by J. B. Turner
She sensed the stranger watching her.
She turned around and saw he was now standing over her, eyes dead.
“When I left him, he was still breathing.”
The stranger said nothing.
“You said he was definitely breathing.”
“There was a faint pulse.”
Friel blinked away tears. “But he was breathing, right?”
The man stared at her long and hard.
Friel’s mind was free-falling. She knew something was wrong. She felt like screaming. But she couldn’t.
She composed herself, got to her feet, and lunged straight at the man, pushing him backward over the edge and into the void.
The stranger was caught unawares and plunged down, crashing fifty feet below onto a rocky outcrop with a sickening thud.
Friel held her breath. She looked down through a film of tears. The man wasn’t moving.
Fifty-One
Brigadier Jack Sands stared transfixed at the images on the big screens. Blood-specked rocks. He was seeing what Nathan Stone’s camera had captured. But there was no movement. “Nathan,” he said, “respond!”
Silence.
“Nathan, cough, groan. Do something to let me know in some way you’re still alive, goddammit!”
Nothing.
Sands began to pace the room. “Nathan, I repeat, give me a signal or something to show you’re still with us.”
Still no response.
Sands was in charge of the operation. He had the authority to do whatever it took to complete the mission. It had been partially completed. Crichton had been neutralized. But the staffer, Crichton’s mistress, had taken a course of action he hadn’t foreseen.
And now their guy, Nathan, had been taken out. Or, at best, immobilized. This wasn’t the method of their choosing. They had their own plans to deal with Nathan Stone. Sands couldn’t understand why Nathan hadn’t just picked her up and thrown her over the edge.
The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like a nightmare. An operation jinxed from the start. He needed to focus.
Sands put on the red headphones and made the call to the backup team. “Change of plan. Head straight to locale. Emergency.”
“Copy that, sir.”
“Two things. First, take care of the female target, who has not been neutralized. Do it right. And afterwards, retrieve the flash drive device contained within a lip balm, which is now either in a pale-blue backpack or on female target’s person. Also, collect any cell phones on her or in the backpack.”
“Got it. Second thing?”
“What’s your ETA?”
“We can be there in fifteen minutes and get to work.”
Sands stared at the screen, which showed no movement from Stone’s pinhole camera.
“Sir, the second thing?”
Sands stared long and hard, and then sighed. “You are also to neutralize Nathan Stone with immediate effect, as previously discussed. Make it look like a fall. And retrieve any cell phones, devices, cameras, etc. We believe he may already have fallen on the mountain. So he may be injured. Proceed with extreme caution.”
“Copy that, sir.”
Sands ended the conversation, called Clayton Wilson, and gave him the update.
“Jesus H. Christ” was all Wilson could say after a long silence.
“Sir, we have a credible backup plan.”
A long sigh echoed down the line. “We need to get that goddamn flash drive.”
“We’re on it, sir. We have more than enough time.”
“You’d better. Or we’ll all be out of fucking time.”
Fifty-Two
Nathan Stone was floating in a black lagoon, the sky white. He felt himself drifting on the water. Then he felt himself beginning to submerge, unable to breathe.
The sound of a woman crying in the distance roused him. Slowly, he came to and tasted blood and dirt.
He spat it out. Didn’t know if he could move. His eyes were shut tight. Forced himself to open them. Blurred vision. Blood dripping from a head wound. Using his hands and arms to support himself, he got to his knees and stared into the distance. Tried to focus. His vision was blurred for nearly a minute. Eventually, it cleared. He got to his feet unsteadily and grimaced as shocks of pain from his ribs reverberated through his body.
“Goddamn!” he said, clenching his teeth.
Stone felt a craziness begin to engulf him. He wasn’t used to anyone getting the better of him. Especially some fucking Capitol Hill staffer.
“Fuck!”
He turned and looked up at the ledge, fifty feet above, from where he’d been pushed.
Think, goddamn it, think.
He needed to alert his handler. First things first.
“Sir, can you hear me?”
Stone hunched over, hands resting on his thighs, wincing at the pain. “Sir, can you hear me, urgent?”
He waited and waited for a response.
“Sir, please respond immediately if you can hear me.”
Nothing. Silence.
Stone checked his lapel and saw the pinhole camera cum microphone had been lost in the fall. He scrambled around on the rocks and scree, frantically searching for the tiny device.
He realized the search was futile. It was gone.
He was out of radio contact.
Stone took in a deep breath and winced. Ribs broken. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a dissolvable emergency sachet. High-strength amphetamine and morphine mix. He felt the drugs race into his bloodstream in moments. The morphine killed most of the pain, while the huge quantity of amphetamine gave him energy.
He took a few deep breaths. Searing pain still there in his ribs. “Goddamn.”
He negotiated a few rocks and boulders and climbed back up onto the path. Stopped to check he still had the 9mm strapped to his right ankle, which fired dissolvable poisoned darts. Good for a two-hundred-yard range.
He felt his senses working again. He went across to the senator’s body. He stared down at it for a fleeting moment before stepping over it. Then he turned and headed down the trail.
Stone felt the pain digging into him, erupting across his body. The minutes were eaten up as he descended the rough ground, and he began to feel stronger, the pain nullified.
He tasted the residue of the amphetamine on his tongue and swallowed hard.
He stopped and stared off into the distance. Saw, about a mile away, a figure carrying a backpack, heading into the forest. This was Friel. The bitch was on the move.
He estimated she was ten minutes ahead of him.
Time was running out.
His gaze wandered around the mountainside. Stone’s twenty-twenty vision included a secondary trail parallel to the main one, but far more treacherous.
Stone considered his options as he headed down the mountainside. The pain had subsided. But in its place was a putrid black anger, burning deep within him. He wondered whether he would catch her by sticking straight behind her. He decided to get onto the minor trail and cut across the mountain ridge.
The beauty of it was it would be out of sight.
A few minutes later, he was on the secondary trail, unbeknownst to anyone but him, running parallel to Friel’s route to freedom.
Fifty-Three
Jessica Friel stopped and looked at her watch, tears streaming down her face, beside herself. Driven by fear, anxiety, terror, wondering what the hell was going on. She retched. But nothing came up.
She was traumatized, having left the body of Brad high up on the mountainous ridge. But she didn’t have any options.
She’d checked the backpack and found the lanyard with the flash drive still there. The hiker who appeared had obviously taken it off Brad.
Friel was willing herself to be strong. She strode on as the foliage thickened, trees and bushes overhanging the trail, brushing her face in the wind. She reached into her pocket and pulled out Brad’s phone. No more messages from the US consulate. Did they have people on
the way? Friel dialed 999 on Brad’s cell phone again and pressed the green button, and waited. No ringtone. Nothing. No signal.
She needed to get back to civilization, down to the small hamlet by the lake.
She felt so very alone. Trapped, almost.
She was in an environment she knew nothing about. And as evening fell, the sky darkening, she knew she had to get down the mountain soon.
Her heart rate was quickening.
Friel hiked on for another mile, getting eaten by midges in the moist undergrowth. She checked her watch. Where the hell was everyone? Where was the help? “Goddamn.”
Her mind flashed back to the moment she had pushed the mysterious American hiker off the ridge. She wondered if she’d gone mad and imagined it all. It was ridiculous. This didn’t happen to normal people. She was from DC. She didn’t belong here.
Whatever this was, it had nothing to do with her.
But the sad truth was, it had everything to do with her.
She’d ignored the warnings from the dead blogger. And, being headstrong, she’d flown across the Atlantic with the goddamn flash drive disguised by the lip balm to give to Brad in person. She should have implored him to head back home. She should have told him to cancel his appearance at the conference. But she hadn’t. Now he was dead.
The more she thought about it, the more frantic she felt.
One of the two cell phones began to vibrate. She saw it was Brad’s. A message.
Friel opened the message. It was from the US consulate.
Important. Stay exactly where you are, Jessica. Help on the way. Mountain rescue/paramedic experts very close. Minutes from your current position. Will get you to safety. Do not move. Chopper with team landing to pick up Senator Crichton in eight minutes. FBI from London and armed Scottish police en route. More to follow.
Friel sank to her knees and began to cry. “Thank you. Thank you, Lord.”
Fifty-Four
Nathan Stone was hurting bad and bleeding as he crouched in the woods. He rubbed his hands in the dirt and mud. Smeared it across his face and ears and through his hair to blend into the surroundings. Then he headed farther up the rocky single track winding around the mountain, going higher and higher. The track edged away from the main path and diverged, heading over a rocky outcrop, where it continued out of sight on the other side of the hills.
He checked the angle of the sun as he got his bearings. A burning twinge in his sides. His breathing was labored. But he was relatively uninhibited, despite the bitch pushing him off the ledge.
Stone gritted his teeth and strode on. He picked up the pace and began to jog as the path wound its way higher along the hidden side of the ridge. It went on like that for half a mile and then zigzagged back over the ridge.
Stone crouched down. He sensed a presence. A sixth sense. He heard sobbing. A woman’s sobbing.
He closed his eyes and realized it was coming from a couple hundred yards west of where he was, down below.
Stone moved with stealth along the path. He took out the 9mm dart gun strapped to his ankle and put it in his waistband. He always had a backup plan. Always had a weapon within easy reach.
Such preparation had served him well.
He had lost count of the times plans had gone awry over the years. But his planning, and his training back at The Farm all those years ago, had been drummed into him.
What happens if it all goes to fuck during the operation? What happens if plan A is blown out of the water?
The answer was always the same.
Have a plan B. And a plan C, D, and E if need be.
But usually a plan B was more than enough.
Stone quickened his pace as he headed along the ridge, hidden by the foliage and trees, his rubber-soled Timberlands hardly making a sound on the earth. Only the occasional twig or loose rock gave a soft crunch underfoot.
The sobbing was getting closer. A lot closer.
Stone got down on his stomach and crawled for a hundred yards, maybe more, his ribs burning, blood still dripping from a head wound. He was panting heavily. The pain was gnawing at his sides. But the morphine was taking the edge off just enough, the amphetamines giving him the energy he needed.
He moved forward as the sobs drifted up the mountainside, beyond the tree line. And then he looked down. Through a gap in the trees, he saw her.
Jessica Friel was sitting and crying as she sat on his backpack, head in her hands.
Stone held his breath. He took out the 9mm and pointed the gun with the telescopic sights at the target. He closed one eye as he got her in the crosshairs. He flicked off the safety, finger on the trigger.
Fifty-Five
Jessica Friel heard voices coming toward her. “I’m here!” She felt weepy. Overcome. She knew they were there for her. The rustle of the waterproof coats and the trudging steps on the scree path. Broken twigs, branches cracking. She heard some water in the distance, perhaps a mountain stream running wild down the hills.
She waited as her instructions had told her.
Her emotions were tearing her to pieces. She felt sick. Elated. Scared. But most of all, she felt empty over Brad’s death.
The more she thought about it all, the strange American on the hills, the colder she felt. She wondered if she was going into shock.
“Hi!” a man’s voice shouted from up ahead.
Friel saw two guys with huge backpacks outfitted for the elements. She began to sob uncontrollably.
The smaller of the two men took off his backpack and shook her hand. “Hi!” he said.
“Thank you for finding me. Thank you. I think there’s a guy out there trying to hurt me. I’m an American.”
The man who shook her hand nodded but didn’t say anything.
“My partner is on the hill. They said the chopper was coming for him.”
The man nodded, took out a penlight, and shone it in her eyes. He nodded. “Yeah . . . extreme shock.” His accent didn’t sound Scottish.
“Are you from the mountain rescue?”
The man nodded as he took out a pill and handed it to her with a bottle of water. “It’ll counter the shock before we get you to the hospital.”
Friel nodded and knocked back the pill. She washed it down with the water. It felt good.
The second man smiled. “You’re gonna be fine now.”
When he spoke those words, Friel was gripped by a strange fear. The man’s accent was definitely American. Midwest. She tried to open her mouth to speak but couldn’t. She was paralyzed. She felt her body go limp as the foliage and towering trees began to spin.
She was falling.
She felt her eyes rolling back in her head.
“Just fall asleep, Jessica. Time for a long, long sleep. Then you’ll feel better.”
Friel fought to stay awake as the drug overwhelmed her. Staring down at her were two men, both smiling.
Suddenly, she was lying on her back, then engulfed in darkness.
Fifty-Six
Nathan Stone saw everything through the sights of the military-grade 9mm handgun. It was clear what was going down. First, his target was supposed to be neutralized by him. But when his handler thought he was indisposed, a two-man team flew in from the wings to deal with it.
He watched as she willingly swallowed the pill. They’d convinced her they were there to help, maybe paramedics. And that’s why she’d taken the drug.
It was a fast-acting anesthetic. That’s what they would have used.
Friel wouldn’t be able to move.
Stone watched, transfixed. One man took out what looked like a pen but probably had a syringe tip, which would administer the deadly, virtually untraceable drug to paralyze her. She wouldn’t be able to fight back. Then the drug would stop her heart. She would be dead within three minutes.
The two men didn’t speak. One watched and one acted.
Stone spied through gaps in the trees. One of the men pulled out a cell phone. Stone heard the words “job done.” The men dr
agged Friel’s body through the woods. They each took out small shovels from their backpacks and began to dig a shallow pit. Her grave.
Five minutes later, they’d finished the job, and they carefully lifted her body into the grave. Then they filled in the grave with all the soil, covered it up with branches and twigs, and used another branch covered with leaves to sweep away their footprints.
The two men inspected the area, photographed it, then made another call.
Stone could hear the voice, a southern drawl. He smelled the moss and earth pressed against his face. He felt himself begin to dissociate. He could disengage from any situation. This prevented fear from informing his physical actions.
He raised his head barely an inch. It was clear this was a top-grade operation. He assumed they were working under orders for the same handler. His handler. Had to be. This was no coincidence.
This was compartmentalization. It was a well-known concept in intelligence. The fewer people who knew the full details of an operation, the better, to reduce the chances that the mission might be compromised.
He wondered if the two-man team had been on standby in case of problems.
Nathan began to think through the possibilities. He pondered another scenario. What if the two guys had been brought in for another part of the mission? Not to kill the woman. Not to be the backup. But to neutralize Nathan after he’d finished off the woman and the senator.
Was that it?
Were they ghosts waiting to take him out when he made his way back off the mountain?
The more he considered the scenario racing around his head, the more he began to see it as a credible explanation.
The decision to neutralize the triggerman, the only link back to the organizers, would make sense. The job gets done, but all trace is erased. It would point to a lone wolf. A bad seed.
Stone was indeed a lone wolf. And a bad seed. An assassin. But he was never, ever acting alone. He was always following orders.
For his handler, if Stone was indeed dead, he couldn’t be left out there.
The call ended and the two men headed back onto the trail in the direction of where they had emerged. Like ghosts.