Deception Game (33 page)

He glanced to the front of the vehicle once more, to the driver that neither could see, but both knew was there.

‘But emotion...that’s when things become dangerous. Emotion can undo all the hard-won work of logic. When you feel such an...attachment to another person, both of you are at risk, whether you know it or not. Each becomes a liability, a weakness to the other. You should learn to guard those emotions better, Samantha, because one day they will be your undoing.’

She’d heard enough. In that moment, the guilt and self-loathing that had been simmering away inside her suddenly erupted in a burst of anger and violent action.

Pushing herself off the thin metal-panelled wall, she launched herself across the narrow space, drawing her knife in the same motion. In a heartbeat, she had the blade presse

Drake made sure he took a slow, winding route to their destination, wanting to confuse Sowan’s sense of direction in case the man thought to betray the location where they’d left the remainder of the group behind.

Nonetheless, an hour or so of bumpy cross-country driving brought them to the small town of Nalut, a straggling settlement nestled in a winding river valley just ten miles from the Tunisian border. It was here that the next stage of their plan was to begin.

Bringing the pickup truck to a halt in the shadow of a rocky outcrop on the outskirts of town, Drake circled around to the rear of the vehicle to confer with his captive.

‘Any trouble?’ he asked, noticing McKnight’s unhappy expression right away.

‘No.’ She stared across the open space at the injured man. ‘No trouble.’

He could tell she was hiding something, but now wasn’t the time to pursue such questions. It was time to focus on the task at hand.

‘Get in the front, and be ready to move,’ he instructed.

She was more than happy to oblige, leaping down from the rear gate with graceful ease and striding to the passenger door.

With McKnight gone, Drake pulled himself up and hunkered down before Sowan, staring him hard in the eye. They had outlined their plan to him already, and Drake didn’t doubt that the shrewd and intelligent operative would have easily memorized every detail, but he needed to be sure.

‘You know what’s about to happen?’

Sowan met his gaze evenly. If he was nervous or apprehensive about what was coming, he gave little sign of it. ‘I do.’

‘You know the story we gave you?’

He nodded.

‘Repeat it to me.’

He did, flawlessly. If nothing else, the man’s memory was formidable.

‘Once you have the information we need, call me on the number I gave you. We’ll be there to pick you up and get you out of the country.’

Sowan said nothing to this, but it was clear he understood what was expected of him.

‘We’ll be close by at all times. You won’t see us, but we’ll be there,’ Drake promised him. ‘If you come through for us, we’ll come through for you. We’ll get you and your wife to safety and do what we can to help you start over. But if you try to fuck us, if you tell anyone about our deal, if you bring company to the exchange or we suspect you’ve been followed, all bets are off. You’ll never see Laila again. If we’re captured or compromised, she dies regardless. Do you understand?’

Playing a role like this reminded him uncomfortably of his own experiences when a ruthless enemy had taken his sister hostage and used her to manipulate Drake, but their situation was desperate. In lieu of trust, fear would have to suffice.

‘Perfectly,’ Sowan assured him.

Drake nodded, satisfied. ‘I have to gag and bag you now.’

‘Of course,’ the older man agreed, no doubt seeing the necessity of it if their plan was to succeed. ‘But before you do, answer me one thing.’

Drake paused, looking at him.

‘What was this all really for?’ he asked, for once betraying genuine bafflement. ‘I’ve been turning it over in my mind all morning, but still I can’t understand what you expected to get out of me. Who was Freya Shaw?’

Drake chewed his lip for a moment, contemplating whether it was even worth the explanation, whether Sowan could possibly understand the desperate situation that had prompted his mission here.

Perhaps it was, he judged.

‘She was my mother.’

‘Faulkner told you that I killed her, yes?’

When Drake looked at him, the full extent of his anger and guilt was plain for Sowan to see. It wasn’t just anger at Faulkner, though there was plenty of that to go around. If he was really looking for someone to be furious with, he needed only to look in the mirror. He’d been impulsive and short-sighted, his eagerness to take revenge for Freya’s murder overriding the caution and scepticism that would have warned him something was wrong.

He could have seen what was coming, but he’d chosen not to. And now they were all paying the price for it.

Sowan let out a faint sigh and nodded, acknowledging the unpleasant reality of his situation. ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ he admitted. ‘But if it means anything, it will be my pleasure to help you destroy Faulkner.’

Saying nothing further, he placed the gag in Sowan’s mouth, then slipped a simple black hood over his head and helped him down so that he was lying flat on the truck’s steel deck. A final length of sack cloth laid on top was enough to disguise his form to casual observation.

‘Can you breathe all right?’ Drake asked, to which he received a nod of affirmation. ‘All right, brace yourself as best you can. This might get bumpy.’

Slamming the tailgate closed, Drake slipped his keffiyeh back on and returned to the driver’s cab, clambering into the seat. McKnight was waiting for him, similarly attired.

Saying nothing, he reached over and squeezed her hand before firing up the engine once more and easing them away from their brief hiding place. Their destination, the town of Nalut, lay just over a mile away.

Being a traffic policeman in a busy border town like Nalut was a hot, stressful, dangerous job at the best of times, and today was no exception. Many of the roads in the ancient settlement were little more than dirt tracks, their basic layout unchanged in millennia. Remnants of an age where the horse and cart was the predominant mode of transport.

Directing the relentless flow of cars, buses, vans, trucks and motorbikes through such a crowded and inefficient road system, surrounded by dust and heat and choking engine fumes, was enough to try any man’s nerves.

Salim Osman shook his head in dismay at the angry horn blasts resounding at a busy intersection nearby, where a cattle truck laden with goats had tried to turn left and found itself without enough space to make it. The driver’s attempts to back up only served to enrage the impatient drivers behind him, and the hapless traffic cop on duty was powerless to stop the ensuing war of horns.

Well, at least it wasn’t his problem right now, he thought as he took a sip of his soft drink. He was seated at a street cafe near the main drag, taking a well-earned respite from the ceaseless work. Soon enough he’d be obliged to return to the fray, but for the next ten minutes or so his time was his own.

And yet, even though he was technically off duty, he couldn’t help observing the flow of vehicles on the road opposite. He’d been doing this job close to twenty years, and it was as ingrained in him as the dust that coated his uniform at the end of each weary day.

His eye was drawn to a beat-up looking Ford pickup truck approaching from the east. A rugged, workmanlike vehicle little different from so many others used by local farmers and labourers, it was interesting not because of its appearance, but because of its two passengers.

They were both wearing the traditional keffiyeh, which largely hid their facial features, but it was clear to him that neither of them were Libyan. They were Westerners, the pale skin around their eyes betraying their ethnic origins.

What were Westerners doing here? Certainly they appeared more often in Libya these days on business, and occasionally as tourists, but those individuals were invariably rich and spoiled. They had people to drive them around, people to watch over them, probably people to wipe their asses for them. They certainly didn’t resort to driving battered old pickup trucks.

Caught as they were in the ebb and flow of traffic caused by the chaos at the intersection, they were obliged to slow and finally stop quite close to him, affording Osman a good view of the driver. The traffic cop looked at him curiously, even making eye contact for a moment, though the man quickly glanced away, as if uncomfortable to be under such scrutiny.

He saw the passenger exchange a worried glance with the driver, saw the fabric of their keffiyehs move as they spoke to one another. They were worried about something. Perhaps the traffic. Perhaps the road. Perhaps him.

Osman couldn’t quite define the moment he realized something was wrong about this truck. He couldn’t explain how he knew. If he’d been a fan of American cop shows, he might have attributed it to a hunch; a kind of sixth-sense feeling born from years of experience and knowledge.

Whatever the reason, his drink and his rest break were quickly forgotten as he rose to his feet, taking a step towards the vehicle.

That was when the driver reacted. Throwing the truck into reverse, he stamped on the accelerator, causing the big vehicle to lurch backwards suddenly. It made it about five yards before slamming into the front fender of an old hatchback stopped behind, but the movement bought sufficient manoeuvring room for the driver to swing the wheel over, engage first gear and stamp down hard on the gas.

‘You! Stop!’ Osman shouted, running to catch up. Other people were watching now, alerted by the shouting and the horn blasts and the screech of skidding tires, but none of them would step in. They wanted no part of this.

To his credit, the driver made it about halfway down the road towards the next junction before a crowded bus swung into his path, forcing him to turn hard right to avoid a head-on collision. His wild evasive move caused the balding tires to lose purchase on the dusty road surface, and before he could regain control the pickup barrelled straight into a telephone pole.

There was a loud bang, the crunch of buckling metal and the tinkle of broken glass as the truck’s front bumper and engine block absorbed most of the impact. There was going to be no driving away from this one – the pickup came to a halt immediately against the unyielding barrier.

Osman was running flat-out towards it now, dodging in between cars that had come to a halt to watch the drama unfolded. As he neared the wrecked vehicle, steam now billowing from the shattered radiator, he was just in time to see the driver throw open his door and jump down.

‘Stop, right now!’ Osman commanded, drawing his riot baton. Traffic police weren’t commonly issued with firearms, a failing he’d had cause to lament on more than a few occasions.

Before he could say another word, the driver had turned and darted off, vanishing into a service alley that ran between a pair of breeze-block shop units. His view was momentarily obscured by another truck that had edged forward, trying to clear the area around the crash. By the time Osman circled around it and reached the crippled truck, both the driver and his passenger were long gone.

Osman swore under his breath as he eyed their escape route. Much as he would have liked to give chase, he was keenly aware that he was only one man against two potential adversaries. And since he was on the wrong side of fifty, his chances of catching up with them were far slimmer than his expanding waistline.

In any case, before he could consider the matter further, he was alerted by a muted thump coming from within the truck. Frowning, he pulled open the driver’s door and peered into the cab, finding no sign of any other passengers.

The thump was repeated; the distinctive clang of something hammering against the metal chassis, and this time accompanied by the low moan of a human voice.

Gripping the baton tight in sweating hands, Osman crept to the rear of the vehicle, from where the noises seemed to be emanating. He took a breath, reached out and undid the latch holding the tailgate shut, allowing it to fall open with a resounding clang.

Only then did he see the bound and hooded figure lying prone on the steel deck, writhing and kicking in a desperate bid for help.

‘My God,’ Osman breathed, realizing then that he was dealing with something far bigger than a mere traffic accident.

Drake and McKnight didn’t stop running until they were nearly a mile from the scene of the crash. After sprinting down the service alley and vaulting a chain-link fence at the end, they had carried on at full speed down a minor side road, ignoring the bark of angry dogs and the curious glances of the old women busy hanging laundry and gossiping in a nearby courtyard.

They were careful to stay away from the bustling main thoroughfares as they made good their escape, preferring to move quickly and quietly through the maze of back alleys and narrow streets that seemed to honeycomb the area.

Nalut’s architecture seemed to be a bizarre and entirely incoherent mix of the ancient and the modern, with no discernible pattern or logic to the placement of either. One moment they could be darting beneath the shadow of a Roman-era archway, the next they found themselves skirting around a roughly finished breezeblock garage. Millennia of changing architecture and technology had risen and fallen here, been rebuilt and replaced, then built on again.

Only when they emerged from a side street onto one of the main roads running through the city did they finally slow down and adopt a more casual walking pace, doing their best to get their breathing back under control in the stifling hot air. Drake reached out and took McKnight’s hand, pulling the woman a little closer as they walked together along the busy pavement.

Libya might have been fairly progressive as far as North African countries went, but it remained a staunchly Islamic society. Women seen in public without a male escort were frowned upon and liable to attract entirely the wrong sort of attention, so Drake would have to act as her chaperone for the time being.

‘You think it’ll work?’ she asked quietly as they brushed past a group of young men with buzz-cut hair and AC Milan football shirts. A couple of them gave the two Westerners a curious glance as they passed.

‘Hard to say,’ Drake admitted, painfully alert for any sign of police or military activity in the area. ‘But I think he’ll keep to our agreement.’

‘Assuming you didn’t kill him in the crash. That was a hell of a piece of driving, Ryan,’ she said, squeezing his hand harder than was necessary. Airbags were unheard of when that truck had been built, and the crash had left both of them with bruising across their chests and shoulders. They could only imagine how Sowan, unrestrained in the truck’s flatbed, had fared.

‘It’s not an exact science,’ he reminded her. ‘Anyway, it had to look real.’