The Conor McBride Series Books 1-3

by Kathryn Guare

  His brother looked more surprised than anyone.

  “Thomas. Oh God, no. Sedgwick, he’s hit. He’s been shot.”

  36

  There wasn’t much blood, at least not yet, or not that he could see. Together, he and Sedgwick leaned Thomas against the makeshift barricade and quickly stripped off his coat and shirt to assess the damage. The bullet had gone in above his left hip, opening up a pulpy hole about the size of Conor’s thumbnail.

  “Here’s the exit wound.” Sedgwick lightly probed an area on Thomas’s back. Looks like it came through cleanly, at least.” He looked at Thomas. “How much pain?”

  Thomas shook his head uncertainly. “None. Just feels peculiar. Cold, like the rest of me. I’d appreciate the shirt and coat back on, if that’s all right.”

  “We should bandage it somehow, in case the bleeding gets worse.”

  “Here, use these.” Conor handed his gloves to Sedgwick. “We’ll need tape, string, something. I’ll go look.”

  “McBride, wait! Shit. Be careful.”

  Eluding Sedgwick’s frantic grasp, he sprinted for the front lobby. Sporadic sounds of a gunfight continued somewhere above him. It was impossible to tell what floor, but it sounded closer than before, and from the lingering echo after each shot, he thought the battle might have moved to the stairwell.

  The front desk manager had understandably deserted his post. At the desk, and then in the office behind it, he rifled through drawers and cabinets until he found what he needed: a roll of brown packing tape. When he returned with it, the scene had consolidated. Walker and the young CID officer who had been stationed farther across the field had gathered closer. Walker was repeatedly trying to raise Costino on the radio, directing him to bring the Range Rover.

  “He’s not answering the radio?” he asked, handing over the tape. Sedgwick shook his head grimly.

  “Incompetent son of a bitch. He’s got it on the wrong setting or else he broke it. No sign of the SUV anywhere, either.”

  Conor sank down next to Thomas and gave him a close look, trying to disguise a rising panic as Sedgwick improvised a bandage with his gloves and tape. Shivering, his brother managed a wan smile.

  “Probably still trying to get it up the hill. Bloody wanker.”

  Spitting an obscenity, Walker lowered his radio and turned a questioning glare on the young officer. He had been monitoring the second channel and the communications of the CID officers inside. In response to Walker’s implied query, he delivered a situation report in a clipped, professional tone.

  “Second team has engaged the men who ambushed listening post. They are still on fourth floor. Dragonov is still in suite, number of men with him unknown. The perimeter team has reached, entering through rear door. They are in stairwell between third and fourth floor, Dragonov’s men shooting from stairs above. Officer in charge requests reinforcement to opposite side of fourth floor with strategy to flush from top to bottom.”

  Walker stood with his arms folded, staring out across the clearing. With a deep breath, he turned to Sedgwick. “How bad is it? Is he stable?”

  For the first time, Sedgwick’s poker face wavered. He raised his hands helplessly. “I don’t . . . it doesn’t look bad, but it’s still a bullet wound, Greg. Who knows what it might have hit going through him. We need to get him out of here. Back to Srinagar.”

  “But is he stable?” Walker asked again.

  “I’m right here, you know,” Thomas spoke up sardonically. “Supposing you wanted to ask, I’d tell you I’m feeling fairly stable. Tell us what needs to happen.”

  Walker pulled the wire-rimmed glasses from his face and rubbed a hand quickly over his eyes. Replacing them, he came to balance on one knee in front of Thomas. Ignoring the others, he put the case to him directly and succinctly.

  “I need to take this officer and get inside and see if we can get the initiative back before it’s too late. You need to get away from the action. I think the safest and closest option is across the field and down the path. Do you think you can make it?”

  “I do.” Thomas looked back at him with stony resolve. “Let’s get on with it.”

  With a nod at Sedgwick and Conor, Walker got to his feet. He was already running toward the hotel with the CID officer close behind as he barked out orders. “Go. Get him under cover, and when you find the SUV get him out of here.”

  Conor and Sedgwick helped Thomas to his feet. Supporting him on either side, they moved as quickly as they dared, wary of aggravating whatever might be bubbling beneath the deceptively small surface wounds.

  They intended to place him well down the trail in the area where they’d stopped earlier and then Sedgwick would look for the car. As they neared the spot, Conor stopped, catching sight of Costino a little farther below. He was moving with an indecisive step along the path but hurried forward when he saw them, his mouth falling open at the sight of Thomas. Conor unloaded on him before he could utter a word.

  “Where have you been, you useless bastard?” He had a nearly uncontrollable desire to bounce the agent’s callow face off the nearest tree trunk. “I see the earpiece, but where’s your radio? Where’s the car? Where are your fucking brains? I’ve an itch to crack you open like a walnut, to see if you have any at all.”

  Costino stopped short. A spasm of nebulous emotion shuddered over his features. “It doesn’t work.” He lifted the radio and showed it to them, holding it as though it were a foreign object he’d found on the ground. “I tried every channel. I couldn’t reach you and couldn’t hear anything. The car got stuck on the ice again. It’s down there, in about the same spot. What’s happened? I heard gunshots. Thomas, are you—”

  “Give me the keys,” Sedgwick snapped. He snatched them from Costino’s fingers. “All you need to know is the shit has hit the fan. Dragonov is up there with a battalion. Are you armed?”

  The younger man stared as if hypnotized and nodded slowly. “Yes. I have a gun.”

  “Well, where is it?” Sedgwick yelled. “Get it out for Christ’s sake, and go cover the top of the trail while I help them down to the car.”

  Costino tugged at his coat and timorously drew a pistol from its inside pocket, looking as dazed as he had earlier in handling the radio.

  Conor’s eyes met Sedgwick’s. He watched the agent’s eyebrows arch with fatalistic irony and knew they were sharing the same uncomfortable recollection from their conversation the previous evening.

  “Dumbass analyst,” Sedgwick said and turned back to Costino with a resigned sigh. “Put it away before you shoot yourself. Wait here for me. Keep your head down, keep out of sight, and stay put. Got it?”

  With mute obedience, Costino put the gun back into his pocket. They left him there and continued down the path toward the car. As they rounded a bend, Conor spared one last look up at him. He was standing on the edge of the trail, eyes lowered, shifting from one foot to the other.

  Thomas leaned more heavily on them as they descended. Conor caught him wincing as they jostled over a section of uneven ground, and he moved in closer, trying to transfer more of his brother’s weight onto his shoulders.

  “The pain is worse now, is it?”

  “Feeling it a bit more,” Thomas admitted. When they reached the small shrine, his stoicism finally weakened. “Let’s just sit down there for a few minutes, right? Have a bit of a rest.”

  Maneuvering across the trail they eased Thomas down onto the platform. Conor was grateful himself for the break, hoping it would diminish a persistent slurp in his chest that he was doing his best to ignore. Facing the shrine, he braced his hands against the stone and dropped his head, peering into the interior. The marigold he had placed there earlier was still snugged up against the foot of Shiva; the god’s young disciple was nowhere in sight.

  He stared in at the small, lithe deity, unable to form words of prayer in any language. The image dominating his mind was his brother’s wound, blood beading up from it like drops of moisture on a pipe about to burst. He turne
d with his back to the shrine and sat down next to Thomas. In a desperate attempt to contain his fear, he hammered a door shut in his brain, isolating a choir of anxieties shrieking for attention. A static chill moved in to numb his rapidly thumping heart, and a tenuous composure took hold.

  It allowed some space to think and reflect on what had gone wrong. Sedgwick thought someone within Interpol had tipped off Dragonov, but something wasn’t adding up in that explanation.

  He had known it was a trap, yet the arms dealer had come to Gulmarg anyway. Why? For the money? The temptation of a twenty-million-dollar haul was compelling, but was it worth the risk for a man already awash in millions? He recalled the image of Dragonov as a blurry character with shifting expressions, almost camouflaged beneath a bushy abundance of black hair, rolling across the room toward them with a bulky swagger.

  Almost camouflaged?

  From that tantalizing thought, his mind took a leap and then another one, traveling back several weeks to the scene in the Mumbai train station. Then it returned again to the moment he saw Maxim raise his wrist to speak into the microphone buried in his sleeve. The images came together like puzzle pieces; a picture at last emerged.

  “It wasn’t anyone at Interpol.” Conor’s anesthetic fog dissolved in a rush of astonishment. “This sting operation got stung a long time ago.”

  Sitting on the other side of Thomas, Sedgwick leaned forward and looked at him sharply. “What makes you say that?”

  “This is unbelievable.” Conor sprang to his feet, nearly shouting now. “Of course they knew what we were up to, that’s obvious enough. They loaded up on guns and manpower and tricked us to come here, prepared to turn the tables and blow us away. They knew more than that, though, didn’t they? They knew our strategy. That’s why they got nervous about the BGAN and going outside. It wasn’t part of our plan. It was a contingency, and someone forgot to tell them about it.”

  “They knew the verbal cue we would use as well,” Thomas said. Spots of color displaced the pallor on his cheeks. “You could see Maxim recognized it. He was repeating it just before he shot me.”

  “And who did he get it from, Thomas?” Conor smacked a fist into his palm. “Apart from the CID officers at the listening post who got it an hour ago, only the five of us knew it, so there’s a quisling bastard here, somewhere. I know it’s not me, and as you were the first one shot, it’s not likely you.”

  “I see where you’re going with this,” Sedgwick said quietly. He stiffly rose from the platform and moved to stand in front of Conor, arms crossed. His cool gray eyes regarded him with detachment, but the muscles along his jaw twitched in a rippling spasm. “I’m the one with the back story, which I shared in a moment of weakness, idiotically enough. I never seem to learn my lesson with you, do I, McBride? You think since I’ve got a history with Dragonov, I must be the one who betrayed the mission, right? What do you figure I’m getting out of it—money or heroin? Or both?”

  “Quit actin’ the maggot, you stupid fecker.” Conor gave the agent an impatient shove against his chest. “Sit down. Would I be standing here yelling all this at you if I thought you’d betrayed the mission?”

  Sedgwick took an awkward step backward, startled and uncertain.

  “Sit down.” Thomas tugged at his arm. “Go on, Conor.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, trying to order his thoughts for a coherent argument. Then he took a breath and continued. “Dragonov is damned near impossible to lure anywhere. You told me that on the train the night we left Agra. So if he knew this was a trap, what would ever induce him to walk into it? Why would he risk capture by coming here?”

  Sedgwick started to respond, but suddenly his mouth clapped shut. Conor saw he had made the first leap already. He nodded at the agent with a grim smile.

  “The answer is simple isn’t it? He wouldn’t. He didn’t. I’ve seen what yoga masters look like, how they move. They’re supple, elastic. The guy Thomas and I met today was built like a brick shithouse, and he had less than nothing to say about Kavita or her ashram. I don’t know who that hairy little fuck is up there, but I’ll bet you twenty million dollars that he’s not Vasily Dragonov.”

  “Holy shit, I think you may be right.” Sedgwick’s shoulders slumped. “We got baited by our own trap.”

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure I’m right,” Conor said. “Now, while you’re taking that on board, here’s your next item. You were originally going to be with Thomas in this meeting today, and you’re the only one here who would have recognized an imposter on sight. Do you think it’s a coincidence that about three weeks ago in the Mumbai train station, a couple of trained assassins came after you, the only DEA agent who’s ever been in a room with Dragonov? They targeted you that night but didn’t get you. Why do you suppose they didn’t try it again?”

  “The strategy changed that same night when we brought you in.” Sedgwick’s face had grown slack. “Coming after me again wasn’t worth the risk if I wouldn’t see him anyway, at least not before the wire transfer happened.”

  The three of them looked at each other uncomfortably.

  “Yeah, the strategy changed,” Conor agreed. “And who, other than us, would have known about that? Walker and Costino. Only the five of us knew the plan. And which one of us didn’t follow it?”

  “Costino,” Sedgwick breathed. “You mentioned his earpiece. I wondered why the moron was still wearing it if the radio didn’t work. He’s plugged into a different one.”

  “It figures,” Thomas said. “I never could stand that little—ahhh, shit . . . ” His face twisted, and he pitched forward off the platform, arms clutched at his stomach.

  Sedgwick and Conor both jumped to catch him before he could fall to the ground.

  “Okay, we’ve got you.” Sedgwick’s voice was low, consoling. “No, don’t sit on the ground, Tom. Let’s get you back up onto the platform. There. Can you put your hands down for a minute? I know it hurts, buddy. I’ll be quick, but I need to look.”

  The soothing hum of his reassurance ended with a stifled intake of breath. Conor also managed not to cry out, but only because his teeth had clamped onto his lower lip with a force that threatened to bite it in half. With the jacket pulled open, they could see his brother’s shirt was saturated with blood.

  In the continuing silence, Thomas bent forward to have a look for himself. He stared at the dark, spreading stain for several seconds, muttered a low oath, and closed his eyes. He put his head back against the cement block of the shrine.

  “Doesn’t look too good, does it?”

  “It’s a little . . . ” Sedgwick cleared the catch from his voice and started again. “It’s a little messy, no doubt about that. We need to get a real bandage on it. There’s a medical kit in the Range Rover. I’ll run down and get it.”

  He stepped back and took Conor by the elbow, drawing him out of earshot. Neither of them could look the other in the eye.

  “I didn’t think it was as bad as that.” Sedgwick stared up at the tops of the trees.

  “It’s about fifty kilometers to Srinagar?” Conor kept his eyes focused on the ground and kicked at a root with the toe of his boot. “How long will that take?”

  “On these roads, about an hour and a half, give or take. We can’t waste any more time. There’s Celox in the med kit, a coagulating powder. It won’t solve the internal bleeding, but it will help, at least for a while. Wait here with him. I won’t be long.”

  Conor watched him go, staring down the path and through the trees to the road in the distance. He walked back over to Thomas and pulled his brother’s jacket more tightly around him, raising the zipper up to his chin.

  “How’s she cuttin’?” He tried to inject some lightness into the question.

  “Better,” Thomas said, with a quick, unconvincing nod. “It’s easing up now.”

  “Good.” Conor smiled at him. He gave his brother a gentle cuff against the side of his head and sat down next to him.

  The door inside his hea
d shuddered, but the lock held.

  37

  Sedgwick returned within minutes, running up the path with the medical kit and a fresh shirt he’d grabbed from one of the duffel bags. As he began to clear away the blood, Conor took his brother’s hand in a wrestling hold, feeling its iron grip as Thomas stifled a gasp and braced against the pain. Once the wound was packed with the coagulating powder and dressed with a thick, clean bandage, Conor finally broke the silence.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Sedgwick ignored the question. He took a package from the medical kit and ripped it open, removing a square of transparent adhesive.

  “This is a morphine patch for the pain,” he murmured to Thomas, pressing it on next to the bandage. “There’s a big stack of them in the kit, so don’t be afraid to yell for more. You should feel it working in a couple of minutes.”

  Conor waited until he’d again zipped up his brother’s jacket before trying again. “Sedgwick—”

  “I’m going to help you down to the Range Rover and then go back up the trail and—”

  “Bollocks,” Thomas hissed through clenched teeth. His face was running with perspiration. “You’re coming with us.”

  “I’m not.” Sedgwick closed the kit with a decisive snap. “Walker doesn’t know about any of this. I can’t leave him stranded, not realizing one of his partners is an enemy.”

  “What if it’s both of them?” Thomas argued. “You’ll only get yourself killed.”

  “Tom, we both know it’s not.”

  With the morphine patch beginning to provide some relief, they got Thomas down the remaining section of trail without stopping again. The Range Rover had not moved an inch. Costino hadn’t even tried to make it look like he’d followed Walker’s directions.