Deception Game (40 page)

Sowan’s heart was pounding, adrenaline rushing through his veins as he desperately weaved the big Lexus through the obstacle course of cars lying before him, taking ridiculous chances on narrow gaps, and losing a wing mirror to a near miss.

The highway traffic was a mixture of ultra-modern 4x4 cruisers (a sure sign of a driver who had profited from the relaxing of the oil embargo), luxury sedans and clapped out old vans and hatchbacks held together by nothing more than the sheer willpower of their drivers. But old or new, all of them were caked brown with dust, and all of their owners seemed to be angry at him.

Shoving his hand into his pocket, he grasped the cell phone that he’d hidden during his approach to the vehicle checkpoint.

‘Ryan. Can you hear me?’

‘I’m here. What the fuck’s going on?’ Drake demanded.

‘I’m sorry. The alarm was raised, I had to do something,’ he gasped, swinging the Lexus through a gap between a modern sedan and a rusted pickup truck, stamping on the accelerator to power through an intersection up ahead. ‘They’re closing in on me.’

‘No shit,’ Drake countered. Sowan could hear him breathing harder as he sprinted through the crowded streets, trying to get a look at the chase. ‘You need to ditch the car.’

‘No!’ Fleeing on foot was out of the question. Simply walking unaided required a great effort with his injured leg.

‘Listen to me! Use your head,’ Drake implored him. ‘You’re in a stolen car – they know the make and model, and they
will
find you. You’re drawing more attention to yourself with every block you cover. Find a quiet alleyway nearby, slow down and for Christ’s sake get out. Stay on the phone and I’ll come and find you.’

Sowan knew he was talking sense, even if he didn’t want to hear it. Approaching the intersection, he eased off the gas, allowing the Lexus to slow down a little. Already his mind was racing ahead, thinking of possible locations to ditch the vehicle.

Only one came to mind.

‘There is a market nearby. There are many back streets we can—’

His sentence was cut short as ten tonnes of articulated truck slammed into the left side of the Lexus, crumpling the chassis and shattering windows. The big vehicle was hurled across the road by the force of the impact like a toy flung by a petulant child. Sowan didn’t even have time to react as the car rolled over and over, showering him with broken glass and debris.

Then suddenly there was a loud shuddering bang, an explosion of white light, and he knew no more.

Left behind by Sowan’s frantic rush to get clear of the area, Drake didn’t see the crash as it happened, but he did hear the crunch of the impact, the tinkle of shattering glass and the tearing roar as an engine at high revs was suddenly broken apart.

The moment he heard the unmistakable sound of metal impacting with metal, Drake felt his blood run cold. Straightaway he knew that the short-lived escape attempt had come to a violent, jarring halt.

Rounding a corner, he was just in time to see the silver Lexus come to rest on its roof, lying in a crumpled heap on the sidewalk.

‘Oh fuck.’

Sowan’s mind drifted back from the verge of unconsciousness, alerted by the distant sound of voices. Something was happening, he knew. Something important.

With great effort he forced his eyes open, and found to his surprise that the world was upside down. Beyond the shattered windshield, he could see the intersection where he’d been hit, the line of commercial buildings stretching out on either side, the rough potholed road now above him. Dry windblown grit whipped in through the broken windows, peppering his face and eyes.

He’d been hit, he realized then. He remembered trying to speed through the intersection, ignoring the flow of traffic in the hope of making it past unscathed. He remembered the sudden appearance of headlights from his left, and the terrible, explosive impact that followed.

The vehicle must have come to rest on its roof. Still strapped into his seat, he was inverted. How foolish he must have looked to anyone observing him, some part of his mind reflected.

He wasn’t sure if he was hurt or not. He wasn’t in much pain, but everything felt hazy and disconnected, his reactions deadened as if he was intoxicated. He was vaguely aware of something warm and wet dripping across his face, and smelled the distinctive odour of petrol.

Something was lying on the roof next to him. A simple canvas rucksack, the material frayed and worn in places, but bulked out by the shape of something hard and square inside. The laptop. The information he’d risked everything to retrieve.

Reaching out, he grasped one of the straps and pulled it towards him, dragging it through broken glass and pieces of shattered plastic. If he could just get out of here with it...

The sound of more voices nearby caught his attention, raised and angry. He could hear boots scuffling on the tarmac outside.

‘Hurry, get it open! Get him out of there!’

Drake arrived just in time to watch Sowan’s arrest. Moments after the crash, a military-patterned jeep – no doubt dispatched from the compound Sowan had just fled – had come screeching to a halt next to the wrecked vehicle.

He couldn’t be sure of the make, but it looked like a Kozlik; a rugged little Soviet-era jeep that had been in service since the 1970s. It made sense, since most of Libya’s outdated military equipment had come from the USSR.

‘They’ve got him,’ Drake hissed into his radio, watching as a pair of armed soldiers worked to lever the driver’s-side door open. More would surely be here imminently. ‘Monarch has eyes on two tangos.’

‘It’s over. Break off, Monarch.’ The concern in her voice was obvious even over the radio net. ‘You can’t help him now.’

Bollocks he couldn’t. No way was he letting Sowan get himself killed when they’d risked so much to get him here. And in any case, one way or another, Drake was leaving with that laptop.

‘Stand by, Envoy,’ he instructed, reaching behind his back.

Suddenly the vehicle’s chassis resounded with a dull metallic thud. A crunching, grinding noise was coming from the passenger door. Someone was hammering and levering it with something, trying to wrench it open.

‘Careful, no sparks! I smell gas.’

It was then that Sowan spotted a pair of combat boots outside, scuffed and dirty but unmistakably of military origin. This was no group of concerned citizens attempting to rescue an injured man from a wrecked car, but armed soldiers dispatched to bring him in.

And they were going to get him. There was nothing he could do to stop it as the lock finally gave way and the partially buckled door was hauled open from outside.

A pair of thick, burly arms appeared through the gap, followed a moment later by an unshaven, angry face that focussed immediately on him. The hands reached out and unlatched his seatbelt, causing him to fall headfirst onto the roof.

Dazed and with stars and blobs of light dancing across his vision, Sowan was powerless to resist as they grasped him by the shirt and hauled him out through the buckled doorway, dragging the rucksack behind. Through fogged eyes, he could see locals gathering to watch the spectacle unfold. Nobody came forward to offer assistance, and nobody protested his rough treatment at the hands of the pair of soldiers who had apprehended him. They were wise enough not to intervene.

Nearby, the truck that had destroyed his car was still sitting at the intersection, its forward cab crumpled by the impact while steam billowed from the punctured radiator. The Lexus itself had fared no better. Its chassis was buckled and twisted, one whole side caved in as if it had been slammed by a giant fist. Its snapped axles jutted outward like shattered rib bones.

This was it, he realized, as the larger of the two men dragged him towards a military jeep parked beside the wrecked car. They were going to haul him right back to Mukhabarat headquarters, where he would be tortured and interrogated until he told them everything they wanted to know. Then, if he was lucky, he would be executed.

He had failed. His desperate, hastily conceived final gamble had been his undoing. More than that, he had broken his promise to Laila. There would be no joyful reunion for the two of them, no living out the remainder of their days in anonymity, no chance to find peace together.

It was at that moment, when the awful reality of what the remainder of his short life held for him was beginning to sink in, that everything changed.

There was a muted thump, a dull wet crunch, and the man dragging him towards the jeep suddenly released his hold and collapsed to the ground, his legs simply giving way beneath him as if the mind controlling them had ceased to function. Sowan felt something warm and wet splash his face, and twisted around in time to see the man fall in a crumpled heap, blood pooling around what remained of his skull.

His comrade had seen it as well, and instinctively turned to face this new and unexpected menace, his mouth already opening to shout out a warning. He never got a chance to say whatever he’d intended. A silenced round tore through his neck, destroying his windpipe. He went down, clawing at what remained of his throat while his blood painted the dusty ground.

This sudden and unexpected act of violence wasn’t lost on the small crowd of onlookers, who cried out in alarm and began to run, scattering in all directions. Many had witnessed attacks like this before, and had no wish to become caught in the crossfire.

In disbelief, Sowan looked up as a man emerged from the chaos all around and sprinted straight towards him. A white man armed with a silenced handgun.

‘Can you walk?’ Drake asked, crouching down beside him with his weapon clutched in a white-knuckle grip.

Such was his shock at Drake’s sudden arrival that Sowan couldn’t even piece together a coherent response. All he could manage was a nod.

‘We need to get off this street, now!’

With that, Drake hooked one arm beneath Sowan’s and hauled the man to his feet, ignoring the cry of pain. Sowan could feel warm blood trickling down his leg and guessed the stitching around the gunshot wound had come away, though there was nothing he could do about it for now. All he could do was force himself onwards, clutching the rucksack as tight as Drake held his weapon, and hope that the artery itself wasn’t ruptured again.

With the injured man in hand, Drake turned towards the wrecked Lexus. The fuel tank had ruptured during the crash, leaving a stream of petrol pooling around the upturned vehicle.

Leveling his weapon at the wreck, Drake snapped off a couple of shots at the buckled chassis, focussing his fire near the ground. The first and second rounds punched straight through, but the third ricocheted off the steel frame, producing a little shower of sparks that settled on the petrol-soaked pavement.

There was no need to watch what happened next. Turning away just as the first flames began to leap up, creeping towards the broken fuel tank, Drake practically dragged Sowan towards a nearby clothing shop that fronted out onto the street.

Shoving their way in through the front door, the two men hurried past racks of jeans, jackets and t-shirts of all shapes and sizes, heading for the rear of the store. Tinny pop music that Sowan didn’t recognize was playing from a pair of domestic speakers crudely screwed to the walls above the counter; a strange contrast to the chaos outside.

The owner, a young man in a black shirt that looked far more expensive than the merchandize he was selling, caught sight of them right away. Deciding he wanted no part of whatever trouble they were involved in, he jerked his arm towards the street and started to shout out a warning to leave. However, the sight of a silenced pistol aimed at his head was enough to persuade him otherwise.

‘Where’s the back door?’ Drake demanded in Arabic. ‘The back door!’

The young man stared blankly at him for a moment or two, before pointing with a trembling hand to a curtained-off area behind the counter.

At the same moment, the flames which had been licking at the wrecked car at last reached the fuel tank and ignited its contents. There was a bright orange flash which illuminated the interior of the shop, the mannequins and clothing racks painting ghastly shadows across the walls, followed by a thunderous boom that shattered the store’s windows and left Drake’s ears ringing.

Glancing around, both men could see the fireball which had engulfed the car illuminating the night sky. The flames had reached almost to the front of the store, making access from the street impossible. For now at least, nobody could pursue them that way.

With the store owner now cowering behind the counter and clutching his ears, Drake pressed forward, shoving the curtain aside with the barrel of this automatic, to reveal what presumably served as the shop’s store room. Racks and cardboard boxes of extra stock were piled everywhere, some reaching almost to the ceiling. As promised, a fire door with a simple bar lock was set into the brick wall at the back.

‘Let’s go. Move,’ Drake said, leading Sowan towards it. A single swift kick was enough to send it flying open, allowing them to hurry out into the service alley running behind the line of shops.

As they did so, Drake’s radio earpiece crackled into life.

‘Monarch, what the hell is going on?’ McKnight demanded over the radio net. ‘I assume that explosion was you?’

‘Had to cover our escape,’ Drake replied, hurrying onwards. ‘I have Sowan, and the laptop.’

He heard a muffled curse, and guessed she wasn’t pleased by his reckless actions. ‘I hope they were worth it, because you’ve brought the whole goddamn Libyan army down on this place.’

‘Then it’s time to make a sharp exit.’ Now that they had what they needed, he didn’t intend to spend a minute longer in Libya than he had to. ‘We’re in a service alley heading east from the crash site. Rendezvous with us at the far end.’

From what he could tell, the alleyway ran for another hundred yards or so before opening out onto a main street beyond.

‘Copy that.’

‘And we need a vehicle,’ Drake went on. ‘They’ll lock down this entire area within minutes. You hearing this, Envoy?’

‘A vehicle. Sure, why not?’ she replied, her sarcasm obvious. ‘Envoy’s on it. Stand by.’

With that, the radio clicked off.

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‘Goddamn you, Ryan,’ McKnight hissed, backing into an alleyway that ran between two residential buildings.

This evening was rapidly going from bad to worse, to disastrous. Shepherd teams were supposed to operate covertly, moving unseen and ideally completing their clandestine objectives without anyone even knowing they were there. What was unfolding around them now was about as far removed from their modus operandi as it was possible to be.

But she couldn’t change it, couldn’t undo what had already been done. All she could do now was try to stop them all getting killed.

Reaching up, she gripped the seam of the loose shirt she’d been wearing and yanked hard, tearing it roughly apart at the shoulder. This done, she unsheathed her field knife and drew the tip of the blade across the exposed skin. She felt the sting as the wickedly sharp blade bit into her flesh, followed by the warm upwelling of blood that quickly began to trickle down her exposed skin.

Her improvised blade job certainly wouldn’t pass close inspection, but from a distance in poor lighting conditions, it might be enough to convince people that she was seriously hurt. A victim of the explosion nearby in need of help.

Checking that the handgun was still within easy reach, she took a deep breath and rushed out of the alleyway, staggering onto the road beyond while clutching her bloodied shoulder.

‘Help!’ she cried, doing her best to look like a panic-stricken bomb victim. ‘Someone help me!’

The first driver she encountered was having none of it, and immediately swung his car into the oncoming lane to avoid her, honking his horn as he sped past at high revs. However, her second encounter proved to be more fruitful, mainly because traffic in the opposite lane was heavier and she had positioned herself in such a way as to be virtually unavoidable.

Hearing a screech of brakes, she watched as a pair of headlights came shuddering to a halt mere feet away. She couldn’t tell the make and model yet, but judging by the low profile and throaty engine sound, it seemed to be some kind of sports car. Not exactly the unobtrusive vehicle she’d hoped for, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. Clutching her bleeding shoulder, she staggered around to the driver’s door just as it swung open and he stepped out to meet her.

‘Oh, God!’ she gasped, hoping to get as close to him as possible. ‘Thank you! I need to get to a hospital. Please!’