Dance With the Enemy (2 page)

‘Our job is to fight. If we go out there, they’ll just kill us anyway,’ Bridges said.

‘No, our job isn’t to fight, it’s to protect.’

‘Giving up isn’t the same thing as protecting.’

‘It’s the only choice we have.’

The confidence now exuded by Bridges surprised Modena.
Maybe he’d been wrong about the young agent. But he had to side with Carlson on this one. The thought of running out there in a volley of fire was making him feel nauseous. The path of least resistance would be his choice every time.

Carlson, taking the lead, put his hand on the door handle, opened his door and stepped out. Bridges hesitated but then put his hand to his door and began to open it. Modena and Laura looked at each other, wide-eyed. Neither made a move for their doors.

‘Keep your hands in the air!’ the leader of the armed men said.

Carlson did as he was told and stood up straight, facing towards the men.

‘I’m Special Agent Carlson of the US Foreign Service. I’m responsible for these passengers. What’s going on here? What do you want?’

‘What do we want?’ the leader said, sniggering. ‘Not you.’

He pulled his weapon up and squeezed off one shot. The bullet hit Carlson in the middle of his face, creating an exit wound in the back of his head the size of an orange. Blood, flesh and bone splattered onto the Escalade and all around as Carlson’s body fell to the ground.

Laura put her hand to her mouth and gave a muffled scream. Bridges, reacting on instinct, quickly shut his door again. He turned and began to move towards Carlson’s door to try to shut that too. But he had no chance. One of the attackers was already there, his rifle pointed through the open door at the agent’s head.

Bridges looked up into the barrel of the gun.

‘Please …’

But before he could say another word, the attacker fired. The bullet hit Bridges in his temple as he tried to turn away. The high-calibre round at close range was like a baseball bat smashing a watermelon. Bridges’s head all but exploded, thick liquid and mushy flesh covering the inside of the car, Laura and Modena, who both screamed and immediately started clawing at their face and clothes, trying to remove the mess.

Taking just a second to readjust, the attacker moved his rifle towards Laura and fired again. The sound in the confined space was deafening. Modena shuddered, his ears ringing, his head going into a spin. Disorientated, he shot out of his seat as Laura’s bloodied, limp body fell into his lap. He crawled up against the
inside of the car, trying to get as far away as he could. As he fumbled for the door handle, the ringing still in his ears, he couldn’t take his eyes off Laura’s lifeless body. The mess of bone, blood and flesh that used to be her face.

Finally, his hand grasped the handle and the door came open. He tumbled out onto the ground, gasping for air. Barely a second later he was dragged to his feet by one of the attackers.

‘Please. Please don’t kill me,’ Modena begged, putting his hands together in prayer. ‘Please, I have a family.’

‘We’re not going to kill you, Frank,’ the leader said matter-of-factly.

One of the men came forward. Modena didn’t flinch, didn’t move an inch, as a small sack was placed over his head.

‘Not yet anyway,’ the leader added. ‘You’re coming with us.’

Logan sprang upright in his bed. He was panting heavy breaths and his body was damp from sweat. He threw the covers off and shivered as the cold, conditioned air hit his skin, sending a wave of goose-pimples across his body. After a few moments, his breathing began to slow down as his mind recovered from the horrors of his sleep.

It had been the same dream as before. The nightmare that he had nearly every night. Except that it wasn’t really a dream at all. It was worse than that. It wasn’t a figment of his imagination, but a replay of the most heinous moments of his life.

He closed his eyes and felt the throbbing in his head. He was hungover. Usually alcohol would help him to have a dreamless night. But he only rarely allowed himself that luxury – that was the coward’s way out. And last night, even the alcohol hadn’t saved him from the nightmare.

Opening his eyes, he looked over at the empty space on the other side of the bed. He was alone. Was that a surprise? He had half expected it not to be empty.

He turned back to face the other way and winced in pain. It felt like he had daggers in his shoulder blades. That wasn’t from the drink.

With pained movement, he reached out and turned on the bedside lamp. A rush of memories from the night before flew through his head: beer, whisky, a girl. A bar brawl. Las Vegas, that’s where he was. The city of sin.

The flashes were enough to remind him why he was feeling so rough. It hadn’t just been the drink. He had taken a beating. There had been at least four of them and they had gone to town on him. An unseen attacker had taken him down from behind. A cheap shot. But he probably deserved it. In any case, Logan’s cuts and bruises would be gone in a few days. Their friend would have to get used to using only his left arm for the next few months.

Despite the beating, Logan had still ended up back in his hotel room. He didn’t know how. The last thing he could remember was lying on the floor in the bar as blow after blow came his way.

Logan got out of bed and headed towards the bathroom of his hotel suite to get some water. The inside of his mouth was so dry it felt like sandpaper. He poured himself a glass from the tap and downed it in two large gulps. The water barely touched the sides of his mouth, which didn’t seem to lose any of its dryness.

He closed his eyes again, but then immediately wished he hadn’t as the images from his sleep tore through him once more. The cold stone floor. The shouting all around him. The feeling of the blade against his flesh, cutting into him. The bloodied and lifeless body within touching distance, Logan powerless to help.

He opened his eyes, escaping the nightmare. His hands were shaking. He felt dizzy and had to grab hold of the sink with both hands to stop himself toppling over.

After a few deep breaths, the sickly sensation began to dissipate and he felt able to let go of the porcelain. He turned the cold tap to full force and used his swollen hands to splash water onto his face, feeling his mind awaken as he did so.

Snippets of memories from the night before continued to come back to him. A girl. What was her name? Caroline. That was it. A nice name. A nice girl. Shame about the guys she normally chose for company. After Logan and Caroline had spent a couple of hours talking, drinking, laughing together, some meathead had slapped her backside as she went to the toilet. Turned out he was a local, she was a local. Logan wasn’t. It was Logan’s British accent that had first drawn her interest. In the end it had probably only contributed to his downfall. He’d tried to be the knight in shining armour, out to save her. But his courageous efforts hadn’t turned out in his favour.

Maybe the night would have panned out differently if he’d kept his head and walked away. With her. But he hadn’t. The fight had found him, as it so often did. And he’d woken up alone. Again.

The sad thing was, he had enjoyed her company – she had made him feel alive for those few hours. Feel normal, even. Just two people sitting in a bar, having some drinks, talking. That was normal, wasn’t it? But in his clamour for that very feeling, he had blown it all to shit.

He knew that he was anything but normal. Normal people hadn’t lived half of their lives in a cocoon, isolated and separated from the real world. They had families and friends and they felt emotions like joy, happiness, pain, sorrow and fear. He’d spent his entire adult life bereft of those emotions. Ever since the agency had shown him how to control his feelings. No, not control his feelings – they’d trained him to ignore them altogether. They weren’t needed for what he was. For what he had become.

Until five months ago. When everything had changed.

Now he could feel emotions once again. But he was filled with so much angst, anger, regret, shame – so many feelings coming to the fore that he didn’t know how to control. And sometimes he wished he was still the zombie he had been for the last eighteen years – almost half of his life.

He drank another glass of water and looked at himself in the mirror. His six-foot-three frame meant he had to crouch slightly to get a good look at himself. Dried blood was caked on the side of his face. The wound that it had come from still glistened up in his hairline, discolouring the close-cut mousy-brown hair around it. His normally sparkling green eyes were bloodshot, his right eyelid swollen almost completely shut. His bottom lip protruded awkwardly, making his face look lopsided. Not to mention the three-day stubble and other obvious signs of wear and tear from too much alcohol and too little sleep that aged a normally handsome face.

He looked a mess. And not just because of last night’s wounds. His life’s scars marked his entire torso, and were a stark contrast to his normally clear and unblemished face. The ones from five months ago were by far the most severe.

How would a beautiful woman like Caroline react to seeing those?

She had seemed pretty interested in him last night, though. In their brief time together he’d found he could talk to her like he could to very few people. She was a free spirit, no inhibitions. She was young and naive about the world, but she also had an unerring confidence to which Logan had immediately been attracted. It’d been easy to talk to her. Probably for the very reason that she didn’t know anything about him.

She had liked him, he had liked her. Although she fit the mould for so many of the women that Logan had seen over the years, he felt there was something different about her. All those others had come to nothing. After the initial excitement had died down, there was really nothing of substance in any of Logan’s previous relationships. But he knew that was almost entirely because of him. He’d never got to the point where he’d been able to let anyone into his world. But maybe this time it was different. He wasn’t the same person he used to be. He may have messed up last night, but what did he have to lose in giving it another go?

He made up his mind: he would definitely go and see her tonight at the club she said she worked at. See if he could be lucky for a change.

Logan’s mobile phone began to ring. Hesitantly he walked out of the bathroom to the bedside table, unable to avoid limping on his bruised legs. He picked up the phone. It was Mackie, his boss. He felt himself lose two inches as his body deflated.

He knew what this meant. There would be no Caroline. Not this time.

‘You know I’m on holiday, don’t you?’ Logan said, answering the phone.

‘Logan, I’m afraid men like us don’t do holidays. We both know that. And anyway, I’d hardly call what you were doing last night a holiday.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘What do you think?’

It didn’t take him long to work it out. Logan felt his cheeks blush with embarrassment. Mackie had sent someone to keep an eye on him. Someone had been watching him last night. They had probably been watching him from the moment he landed here three days ago. Logan winced at the thought. Not just because Mackie had felt it necessary to do that, but because Logan hadn’t spotted the watcher at all.

He really was losing it.

‘And it’s just as well I had a man on you,’ Mackie said, breaking the silence. ‘What do you think would’ve happened if he hadn’t been there? You certainly wouldn’t have been waking up this morning to five-star luxury.’

So that explained how he had ended up back in his hotel room. Mackie’s man had brought him back here. Kept him out of trouble. Babysat him.

Logan felt his temperature rise as anger took hold.

‘Are you intentionally trying to ruin your career, Logan?’ Mackie was saying. ‘I’m not always going to be around to bail you out.’

Career? It was hardly what you would call a career. He was their machine. He did what they told him. He always had. And this just proved how they saw him.

‘I can’t believe you did that,’ Logan said. ‘So this is what it’s come to? Now I have to have my hand held wherever I go?’

‘Well, based on last night, quite clearly, yes.’

Logan thumped the wall in frustration. The skin on his knuckles split and his hand began to pound, but he was oblivious to the pain.

‘Logan, you’ve got to understand. You are what you are. We still need you.
I
still need you. But things aren’t like they used to be.’

‘I assume you’re not calling just to give me grief,’ Logan said, eager to change the subject before the conversation turned to things he didn’t want to think about.

‘I thought maybe it was time you came back. I have something for you.’

Logan’s head began to whir. It was like a ton weight had been lifted off his shoulders. On hearing Mackie say those words, five months of frustration and torment suddenly vanished. And yet he knew feeling like that was contradictory to everything he’d been fighting against for the last five months.

Was this really what he wanted? Was it what he
needed
to get his life back on track?

‘So what do you think? Are you ready?’

‘Yes. Of course I am,’ Logan said, without a moment’s hesitation.

He knew that it wasn’t true, however much he wanted it to
be. But what else was he going to say? Maybe this would get him focused again. He would never be the same man that he used to be, and he didn’t want to be, but this was still what he was.

‘Good. I need you back here right away.’

‘So, what is it?’

‘Well, when I said you’re needed here, what I really meant was, you’re needed in Paris.’

‘Paris? What’s in Paris?’

‘Yesterday Frank Modena was.’

‘Frank Modena? Who’s that?’

‘Frank Modena is the Attorney General of our chums over the pond. Have you not been watching the news?’

‘Sorry, but I’ve not been keeping up to date with current affairs. It was you that sent me away on holiday, remember? Something about it aiding my recovery? And anyway, Frank Modena being in Paris is of concern why?’

‘I said he
was
in Paris. Past tense.’

‘Okay. So where is he now?’

‘That’s what I need
you
to find out.’