Lim couldn’t believe how archaic UN intelligence was. First the outdated comms. And now they were storing their interviews on CDs? Had MP3s not made it out to the desert yet? She laughed when Baptiste said he’d be in the server room burning Serik’s confession to a disc. For a brief moment, it alleviated the uneasy feeling gnawing away at her insides.
As Wells applied a damp cloth to Serik’s eye, Lim stood watching the man they’d been questioning through the observation window. She’d been examining him closely throughout. Something about the situation wasn’t right. The interrogation had gone too smoothly for her liking. Serik had confessed without even asking to see any paperwork or a government lawyer. He seemed smarter than that. Sure, whatever Driver said to him seemed to have worked. But to break in under an hour? And why was he so focused on the time?
Rios stepped up to the glass. ‘How much do you think that Rolex on his wrist is worth?’
‘Twenty thousand?’ Lim guessed.
‘So much for death to capitalism,’ Rios said. ‘You think anyone’ll mind if, y’know, it somehow got lost in transit?’
Lim shook her head. ‘Where he’s going, he’s not going to need it.’
Rios folded her arms and cocked her head. ‘Who leaves a twenty-G Rolex on during a massage?’
‘Didn’t you see the surveillance images? He never takes it—’ Lim froze. Could it be possible? If so, they were in big trouble. Lim flew out of the door.
‘What?’ Rios said, chasing her into the hall.
Lim charged into the interrogation room with Rios in tow. Wells tensed, as if ready to defend himself. Lim stepped around the back of Serik’s chair and grabbed his left wrist.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Wells.
‘Give me your knife,’ Lim said.
‘Give you my knife?’
‘For his wrists,’ Lim explained.
Wells held the blade close to his side. ‘We’re not cutting him loose.’
‘You can tape him again when I’m done.’
‘Done doing what?’ Wells asked.
‘Just give her the knife,’ Rios said, drawing it fast from Wells’ belt. She threw it to Lim, who cut the ties from Serik’s wrists. Lim slipped the Rolex over his left hand.
‘If you’re thinking of selling that, you won’t get the chance,’ Serik said.
She ignored him and examined the watch – the back plate, the gold links that made up the wrist strap and the diamond-encrusted watch face. It was just as she thought, her worse suspicions confirmed. Lim smacked it hard against the floor.
‘Hey!’ Serik yelled. ‘You know how much that’s worth?’
‘Yeah, it’s worth shit now,’ Rios said. ‘You find it?’ she asked Lim. Clearly, the young Mexican caught on fast.
Wells threw out his arms. ‘Find what?’
Lim knelt and slammed the watch face against the floor until the glass smashed. She shook the tiny fragments out of the watch and picked out a small black dot the size of a lentil. Holding it between finger and thumb, the former freelance assassin rose to her feet and lifted the dot to the light.
Wells’ eyes told the story.
‘GPS tracker,’ Rios said, looking at Serik. ‘He’s been playing us all along. Buying time.’
Right on cue, the deep thrum of helicopter rotors pounded through the walls and ceiling. The first crackle of gunfire followed.
Serik smiled, a balloon for an eye and a beard caked with blood. ‘They’re here.’
Driver reached for her satphone and realised she’d left it in the safe house. She tried warning the others on the comms. All she heard was static. She took the earpiece out and threw it away. ‘Piece of crap.’
‘How many have we got?’ the German asked.
‘Two Humvees,’ the Dutchman said, peering through his binoculars.
‘Gunter, what do you see?’ the German asked over a walkie-talkie.
Driver vaulted off the porch and ran around the rear of the house. She saw a sand-coloured MRAP speeding towards them. A bulletproof, blast-proof, six-wheeled armoured tank weighing in at twenty-four tonnes. She doubled-back around the front and rejoined the security team. The Humvees smashed their way through the main gate. A black Huey circled overhead, whipping up a swirling vortex of sand. Through squinting eyes, Driver counted four masked soldiers and a gunner with a G3 rifle.
‘Avalon, this is Sandbox,’ the German yelled over the beat of the Huey. ‘The house is compromised. Request rapid response.’
‘They’ll never make it,’ Driver yelled, pushing the entry button on the security door. ‘Where do you keep your spare arms?’
‘It’s code-locked,’ the Dutchman said.
‘There’s no time,’ the German shouted over the rotor noise. ‘Get inside.’
He and the Dutchman opened fire on the approaching vehicles. Driver re-entered the house, slamming both security doors shut behind her. The team were already in the main hallway, weapons in hand.
‘What have we got?’ Pope asked, appearing in the hallway, buckling his belt.
‘A Huey, two Humvees and at least one armed unit,’ Driver replied.
‘Jesus,’ Wells said, checking his rifle.
‘Plus an MRAP to the rear,’ Driver continued. ‘Fully loaded.’
‘What have we got left?’ Baptiste asked, checking his magazine.
‘Not nearly enough,’ Wells replied, strapping his rifle over his shoulders.
Pope jammed his last remaining clip into his rifle. Driver pulled her Glock from her holster, with Lim and Rios also down to handguns.
‘There’s only one way in,’ Driver said, as the sound of automatic fire intensified. ‘Through those two security doors out front.’
Rios prepped her weapon. ‘Let’s bottle-neck this bitch.’
Driver led the way and gave the hand signals. The team spread out, taking positions along the hallway, their weapons trained on the internal door.
She heard the muted cries of the security team outside. Cries of agony. Then a smatter of gunfire. No more cries. Driver waited for the door to open. The invaders were sure to blow it with a small, controlled explosion on the locking mechanism. Yet the explosion came from behind them. It was huge. But no, not an explosion. An impact.
A cloud of dust billowed out of the interrogation room door. ‘Keep your positions,’ Driver said, as she turned and sprinted towards it. She coughed on the dust, blinded by the cloud. As it cleared, Driver found a giant hole in the wall, filled by the rear end of the MRAP.
Serik was still alive, trying to free his ankles from the chair legs. Then came the real explosion, blowing in the inner door. She returned to the hallway. A clutch of smoke grenades bounced in off the walls and released a plume of CS gas.
‘Fall back!’ Driver yelled with the team already retreating. A hell-storm of hot shrapnel followed through the doorway. She and the others returned fire, unsighted and on the back foot.
It was the Orin assault all over again. As the invading force flooded the corridor, Driver and the others retreated to the observation booth. She didn’t have to discuss tactics. Somehow Serik’s people had found him. They’d be gone in seconds, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
Yet in the observation booth, they had a slim chance. They could squeeze into a small space and fire as a unit at anyone who attempted to come in through the door or the window. As Driver blinked the tears from her stinging eyes, Pope pulled the door shut and locked it from the inside.
‘Anyone hit?’ Driver asked.
‘No,’ Baptiste coughed. ‘But there’s only so long we’re gonna last in here.’
‘What about Serik?’ Wells asked, rubbing his reddening eyes.
‘We’ve got the recording,’ Driver replied. ‘Once it leaks there’ll be a manhunt.’
Pope trained his rifle on the door. ‘Yeah, if we survive long enough to hand it over.’
‘They’ll know a call went out,’ Driver continued. ‘They won’t hang around.’
On the other side of the door, she heard shouts of ‘clear’ in Arabic.
The microphone in the interrogation room was still working. It picked up the jackboots of masked men entering through the hole in the wall. Driver watched through the glass. One in particular appeared to be the leader. He stopped in front of Serik while the others fanned out, red laser dots splintering left and right.
‘You put another CD in the recorder?’ Driver asked.
‘Yeah,’ Baptiste said. Suddenly, his face fell. ‘Shit.’
‘What?’ Driver asked.
‘I left Serik’s confession in the server room.’
Wells threw back his head. ‘What the fuck?’
‘Sorry,’ Baptiste replied, ‘there was the small matter of an armed invasion to deal with.’
‘So what the fuck do we do?’ Rios asked.
‘I’ll go and get it,’ Baptiste said.
Wells held him back. ‘No, the second you open that door, you’re dead. And so are we.’
‘Besides, the bloke was stalling,’ Pope said. ‘The confession could be a fake.’
‘Real or not, we could still use it,’ Lim replied.
‘Quiet,’ Driver hissed, trying to listen in on the conversation in the interrogation room. The others fell silent as she watched through the window.
‘You took your time,’ Serik said in Arabic. ‘I had to give them something. A confession.’
‘A confession?’ the leader replied, his voice deep and warped, filtered through a disguiser. Yet nothing could disguise his anger.
‘Calm down,’ Serik replied. ‘I told them it was all me.’
‘That’s no good to us,’ the leader said. ‘A confession from you would undermine everything.’
Serik pointed to his swollen eye. ‘Look at me. I had to give them something. You should have got here earlier.’
‘Did they record it?’ the leader asked.
Serik nodded towards the camera in the ceiling.
A masked invader entered the interrogation room from the hallway. ‘Do you want us to deal with the rest of them?’ he asked.
‘That’s not the priority,’ the leader said. ‘There’s a recording. The server room. Find it.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The leader consulted his watch. ‘And make it quick. Rapid response will be here any minute.’
The man nodded and left the room in search of the recording. Serik struggled with the tape around his ankles. ‘Are you going to get me out of this chair or not?’ The leader ordered another of his men to free Serik. The man cut the tape keeping him in his seat. As Serik staggered to his feet, the masked invader returned with the CD and a hard drive under an arm. ‘Found it, sir.’
‘Good,’ Serik sighed in relief, cradling his bruised jaw. ‘Now get me to a doctor. I feel like I’m about to die.’
‘And you’d be right,’ the leader said, raising his rifle. He fired twice. Serik’s body flew backwards over the chair, a double tap to the heart.
There was a collective gasp in the observation room.
‘What the fuck?’ Rios whispered.
Driver didn’t know whether to punch the air in celebration or the wall in frustration.
The leader stepped forward and put two more bullets in Serik’s forehead. ‘All units, fall out.’
He stepped through the hole in the wall. His men followed close behind, backing up around the MRAP, weapons trained on the space in front of them. Within seconds, they were gone. The MRAP pulled out of the back wall, leaving stone and masonry to crash to the floor. The beat of the Huey faded into the distance and the house fell silent.
Pope opened the door and put his head around the corner. Driver followed on his shoulder, out into the hallway. The others were close behind, checking all areas of the building. Nothing remained but the decaying wisps of potassium chlorate from the grenades and four dead security men on the porch.
Driver stood over the German’s body. A fatal wound to the stomach and a bullet hole between the eyes. Whoever was responsible, they were either merciful or meticulous. She moved back into the hallway and found the rest of the team lingering in the interrogation room.
Pope stared at a view full of desert through the hole made by the MRAP. ‘There goes our freedom.’
Driver looked around her at the damage done. She moved to a wall and prised a bullet from the stone. It resembled a flower. Gold at the base, with a lead, petal-like shape where the point of the bullet had split. She slipped it in a pocket and turned her attention to Serik’s bleeding corpse. She expected to feel relief, release. Yet the overriding sense was one of regret. It should have been her pulling the trigger. And now they didn’t even have the confession. Whether or not it was genuine, Lim made a good point. Gilmore could have leaked it to the media anyway and acted as if it was real. A confession from Serik could have stopped the war.
‘Rapid response will be here any minute,’ Wells said. ‘We can’t be here when they arrive.’
‘So what now, boss?’ Baptiste said.
‘Huh?’ Driver murmured, lost in thought.
‘What do we do?’ Rios asked.
Driver snapped out of her daze. ‘We can’t leave behind any evidence.’ She looked down at Serik’s broken, bleeding body. ‘Burn it. Burn it all.’