He’d been held in rooms like this before. A hefty metal door, no windows, four walls of pockmarked concrete. The same aging material for the floor and the ceiling above which had a single old-fashioned light bulb that produced next to no light. And which was only turned on at sporadic intervals anyway – when Ryker was brought food or the guards came to let him relieve himself in a bashed-up metal pot.
The rest of the time he spent tied to the bolted-down chair. Hours and hours. More than a day. Perhaps two or three, he thought, although it was hard to tell with the monotony.
Plenty of time to think, to contemplate.
After his ‘arrest,’ the police had driven him for nearly two hours – blindfolded – until they’d arrived here. He’d remained blindfolded on the walk to this room. Down. They’d headed down, a couple of stories, the temperature of the desert outside dropping as they descended. The air down here was cool and stale. He didn’t think they were by the coast anymore. Were they even still in Oman? He thought so, but couldn’t know for sure.
He did wonder, a little cynically, whether this place was in fact the same location that he’d intended to take Karaman to. An old World War II bunker built and used by the British army as part of its defense of trade routes around the Gulf. Since that war, since Oman had been granted its independence, since the British army had formally left the area, the site had seen further use on a more clandestine level. A black site, as such places had become known. Most of those sites had been ‘officially’ closed down not long after their widespread use had first come to the attention of the international press. Yet this site remained intact, though unoccupied.
Or it had been unoccupied. The surroundings here certainly suggested it could be the same place. Certainly, a slap in the face for Ryker if it was.
He heard movement outside the door. The locks of the door releasing. Too soon for more food, too soon for the bedpan. Either he was being moved, or he had a visitor.
The door opened and Ryker spotted the two guards first. Not faces he’d seen before, but much like the other men he’d seen here, dressed in fatigues bearing the emblem of the Royal Army of Oman. Not police uniforms like the people who’d ambushed Ryker at the port.
The two grunts came into the room, assault rifles hanging lazily in their grips. They stood on either side of the open door where Ryker stared, sensing the men weren’t alone.
The woman who appeared next didn’t look like the grunts at all. No uniform for her. Just casual khaki trousers, a woolen sweater, and a tightly tied headscarf that framed her serious face.
Fatma Yaman.
‘The Middle East expert,’ Ryker said. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’
She remained hovering in the doorway as a third guard rushed in with a foldout metal chair which he placed a few feet in front of Ryker before rushing out again. Yaman turned to the two guards and muttered something to them and they disappeared too, closing and locking the door behind them.
‘Well, isn’t this cozy,’ Ryker said as Yaman took the seat in front of him.
‘You can try and be cute with me, but I hope you realize just how much shit you’re in.’ It was the first time he’d heard her speak and her voice sounded exactly as he’d expected, Queen’s English and all. Obviously, given her privileged upbringing and her prestigious education at Eton and then Cambridge.
‘Perhaps you could tell me,’ Ryker said.
‘I do know what you did.’
‘OK?’
She stared at him, her lips pursed, as though she thought he’d get the sudden need to explain himself that way.
‘You broke into my home,’ she said, her voice quavering as though the break-in had taken a toll on her. Ryker said nothing. ‘You invaded my private life, the life of my family.’
Ryker still held his tongue.
‘What gives you the right to do that?’ she said with real disdain in her voice, her eyes pinched. ‘To think you’re above laws and rules of common decency.’
‘Decency? You live in a world of lies and you’re trying to tell me about decency?’
‘You have no idea about me, my life.’
‘I thought we established I probably do. Given I broke into your home and stole all of your secrets.’
‘Secrets?’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Ryker, you are so off the mark. Your head, widened by your macho ego, somehow still rammed right up your ass.’
He smiled at that, at the matter-of-fact way she delivered the insult. She didn’t seem to appreciate the reaction much.
‘Tell me the truth, then,’ he said. ‘You knew exactly where Ismail Karaman was. One of the most wanted terrorists in the world. You’ve been tracking his movements for years without ever making any attempt to capture him, kill him, bring him to justice, anything.’
Yaman didn’t respond to that although Ryker hadn’t exactly asked a question.
‘And I’ve been in this game—’
‘Game?’ Yaman interjected, leaning forward in her chair, her look of disdain now even more scathing. ‘That’s your problem, Ryker. You really see this all as a game, don’t you?’
‘You have no idea.’
‘I really think I do. You’re an unhinged agitator. One who thinks because he was once a government asset, doing dirty work that saw him circumvent laws, kill people, in the name of his country, that he can still do whatever the hell he wants, when he wants, regardless of consequences, regardless of the destruction he leaves in his wake.’
‘Come on, then,’ Ryker said. ‘Tell me. Tell me the logical, sound explanation for why you’ve been tracking Karaman but have done absolutely nothing with that intel.’
‘I don’t have to justify myself to you.’
‘Why not? Because you can’t, you mean? Not without exposing who you really are.’
‘And who is that?’
Ryker chewed on that thought for a few moments. ‘There aren’t many reasons why you’d sit on that information. Why you’d let a monstrous terrorist not just live a free life, but one of privilege too.’
‘Enlighten me.’
‘Karaman works for the Syndicate. You’re protecting him. Perhaps you work for them too. Or perhaps you were simply given a kickback to turn a blind eye. Plenty of people are easily corruptible for a bit of money. Or perhaps it’s the people above you who are corrupt, and you’re just toeing the line because you like your job.’
‘You really think the only explanation is the “Syndicate”? An organization for which you don’t even have any tangible evidence of its existence?’
‘I see plenty of evidence.’
‘You see a set of circumstances that fit your narrative. It’s not the same thing. It’s a conspiracy theory.’
‘You’re telling me the Syndicate isn’t real?’
‘I’m telling you you’ve waded into something that has nothing to do with you. And you’ve potentially caused a big problem in doing so, and I don’t just mean a big problem for me. Ryker, taking your horribly inflated opinion of yourself out of the picture, can’t you see the tightrope that is cross-border relations across this part of the world? Not just the countries here, with each other, but their relationships with the West?’
‘So that’s your explanation?’ Ryker said. ‘You were protecting Karaman so the UK government didn’t fall out with the royal families over here who provide our good isle with all of that lovely black gold?’
Yaman tutted like a fed-up adult would with a headstrong kid. ‘This isn’t about oil. Please, just… I’m done talking about the whys. The fact is, you messed up. And now, your freedom, your life, is… in my hands.’
Ryker really didn’t like how she said that last part but he didn’t bite back.
‘Does Peter Winter know I’m here?’ Ryker said.
‘Ah, yes, of course. Peter Winter. So you’re confirming to me that he helped you set up this bloody rampage.’
‘No. That’s not what I said at all. What I asked was whether he knows I’m here.’
‘You think he can rescue you?’
‘I know he holds more political sway than you.’
‘Sorry to disappoint you, Ryker, but—’
‘I want to speak to him.’
‘You don’t get to make demands here.’
‘If you care about your career at all, you’ll let me speak to him.’
Yaman sighed and sat back in her chair. ‘I’m feeling like you’re really not understanding the gravity of your situation here.’
‘I understand it just fine. You’re a bogus intelligence agent who thinks she has more power than she really does. I don’t know how you found out about my plans, but you’ve so far involved the Omani police force, the Omani army. If you really operated anywhere near my world, you’d realize that doing that has taken away so much of your upper hand already. Your hands are tied even more so than mine right now.’
‘You think? There are six dead bodies floating in the Persian Gulf that suggest you might be a little more screwed than I am.’
‘I didn’t kill anyone.’
‘Very convincing. Tell me about Brock Van Der Vehn, then. How did you meet him?’
Ryker thought about that for a moment. She knew Brock’s identity. Did that mean she’d known the South African was helping Ryker even before the mission, or had they only identified him after filling him with bullets at the harbor?
‘Me and Brock went way back,’ Ryker said.
‘Is that so?’
‘It is. Given you seem to know so much about me, you probably realize I’ve met plenty of mercenaries like him.’
‘So Peter Winter didn’t introduce you to him?’
‘No. He didn’t.’
‘Because that would be a really bad career move for your good friend, wouldn’t you say? Putting together an ex-spy with a roughneck, bloodthirsty mercenary for an unsanctioned kidnapping plot on foreign soil that led to six civilians being shot dead.’
When she said it like that… Yeah, Winter was in the shit. If this woman had anything like the power that she obviously thought she had, she could ruin Winter.
‘I need to speak to Winter,’ Ryker said.
Yaman’s face brightened, the first time he’d seen anything like a smile on her and it really didn’t suit her at all. At least her sullenness carried a certain sincerity to it.
‘Yeah, you need to speak to him. But you can’t.’
Ryker humphed, trying to think of where to go next. He hated the satisfied look Yaman now had plastered on her face.
‘So what’s your plan?’ he said. ‘I have no useful information to give you, so you’re not going to torture me.’
She shook her head. ‘You’re so basic, aren’t you? Torture? Why would you even go there?’
‘Tell me what then? Why am I here?’
She didn’t answer. Which kind of made Ryker think she didn’t know. She was waiting. On confirmation from her higher-ups as to which bus they wanted to throw Ryker under.
‘Where’s Karaman now?’ Ryker asked. ‘Have you set him free?’
She didn’t answer again, though looked more satisfied by the minute.
‘Look, I’ll give you one last chance. Let me speak to Winter. You do that and I might forgive you for locking me up in here.’
Another head shake. ‘Wow,’ was all she said.
‘Pretty please?’ Ryker asked.
She stood up from her chair.
‘I’ll be back soon.’
‘Once your boss has told you what to do with me? Do you get to make any decisions yourself or are you just a puppet? An empty vessel.’
She really didn’t like that and glared down at him.
‘You’ve still got a chance to do the decent thing here,’ Ryker said. ‘Let me speak to Winter.’
‘No,’ she said. Then she turned away from him.
Then Ryker sprang up from his chair. Yaman spun to face him, her mouth wide open in shock. Clearly, she’d had no clue Ryker had been steadily working on the handcuff lock with a splinter of wood he’d stashed in his underwear at the dock. She really should have paid more attention. Had someone else in the room with him. Or just realized who – and what – he was, given she claimed to know so much.
‘No!’ she shouted as she cowered back. The door swung open with force. Two guards there, rifles at the ready, but Yaman stood between the men and their target.
To start with, anyway. Ryker grabbed Yaman around the shoulder and hauled her back and she crashed to the floor with a thud. He rushed the closest guard and took hold of the gun barrel to push it away and kicked down against the side of the man’s lower leg. Snap. He went down screeching, though not before Ryker had pulled the knife from the belt around the guard’s waist. He tossed the knife and it spun and sank home into the thigh of the second guard whose rifle barrel swept upward as he pulled the trigger and he roared in surprise and pain.
Ryker flung himself toward him, easily took the gun from his grip, and tossed it. Swiped the guy’s legs. Knocked him out with a kick to the head. He took the knife and turned to where the first guard was caught in two minds: Stay down and nurse his snapped leg or try and fight on. A spinning kick to his arm caused his rifle to fly free. Ryker hovered over him at the ready with the knife…
The guard held his hands up in surrender.
Ryker turned and pulled Yaman up from the floor and she squirmed and moaned only a little before Ryker had her around the neck with one arm, the tip of the knife by her ear.
‘You want me to insert this into your head?’ he whispered to her.
‘N-no!’
Rushing feet outside.
‘Then call them off.’
Three more guards skidded into view outside the room, weapons trained but they all paused when they saw the predicament.
‘Call them off!’ Ryker boomed in Yaman’s ear.
‘It’s OK!’ she shouted to them. ‘It’s OK. Please, lower your weapons.’
The men hesitated but then slowly the barrels swung downward.
‘I don’t need to hurt anyone else here,’ Ryker said, momentarily glancing at the two injured guards. ‘So don’t make me.’
No one said anything.
‘Do you understand?’ Ryker shouted, pushing the point of the knife against Yaman’s skin. She squealed in terror and the men shuffled on their feet not knowing what to do.
‘Yes!’ Yaman screamed as if answering for all of them. ‘I understand. We understand.’
‘Good,’ Ryker said before relaxing a little and smiling. ‘So how about that phone call now?’