Black List (33 page)

Staring through the observation port, Anya watched as he hurled the weapon aside and strode right up to the door, glaring at her in silent, brooding hatred. They remained like that for the next few seconds, their eyes locked with one another in a silent battle of wills.

‘Come on,’ Alex said, pulling at her arm. ‘He’s not going anywhere.’

Even as Anya allowed him to lead her towards the stairs, Hawkins silently mouthed a single sentence just for her.

I’ll find you again.

It had been a long time since Anya had felt afraid of another human being, but she felt it at that moment, like a snake twisting around in her guts. Somehow, even though he was trapped in an underground prison with police closing in, she believed what he said.

The thought lingered with her even as she followed Alex up the stairs.

They were out. Despite the pain and the darkness that seemed to be closing in around her, Mitchell allowed herself a weary smile of triumph. Somehow both Alex and Anya had made it out of that room, while Hawkins, the piece of shit, was trapped. She had watched him empty an entire clip into the door, venting his fury and impotent rage the only way he knew how. But he wasn’t going anywhere as long as she remained in control of the door locks.

Not that that was likely to be for long, she thought, as she surveyed the monitors before her. One of the cameras mounted at the front of the building showed the glare of flashing blue lights. Fire trucks and Turkish police cruisers had pulled up moments ago, and already uniformed officers were trying to force their way in through the front door.

It wouldn’t take them long to get in here. But perhaps long enough.

Suddenly Alex’s crackly voice filled the room. ‘Olivia, can you hear me?’

With a trembling hand she reached for the radio beside her. ‘I’m here.’

‘Bloody good timing, mate! We’re on our way up to get you now. I’ll buy you a pint of whatever crappy beer Americans drink when this is over.’

She smiled, though it was the bittersweet smile of a promise that would never be fulfilled. ‘Maybe … some other time.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The police are here, out front.’ She turned her gaze to the cameras at the rear. ‘The loading dock still looks clear. You should make it out if you hurry.’

‘Fuck that!’ Alex retorted. She could see him on one of the monitors, could see the anger in his face. ‘We can’t just leave you here.’

‘Yeah, you can. I wouldn’t make it more than a block in this shape.’

‘So I’ll carry you.’

‘Don’t argue with me!’ she snapped, knowing she had to make him understand. ‘This is… what has to happen. Go, while you still can.’

Pausing for a moment, Alex looked up at the nearest camera, knowing she could still see him. Even in the grainy image, she could sense how conflicted he was. It gave her some measure of satisfaction to know she’d been right about him, that he was a good man in his own way.

‘You’re sure this is what you want?’ he asked.

‘It is.’ Swallowing, Mitchell raised her chin. ‘Go, Alex. Don’t let this… be for nothing.’

She watched his shoulders sag a little as he let out a sigh, then turned away and headed for the loading bay with Anya close behind. He didn’t say anything else, and she didn’t expect him to.

Mitchell watched them manually crank open the bay doors and slip outside, and for the first time in a long time felt at peace with herself. Whatever mistakes and shortcomings she might have had in life, she could at least feel proud of what she’d done here.

Those were her last thoughts as the radio slipped from her grasp and she allowed the darkness she’d been holding back to finally envelop her.

Emerging tired and hurting into the parking lot at the rear of the building, Alex glanced around. He could hear sirens on the main road, and see the distinctive blue flash of lights. The fire alarm would have triggered an automated call to the emergency services, though it was unlikely they understood yet the full scale of what had happened here tonight. If they had, the place would have been swarming with SWAT teams and police choppers.

Reaching up, Anya pressed the transmit button on her radio. ‘Kristian, please tell me you copy.’

Silence, broken only by the crackle of radio static. Alex’s heart sank.

‘I copy. Good to hear from you at last!’ Halvorsen’s scratchy, grainy voice replied. Even over the radio net, his relief was obvious. ‘The police are everywhere. Had to circle around to the main drag north of you. Can you make it?’

‘We’ll make it,’ she replied. ‘Stand by.’

Releasing her grip on the radio, she turned to Alex and pointed across the parking lot to a narrow alleyway running between two larger buildings to the rear. Alex had no idea where it led, but it seemed to be going directly away from the ISS building, and that was good enough for him.

‘This way. Follow me,’ she gasped, leading the way.

Picking their way around rusted, overflowing dumpsters, they ran with whatever speed and strength they could still summon up. Both were very much aware that they were unarmed and totally vulnerable if they happened to encounter police units, or worse, more of Hawkins’s men.

Alex couldn’t say how long it took to negotiate that maze of back alleys and side streets as they fought to reach the main road, every passing moment increasing their chances of being intercepted. His heart was thundering in his chest, his legs burning, fear and adrenaline driving his weary and battered body onwards.

Stumbling out of the alley and onto the main road beyond, Alex blinked and tried to get his bearings, the harsh glow of street lights and passing traffic almost blinding in its intensity.

‘Where the hell is he?’ he asked, glancing around. Every pair of headlights streaming past looked the same to him. Surely every passing driver would be staring back at the battered, dishevelled-looking foreigners who had just lurched out of an alleyway.

‘We’re on the main road,’ Anya spoke into her radio. ‘Where are—?’

She was cut off by the screech of brakes as another pair of headlights shuddered to a halt just yards away. Halvorsen? Police? CIA?

Alex tensed up, his weary heart pounding with renewed urgency, ready to make a run for it. Even exhausted as he was, there was no way he was surrendering now.

‘Wait,’ Anya said, sensing his thoughts.

Alex frowned, wondering what she was thinking. Only when a door opened and a silhouetted figure stepped out of the van did he understand.

‘What took you both so long?’ Halvorsen asked. ‘Hurry up and get in!’

In 2011, elite hacker
sl1nk
released an extensive account of his penetration of the US Department of Defense, Pentagon, NASA, NSA, US Military and UK government websites. His account is widely believed to be authentic.

The sun was just creeping over the horizon, its golden rays spilling across the glistening waters of the Black Sea, when Halvorsen finally brought the van to a halt in a deserted parking lot just yards from the beach. At such an early hour, theirs was the only vehicle on the road.

They had been driving for the past few hours, putting a decent distance between themselves and the scene of their crime.

Neither Alex nor Anya had said much. Indeed, they had passed most of the journey in thoughtful and companionable silence, each contemplating everything that had happened.

Somehow, through some combination of improvisation, determination and sheer good fortune, they had made it. Alex had imagined he’d be celebrating at this point, but he could no longer dig up such an emotion. After everything that had happened, after the struggles and hardships he’d endured, after the loss of Arran and Gregar and Mitchell, he simply felt exhausted.

Opening the van’s rear door, he stepped out onto the tarmac parking area, grateful to be outside. Grateful to be free. Grateful just to be alive.

Ahead of him stretched a white expanse of sand that seemed to stretch all the way to the horizon. A fresh breeze blew in from the sea, carrying with it the scent of salt and life, the roar and crash of breaking waves mingling with the shriek of gulls overhead.

Never had he seen a sight so splendid in all his life.

He smiled, struck by a thought that had popped into his head almost at random. Reaching into his pocket, he fished out the packet of cigarettes he’d kept with him since their arrival in the country. Still unopened.

‘You said you would celebrate once we had the Black List,’ Anya prompted, having stepped out to join him. ‘Now seems like the time.’

‘Yeah.’ He handed her the packet. ‘Here, take these.’

She frowned, looking down at the crumpled packet in her bandaged hand. ‘I don’t smoke.’

‘I know. I want you to do me a favour and get rid of them.’ He grinned sidelong at her. ‘These things will kill you.’

That was when he saw it. That smile. That small, almost grudging smile she gave when he’d said something she liked but wouldn’t admit to liking. Just another little thing he’d come to know, had come to appreciate, about her.

Another little thing he knew he’d miss when this was over.

‘Now I remember why I retired from field work,’ Halvorsen said, easing himself out of the driver’s seat and arching his back. ‘It’s a young man’s game.’

‘Don’t kid yourself, mate,’ Alex countered. He was a good thirty years younger than the Norwegian officer, yet he felt just as pained and weary. ‘Count me out of the next one.’

Halvorsen snorted in grim amusement.

‘What happens now?’ Anya asked.

‘We change vehicles here, and make our way to the airport.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Our new car should be along any time now.’

‘You did well, Kristian,’ she said, giving the older man a grateful nod. ‘I have a lot to thank you for.’

Halvorsen glanced at her, but instead of his usual wry smile, he seemed oddly troubled by her words.

However, before he could say anything, Anya’s posture tightened, her battered and weary muscles tensing as she stared off down the road.

‘A car is coming,’ she warned, her eyes suddenly wary.

Alex followed her gaze, and sure enough spotted a silver BMW heading in their direction. Not hurrying, but travelling at a fair speed nonetheless.

‘Our changeover,’ Halvorsen explained. ‘Be calm.’

And sure enough, the vehicle began to slow as it approached, then turned into the parking lot and came to a halt no more than fifteen yards away. The windows were tinted, making it difficult to see the occupant, but judging by the way it was sitting on its suspension, Anya guessed there was only a driver on board. Halvorsen watched the big BMW in silence as the driver shut down the engine, opened the door and stepped out.

The moment Alex caught sight of the tall, deceptively strong frame, the unruly blonde hair and the lean, chiselled features, his heart leapt and his stomach constricted in a tight knot of fear. His mouth seemed to open of its own accord as shock and disbelief overwhelmed him.

‘What’s the matter, mate?’ Arran Sinclair asked, flashing the same cocky grin that Alex had once known so well. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

Alex felt like he was about to throw up.

It was a lie, he realized now. All of it. The crash, the disappearance, the desperate letter addressed to him. All faked. Arran; his friend, the man he trusted, had played him.

‘The car crash,’ Alex managed to say. ‘They said you’d been killed.’

Sinclair’s look was almost apologetic. ‘I had to do something to get
her
off my back,’ he said, nodding to Anya. ‘I knew she’d be following my every move once we’d made our deal. The only way to get rid of her was to die. Shame I had to write off a perfectly good car to do it.’

The narrow, unpredictable road would slow the vehicle following him, the steep river gorge to his right acting as a deterrent to all but the boldest of drivers. Sinclair almost smiled as he pressed harder on the accelerator, knowing there was a long straight coming up. He’d grown up around this area, had learned to drive here and knew every bend and corner of this road like the back of his hand.

He held the advantage over the car following him.

No sooner had this thought crossed his mind than he saw something on the bend up ahead, something that made his heart leap and adrenaline surge through his veins.

A single piece of coloured ribbon tied around one of the trees by the side of the road. He had marked it there several days earlier, and used it now as his point of reference. This was where he had to do it. This was where the slope on the other side of the crash barrier was steep enough and sufficiently free from trees to allow the car to tumble all the way down into the river below.

This was where he was about to die.

Straight away he slammed on his brakes and turned the wheel hard over. Tyres skidded on slick 
tarmac and the low metal 
crash barrier at the edge of the road swung into view as the car fishtailed.

Sinclair tensed up, bracing himself for what was coming, then opened his door and threw himself out.

The impact was harder than he’d expected, the rough tarmac rushing up to greet him with enough force to bruise flesh and tear clothes and skin. The car had lost much of its momentum by this point, just as he’d calculated, but the pain of his fall prompted an agonized groan as he rolled over and finally came to a stop. Mercifully, he didn’t seem to have broken any bones.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he looked up just in time to see the car barrel into the barrier, crash through it and plummet over the edge.

Pulling himself up, Sinclair limped over to the edge of the road and looked down, watching as the car flipped over onto its roof, rolling and crashing down the steep brush-covered slope to the fast-flowing river far below.

By the time it impacted the surface, the chassis had been reduced to a mass of twisted and buckled metal. With nothing buoyant enough to support it, the wreck quickly filled with icy cold water and disappeared beneath the surface within a matter of seconds, leaving only the wreckage-strewn slope behind as testimony to the violence of its final moments.

‘
Perfect,’ he whispered.

‘Why?’ Alex implored his friend. ‘Why go through all this? What was the point?’

‘Why?’ Sinclair repeated, an edge of irritation in his voice now. ‘I wouldn’t have had to do any of it if you’d just taken my offer back in London.’

Anya was glaring at the tall young man with barely restrained hatred. ‘Why Alex?’ she demanded.

‘Because he needed me. He couldn’t do it by himself.’ Alex closed his eyes as the impact of his friend’s revelation sank in. ‘You needed my help, but I wouldn’t give it to you. So you did all of this to force my hand.’

Sinclair, the charismatic and visionary leader, had always been the driving force behind their group, but none of that could change the fact that Alex had always been the man who made it happen. His skills had been unmatched by any of the others, and without him, Sinclair had been unable to complete the ambitious task that Anya had handed him.

‘I meant what I said then, Alex. I would have made you rich if you’d helped me. It would have been just like the old days, but you were too much of a fucking coward to go for it.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘That was always your problem – you never had any vision. No imagination, no backbone. You just follow instructions, go along with anyone who looks like they know what they’re doing. Well, that being the case, I gave you some instructions to follow. And in the end, you did exactly what I wanted.’

‘I trusted you, Arran,’ Alex said, clenching his fists. ‘We were friends. Now I’m a wanted fugitive. How could you do this to me?’

Sinclair looked at him with something akin to pity. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’

And then, in a flash, Alex’s earlier confrontation with Landvik came rushing back to him.

He swallowed, searching for the right words. ‘I didn’t do it, Alex. I know you don’t believe that, but it’s the truth. For a while, I wished I had thought of it. I was so pissed at you and Arran for shutting me out, and I wanted to get back at you. But I’d never take it that far. We’re friends, Alex. Or
… 
we were friends once. No matter how angry I was with you, I wouldn’t turn you in to the police.’

‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ he gasped, staring at Sinclair in disbelief. ‘You gave me up to the police three years ago. You told them where to find me.’

His former friend said nothing. There was no need to confirm what Alex plainly knew already.

His mind was in turmoil. Two years in jail. His life destroyed, his relationship in tatters, his future stolen from him. All because of Sinclair.

‘For Christ’s sake, why?’ Alex asked, almost pleading with him.

‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ Sinclair taunted. ‘You were all about doing the right thing and going legitimate, as if we could all spend our lives wearing ties and working in some shitty office like the rest of the fucking losers in the world. I knew you didn’t have the balls to go after the big prize. It was a way of getting rid of you and Gregar at the same time. Once I blamed it all on him, he was out of the picture. And I could use the rest of our group for what they were meant to do. And little Alex did exactly what 
he 
was meant to do – stay quiet and do his time.’

That was it for Alex. Something snapped inside him at that moment, as all the pent-up emotions of the past week suddenly coalesced into a storm of pure rage. Balling his fists, Alex rushed at the man who had twice destroyed his life, fully intending to beat the skinny, arrogant bastard into the ground for what he’d done.

But suddenly he caught a movement to his right, and just like that everything changed. His pace slowed, his rage daunted by the barrel of an automatic now trained on him.

‘Don’t,’ Halvorsen warned, staring down the sights of the weapon at him. However rusty he might have been as a field operative, there were few ways for him to miss at this range.

Alex faltered and came to a halt, while Sinclair offered an apologetic shrug. ‘Like you said to me once, any system can be beaten. All you need is skill, planning and patience.’

Glancing up from 
the wrecked vehicle at the bottom of the gorge, Sinclair watched as a pair of headlights approached. The car that had been tailing him since he’d left his home about half an hour earlier. The car whose arrival he’d anticipated almost to the second.

Easing to a stop beside him, the driver opened his electric window and leaned out to survey him.

‘
It worked as planned?’ Kristian Halvorsen asked.

Sinclair nodded. ‘This river leads all the way out to sea. The police will assume my body was swept away by the current.’

The Norwegian nodded, satisfied with that. ‘That should get Anya off your back, for now at least. Now get in before someone passes by.’

Sinclair wasn’t about to argue. Wincing a little as his bruised body protested, he slipped into the passenger seat.

‘
What if she doesn’t believe it?’ he couldn’t help asking.

‘
You worry about your friend Alex,’ Halvorsen said as he accelerated away from the scene. ‘I’ll take care of Anya.’

‘Now, Alex. Give me the Black List,’ Halvorsen said, his voice icy calm. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’

Alex stood his ground, staring at the older man. Only now did he realize the full magnitude of his failure. ‘You were working with Arran the whole time.’

‘Think bigger, mate,’ Sinclair said. ‘Kristian recruited me the day we broke into his company’s website. It was a test, and one that we passed.’ A faint, knowing smile. ‘Of course, there were a few conditions. We had to cut out some dead wood before he’d take us on full time.’

Alex felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. Sinclair had given him up to the police all those years ago on Halvorsen’s orders, knowing Alex would never condone the idea of becoming his own personal cyber-terrorist.

‘Why, Kristian?’ Anya demanded, the anger and pain in her eyes plain to see. Sinclair’s betrayal was one thing, but she had known and trusted Halvorsen for the best part of two decades. ‘We had a deal. I was going to share it all with you.’

‘Isn’t it obvious? I’m not taking it, Anya. I’m returning it.’

Only then did his true intentions, or rather his true allegiance, at last become apparent.

‘You work for the Circle,’ Anya said, crushed by this final, shattering betrayal.

‘Like you said, they are powerful and dangerous men. Far more so than even you can imagine. How do you think they held on to that power for so long? They anticipated all of this, and they were ready for it. You should think yourself lucky they chose me for this operation, otherwise you would both be dead.’ His eyes focussed on Alex once more. ‘Now, give it to me.’