‘Where is she?’ the big man demanded.
‘Who?’ Ryker said.
‘Don’t give us that crap,’ Podence said, sounding as riled as he looked, but not in the least bit worried. As though this whole thing was nothing more than an annoyance. Karaman, on the other hand, looked entirely cool and calm. ‘We know she’s with you.’
‘Who’s with me?’ Ryker said, perfectly happy to play dumb for two reasons: Firstly, it gave Angel more time. Secondly, he already sensed Podence would only get more agitated.
‘Angel,’ Podence said. ‘Where is she?’
‘Angel?’ Ryker said. ‘You mean… Angela Everett? Why would she be with me? Wasn’t she working with you? Didn’t she help you break that bastard out of prison?’
He nodded to Karaman who exchanged a glance with Podence.
‘I hear you,’ Angel said. ‘I’m guessing they got you.’
‘Ryker, enough of the crap,’ Podence said. ‘Where is she?’
‘Clearly not in this room,’ Ryker said. ‘What is this room, anyway? Some grand ballroom or something? Who the fuck even has a room like this in a home?’
‘Ballroom, got it,’ Angel said.
Podence opened his mouth to speak but Ryker cut him off.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen this room before.’ Marble floors. Marble columns. Big chandeliers, a huge bay with sash windows fifteen feet high. ‘In that picture in your townhouse in London. You’re with your wife. The Arhans, too.’
Podence looked really mad now. Had he not known about the break-in?
‘Are you not going to introduce me to everyone else?’ Ryker said. ‘Obviously I know my bestie, Ismail, pretty well. But not the big man there who looks like his mom screwed a bulldog. Or bullfrog, maybe. Nor the two chumps behind me pointing guns at my head.’
‘OK. So, five in there with you?’ Angel said. And he was about to respond to confirm when, ‘Shit, Ryker!’
He tried to show no reaction as he heard banging, muffled breathing, gasps, groans coming through the earbud. Someone was attacking her. Or she was attacking someone.
‘Hey, idiot, I’m talking to you!’ Podence shouted, and Ryker tried his best to focus there and not on the sounds in his ear that no one else in the room could hear.
‘Yeah?’ Ryker said. ‘Except I’m not really interested in what you’ve got to say. Not unless you’re about to tell me all about how you’re the one I’ve been looking for all this time. The one behind the Syndicate, coordinating everything.’
Podence scoffed. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Come on, Frank. Be frank.’ Ryker chuckled at his pun, hoping to further annoy Podence. ‘I’ve seen the files.’
A thudding sound from somewhere behind Ryker got everyone’s attention. Frogface lifted a radio up and then turned and muttered something to Podence and Karaman.
‘Looks like we have her,’ Podence said to Ryker.
‘Angel,’ he said in return, hoping to prompt a response from her, but got nothing. Not even the sound of her breathing now. Either she was dead, or the earbud had been compromised.
‘Great,’ Ryker said. ‘So when she comes in this room you can explain to her exactly how you set her up. The lies that saw her lose all those years in prison. Saw her lose her daughter.’
‘Me?’ Podence said, putting a hand to his chest, his face screwed up to show his incredulity. ‘You really think I’m the one who—’
He stopped again when Frogface turned to him once more. He muttered something into his radio and then he, Podence and Karaman all turned to the look past Ryker, over his left shoulder. He twisted his head that way too. To where there was a closed door, the handle moving down. Frogface now had his gun up, pointing to the wood of the door. The other two goons kept their weapons trained on Ryker.
The door slowly creaked open. Ryker glanced to the foot that poked through. Angel, he knew straight away. So she was alive, at least. She shuffled on in, an arm around her neck, a gun…
It looked pretty good at first glance. It looked like the man behind her was choking her, forcing her forward with the gun pressed against her temple. But Ryker knew within a beat that it wasn’t the true story. That the man behind her was already dead. That she was dragging him, the man’s head and shoulders hunched forward, her arm twisted behind her to hold the gun up – in his limp hand – against her head.
The ruse didn’t catch Frogface off guard for long. Ryker could tell by the anger spreading across his mangy features as he readied to pull his trigger. But she only needed that initial distraction. Just enough to get her into the room without a spray of gunfire greeting her.
‘Angel!’ Ryker shouted as though the warning would help her.
Maybe it did. Maybe it didn’t. Sudden moves, noises, always elicited some reaction. But before a single gunshot was fired from anywhere, a huge explosion from somewhere beyond Angel rocked the room. The whole house shook, the floor shuddered. Windows blew out and dust and grit-filled air blasted and swirled.
Ryker didn’t try to make any sense of it before he moved.
Angel shot first, straight at Frogface. Ryker twisted to his left and grabbed at the guard there who was busy trying to decide whether Angel or Ryker was his target, or if the threat of the explosion trumped everything.
Ryker grabbed the guard’s arm, yanked down and the man pulled the trigger and hit the guy to Ryker’s right in the face. Ryker twisted the arm further around, sending him to the ground, then squeezed his finger over the man’s on the trigger and the second shot caught him in the neck. Blood sprayed as Ryker prized the gun free.
He went to jump up but a second explosion, even more powerful than before, sent him flying. One of the marble columns fell toward him and he rolled out of the way just in time before it smashed to the floor and clumps of stone and plaster clattered everywhere.
Bullets pinged across Ryker and he again had to roll for safety as a third explosion sent flames and heated air blasting across him.
He heard Angel calling out, although her voice felt distant in his ringing ears. Don’t move. It gave him some focus and he rose back up, gun held firmly in his grip, the barrel aimed at the corner of the room. At Karaman.
‘And you don’t fucking move either,’ Ryker said.
Podence was armed. Karaman was not.
‘Drop it, now,’ Angel said. She stood five yards from Ryker, double-grip on the handgun. The wall behind her, the door she’d come from was ablaze, flames leaping up, crawling across the ceiling. ‘Drop it or I shoot your dick off first.’
She fired and Podence flinched as the bullet hit the desk to his left at groin height. He dropped the gun.
‘What the hell did you do?’ Podence said.
Ryker didn’t quite know what he meant, though he did momentarily glance at the now-dead Frogface on the floor in front of him. To go along with the two Ryker had dispatched. The other dead man in the doorway. How many more had Angel fought and killed to get in here?
‘Gas explosion,’ Karaman said. ‘Probably in the kitchen. Ever resourceful, Angel.’
He spoke almost with affection and with it she seemed to lose a little of her hard edge.
‘But the real question is what did you do,’ Angel said to Podence. He only shook his head in response. ‘I’ve seen it,’ she added. ‘The hospital files from Beirut. I never fired the bullet that hit his daughter. I went to prison for nothing. Because of you.’
‘You two!’ Podence shouted in despair, glancing from Angel to Ryker. ‘I… I…’
‘And Karaman told me everything,’ Angel said. ‘How you framed him for being a terrorist. How you’ve played him ever since. And he’s not the only one, is he? That’s what you do. You and the Syndicate. From the shadows, you play this twisted game with other people’s lives. You ruined my life. For what?’
‘You stupid woman,’ Podence said before looking at Ryker. ‘You actually think all this is because of that damn Syndicate or whatever you want to call it? That there’s some group of people who meet up in secret to plot against the world? What, do we wear big robes and walk around muttering like loons?’
‘The Syndicate is real,’ Ryker said.
‘Whether it is or isn’t, I’m not part of it!’
Everyone in the room flinched as a part of the ceiling above them gave way and a burning wooden joist swung down, crashing between Ryker and Angel.
Flames had taken hold around three walls of the room now, only the bay window behind Podence and Karaman, the garden beyond, still untouched.
‘You have about two minutes before you burn to death in here,’ Angel said. ‘And I’m not moving until you admit what you did to me.’
Another crash from somewhere outside the room. Another ceiling or wall caving in. The heat in the room was almost unbearable now, smoke building up all the time too.
‘Show me your wrists,’ Angel said to Podence.
Podence looked really confused.
‘Show me your fucking wrists!’ she screamed.
Podence shook his head, lifted his left sleeve. Nothing. He more slowly lifted his right sleeve. Hesitating. Delaying. He looked from Angel to the ever-increasing flames all around him.
‘Do it!’ she shouted out.
He lifted his sleeve ever so slightly more, revealing a swirl of black ink.
But then a wayward flame from the wall by him licked at Podence’s shirt sleeve and he batted at it in panic.
‘OK!’ Podence shouted, pulling his sleeve back down. ‘I knew about that day in Beirut. It’s true. I tried to stop the assassination. I guess… I did. And yes! I gave the order to give you no help out there. To let them make an example of you. But only because he told me too.’
He pointed to Karaman.
‘Angel,’ Karaman said, still sounding horribly calm. ‘Remember what I told you. How they’ve lied to me, used me for years.’
‘It’s him who’s lying to you!’ Podence shouted, looking more and more edgy with flames encircling him. ‘Everything I’ve done has been because of that man! For fifteen years I’ve been living under threat, knowing that if I don’t do what I’m told then it’s my family they’ll hurt first. Ryker, you came to me, you told me you thought Karaman was a messenger for the Syndicate. No, he is the Syndicate!’
Ryker held his eye on Karaman as Podence spoke. Podence’s words were tinged with distress, anguish, and Ryker didn’t think it was just because of the threat from the gun pointed at him, or the prospect of getting caught up in the fire. The evil glint in Karaman’s eye told Ryker everything he needed to know.
‘Angel. You know the truth,’ Karaman said to her.
From super-composed, she now looked ready to crumble. As though the weight of everything that had gone wrong in her life weighed down on her all at once.
‘Liar!’ she shouted at Podence and she pulled the trigger and the bullet smacked into his forehead. His body remained suspended for what seemed like way too long, with a stunned look plastered on his face, before he caved to the floor.
She twisted to the right, as though to turn her gun to Karaman, but then carried going until the barrel was pointed at Ryker.
‘Angel?’
‘Kill him,’ Karaman said. ‘Angel, you must kill him. You know he’ll never let you live after what you’ve done.’
‘Angel?’ Ryker said.
But then he realized she wasn’t actually looking at him, but behind him.
‘Ryker, down!’
Ryker ducked as bullets sprayed and two men burst through the flames. He tried to turn his gun on them but before he could another smoldering beam swung down from above. Ryker threw himself to the right. The wood grazed his arm as it fell and knocked the weapon free.
As he jumped back up, he spotted Karaman across the room, dashing for the windows.
‘Ryker!’
Angel. He spun to her. The two men who’d run in were down already. One had a neat bullet hole in his forehead. The body of the other was on fire, next to the wood that had narrowly missed Ryker. The beam extended right across the room.
To Angel who was crushed underneath.
‘Ryker!’ she yelled again, sheer panic in her voice.
He rushed over to her. The beam lay across her gut. There were no flames at this end yet but the wood smoked and hissed. Ryker put his hands underneath but it was charred and hot as hell and he winced as he whipped his burned hands back.
‘Ryker, help me!’ Angel pleaded as she grabbed hold of his arm.
‘I will.’ He took off his jacket and wrapped it around his throbbing hands for protection. He tried with everything he had to heave the wood off her.
It didn’t move even an inch.
The far end was wedged into a crevice in the wall. No way to push it, he had to lift.
He looked across the room. Grabbed a fallen piece of wood which he used to try to lever the beam up. But the wood snapped in two and he fell back and to the floor. Flames jumped up his leg and he had to beat them back down with his jacket to stop them from spreading.
He coughed and spluttered. Smoke rapidly filled the room now, the fire eating up the remaining oxygen. The remaining air was so hot it felt like his lungs were burning from the inside.
‘Ryker!’ Angel shrieked, even more desperate than before.
Her legs were ablaze.
He smacked at the flames. Tried to smother them with his jacket. It made little difference and they were rapidly taking hold of the rest of her.
She grabbed his arm and pulled him close.
‘Tell me I did the right thing,’ she said through gritted teeth, her agony clear. ‘Tell me I made a difference.’
‘You did. You really did.’
She held her other hand out and slapped something into his palm. Something small. He didn’t look before she spoke again.
‘Shoot me!’ she yelled before she screeched even more loudly and the wood on top of her reignited all the way to the very end, the flames leaping toward her face.
Ryker stood up, stepped back, the heat overwhelming. The smoke in the air choking.
He lifted his gun and fired a single shot then turned and, head down, rushed for the windows.
There was no sign of Karaman there now. But Ryker recognized the whoop-whoop sound outside.
‘No!’
He jumped through the blown-out window frame, rolling into the fall on the slabs outside. He adjusted his aim with the gun.
The helicopter hovered outside. Karaman was there, another goon by his side who helped him clamber up the rope, a man on the inside ready to pull him the rest of the way.
Ryker squeezed the trigger…
Click.
No bullets left.
He roared and tossed the gun but it just bounced lazily along the grass. Karaman and the others hadn’t even seen him. Ryker rushed forward, fully intent on a desperate leap to grab hold of the departing craft.
But he stopped himself a few yards short, realizing his last-ditch attempt would be futile.
As the helicopter rose above him, Karaman finally looked down at Ryker. He smiled. Saluted.
Then the helicopter turned and flew away over the water.
Ryker stared back at the inferno. He dropped to his knees, trying to get his breathing back under control now he had air to breathe. Trying to ignore the pain from his heavily blistered skin. He opened his charred palm to look at the object Angel had given him.
A locket in the shape of a heart. He didn’t need to open it to see who’d be on the tiny picture inside.
He squeezed his hand shut, pain and anguish shooting through him. Then he rose up and rushed toward the water for the boat.