance of survival. Ryker knew the basics of the procedure necessary to support the collapsed lung, that the aim was to relieve the pressure of the air building between the chest cavity and the damaged organ.

  Ryker could try to save Powell’s life if he wanted to...

  Maybe the choice was down to Powell.

  ‘Tell me about Lisa,’ Ryker said.

  Powell just gargled and coughed.

  ‘Tell me!’ Ryker shouted, grabbin
g Powell by the scruff of his neck.

  Powell’s eyes locked onto Ryker’s.

  ‘She’s dead, Ryker.’

  A wave of nausea rushed through Ryker. He felt an immediate collapse deep in his chest, like his heart had suddenly stopped beating and sunk into an abyss.

  ‘No,’ Ryker said.

  ‘I’m sorry. She... she never made it out of your home alive.’

  Ryker shook his head. His hands were shaking. His body felt heavy and listless.

  ‘You told me she was still alive.’

  ‘I had to. I had to keep you in the game.’

  ‘You lied to me!’

  ‘I had to!’

  ‘How could you even know,’ Ryker said through gritted teeth, fighting the urge to smash Powell’s head to pieces. Then a thought flickered in Ryker’s mind. ‘You?’

  ‘No,’ Powell said, managing to shake his head. ‘Not me.’

  ‘Tell me who did it.’

  Powell said nothing.

  ‘Tell me!’ Ryker screamed and this time he didn’t hold back: he smashed Powell’s head against the floor.

  Powell rasped and choked for a second. Then his features froze – his face ugly and contorted in pain.

  Ryker shouted in frustration. He jumped to his feet and rushed to the other side of the room. He yanked the medical kit from the wall and opened it up as he slid back down to the floor next to Powell.

  He had to find out more. If Powell knew something, Ryker couldn’t let him die.

  With shaking hands, Ryker pulled off the Kevlar vest and used scissors to snip away at the clothing around Powell’s chest. Powell had stopped breathing already, there was no sign of a pulse – but Ryker had to try.

  He stuck a bandage over the bullet hole to plug the gap, but he needed to decompress the lung to give Powell a chance. Ryker grabbed a hollow needle from the medical kit, his fingers fumbling as he tore off the paper and plastic packaging. He thrust the nib of the needle down into Powell’s chest – hard enough to break through skin and flesh but not so hard as to go straight through into the lung again.