Beside her, the man in the shirt had slumped to the ground beside the truck, clutching his nose and moaning softly under his breath.
‘Get in the car,’ Drake ordered, his voice cold. The anger had dissipated. He was all business now. ‘I said get in the car.
Now
.’
She could think of nothing to say. Exhaling slowly,
she
turned, opened the passenger door of the Ford Taurus and calmly sat down.
Drake was in the driver’s seat a few seconds later. Throwing the car into gear, he stamped on the accelerator and floored it out of the garage, leaving the two injured men in their wake.
Chapter 38
FRANKLIN WAS NOT
in a good mood as he strode past Cain’s private secretary and onward to his inner sanctum. She made no move to stop him. Cain had made it clear that Franklin was not to be delayed or questioned.
The director’s expansive office made his own feel like a cardboard cubicle. Everything in it was expensive and meticulously crafted, from the leather sofas to the antique mahogany coffee table, the eighteenth-century bookcase crammed with leather-bound volumes, and the huge ornate writing desk.
Behind it sat Cain himself, busily working away on his computer. He glanced up and stopped working as Franklin approached, though one look at his face made it plain he had little time for idle talk.
Cain might have projected an aura of genial good manners when it suited him, but at times like this the cold, ruthless machine beneath became all too apparent. Heads were going to roll for this, and Franklin had a horrible feeling that his would be one of them.
‘What’s the situation, Dan?’ he asked without preamble.
Franklin grimaced inwardly, bracing himself for the shit storm that was about to erupt. ‘Not good. Drake switched cars without any of the security cameras picking it up. He removed the prisoner’s tracking device and
escaped
before the tactical teams got there. Now they’re on the run.’
‘So it would seem,’ Cain remarked with barely concealed scorn. ‘Explain to me how this happened. You vouched for this man, you recommended him.’
‘I’ve known him personally for years,’ Franklin countered. ‘He’s never once given me reason to doubt his loyalty.’
Cain sighed and leaned forward, resting his hands on the desk. ‘Well, you’d better start making sense of this real quick, son, because this is a situation that needs to be un-fucked right now.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Drake gave your boys the slip two hours and forty-seven minutes ago. That’s two hours and forty-seven minutes during which our search area has been growing exponentially larger. What are we doing to find him?’
‘We’ve put out an APB to all law enforcement agencies and border patrol units. Airports and customs units are all on alert—’
Cain waved his hand dismissively. ‘Drake knows the system. If he’s half as smart as he should be, he’ll know how to avoid all that. And if he doesn’t, Anya will,’ he added. ‘Inspire me, son. Give me some reason to justify your pay cheque.’
Franklin could feel a trickle of sweat run down his back. ‘We’ve brought in Drake’s own Shepherd team. They’re the best in the world at what they do, and more importantly they know him. They know how he thinks, how he reacts. They can pre-empt him. Drake got this far because he caught us off guard – we won’t make that mistake again.’
Cain held his gaze a moment longer before releasing him and leaning back in his chair. ‘That’s not bad,’ he
conceded
. ‘Let’s just hope they have something to report back on soon.’
‘I’ve got every confidence in them.’
Cain’s eyes flashed. ‘Good for you. Let me know the moment you find anything.’
He didn’t say anything further, just went back to work. Franklin had been dismissed. Taking his cue, he turned and hurried out, already reaching for his cellphone.
‘Goddamn it, Ryan,’ he hissed as he dialled Dietrich’s number.
Anya stared listlessly out the window as they hurtled along the interstate highway, trees and fields and small towns skimming past.
She hadn’t said a word since they left the gas station, and neither had Drake. He was just sitting there staring straight ahead, clutching the wheel in a white-knuckle grip. His simmering anger was obvious even to someone who couldn’t read body language. But to her, he might as well have been screaming and pounding his fist against the dashboard.
She was more than a little unnerved by her own actions earlier. Using force to defend herself was one thing, but she had gone far beyond that. If Drake hadn’t been there, she knew she would have killed both men and not regretted it for a second.
With Bastard, it had been different. He had deserved death many times over, and she had been more than happy to give it to him. But those two men at the gas station weren’t out to kill or torment her – they were just idiots filled with pride and bravado, and she had almost killed them both.
She felt the need to speak, to say something, to offer an explanation, but she didn’t know the right words. She
wasn
’t used to explaining herself or apologising for her actions.
‘Drake, I—’
‘Shut the fuck up!’ he snarled. ‘I don’t want to fucking hear it, Anya. There’s nothing you can say to me. Nothing!’
For a few seconds, she just stared at him, completely taken aback by his outburst. She hadn’t seen him truly angry before and wasn’t sure how to deal with it. It wasn’t that he frightened or intimidated her, but for some reason it made her feel guilty.
‘You are right to be angry …’
‘Of course I’m right!’ he raged, twisting around to glare at her. ‘You’ve compromised us. You’ll draw their search grid right here. Don’t you get it? Christ, you’ve done nothing but fuck up my life from the moment I met you. I wish I’d never even heard of you. I wish you were still in that fucking prison where you belong!’
Her heart sank, and she felt a sudden pang of hurt and sadness at his words – a reaction made more unsettling because it was so unexpected.
‘I … I’m sorry,’ she said, groping for the words.
Drake didn’t respond. There was no angry rebuke from him, no storm of insults or expressions of hatred. He was silent and brooding, his eyes on the road ahead.
His silence encouraged her to go on.
‘I’m sorry you are caught up in this, Drake. You don’t deserve it, and neither does your sister. And I’m sorry for what happened back there. I lost my temper. It was … unprofessional, and it won’t happen again.’
She watched him intently, studying every movement of his face, the set of his shoulders, the strength of his grip on the wheel, the look in his eyes.
For a few moments, she genuinely didn’t know how
her
apology had been received. His expression didn’t change, and she wondered if he just didn’t care any more.
That made her feel even worse.
‘Talk’s cheap, Anya.’
‘I don’t make a promise unless I intend to keep it.’
Then, at last, he turned to look at her.
‘I’ve got your word on that?’ he asked, staring at her just as intensely as she’d been watching him.
‘You do.’
He said nothing, as if torn about how to respond. ‘This isn’t going to work if we can’t rely on each other.’
‘I agree.’
‘I don’t trust you,’ he said.
She sighed and looked out the window at the green countryside sliding past. ‘I don’t blame you. But if you are worried about me running away, don’t be. Munro will find me no matter where I go, so I have little choice but to see this through.’
Drake stared at her a moment longer before turning his attention back to the road. ‘If you try to fuck me over, I’ll shoot you myself.’
It took a lot of effort to hide the smile that threatened. He forgave her. Despite his threat, she could see that some of the tension had left his shoulders. The look in his vivid green eyes had softened just a little.
‘You can try.’ It was the closest she had come to playful banter in a very long time.
He gave her a sidelong glance before his gaze flicked to her left arm. ‘You’re hurt.’
Frowning, she looked down to see a straight gash cut in the leather sleeve of her jacket. She hadn’t even noticed. Pulling it off, she examined her arm.
The box cutter had sliced through the leather and nicked
the
skin, leaving a long straight cut across her upper arm. The pain barely registered, in the same way that shaving cuts often go unheeded, but it was a sobering reminder of how close she had come to more serious injury.
The blade could have sliced right through muscle, tendons or nerves, putting her arm out of action for good. And it wasn’t as if they could just drive to the nearest hospital.
Saying nothing, she reached for the first-aid kit on the back seat.
Ten years ago that blade never would have come near her. She’d become slow, sloppy, careless. Her time in prison had dulled her reflexes, eroded her skills.
Or maybe it’s more than that, she thought to herself. Maybe you’re just getting old. That was more frightening than any injury.
‘So you
are
human after all,’ Drake observed.
It was just as well his eyes were on the road, and he missed the look she gave him.
Chapter 39
CLUTCHING THE EDGE
of the sink, Dietrich grimaced as his stomach constricted in another painful heave, its contents flying into the bowl. There was nothing he could do but ride it out and wait for it to be over.
When at last the sickness subsided, he was breathing hard, a thin line of mucus hanging from the corner of his mouth. He turned on the tap and did his best to clean himself up, splashing cold water on his face several times.
When he looked up at his reflection, he almost baulked at the sight that confronted him. Four years ago he had been a ruggedly handsome man, tall and muscular, with a piercing gaze and strong features. Now he looked like a walking corpse, his complexion pallid, his cheeks sunken, his eyes dulled.
Jesus Christ, what have you done to yourself?
He couldn’t even remember when he’d first started shooting up, only that it had been a long time ago. When he worked in West Germany twenty years earlier, drugs had been ubiquitous. Everyone was high on something, and being young and reckless and invincible, it hadn’t taken him long to jump on that particular bandwagon. Heroin, cocaine, LSD … he’d done it all.
Only when he’d moved to America in the mid-nineties and joined the Agency had he learned to curb his habit. It had been a new decade and a new employer; one who
didn
’t take kindly to their operatives showing up on the downside of a weekend-long cocaine binge.
For a time, he’d learned to live on the straight and narrow. But life had a way of throwing him curve balls, and after a failed marriage followed by a messy divorce, he found himself using again. Heroin this time. The feeling of euphoria and invincibility the drug imparted reminded him of his carefree youth. It provided an occasional escape, an outlet for a million frustrations and regrets.
But far from an escape, his growing drug habit soon became a prison in its own right. Now he needed it just to get through the day.
The withdrawal was kicking in hard, and it was going to get worse before it got better. But he had to keep going. His career, and perhaps his life, depended on it. If they found out his secret now, at such a critical time, it was over for ever.
‘Come on, you bastard,’ he whispered in his native German. ‘Pull yourself together.’
He could beat this. He had to.
He was limping back out to the parking lot when he heard his name called out, and glanced up to see Frost striding towards him with a laptop clutched under her arm.
Snatching up his cup of coffee, he downed the tepid contents. ‘If you don’t have good news, I don’t want to hear it.’
‘You’ll want to hear this. I think we’ve got them.’
Opening the laptop, she set it down on the hood of a nearby police car. The unit had been sitting on standby and booted up immediately.
Selecting a video file, she hit play. Straight away a black-and-white image of the parking lot’s entrance
ramp
appeared. It was a wide-angle shot, taken from a building further down the street.
‘This was taken at 10.04 this morning, approximately five minutes after Drake hijacked the vehicle.’
Dietrich watched as a black Grand Cherokee turned off the main road and tore down the ramp into the darkened recesses of the building.
‘So, we have him making entry,’ he agreed. ‘What next?’
Frost selected another video file. ‘Skip forward four minutes and twenty seconds, and we have …’
And just like that, a silver saloon emerged from the parking lot. Hesitating a moment at the junction while the driver waited for a gap in the traffic, the vehicle turned right and took off down the street. It was travelling away from the camera, which was unfortunate, but it was a lead; the first they’d had since the hunt began.
‘Looks like a Ford Taurus to me.’
‘Correct. A 2003 model as best I can tell. It’s the only vehicle that entered or exited the parking lot during our time frame,’ Frost explained. ‘The tactical teams arrived less than a minute later. It’s got to be them. I hate to say it, but your hunch just might have paid off.’
Dietrich felt the first stirrings of excitement since this whole thing began. Still, he wasn’t about to break open the champagne. A four-hour-old CCTV image was a small step, not a giant leap. ‘Can we get a licence plate?’
She shook her head. ‘Not from here. I sent the raw data files back to the image processing lab at Langley to see what they can do with them.’
He nodded, struggling to order the thoughts racing through his mind. Everything felt like an immense effort in his current condition. ‘Notify all agencies of the vehicle make and model. And see if you can cross-reference with
any
traffic cams in the area. Maybe we can get a better shot.’
It was akin to searching for a needle in a haystack, but if anyone could do it, the woman in front of him was likely their best chance.
‘Already on it.’ She turned to leave, then thought better of it. ‘By the way, you all right? You look like you’re about to keel over.’