Authors: Nicola Claire
I used to be like him. I used to be like all of them.
Not anymore.
I opened my mouth to say something; God knows what, but Adam expected an answer.
Yes, I’ll let Nick into my shadows, show him my secrets... I’ll let you into my heart.
But I couldn’t say that. It wasn’t in me. I’d been trained too effectively for that.
I shook my head, offered a small smile, and looked away.
Adam’s thumb stopped moving; his entire body stilled.
And then Nick walked in the door, his voice commanding.
“It’s time,” he said. “Let’s go deal with this motherfucker.”
The coolness that invaded my hand,
my body
, when Adam pulled away left me reeling.
The thought of facing Caleb left me bereft.
I wasn’t just a rogue spy or a burned out specialist. I was broken. Had been pulled apart, shattered into tiny pieces, and stuck back together again with false promises and taunting dreams.
Anger filled my veins as I followed the two men from the room. Anger and defiance.
One way or another, this ended tonight.
One way or another, I’d no longer be a spy.
T
he fine hairs
on the back of my neck stuck up and waved their fucking arms about. I rolled my shoulders, stretched my neck, and flicked my one-hundred-and-thirteenth fucking glance at Charlie.
She was alert, focused, mind on the job and nothing else. Not like what the fuck I’d seen on her face in the rec room. Or like what the fuck was happening between us despite this big arse chasm between our worlds. And definitely not like what the fuck the next few minutes could mean for the rest of her life.
Part of me was amping to meet this arsehole. To get my hands dirty, bloody my knuckles, and wipe the smirk of his too perfect face. He’d played a stealthy game; laying down hints, offering threats, and then somehow tempting us in. The only saving grace was that we had the area covered.
My earpiece buzzed as Eric coordinated Koki and Brook on their bikes. One was to the west, one to the east, both cruising the outer perimeter of our little slice of South Auckland real estate. Far enough out to not cause interest, close enough to come when required.
Abi and Ben were hiding north and south of here, within foot distance. Within spitting distance. I could feel their eyes on my back, just like I could feel the scope of Jason’s rifle target locked between my shoulder blades. It should have reassured me. We had the place covered. Shit, we even had Pierce on standby if it all hit the proverbial fan.
But reassured was not what was on my mind.
“We part here,” Charlie advised, eyes forward, not even offering me a final farewell glance.
The woman was a machine. A highly trained, highly efficient, highly lethal machine.
So fucking hot.
Douche!
“Stay out of sight,” Nick ordered. Me not Charlie. “His most direct approach should be via Walmsley Road, straight off the motorway. It’s unlikely he’d approach from south of here. He’d want to keep an eye on ASI.”
Charlie didn’t correct him. Her eyes were facing forward, her face impassive, her pulse at the side of her neck slow.
Mine was thundering, but I couldn’t tell if it was because of what was about to go down, or because I was about to watch Charlie walk into a trap with Nick at her side and not me.
This wasn’t going to work. This was monumentally crazy. I couldn’t let this happen.
“Savill?” Nick prompted. “Any closer and we risk being seen.”
“We’ve already been seen,” Charlie advised. The suddenness of her speaking felt like an explosion inside my heart.
She’d been so silent, so determined. As if nothing else touched her, nothing else fazed her, even Nick’s and my conversations hadn’t touched her little bubble.
I should have known better. Charlie had no doubt assessed every shadow, every hiding place, every vantage point, as well as dissected the hidden meaning behind Nick’s and my words in the background. Nothing got past this woman.
“Then what do you suggest?” Nick bit out between gritted teeth.
“The threat’s been received,” she said calmly, eyes still stubbornly forward. “I go alone from here.”
“That wasn’t what we planned,” I pointed out.
“If you double cross us…” Nick started.
“Watch your backs,” Charlie advised, ignoring our rebukes. “But move closer, if you like. Over there should be a good position.” She pointed to a window on the second floor of a construction site. We’d have to break in to reach it. “Or there,” she added in a whisper.
The location she indicated was down the end of the row which housed her storage unit, shaded by a gnarled old tree. It would provide decent cover, but not enough to be overlooked. Hart would know someone was there and could even shoot at them. He might even get lucky and land a shot. The spot, though, was on the storage unit property. Any closer and we’d actually be walking in with her.
“The tree’s mine,” I said immediately, and started to move off.
“He’s already here,” she announced, halting me in my tracks. “And we’ve not picked up a vehicle.”
A good point, neither Koki nor Brook, our eyes on wheels, had seen anything suspicious, and Amber and Eric, our eyes in the sky, had remained quiet on that front as well.
“He knew we’d use Adam to hunt him,” Nick agreed.
“He might even be aware of Jason’s locale,” Charlie offered.
“Moving now,” Jason said over the earpiece. “I’ve got a second location in mind.”
“Keep it to yourself,” Charlie said in a low, but slightly urgent tone. As though trying to cut off his admission before it began.
“Fuck,” Nick swore. “You think he’s listening in.”
“I would be.”
“We’ve got state of the art security, I might point out,” Eric offered in our ears.
“Not enough for him.”
“You could have warned us,” Nick growled.
“I needed this documented.”
And there you have it. Charlie the spy, using what assets she had available to her. Regardless of the cost. Regardless of who she upset. It was not a nice sensation having been played.
“Damn you,” Nick muttered, turning his back on her, no doubt to stop himself from smacking her upside the head.
Even my fists had clenched, but I couldn’t tell if that was because Nick was a threat to her right now, or because she’d pissed me the fuck off.
“You’ve got this all planned, haven’t you?” I said, anger coating my tongue in acid.
She looked at me then. Nothing but grey to be seen in her eyes. No wince or grimace of regret. No softening once her gaze reached mine. Nothing.
She was a fucking shell doing her job.
“How do you think this will end, Charlie?” I asked.
She smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes.
“With me or him dead.”
I didn’t like that. I didn’t fucking like it one bit.
“Always on your own,” I said, shaking my head. “Always fucking alone.”
And then she did something, something I’d begun to suspect I’d never see at all. She sucked in a breath of air as if she’d been struck. For a split second I saw everything. Her loneliness, her fear, her determination, her confusion. Her need.
Then she battened it down and locked it away and all that was left was grey.
“You are not dying today,” I said, stepping closer, reaching out and tugging on the edges of her bulletproof vest. “I won’t allow it,” I added, checking her spare mags, making sure her guns slid clean of their holsters. “I have not just found you to lose you now, you hear?”
My hands rested on the two knives on either side of her hips, under her leather jacket. Hidden, flush against her body, just like the guns above them.
She looked up at me; I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. And then she stepped back.
“It’s time,” she whispered.
Nick grunted and moved off towards the construction site. I just nodded my head.
She didn’t fool me. I knew her. Caleb would be watching, she couldn’t let him see how much I meant.
I smiled to myself, held her gaze a moment longer, and then loped off towards the tree, using shadows to hide my progress, wondering if I was spotlit despite my best efforts. Feeling like Jason’s scope was latched onto my back the entire way.
I sure as shit hoped he was covering Charlie and not me. I wasn’t the target. She was.
Sap coated my hand when I placed it against the trunk to steady myself. My body hidden by the tree itself, my head poking out between leaves.
“I got your back, e hoa,” a voice said in my ear.
“Is that my back or Nick’s?” I asked, watching Charlie, who hadn’t moved an inch from our last spot.
“Yours, fuck-knuckle,” Ben growled. “Yours is the only one stickin’ out in the fuckin’ open, beggin’ for a round.”
“Nice,” Brook murmured over the line.
“Quieten it down!” Nick ordered, and silence reigned.
Then, as if that had been the signal, Charlie started to walk forward. Her hands were free; no guns in her palms. Her stride was sure; no hiding in shadows for this woman, she walked down the middle of the roadway between the units, as though half a dozen people, armed and angry, didn’t have her in their sights.
As though she wasn’t meeting a sinister as fuck fellow spy who’d sold her the fuck out.
How did she do it? How did she remain so calm under fire? So confident and casual? How the fuck did she do it, knowing she was walking into a trap?
She made her unit. I’d picked it out from the row as soon as I’d settled myself under the tree. No one had fired. No one had shown themselves. If Hart was watching, he was a patient fucker. She fingered the padlock; intact; not broken. Then pulled a key from her pants pocket.
For some ridiculous reason I held my breath. Then the roller door rose up and nothing happened.
Inside was a home away from fucking home set-up. Bed, armchair, mini kitchenette complete with cooker and fridge, standard lamp in the corner which had automatically switched itself on - motion sensor, at a guess - hard-backed chair, table, laptop sitting alone in the middle of it, and three metal shelves which housed enough arms and ammunition to take on the NZSAS.
Charlie’s back-up shack.
“Jesus,” Cain said over the earpiece. “I think I’m getting a hard-on.”
“You think?” Koki’s voice asked. “Dude, it’s clearly been too long.”
“Or Katie’s not doing it right,” Brook offered.
A growl was all we heard from Nick, but it was enough to shut up the frivolity.
Charlie hadn’t moved. Just stood there staring at it all, but not daring to enter. Had something changed? Did she fear a tripwire? Had she forgotten where she’d placed them?
She slowly turned from the unit and it was only then I realised she held a gun in her hands. Lowered, but no doubt cocked. She’d been rattled.
“Something’s not right,” I said into the silence.
And then a dark shadow stepped out from the far end of the row, somehow unseen until then by any of us.
“At your three o’clock!” I shouted down the line.
“Where the fuck did he come from?” Eric’s voice asked over the air.
“Got him,” Jase announced.
But it wasn’t the shadow who fired. Or Jason. Or any of us. It was Caleb Fucking Hart as he crawled out of a storage unit; the door rolling up just enough to see a flash flare at the tip of his muzzle.
I was running before the bullet hit. I was screaming obscenities before Charlie spun with the impact.
And then everyone was firing.
W
here the fuck
had
he
come from? I grunted with the shock of pain, but pressed the trigger on my gun before the momentum of the bullet spun me. From the corner of my eye I saw my returning bullet ricochet off the side of the storage unit he’d crawled out from.
Damn it, my mind was not on the game. I should have been expecting that.
He rolled back under the still rising door, then pulled barrels of God-knows-what in front of him for cover. He fired two more times before I’d managed to do the same. Hauling one of the shelving units Ava had provided over sideways, giving at least a modicum of protection.
And what the hell Ava had been up to was just another bullet ricocheting around inside my mind. Friend or enemy? The provisions she’d taken the time to store before her rapid departure were exceptional. The fact that the bed had been slept in, recently, was a concern.
Who’d been using my back-up shack as their home base? Caleb?
I peeked out from between shelves and fired across the open space towards the barrels. One popped with a
fifft
sound, making liquid trickle out the side of it. Not flammable then.
Gunshots sounded out from either side, out of my line of sight, but making my heart lurch inside my chest. Breathing became a difficulty, and for a moment, I wondered if that bullet that had connected
had
made it through my vest. I rubbed at the spot, but my hand came away clean. No blood.
A
ping
next to my ear had me lying flat on the ground, my nose to the concrete of the storage unit, my eyes alighting on a grenade.
I smiled.
Whoever the fuck Caleb had sent as a distraction was about to bite a big one.
I hadn’t gotten a good look at him, crawling out from under a roller garage door as he had been. But his timing, right when Caleb had rounded the end of the units, couldn’t have been mere coincidence.
Caleb had brought back-up. Well, so did I.
“Fire in the hole!” I yelled, making sure they all heard me over the earpieces, then letting the grenade fly.
The whites of his eyes was all I saw before he rolled over backwards and dashed to the rear of his unit. From my poor vantage point, I could see that he had adequate cover if he managed to make it. The
boom
from the grenade hurt my ears. I smiled again, thinking his must be ringing.
I was on my feet, peering ‘round the edge of the unit toward Caleb in the next instant. A chuckle escaped when I saw what he was using as cover. A spindly, feeble-looking yukka plant in a huge arse pot and nothing else.
And then I frowned. Not like Caleb to get pinned down.
“You’re losing your touch, Hart!’ I yelled, and then offered cover fire for Abi as she moved to a better location. Caleb had been hammering her, and yet when I looked at where his bullets had landed, not one of them had met their mark.
I pulled my head back in when Caleb turned one of his guns towards me, and stared at the back-up shack Ava had organised.
Something wasn’t right.
“Didn’t expect a happy welcome, Charles,” Caleb called out over the infrequent sound of a bullet being fired. “But this is a little overkill, isn’t it?”
His sidekick across the way was stirring. I fired three rounds into the depths of his unit and made him hunker down again.
“After all, we’re friends, aren’t we?” Caleb offered.
“Friends don’t threaten friends,” I called back, reloading my magazines, and thumbing the safeties off. “Where is everyone?” I asked more quietly for the earpieces. “Sound off your locations, I’m about to move.”
“Abi; your two o’clock,” came the petite blonde’s immediate and surprisingly unfazed reply.
Then the rest chimed in, one after the other.
“Ben; ten o’clock.”
“Adam; nine o’clock.” My breaths suddenly seemed to come easier. I swiped at my brow and concentrated on the call-outs.
“Nick; eleven o’clock.” I looked across the way to the other units, Caleb’s little helper directly opposite, either side of him an expanse of closed garage doors. Where the fuck was Nick? “Look up, specialist,” came his - and if I didn’t know him better, I’d say amused - reply.
I glanced up and caught the glint of early evening sunshine off the side of his gun. On the roof. Nice.
“Can you take Caleb out from up there?” I asked.
“Which one’s Caleb?” Nick shot back.
Good question. Finding an image of Caleb Hart had clearly been impossible for Eric and Amber. None of the ASI personnel knew what he looked like. Except Adam.
I ground my teeth and fired a shot at the unit across of from me, just to release some tension. Caleb’s sidekick hadn’t bothered to stir himself. He was waiting for his opportunity.
Well, he’d have it soon enough.
“The yukka tree,” I said afterwards.
“I’m not here to kill you, Charles!” Caleb yelled out. “Call off the hounds!”
“Could have fooled me,” I muttered.
“That’s Hart?” Adam suddenly said in my ear. “Then who the fuck is in the unit across from you?”
I frowned, then peeked my head around the corner of my opening to spot Adam. His eyes met mine and he offered a shoulder shrug.
“The guy I met at your apartment is not the one standing like a fucking girl behind the yukka plant.”
“I heard that!” Caleb yelled back, two sharp shots of gunfire punctuating his admission; he
was
listening into our earpieces. Adam ducked as the bullets sailed overhead. Missing him by at least two and a half feet.
Caleb wasn’t shooting to kill.
The world shrank in on that realisation. My mind danced, images whirred. Puzzle pieces shattering as they pulled apart.
Caleb wasn’t shooting to kill. And he hadn’t been the one to leave that message at my apartment.
“Hold your fire,” I said, but the sound of bullets still flying met those words.
I stood up and stepped around the shelving unit on the floor, and walked out into the sun.
“Charlie!” Adam’s voice yelled; frantic, panicked.
“Hold your fire,” I said again.
“Thatta girl, Charles,” Caleb offered. “I knew you’d figure it out.”
Figure it out? Nah. Not even close, but I sure as hell was going to.
I didn’t look towards Caleb and his yukka. Or towards Adam to my left. And I sure as shit didn’t look up at Nick Anscombe. I raised my gun, pointing it into the dark depths of the unit opposite me and kept walking forward.
I fired once.
Ping!
Twice.
Ping!
The third one hit its mark with an audible grunt.
Then a barrel flew through the air towards my head. I ducked, it missed me, and then I was bowled over in the next breath. Knuckles connected with my jaw. A knee made contact with my stomach. A fist full of hair wrenched my head back on my neck almost enough to snap it.
I fired at his booted foot.
He yelped, his grip on my hair releasing, but an elbow to my kidneys let me know this fucker knew how to dance.
I rolled away, raising my gun, and managing to squeeze a round off before he threw a knife at my chest. I dodged, caught sight of Abi hand to hand with Caleb, but couldn’t catch my breath to call her off before my opponent let loose a couple of throwing stars.
Something about his dogged pursuit and gutter-type fighting style seemed familiar, but his face was covered by a hood.
A bloodied foot came out to knock my gun free. I used the other to leave an imprint on the side of his face. Bone crunched beneath the butt of the Glock, followed by the sickening sensation of ribs fracturing as I punched him directly above his heart. He staggered and then let loose two more stars. But they weren’t aimed at me.
One found Ben’s shoulder as he ran in from the side, the other missed Adam by an inch. This guy was playing for keeps. A semi-automatic was in his hand before Ben even stumbled. He’d fired a haze of bullets toward them before Adam could drag his fallen comrade away.
My .45 connected with the guy’s head. Or at least it looked like it did, but no blood splattered. Fucking hood. He snarled something; it wasn’t in English. And for a moment I was somewhere else. Someone else. Miles away.
I shook my head, my temples pounding, and fired off another shot.
This time blood spread in an arc behind him, but like a crazed beast he kept coming. He knocked into me, sending me back against a closed garage door, then pummelled my sides with a rapid fire of fists. I gripped his head and swung him towards the door behind me, using my entire body to shift his weight and slam him skull first into metal. The door rattled, a knife appeared in his hand, and then we were fighting for purchase, rolling around on the ground, banging heads, grunting breaths, bloodied knuckles.
I could see Adam helping Ben. The Māori looked bad, the star had landed near enough to lungs to puncture. Nick had joined Koki and Brook and Abi. Three against one. Caleb might even be breaking a sweat.
My head connected with concrete, the bastard I fought lost his knife. Then a hot muzzle ground in beneath my chin, and a blade sank into his gut.
And then he fired.
The world swam, dizzying colours and sounds echoing down through a brilliant tunnel. But I’d shifted at the last second - my reflexes firing - and avoided a lobotomy. The guy stumbled backward, I landed in a crouch, a gun in one hand, another knife in the other. My breaths were back to normal.
He sank to his knees, bloodied hands around the wound in his stomach. I lifted my gun, then decided I wanted answers. I stared at his bowed head, covered still by a dark hood, watched his ragged breaths. Blood and sweat dripped from beneath the cowl of the hood, but his face was still in shadows. I stepped closer, tilted my face to hear better; he was muttering indecipherable words… in French.
“Who the fuck are you?” I demanded in the same language.
He lifted his head, just slightly, not enough to see features… then moved like lightning.
A gun appeared out of nowhere, slick with blood but deadly. I fired mine. He rolled away, and aimed at my head.
Then blood splattered in an arc of scarlet, bits of skull bone and brain matter followed. He gurgled, slumped sideways, and fell.
Sniper bullet. Through and through. “Jason,” I said, about to thank him, but stopping myself just in time.
Thanking would indicate I’d been in trouble. I’d been nothing of the sort.
“Wasn’t me, Lieutenant,” Cain announced through the earpiece. “Fucking good shot though; I’d been trying to get a bead on him for ages. Not one time did he have a clear area behind his fucking head.”
I looked to where the sniper bullet would have travelled. Noting Caleb had danced his opponents out of the firing range and was engaging them against one of the storage units.
“Stop playing with them, Caleb,” I shouted. “We’ve got company.”
I raised my gun and sighted the nearby rooftops as I walked sideways towards the fallen hooded male. I took in the blood splatter, the range and trajectory, and determined the bullet had come from some distance.
Say, eight-hundred metres perhaps.
“Ava.”
I lowered my gun. I’d be well and truly in her sights by now. My Glock was chicken feed compared to her; she’d taken out my target.
I forced myself to ignore the itch I felt where the cross-hairs would be etched onto my profile and pulled the hood back from the dead man.
I let a slow breath out as Adam approached. Gun out, safety off, eyes taking in every inch of our surroundings.
“That’s him,” he advised, frowning at the fight still in progress down the other end of the units. “The one in your apartment.”
And not Caleb Hart.
“Nick needs help,” Adam said, clearly wanting to go aid his boss in the brawl that just wouldn’t stop brawling, but not wanting to leave me.
“Hart!” I yelled. “Can it. We’re not the only spooks here.”
Caleb lowered his arms, took a punch to the stomach and an undeflected knock on the jaw, then stepped back. He bowed, came upright, and swept his hand up in a mock salute, then walked past a breathless Koki, a bloodied Brook, a furious Nick, and a remarkably untouched Abi.
He offered her a wink and flicked a piece of card towards her, which she caught reflexively. His phone number, at a guess. I shook my head, my eyes scanning the distance, looking for the telltale glint of light off a rifle’s scope. Coming up blank.
“You’re a hard woman to pin down,” Caleb announced as he sauntered closer. I fingered my gun in its holster. He watched.
“Are you alone?” I demanded.
“Not all of us are anti-social,” he quipped.
“How did you turn her?”
He smiled, it made his rugged good looks smooth out into an angel’s guise. He did look remarkably like Jacques Thibault, but whereas Jacques appeared a little like a thug, Caleb was more 007.
“Nobody could turn Ava; you know that, Charles. She makes her own mind up. And given the facts, she’s clearly decided I’m legit.”
“Are we friends now?” Nick asked, a scowl on his face as he approached. He looked ruffled, but otherwise unharmed. Caleb had either gone super light on his foes or Nick Anscombe knew how to handle himself in a fight.
I was going with the latter. Caleb had a relatively high level of pride.
That’s why I’d agreed to the meet. Called his bluff. There was no way Caleb Hart would have backed down when he saw the cavalry I’d acquired.
I nodded towards the body Ava had conveniently laid out for us.
“Jacques Thibault,” I announced, making Nick’s eyebrows rise.
“Your double crossing snitch,” Adam provided.
“Exactly,” I agreed, meeting his eyes. “Free as a bird.”
“A dead bird,” Koki offered. We ignored him.
I looked toward Caleb. “Why are you here?
He
was sent to kill me. What were you sent to do?”
Caleb’s eyes flicked around our audience. All of the ASI team had closed in, fingers twitching above weapons, eyes narrowed at their prey. They didn’t trust him.
I
didn’t trust him. But Nick was letting this play out, at my command. Did that mean Nick Anscombe trusted me?
Or was it just ‘better the devil you know?’