Deception Game
Deception Game
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Part One – Rendition
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Part Two – Extraction
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Part Three – Intervention
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Part Four – Retribution
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Epilogue
Redemption by Will Jordan
Prologue
Chapter 1
Copyright
Deception Game
Will Jordan
For Matthew – who ensures life is never dull
Prologue
Dehiba, Tunisia – 10 May 2009
Drake took a breath, the scorching dry air searing his throat, tiny grains of windblown sand stinging his eyes. Overhead, the sun beat down mercilessly from a cloudless sky, raising beads of sweat on his already burned and reddened skin.
Around him, locals and small groups of tourists moved back and forth through the crowded central square, paying little attention to the Westerner in dishevelled clothes leaning against the wall beside a small cafe. Perhaps the cuts and bruises marked him out as someone to studiously avoid, or perhaps the dangerous flicker in his eyes was what really kept them away. Whatever the reason, the ebb and flow of humanity seemed to part around him like a river slipping past an implacable boulder.
Glancing up, Drake turned his gaze towards the low hilltop about half a mile away overlooking the bustling town centre, where the weathered and tumbled walls of the ancient settlement still rose up against the pristine blue sky, heavy stone blocks jutting from the parched earth.
That was the place where it was supposed to happen; the place where the tumultuous events of the past week would reach their final, deadly conclusion. Everything he had fought for, everything he had sacrificed, every compromise he had made...it had all led him here.
He would live or die by what happened today.
His pulse was pounding strong and urgent in his ears, almost drowning out the tinny ring of the cell phone as he held it against his head. The man he was trying to reach would be wary of calls like this. He wouldn’t answer readily, might not answer at all in fact. Either way, there was nothing he could do to change it.
All he could do was wait, and hope.
And just like that, the ringing stopped. He was connected.
‘So you’re still alive, Ryan,’ a voice remarked on the other end of the line. A smooth, confident, controlled voice. Not the voice of a man whose own future hung in the balance just as much as Drake’s. ‘And you’re late. Didn’t I make it clear what was at stake?’
‘You did,’ Drake replied, his eyes scanning the crowds around him. ‘I have what you want.’
‘Then I suggest you bring it to me, so we can finish our business.’
Drake knew this was the moment of choice. His last chance to back out.
‘No,’ he said, speaking with calm finality.
There was a pause. A moment of confusion and doubt; a chink in the armour momentarily exposed. ‘Excuse me?’
‘We both know I’m dead the second I hand it over. You’d never let me live after everything I’ve seen, everything I know.’ He was committed now. There was no going back – the only choice was to move forward. ‘So I suggest you remember this moment, because this is as close as you’re ever going to get to what you want.’
To his credit, his adversary remained surprisingly composed in the wake of this blatant act of defiance. A different man might have railed against him, shouted down the line about how foolish Drake’s actions were and how he would surely be punished for them.
But this man was another sort.
‘Ryan, maybe you’ve forgotten the reason we’re in this position,’ the calm, pleasant voice went on. ‘If you need reminding, I’m quite prepared to leave behind a piece of her at our meeting place. And believe me, it’ll be a piece she’ll miss.’
Drake closed his eyes for a moment, swallowing down the fear and horror at what he was hearing, because he knew well enough that this was a threat his adversary was quite prepared to make good on. A sadist who took pleasure in inflicting suffering on others.
‘You won’t do that,’ he replied, sounding more confident than he felt.
‘Really? Enlighten me.’
‘I’m offering you something better.’
‘And what would that be?’
‘There are three ways this could go. First, you kill her, I release the files across the internet, then I turn all my attention to hunting you down. Believe me, I’m good at finding people, and I’m prepared to devote every waking moment of my life to finding you. And when I do, anything you do to her will be nothing but a happy memory compared to what I do to you. Second, you kill me before I can get to you. The files have been uploaded to an automatic email server, and without me to stop it, everything you’ve worked to cover up gets released within two hours of my death.’ He allowed that prospect to hang there for a moment or two. ‘Either way, you lose.’
‘As do you, Ryan,’ he reminded him.
‘There’s more at stake here than you and me. We both know what you’re really playing for. Are you ready to give all that up, watch it fall down around you?’
There was a pause. A gambler weighing the risks against the potential rewards. ‘I presume there’s a third option?’
Drake took another breath of the sandy, stifling air. ‘You give her back to me, unharmed. I agree not to interfere with your plans or tell anyone what we found, you agree not to come looking for me, and everyone walks away. It’s that simple.’
‘Very heroic of you,’ he remarked with dour humour.
‘I’m no hero. Never was,’ Drake said, truly meaning it. ‘And this isn’t my war. I just want it to end.’
This was it. He had said and done everything he could. The rest depended on the man on the other end of the line.
And then he heard it. Not some vicious curse, not a growl of anger or even a muttered promise that he would pa
y for this one day.
What Drake heard instead was a low chuckle of amusement. The laugh of a man finally springing a trap that had been long in the making.
‘Come now, Ryan. We both know this can only end one way.’ He paused a moment, allowing his words to sink in. ‘Look down.’
Glancing down, Drake saw something on his stained and crumpled shirt. A splash of red light that hadn’t been there before. The glow of a laser sight.
‘Wouldn’t run if I were you. You’re covered from two different directions, and my friends are just itching to pull those triggers.’
They had found him. Somehow they had tracked him here, predicted this move, known exactly what he was going to do. And now they had him out in the open, the time had come to spring their trap.
No sooner had this thought crossed his mind than a black SUV pulled up nearby. The rear doors flew open and a pair of men leapt out. Men Drake had encountered before. Men who had tried to kill him more than once over the past few days, and who wouldn’t hesitate to do so now if they were given the order. Their hands were on weapons hidden just inside their jackets, ready to draw down on him if he so much as twitched.
‘Like I said, Ryan,’ the voice on the line said, filled with the confidence of a man in total control of the situation. ‘This can only end one way.’
Drake lowered the phone as the retrieval team closed in on him.
Part One – Rendition
To date, at least fifty-four countries are known to have participated in the CIA’s extraordinary-rendition programme, many playing host to so-called ‘black sites’ where detainees are held and interrogated for an unlimited period of time without any legal rights. The number of people imprisoned in this fashion may never be known.
Chapter 1
Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia – two weeks earlier
The sheer scale of Arlington Cemetery never ceased to amaze Drake. Occupying more than 600 acres of land on the west bank of the Potomac and located a mere twenty-minute walk from the White House, the immense complex was both physically and symbolically close to the heart of the nation. Its size and scale served as an eternal reminder of the sacrifices made by generations of Americans, from the Civil War all the way up to the present day. And it was here, beneath the gentle shade of blossoming trees, that 400,000 of America’s war dead rested, their graves laid out in neat rows of white headstones that stretched almost beyond sight.
It was a sobering, reflective sort of place, and one that Drake had visited more than once in the past few years, either to pay respects to fallen comrades or just to be alone with his thoughts.
Today however he had a different purpose here.
Turning left off Roosevelt Drive, he began his ascent up a steep grassy hill towards the memorial complex at the top, passing a group of people heading in the opposite direction. A mixture of ages and genders, but comfortable enough around each other that they almost certainly belonged to the same family. An old man in the centre of the group, leaning heavily on a walking stick as he made his way down the hill, was likely the reason for their visit. He was wearing a dark blue navy cap with the name of some warship emblazoned in frayed gold lettering, though he’d passed by before Drake could get a close look at it.
He didn’t suppose it mattered. It meant something to its owner, and that was what counted.
Strange how differently America regarded its war veterans, he thought with a fleeting sense of regret as he ascended the steps. Here they were treated with respect, even reverence. The old cliché that a man in uniform could walk into any bar in the country and have at least one guy buy him a beer was, in Drake’s experience, still alive and kicking. Back in the UK, the best they could hope for was a shoddy state pension and bingo night down at the ex-servicemen’s club.
He did his best to push these thoughts from his mind as he reached the top of the steps, taking in the scene beyond. Standing in the centre of the wide open plaza was an immense marble sarcophagus, its white surface bright in the afternoon sun.
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was one of the most sacred places in the whole of Arlington; an eternal monument to the thousands of soldiers who had perished unknown on the battlefields of the world, their identities forever lost.
It was guarded twenty-four hours a day, no matter the weather, by the Sentinels – elite members of the 3rd US Infantry Regiment known as the ‘Old Guard’ – and today was no exception. Uniform immaculate, back ramrod straight, sunlight gleaming off his mirrored sunglasses, a single soldier carrying an old M14 rifle paced slowly back and forth in front of the tomb. So precise were his movements, and those of every other Sentinel who had come US before him, that a perfect square had been worn into the marble paving by the long decades of their watch.
A few tourists were there taking pictures of the spectacle, probably viewing it as a curiosity akin to the Queen’s Guard standing motionless outside Buckingham Palace. Drake was content to bypass them as he headed for the Memorial Amphitheatre located behind the tomb.
To a casual observer his demeanour was little different from any of the hundreds of other people milling around the cemetery that day. He walked with the easy, comfortable pace of a man heading somewhere with no great urgency, neither hurrying nor dawdling. His posture was relaxed without appearing nonchalant, confident without swagger, his expression conveying little beyond the superficial interest of an average visitor.
Only his eyes, hidden behind dark sunglasses that didn’t look the least bit out of place on that warm sunny afternoon, betrayed the keen, eager gaze of a trained operative, drinking in every detail of his environment and the people within it. His gaze leapt from face to face, looking for any hint, any telltale clue that they weren’t who they were pretending to be.
Drake had made a living out of finding people, many of whom didn’t want to be found, and he’d become very good at spotting something out of place. A gaze that lingered a little too long, a twitch that betrayed tension and intensity where none were warranted, an involuntary shift of posture to accommodate the uncomfortable bulk of a concealed weapon. He’d seen it all in his time, and his senses were on alert for it now.
He relaxed a little as he drew closer to the amphitheatre, content for now that no one amongst the spectators had shown undue interest in him. That didn’t mean no one was watching, of course, but Drake had grown used to covering his back over the past couple of years.
He’d grown used to a lot of things over the last couple of years.
Normally reserved for Veteran’s Day services and other public events, for the most part the massive outdoor theatre stood empty and unused. There was little for tourists to see or do inside, and no monuments stood within its columned walls, so few people lingered there long.
In short, it was a good place to talk without fear of interruption or eavesdropping. And this was one conversation he didn’t want overheard.
Edging around one of the big stone columns that formed the outer boundary of the theatre, Drake paused a moment to survey the space within. Rows of benches radiated outward from the main stage, rising up gradually towards the outer periphery of the theatre.
Not one of them was occupied.
Drake glanced at his watch and took a breath, considering his next move. He could break cover and venture out into the centre of the theatre, making his presence known to anyone who might be waiting, but doing so would leave him exposed and vulnerable. It went against his instincts to go into a situation like this at a disadvantage.
On the other hand, he could remain where he was and see if his contact decided to take the initiative. However, meetings like this often lived or died based on mutual trust, and it was possible his contact was harbouring similar doubts. The last thing he wanted was for them to get cold feet and walk away, especially since he had gone to such pains to make this happen in the first place.
He was about to begin a circle of the theatre’s outer wall when he heard footsteps on the stone floor, coming his way. Slo
w and heavy, accompanied by slightly laboured breathing. An older man, overweight, perhaps not in good health.
Gripping the Browning high-powered automatic hidden in a pancake holster at the small of his back, Drake readied himself for the hundred different ways this could go wrong, and slipped out from behind the pillar.
The man standing facing him was in his early sixties, black, of average height and above average weight, his close-cropped hair and moustache speckled with silver. Even a cursory glance revealed a man who wore his years with some discomfort; his shoulders were stooped, his forehead deeply lined by years of care and worry. The collar of his expensive suit was loosened, and there was a visible sheen of sweat on his brow.
The climb up here had clearly not been a pleasant one for him.
He tensed for a moment at Drake’s sudden appearance, but quickly regained his composure at the realization this was the man he’d come here to meet. The young Shepherd team leader who had contacted him covertly through an intermediary, who had insisted on a face-to-face meeting away from Langley, who had promised he possessed information of great importance to the Agency.
‘I hope you didn’t drag me all the way out here just to shoot me, son,’ he remarked coolly, his dark eyes flicking downward, indicating the hand that Drake was keeping behind his back. ‘I’m sure they’ve got a nice spot picked out for me at Arlington, but I’d rather not take it just yet.’
Drake’s grip on the weapon relaxed, some of the tension easing, though he didn’t let go of it yet. ‘Director Hunt.’
‘So they tell me.’
Charles Hunt was the officer in charge of the CIA’s Counterproliferation Division, tasked with monitoring and intercepting the flow of illegal arms worldwide, from missing ammunition crates at Russian supply depots all the way up to Iranian attempts at purchasing nuclear secrets. Their job was stop weapons from ending up in the hands of America’s enemies.
‘Are you here alone?’Drake asked.
‘As alone as any of us can be these days,’ he said, glancing upward, as if they might glimpse a surveillance drone circling overhead.
Drake’s eyes hardened. ‘I’m not playing games. If you were followed here—’