It was perhaps the first time Yasin had ever seen her look happy and relaxed, and unconsciously he felt something he hadn’t experienced in a very long time. A sense of belonging, of connection, of having people around him that he trusted and even cared about. It was a confusing, surprising realization.
It lasted a little while longer, before Anya finally announced that their time was running short and that they needed to be on their way.
Bidding farewell to the old fixer, they ascended the stairs back up to ground level, Anya with the holdall slung over her shoulder, Yasin with a full stomach and a sense of contentment unknown in his short life.
‘I was thinking about Felix,’ Yasin announced as they approached their parked car. ‘He should be living in our apartment instead of that basement. It is not fair on him.’
It seemed like madness to him that such a bright, comfortable space should sit unused while a man like Felix spent his days in a windowless underground prison, no matter how well he’d arranged it.
‘Not fair?’ Anya repeated, opening the trunk.
‘Yes,’ the boy contended. ‘I think he deserves better.’
Laying the holdall carefully inside, she closed the trunk and turned to look at him, regarding him as a teacher might look at a student who fails to see the point of a lesson. ‘Who do you think owns our apartment, Yasin?’
His expression was one of astonishment. ‘Then why live where he does?’
‘Not all men need to surround themselves with luxury to feel rich. He has all he needs.’
Anya stepped past him, opened her door and slipped into the driver’s seat. Only when the engine roared did Yasin stir from his thoughts, hurrying around to the passenger side in case she drove off without him.
Chapter 48
Peshawar, Pakistan – 1 October 1988
Cain once more found himself in the room where he’d met Task Force Black, only this time he was alone, pacing the makeshift ops room like a caged animal. The air around him felt hot and stagnant, trickles of sweat running down his face.
He was filled with nervous energy he couldn’t expel. Every passing moment brought him closer to Carpenter’s deadline, but also closer to being reunited with Anya.
He had triggered Operation Jurate shortly after his fiery confrontation with Carpenter, using the code word Austra on an encrypted radio frequency that he knew Task Force Black would pick up. For all his frantic work over the past couple of days, Cain’s intel was still incomplete and the plan far from finished, but further delay was impossible. Either they went for it now or they abandoned the plan for good.
All he could do was trust that it was enough.
He knew the team must be getting close to their objective by now. He had received a message over the secure satellite comms unit several hours earlier as the task force crossed the Afghan border. He could almost imagine them closing in on the Soviet facility as the sun went down, weapons ready and senses alert.
Part of him wished he was with them. Another part knew he’d only slow them down.
A noise in the corridor outside returned his attention to the present. This building was vacant. Nobody else should be here.
Abandoning the communications console, Cain drew his M1911 sidearm and advanced towards the door, keeping the weapon in a tight grip. He’d never had to kill a man before, but he was prepared. Another noise – the creak of a floorboard.
Taking a breath, Cain gripped the door handle, flicked the weapon’s safety off and quickly pulled the door open.
The man was immediately familiar. Medium height, slender and compact build, well dressed and with his dark hair neatly combed, there was no mistaking the Pakistani intelligence officer.
‘Qalat,’ Cain growled, keeping the weapon trained on him. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
Far from being intimidated by the semi-automatic, Qalat merely offered a smooth smile.
‘Are you going to invite me in, Marcus? Or would you prefer to shoot me?’
Cain glanced out into the corridor. Qalat was alone and unarmed. All he seemed to have with him was a document folder, of the kind Cain was used to seeing back at Langley. This one, however, was unmarked.
‘I’m not doing anything until you tell me why you’re here. How did you find me?’
‘I am an officer with the Pakistani intelligence service. Not much happens in Peshawar without us knowing, my friend.’
Qalat was many things, but the enigmatic intelligence operative was certainly not Cain’s friend.
‘As for why I’m here…’ He held up the folder. ‘I have something you should see.’
* * *
Walking eastwards through the Tiergarten park towards the Brandenburg Gate, Anya watched as the young boy gawped in excitement. He was particularly fascinated by the pair of T-34 tanks flanking the Soviet war memorial, speaking enthusiastically about how he’d once seen them rumbling down a highway in Pakistan.
Anya wouldn’t have been surprised. The Soviets had built tens of thousands of the things, exporting them all over the world. No doubt some had made their way to Pakistan, and were possibly still in use.
‘Have you ever driven a tank?’ he asked with the kind of frank, childish curiosity that she’d found it so difficult to adjust to, but which she’d reluctantly found herself coming to appreciate.
‘No, I haven’t.’ She’d almost been driven over by a tank during a tour in Afghanistan, but that was another story.
‘What about helicopters? Have you flown them?’
‘I’ve flown in them,’ she confirmed.
‘Was it fun?’
She thought about that for a moment. ‘It is more fun when people aren’t trying to shoot you down.’
‘I would like to be a pilot,’ he said. ‘Flying in to save the day. And I would wear sunglasses.’
Anya was content to indulge him for now, to let him talk about whatever he wanted. It was a side to the boy she hadn’t really seen before, but his enthusiasm wasn’t annoying like she’d expected. In fact, it stirred a faint pang of sadness and longing in her.
Because she knew it was about to end.
‘Yasin,’ she said once they’d reached the end of the avenue.
He turned to look at her expectantly. He had changed a great deal from the scrawny, unkempt street urchin that she’d first encountered trying to steal the team’s equipment in Pakistan.
Already she could see he was starting to put on weight as his body adjusted to an improved diet. His clothes were clean and new, his once greasy and unruly black hair now neatly cut, courtesy of a pair of electric clippers she’d forced upon him before leaving the country.
He was thriving, and might well grow up to be a handsome young man, but Anya knew she wouldn’t be around to see it. That was the reason she’d taken him to visit Felix, why she’d suggested going for an evening walk even though there were more pressing matters to attend to.
‘I told you there was something I needed you to do for me,’ she said, speaking quietly in Pashto.
Yasin nodded, eager as always. ‘Name it. I’m ready.’
Anya pointed towards the Brandenburg Gate, where a pair of uniformed federal police officers were standing watch.
‘You see those policemen over there?’
‘Yes.’
Anya let out a breath. ‘I want you to walk over to them and turn yourself in.’
Yasin stared at her in confusion. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I want you to turn yourself in,’ she repeated. ‘You will tell them you are alone, say you fled your home country because people there were trying to kill you, and you request asylum in Germany. You will tell no one about me, or what you’ve seen or done since we met.’
Germany had a generous policy when it came to admitting refugees and asylum seekers, particularly children like Yasin. He might face a grilling at first, especially on how he’d reached Berlin, but she didn’t doubt that a place would be found for him.
‘You will have t
o answer lots of questions, but after that you will be given over to a social worker who will take care of the rest. They will help find a family for you to stay with, a school for you to go to. Everything you need.’
The boy shook his head vehemently. ‘No,’ he said, his tone flat and hard. ‘No. I won’t do that.’
‘Yes, you will.’ Anya reached out and laid a hand firmly on his shoulder. ‘Because you have to. We both know you can’t come any further with us, Yasin.’
The episode with highway patrol earlier in the day had simply confirmed what she already knew – she was no parent, and had no business trying to look after a child. She’d been unwise to bring him even this far. She should have handed him over to the authorities days ago.
‘But we had a deal,’ he protested.
‘Our deal was to get you out of Pakistan, and I’ve honoured it.’
‘No,’ he snapped. ‘If you make me go, I will tell them everything. I will tell them what you’re planning, what you look like. I’ll ruin all your plans.’
Anya sighed, knowing it was a bluff. He was lashing out simply because anger and aggression had served him far better in life than tears and self-pity. In that regard, she understood him all too well.
‘Yasin, I can do no more for you,’ she said. ‘If you want to start a new life, then you need a home, education, people to look after you.’
‘I don’t need anyone to look after me,’ Yasin argued.
That part was true, she acknowledged with grudging respect. Yasin’s harsh upbringing had certainly matured him beyond his years, but he was still a child, and a child needed protection and stability.
She could offer him neither.
‘Then you’ll end up living on the streets again, and you’ll be no better off than when I found you,’ she said. ‘If you want a chance at something better, this is how you must get it.’
Yasin seemed to deflate. ‘I can still help you,’ he said, though it was half-hearted at best.
‘I know you can, Yasin,’ she said, humouring him. ‘But your work is done. I don’t need anything more from you.’
Crestfallen, his anger melted away. ‘What will you do now?’
Anya glanced back along the avenue, thinking about the young woman back at the safe house. An innocent life oblivious to the storm raging around her, but one that might hold the key to Drake’s redemption. And Anya’s.
‘My work isn’t finished yet, but I must do it alone. And you’ll be better off without me anyway.’
‘My father said the same thing.’
Anya stopped, taken aback not just by his words, but the tone of sad, bitter acceptance in his voice. ‘What do you mean?’
Yasin looked away.
‘When I was little, when they gave me away. I don’t remember much, but I know why it happened. My mother died trying to give birth to her second child, and my father couldn’t look after me. He took me to an orphanage in Rawalpindi and just left me there. I screamed and cried and begged him to take me back, but he wouldn’t listen. He said the people there would care for me, that I was better off without him. That was the last time I saw him.’ He shrugged, dismissing the memory. ‘He said I was better off without him, but I think it was the other way around. He decided he was better off without me.’ His eyes filled with accusation. ‘I think grown-ups just say things like that to make it easier for them.’
Anya stared back at the child but she didn’t see him. Her gaze was turned inwards, at an old memory which somehow always resurfaced. A memory of herself on a grassy hilltop overlooking her home, the sound of a car engine approaching, rising to her feet expecting her parents to return.
But it wasn’t her parents’ car. It was a police car. Sent to tell her that her parents were dead, that everything she knew had just evaporated. That she would never again know true happiness and contentment.
‘I was trying to protect you,’ she said.
‘From what?’
‘From me. From the things I do.’
‘I know the things you do, Fauji.’ Fauji: the nickname he’d taken to using for her. Anya knew it meant ‘warrior’ in Pashto. ‘You don’t have to protect me from that.’
Anya wished that were true. Whatever he’d seen and done, it could only pale in comparison to the death and suffering she’d visited on others. And what she might yet have to do.
‘Let me come with you, let me help,’ he implored. ‘At least until the others are safe. I owe them a debt as well, and I must repay it.’ His eyes glinted with a hint of humour. ‘If it were not for them, I think you would have killed me in Pakistan.’
She wondered if he knew how close he was to the truth.
‘All I ask is a chance to help,’ he said, making one last effort to win her over. ‘That is all. After this is over, I will leave. Will you not give me that much?’
For some reason, his plea reminded her of words she’d once spoken two decades ago, in a little cell-like interrogation room at Langley.
I do not want pity, just a chance to prove myself. So far my life has meant nothing to anyone. Let me do something with what I have left.
She had asked for the same chance Yasin was asking for now. A young woman, little more than a teenager, who knew nothing but fighting and clawing for her very survival.
‘You will do exactly what I say,’ she heard herself say.
‘I will,’ he promised.
‘And when this is over, when Drake and the others are safe, you will turn yourself over to the authorities just like I said.’
‘If that’s what you want.’
Anya knew her judgement was being motivated by emotion rather than logic, which was dangerous for everyone involved, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to send him away. Not until he could make peace with it.
She gestured back the way they had come.
‘We should get back,’ she finally said. ‘We have work to do.’
Chapter 49
Despite its impressive view and expensive decor, the safe house lacked any form of entertainment – something both Alex and Lauren were becoming increasingly aware of.
‘It’s going to be a long night if we have to sit here in silence,’ Lauren said, sighing and looking around. ‘Jesus, this reminds me of detention with Mrs Templeman.’
Alex frowned. ‘What?’
Lauren smiled faintly. ‘The worst goddamned elementary school teacher you could ask for. Terrible Templeman, we used to call her. She once yelled at a kid for sneezing,’ she recalled. ‘One day I decided to teach her a lesson, so I hid a toy spider in her desk drawer, not knowing she had severe, hardcore arachnophobia. She opened it, and it was like she’d just been struck by lightning. I thought she’d never stop screaming.’
She couldn’t help but chuckle.
‘She hauled me into her office for detention, said I wasn’t getting out until I admitted what I did. No way was I giving her the satisfaction, so I just sat there. I could see she was getting madder and madder, and that just encouraged me to stick with it. It was two hours before she finally gave up and told me to get the hell out.’
Alex found himself smiling at the thought.
‘I had a PE teacher like that in secondary school,’ he said. ‘Henderson was his name. A lumpy, muscle-head arsehole, loved humiliating the weak kids in the class. His pride and joy was this big, stupid red BMW, so one day me and a couple of mates popped the bonnet and changed the fuses around, linked the horn in with his brakes. Every time he tried to slow down – honk!’
To his relief, Lauren laughed at that. A true, genuine laugh which he hadn’t heard from her before. It was remarkable how it seemed to light up her entire face, and for a moment he caught himself wishing they’d met under different circumstances.
‘I guess everyone’s had an asshole teacher,’ she conceded. ‘You were more inventive than me anyway.’
For a time they amused themselves by swapping stories of their childhood exploits, recalling pranks, places they had visited, disastrous nights o
ut. And for a little while, it was almost possible to forget everything else that had happened.
At last lapsing into silence, Alex glanced out of the window, where the dome of the Reichstag was visible in the distance, illuminated from within against the gathered darkness.
‘I was a hacker,’ he said suddenly.
Lauren glanced at him. ‘Huh?’
‘You asked me what I did before all this, how I came to know Anya,’ he explained. ‘I was a computer hacker. My job was to find out things that other people wanted to keep hidden. Your dad wanted to keep you hidden, so Anya brought me in.’
Lauren’s smile faded. ‘And you found me.’
He nodded. ‘I’ve made mistakes in my life; I don’t deny that. And I’m truly sorry that we had to do all this. I hope when it’s all over you go on to live a long and happy life, but I don’t regret being part of it. I’ll take whatever comes my way tomorrow, good or bad, and I won’t hide from it. Not this time.’
He couldn’t rightly say why he’d felt the need to tell her that, whether he actually thought it might make any difference or whether she would dismiss it as self-justification from a man beyond redemption.
Lauren was still looking back at him, but he sensed a subtle change coming over her, like a dawning realization had been lurking beneath the surface this whole time, and had now begun to take form.
Before either of them could say anything further, the door swung open and Anya entered with a bulky holdall slung over one shoulder, followed closely by Yasin. Her eyes swept across the room, checking that nothing was out of place.
‘Is everything all right here?’ she asked, sensing she’d interrupted something significant.
‘Yeah,’ Alex confirmed, casting a brief glance at Lauren. ‘Yeah, everything’s fine. Did you get what you needed?’
Anya nodded, laying the holdall carefully on the floor. ‘If you want to take a break, feel free. I will watch Lauren.’
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