Nearly twenty-four hours had passed since Ryker and Winter had found the abandoned getaway car in Kent. A busy twenty-four hours that as yet had no payoff, and Ryker’s frustrations were beginning to build as nighttime once again approached. He’d traveled north out of London alone. Winter hadn’t been with him since the night before when they’d arrived back in the capital from their sojourn in Kent. Their short-lived partnership had come to a necessary end as it’d become clear that Winter was more useful on the inside at the Secret Intelligence Service than out in the field where he got to chaperone Ryker, but didn’t really provide much other use. The identities of the three attackers remained a closely kept secret, no mention of it, or even whispers, among the press or across social media channels. Winter really shouldn’t have known about it either, hence why he wanted to be back in London, among his own circle of clandestine people, to see if he could figure out where the bottleneck of intel was occurring, and why.
But he hadn’t left Ryker entirely on his own, unaided. First thing that morning Ryker had been back inside Scotland Yard with Davis, with a new ream of data to review from London, and latterly from Essex Police and Suffolk Constabulary as Ryker – and Davis – tracked the movements of the second car northward, past London.
Which had culminated in Ryker traveling northward too, into rural Suffolk. The last two hours had been spent much like the previous evening, with Ryker painstakingly searching across the area of land where the car had eventually ‘disappeared’ into a blackspot free of the network of road and license plate recognition cameras that increasingly covered swathes of the UK.
But Suffolk was known for its rurality, and with the lack of big urban centers came a lack of Big Brother monitoring, and the blackspot that Ryker had to search over here covered an area of some twenty square miles – much larger than in Kent. Only a tiny part of the county really, which consisted of 1,500 square miles with a population of less than a million people.
Ryker took a right turn down a narrow road wide enough for only one vehicle. A winding road with six-foot tall hedgerows on either side, rare glimpses of what lay beyond only when passing gates for the many farmers’ fields, or when coming upon isolated homes.
As he rounded a corner he spotted a car parked up a hundred yards ahead. A big black SUV, tucked into the side by a turning for a gravel drive. Ryker slowed his car down, partly to get a good look at what lay past the turning, and partly because the way the car had stopped provided so little room for him to pass on the narrow road.
He crawled by. No sign of where the gravel drive led because of the crest of a small hill, but what he did see was two men, on their feet, standing on the near side of the hill. Regular-looking guys, in casual clothes. One looked off to something in the distance that Ryker couldn’t see, a phone pressed to his ear. The other stood by his side, although the low rumble of Ryker’s engine – or maybe the sound of his tires on the tarmac – caught his attention and he turned, arms folded to look over in Ryker’s direction.
Ryker had no clue who he was, had never seen his face. But a certain type of person had a certain type of look. A seriousness in their eyes, their facial features. A relaxed rigidity in their stance that showed they were ever-ready. Ryker knew the look well because it would be what others saw in him.
The men hadn’t moved from their spot before Ryker carried on past. And he kept going fifty yards, a hundred, until the next gated entrance where he pulled the car over to the side of the road. He took a quick look at the GPS screen. He hadn’t seen the house or barn or whatever it was down the drive, but a building was plotted on the digital map, a couple of hundred yards from where the men had stood.
Ryker looked at the dark field by him. No buildings in sight that way. No cattle or other animals in the field that he could see. The metal gate was closed but not locked. Ryker stepped out of his car and opened the gate then got back in and reversed his car back, fully off the road and behind the hedge. Not entirely hidden from anyone passing from the far side, but if that car went past him, the people inside would get nothing but a fleeting glimpse in their mirrors, if they saw anything of him at all.
Engine and lights off, he sat and waited. Not for long. Less than ten minutes. He heard it before he saw it. The headlights flashed across the road in front a moment later and then the hulking SUV headed on past, didn’t slow up. They hadn’t spotted him.
Ryker turned the engine back on but left his lights off for now. He waited several seconds before edging back onto the road, two options fighting for control in his mind. Follow the car, or go and see what those men were looking at. Maybe Karaman was in the vicinity, in a building down that track. But maybe those men were searching still, like Ryker. If he lost them now, he wouldn’t find them again. He wanted to know who they were, and where they were going next. He could always retrace his steps back to here to look at that property if it turned out that’s where he needed to be.
Follow.
Out here, where there was so little traffic, it would be obvious if he got too close, so he held back a few more seconds. In a little over a mile they’d come to a T-junction. Going left would eventually take them to the nearest town; going right would wind through more farmland. He traveled slowly initially, the car not in his sights at all, which at least meant he wasn’t in their sights either. He reached the T-junction and paused, looking carefully left and right. There. In the far distance to the left.
He took the turn and sped up. Traffic built up as he approached the outskirts of Bury St Edmunds, a small but historic and picturesque town. One which, in classically English style, had a layout of twisty, crisscrossing roads that pre-dated motor cars by hundreds of years. Which ultimately made it completely inadequate for cars to easily traverse, with a network of slow junctions to overcome.
Which was good news for Ryker because it meant he could close the distance on the SUV slowly, methodically, and without drawing too much attention. Soon only three other cars separated him and them. They carried on through the town. Other cars came and went, but Ryker always kept a safe enough distance. At least until they neared the far end of the town, and the road opened out and Ryker found himself directly behind the SUV.
As they sped up Ryker let the target drift away a little but kept it in his sights now. A mile. Two miles. Brake lights. Turn signal. Ryker slowed too and once the SUV had gone off the road he hung back a little more before eventually following them into the parking lot of a large out-of-town hotel. The SUV had carried on around to the side of the two-story building. Ryker parked up on the nearside and got out, deciding it was easier to stay unseen on foot.
He crept toward the far side of the building, the dusk gloom providing him some cover in the unlit parking lot. He stopped behind a parked van and peeked out. The SUV, parked now, lights off, sat right by two other parked vehicles. A dark sedan, another slightly smaller SUV.
One man stood by the cars. The same guy who’d looked in Ryker’s direction earlier.
Ryker dialed Winter.
‘Still searching?’ Winter asked.
‘Maybe not.’
‘You found it?’
‘It? The car? No. I found something else. How quickly can you get me something on a license plate?’
Winter sighed. ‘Do you want to explain why first?’
‘Because I think I’m not the only one out here looking for Karaman, and I want to know what I’m up against.’
‘I’ve heard no news at my end,’ Winter said, sounding dubious.
Still, Ryker read the license plate and Winter was in the midst of caveating what he could provide and how long it would take when the side door to the hotel opened and a man stepped out. The other man he’d seen earlier, on the phone. Except now he’d changed. All black. Not full-on combat gear but not exactly casual attire either, with black boots, cargo pants, and a thick jacket. He was also definitely more bulky than he looked before. Kevlar.
And he carried a big black holdall. Not a huge bag, but the way his hand strained and the way he pulled his shoulder up showed it was heavy.
‘Ryker, are you still there?’
‘Wait,’ Ryker whispered when he realized the man wasn’t alone.
Two more came out of the hotel, in the same clothes, with the same bags. Then another. Then another. Finally came a man who was more casually dressed. He didn’t look much like the others. He was older. Out of shape in comparison.
‘We have a… situation,’ Ryker said.
Winter didn’t answer straight away. Apparently, the seriousness of Ryker’s tone had caused him to pause for thought.
‘Go on,’ Winter said.
Ryker pulled back behind the van. He’d seen enough.
‘It’s a raid,’ Ryker said.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘They’ve found Karaman. SIS. And they’re going to take him back. By force.’
‘That makes no sense. Ryker, there is no raid. Not by SIS. I’ve heard nothing.’
‘Then why is Frank Podence of MI6 standing fifty yards from me with a tactical crew?’
Podence. The MI6 pencil pusher who’d tried to close down Ryker’s work on the Syndicate.
‘Podence is there? MI6 doesn’t have any jurisdiction on UK soil.’ Technically correct. MI6’s remit, in theory, was foreign intelligence gathering, and they only had authority to carry out operations outside the British isles. Yet spies be spies. Or something like that.
‘And yet here he is,’ Ryker said.
‘That’s…’
‘What? Impossible? Do I really need to explain it all to you?’
‘Ryker, if you—’
‘This is the Syndicate. And Podence is with them.’
‘Ryker, please—’
‘I’m going to stop them.’
‘If you—’
Ryker ended the call then turned the phone off as he rushed back for his car.