Shadow Conflict

by Shadow Conflict (epub)

  That sentence felt like a punch in the gut. ‘What does my father have to do with this?’

  Instead of answering her question, the woman stood up and walked towards the door.

  ‘I will have food and water brought in soon,’ she said. ‘Until then, keep the rules in mind.’

  ‘Wait,’ Lauren implored her. ‘You haven’t—’

  She was cut off as the door closed firmly.

  Alex was waiting for Anya in the hallway, and for once it was his turn to offer withering disapproval. ‘Very inspiring,’ he remarked sarcastically. ‘She must be scared out of her mind.’

  ‘That’s the idea, Alex,’ Anya said tersely, brushing past him and striding through to the living room. Alex followed her.

  Overlooking the placid waters of Lake Constance, and the fields and forests that slowly gave way to the towering snow-covered peaks at the northern end of the Alps, the view from the room’s floor-to-ceiling windows was stunning. Even Alex, in a less than jubilant mood after the arduous six-hour journey here, was impressed.

  ‘I have to admit, you know how to pick your safe houses,’ he allowed, staring out across the vista. ‘Took long enough to get here, though. Couldn’t we have found somewhere closer to Paris?’

  Anya was less interested in admiring the view, having seen it many times over the past couple of years. Instead she entered the open-plan kitchen unit that overlooked the living room, filled the kettle and set it over the gas cooker to start it heating.

  ‘This isn’t a safe house,’ she said.

  Although she only stayed here sporadically and had never troubled herself to personalize it to any great extent, this place had become, for lack of a better word, Anya’s home. Bought with cash under a false identity, it was both secluded and about as secure as a civilian home could be. Two factors which appealed greatly to her.

  ‘If you’re making tea, I’ll have a cup,’ Alex chipped in hopefully as the kettle reached boiling point, steam billowing from the spout.

  ‘Tea will have to wait,’ Anya replied, removing her jacket and tossing it onto the kitchen counter. There were more pressing matters to attend to first.

  Anya’s close-fitting shirt was still stained with blood, her wound having reopened during the fight in Paris. The bleeding had slowed during the car journey, but it was clear the stitches would need replacing.

  Reaching into one of the kitchen cupboards, she removed a first aid kit, unzipped it and selected a suture needle and thread. Threading the needle, she laid it in a shallow bowl and poured some boiling water in to sterilize it.

  This done, she unbuttoned her shirt and dumped it in the sink, to be washed or disposed of later. Having spent much of her adult life in the field, where physical privacy was often impossible, Anya had no compunction about removing her clothes in front of Alex.

  She was however less enthusiastic about the next part. Reaching down, she peeled away the dressing, dried blood tearing away from the skin.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Alex yelped, in shock at the ugly dark bruising that coloured one side of her ribcage, not to mention the wound in the midst of it. This was the first time he’d seen the extent of her injury. He’d had no idea how bad it was.

  ‘Does it hurt?’ he asked stupidly.

  ‘I hope that’s a joke,’ Anya replied as she examined the injury, trying to determine how many stitches had torn. It was difficult to make out from her point of view, which was probably why she’d done such a poor job with the stitches in the first place. ‘Pass me the saline solution.’

  Approaching the first aid kit, Alex felt like a cave man in a supermarket, overwhelmed by things he didn’t recognize. ‘What am I looking for?’

  ‘A plastic bottle,’ she explained. ‘Marked sodium chloride.’

  Rifling through, Alex found the bottle and quickly handed it over. After pouring the solution over a cloth, Anya was able to clean most of the dried blood away, making the injury easier to examine.

  ‘Alex, answer me a question,’ she said, still looking down. ‘Do your hands shake?’

  He frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘Your hands. Are they steady?’

  He was beginning to see where she was going with this. ‘No way,’ he protested, throwing up his hands. ‘I’m not a trauma surgeon.’

  ‘I need someone who can get a proper look at the wound, and you are the only one here. All I need you to do is put in a couple of stitches. Even you can’t get that wrong.’

  ‘Is that supposed to inspire me?’

  Without offering a reply, she picked up the first aid kit and the bowl of steaming water, crossed into the living room and eased herself onto the couch, turning over so that the wound was facing upwards.

  ‘I’ll talk you through it,’ she promised. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

  Alex rolled his eyes and clenched his teeth. In typical Anya fashion, she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he mumbled, striding over and kneeling down beside her.

  ‘First clean your hands with the saline solution,’ she instructed. Blood loss and flesh wounds she could deal with, but if the injury became infected she’d be in serious trouble.

  Using the same bottle Anya had employed to clean the wound initially, Alex soaked his hands and washed them thoroughly.

  Next she handed him a pair of surgical scissors and plastic tweezers from the kit.

  ‘Some of the sutures have broken or ripped through the skin. You need to find them and pull them out. Use the scissors to cut them.’

  Alex accepted the tools as if they could explode at any moment. ‘This is going to hurt.’

  ‘Yes,’ she confirmed.

  ‘Are you going to hit me?’

  Her vivid blue eyes turned on him. ‘Only if you get it wrong.’

  ‘Very reassuring,’ he said, bending over to begin his unpleasant task.

  Sure enough, there had been four sutures holding the ragged wound closed. One was mostly intact, even if the skin around it had been partially ripped. The other three, however, had torn loose, allowing the injury to reopen. He decided not to look too closely, worried he’d see the white gleam of a rib bone beneath.

  ‘Three of them are gone,’ he said.

  ‘Then you have three to replace.’

  ‘Your maths is impeccable.’

  Despite the gory task, he was also conscious of the fact that Anya was lying virtually naked right in front of him. Whatever experiences she had been through, they had clearly made a deep impression, both mentally and physically.

  Her core was rock solid, her stomach flat and firm, her arms and shoulders endowed with the lean and sinewy musculature of real physical strength. Up close like this, he was also able to make out the old scars that crisscrossed her back, plus various other tracks of silvery-white scar tissue that stood as testimony to a long and violent career.

  And yet, for all her obvious toughness and deadly capability, Anya remained unquestionably female. The swell of her hips was accentuated by the position she was obliged to lie in, and he couldn’t help but glance at the full, rounded curve of her breasts, before forcing himself to look away.

  ‘Stay in shape, don’t you?’ he said, coughing uncomfortably to fill the awkward silence. It was disconcerting in the extreme to see someone he generally thought of as a brooding menace, an unwelcome intruder or a ruthless killer in such an unexpectedly intimate and vulnerable light.

  Anya seemed to have no sense of embarrassment when it came to being unclothed, but the look in her eyes made it clear she would happily break his arms if he entertained any thoughts of touching her inappropriately.

  ‘Relax, you’re not exactly my type. I prefer my women less… terrifying,’ he assured her, knowing she wouldn’t see such an observation as an insult. ‘It’s just… I find it helps to talk at times like this.’

  ‘I don’t,’ she replied. ‘Focus on your task.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Clamping the suture in place with the tweezers, he brought th
e scissors in and carefully snipped them. Then, hesitating briefly, he pulled on the free end. Anya inhaled sharply as the suture thread slipped free, causing a trickle of blood to well up, but gave little outward sign of the pain she was in. It was the same with the other two.

  ‘First part’s over,’ Alex said, as he dabbed at the wound with a sterile wipe.

  ‘Good. Now get the suture needle,’ she said.

  Dropping the bloody suture into the bowl of steaming water, he reached in with the tweezers and pulled out the curved needle Anya had placed there.

  ‘You only need to make one stitch at a time. Insert the needle about half a centimetre either side of the wound. Don’t push it too deep. And make sure there is enough thread to tie it off.’

  ‘Let me ask you something,’ he said as he blew on the hot piece of metal to cool it a little. ‘At moments like this, do you ever stop for a second and think, “I’ve made some really bad career decisions”?’

  She snorted, which he took as a good sign. At least she hadn’t told him to shut up. ‘What would you have me do instead?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Tollbooth operator, personal trainer… No, wait. I tell you what – a librarian. Not one of the nice ones that wear oversized cardigans and remind me of my nan. I mean the really overbearing hard-arses that fine you if you return your book even a day late. I could see you settling into that role pretty well. There would be zero late returns on your watch.’

  That was when Anya did something quite unexpected. She laughed. Not just a reluctant chuckle, but a proper, genuine laugh of amusement. It was so strange to see such an uninhibited expression of mirth that Alex was actually taken aback.

  Then again, perhaps on some level it made sense to him. With everything that she was going through right now, and everything she seemed to have endured recently, perhaps even Anya needed to release some tension.

  ‘It is good to know how you see me,’ she said, once her laughter had subsided.

  ‘Just helping people find themselves. Hold on to that good humour for the next few minutes,’ he said, pushing the curved needle into her flesh.

  She stiffened as he worked, having to apply more force than he’d expected. The curve of the metal made it easier to bring the needle out the other side of the wound, but his efforts had caused more blood to well up. Aware that he was causing her great discomfort, he hurriedly pushed it through all the way, drawing the suture thread with it.

  With the hard part done, it was an easy enough process to tighten the thread, draw the two sides of the wound together, then secure it with a basic knot. The next two stitches were quicker as he became more adept at the process. He didn’t imagine he’d get top marks from any medical examiner, but it looked like it would hold together.

  ‘All done,’ he said, feeling rather pleased with himself as he snipped away the excess thread. ‘Just don’t ask me to do anything like this again.’

  ‘I hope I don’t need to,’ Anya replied as she sat up to inspect his handiwork. Apparently approving of what she found, she gave him a faint nod. ‘Not bad.’

  ‘That’s glowing praise as far as you’re concerned,’ Alex remarked as she applied an adhesive dressing to the wound, then wrapped it with a bandage to help hold it in place. Watching as she rose from the couch, Alex turned more serious. ‘Listen, bullshit aside for a minute. Are you sure you should be doing all this in your condition?’

  ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘But there is no choice. I don’t have time to rest and heal.’

  Leaving the room and striding through to what he assumed was one of the bedrooms, she returned a few moments later wearing a black tank top. After packing up the first aid kit and returning it to its place in the kitchen, she opened another cupboard and, to his surprise, brought out a bottle of some kind of spirit he didn’t recognize.

  ‘What’s that for? Disinfecting the wound?’ he asked.

  ‘Drinking,’ Anya replied, laying a couple of shot glasses down on the breakfast bar that divided the kitchen from the living room.

  As Alex approached warily, still convinced this was some kind of ploy, she cracked the seal on the bottle and poured a full measure into each. He caught the scent of alcohol, and reached for the bottle once she’d laid it down.

  ‘Stumbras,’ he read out, consulting the label.

  ‘Vodka. From my…’ She hesitated before finishing that sentence, hurriedly correcting herself. ‘From where I was born.’

  ‘Fair play, I’ll bite,’ Alex said, thinking it best not to push her. ‘What’s the occasion?’

  For once Anya didn’t seem guarded or closed off. ‘You did a lot for me today that I had no business asking you to do, and you did it well,’ she said, staring right at him. ‘There are not many people in this world who have earned my gratitude, but if it means anything, you are one of them, Alex.’

  Alex said nothing for a moment or two, sensing the significance of this moment but unsure how to respond. He was strangely touched, because he knew Anya wasn’t someone to hand out empty praise and meaningless platitudes. If she said something, she meant it. And she meant this.

  ‘Let’s do this before I embarrass myself,’ he said, holding up the glass.

  ‘Sveikata,’ the woman said, knocking it back in one gulp.

  ‘Your health,’ Alex replied, doing likewise. The potent spirit lit a path down into his stomach, and pretty quickly he began to feel the languid warmth spread through his body, helping to calm his racing mind.

  ‘Not bloody bad,’ he said. ‘I could get used to this.’

  Anya flashed a smile. ‘Well, don’t get too used to it,’ she advised, screwing the lid on the bottle. ‘I need you to keep watch for a while.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To make a call.’ Reaching into her jacket, she fished out the components of Lauren’s cell phone, held together in a plastic ziplock bag. She’d removed the SIM card and battery during their journey to prevent tracking, but now reassembled the device and powered it up.

  ‘Wouldn’t do that. They can track it.’

  Anya shook her head as she concentrated on the screen. ‘The walls here are lead-lined,’ she explained, scrolling through the phone’s list of contacts.

  ‘Wow. Is there anything you haven’t planned for?’

  ‘Too many things, unfortunately.’

  Finding the contact listed simply as Dad, Anya made a mental note of the number before shutting the phone down and dismantling it again.

  ‘I will make the call some distance from here, as a precaution,’ she explained, fishing the car keys from her jacket pocket. ‘In the meantime, give Lauren food and water, and make sure she is comfortable, but don’t converse with her. The more she learns about us, the more dangerous she could be. Understand?’

  ‘Zero talking. Got it.’

  Nodding, she left the room and returned a short time later with a weapon in her hands. It was a Smith & Wesson 5900 series 9mm automatic, its stainless steel frame glinting in the early evening sunlight. Laying it down with a heavy thump, she glanced up at him, her expression deadly serious.

  ‘Can I trust you with this?’

  Now wasn’t the time for flippant remarks. ‘Yeah. You can.’

  She inserted a magazine into the weapon’s port and pulled back the slide to chamber the first round. ‘The safety is engaged and a round is in the chamber. If you need to fire, flick this lever on the side here,’ she explained, showing him how. ‘Grip it with both hands and keep your arms fully extended when you fire. It will kick back hard, so be ready. And don’t ever point it at someone unless you’re prepared to kill them,’ she warned him. ‘Including me.’

  Alex nodded, knowing that nothing less than complete agreement would work. Satisfied she’d made her point, Anya let go of the weapon, allowing him to take it.

  ‘What about reloading?’ he asked, testing the weight and feel of it.

  She gave him a knowing look. ‘If you need more than 15 rounds to get out of trouble, you
are as good as dead anyway.’

  As always, Anya was keeping it real. ‘That’s comforting.’

  ‘Lock the door and don’t open it for anyone who isn’t me. If I don’t return in an hour, I won’t be coming back. Leave here and get as far away as you can,’ she advised. ‘There is money in a holdall in the hallway cupboard.’

  ‘Anya,’ he said just as she opened the front door. ‘Just… come back, yeah?’

  The woman remained silent, but nodded faintly before closing the door, leaving him alone with their hostage.

  Chapter 28

  ISI headquarters – Islamabad, Pakistan

  Vizur Qalat let out a frustrated breath as he read an internal report. A pair of ISI operatives were attempting to reopen their investigation into the confrontation in Islamabad several nights ago, despite Qalat’s best efforts to shut it down.

  Explosions and gunfire on the streets of the nation’s capital weren’t the sort of thing that could be swept under the rug, even for a man of Qalat’s influence. It had taken more than a few favours amongst Pakistan’s police and intelligence agencies to minimize exposure of the incident and write it off as classified. These two jumped-up policemen could unravel everything he’d worked towards.

  He might well have to employ more direct methods to silence them.

  He was about to pack up for the night when his desk phone buzzed. It was the hotline from Executive Director Khalid’s office.

  Qalat wavered as he reached for the phone. If Khalid had gotten wind of the incident, and more importantly his efforts to cover it up, it could land him in an untenable position. Low-level intelligence officers he could handle, but the director of the ISI was another matter.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, managing to keep his tone clipped and efficient.

  ‘Qalat, I’d like to see you in my office,’ the fleshy voice of the director announced. ‘Something we need to discuss.’

  There was no other answer to give to such a summons. ‘On my way.’

  A minute or so later, Qalat knocked politely on Khalid’s door, receiving an immediate reply. ‘Come!’