Black List (21 page)

Their progress was easier on the relatively flat path, and soon the trees gave way to an expanse of open lawn. Perhaps fifty yards away stood a house of similar design – albeit smaller size – to the one they had just left. Alex realized then that they’d stumbled into a neighbouring property. The lakeside location might have been remote, but there were still other houses here, no doubt all occupying prime vantage points overlooking the water.

Both of them crouched down at the edge of the woodland to survey the area. There were no cars visible in the driveway and no outward signs of activity. It was possible the occupants were either out at work or that this place was only a weekend residence. Either way, it seemed unlikely they would find transportation here.

Signalling Alex to hang back, Anya angled left, heading for a wooden outbuilding about thirty yards from the house. It looked like a small garage or storage shed of some kind; quite well maintained, judging by the freshly treated timbers and unmarked felt roof. The double doors at the front were secured by a simple bolt-and-padlock combination that was probably all the security one needed in these parts.

Anya paused long enough to study the ground leading up to the doors. Satisfied she’d found what she needed, she reached into her pocket and produced what looked like a couple of thin pieces of metal.

Armed with these simple tools she went to work on the lock, quickly and efficiently disabling its pin tumbler system. In under ten seconds the formidable looking device fell away, allowing her to haul the door open.

‘Alex, come here,’ she hissed.

Hurrying across the open space and feeling exposed the whole time, Alex gratefully slipped through the door and into the cool darkness of the shed. The interior was like most small garages the world over – lots of tins of paint, plant pots, old tools, garden furniture and a hundred other things that the owners probably never used but weren’t ready to part with.

The thing that marked this one out as different however was the battered but rugged-looking motorbike propped against one wall. Lightweight and durable, and splattered with dried mud, it looked like a scrambler rather than a long-distance road cruiser. The sort of vehicle that was perfect for roaring along narrow forest trails.

Wheeling the bike into the centre of the shed, Anya mounted it, leaned forward to check the fuel tank, then gave the starter lever a single powerful downward stroke. Straight away the small engine leapt into life, its high-pitched rattle sounding almost toy-like in the confined space. Still, it was ready and clearly willing.

‘Get the door,’ she said, nodding to the door that had swung shut.

Creeping over, Alex reached out and eased the wooden door open to survey the open ground beyond.

At the same moment, he felt the strange sensation of something whizzing past his face at high speed, moving so fast that it seemed to create a shockwave of disturbed air in its wake that made his ears pop. An instant later, Alex flinched as the door next to him exploded in a spray of broken wood fragments, a fist-sized hole punched in its frame.

‘Down!’ Anya cried out.

Even as he dropped to the ground, moving more on instinct than in obedience to her instructions, he was aware of more holes suddenly appearing in the door and walls around him. Only then did the distinctive, terrifying crackle of automatic gunfire reach his ears.

Anya too had abandoned the bike and thrown herself down, recognizing the meagre protection offered by the building in which they found themselves. Broken splinters of wood rained down on them as more shots tore into the shed, shattering old plant pots and bursting apart tins of paint.

‘Stay flat!’ she warned, hoping a stray round didn’t find a soft human target.

Crawling forward on the dirt floor, Anya drew her weapon and squinted through one of the bullet holes that now riddled the shed’s wood panelling. Sure enough, she could just make out the figure of a man in dark combat gear crouched behind a tree trunk at the edge of the woods with a weapon at his shoulder. . He wasn’t in any hurry to advance on them yet, because he knew he had the upper hand.

With a fully automatic weapon and an apparently plentiful supply of ammunition on his side, he could afford to keep pouring fire into the shed until sooner or later he scored a fatal hit. And where there was one operative, there were likely to be more just like him. The longer he kept her pinned down here, the greater the chance that others would close the net around her. And surrounded by open ground, there was nowhere she and Alex could flee to.

Even she couldn’t fight her way out of a trap like this singlehanded. If she was to escape this with Yates, she had to act now.

Gripping the MP5 she had stolen earlier, she took a rough aim and squeezed off a long burst of automatic fire in response, attempting to shoot through the holes their attacker had already made and perhaps score a lucky hit on an unprotected limb. However, her shots were too inaccurate and her target too well protected for the burst to have much effect.

Before she could squeeze off more than a dozen rounds, the priming handle snapped backward and locked in place, jammed by a stoppage. Either a defective round that hadn’t cleared the breech, or a spent casing lodged in the ejection port. Either way, clearing it would take time she didn’t have.

Outside, Hawkins adjusted his aim downward, squeezing off another sustained burst at the storage shed. The MP5 kicked back into his shoulder with each rhythmic thud, the working parts clicking as they drew a fresh round into the breach while ejected shell-casings pinged to the ground around him.

The shed, constructed of soft wood panelling around a basic framework, presented no resistance whatsoever, the rounds punching cleanly through and out the other side. Pausing only a moment to eject the spent magazine from his smoking weapon, he drew a fresh one from his webbing and pushed it home in a single smooth motion before rising to his feet and advancing towards his target.

In lieu of cover provided by fellow team mates, he would have to rely on nothing more than raw firepower to tip the scales in his favour.

Anya might have evaded him back at the house, but she wouldn’t get away this time. The shed was surrounded by open ground, making escape impossible. He had the advantage of both armour and firepower, and he intended to make use of both.

Keeping the weapon trained on the shed, he dropped to one knee and reached for the fragmentation grenade fixed into a pouch on his chest. A messy and inelegant way to kill someone, but nonetheless effective. And perhaps Anya would survive the blast long enough for him to look into her eyes as her life faded away.

It was at this moment that he spotted the distinctive blue flash of police lights out of the corner of his eye, accompanied by the roar of a powerful engine at high revs.

Swinging the submachine gun around, he was just in time to see a Volkswagen Passat come tearing across the open ground towards him, its chassis painted in the distinctive blue and white livery of the Norwegian police service. No doubt they were responding to reports of shots fired at the lakeside house. There was no siren; the two officers onboard must have been savvy enough to disable it rather than announce their arrival.

This was a new and entirely unwelcome problem that needed to be dealt with right away. Norwegian police weren’t usually issued with firearms when walking the streets, though every police cruiser kept a cache of weapons locked down in the trunk for dealing with armed criminals. Hawkins had no idea if this pair had stopped to unlock the cache, and he wasn’t about to find out.

He cursed their sense of timing as he trained his weapon on the driver. If they’d arrived a couple of minutes later he could have avoided unnecessary casualties, but his actions were as necessary as they were brutal. With a fleeting sense of disappointment, he squeezed off a burst that punched straight through the windshield. Blood splattered the inside of the glass and the car slewed sideways, confirming he’d scored a good hit.

Realizing she was about to suffer the same fate as her partner, the second officer ducked down in her seat as Hawkins opened fire again. Rounds howled against metal as ragged bullet holes began to appear in her door.

In the shed, Anya had heard the sudden commotion outside and guessed the cause right away. She doubted a police cruiser would stand much chance against a highly trained operative armed with an automatic weapon, and felt a twinge of remorse at the needless deaths that were taking place at that very moment.

Still, their sacrifice might just buy her the momentary distraction she needed. Dropping the jammed submachine gun, she leapt to her feet and heaved the bike upright once more, its engine still ticking over despite being dropped on its side.

Leaving it running like that might have caused the engine to suck oil into the combustion chamber, which wouldn’t do her any favours if she tried to push it hard. The last thing she needed was for the casing to rupture and spray her legs with scalding hot oil, but it wasn’t as if there was a spare bike she could choose.

‘Get on!’ she cried, beckoning Alex forward.

The last time Alex had ridden a motorbike had been when he’d borrowed a friend’s moped in high school. Even then, he’d almost lost control and crashed into a stand of bushes. But too physically and emotionally exhausted to protest, he clambered on behind Anya and slid his arms around her waist.

‘Hold on,’ she advised.

With little option, Alex braced himself as she opened the throttle up all the way. The bike, though weighed down by two riders, nonetheless shot forward with surprising power, leaving a cloud of grey exhaust smoke and dust in their wake.

Rocketing out through the doors, Anya veered hard left immediately, carrying them away from the one-sided gun fight taking place nearby. For a moment Alex saw the armed operative who had been poised to kill them, his weapon still spitting fire at the stricken police cruiser, saw the barrel of the gun swing towards them and another burst of fire cut through the air, the deadly little projectiles eagerly seeking a target.

He saw it all in a blur of jolting motion and fear and adrenaline, and a moment later it was gone. Within seconds they had left the open lawn behind and crossed into the relative safety of the woods once more. Alex could do nothing but hold on for dear life as they weaved through the trees, bumping through dips and jumping over mounds of earth before landing with bone-jarring force.

‘Jesus Christ, I can’t believe that worked!’ he exclaimed, having to shout in her ear to be heard over the roar of wind and engine. ‘Where the hell do we go now?’

‘North, away from here,’ Anya replied, her voice carrying an edge of pain that caught him off guard. ‘We stick to the forest as long as we can. That should get us out of the immediate search area.’

Alex could feel something warm and wet on his hand. Glancing down, he was shocked to find it slick with blood, and he was quite certain it wasn’t his.

‘Shit, you’re bleeding,’ he exclaimed, realizing that last burst of gunfire aimed their way hadn’t gone as wide as he’d thought. ‘Are you all right? How bad is it?’

She said nothing to this, instead tightening her grip on the throttle.

Hawkins was in a foul mood as he strode down the plush carpeted corridor of the embassy building to his makeshift office. A pair of diplomatic aides heading in the opposite direction quickly moved aside, exchanging anxious glances as he stormed past.

The operation to take down Anya and Yates had ended in complete failure, and on some level he was aware that it was partly down to him. He had allowed emotion to cloud his normally cold and clinical decision-making, and had very nearly paid for it with his life. As it was, they had left a pair of dead police officers and one Norwegian civilian in their wake.

They had failed, and it wouldn’t take long for news of that failure to reach Cain back at Langley.

These thoughts had scarcely entered his head when he felt the unwelcome buzz of the cell phone in his pocket. Slowing his pace, he reached in and fished the phone out. Sure enough, the caller was Marcus Cain.

‘Yeah,’ he answered, his normally confident voice robbed of its power.

The reply, when it came, was direct and no-nonsense, as one might expect from the Deputy Director of the CIA. ‘I assume you have an explanation for what happened?’

Hawkins winced inwardly, sensing the veiled rage and menace in his voice. There were few people in this world who could make him sweat with a single sentence, but Cain was one of them. He had the power to end careers or even lives if he chose, and even favoured associates like Hawkins weren’t safe from his wrath.

He would have to choose his response carefully.

‘She was ready for us,’ he said, his tone calm and even. ‘She took down two of the strike team and compromised our comms net.’

‘And where were you when all this was going on?’

Hawkins swallowed down his own anger, knowing it wouldn’t serve him now. ‘There was interference from local police. I couldn’t get to them in time.’

There was a sigh on the other end of the line. The weary resignation of a man struggling with the incompetence of subordinates. ‘You were chosen for this job because I believed I could trust you to get this done. I’d hate to think I was wrong about you, Jason.’

‘I’ve never let you down before.’

‘But you have today,’ Cain cut in. ‘I don’t need to remind you what’s at stake here. The longer she’s out there, the more of a threat she becomes. This has to end
now
.’

‘I can get her,’ Hawkins said firmly. ‘I did it once already.’

‘She wasn’t expecting you then.’

Hawkins clenched his fist. ‘She wasn’t expecting the team I led against her. I need those same men again.’ He paused for a moment, allowing it to sink in. ‘Give them to me, and I’ll give you Anya.’

Silence greeted him. Strained and uncomfortable. Cain was weighing up what was clearly a difficult decision. The men he was referring to were part of an elite unit known only to a select few; their identity and purpose shrouded behind veils of secrecy and subterfuge.

Each member was perfectly trained, hardened by long years of unforgiving experience and undoubtedly worth more than an entire squad of regular soldiers. Such was their value and limited numbers that they operated almost exclusively alone, going about their grim and deadly work like the assassins they were. Only in times of greatest need were they called together to serve as a unit.

Hawkins’s request would mean pulling these operatives from active duty all across the world and placing them at his command. It was no small thing, even for a man with Cain’s power and influence.

But for Anya, Hawkins knew he would do anything.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Cain said at last. ‘In the meantime, I suggest you get your house in order out there. I hope I’ve made myself clear.’

With that, the line went dead.

‘Ow! Christ, watch it, will you?’ Argento snapped as a medic finished applying a dressing to the side of his head.

Mitchell, seated on a bed opposite, said nothing. The ice-pack pressed against her temple was doing a good job of reducing the swelling, while the bottle of painkillers she’d been given was helping with the pounding headache.

As for the anger and frustration she felt, however, no drug could help her.

She and the rest of the team had barely made it away from the lakeside house as Norwegian police units began to arrive in force. As a clandestine unit attempting a covert snatch-and-grab operation in a sovereign country, their discovery would have turned a failed op into a full-blown international incident. As it was, they had made it back to the US embassy with their tails firmly between their legs, leaving behind a dead body and a house full of bullet holes. Not a great day’s work by anyone’s standards.

Worse, Yates and Anya, the two targets they had been sent to recover at all costs, were still out there somewhere. Just another failure to add to the growing list of fuck-ups today.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the door to the medical centre was thrown open and Hawkins breezed in. She hadn’t seen him since her return to the embassy, though she’d known he was here. One didn’t have to be a mind-reader to guess his thoughts, and this was confirmed when his baleful gaze rested on Mitchell.

‘Could we have the room, please?’ he said, his voice deceptively quiet and controlled.

Argento opened his mouth to protest, but Mitchell cut him off. ‘It’s okay, Vince,’ she said. ‘Give us five minutes, okay?’

Argento’s eyes didn’t leave Hawkins for a second. ‘That’s not sitting well with me.’

‘Doesn’t matter. Go.’ There was no point in delaying what was about to happen. She might as well get it over with.

Reluctantly Argento rose from his bed and vacated the room, followed by the medic who had been tending him. The door behind them closed, leaving Mitchell alone with Hawkins.

For a moment or two, they just stood there staring at each other across the expanse of white linoleum flooring, neither one speaking or moving. The tick-tock of the clock mounted above the door was the only sign of the passage of time.

‘Tell me something, Mitchell,’ Hawkins said, finally breaking the silence. ‘You remember that conversation we had when I took over this investigation?’

She said nothing. He wasn’t looking for answers.

‘I only asked two things from you – to be straight with me, and to trust me.’ She could see his fingers flexing and clenching, the solid muscles of his arms tensing. ‘What part of that didn’t you understand today?’

‘Look, what I did—’

‘What you did was blow our one chance at taking down a priority target!’ he shouted, his voice echoing around the small room with frightening power. If she’d thought him daunting enough under normal circumstances, he was an entirely different man now that he’d been roused to anger. ‘You disobeyed orders and moved in without authorisation. You put lives at risk, your own included, and you allowed our target to escape.’

‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ she retorted, jumping to her feet. ‘We could have breached that place right from the start, we could have taken Yates and the woman alive without a shot being fired. Instead
you
ordered us to stay back while you used innocent civilians for target practice.
You
, Hawkins! Then when you couldn’t finish the job, you tried to order a fucking drone strike against a civilian target. Are you out of your goddamned mind? Is that your idea of a covert operation?’

‘It’s my idea of keeping people alive.’ He shook his head, chuckling with grim humour at her misplaced confidence. ‘You really don’t have a clue what you’re up against, do you? The woman we’re hunting isn’t just some rogue case-officer with a chip on her shoulder. She’s a predator, trained to overcome absolutely anything that gets in her way. She’s fought and killed on every continent on earth, and she survived two decades in a profession where a single moment of weakness can end your life.’

‘You sound like you admire her.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t. But I’m afraid of her, just like you should be.’

‘Bullshit!’ she retorted, in no mood for such bogeyman stories. ‘You’re just trying to cover your own ass. You had us stay back because you wanted her dead, and guess what? You fucked up. She’s gone, and an innocent civilian got caught in the crossfire. Don’t you even care that a man died today because of you?’

If she was expecting her scathing criticism to break through his mask of self-control, she was to be disappointed. Instead Hawkins folded his arms and stared her down for several seconds, his cold eyes that had seen too many dark things over the years reflecting not a trace of regret or doubt.

‘People die every day for no reason at all, Mitchell. You should know that.’

Mitchell took a step closer, lowering her voice. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Pretend for a second that I’m not as dumb as most of the people you work with. We both know I’ve read your file. US Army Criminal Investigation Division… a decorated investigator with commendations coming out your ass. Then one day you decide to beat a man half to death, put him in a coma he never woke up from. Maybe you should think about that before you go lecturing me about excessive force.’

Mitchell let out a breath, stunned by what she’d just heard. There was no pretence of cold detachment now, no standing her ground and refusing to show weakness. Hawkins had found the chink in her armour, and was ready to exploit it.

‘But hey, I can’t say I blame you,’ Hawkins went on. ‘Might’ve done the same thing in your position. I would have been a little smarter about it, though. Tell me, what made you do it in front of a dozen witnesses?’

Mitchell took a step back, her eyes reflecting the full depth of the pain and remorse – and the anger – she still felt. Part of her wanted to turn and run, to retreat from this daunting, frightening man who served an agenda she didn’t understand and who seemed to know everything about her.

‘How do you know all this?’ she managed to say. Her service record, as well as the details of her summary dismissal, were supposed to be sealed and restricted. No one but executive-level Agency personnel could access it.

Again that mocking, knowing smile. ‘I make it my business to know who I’m working with. Just like I know you were drinking hard the night before I met you. I could still smell it leaking out of your pores. I bet your little boyfriend Argento could smell it too, even if he pretended to ignore it.’ He leaned in a little closer. ‘Drinking to forget, huh? If you think a bottle of wine will make it all go away, you’re wrong.’

She glanced away, unable to meet his withering gaze.

‘That’s what I thought,’ Hawkins concluded. ‘You’ll have plenty of time to think it over on your flight back to England.’

Mitchell felt like a fist had just been driven into her stomach. ‘What?’

‘You and the rest of your people are being sent home,’ he informed her coldly. ‘You didn’t honestly think I’d trust this whole op to a bunch of barely trained field agents and one alcoholic has-been, did you?’ He shook his head with something akin to pity. ‘My own team will take it from here. As of now, consider yourself relieved of duty.’

Mitchell had no words. Like all his dealings with her, Hawkins’s revelation had been abrupt, cold and delivered with absolute authority.

‘And in case you’re thinking about making an issue of this, keep in mind that I was able to read your classified file simply because I wanted to. So think about what I could do to you and your “friends” if you really pissed me off.’

His devastating news delivered, Hawkins turned and swept out of the room, slamming the door behind him and leaving a stunned Mitchell alone to contemplate her fate.