“And did you?”
“Yep,” said Eva. “By two months. But then he one-upped me by joining Special Forces. Women still aren’t allowed to serve, so no way could I follow him. I left the military soon after. Compared to what he was doing, I could have made general in Logistics and it wouldn’t have been worth bragging about.”
“So you quit and joined the DMV.”
“Close. It was the CIA. I figured if Jeff could do something worthwhile for his country, then I could too.”
“Which explains this place,” Colback said, looking around the room. “So why couldn’t you tell Jeff?”
“When I signed up, they took one look at my school and military records and offered me a role in clandestine services.”
“Ah, I see. The first rule of spy club is you don’t talk about spy club.”
“Exactly. I told my family that I’d landed a job with the government, and the rest is history.”
“Not quite,” Colback said, helping himself to a bottle of water from the fridge. “What the hell is today about?”
“Jeff emailed me a couple of weeks ago that Danny Bukowitz had died in an accident. The official report was that he’d been speeding on a mountain road, lost control, and gone over the edge.”
“I heard about that.” The news had come as a shock, particularly as Bukowitz had been the squad’s designated driver. He had completed all the unit’s fast-driving courses, including high-speed tactical vehicle and close-protection driver training, so his manner of death had seemed horribly ironic, to say the least. You survive eight years in Special Forces, undertaking the most dangerous missions imaginable, only to die in a single-vehicle car wreck? “I only found out after the funeral, otherwise I would have attended.”
“Jeff said the same thing. It was an aunt who was going through Danny’s things. She found his contact book and called everyone in it.”
Colback nodded. Danny’s aunt had been close to tears when she’d told him the news. She’d raised Danny since he was five years old, so it must have felt like losing her own son.
“I was in California when Jeff contacted me,” said Eva. “He asked me to lay some flowers at the site of the crash, and that’s when I suspected something wasn’t right.”
“What do you mean?”
“The road he was traveling on had a mountain on one side and a sheer drop on the other. There was a ten-foot gap in the barrier, and that’s where he went off. It was a straight piece of road, not a bend, and there were no skid marks anywhere.”
“Could they have been washed away in the rain?” Colback suggested.
“There hadn’t been any. If he’d lost control, he would have tried to brake when he left the road, but there was no indication that he did. He either drove over the cliff on purpose, or someone staged his death to make it look like an accident.”
“You think Danny was murdered? Based on what? A lack of evidence?”
Eva crushed her empty water bottle and shrugged. “It’s something I’m familiar with. Wet jobs, black bag ops, call it what you will. I introduce people to fatal accidents for a living.”
Colback could hardly believe the person before him was capable of killing another human being. Front a gothic rock band? Maybe. But carry out murders for a living? Although it did begin to explain the day’s events. “So, you think the people who killed Danny are the same ones who came after me?”
“Yes, I do.”
Colback’s mind raced. He tried to work out what other connections he’d had to Danny Bukowitz, but all he could think of was the time they’d spent together in the Green Berets. He looked again at the faded photograph of them in Phuket. Ron Elphick had succumbed to cancer a year ago. With Danny gone, that left only Driscoll and him.
“We need to warn Jeff,” he said.
“I thought so too. That’s why I went to see him two days ago.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing,” Eva said, tossing the crushed bottle in the trash. “He was dead.”
CHAPTER 6
West’s phone buzzed in his hand and he took a deep breath before answering it. The earlier conversation with his superior hadn’t gone well, but thankfully they’d made progress since. His team had managed to remotely erase the digital recordings of the botched attempts to apprehend Colback and—thanks to a dedicated satellite—gotten a live feed on the woman’s vehicle.
“West,” he said, after connecting the call.
“We sent her file over. What’s the latest?”
“We tracked her along I-80 to a place an hour and a half outside New York. Thermal imaging from the satellite showed someone climbing out of her trunk. We’re assuming it’s Colback. I’ve got two teams converging on their position, ETA thirty-five minutes.”
“Don’t underestimate this woman. I want an update within the hour and it’d better be good news.”
The call ended, and West used his terminal to look at the file that his superiors had managed to dig up. The logo on the front showed that it had come directly from the CIA.
The woman’s face appeared on the screen, although her hair looked lighter and much shorter than in the photo they’d taken as she left the parking lot. Her name suggested the reason she’d become involved in the operation, and as he scrolled down to her bio, it confirmed she was Jeff Driscoll’s sister. He hit print and produced a glossy image of the young woman.
It only got better from there.
He skipped over the nonessential stuff: born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, thirty-one years old, high school grad before enlisting. It was the time after she’d left the military and joined the Agency that was most interesting. She had aced the entry tests and completed a long list of operations. Impressive stuff, by anyone’s standards.
The last entry had been added eight minutes earlier:
Rogue. Terminate on sight.
It brought home the precariousness of his own position. Here was an operative—albeit from another agency—who had served her country with distinction, and she was being discarded like a used tissue. He looked again at her photo and noticed his own hand was shaking with the decision he had to make.
As with all assignments, he played the role of scalpel rather than surgeon. It wasn’t his job to know the nature of the ailment; he had only to remove the offending tissue. In this case, the tumor was Rees Colback, and the moment Eva Driscoll had intervened, she’d sealed her fate.
“Sir, the closest team is twenty-six minutes out.”
West studied the target house. It stood in a sparsely populated, rural area, which meant little chance of anyone witnessing Colback’s demise.
And the woman’s, of course.
“We’ve got confirmation that it’s a CIA safe house,” Hughes said, looking over the top of his bifocals.
“Get me everything you have on it. I want to know what security measures they have in place.”
“Already checked, sir. Nothing listed.”
That could mean there actually was nothing to prevent his men going in, or that the CIA documented things differently from his own organization. Either way, this takedown had to go smoothly.
“Contact both teams and tell them to exercise extreme caution. Colback and the woman are pros.”
Twenty minutes later, the two teams, five men in each, radioed to say they were in position, half a mile from the house.
West switched from the satellite feed to drone footage and watched his teams split up, five men approaching each of the side and rear of the house, their heat signatures glowing bright orange through the drone’s thermal-imaging camera.
‘Nest, this is Eagle One, all teams in position, over.’
‘Roger, Eagle One, on my command—wait one.’ Anton West went through the plan one more time in his head and then re-opened communications to execute the assault.
“All call signs, this is Nest: READY, READY, READY! GO! GO! GO!”
CHAPTER 7
“Jeff too?” Colback’s throat tightened as he absorb
ed the news. “I spoke to him three days ago . . . We were going to meet tomorrow.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen, is it?” Eva stood and retrieved another bottle of water.
“How did it happen?” Colback asked.
“It was made to look like an overdose. Combination of Wild Turkey and sleeping pills. I looked around his place and didn’t find a single clue, but given Danny’s death, then Jeff’s, I had a strong feeling they’d come for you next.”
“And you couldn’t just pick up the phone and warn me?”
“They would have had a trace on your cell. That’s probably how they found you in the city, and why I trashed it in the parking garage. I was watching you, waiting to see if they would strike, and they did.”
“If you were watching me, you could have just come up and introduced yourself.”
“I had to be sure,” she said.
As Eva turned to face her laptop, Colback couldn’t detect much visible sorrow over her brother’s passing. A little anger, perhaps, but Eva didn’t strike him as a woman in mourning. Then again, she’d known of Jeff’s death for a couple of days, whereas he was only coming to terms with it.
He’d known Jeff Driscoll for ten years. They’d first met at Fort Bragg while taking the Special Forces Assessment and Select course, the initial step to becoming a Green Beret. Colback had attempted to join after three years in 1st Battalion, 141st Infantry Regiment, while Driscoll’s background included four years in the 75th Ranger Regiment. They’d both aced the grueling, three-week trial before moving on to the Q Course, or Special Forces Qualification Course. That had taken another eighteen months, with both men opting for the Military Free Fall Advanced Tactical Infiltration Course.
It all seemed so long ago now. In the eight years since, they’d worked many missions together, including the fateful day when a stray bullet had ended Colback’s military career. Three months after getting his release papers, he’d begun to regret his decision. He’d applied for numerous positions within the private security sector, but despite his exemplary military record, the injury worked against him. Limping into an interview was never a good start, but it was unavoidable. Colback had purchased some custom-made shoes, one of which had a thicker sole, but that hadn’t alleviated the problem. The first impressions went better, but once prospective employers saw his discharge papers, it was game over.
Jeff had put a word in with his employers and—despite knowing about the injury in advance—they’d offered Colback an interview. He’d been looking forward to the reunion, but someone, somewhere, had different plans.
“The results are in,” Eva said. “Take a look at these faces and let me know if any of them are familiar.”
She stood and let Colback take the chair. The first mug shot was already on the screen, and it was numbered one of more than three hundred. He started to scroll through the list. “If I find him, what next?”
“You can’t defeat an enemy if you don’t know who they are. The first step is to identify them.”
“And the second step?”
“Figure out why they want you dead.”
Colback flicked through, image after image. A couple of times he paused to study a face more closely, but after hitting the halfway mark he still hadn’t found the one claiming to be Wills.
A beeping sound interrupted his search. Eva tapped him on the shoulder and told him to get up. She took the seat and hit a couple of keys to bring up a screen showing four views of the perimeter.
“We’ve got company,” she said calmly as two figures stepped into the top-right screen, both carrying assault rifles.
“How’d they find us?”
“It doesn’t matter—they’re here.”
Eva zoomed in on the intruders and hit a key to capture the image, then shut the laptop’s lid and removed it from the docking station. She stuffed it into an already-bulging backpack, then went to her armory and selected three handguns. She checked the chamber on a Glock 17 and tossed it, together with two extra 17-round magazines, to Colback. The other two pistols went into her waistband and she slung a Heckler & Koch HK416 assault rifle over her shoulder, then crammed as much ammunition as she could into the bag.
“This way.”
She led him to a corner of the room and grabbed a black leather jacket from the closet, then pulled the whole thing away from the wall to reveal a passageway. She shoved Colback through and then pulled the closet back into place.
Colback found himself in a tunnel. Light bulbs hung from the ceiling every few yards and he could see that the tunnel ran at least the length of a football field. The walls and ceiling were cut stone, contrasting with the dirt floor. It was tall enough to stand up in but only wide enough to walk single file.
Eva handed him the backpack. “Get moving. I’m gonna set up a surprise welcome.”
He watched her hit buttons on a numeric keypad.
“Go,” she growled.
Colback set off at a jog and, soon after, heard footsteps gaining on him.
“Pick up the pace, soldier.”
Colback obliged, breaking into a sprint.
A minute and a half later, he came to an abrupt halt. They’d reached the end of the tunnel and a ladder secured to the wall looked to be the only way out. He stood at the bottom and looked up, but the last of the overhead lights hung seven yards behind him. He found himself gazing into a void.
“I’ll go first.” Eva pushed past him and scampered up the ladder.
Colback gave her a brief head start, then began the ascent.
It took three minutes to reach the top, and in the darkness, he could hear Eva pull a deadbolt aside.
“Wait here,” she said, and Colback felt a welcome breeze brush past him as the chamber opened above them, the hatch moving silently on well-oiled hinges. Eva stuck her head out and looked around, then climbed out and told him to hurry.
Colback took his time, not wanting to make any noise that would attract unwanted attention. He emerged to find himself at the top of a hill, surrounded by bushes, as Eva dropped the well-camouflaged hatch silently back into place.
Eva pushed her way through the foliage and Colback followed, the half-moon barely penetrating the leafy canopy above. After a couple of minutes, she stopped at the foot of an ivy-covered rock face. Eva grabbed a handful of ivy and pulled leaves and tendrils aside like a curtain, revealing the entrance to a cave.
“Hold this,” she said, and disappeared inside, while he kept the ivy to one side. She was back in seconds, walking a dirt bike out of the cave. Colback expected her to stop so they could mount up, but she wheeled it onto a track that led downhill. Smart move, not starting the motorcycle until they were farther away. It would buy them a little time but they’d have to hurry.
“What happens when they find the basement?” he whispered as Eva broke into a trot. “Should I expect an explosion?”
“No,” she replied, electing not to elaborate.
Colback followed her for around half a mile until the trees gave way to a road. Eva unclipped a helmet from the side of the motorcycle and put it on, then climbed aboard and hit the electric ignition. She folded the stock on the assault rifle and shoved it inside her jacket before zipping it up. Colback got on behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, and she eased out the clutch, careful not to over-rev the engine.
“Where to?” he asked, but got no reply. As with their earlier ride, he had no choice but to hold on tight and hope she had a plan.
CHAPTER 8
Matt Hannagan assumed charge of both assault teams, his service record and seniority implicitly outranking his counterpart in the second squad.
“Take your men to the rear,” he told Eckman, “and give the place a wide berth. Once you’re in position, we’ll hit the front and back simultaneously.”
Willard Eckman didn’t question the orders. In fact, he looked relaxed, which was a good thing, but Hannagan didn’t want it to lead to complacency.
“Remember,” he warn
ed, “we’re dealing with someone who does the same shit we do, plus a Green Beret. On top of that, they know we’re coming for them. Assume they’re alert and heavily armed.”
Eckman nodded. Hannagan looked at both teams, meeting each man’s eyes until he was certain they understood the challenge. Once he was confident everyone knew their roles, both teams slipped into the darkness and Hannagan awaited Eckman’s call.
It came seven minutes later. Hannagan and his team were stretched out in a line facing the front of the house, their bodies hidden by the tree line. The approach had been stealthy, no sign the occupants knew of their presence.
“I can see the back door,” Eckman radioed. “No sign of anyone and we haven’t detected any defenses.”
“Roger,” Hannagan replied. “Send two men in and watch for friendlies. We’re coming in the front.”
He ordered two of his team up and watched through night-vision glasses from the trees as they ran at a crouch toward the front porch. They bounded up the four steps and pressed themselves up against the wall, one either side of the door. One tried the handle, then shook his head. The pair exchanged hand signals, then one took two steps back and fired shots from his silenced rifle at the lock. He kicked the door in and both men disappeared inside. Hannagan waited for more shots to ring out, but all he heard was the all-clear in his earpiece three long minutes later.
“Where are you?” he whispered aloud. The subjects had to be nearby. The car remained outside the garage that abutted the house, and the eye in the sky would have told him if the pair had left the area.
He instructed two men to check the garage and told Eckman to look for any outbuildings that Colback and Driscoll might be hiding in.
Both came back negative.
“Nest, Eagle One,” he said over the comms.
“Go ahead, Eagle One.”
“No sign of them. Can you confirm they haven’t left the scene?”
“That’s affirmative. They entered the garage and there’s been no movement since.”
“Roger that.”
It was time to take a look for himself. Hannagan approached the garage and let his colleagues know he was coming in, just in case they were edgy and mistook him for one of the targets. Inside, he looked down at the floor and saw faint footprints in the fine layer of dust. Two pairs were attributable to his own people, while the others led to the rusting engine in the corner, where they abruptly stopped. Using hand signals only, he told the pair to pull the pallet aside while he covered them.
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