Reading Time: 106 Minutes

Title: Loose Ends
Author: ImaliFegen89
Fandom: Strike Back (TV series)
Genre: Angst, Action Adventure, Episode Related, Hurt/Comfort, Suspense, Thriller
Relationship(s): Gen
Content Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Hate Crimes, Hate Speech, Torture, Violence-Graphic. Canon-typical Religious Radicalism/Terrorism, Canon-typical violence, Explicit swearing, Minor character deaths, Canonical suicide attempt of a minor character, Kidnapping/blackmail situations, Hostage situations, War crimes (hostage deaths, on-screen/public execution attempts, prisoner interrogations) Discussions-bio weapons
Alpha: Aethir
Word Count: 52563
Summary: Having finally put his demons to rest, John Porter didn’t expect to survive the aftermath of his last mission. It certainly wasn’t a cause for celebration when he did, since his short-lived reprieve frizzled out with his capture by the CIA.
Artist: WestWind

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Chapter 6

Section 20 – Headquarters
Whitehall
London

16:16 Hours/Local

Meanwhile

“Fuck me.” Damien muttered softly, and rubbed his knuckles vigorously over his closed eyelids.

He had already lost two whole days of his life, spent glued in front of a cursed computer screen. He had lost count of the clusters of locals photographed in various daily activities he had been forced to pour over. He had been staring at the images for so long, he couldn’t tell one Pakistani from another. All their tired, angry and resigned faces had started to blend together in one messy blob.

The three-day long, thorough physical evaluation – a compulsory one Damien had to undergo according to the contract he signed – hadn’t been that bad. He had been secretly proud of himself for completing the armed obstacle run without gunning down any civilian targets. The overall results of his target shooting, weapons handling, driving, and endurance testing hadn’t been too disappointing, considering he had undergone all that with zero time for preparation. His hand-to-hand had been excellent, even if the drill sergeant hadn’t said anything other than sparing him an unimpressed glance in the passing.

His ratings and timings were nowhere near the stats he had achieved during his Delta Force days. But after eight years, Damien thought even his rusted skills were still acceptable enough to get him over the hurdle.

He had no idea how the mental evaluation turned out. It had been same set of questions about his personal life, beliefs, faith, attitudes and his decisions when faced with certain situations, followed by the same damned nonsense with the Rorschach Inkblots.

Since he still had a job, Damien figured he hadn’t botched that one too terribly either.

The thing was, all those workouts, running and exercising had gotten his blood pumping. Being forced to sit in front of a computer screen for hours soon after was an absolute shit way to process all that rush out of his system.

Damien was ready to call it quits and return to Kuala Lumpur. Ong – the pimp, match-fixer, entrepreneur extraordinaire Damien had known and kind of worked for all of two weeks – deserved the employer of the month award compared to Grant’s slave-driver tendencies. He couldn’t even remember what he’d had for lunch, or whether he’d had any at all. His eyes were burning to a point no amount of squinting at the bottom right corner of the screen could tell him what time it was.

The distraction he was praying for came from the rather attractive communications specialist who was seated two stations over.

“Sir, Ma’am, I think I have something.” Richmond’s quiet announcement was still loud over the quiet buzz.

Thank fuck.

Damien walked his swivel chair over the carpeted floor until his armrest collided with hers, and cheerfully ignored the irritated look she flashed at him at the interruption. Her screen was worse than his. It was full of text, on what he thought was Arabic, intermingled with complex code running along the ever changing text.

Sinclair was manning a station at a corner near Grant’s office, out of sight of the analysts littered over the pit. At Richmond’s call, he let another tech take over whatever he was doing, and strode over to Richmond’s station with the Colonel in tow.

“What is it, Sergeant?” He prompted, standing at parade rest behind their chairs, his arms folded over his chest.

“I’ve been refining my decryption code with the messages we’ve collected over the past few weeks,” Richmond said, her fingers resembling a demented spider over her keyboard with the speed she typed. “There’s been an increase in their communications, especially in the texts that have been going back and forth–”

“You’ve been monitoring their calls?” Damien interjected, “In addition to all those ‘go forth and die, you scum imperialists’ broadcasts?”

“And the messages too,” Richmond shrugged, “They use the local networks. It’s not that hard to access them. They know that. So they use burner phones, and the numbers change every week. Besides, we can’t pinpoint their exact locations, only triangulate to an area the size of a small town at best.”

“And they have lots of those, and they keep moving,” Damien nodded, following along with her point, “They know their lands better than us, in any case.”

“True. So I’ve been concentrating on the contents themselves,” Richmond continued, updating the main screen with a regional map of Afghan/Pakistan border as she did, “A few calls with this same text originated in Khost, Chaman, Taftan and Zaranj–”

The text she referred to was a phrase Damien had seen pop up in all the broadcasts the entirety of the command centre had been committed to dissect. The closest English translation of it said: Victory to the Righteous.

“Small towns from both sides of the border.” Grant observed, her sharp gaze darting over the locations highlighted in the map.

“That’s not all, is it?” Sinclair was staring at her smaller screen, the one with all the mind-numbing code. “Some of the communications go even further, originating from around Lahore, closer to the border on India’s side. Plus that list of calls and messages with the international code to India. What the bloody hell is he planning?”

At his inquiry, Richmond manipulated the map on the main screen to include the Indian/Pakistani border as well. Richmond had used the phrase she had caught repeating itself on the messages to filter out everything pertaining to Latif’s outfit from the rest. The number of markers that went up all over the border towns was a sure sign that Latif had been networking for all his worth.

“I ran the translation software and decryption codes once I filtered the comms to see if they were discussing anything important. There’s a connection between all these communications I’ve highlighted.”

There were altogether sixteen calls and messages, seven near the Afghan/Pakistani border and the rest on the opposite side of the country.

“Lay it on us, Sergeant.” Sinclair invited, clearly having detected the triumphant note in Richmond’s tone.

“This,” she said, and brought up a virtual brochure of a hotel over the map, drawing their attention to a luxury resort located in New Delhi. “Royal Lotus, a five star resort only eight klicks from the Indira Gandhi International Airport.”

The images from their website presented the Royal Lotus hotel as a classic rendition of an ancient castle, haveli – A three-winged building complex spread over half an acre of land, complete with multiple courtyards and swimming pools. The rooftops were dome-shaped, and the balconies jutting out at regular intervals from all three floors were masterfully decorated with intricate wrought iron balustrades. The rows of marble pillars running along the length of the long, narrow wings were all decorated with numerous carvings. Many shades of yellow, brown and white added colour to the structure, capturing it in a golden hue in the mid-morning sunlight.

It boasted a five-star rating, offering seventy luxury suites, three restaurants, three bars, two swimming pools and a miniature golf course for its guests. All services were promised to be promptly and efficiently rendered by the well-trained, hospitable staff, round the clock.

Damien studied the digital brochure with a grimace. All he could see were the countless civilians Latif could easily use as human fodder the moment anything went slightly wrong.

“Could be a possible meeting point,” Sinclair said, “Maybe he’s planning to make a deal, negotiate for a product, or even something a little more drastic and attention-grabbing like an armed assault.”

“A Pakistani attack on Indian soil,” Grant murmured, “More than enough of a spectacle to distract everyone while he slips through the net, and catches us yet again with his real attack on the West…”

“Good work, Richmond.” Sinclair graced her with a smile.

“This is as good as it’s going to get in terms of actionable intel,” Grant decided. “Scott, you’ll be accompanying Captain Marshall as the ground recon team and get us a visual ID confirmation the moment Latif shows up.”

“Much better than frying my brain out over all those surveillance photos,” Damien agreed, acutely aware that he was digging himself a deeper hole, but not really caring.

“Major, let’s prepare the Crib,” Grant ordered, “Looks like we’re relocating to New Delhi. I want everyone assembled at RAF Lakenheath by 20:00. You all got four hours to–

“Sir, ma’am,” the sharp interruption came from the tech manning Sinclair’s station. “You need to see this.”

Without really waiting for permission, he transferred a whole new webpage to the main screen right over the brochure of Royal Lotus.

It was plain black with three lines of text rendered in white. Damien wasn’t sure if the writing was Urdu or Arabic. The same instrumental music he had heard playing just before those daily broadcasts went on air played in the background.

A few seconds later, a wobbly video of a faintly lit room came into view. A dark flag with more symbols and lettering hung in the background, making it crystal clear what they were about to witness.

A dead man, restrained and gagged, sat kneeling on the floor in front of it.

“Fucking Christ,” Damien whirled around to glare at Grant. “That’s John Fucking Porter. I thought you said he was dead.”

He looked like a homeless beggar with the shaggy hair and the long, grimy beard, wearing a set of dirty, torn desert camo that looked more like rags than a uniform. He had been through hell, that much was obvious. The open cuts, bruises and the long, badly-healed scar on the side of his face were the only visible signs of a horror story.

He was hardly recognizable, but Damien would know that defiant glare anytime anywhere, with or without an eidetic memory.

“He was believed to be KIA, yes.” Grant muttered, her eyes never leaving the screen.

“Broadcasting live, tracing IP address,” Richmond snapped sharply before Damien could call Grant on her bullshit. “It’s been run through a network of proxy servers.”

“Someone knows what they are doing,” Sinclair muttered, peering at her screen over her shoulder. Then he said the strangest thing, “We know the location, more-or-less.”

“How?” Damien narrowed his eyes.

There was a weird sense of anticipation in the air, and no one seemed too worried over the fact that they were about to witness some extremist fuckwit publicly executing one of their own.

“Is Bravo One aware of this?”

“I don’t think so,” Sinclair said, tapping on his headset. “He’d have called it in.”

That made sense, Damien thought. So they had someone already in the field, tracking Porter. Then why the fuck did the Colonel implied Porter was dead? What the fuck was going on? What were they hiding?

In the video, another figure dressed in native garb stepped into the frame behind Porter. He had a rifle slung over his shoulder, and wore a plain white cloth over his head and face, leaving only his eyes open.

“He needs to know he’s out of time.”

“I can’t reach him,” Sinclair said in frustration, “He went dark a few minutes back.”

Grant cursed.

Or maybe your operator is already dead, Damien thought glumly, just as Porter’s captor began to speak:

“To the Imperialist powers of the West. This is Sergeant John Porter. He is but one of many. He’s a British spy, trespassing on the holy soil of Pakistan…”

The man announced in a grave, heavily-accented voice, grabbing Porter by the hair to keep him facing the camera. Usually, the hostages read those messages. The gag they had forced on Porter to keep him silent suggested that intimidation tactics hadn’t worked on the SAS operator. Or that Porter already knew what was going to happen, and decided to do down swinging. Damn the consequences.

“I am Latif–”

Everyone in the pit froze as one at that declaration.

“–and I demand the immediate release of all my oppressed brothers being held in British and American prisons. Until my demands are met, I vow that I will sacrifice as many John Porters as it takes in retribution–”

“Fuck,” Damien cursed, and shared a glance with Richmond who had gone pale next to him. This was no ransom call. This was going to be a demonstration. Porter was about to die right in front of their eyes and they couldn’t do a thing about it.

“Bravo One, come in, damn it,” Somewhere behind him, Damien heard Sinclair trying to raise their operator to no avail.

“This is only the beginning,” said the man, and calmly stepped out of the view of the camera. The sound of rifles being racked in the background was almost as loud as gunshots. “God is great!”

Streaks of crimson splashed across Porter’s upturned face the same moment a volley of gunfire erupted.

Amidst the sounds of unintelligible screams and utter chaos, the screen went blank.

Quetta
Balochistan
Pakistan

Meanwhile

“–and I demand the immediate release of all my oppressed brothers being held in British and American prisons. Until my demands are met, I vow that I will sacrifice as many John Porters as it takes in retribution–”

The fucking prick intoned, deliberately hiding his cultured accent behind rough pronunciations of the words, putting emphasis on wrong syllables, making him sound more like a native bumbling through a foreign language.

The vice-like grip on his hair kept John from wriggling free, and the dirty rag they had gagged him with kept him from screaming and cursing the way he wanted to with every fibre of his being.

The barrels of the two rifles aimed at him from his ten and two started to morph into a pair of identical blackholes with each passing second. Porter had a hard time breathing, his heart beating wildly against his chest as the end of the message drew near.

The sight of his imminent death staring down at him wasn’t only horrifying, it was humiliating. He was a soldier, and as such, he had always known he would die in the field, with a bullet he wouldn’t see coming. But this, the spectacle of it, knowing that the people who knew him had to watch him being slaughtered while he was helpless to stop it…it was a whole new level of sickening terror.

He almost toppled over when fake-Latif let go of his hair, and John righted himself with a grunt.

“God is great.”

The last words of the message drifted to the left from behind him, when the man cleared the firing zone for the other two to take the shots.

John closed his eyes, and prayed for it to end quickly.

He flinched when the shots fired. Something warm and wet splashed across his face. Instincts and reflexes honed over the years kicked into drop John on his side, and he curled around himself in a ball to present a small target. Not that it would save him from a barrage fired at him from a five-feet distance.

It was over in seconds. But for John, it was a fucking life time and a half. His teeth gritted over the gag, his eyes squeezed shut, and every muscle in his body tightened in anticipation of agony, John waited for the pain to engulf him.

And waited.

And waited some more.

The sudden silence that followed was unnaturally thick, like a heavy blanket wrapped around his head to smother him. The coppery tang of blood, cordite and smoke was too-fresh, too-sharp and too-defined, making his gut roil with nausea. The dreaded pain never hit, and John wondered if the final infusion of adrenaline running through his system had shocked him enough not to feel any of it.

Through the buzzing of his ears, his trained hearing picked up the sound of light footsteps, someone who knew how to move quickly, yet quietly.

“Fuck!” The accent was decidedly British, and for some bizarre reason, familiar, “John, you hit?”

John sighed, and opened his eyes. He was dead after all, or stuck in a strangely-detailed hallucination while his blood leaked out and brain slowly lost its functions. Why else would Steve’s brother of all people – the kid who hated him – be kneeling on the ground next to his face, staring down at John with a worried frown?

That made him wonder; was Steve also here? In his full gear? Playing the role of a rescuer for one last time?

The kid, Michael, cursed softly again, and pulled the gag off of John’s mouth. While John slowly moved his jaw from side to side, he cut off the zip ties that tied his wrists together at his back. John stayed where he was, curled on his side, feeling too tired and a little freaked out. Michael’s movements, his grip on John’s shoulder, the sheen of sweat on his forehead…it all seemed a touch too real for a hallucination.

“Talk to me, mate.”

The words were real. The slight undercurrent of concern was real. The gloved hand touching the side of John’s head was also too fucking real.

“Jesus fucking Christ!”

That earned him a smile, a genuine one.

“Not today, John,” Michael tapped him lightly, a sign of relief. “Not today.”

Few minutes earlier…

It was a small village on the east side of Quetta. Rows of shacks with wooden planks for walls and corrugated sheets for roofs stood wedged flanking the banks of a stream that had turned into a pungent sewer due to pollution.

The house they had taken Porter to stood some distance away from the shacks. It was a boxy, two-story structure somewhat sturdier than the flimsy lodgings that made up the rest of the village. Its walls were a combination of stolen road signs, planks and bamboo-like shoots held together with a thin layer of cement. It also had corrugated sheets and braided palm leaves laid over wooden beams for a roof.

The upper floor didn’t have any windows, or doors. Michael assumed that it was probably a storage attic rather than a residential floor, and the stairs leading to it was inside the building. The ground floor had an entrance and an exit; the entrance facing the small gravel road and another line of shacks, and the exit on the opposite side, the door almost opening straight into the black, lumpy water of the stream. Only one wall on the side had a window, closed and the curtains drawn, preventing anyone from seeing anything inside.

It was a few minutes past eight o’clock, and the night was moonless with only a few stars blinking in the distant sky, providing much-needed cover of shadows. Most of the shacks were shrouded in darkness, no lights streaming out of their windows. No sounds of men, women or children could be heard. Even the stray dogs and the night creatures seemed to have packed up and left to get somewhere safer. It felt like a ghost town. The arrival of the armed insurgents seemed to have chased away most of the villagers out of their homes.

In any case, that made Michael’s task of blending into the surroundings a hell of a lot easier.

He was wedged between two empty shacks about a hundred metres to the left of the building, and he had a scope trained on the target, its settings switched to thermal.

Altogether there were seven life signs. Five were inside, four clustered together and one in the opposite corner from the rest. Judging by the hazy postures, Michael was pretty certain that was Porter.

The remaining two were outside, one at the entrance and the other at the exit, on guard duty.

Michael assumed they were all armed.

He tapped lightly on the comms gear strapped to his tac vest, “Zero, Bravo One.”

“Go ahead.” Major Sinclair’s voice whispered in his ear.

“I have him.” There was no need to elaborate. They knew what he was talking about.

“Extraction?”

“I’d give it even odds.” Michael said after a moment’s consideration. It was six against one. He would have to do it quickly and quietly. That was the only way to make sure Porter didn’t get caught in the crossfire. “I need some time to recon. I’m going dark.”

“Understood.”

“Bravo One out.”

He switched the comms off. He didn’t need any distractions. Besides, he had no idea if the insurgents had any detectors or jammers for radio and electronic signals. So far, Michael had the advantage of stealth, and he didn’t want to announce his presence with a poorly-timed static burst.

As he watched, two life signs broke away from the cluster and walked towards the one on the corner. A few seconds later, the three signs almost blended into one, creating a red/yellow/orange blob of tangled limbs. Michael realised that two of the men were dragging an un-cooperating Porter into the middle area of the structure.

Something about it felt wrong. Michael’s gut told him that he had run out of time.

Michael returned the scope back to his vest pocket, and tightened the strap of his M4A1 Carbine, securing it across his back. He then drew his combat dagger out of its sheath at his hip.

He approached the target building from its side, his light footsteps making barely any sounds on the dry grass, and his crouched profile perfectly hidden in the shadows cast by the shacks.

The guard was bored. It was obvious in the way he had his AK-47 slung carelessly over a shoulder, a lit cigarette in his free hand, and his bored gaze locked on something straight ahead in the distance.

He never saw or heard Michael drawing closer from his side. He was only alerted to Michael’s presence when Michael had his forearm wrapped around his neck from behind, the tip of the knife already sinking into his jugular.

He twitched in Michael’s hold, and drew in a gasp on instinct. The yell only came out in a wet gurgle, and Michael slowly dragged him towards the side of the building, even as the guard’s rapidly weakening body spasmed in his hold.

The man was dead before Michael finished propping him against the wall, out of sight.

The guard at the back was sitting down cross-legged, his gun on the ground next to his knee, and all his attention fixed on whatever that was on the screen of his phone.

He never made a sound before he died either.

Michael wiped the blood off the knife on the dead man’s scarf before returning it to its sheath. There were four armed men inside, and the time for stealth was over.

With his Carbine held in front of him in a two-handed grip, Michael stepped into the narrow corridor that curved into a sharp left turn at about five-metre’s distance, presumably leading to the interior of the building where they held Porter.

It was time to make the best use of the next weapon he had: element of surprise.

“–until my demands are met, I vow that I will sacrifice as many John Porters as it takes in retribution–”

Michael heard the sharp words as he drew near the end of the corridor. They sent a chill down his spine as he took a knee to carefully peer around the corner of the wall. The sight that greeted him made him realise that he was almost out of time:

The man behind the camera wasn’t armed. There was a rifle leaning against the wall to his right. Michael assumed it was his.

There were two men flanking the cameramen, out of the frame, but their guns aimed straight at Porter who was kneeling in front of a flag.

The fourth man behind Porter did the narrating, keeping Porter in place with a firm grip on his overgrown hair.

Michael stayed crouched, and lifted his gun to sight his targets. He was about five feet behind the three men and the camera, slightly to their right. Focused as they all were on Porter and the video they were recording, none of them even glanced at the corridor leading to the exit where Michael had entered from.

His main priority was clear. He had to neutralise the two would-be executioners before they shot down Porter.

Michael took a deep breath, and lifted his rifle slightly to aim at the nearest insurgent. He timed his first shot just as the man behind Porter let go of him and took a step to the side. The sight of blood spraying out of the man’s skull was so unexpected, everyone froze where they were in shock. Michael took his second shot while the first dead body was still on its way to hit the ground.

Finally snapped out of his stupor, the narrator managed to fire a wild volley at the wall before Michael’s next shot found a target on his throat, sending him crashing to the ground. That left the cameraman, who was flat on the floor, crawling towards his gun. Michael finished him with a shot to the back of his skull before straightening, and stepping out from behind cover.

Porter was on the floor, unmoving. At first, Michael feared the man had caught a stray bullet. When he finally croaked out a hoarse curse, Michael realised that he hadn’t got shot, only utterly shocked.

Relieved that the man wasn’t leaking blood from any new holes, Michael hauled him to his feet. He kept his grip on Porter’s arm when the man swayed alarmingly to the side.

“Whoa,” Michael helped him lean against the wall behind him, “what’s wrong?”

“Fucked ribs,” Porter winced, curling around his left side protectively. “I’m fine. What the hell are you doing here?”

Michael took a step back, and started clearing the room. His first pick was the camera, which was on the floor next to the bodies. Taking the memory card out, he moved onto the dead gunmen.

“Saving your arse, obviously,” he muttered, patting the bodies down. No one carried any ID’s. Except for a few local currency notes in the narrator’s pockets, none of them even had any money. Their phones were burners. Michael collected the sims and memory cards, just in case. “A thank you would be nice.”

“Thank you, that was fucking fantastic timing,” Porter sighed. It was a pained, resigned sound. “But Michael, why?” Why you? Why did you come? Why now?

Michael stood up, and turned around to face him. Fair questions, all of them, he supposed. They did have a shared history, most of it rather unpleasant. Fixing his part of those mistakes was one of the reasons Michael had put his own career on the line to accept the highly unorthodox and dangerous mission in the first place.

“Look, I was there when Steve passed,” Michael said, willing the words past his throat. “I just returned home–”

He’d barely had a week to organise and attend Steve’s funeral before deploying to Afghanistan. The loss still hadn’t hit him fully, and he’d been avoiding thinking about it, forcing himself to keep his head in the game. Telling himself that he would deal with it once he had completed the mission.

It was easier, and less painful that way than to think about how fucking alone he was and untethered he felt to the rest of the world.

“Shit,” Porter closed his eyes, grimacing. Michael wondered if his own face mirrored the same grief clearly written on Porter’s. “I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault. Never was, was it?”

Porter swallowed thickly, but didn’t say a thing, opting to keep his eyes shut. He breathed in and out shallowly, in an attempt to keep his broken or fractured ribs placated.

“I met your Lieutenant Thompson,” Michael continued, “We had a chat. I realised I couldn’t apologise for the shit I said to you if you were dead in this hellhole,” Porter did look up at that, surprise taking over exhaustion and grief lingering in his features, “So here I am, and John, I am sorry.”

“No, don’t,” Porter shook his head, his voice low, “He was your brother. The only family you had left. I understood, I blamed myself too. Wished I could have done something, anything to…fuck.”

Go back in time. Change it all.

Michael was familiar with the feeling. He knew how it felt to return with the losses. It was even harder when you had been leading those soldiers you’ve lost. Dealing with it never got any easier. The feelings of guilt, self-doubt, anger, helplessness…they were always there, and they never really disappeared, only faded to the dark corners of your mind only to overwhelm you in the moments you least expected.

“Thompson said Collinson died.” Major Hugh Colliinson, the bastard who had been responsible for all of it, the worthless scumbag who had shamelessly gone on to build a shiny new career on the ruins of another…Thompson hadn’t really divulged the details during that briefing. “That he was with you when that happened.”

“It wasn’t me,” Porter murmured. The note of genuine sadness in his tone caught Michael’s attention, confusing him. He had been under the impression it was Porter who had put a bullet in the fucker’s head. “He was a coward right up until we were surrounded by a bunch of Taliban. Seven whole fucking years too late, the bastard decided to become a soldier. Got shot, decided to stay behind to cover my exfil, and blew himself up along with all those pricks.”

His gaze, dull and weary as it was after everything he had been through, held a lot of conviction. In Porter’s eyes, Collinson had redeemed himself. Michael didn’t need to hear the words to understand the silent request; the man was dead, and Porter had decided to forgive him, and bury all his sins in the desert. Steve was already gone, and Porter was the only one left who had the right to make the call.

Michael held his gaze for a moment, and nodded once. Porter nodded back, his shoulders slumping in relief.

“I’m going to head upstairs, clear the floor and then we’re bugging out, alright?” Michael decided. He could see the silhouette of a staircase just a few feet beyond the wall Porter was still leaning against. “You think you can move a few hundred metres on your own? I’ve got a ride.”

Porter gave him a flat look, and straightened. The SAS Sergeant finally peered through the facade of the rescued prisoner, “I’ll make it.”

***

John stood where he was, listening to the receding footsteps, letting his gaze slide over the four dead bodies cooling on the floor. Only fake-Latif had gotten a few shots off, a short, poorly-aimed burst at the wall where Michael had been crouching behind.

As far as perfectly-timed rescues were concerned, this one had been extremely quick and efficient.

He still couldn’t believe any of it; that he was still alive, his captors were dead, and Steve’s brother was actually here. And the kid didn’t seem to hate him anymore.

It was surreal, and John was having a hard time processing it.

The sounds of the returning footsteps wrenched him out of his scrambled thoughts, and he carefully knelt down to pick up the nearest rifle off the floor. He gave the weapon a cursory once-over, and took the magazine off the other gun that was still leaning against the wall.

They weren’t out of danger yet. Far from it.

“Looked like it was their temporary comms centre,” Michael said. He had an old, worn duffel with him. “I’ve got their gear. Maybe the brains at the HQ can find something on them.”

John followed Micheal out of the building. It was a dark night and it was unnaturally quiet. The short burst of gunfire didn’t seem to have alerted anyone to their position. Either that or they were already surrounded. They just didn’t know it yet.

They passed two more dead bodies, one just outside the exit, laying against the bank of a foul-smelling stream and another propped up against a side wall. Michael took a winding path around the mostly unoccupied shacks, and judging by the stars, John realised he was leading them out of the town towards the northeast. He also kept to a fast yet unhurried pace, in consideration of John’s generally poor fitness and health.

“Michael,” he called softly after a while, dodging around what felt like the hundredth dilapidated shack, “What day is it?” How long has it been?

Michael stopped, and flashed a concerned look over his shoulder. “Saturday, January 15th,” he said, “2011.”

John cursed, “Four months!” He never had a clue. What had they even told his daughter? That he was missing in action or dead?

“You’re on record as KIA,” Michael murmured as if he had heard John thoughts, “I was tracking you along for the past three months or so. The CIA kept moving you around. I was under strict orders not to make my presence known, and I couldn’t really break into a US base by myself.”

“Huh,” John smirked, unwilling to pass up the chance Michael all but served to him on a plate, “SBS is slipping in their training standards, are they?”

That earned him a mock glare and a two fingered salute.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” he said soberly, “They certainly didn’t need another prisoner, I just… I didn’t think they’d send anyone for me.”

“Well, you’ve got a unique talent to kick up a shitstorm wherever you go,” Michael said when they stopped behind the dubious cover of another poorly-constructed wooden/sheeting contraption. They seemed to be at the edge of the town. Two gravel roads intersected a few metres in front of them, and the rest of the land, covered in shrubbery leading up to an overgrown thicket in the distance, seemed deserted.

“Believe me, I wasn’t even trying this time,” John admitted.

“I’ll be honest, mate, you are kind of up there with the nuclear waste right now,” Michael murmured, taking his eyes off the empty roads to face John, “The other side is never going to admit they had you, and our side is never going to question their stance. If I had to guess, it’ll make it to the reports that you were a prisoner of Pakistani extremists all along.”

“I get it. I don’t care. I’m just glad to be out.”

“Getting blown up by these guys was the best thing that happened to you after all these months,” Michael’s serious expression faded behind a grin, “It finally gave me the chance to get you out.”

“Is that how I ended up with that lot?” John asked.

Try as he might, he couldn’t remember getting blown up. Although it left him confused, John was kind of glad he didn’t. He had enough terrible memories as it was.

“Is that a concussion or are you hiding a worse injury?” Michael pinned him with a worried look.

“No, I don’t think so,” John said truthfully.

His head did hurt, but that was due to all the punching and kicking that woman’s goons had subjected him to during all those questions. He didn’t think he was there with the locals for more than a day or two at most. He must have been unconscious for most of it until he had been woken to be the star of his own short-lived show.

“Well, they hauled you out of Whiskey, and loaded you into a transport truck,” Michael said. “There were four Marines with you in the back plus the truck driver, a local. They were taking you out of Qalat, towards Kandahar. The transport got hit about ten klicks out of the base. Looked like a stinger from a distance.”

“Shit,” John shuddered, “I’m glad I missed that bit.”

“They killed everyone and took you with them,” Micahel continued, “Either they thought you were a prisoner of value or they were tipped off. Probably on an unencrypted broadcast, or maybe even the driver. You could have been a bait to lure this ‘Latif’ character out or the entire incident was a lucky accident. For them. I was too far out to intervene before they grabbed you.”

Michael’ suppositions made sense, especially considering the CIA woman’s obsession with the terrorist… “There was this blonde woman, CIA–”

“Christy Briant, one of Arlington’s,” Michael added, nodding, “She’s their station chief for the region.”

“Well, she left me alone for the most part, until recently, she started asking me about a terrorist I’ve come across a long time ago; Imran Sarbanri, AKA, Latif.”

“He’s the guy who took over after you took care of Sharq,” Michael filled in the missing pieces of the puzzle, “It seems that he’s not as amenable to being a CIA funded lapdog the way Sharq was. He’s Section 20’s main target these days.”

“He was in Iraq eight years back,” John said, “He was after a military contractor named Kenneth Bratton and whatever he was cooking behind closed doors. Latif disappeared after we raided his facility. Now he’s back, and using fucking body doubles to record propaganda executions.”

“Body doubles?” Michael frowned, “What do you mean?”

“The guy who was reading that message, he was disguising his voice,” John revealed, trying to figure out how it all fit in, “His English was far better than that, and he didn’t have an accent. When I asked, he introduced himself as Latif. I’ve seen the fucker, and that wasn’t him.”

“That’s new,” Michael said, moving around the shack to reach the closed, padlocked door, “We’re going to have to report that in.”

“Yeah.”

“I stashed the pickup here,” Michael announced, producing the key to the lock.

“You just left it?” John asked sceptically. It was rather risky, leaving a vehicle, presumably full of weapons and supplies, unattended in the area that clearly belonged to a group of terrorists.

“Yeah, why?”

“What if someone found it?”

“They would have lived just long enough to regret it.”

Michael flashed him a sideways grin and opened the door very slowly and carefully to reveal his burglar proofing. It was fucking claymore mine he had rigged to blow in the face of anyone who’d have tried to force their way in.

John couldn’t help but grin back, “Crazy motherfucker.”

“The SAS doesn’t teach you how to secure your rides?” Michael teased. “That’s just sad.”

It was his payback for John’s earlier remark. The interdepartmental rivalry was still alive and kicking. John never knew he could take that much comfort in something so trivial, yet it felt like a piece of home was right there with him.

Michael dismantled the IED and picked it up off the floor. John followed him in, laughing with an ease he hadn’t been able to laugh in a long damn time.

Part Three – January 2011

Chapter 7

Three Days Later

Royal Lotus Hotel
New Delhi
India

10:30 Hours/Local

“Welcome to Royal Lotus, Mr & Mrs Langley,” The receptionist flashed a pretty smile.

Her sunny countenance matched perfectly with the massive tapestry hung on the wall behind her counter, depicting a historical pageant of some sort in a riot of vibrant colours and textures.

“Here’s your key, and the passports.”

Marshall collected the items with a murmured thanks.

Damien dropped his carryon on the plush carpet at his feet, and wrapped his arms around the Captain’s petit form from behind. He grinned when he felt her stiffen under his entirely too-intimate embrace before making a conscious effort to relax. She placed her own hand on his forearm, and out of the other woman’s sight, her thumb dug into the soft skin of the underside of his wrist deep enough to draw blood.

Warning received and ignored.

Damien let his grin widen, and rested his chin on top of Marshall’s head. He hadn’t designed their cover stories. Her own people at Section 20 had. He might as well use the opportunity to dust up on his acting skills.

“We got married only three days back,” he announced cheerfully, wiggling the fingers of his left hand at the receptionist in case she had missed the ring on it. “We both agreed this was the best place for our honeymoon.”

“Oh,” her eyes went wide, and her smile turned even brighter, “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Marshall replied. “It’s such a beautiful country.”

Damien thought only he could hear the strain in her voice. She was massively irritated, which made the whole thing a lot more entertaining. Her remark acted as an invitation for the receptionist to launch into a detailed account on the nearby attractions, must-do activities and a list of local cuisines they simply had to try during their stay.

Once she was done, they both politely excused themselves to retreat to the cosy seating area of the lobby.

“I’m going to head over to the bar,” Damien decided. “Wanna join me?”

The smile Marshall flashed at him would have looked right at home on a shark. “I think I’ll take a look around first. It’s a very nice hotel. So many things to see.” We’re here to conduct visual recon, you arse. Not fuck around.

Damien heard both the verbal and non verbal replies just the same. Her main task was to find a way into the server room so she could plug in an external access hub. That would allow the techs at the Crib to tap into the hotel’s security feeds. In a pinch, she would also be able to do the same with the PC she had with her.

Damien only hung around in the lobby to keep an eye out while Marshall slipped away to do that. It didn’t take her long, and the moment she returned, he made good on his word and took the elevator to the ground floor where the main hotel bar was located.

It was as good a place as any to blend in, and Damien had a feeling that if he were to spot an undercover terrorist – especially someone who’s spent a good amount of time in the western world already, if the latest intel from Porter was to be believed, which he did – then the bar would be his best bet.

“Bravo Two, Bravo Three, this is Zero,” The earwig hidden inside Damien’s ear emitted a soft click, followed by Sinclair’s voice, “Checking in.”

“Copy.” Marshall’s curt response came a second later.

“Got you loud and clear.” Damien murmured.

“We’re running facial recognition software on the registered guests. We’ll give you a heads up if anyone with a record pops up.”

An outer hallway led to the bar that was located at the end of the right wing. The main swimming pool was also located on the same side, offering the patrons the option of savouring their drinks with the views of the aquamarine water and long, toned bodies on display in skimpy swimsuits while soaking up the sun.

Damien walked through the double wooden doors, heading inside. While he had no reservations about enjoying himself a little on the job, he didn’t want to be too-distracted.

The interior of the bar was dark and cosy, with shining engineered hardwood, dark wood panelling, dim lighting, drawn curtains and mirrored walls. The black velvet couches were arranged in ones, twos and clusters around wooden tables. About twenty guests were already there, sprinkled liberally in the seating areas and around the bar counter. Once the doors closed behind Damien, the sound from the outside cutoff, soundproofing the bar, leaving only the low chatter and the soothing jazz playing softly in the background to surround him.

Damien made a beeline to the drinks counter, and hopped on the bar stool at the very edge. From there, he could watch both the main entrance and the emergency exit through the reflections on the mirror of the counter.

Royal Lotus seemed to be fond of employing beautiful women to work behind counters. Damien flashed a winning smile at the bartender when she finished placing the last tequila shot on a tray of fifteen to be whisked away by a server.

“Can I get a Laphroaig on the rocks, please?”

He was rewarded with a sideways smile and a raised eyebrow, “Single or double?”

“Well,” Damien said, letting his grin widen, “that depends on how long you’re going to be around.”

“I’ll make it a double.” The bartender winked and sashayed away to pour his drink with an extra sway to her hips.

“Do you always hit on anything that moves?”

The sharp, judgy tone with a British accent drew Damien’s attention to the woman two seats over to his right. She was tall, lean and dark-skinned, dressed in a knee-length navy blue dress. Her hair was cut short, just above her shoulders. She looked about his age, or maybe one or two years older.

She was staring straight ahead. The reflection that stared back at her looked worn-out, although she had made a half-hearted attempt to disguise it behind lines of mascara and a dash of lipstick.

Her bloodshot eyes were shining with pure contempt. But Damien could sense a keen intelligence behind the icy veneer of her gaze. She had noticed his wedding ring after all, and he only had his right hand resting on top of the marble counter.

“Do you always judge people after staring at them for three seconds?” Damien asked teasingly, countering her disdain with easy cheer.

“I call it as I see it.”

“Or maybe I’m just a friendly soul, here to have a good time.” Damien shrugged, taking his time studying her. She had both her hands wrapped around her glass in a desperate, white-knukled grip. She also had a wedding ring, which was almost digging into the skin on her finger. Something told him that she had been here for a while, and that drink wasn’t her first one.

She snorted, still refusing to look at him, and downed what was left in her glass in one long swallow.

“You know, this right here, is a slice of paradise,” he said, sparing another friendly grin at the bartender when she placed his own drink in front of him, “Instead of enjoying it, why do you look like you’d rather be anywhere but here?”

That earned him a sideways glance from the weary stranger, “Now who’s judging?”

“Touche,” Damien lifted his glass in a salute before taking a sip. It was good stuff. The burn was cool, rich and soothing. “Am I wrong though?”

It seemed that he had finally landed a strike close to home. She visibly shook herself, and made as if to take a sip of her drink, grimacing when she realised it was empty. Expelling a long sigh that left her deflated, she flashed a contrite smile at Damien.

“No, no, you’re not,” the change of demeanour softened her features, making her look rather attractive. Curiously, it also made her seem more closed-off, distant. The seething contempt from earlier felt much more genuine compared to the strained politeness she infused to her next few self-deprecating words, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be taking out the effects of my jetlag out of the nearest stranger. I’m a terrible flyer.”

“Long flight?” He signalled the bartender, who had lost some of her earlier cheer for some reason, to refill the glass of his rather interesting drinking companion.

“Nine whole hours,” she admitted with a shudder. “They said it was turbulence. I think it was the pilot. Either he was sleeping a rough night off, or he was starting a party early. It was horrible.”

“That would do it,” Damien agreed amiably, deciding to oblige her effort to deflect. “Luckily, my wife slept through the entire flight. She’s not a fan of flying either.”

“What brings you here?” She asked, holding onto her newly replaced drink like a lifeline. “Vacation? Anniversary?”

She turned on her seat towards Damien, and she did it with extra care, like a very self-aware drunk.

“We just got married.”

She raised her glass in a sloppy salute, hastily slapping a grin across her face to hide the bitter expression that darkened her face. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” Damien pretended not to notice. There was something strange about the woman, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. She was troubled. “What about you? Here with anyone?”

She blinked, swallowed and took a draught of her bourbon to hide her sudden apprehension. “Business…I’m here on business. No time for distractions.”

“What kind of business?”

“The kind I’ve been neglecting for long enough,” she said, and finished her bourbon in a few hasty gulps before standing up abruptly, “Thank you for the drink. I must take my leave now. Have a good day!”

Without giving a chance for Damien to reply, she made an unsteady retreat towards the main exit, leaving him to wonder what had that been about.

The Mobile Command Station/The Crib
Section 20
New Delhi – India

Meanwhile…

The warehouse they commandeered to set up their mobile command centre was about two klicks to the east of the Royal Lotus, tucked away in an industrial area with a lot of empty and abandoned buildings.

The live feeds from the Royal Lotus dominated the main screen, offering them the views of the lobby, the public areas, elevators, corridors, the swimming pools and all the entry/exit points. On a small window on the upper right corner, Scott was acting true to form, chatting up a woman in a bar. Marshall wasn’t visible in any of the feeds, which meant she was somewhere not covered by the cameras. Julia figured she was in her suite, logged onto the servers to go through the feeds herself, or check the details of the other guests through the hotel’s reservations system.

The facial recognition software was running in the background, scanning each and every face in the feeds against the passport details that were available in the reservations systems. They were looking for fake identities, and faces that weren’t registered in the hotel’s systems. Those were the faces and identities that would then get run through the intelligence databases, to see if they were on any watchlists.

“Major Ashkani?”

Colonel Grant’s raised voice over the buzz of activities drew Julia’s attention to the new arrival. He was a tall, fair-skinned man with short dark hair and light-brown eyes. He was dressed in civilian clothing, and stood out among the BDUs crowding the command centre.

“Colonel Grant.” The man smiled and strode over to where the Colonel was standing in front of the main information screen.

“Welcome to the Crib.” the Colonel shook his hand, and introduced him to the Major who was standing next to her. “This is Major Oliver Sinclair, my second.”

Major Jamal Ashkani was an agent of Pakistani military intelligence, ISI, based in New Delhi. He had been contacted to assist with identifying known Pakistani insurgents flagged down by their systems. Once Ashkani had learned that the Section 20 was on Indian soil hunting the elusive terrorist, Latif, he had agreed to render any assistance personally.

“Thank you for coming at such short notice.”

“Of course, Colonel,” Ashkani said, his gaze glancing over their set up appreciatively. He spoke with only a very slight accent. “Latif and his entire organisation are a dark stain on our government, our beliefs and Pakistan as a nation. We do not condone any of his actions. It pains me to say he’s been avoiding capture for decades. He does have a lot of sympathisers to his cause…”

“And now he’s here,” Grant said, “It’s not as if you could request the Indian government to assist.”

The conflicts between India and Pakistan over the shared lands of Jammu-Kashmir were nothing new, and the hostilities dated all the way back to 1947. The two countries had fought three major wars and one undeclared war, and had also engaged in numerous armed skirmishes and military standoffs, with the Kashmir conflict serving as the catalyst for every war between the two states.

It was safe to say, that even though the two countries weren’t engaged in an open conflict for the moment, the cold relationship that existed could hardly be called, ‘friendly.’

“It is fortunate that I do not have to, since you’re here.” Ashkani flashed a self-deprecating smile before raising an inquiring eyebrow, “But I must ask. Does the Indian government know you’re here?”

“As you can see, Major, we like to keep a low profile,” Grant replied lightly.

Section 20 did not, in fact, have the authorisation to set up on Indian soil. But that was the nature of their outfit by mandate. They were a deniable unit. If discovered, the British government would never acknowledge their existence. There would be no cavalry riding to their rescue.

“Understandable,” Ashkani nodded and turned his attention to the live feeds of Royal Lotus, “Do you know why Latif is here?”

“Not as yet,” Grant said.

“What about you?” Sinclair asked, “Have you heard any chatter from Pakistani intelligence? Anything that might lead the two countries towards a new conflict?”

“Nothing as bold as such, no,” Ashkani admitted, “But there’s been an increase in the propaganda broadcasts. Latif’s been publicly laying claim to most of the attacks that’s been happening along our Afghan border.”

“We managed to decode some of his communications,” Sinclair said, “That’s how we found out about his plans here.”

“That’s quite clever. I’m glad you’re making such rapid progress,” Ashkani nodded at Julia’s station, where she was monitoring the facial scans. “I see you running facial recognition software. Do you have a reference to compare the images against?” Then he handed the file he had with until then, to the Colonel. “It is embarrassing that we do not have anything close to identifiable than these surveillance images taken almost a decade ago.”

“Thank you,” Grant said, and after a quick look, she handed it to Julia. “We’ll see what we can clean up.”

It was a classified ISI file on Latif. The images were black and white, and of rather poor quality. Julia didn’t have much hope for them producing a useful reference, even as she proceeded to scan the total of six photos anyway.

“I apologise that it’s not much.”

“Every bit helps,” Grant said reassuringly, “Besides, you’re our best bet at identifying any of his known associates. That way we can direct our agents on the inside towards them.”

“Oh?” That caught Ashkani’s attention. He scanned the live feeds again as if trying to see if he could spot them, “You have people at the site already?”

“One of them had a brief encounter with Latif a few years back,” Sinclair nodded, “He can make a visual ID.”

Ashkani flashed a broad smile, visibly relieved. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day, Major.”

En Route to Royal Lotus
New Delhi
India

Meanwhile

“Look, it’s going to be fine,” John said, “Two pairs of eyes are better than one.”

They were driving in a white Land Rover SUV, seamlessly blending in with the majority of the traffic on the highway leading towards the capital.

“I don’t like leaving a job half done.” Michael shrugged. His gaze, hidden behind a pair of dark shades, resolutely stayed fixed on the road.

John nodded, taking extra care to keep his smile internal. Michael’s military discipline had kept him from openly arguing against Colonel Grant’s direct orders. The new head of the Section 20 had debriefed John over the comms for all of two minutes before ordering him to check in at Royal Lotus and join the ground team to look for Latif. Michael was to go straight to the mobile command centre and unload the gear – the weapons and the laptops he had found at the insurgent lair. Grant didn’t want him in the hotel premises just yet, instead stationed at the Crib to be deployed as backup only if needed.

John had been surprised at her decision at first, until Michael had reluctantly explained how he was still attached to the military full time, and that he had undertaken the job to come after John during what was effectively his shore leave. Unlike the Section 20’s staff and contractors, who already had their lives and careers purged from all global systems to the point that they were practically ghosts, Michael’s personal and professional details were still in the system in all their unredacted glory, available to the authorised parties with access. If his presence were to be discovered by the Indian government for any reason, especially involved in a highly unauthorised, undisclosed manhunt, it would add a whole new bureaucratic nightmare to an already complicated mess.

Even though he was well aware of his precarious position, the trained operator in Michael had a hard time reconciling with staying behind the lines.

John understood his irritation. He even shared his reservations. It had been three absolutely crazy days on the roads, making their long, arduous journey through half of Pakistan to the middle of India. They had been on the run for their lives, with the inescapable threat that they were in an enemy territory where anybody could turn on them at any time without warning, hanging above their heads.

Yet, the constant state of danger had been nothing compared to the sense of camaraderie John had felt – the sense of accomplishment that came with working, fighting and surviving shoulder to shoulder with someone he knew he could finally fully trust to have his back. It was something John had lost more than seven years ago, something he had never thought he would experience again, until Michael had wandered into what he had accepted as the last moments of his life with absolutely perfect timing.

“What do you mean?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at Michael, “You got us out of that hellhole and all the way here. To be honest, it was one of the neatest rescue operations I’ve ever seen or been on in my life.”

It was the truth. Michael had indeed arrived well prepared. The weapons cache he had revealed had made John wonder if the crazy bastard had actually raided a military base before his rescue. He also had enough cash for them to change the ride three times, and spend the nights in decent hotels that had room service and hot water. The kid also knew the language, and spoke to the locals like a native, catching most of them by surprise, making a lot of transactions and negotiations feel rather easy.

“Yeah, exactly,” said Michael, sparing a quick glance at him, “You’re nowhere near a hundred percent operational–”

“Hey–”

Despite his protest, John knew Michael had a point. His torso was black and blue under the layers of medical tape, and the painkillers could only do so much to dull the pain. Other than that, most of the still-healing cuts, bruises and scrapes littered all over his body were superficial injuries. Bryant’s recruits had known how to inflict agony without dishing out permanent damage.

His headache – from all the drugs and possible trauma during his abduction by Latif’s people – was all but gone. And his head was clear. For what Grant had ordered him to do, John thought he was in more than adequate shape.

“Don’t give me that look,” Michael cut him off, “You know I’m right. I’m not blind. You walk in there, catch a bullet in between your eyes, that’s going to put a stain on the neat job I spent fucking months on. It’s going to look bad on my file.”

None of it was going on in any file, they both knew that. It was rather obvious that it was Michael’s creative way of expressing his concern about John walking into a potentially hairy situation without Michael to watch him back. After years spent drowning in guilt, blame and self-recrimination, John wasn’t used to that kind of genuine concern from anyone on his own side.

“I’m strictly on recon,” he snorted, not letting any of his thoughts show in his expression, “You heard the Colonel. Besides, I know Scott. He’s not a bad guy to have at your six.”

“You sure we’re talking about the same guy?” Michael asked sceptically, not willing to let go of it just yet, “The same Scott who was dishonourably discharged from the military just before operation ‘Iraqi Freedom’? The same guy Marshall had to fish out of some underground fighting ring back in Malaysia? That guy?”

“The whole business with Kenneth Bratton–” John sighed, casting his mind back to the same memories Bryant had stirred in him only a few days back, “We all knew something funny was going on. Delta was in charge of his personal security while our teams were on the perimeter. Scott had access to the guy in a way we didn’t.”

“Did he find something?”

“I’m not sure,” John admitted, “A couple of weeks after the raid, he was gone. Recalled back home. I only heard much later that they found him guilty on illegal substance possession charges. I always thought the timing was suspicious as hell.”

“John,” Michael said quietly, “just because of what happened to you, that doesn’t mean anyone who got kicked out from service had that happen to them unfairly. How well did you know him anyway?”

“Well enough,” John said. Michael had a point. But John also had a unique perspective of how little control you had over things when they took a wrong turn, “Look, I don’t obviously know the whole story, but what happened to me kind of makes me want to listen to the other side before jumping to conclusions.”

Michael accepted his reasoning with a wordless nod. John didn’t know him well enough to gauge whether his silence was a form of agreement or a response to John’s words having struck a guilty spot.

They took a sharp left turn, exciting the highway when a massive sign on the side of the road declared that the hotel was only two kilometres ahead.

“Look at this way,” John grinned when Michael brought the vehicle to a stop at the entrance of Royal Lotus, “If it all goes to hell, you get the chance to play the hero again. Another shiny new accolade on your file. So cheer up.”

The Crib
Section 20
New Delhi – India

Meanwhile…

Imran let out a quiet sigh, and leaned back on his chair. So far, the database of the British intelligence network failed to pinpoint his associates. They were also doing the same thing the 20’s agents at the target location were doing:

Conducting reconnaissance on a target.

The only difference was that his people knew exactly who they were looking for.

He’d had reservations about using his newest recruits for the job initially, but now it seemed like the decision had paid off. Contrary to their claims, the information the British already had on his network was way too extensive. They already had detailed files on more than twenty of his close associates, although they were still highly unaware of the fact.

It didn’t really matter, he supposed. This unit wasn’t going to pose much of a threat to him or his plans for much longer.

They had already been kind enough to invite him into the heart of their operation, just as he had known they would. What better candidate to use other than a Pakistani spy already based in India to hunt a Pakistani terrorist? Especially when the Indian government had no clue that there was a game of cat and mouse happening in the middle of their damned country, with the lives of many innocent, blessedly ignorant civilians at stake.

The only slight concern he had was their claim about the man who could identify him. Imran had always had a goal, and he had set off on his path a long time ago, knowing full well that his rise to power would be inevitable. He had known that even when Zahir Sharq had enjoyed the perks of his short-lived regime as yet another obedient dog for the Americans.

It had always been Imran’s call to lead his people, to bring back the greatness his nation had lost to all the usurpers over the years. He didn’t do any of it for his own gains, profits or personal glory. His faith in his vision, and the determination for a bright future for his country was what drove him.

To that end, he had been meticulous about his plans, his message, his presence, and about the like-minded people he had chosen to invite into his inner circle. Apart from those trusted few advisors, thinkers, planners and investors, he had made sure no one else knew who he was.

He was an unknown entity to even most of his own forces. He had always made sure that no one knew his identity until he chose to reveal it when the time was right.

If the Brits had someone who could identify him with certainty, Imran had to make sure that man died along with the rest of the unit.

Lost in thought, he almost missed the new arrival that walked into the Royal Lotus lobby.

The man was tall, dressed in jeans, a shirt, a jacket and tactical boots. The civilian attire failed to hide the purposeful way he moved, or the way his trained gaze found the surveillance cameras mounted around the reception.

Even though he had only caught a glimpse of the man’s face – with much longer, scraggly hair and a full beard covering his bruised and battered face – Imran had no trouble identifying the same defiant glance that stared back at him through the giant screen.

It was John Porter. The Spy.

“Everything okay, sir?” That was Sergeant Richmond, the unit’s communications specialist.

“Of course,” he said, not bothering to school his surprise that had drawn her attention to him. He nodded at the feed, and made sure to add the right amount of curiosity and awe to his next few words, “I might be mistaken, but isn’t that the same man who almost died in Latif’s recent broadcast?”

His people had made sure to broadcast it freely after all. He was more than certain the Inter-Services Intelligence had seen the short clip before the video cut off abruptly.

“You’ve got a good eye. That’s John Porter,” Richmond said, and addressed the spy through the communications network. “Sergeant, this is Zero, check in.”

“Bravo…One,” the man winked at them through the camera, “Reporting for duty.”

Imran heard the cocky reply through the headset. He had been granted access in case he had to direct the other two agents – Captain Kate Marshall and contractor Damien Scott – towards any other insurgents he happened to notice.

“I thought his rescue team would have taken him back to the United Kingdom?” He asked probingly to see if either Richmond or Colonel Grant, who was standing behind Richmond’s station, would oblige, “He looked rather terrible in the video clip.”

“Under normal circumstances, he would have,” Grant said, taking the bait easily, “but we needed him here. He’s the only other Westerner who can make a positive ID. Scott and Porter were both involved in a raid when Latif was back in Iraq.”

“You’re incredibly lucky to have them,” he said pleasantly, hiding his internal disappointment with a smile. He hadn’t even known! “Latif made sure to eliminate a lot of people to keep his identity a secret.” Evidently I had missed a crucial few. But, by God’s grace, I’m in the right place at the right time to take care of that grave oversight.

Going after that US transport had been cousin Anwar’s idea. Imran had been sceptical, voicing his thoughts that it could be a trap. But Anwar had insisted that he trusted Ram, his inside man who provided translation services to the American base.

It could have been a good distraction, if the plan had worked out the way it was supposed to. Instead, Anwar was now dead.

By the time the reinforcements had reached the location, the spy had already disappeared. An unavoidable disadvantage of running a highly compartmentalised network, Imran supposed. He mourned the loss of a close family member. It was the nature of the path they had all chosen, and everyone had to make sacrifices, even though sometimes those sacrifices only served as terrible lessons to the others.

Imran took comfort in the fact that, in the end, nothing had really changed. His plan was still working as he had intended, and John Porter had already walked right in to face the consequences of his actions.

He hardly needed any more proof that he was doing God’s work.

“Porter,” Grant said, “Glad to see you’ve made it in one piece.”

“Yeah, me too.”

On the screen, Imran watched the female agent making a loud and enthusiastic show of greeting him like an old friend. The other agent, Scott, was still sitting in the bar, seemingly getting drunk on Section 20’s dime.

Imran felt his phone vibrate once against his leg from inside his pocket. The time was 11:15 in the morning. That was the signal. He took the phone out and pressed a single key to send the pre-set message of confirmation.

Just a few more minutes, he thought to himself, maintaining a facade of polite interest while the Colonel continued to brief their new arrival, and then this will all be mine.

Chapter 8

Royal Lotus
New Delhi
India

11:53 Hours/Local

“Another refill?” The pretty bartender winked.

Holding his nearly empty glass, Damien considered. It was his third. He wasn’t drunk by any stretch of the word, but his face was rather warm, and there was a slight buzz building inside his skull that would soon gain the ability to override what was left of his critical thinking abilities, memory, instincts and reflexes if allowed free reign.

Besides, there were only about twenty people in the bar, and none of them had caught his attention the way the other woman had. The old couple at the table next to the emergency exit, the group of dishevelled young women who looked like they’ve been there since last night, the bunch of men in the far corner lost under a thick cloud of cigar smoke…none of them showed any suspicious signs enough to set off alarms in is brain.

He had no real reason to justify sitting there getting drunk for any longer.

“Nah, I think I’m good.” Damien said, making up his mind to finish what he had and go for a walk. It would do him good to get an idea how the blueprints of the hotel he had studied translated into reality. “Thank you.”

He signed the bill she produced, and grinned at her cheerfully when she bid him to drop by again soon. The double wooden doors at the end of the short, narrow hallway deposited him straight into the bright sunshine. The time spent in the cosy, dark setting of the bar had made him forget that it was still mid morning. Damien hissed and squeezed his eyes shut when a headache that had been silent until then flared to life inside his skull with a shriek.

The pool was to his right. The entirely-too-bright light made the water look white and gold instead of soothing blue, leaving black spots in his vision every time he blinked. The breeze was too warm and humid, making him break out in a sweat that had his clothes clinging to him in seconds.

It took immense willpower not to turn on his heel and run back inside the bar again, and stay there until the evening came around.

He was halfway along the long-winding open hallway towards the elevator when an impossible voice through his comms stopped him dead in his tracks.

“Your attention please…Bravos.”

What the fuck?

“Zero?”

“Guess again, Sergeant Porter.”

That couldn’t fucking be. Could it?

Marshall and Porter stayed silent over the net, caught utterly off guard just as Damien was.

“This is Latif, and yes, your Crib is now under my command,” the slightly-accented voice in his ear went on cooly, “I advise the three of you to listen carefully. You do not want your colleagues here to pay for your insubordination, do you?”

“Neat trick,” Marshall managed to snap out of their collective shock first, “So you’ve hacked our comms. If you think you can–”

Her words were cut off by a sudden sharp sound that couldn’t be anything but a gunshot. A cacophony of screams and yells erupted in the background, which was quickly and efficiently silenced by a few sharp commands.

“That was technical analyst Harrison,” Latif’s calm voice came back on the line, “He’s dead. There are six more analysts, your armourer Stanford, communications specialist, Sergeant Richmond, Major Sinclair and your commander, Colonel Grant. That’s ten more people who will die every time you try to question my orders. Also, Captain Marshall, you’re in the Royal Lotus’ lobby right now with Sergeant Porter. Mr Scott is glaring at me through a security camera near the elevator by the main pool. Do you require more proof?”

“How do we know they’re still alive?” Damien muttered through clenched teeth, making sure no one could see him talking to himself, “You could have already killed them all. Those screams could have belonged to anyone.”

His mind raced through possible scenarios. So far, it was safe to assume that Latif had successfully taken the mobile command centre hostage. The fact that he was on the comms, telling them about it meant that Latif had a different agenda for the three of them.

“Good point, Mr Scott.”

“This is Grant,” the Colonel said a moment later, her voice tight with barely-controlled fury, “The Crib is compromised.”

“The fuck do you want, Latif?” Porter demanded.

“Finally, someone who understands the situation. For now, I’d like the three of you to meet up on the 12th floor, in the hallway of the right wing.”

Public areas, elevators, hallways and even the emergency stairwells. Latif would be able to see all their movements through the feeds. For the time being, it seemed that there was no choice but to follow along.

Damien was the last to arrive at the 12th floor. The narrow, carpeted hallway was bracketed by twin parallel lines of closed doors. He had no idea how many of the suites were occupied. Both Marshall and Porter stood a few feet away from him when Damien stepped out of the elevator.

“Not the kind of reunion I imagined, you old bastard,” Damien said in greeting as he walked over to them.

“Yeah. Tell me about it,” Porter muttered, his gaze fixed on the elevator and the stairs next to it while Marshall kept an eye on their six. “Feels like I walked out of the pan right into the fucking fire.”

“Gentlemen, and lady, say hello to your new team members.”

“The lift.” Porter jerked his head at the climbing numbers on the keypad affixed to the wall.

A few seconds later, the elevator doors opened to reveal two people; one was a dark-skinned man in his late forties. Dressed in a suit and tie paired with shining wingtips, he looked like a businessman.

The other one was the pretty bartender.

For a confusingly horrifying moment, Damien thought the man had taken her hostage. That was until he noticed the Glock she held in her hand, pointed to the floor.

She was still dressed in her uniform; a white shirt tucked inside the waistband of a short black skirt that hugged her figure. A pair of black stockings and black shoes completed the ensemble. The charming facade from earlier was completely gone, however, replaced by a cold, calculating gaze and a blank expression. She radiated the cool self-assurance of a trained killer.

“I suggest you hand over your weapons to your new friends.”

“Thank you, Scott.” She flashed a thin smile that had no warmth when Damien handed her the gun he had concealed in his waistband. He also had a knife in a sheath strapped to his ankle. Damien decided not to mention it unless they patted him down.

Porter surrendered his own weapon to the man. He took it and positioned himself to cover both Porter and Damien while the woman walked over to Marshall.

Instead of taking Marshall’s gun, she casually lifted her arm and fired. The Captain didn’t make a sound as a dark stain bloomed instantly over her chest, and her body crumpled to the carpeted floor with a muted thud. The Glock had a suppressor, yet the popping sound of the shot reverberated unnaturally loud in the silent hallway.

A rush of pure adrenaline broke Damien out of his momentary shock. Reflexes had him whirling around with a snarl at the woman, only to freeze in his step when her gun pointed at his direction.

“She’s dead, you fucking prick!” Porter’s voice shook with suppressed horror and fury. “Your psychopath killed her.”

He was on his knees next to Marshall’s unresponsive body. His right hand was pressed heavily over the bleeding wound while his left was on her neck, searching for a pulse that wasn’t there.

“I told you to hand over your weapons,” Latif reminded them calmly, his voice taking the tenor of a disappointed teacher rather than a terrorist, “Special Forces Operators are never without their tactical knives, are they? Disobedience has consequences. You had better learn the lesson fast. This day is hardly over.”

The man took both their knives and placed them in his own waistband.

“Remove her communications gear and give it to me.”

Porter spared a murderous glare at the woman before slowly lifting his blood soaked hand to detach the small, compact radio clipped to Marshall’s belt under her sodden shirt. He took it off and threw it at the terrorist’s feet.

“Third door down is open,” she picked it up along with the PC Marshall had dropped, and nodded at the row of doors to their right, “It’s a linen closet. I suggest you hide this body before we’re discovered by the housekeeping staff or another guest.”

Her tone implied that she wouldn’t think twice about disposing of anyone who had the misfortune to walk in on them. They weren’t going to take the risk of being discovered until they had fulfilled Latif’s wishes. It was clear to Damien that he and Porter had no other choice but to let themselves get roped into doing Latif’s dirty work if they wanted to keep the body count to a minimum.

He helped Porter drag the body and hide it. It was hardly an ideal solution, and it also trapped them in a tight time frame. The thick, dark brown carpet hid the fresh bloodstain but they had no way of making sure the linen closet would stay untouched for the rest of the day. It was only a matter of time until Marshall’s body was discovered by the housekeeping staff, followed soon by panic and chaos. The local police would arrive in the middle of that, surround and lock down the hotel without letting everyone in or out, declaring the entirety of the Royal Lotus as a crime scene.

Damien had a feeling Latif wanted them long gone before that happened.

“Ground rules,” Latif said once they were done, “Do not switch off the radios. Do not speak to other guests. Do not try to call for help and do not hesitate to follow my orders. Every time you fail to follow these instructions, someone here or there pays the price with their lives.”

Two Klick North of the Crib.
New Delhi
India

Meanwhile

A click through his earwig alerted Michael that the command channel had been activated.

“Your attention please…Bravos.”

Something in that unfamiliar voice sent a chill down his spine. Michael hit the brakes mid turn, and brought the Land Rover to halt on the side of the gravel road. He had just turned into the industrial area where the mobile command centre was set up. The town he was in was dedicated to warehouses, manufacturing plants and factories, most of them either closed down or abandoned. There was hardly any traffic on the small side road where he had just pulled over.

For the next few minutes, he didn’t make a sound, forcing himself to listen to how the Crib had been taken over by the very terrorist they had been hunting for the past three months.

“Not the kind of reunion I imagined, you old bastard.”

Michael assumed that was Scott, the former Delta Force operator.

“Feels like I walked out of the pan right into the fucking fire.”

No fucking shit. Michael barely held back the curse from slipping past his lips. It left a bitter taste in his mouth to realise that he had personally delivered the man he had just rescued to a whole new nightmare. If he hadn’t made a wrong turn earlier and wasted a few minutes searching for the correct turn off from the highway, Michael knew he would probably be on the other side of the same nightmare by then, as one of the hostages in the Crib.

The Section 20’s mobile command station travelled with a minimum crew. They were a covert, counter-terrorism unit, and as such they conducted their operations in secret, even from the government of the very country they were in. Always set up near the target location, the Crib’s main task was to provide intel, round the clock surveillance, tactical updates, storage and a temporary base of operations. To that end, the Crib was equipped with the latest tech, all-time access to satellite telemetry, radio and electronic communications and a decent cache of untraceable weapons.

What the Crib glaringly lacked was its own security force. Since they highly relied on stealth, an attention-drawing entourage of armed guards was never a part of its set-up.

Michael had no clue how Latif had found out their location, or how he had managed to take control so completely and efficiently without raising a single alarm.

“Disobedience has consequences,” Latif’s cold voice followed in the wake of the second death that happened over the course of mere minutes. “You had better learn the lesson fast. This day is hardly over.”

Michael didn’t know the analyst, or the Captain who just died. Yet, he felt their unexpected loss deeply just the same. It was a struggle to stay quiet and listen, and he held onto the wheel with a white–knuckled grip to battle the sense of helplessness that threatened to overwhelm him.

He knew that John and Scott weren’t doing any better. Neither of them said anything while Latif continued to lay down the law. They were effectively pawns in the game, and they had no choice but to do as they were told unless they wanted to be responsible for more swift deaths.

“Alright, now what?” Scott snapped after Latif guided them to the fifteenth floor.

“Now, you’re going to find a very special lady for me,” Latif said, sounding more and more like a game show host every passing second. With all the technology, access, power and leverage the Crib had to offer, he sounded very much in control, and vaguely enjoying himself. “Her name is Iman Zubedah. She will respond to the code name, ‘Mahmoud.’”

“Why don’t you find her yourself, asshole?” Scott’s low growl echoed over the net, “You’ve got access to the system. How the fuck are we supposed to find one woman among hundreds of people?”

“Oh, I know where she is,” Latif said. “And I’ll lead you to her. Besides, I think this meeting will go quite smoothly, seeing as you’ve had a scintillating conversation with lovely Mrs. Zubedah already.”

Michael had no idea who that was, or how the ex-operator had already found a way to complicate the situation. But, for the moment, it was their problem. Latif had eyes and ears on the ground. In addition to the hostages he already had, there were civilians who could become collateral damage the moment he sensed a disruption to his plans.

The Crib, however, was another matter.

After listening to all the communications for more than a few minutes, one thing was clear: Latif didn’t know about Michael. It was a window of opportunity – a small and very unpredictable window that could close with disastrous consequences the moment Latif discovered the extra pair of ears listening in. Yet, Michael had a better chance of approaching the Crib without being discovered than he had with the Royal Lotus. He had to assume that Latif would have his own armed men guarding the location. He would have to do it with fewer numbers, since a sudden influx of traffic in an empty, desolate region wouldn’t go unnoticed for too long.

The Crib couldn’t risk getting discovered by the Indian authorities, but then again, nor could Latif. That gave Michael an edge.

With his mind made up on his choice of target, Michael started the engine.

The Crib
New Delhi
India

Meanwhile

“What are the odds that this is the right Latif?” Major Sinclair asked in a low voice, trying not to attract the attention of their minders, “According to Porter, the man who tried to execute him also called himself Latif.”

“And now he’s got both Porter and Scott caught in his trap,” Colonel Grant hissed, narrowing her eyes at the tall figure bent over one of the workstations. “Unless they manage to get the hell out, chances are we’ll never know.”

All ten of them were seated on the floor, their wrists restrained behind them with zip ties. Two of Latif’s men stood watching over them from a few feet’s distance, their rifles pointed at them as a constant reminder of the frankly unbelievable turn the things had taken.

Latif had five men inside. The remaining three were seated at the workstations. One was assisting Latif with monitoring the feeds, while another was glowering at the results of the cloning software he was running on Julia’s station. The third one seemed to be monitoring the comms, both the hijacked command network and a separate network that connected Latif to his own men. They had no idea how many men he had placed outside, guarding the entry.

The guy who wasn’t having that much of luck with Julia’s station turned around, and said something in their own language. Julia didn’t need to understand the words to parse out the meaning behind his visible frustration.

Latif walked over to them with a smile. “My analyst tells me that all the data in your hard drives are corrupted. That you’ve managed to activate some sort of an emergency measure,” his gaze swept over the Colonel, the Major and finally Julia. “It was clever. One of you must have acted very quickly to do so within seconds. I must commend your diligence,” he lost his smile then, and his expression sharpened. Julia thought the pure hatred she saw flashing in his eyes was just a trace of his true feelings towards them in general. “Unfortunately, this is only going to make the lives of your colleagues that much harder.”

At his nod, one of the armed men slung his rifle across his shoulder before taking a few steps forward. Amidst all their loud protests, he hauled the armourer, Corporal Stanford, by her arm to her feet.

Harrison’s corpse was to their right, propped up against the crimson-stained wall next to the servers. A pool of dried blood darkened the floor around him. Latif’s man dragged Stanford towards the same wall and turned her around to face them before taking his place in front of her. Then he aimed his rifle straight at her skull just the way he had done with Harrison earlier.

God, please, Julia ducked her head, closing her eyes and prayed, not again!

When she had heard the first burst of gunfire that had frozen everyone in shock, Julia had reacted purely on reflex, letting her training take over. While Ashakani – Latif – had drawn out his gun to point at the Colonel, she had used those precious seconds to release the virus with a few rapid keystrokes before she had been dragged out of her station.

Julia had done her job. She had cut the Crib completely off from the HQ back in Whitehall. She had ensured that their hijackers had no way of accessing any intelligence other than what they had in hand at the Crib. Knowing that didn’t stop her from feeling bile rise in her throat when another of her colleagues was about to pay for it with her life.

“Wait! Damn it, just fucking wait!” The Colonel’s roar made her open her eyes. Grant was on her feet, glaring at Latif, paying no heed to the rifle the other guard was aiming at her head, “What do you want?”

“Everything you have on Project Dawn, of course,” Latif said, “And all human and electronic intelligence you have on the Afghan/Pakistan border region. I want personal files, surveillance images, physical/psychological analysis reports, your intelligence projections on future conflicts, information about supplies, funding, locations, tactics…Colonel Grant, I want it all.”

Julia exchanged a surreptitious glance with the Major who was staring up at the Colonel and the terrorist. She couldn’t help but feel that Latif knew way too much about their operations and standards of procedures.

If the Colonel had noticed the same thing, she didn’t outwardly show it. Instead, she continued to look down at Latif, an admirable feat considering she was almost a foot shorter than his towering frame.

“As you’re well aware, we are a deniable unit,” she said in a scathing tone, “As such, there are fail safes in place when something highly-unlikely as this happens. We do not maintain any connection to our HQ when we’re mobile. We carry everything we need with us, and when the safety measures are activated, everything – I mean, everything, is wiped clean. So none of our intel falls into hands like yours. There’s nothing I can do to retrieve what’s already been lost.”

She stood straight. Her gaze never wavered, letting the fury in her eyes shine the light of truth to the bold lie she uttered without missing a beat.

“The only way you can get what you want is by going back to London, and taking over Whitehall itself,” she continued, “You can kill everyone here, and I still won’t be able to give you what you want. So if you must put a bullet in someone’s head, do it to me, because the end result is never going to change.”

Latif didn’t say a thing, and he held the Colonel’s gaze with a searching one of his own, taking his time gauging her words. It was a torturous moment suspended in time, shrouded in a heavy silence only broken by the faint hum of the equipment and the strained, hiccuping breaths of Stanford whose fate hung in the balance.

“Very well.” Latif said quietly after what felt like a lifetime.

Julia did her best not to make any noticeable sounds other than expelling a long, relieved exhale. She hadn’t even realised she stopped breathing, waiting for the decision.

“Alright, we’re here.” Porter’s irritated voice came loudly through the speakers just as Latif’s man pushed Stanford back on the floor where she had been sitting earlier, drawing everyone’s attention back to the Royal Lotus. “15th floor. Room 1504. What do you want from this Zubedah woman?”

“You better get it through to your head right now, Latif,” Scott added determinedly, “I’m not killing any innocent people for you.”

“I assure you, hurting her is the last thing I want,” Latif sauntered back to stand in front of the main screen. Through the live feed, they could all see both Porter and Scott standing in front of a closed door, both of them staring straight at the camera that was four doors down to their left. “It’s merely a negotiation. She has something I want and I have something she needs. You are there to make sure the transaction happens the way it should.”

“Why make things unnecessarily complicated?” The Major pointed out with a barely-audible murmur, “He already has people inside. Why the need to have Scott and Porter involved at all?”

“To get rid of the only two people who could identify him?” The Colonel speculated just as quietly, “To pin it on them when something goes wrong? The two of them will make a great patsy if the Indian authorities show up in the middle of whatever he’s planning on doing.”

Her theory made sense. If Porter and Scott were to get apprehended by the authorities, after anything ranging from a kidnapping to homicide, Section 20 would have a hard time explaining the situation, let alone getting them out. They had to hope that the two of them would find a way to make themselves scarce the moment an opportunity presented itself. Preferably before whatever Iman Zubedah had in her possession fell into Latif’s clutches.

As things stood, they only had one wild card in the wind: Bravo One.

After Latif had taken over, Julia had discreetly changed the setting to the override command channel before handing over the communications as she had been ordered. As long as everyone, including Sergeant Stonebridge, had their radios on, they all heard Latif loud and clear.

From his previous conversation with the Colonel, Julia knew he was under the impression that Porter had been rescued by a team, and that the Sergeant had made his way to India on his own. The Colonel never bothered to correct him.

As far as Latif was concerned, he had everything and everyone under his complete control.

If he had been listening, Stonebridge would be aware of the wholly unexpected screw up they all found themselves in, and that he was the only one who had managed to avoid getting stuck in the same trap. That gave him freedom to make his own tactical decisions.

He had already proved himself to be damned good at time-consuming, covert operations. Julia had seen his service records, and she knew this was the first time he had been deployed on a rescue mission with hardly any intel, minimal support and without the structure of a team the way the SBS operatives usually went downrange. Yet he had got the job done without making a single blip on any radars.

Julia didn’t know the man enough to guess whether he would decide to go after Porter and Scott, or make a move to take back the Crib. All she could do was fervently hope that whichever choice he made, he would do it soon, before any more innocent people died, or that whatever devastation Latif had planned came to fruition.

Suite 1504 – Royal Lotus
New Delhi
India

Meanwhile

Damien knocked on the door and waited. A few seconds later, he sensed movement, a flash of darkness when the stranger – Iman – probably checked the peephole on the door to see who her unexpected visitor was.

There was a faint rattle of a metal chain, followed by a soft snick. The door opened to reveal an angry, dishevelled woman. A cloud of alcohol fumes hit Damien in the face the next moment, letting him know that she had continued her drinking binge in her suite.

Not surprising, he supposed, taking in the way subtle tremors seemed to shake her entire body as she stood there. Considering that someone like Latif had gotten his invisible claws into her, he couldn’t fault her choice of coping mechanism.

“This is hardly–”

“Iman Zubedah?” Damien cut her off, “Mahmoud?”

“Oh, my God!”

She went pale at the name, and stumbled a few steps back, blindly flinging an arm to the side to brace herself against the wall. Damien had to consciously rein in the instinct to steady her. Her entire reaction said that his touch would be the last thing that would bring comfort in her situation.

A bit more of the room was visible now that Zubedah wasn’t blocking the view. It looked just as unkempt as its sole occupant. The sheets hung on a messy, crumpled pile on the edge of bed. Two of the pillows were on the floor, along with a few discarded clothes and a single shoe. A tray of hardly-touched food sat on a bedside table, next to a neat line of miniature bottles that couldn’t have come from anywhere but the minibar.

“Listen, ma’am–”

“No!” She flinched and drew further back into the room unsteadily when Porter stepped inside.

“Hey, hey, Iman, listen–” Damien tried, softening his voice, “Listen to me, please.”

“Get the hell away from me,” she snarled and almost tripped over the shoe in her haste to put some distance between them. “How could you–”

She seemed to be losing her sanity by each passing second, and her inebriated state wasn’t helping. At least, Latif’s two goons – Zohra and Kareem – were content to stay outside, letting Damien and Porter handle the distraught woman.

“Listen,” Damien repeated, waving a hand to indicate himself and Porter, “This isn’t what you think it is. We didn’t…we’re in the same boat as you. Trust me, Zubedah, neither of us are doing this because we want to. We just have to.”

No names. No confessions. No details. You will tell her nothing but what I order you to tell her. Latif’s instructions rang in his head, reminding him exactly what was at stake.

“Look,” Porter added when she finally stopped her retreat and blinked wearily at them, “we want this done as quickly and as painlessly as possible. Now, the information. Do you have it?”

She stayed silent. Her gaze – finally a little clear of the drunken haze – darted over Porter and Damien. He saw her noticing the blood stains on Porter and the guns they both held, pointed to the ground. It didn’t take long for her terror and confusion to morph into unbridled fury.

She had no way of knowing that neither of them had any bullets in their magazines. Or that they were being coerced just as her. For her, they were the ones responsible for ruining her life.

“You think I’m stupid?” She snarled, “You’re getting nothing from me until I see my son and my husband. That was the deal.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

Damien exchanged a glance with Porter, who wore the same grimace Damien knew was contorting his own face. So that was what Latif had on her. They had no idea how the bastard had taken her family. Or what she had in her possession so valuable to him to justify going to such lengths.

Worse, they couldn’t even ask.

“They are safe. In fact, they are in a building only three klicks from here,” Damien said, repeating the instructions Latif conveyed over the comms, “But before we take you to them, we need to know you’re going to deliver.”

“Fine,” she spat, and whirled around to walk over to the closet which was only a few feet to her left. Typing in a four-digit code, she opened the safe that was tucked on top of a shelf, and took out a thumb drive. “Here.” She slapped it against Damien’s open palm with force, “It’s useless without me. Only I know the password. The moment you enter the wrong code, everything in it gets wiped. You don’t get any do-overs.”

“That’s okay,” Porter muttered, following Latif’s next few instructions, “You’re coming with us. Once you’ve seen your husband and kid, you’re going to open this for us. If you try to screw us over, you’ll also be able to see the insides of their skulls.”

The threat, which Porter delivered in monotone, had the desired effect. It killed whatever courage she had found to face them. Fresh tracks of tears stained her cheeks as she silently walked out of the room with the two of them following at her heels.

Only Zohra was waiting outside of the room, leaning against the wall with a bored look on her face. When she saw them, she flashed another smirk.

“Kareem went to bring our ride around to the entrance, sir,” she said, making it look like she was their henchman, and trailed along behind them as they led Mahmoud towards the elevator.

Chapter 9

The Crib

12:35 Hours/Local

Michael lay flat on the ground about three hundred metres southeast to the Section 20’s temporary base, with a pair of binoculars trained on his visible targets. The shrubs grown on the side of the gravel road that stretched parallel to the building on the east side provided him some cover.

It was the third and last check he needed to do to round up his perimeter recon.

The old, abandoned warehouse where the Crib had been set up, was a squat, single-story building that stood in the middle of an empty yard. It had a six-foot tall razor wire mesh fence wrapped around it, with only one gate on the south end for an entrance.

There were four guards outside: two at the gate, one at the front door to the building and the other at the back, guarding the exit. All of them were dressed in military camouflage uniforms and face covers, geared up fully with tac vests, rifles, handguns, extra magazines, radios, and helmets. To any civilian observer, they were meant to appear as the soldiers of the Indian military, discouraging any unwarranted curiosity or audience.

The two entry points to the building had identical steel reinforced doors that were closed and locked. The roller shutter door on the west wall wasn’t guarded, which meant it was either a storage area or a garage. There were a number of security cameras affixed to the corners of the walls and the flat roof, making sure the entire 360-degree view around the base was well monitored.

There were two SUVs parked next to the front door. Their tinted windows, dark colours and the absence of number plates added another layer to the facade that some sort of a military operation was underway inside the building.

Unless the actual Indian military got involved, Michael had a feeling Latif had more than enough experience and credentials to even convince the local police that he was conducting a legit operation.

The building had a few strategically placed ventilation ducts in lieu of windows. So he had no way of setting up a convenient sniper perch and picking the bastards out one by one. Even worse, the building had sturdy brick and cement walls, preventing the use of the thermal scope to get an idea of the interior layout.

As far as he could tell, Section 20 had also placed four men to guard the facility, but all of them were already dead. The stains on the ground near the gate and the walls near the two closed doors of the building were still fresh.

That brought the bodycount of the day to six.

Altogether, there were four guards, Latif and however many men he had inside with him for Michael to neutralise, all the while making sure the ten remaining hostages didn’t get caught in the crossfire.

His ideal solution would have been to wait until nightfall and use the cover of darkness to try and stealthily infiltrate the facility. But the situation with John and Scott tied his hands, and he needed to take the Crib back before Latif’s deal with Mahmoud concluded, and their usefulness ended.

“Get in.” He heard Zohra, the woman who now had Captain Marshall’s radio, snapping at someone through the net.

“Where are we going?” another female voice in the background demanded in a shaky voice. Michael realised that was Latif’s target, Mahmoud.

“Somewhere we can conduct the rest of the business in peace,” Zohra replied, “out of sight of all these people.”

They were leaving the Royal Lotus. From their previous conversation with Mahmoud, Michael knew that her family was kept in a safehouse about three kilometres away from the hotel. Depending on the daytime traffic, it would take about fifteen to twenty minutes for them to arrive at the destination. It wouldn’t take more than the same amount of time to force Mahmoud to unlock the drive, and verify the information she delivered. After that, Latif would order his men to either dispose of all three of them, or set up the scene in a way to make it appear that John and Scott were responsible for a kidnapping, or even murder.

His countdown had just started. Michael needed to come up with an attack plan before the time ran out.

That left him with only one viable tactical option: Shock and Awe.

En Route to Latif’s Safehouse

Meanwhile

Inside the car, Kareem sat at the wheel while Zhora claimed the passenger seat. That left John and Scott to ride in the backseat with Zubedah sandwiched in the middle.

The road was jam packed due to lunch time traffic, the sounds of angry yelling, insistent horns and squealing brakes loud even inside the air conditioned interior of the vehicle. They moved slowly at about 30 kmph, along with the never-ending line of cars, cabs, tuk-tuks and buses.

John used the momentary reprieve from the series of unexpected and horrifying events to think through their situation. There were few things that were obvious:

Whatever was inside Zubedah’s USB, it could not get into Latif’s hands.

They had to figure out a way to save her husband and her son from Latif’s men in order to get her on their side.

They had to do it in a way that wouldn’t get any more Section 20’s people killed.

They had a chance, a small one. It all depended on Michael.

John knew he and Scott could take down a few gunmen, and for that, they needed freedom of movement – a window that would only open when Michael made his move on the Crib.

Latif had hijacked the command centre within a few minutes of John’s arrival at the Royal Lotus, and when he had rattled off the names of the hostages, Michael’s name was never mentioned. It gave him hope that Michael was in the wind, already aware that the entire mission was compromised.

He refused to consider the alternative.

To his immediate left, Zubedah’s thin frame was rigid, her hands clasped together tightly and stuck between her knees. She refused to look at either of them, and continued to stare through the windshield with bloodshot eyes.

Scott was pressed against the left door. He kept his gun in his grip, resting it on his left thigh while the fingers of his right hand tapped a fast, staccato rhythm on his right knee. It took John a few seconds to realise it wasn’t exactly a nervous tic.

The series of light taps was on a loop, with a three-second break between each set: Morse code for, ‘B One.’

Bravo One.

He stilled his hand when he saw John had noticed.

“How’d you get here?” Scott asked, smiling with a knowing glint when both Kareem and Zohra glanced sharply at him through the rearview mirror. They were paying attention to his words, not his hands. “Last I saw you, you were about to stop a bullet with your forehead.”

It was a clear invitation to divert attention.

“I’m also curious,” Latif interjected, “How did you escape?”

“I got lucky.” John shrugged, thinking furiously.

His memories of the last day he spent at the US base was a blur, hidden behind the dull ache that still lingered with his fading concussion. He had a vague memory of being hauled into the back of the transport, not handcuffed and head-covered the way they usually did. He had been weak and uncoordinated enough, there really hadn’t been the need to restrain him.

Maybe there had been an ulterior motive as well. To make him seem like part of the US team, not a prisoner.

In other words, a bait for Latif.

“Who came to your aid?”

“A Spec Op team,” John said, keeping the details vague on purpose. He decided to use the opportunity to feed Latif’s sense of security, to make him feel confident that he had everything under control, “I had a tracker that my…captors missed. Then I was diverted here. You know why.”

“You were supposed to be a bait to lure me out,” Latif concluded, amused, “and now, you ended up becoming prey by walking right into my trap. From the frying pan, into the fire. Isn’t that how you say it?

Yeah, mate, pretty much. John thought sarcastically, not bothering to reply.

The rest of the ride continued in silence. About fifteen minutes of slogging through the traffic, Kareem made a sharp left turn that took them out of the highway into an isolated, gravel road. Small hills, valleys, rampantly-grown thickets and wild shrubs replaced the trappings of civilization as they drove deeper into the stretches of empty land. Even the road tapered out at some point, turning into a small footpath scattered with rocks, stones and potholes that required a lot of careful navigating.

A wooden shack with a corrugated sheet roof came into view a few minutes later, looking rather out of place in the middle of nowhere. It was an ideal place to commit multiple murder. There was not a soul within at least a ten-klick radius to hear a bomb explosion, let alone gunshots, and alert the authorities.

The two pickup trucks parked in front of it suggested that Latif had a few men guarding the hostages.

“Oh, we’re here already?” Scott said when Kareem pulled over next to the pickups. John knew it was mostly for Michael’s benefit. A subtle reminder that the time was running out for them. “Nice place.”

Zhora got out first, and opened the door on Scott’s side while Kareen did the same on John’s side. Zubedah climbed out after John, her movements slow and mechanical. He saw her taking in their empty surroundings for the first time with a sweeping gaze, and her breath hitched when she came to the same conclusion John had earlier.

“Gentlemen, if you please.”

“Come on, Iman,” Scott jerked his head at the closed door of the ramshackle hut at Latif’s command, “Let’s go see your husband and kid. Once you give us what we want, all of this will be over.”

The searing look she aimed at him said she didn’t believe a word of it. But she followed him along since there was no other choice. Kareem chose to stay outside while Zhora brought up the rear. With Scott in the lead, they all went inside through the narrow door in a single file.

The thick, nauseating scent of smoke, stale food and unwashed-bodies welcomed them as they stepped into the middle of the room. The interior of the shack was stiflingly cramped. Two worn-out sofas, a small dining table, two wooden chairs and a mini fridge were all crammed into the space of thirty square metres. To their immediate right, a narrow corridor extended further into the shack for about five metres before ending with a closed wooden door.

The lone gunman standing in front of it suggested that it was the room where Zubedah’s husband and son were being held.

There were three more of Latif’s men in the living room, two lounging on the sofa with their rifles resting on their knees while the third sat on a chair by the dining table. He had a laptop before him, and an expectant look in his face.

“Not before I see my family,” Zubedah’s voice shook as she spoke. “I need to see if they are still alive.”

Zhora stood next to John, and she nodded at the man guarding the door. He nodded back, and opened the door halfway. Through the gap, they were treated to the view of a mattress on the ground. On it, a man and child of about eight sat cross-legged next to each other. They were both gagged and their arms were twisted behind their backs, suggesting that they were restrained.

“There,” Zhora said when the man closed the door back. “Now it’s time for you to fulfil your end of the deal.”

Outside The Crib
New Delhi
India

Meanwhile

Michael was just starting the engine of his Rover when he heard Scott’s nonchalant exclamation through the comms.

“We’re here already? Nice Place.”

His time was up. He had to act.

He was parked about five hundred metres from the target, just out of sight of the guards. As he made the sharp left turn that took the Rover off the road, depositing it on the unpaved gravel that led straight to the Crib’s front gate, he pressed the first detonator he had in his left grip.

“Gentlemen, if you please.” Latif commanded.

The power transformer that was located two hundred and fifty metres to the east of the building blew up with a thunderous boom. Michael was treated to a blooming cloud of black smoke to his immediate right as he drove, which confirmed that the first part of his plan had worked.

Cut off from the main electrical power supply, the Crib was momentarily flying blind.

The critical systems such as surveillance feeds, satellite telemetry and communications would be hooked to an auxiliary power supply to make sure the operators weren’t left without support in case of an emergency. That gave Michael ten seconds before the generators kicked in to restore the power.

Speeding down the empty patch of land a little over a hundred kilometres an hour, he cleared the distance to the gate in less than five seconds.

The guards, frozen at the sight of the SUV barrelling down towards them, were slow to react. Michael saw them yelling as they brought their guns around to aim at him when they realised too late that he had no intention of stopping.

Michael didn’t have to bother much with the controls, since he had already rigged the accelerator to stay jammed to the floor. He shot the guard on the right through his open window as he kept the SUV targeted at the guard right behind the gate.

The wire-meshed gate crumpled under the vehicle without doing much to slow down its forward momentum, as did the guard who didn’t jump out of the way in time. Locking the steering, Michael left the SUV aimed straight at the closed front door of the building before jumping out. He landed on the rough ground in a roll, and slid to an abrupt stop next to one of the dead bodies.

Getting to his feet, Michael shot the remaining guard through the back of his neck before he could duck inside the building. He was halfway around the east side when the guard at the exit came running in the same direction to check out the sudden commotion.

Michael shot him before he could, and grabbed the rifle off of the crumpling body as he ran past him.

The SUV made a thunderous boom as it collided with the front door and wall, and Michael pressed the second detonator he had inside a pocket of his tac vest. The sound of the second explosion was much louder when the C4 rigged inside the SUV ignited, turning it into a massive wrecking ball on fire. A tremor ran through the ground with the pressure wave it released, causing the walls all around the building to vibrate and release clouds of dust.

Michael timed his shots at the lock on the back door along with that explosion. That way, when he entered the building, all the eyes and ears would be trained at the horrendous distraction in the opposite direction.

Latif’s Safehouse

“Here. Get to work.” the guy at the dining table snapped, turning the laptop around to face Zubedah.

The two lounging on the sofa stood up, and held their rifles in single-handed grips, pointed to the ground.

With a final longing glance at the closed door behind which her family was trapped, Zubedah walked over to the table with the USB held in a shaking hand.

“I, uh,” she stammered, leaning over to plug the drive in the port on the side of the laptop. “I need a minute.”

Her words were greeted by the two gunmen facing her, lifting their rifles to aim at her head. They were confident of their leader’s control enough, that neither of them even bothered with Scott or John.

“First password is to unlock,” Zubedah explained hurriedly when a prompt popped up in the otherwise dark screen. She typed a few keys rapidly before hitting the ‘enter’ key. Another window opened up with another request for a passcode. “The second is to open the compressed folders and the third is to decrypt the files.” She typed as she spoke. The third and the final prompt accepted her code without fanfare, dissolving into a long, horizontal bar that started turning green from the left end to the right at a rather sedated pace. Above the bar, a percentage appeared.

6% decrypted. One minute and thirty five seconds remaining…

“It’s a big file, with a lot of raw data,” she said, straightening back to face the man still seated at the table. “It’s going to take a few minutes.”

Good woman. John though, exchanging a quick glance with Scott. She had inadvertently brought them some time.

Scott gave a slight nod, and turned his glare back on the two armed men. John was standing closest to the corridor, with Zhora at his shoulder. At the first sign, he would take her down, and use her to shield himself to advance at the man guarding the hostages. That would leave Scott to charge head first at the two men with the rifles.

The guy at the table didn’t have a gun on him they could see, which made him the target to be taken care of last.

It was risky as hell, especially when bullets inevitably started flying around inside the cramped space where everyone was basically at point blank range. But it was doable.

All they needed was a signal that the hostages at the Crib were safe.

It arrived the moment the progress on the screen galloped past the 28% of the decryption:

Through the comms, the sounds of the two successive explosions were muted, but unmistakable.

The Crib

Meanwhile…

The sound of a muted boom from outside caught Julia’s attention. When she looked up, she saw Colonel Grant’s head whipping around in the same direction.

“Not before I see my family. I need to see if they are still alive.”

Mahmoud’s shaky voice echoed around the Crib. The next moment, everything went dark.

A power disruption.

The explosion must have been when the nearest power transformer blew up.

Major Sinclair noticed Julia’s pointed glance, and gave her a firm nod. Bravo One was on the move.

“Ram, Hassan, what’s going on?” Latif barked into a handheld radio. Julia knew he was contacting the guards at the front.

“Don’t know sir, there’s smoke–” One of them reported in a shaky voice before cutting himself off with a curse. In the background, the other man was screaming in their native language. “Oh shit.”

“What is it?” Latif demanded, sparing a narrow-eyed glare at the Crib’s personnel, “Answer me, damn it!”

The answer was an eruption of sounds: Engine growls and squealing tyres drowned out the creaks and groans of the metal and the terrified yelling of the guards. The commotion drew everyone’s attention to the front of the building, including the armed men who were guarding them.

The sound of a massive collision reached them next, and walls around them shook at the impact. Someone screamed, and Colonel Grant’s sharp command for everyone to get flat on the ground cut through the sounds of panic and destruction.

Another deafening explosion followed shortly after, sending even more tremors through the floor, shaking everything in sight. The darkness was soon filled with a thick, cloying cloud of dust and smoke, dropping the visibility to near zero.

The front wall, which was about twenty metres across from where they were, came down in a thunderous heap, brightening up the dark interior with the sight of a crumpled SUV on fire rolling towards them.

***

Michael entered a short corridor which was shrouded in darkness due to the lack of windows and electricity. A low, vibrating hum rumbled to life somewhere to his left, signalling that his ten-second countdown had run out. The fluorescent lights overhead came back on with a dim glow.

The generators were online, and the Crib was coming back to life.

Michael advanced in a low crouch, his footsteps quick and quiet as he led with his handgun held before him in a two-handed grip. The command centre came into sight through the hazy veil of dust and smoke.

About six metres directly ahead of him, a mass of bodies were already on the floor, coughing, writhing and yelling at each other to get down and stay there. As he took a shot at one of the gunmen closest to the hostages, he saw one of the bodies on the floor lashing out with a foot, dropping the other guard on the floor in a heap. A shot from Michael’s gun made sure he never got back up.

“How many?” Michael yelled and took down another man standing by the nearest workstation with a shot to the forehead.

Slightly to his left, there was a gaping hole where the front door and the wall used to occupy. The SUV he had rigged to explode had come to a stop wedged behind a pile of brick and concrete, still wreathed in billowing flames.

The smoke provided a great cover, but he knew he had to neutralise the opposition soon, before the petrol fumes made it harder to breathe and Latif’s people recovered from the shock.

“Three more,” Someone yelled back. Michael assumed it was Sinclair. “Counting Latif. He ducked behind the workstations.”

“Sergeant,” there was no mistaking the commanding voice of Colonel Grant, “I want him alive.”

No promises, Michael thought as he ran forward, sliding over the closest workstation to land in the middle of the command centre. A keyboard, a speaker and a bunch of other paraphernalia wrapped up in cables crashed to the floor around him in a clutter. A wild volley of gunfire erupted, shattering a monitor to his left when someone finally clocked him.

Cursing, Michael hugged the floor. Sparks of gunfire came to life at his three o’clock. Someone was taking cover behind the row of servers, and firing away blindly at the workstation that was above Michael.

Michael took the shot, and the man dropped to his knees with a scream, providing Michael with a better target to finish the job.

Two more to go.

Movement in his periphery alerted Michael to the next target. The terrorist was just behind the wall where the main display screen had gone dark. It had probably caught a stray bullet or its power cable had been ripped off.

The man shouted something in a foreign language Michael didn’t speak, his voice high-pitched and shaky. The sound of his voice helped Michael to orient on his location. The remaining target, Latif, didn’t answer. He was intelligent enough not to give up his position so easily.

Michael had to make a beeline to the next workstation to deal with the target covering behind the wall. More shots ricocheted off the floor only a couple of feet in front of him as his target released a sweeping volley in his direction.

Michael fired the moment he lined up the shot, nailing the man in the gut before he could retaliate. Another shot to his head as he crumpled to the floor made sure he was out of the fight permanently.

He didn’t see Latif, or hear the terrorist leader gaining on him from his blind spot. It was only the battle-honed reflexes that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, alerting him to a threat he had only subconsciously noticed.

Michael dropped flat on the floor from his crouch and rolled to his back with a grunt. He felt a bullet fly past his right cheek as he did so, leaving a stinging sensation in its wake. A towering form charged at him with a roar, appearing through the dust cloud like a wraith armed with a rifle.

Michael brough his gun up and emptied the rest of his magazine into the wide torso of his attacker at the same time a volley from the rifle burst forth directly down at his direction.

Latif’s Safehouse.

Meanwhile…

John lashed out with his right elbow, catching Zhora on the side of her skull with a solid hit before she could react. As she dazedly brought her gun around to shoot, he grabbed it with his left, using his right to grip her by the neck. He kept her at arm’s length and pushed her along backwards as he charged towards the guard at the door.

In his periphery, he heard Scott yelling at Zubedah to get down while he dived forward to tackle the nearest gunman to the floor.

A wild burst of gunfire erupted before John, drilling a line of holes on the wooden planks and the tin roof. Zhora’s body jerked in his grip as she caught a few errant rounds on her back. Two dark stains rapidly spread over her torso as John pushed her limp form at the gunman. The dead body distracted the insurgent while John took the shot that killed him the next second.

Zubedah let out a shriek as more gunfire erupted, and John saw her huddling under the table when he whirled around. The unarmed man was scrambling over to grab the laptop, and John shot him with the rifle he snatched from the dead gunman.

More gunfire and Scott’s enraged yell greeted him just as John bounded back into the centre of the shack. One of Latif’s men was on the ground, writhing on the floor with a wooden leg of a chair sticking out of his gut. Scott was on the floor, grappling with the other gunman for the rifle. John put the impaled terrorist out of his misery the exact moment Scott managed to wrench the rifle out of his opponent, and released a single burst that ended the fight.

Then he got to his feet with a grunt, and released another volley over John’s shoulder when the door behind him banged open. Whirling around, John was treated to the sight of Kareem’s hole-ridden torso falling to the ground to block the entrance.

“Thanks.” John heaved out a weary exhale.

The entire fight had probably taken thirty seconds, or less. John felt as if he had sprinted a marathon. His taped ribs twinged in tandem with his rapid breaths.

“Don’t mention it,” Scott flashed a grin. He had a cut on the side of his face, and his jacket and jeans were torn in a few places. Other than that, he didn’t look seriously hurt. He took a knee, and leaned forward to address the terrified woman, “You okay? You can come out now.”

John walked back towards the closed door while Scottt coaxed her out. Opening the door, he saw the man and the child huddling together on the mattress, both recoiling away when they heard him enter.

“Hey, it’s alright. It’s over,” John said, and slinging the rifle across his back, he approached the father, “I’m going to take your gag off.”

At the man’s frantic nod, he untied the piece of rag that had been tied around his mouth. The man said something soothing in Arabic to the child plastered against him while John took off the boy’s gag as well.

He hauled them both to their feet, and tightened the grip on the man’s shoulder when he swayed in his feet. The child clung to the father, refusing to make a sound, or open his eyes. Apart from the dirt and grime covering their faces and clothes, neither of them looked as if they were injured. But the horror of being prisoners of the unknown gunmen must have done a number on their minds, John supposed.

“I’m going to pick him up,” John said, and the father nodded, not stopping the litany of soft words he was saying to his son. The boy listened, and nodded rigidly after a few seconds, not fighting when John picked him up. “We’ll find something to cut your bindings loose once we’re outside.”

He led the man out of the room with the boy held safely against his chest, towards the table where Zubedah was leaning against. It was a good thing that the child kept hiding his face. John didn’t want him to see the two dead bodies blocking the corridor.

She lunged at him when she saw her son, and John passed his burden to her quickly. He went back to search the bodies of the dead men and the woman while Zubedah reunited with her family amidst tears, hiccups and softly muttered reassurances.

None of Latif’s people had any documents; no passports, IDs or driving licence, just as John expected. He quickly divested them of their weapons and extra magazines. Returning to the huddling family, he saw Scott had done the same, and had retrieved both their knife’s from Kareem’s body.

“Who the hell are you?” She demanded the moment he finished cutting her husband’s and son’s restraints off.

“Not Latif’s goons,” Scott muttered, “as you can probably tell.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.” Now that the terror had passed, her anger and indignation were raring back to life at an impressive speed.

Zubedah held her child to her chest, both her arms wrapped around him protectively. Her husband drew her closer with an arm around her shoulder, glancing at both Scott and John warily. They were both shaking still, and doing their best to prop each other up on their feet.

“No, it doesn’t,” John said. He noticed that the laptop screen had gone dark. The USB was still stuck to the port. Closing the lid, he took it and tucked it under his arm before turning back to counter Zubedah’s murderous glare with a resolute one of his own, “But, we have to go.”

“No.” The protest was immediate.

“Look. Whoever you are and whatever that’s in that laptop, were dangerous and valuable enough to put your entire family at risk,” Scott said calmly, “Latif found out, and he’s bad news. He’s not going to give this up without a fight, and we don’t know if he’s sent reinforcements already.”

“Besides, when the local authorities show up, how are you going to explain all this?” John added, jerking his head at the rapidly cooling bodies and the pools of blood all over the floor, “They will only separate your family once again, and hold you in detention until they sort this mess out.”

“And your people, whoever they are, won’t?” She sneered.

“We’re your best chance at getting out of here. Together,” John said, ignoring her remark, “We can protect you from people like Latif.”

“We have to go.”

Zubedah looked like she wanted to argue. But her husband said something quietly to her in Arabic. Whatever he said made the fight leave her, and she slumped in his hold. Dropping a soft kiss on her forehead, the man turned to face John and Scott.

“We’ll come with you.” He said.

John went out first, and the family followed with Scott bringing up the rear. They went to the car they came in, and Scott took the driver’s seat while the family settled in the back. John got in last, claiming the passenger seat next to Scott.

Starting the car, Scott gave him a pointed look. John took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

It was the moment of truth.

He tapped the button to activate the comms. “Zero, this is Bravo. Come in.”

The Crib

A few minutes earlier…

Colonel Grant lashed out with her foot, causing their guard to fall on his arse with a screech. A decisive shot from behind them made sure he didn’t make any more sounds.

Major Sinclair was on his side, his knees braced against his chest, his eyes closed and his face screwed up in a grimace. For a horrible second, Julia thought he had gotten shot. Then, with an impressive display of flexibility, she saw him pulling his bound wrists from under his arse and boots to the front.

With a grin, he rolled over and got to his knees. He had a sheathed knife strapped inside his left boot. Taking it out, he made quick work of his zipties before turning to the Colonel. Once she was released from her restraints, he turned to Julia and cut off her bindings as well.

“Here,” he said, handing her the knife, hilt first. Then he grabbed the rifle off the nearest dead body. “Release the others.”

Julia did as she was ordered, quietly proud of herself when her hands didn’t shake too much to injure her colleagues further. Stanford took the knife from her when she released the armourer, “I got this. Go take back the Crib.”

Some of the workstations were smoking, sparks flying out of the severed cables. Julia saw that her own station, which was located at the opposite end, was still intact. Armed with the rifle, Sinclair made his way slowly towards the centre of the pit, the Colonel following closely behind with the rifle from the other dead guard. Julia advanced towards her target cautiously at a low crouch, flinching every time when the exchanges of gunfire erupted.

She was at her monitor when someone yelled. Twin bursts of gunfire greeted her from a very short distance away, roughly at her two o’clock. The slight difference between the sounds of the shots suggested that a handgun and a rifle had just answered each other.

Julia dropped to her knees, instinctively reacting to the close proximity of the gunfire. Using the steel drawers of her desk as her cover, she took a careful peek.

Through the dissipating cloud of dust and smoke, a horrible sight greeted her.

Both Bravo One and the terrorist were flat on the floor, and none of them were moving.

“Shit,” Sinclair jogged over, “Sergeant!”

“I’m fine.”

To her immense relief, Julia saw the Sergeant rolling over to his side with a grunt. He got to his feet with slow, careful movements, his gun still in his grip as he did so.

“The vest caught the round,” he muttered with a grimace. He had a fresh cut on the right side of his face, and he favoured his left side, possibly where the bullet had been effectively stopped by the kevlar.

The Colonel took a knee next to Latif’s unmoving form, and placed a finger on his pulse while both the Major and the Sergeant kept their guns aimed at him.

“Is he–”

“He’s got a pulse,” Grant said, and ripped open Latif’s shirt to reveal a vest underneath. “Your shot grazed the side of his head. Knocked him out.” Then she looked up, and something very close to a smile twitched in her lips before she pinned Bravo One with a sharp look. “Next time I order you to take someone alive, try not to shoot them in the head, Sergeant.”

Stonebridge snorted, and grimaced again when it aggravated the ribs on his side. “I’ll keep that in mind, ma’am.”

“That was damned good work, Stonebridge,” she continued, her momentary levity turning quickly back to business while Sinclair busied himself with restraining the unconscious terrorist. “Well done.”

“Let’s hope the other two made it alive too.” Stonebridge said.

The comms came back to life at Julia’s station as if summoned by his words:

“Zero, this is Bravo, come in…” John Porter called out, “Please tell me you guys are still around.”

Chapter 10

The Next Day

The Section 20 – Headquarters.
Whitehall
London – UK

10:30 Hours/Local

Damien sat by himself in the conference room, both his hands wrapped around the steaming coffee mug on the table before him, waiting for the rest of the team to arrive.

They had made it to the emergency exfil point – a private airfield about two miles from the Indira Gandhi International Airport – around one thirty in the afternoon. From there, a private jet had then transported them all back to Heathrow. They had arrived at Whitehall around six in the evening, and had handed over the quiet, exhausted family to an intelligence unit who had already been debriefed to take care of them until the Colonel arrived.

The rest of the team had been delayed, and they had received orders to take the rest of the evening off and report back the next morning for the debrief. Damien hadn’t hung around after that, neither had Porter. They had gone their different ways; Damien to the hotel where the Section 20 had a room reserved for him indefinitely and Porter, presumably to wherever he lived.

The memory of the shower, followed by a short dinner was hazy. Damien had been worn-out, weary to the bone. The rush and excitement of the previous twenty-four hours had found him with far-less grace than a brick to the face, and Damien had crashed hard.

In the crack of dawn, as usual, he had been roused by the same asshole who either didn’t know or care about the human concepts of sleeping, shaving, showering, or having breakfast. Damien had briefly considered rendering the smug Corporal unconscious, bundling him up inside the closet, and then taking his time getting ready before heading out.

It had been a tempting idea. But a brief, highly-unwelcome flash of sanity had taken over, pointing out that talking to the Colonel about getting rid of the babysitting service would be a better alternative than racking up an assault charge.

“Good morning.”

Porter’s cheery greeting broke him out of his musings.

“Hey,” Damien nodded, took a sip of his coffee and tried to appear more awake than he was.

Porter collapsed on the chair directly across from him, and grinned. “You alright?”

He grunted, and covered the yawn that threatened to dislocate his jaw with the back of his hand. Grant, Sinclair and Richmond filed in then, followed by a stranger whom Damien assumed was the elusive ‘Bravo One.’

The man couldn’t be anything else, not when every damned fibre of his being screamed military. He trailed behind the Section 20 members with a gaze that instinctively clocked the layout, exits and the occupants of the conference room. A small smile broke out in his otherwise expression-less face when he saw Porter, and he made a beeline to take the seat to Porter’s immediate right.

Damien returned his short and polite nod by raising the coffee mug. He looked younger than Porter, and even Damien himself. Something in his rather reserved demeanour told Damien that he was as new to Grant’s outfit just as Damien was, and that the man was still kind of on edge about how that felt.

“Morning everyone,” Grant said, and made a short round of introductions on behalf of the new addition; Sergeant Michael Stonebridge. “Sinclair, if you please.”

At her nod, the Major activated the screen that was just behind Grant, drawing their attention to a short video clip that appeared to have been recorded in an apartment back in India.

“This is Major Jamal Ashkani,” Sinclair said just as the wobbly video cut to a frame containing a bathtub.

In it, folded into a pretzel, was the dead body of a man, probably in his forties. His eyes were open and bulging, and so was his mouth, frozen in a twisted rictus. His neck appeared to be broken, which probably would have been what killed him. The body had already started to bloat, which made it obvious that the Major had been dead for over twenty four hours by the time he had been found.

“Sergeant Stonebridge and I found this when we checked Ashkani’s apartment before we left the country.”

“What the fuck happened to him?”

“He was the Pakistani Intelligence asset who should have been our contact on the ground,” Grant answered Damien’s question. On the screen, the video focused on a passport and a driver’s licence laying on a dining table. “Instead, Latif infiltrated the mobile command centre with this man’s credentials.”

Damien winced. He had wondered how the terrorist could have gained control of the Crib so easily and efficiently. The evidence on the screen explained a lot.

“Speaking of bodies, uh, did we get Marshall’s?” Porter asked.

“The Royal Lotus went into lockdown shortly after you left,” Richmond replied, “The police moved the body to a local hospital. We have a unit at the embassy handling the recovery. They have requested the police to keep the story out of the media.”

That brought the total fatality count of the mission to six. Damien already knew that four more soldiers had been killed when Latif had called in his reinforcement to hijack the Crib. Then he had killed an analyst to prove a point. Those bodies had been flown in along with the surviving Section 20 members shortly after their rescue.

“So, Latif, what happened to him? Is the fuckwit dead?” It was wishful thinking. Latif had gone to a lot of trouble to find one woman. Damien had a feeling that the terrorist was just the tip of an iceberg.

“No. In fact, we have him in custody,” Grant said, flashing a thin smile, “He’s not talking yet, but that’ll pass.”

With the click of a button on his remote, Sinclair changed the grizzly view of Ashkani’s body into several mugshots.

A fair-skinned man with a pair of light brown eyes glared at them through the screen. He had dark hair spilling over a white bandage that hid his rather large forehead. He was clean shaven, and wore a sneer under his large, slightly-bent nose.

“Yeah, that’s him alright,” Porter muttered, squinting at the screen, “I remember that crooked nose. He was under a streetlight when he turned around for a minute. That’s Latif.”

But how could that be? Damien stared, frozen, unable to take his eyes off the images. He knew this man.

The memory surfaced as clear and defined as if he had only lived through it mere hours ago instead of years. It was an ability he was cursed with due to a fucked up part of his brain that stored all his sense memories like a demented hoarder. He had used to think of it as a gift. The time spent in the army, followed by the years he had worked for the CIA, had thoroughly dissuaded him of the notion.

What shocked Damien was the realisation that he had seen the man on the screen at Bratton’s facility, only a few weeks before they had gone after the insurgent calling himself Latif.

This man had been a part of the Administration committee during that visit.

What the fuck did that mean? Did Latif work for the CIA? Or had he been slippery enough to infiltrate a Company contingent as well?

What the fuck was going on?

“What is it, Scott?” Grant’s sharp demand yanked him out of his spiralling thoughts, and Damien blinked. It was only then he realised everyone was watching him with varying degrees of concern.

“I saw him too,” he muttered, recalling the details of the few seconds he had seen the man passing through the ‘Restricted Access’ door along with the other authorised visitors. “But that wasn’t at the raid. I never really saw the man at the raid–”

That admission had the Colonel narrowing her eyes at him. “Where then?”

“At the ATAT complex,” Damien said, “He was there. He came in with a group from the Joint Forces Committee. He was on the list. His ID said he was Nassir Khan.”

“Are you sure?” From his left, Richmond considered his words with a frown,

“Yeah.” Damien said simply.

“Kenneth Bratton was the senior executive of ATAT Systems,” Porter explained to Stonebridge’s benefit, “He was relocated to Baghdad just before ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom.’ Our teams were responsible for his security. We got intel that Latif was planning an attack on the complex. Scott’s team and mine went after him before he could go through with it.”

“Bratton,” Stonebridge murmured, his features darkening with an unexplained emotion, “the same guy who was kidnapped a few months later, wasn’t he? The mission that went to shit?”

“Yeah. Same guy.” Porter confirmed just as quietly.

There was history there, something ugly, Damien sensed, although he had no idea of the particulars.

“So what, this Latif character’s been planning an attack on the West for the past eight years?” Stonebridge directed his sceptical inquiry at the Colonel.

“Either that, or he tried and failed. So he decided to try again.”

“What was he after, do we know?” Porter interjected, “Did Mahmoud come clean?”

“As a matter of fact, she did,” Sinclair said, “All she wanted in exchange was a new identity for her family, and protection.”

“Before we get to that, you need to know why Latif went after Bratton all those years ago,” Colonel Grant took over, letting her sharp gaze sweep over all of them, “He did that because he found out about ‘Operation Trojan Horse.’”

I’m beginning to think Latif knew more about things than all of our Intelligence outfits combined, Damien thought disgustedly, apparently, still does.

“As you’re all probably aware, the war in Iraq was based on a lot of feelings instead of hard evidence,” Grant continued, her tone carefully neutral to disguise her true feelings, “The PR campaign launched from the beginning of the year did a lot to turn the tide, and sway the public opinion. When the UNs Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission submitted its report, the end results were deemed inconclusive. German’s Federal Intelligence Service, our SIS and other involved agencies had conflicting intel. In the end, the proposed resolution using armed forces won against the continued diplomacy, sanctions and inspections.”

“That’s the part you all know, but here’s where it gets tricky,” Sinclair picked up when Grant trailed off, “‘Trojan Horse’ was a failsafe in case the invasion couldn’t be justified. To counteract the fact that Coalition Forces lacked hard evidence to prove that Saddam had hidden plans to manufacture WMD’s. It wasn’t something any of us wanted to blow back in our faces in the middle of war.”

“Yeah, I can see where this is going,” Damien muttered, not bothering to hide his disdain, “We planted the damned things, didn’t we?”

“It wasn’t an authorised operation in any case,” Sinclair said, “Believe me, the Coalition was plenty confident that we were doing the right thing. A small group within the administration went ahead and launched ‘Trojan Horse’ anyway. That was where Bratton came in. On paper, he was there to keep our forces equipped. But in reality, he was also contracted to assemble and distribute a cache of WMDs around the region.”

“The plan never went through,” Grant added, “Someone somewhere had a change of heart. Someone said something they shouldn’t have in the vicinity of a policy maker. The intel leak led to an immediate internal investigation. Before the committee even touched ground in Iraq to inspect Bratton’s complex, he got kidnapped, throwing the initial schedule of the ‘Trojan Horse’ op in disarray.”

“What happened then?”

“The investigative teams never found the supposed weapons cache,” Gran replied, “or the blueprints for ‘Trojan Horse.’ When Bratton was rescued, he was taken straight to interrogation. He denied everything, and was released shortly after.”

“Bratton had the damned file open on his desk,” Damien sighed. He had always wondered why Bratton had seemed so distracted, almost scared that day. Now, he knew. “I was in charge of his personal security, so I had access to his office. I only saw two diagrams, a partial map of the eastern region and the label, ‘Trojan Horse.’ Two days later, my CO found four pounds of opium in my locker.”

“Shit!” In front of him, Porter winced in sympathy.

“You were a loose end,” the Colonel said, “If it were anyone else, they’d have let it go. They knew you’d figure it out if you were allowed to continue operating around Bratton. You could say it was the one time your unique condition worked against you.”

Damien bit back the curse that threatened to slip out. She had to bring that up.

“What condition?” Porter raised an eyebrow at him.

“Perfect recall,” Damien shrugged, “I don’t forget stuff.”

“Like photographic memory?”

“That’s short term,” Richmond piped up, her eyes bright with sudden academic interest, “Sounds more like hyperthymesia.”

“Well, it’s something between the two,” Damien flashed a thin smile, hoping they’d get the hint and move on, “It can be irritating as fuck, let me tell you.”

“How does Mahmoud fit into this?” Mercifully, Stonbridge brought the discussion back on track, “Was she a part of ‘Trojan Horse’ too?”

“She was one of Bratton’s top researchers, based in ATAT’s HQ here in London,” the Major replied, “She headed the group that designed the weapon caches. She knew the components, compositions, and the serial numbers. She was the one person who had all the details that could be used to trace those caches.”

“So Latif was after the inventory,” Stonebridge said, and began summarising the screw up they had in their collective laps, “He somehow infiltrated a shadow organisation within our governments, found out about a batch of weapons that shouldn’t even have existed, and managed to evade capture when his plans were discovered. Now, eight years later, he’s still chasing the same damned thing. Exactly what kind of WMDs went missing? And how many?”

“Weaponised VX gas,” Sinclair said, his wince portraying the shock and horror everyone felt at that bit of news, “Three batches of twelve, thirty six canisters in total, all in the wind. We know what we’re looking for, at least. Mahmud had all that information in her thumb drive.”

“So, now you all know where we’re at,” Grant said, “Latif was operating quietly under the radar for all these years. I think we can safely assume that he decided to surface now with the declaration of ‘Project Dawn’ because the weapons are also on the move. No longer hidden and buried. Our priority is locating the missing weapons. We can only go after the architects of the ‘Trojan Horse,’ after we’ve secured the entire cache.”

Underground Parking Lot
Whitehall
London

12:16 Hours/Local

John found his target leaning against a wall. The smoke from his cigarette curled lazily around the ‘no smoking’ sign nailed just above his head. The still glowing butts littering the floor next to his boots suggested that the man had been at it for a while.

“What’s up?” Scott asked, nodding at the duffel John had slung over his shoulder, “Where are you off to?”

“Home, I guess,” John said, glancing over at the rows of cars parked around them.

It was strange to think that it had been over a year since he had been prowling the same grounds, taking down vehicle registration numbers and checking the perimeter. He had worked as a security guard – a faded, broken version of himself doing what he could to get by, sticking as close as he could to what he had only ever known. The waves of contempt, hatred and in some cases, pure loathing had been somewhat dulled and less-defined in the confines of the parking lot where not many lingered after a hard day’s work.

It felt fitting to finally put an end to it all where it had all kind of started.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” John shrugged, huffing out a laugh. He shouldn’t have forgotten he was standing next to someone who didn’t miss much, if at all. “Everything is as it should be, for a change.” He said truthfully, inhaling a lungful of pungent air and letting it out slowly. He felt lighter. It was a good feeling. “I’m leaving. I’m not coming back.”

Scott took a drag of his smoke, straightened from his slouch, and gave him an assessing look. “Why?”

The memories, more than seven years old, were finally silent. It was a stark relief from the contant clamour that never allowed him a reprieve from tumultuous anger, confusion and guilt.

The Colonel had given him options; consultancy, training…John had declined. It felt like the right decision. He had found what he had been chasing, and he had no reason to continue. More to the point, he was tired, and this felt like a good place to leave the race.

Scott shifted, his gaze sharpening.

“I was…forced to resign my commission shortly after Bratton’s rescue,” John said before Scott could demand an explanation again. “Everything went wrong that day. I spent seven years paying for a crime I didn’t commit. When an opportunity presented itself, I joined Section 20 to put those old ghosts to rest. And I did that… four months back.”

He didn’t want to elaborate any further. It was an old story now. Wounds only healed when you left them alone. Constant picking at the scabs only served to make them worse. Some of his thoughts must have shown in his face because Scott didn’t pry.

“Where were you?”

“I was a prisoner.” John said.

“Yeah,” Scott huffed, “Of who?”

Of your people, John didn’t say. It was something he couldn’t talk about, and not only because of the can of worms he could very well open and throw at everyone’s faces. It was just another darker, uglier part of the clandestine world. Leaders changed. Policies changed. People changed. The tides of laws, deals, and agreements changed right along with them. Sometimes, there just was nothing you could do about it.

“It doesn’t matter.” John shrugged.

“Porter,” Scott pinned him with a narrow-eyed glare, “John–”

“Look, I know Grant asked you to stick around,” John cut him off, deciding to change the subject and bring up the real reason he had tracked Scott down, “and I know you said yes–”

“I thought you were going to stick around too.” Scott accused, sparing another pointed glance at his duffel. He looked irritated at the fact that John had decided to leave.

“Trust me when I say you’ll have one of the best sharing the load,” John murmured, getting to the heart of the matter.

In some ways, they both had similar scars. They both had been betrayed by the very people they had trusted. He didn’t need Scott to explain his reservations about continuing to work with a bunch of people he hardly knew. About having to risk his life and trust a complete stranger to have his back.

“You sure?” Scott snorted, dragging in a lungful of smoke from his forgotten cigarette, “Your man didn’t look all that excited to join a Black Ops unit.”

John smiled. Scott really didn’t miss a thing. It was true enough that Michael was on the fence about committing to the transfer.

John had seen Grant cornering him just after the briefing, most probably to talk him into changing his mind. During the short few days John had spent with him in the field, he had seen all the qualities that would make Michael an ideal candidate for an elite unit such as Section 20, and its mandate of going after high-risk, high priority targets.

Michael was quiet, observant, and had an impenetrable cloak of self-assurance and dependability about him that made him instantly trustworthy. He was fluent in a few foreign languages, and made friends/contacts easily when he spoke to people. Adding to that, he was a damned fine operator with battle-hardened reflexes and killer instincts.

John had no doubts that Grant would do her damenest to keep him.

“I have a feeling he’ll come around.”

“Friend of yours?” Scott tilted his head to the side, intrigued.

“He’s Andrews’ kid brother. He’s family.”

“Same regiment?”

“Special Boat Services.”

“Ah,” Scott nodded sagely, “So a crazier version of you, then.”

“You’ll cope.” John barked out a laugh. It wasn’t as if Scott had a leg to stand on. Delta Force Operatives had never been famous for their sanity either.

“We’ll see if the Colonel convinces him to join the bandwagon first.”

“She will,” John said.

It would be good for him. For Scott too, for that matter. Section 20 was still a relatively new unit, albeit built on a rotten foundation. It hadn’t only been Collinson’s fault either. John had contributed his own fair share of it with his ulterior motives of vindication. Maybe it was time that the unit had some good people in it, there to do the things they were meant to do. Not use it as a battle ground to fight their personal demons.

“You’ve been in the game long enough to know how ugly this business can get,” John continued. It was a reminder and warning. It was a grey world after all. “Not all the bastards we chase are out there. Some are with us inside, within the same damned ranks.”

“Yeah,” Scott muttered. “Tell me about it.”

“You don’t have to take my word for it, but you’ll find out when you work with Michael. He’s one of the good ones.” John said, “All I can ask of you is watch each other’s backs.”

“You know it,” Scott grinned, shaking the hand John offered in a steady grip. “Take care, man.”

“It’s about time I did,” John grinned back, “You two kids have fun.”

“Count on it.”

The End.

 

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