“We need to leave.”
Jack sighed. Again, that “we,” and he was starting to doubt it was the royal “we.” He was lying on his belly, enjoying the warmth of the burning truck. Blade was right, but he was thinking sleep might also be right. The cleaning of the knife wound had sapped the last of his energy. He could barely work up the desire to wonder why Blade suddenly seemed to think they were in this together beyond the immediate situation.
“With the damage we caused the Ka-52, it will take them about an hour to get back to the compound.” Blade was disassembling the Assassin X and tucking the pieces away in his overcoat. “Which means in half an hour he’ll be able to mobilise more of his troops. He’ll send a team back. They’ll arrive within three hours. We need to be well away by then. It’ll be dawn in another couple of hours, and we’ll have to hide while they scout the area.”
Again, Blade spoke sense. Jack really should care. He couldn’t even trust in the Office coming for him. With his luck, the last location ping probably went off while he was still in the compound. Even if it had gone off here, before he killed his implant, it would take at least eight hours before they could get anyone out here. There was a very good reason Mr. Valadian had his compound in the square fucking middle of nowhere, and that was to stop people from sneaking up on him.
It didn’t help that Blade was the reason he was here. Without the crazy bastard, his cover would still be solid. He’d be asleep in his warm bed. Possibly he could have found the intel mother lode within the next couple of days and gone home, at long last. He was sick of the desert. Sick of majestic sunsets and sweeping plains and sunburnt bloody vistas. Jack wanted to sleep in a bed big enough for his shoulders and not worry about falling out if he rolled over too enthusiastically. He wanted to run on pavement. To see a tree. A green tree. He wanted the hum of never-ending traffic to serenade him to sleep at night, not the distant howling of dingoes. He wanted to swim in the ocean. He wanted sand—wet Bondi Beach sand—in his arse crack and salt on his lips. What he wouldn’t give to have a single piece of Gillian Golightly’s salted caramel fudge.
“I did some recon before going to Valadian. I know a cave we can hide in. If we leave now, we’ll reach it before dawn.”
What would Blade do if Jack refused to move? Leave him? Shoot him?
Of all the information the Office had gathered on Ethan Blade, a firm physical description was not part of it. The only accounts they had were hearsay and third-hand stories. From such unreliable sources, he’d been described as a slender, dark-haired young man—such as the one with Jack right now—as well as a very tall, muscular blond and a stocky, dark-skinned bald man with missing fingers. Anyone who’d had a good look at the assassin was dead, or had a lot of incentive to keep quiet. Jack was a realist. He didn’t think there were many people who could keep such a big secret. It was highly likely that when Blade decided he didn’t want Jack around anymore, he would kill him. Which made Jack start to appreciate that “we” a little bit more. And if Jack was going to have any chance of not dying by Blade’s hand, he would have to get to his feet, at the very least.
Groaning, Jack shoved himself to his knees. His splinted arm still ached, but it was manageable now. The knife wound stung from Blade’s field surgery, but it was a clean, scoured feeling, which was better than the growing heat of infection. His T-shirt went back on. Bomber jacket over his shoulder, Jack stood.
Blade smiled encouragingly and set off, waving Jack after him. Jack wondered why the hell he was considering following Blade. The man would probably kill him at some stage. And yet he was here for Mr. Valadian. Which, if Jack couldn’t get home with the intel, was about the best he could hope for. One way or another, Mr. Valadian would be stopped.
Tucking the Desert Eagle into the back of his jeans, Jack followed Blade.
They wound their way out of the field of battle, leaving behind about thirty corpses and the smouldering hulks of the two trucks. The scavengers would have a party until Mr. Valadian returned and took care of his dead.
Blade angled them to follow the ridge, and Jack trudged along behind him, studying the clear sky, finding the Southern Cross. They were heading southeasterly. With no idea where the torture shack was in comparison to the compound, Jack was firmly at Blade’s mercy. Central Australia was big. And empty. Jack could have picked an arbitrary direction and died of dehydration, snake bite, or sheer loneliness before finding even a hint of human life. He might get lucky and find a dirt track. If the odds were truly stacked in his favour, he might even find someone driving along that long shot. In reality, though, it was him, Blade, the poisonous fauna, and a whole lot of absolute shit all.
The sky over the ridge was turning from black to satiny purple fringed in pale gold when Blade changed direction, heading over the rocky incline towards the ridge proper. Jack held back, watching the other man skip lightly over the uneven ground. Blade moved with the nimble, sure-footed ease of an experienced outdoorsman. How could he not, with those lean legs, narrow hips, and strong arms?
Crap. One sleepless night, a broken arm, and a piddly little stab wound and Jack was checking out the arse of an assassin with fuzzy-headed bemusement.
At the top of the scree, Blade stopped. He stood in the shadows of the ridge, overcoat drifting around his calves, looking both ways, up and down and then back at Jack. With a wave, he indicated they backtrack. While Blade scampered along above, Jack ambled over the relatively flat ground until the assassin stopped again. He climbed the final distance to the rock wall and vanished into a deeper shadow. A moment later, he reappeared, motioning Jack up.
By the time Jack reached the cave, he was thoroughly exhausted. His arm ached and his back was one big knot of tension. Squeezing in through the narrow opening, he half hoped Blade had outfitted his bolthole with a feather mattress and hot tub. Sadly, the light of the assassin’s small torch illuminated a high-ceilinged, sand-floored space about half the size of the torture shack. The walls opened up briefly before narrowing into a tiny crawl space leading back further into the rock. There was the distinctive pattern of a snake track wriggling across the sand. Lovely.
Blade wedged the torch into a crack in the wall and removed his overcoat and jacket. “We’ll wait out the initial search here. Feel free to sleep. I’ll keep watch.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be fine.” He settled down by the entrance, balancing his Desert Eagle on an upraised knee.
“Right.”
Jack took his own Eagle from the back of his pants and lay down, then pillowed his head on his jacket, gun held lightly in his left hand, resting on his chest. It was probably pointless wondering about Blade’s intentions towards him now. Apparently, Jack wasn’t destined to die by assassin just yet.
He dropped into sleep easily, a holdover from his service days. Soldiers learned to sleep when they could, never sure when they might have to get up and go. Still, he slept light and stirred when Blade left.
Bright light sliced into the cave from outside, meaning it was past midday and the sun at an angle to pour directly over the western face of the ridgeline. The assassin left his coat and jacket, taking only his Eagle and whatever else he had secreted about his body. He slid out of the cave without a backwards glance at Jack. After a couple of minutes, Jack rolled to his feet and went to the entrance. He cautiously looked out.
There was no sign of Blade, no sign of anything that had made him leave.
While it wasn’t overly warm in the cave, the air drifting in from outside was dry and hot. The rocks outside seemed to vibrate in the heat, looking like a cooktop on high. In the distance, the flats shimmered with waves of superheated air; the world melted, beaten and forged into a deadly weapon by the unrelenting sun. The land out there would kill the unwary and unprepared as assuredly as a gun to the head. It just wouldn’t be as mercifully fast.
Jack’s mouth was dry, his throat scratchy with thirst. They’d have to find water soon. And, eventually, food. Right now, however, Jack wondered what Blade was doing. The man was clearly deranged. Was he prone to unpredictable actions? Jack snorted. Hadn’t he just spent the night trying to keep up with Blade’s unpredictability? He wondered what he wanted more—for Blade to return or stay away.
Two hours later he still hadn’t decided, but Blade returned. He came out of the scree to the south. One moment, not there; the next, a lean shadow fell across the rocks before Blade appeared in its wake. Walking calmly, he approached the cave like a lost lawyer in his dress pants and button-down. He looked rather human and unthreatening with his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, sunglasses on, and hair curling with sweat. Over his shoulder, he had two canteens of the style carried by Mr. Valadian’s troops.
“You killed them for water?” Jack asked as Blade reached him.
“No. That would be counter to our purposes. Dead bodies would only prove our presence here.”
Getting up to let him into the cave, Jack nodded. “Then how?”
“Human nature, Jack. People lose things. They forget where they put it, or it fell down behind the couch.”
“Or it was stolen,” Jack suggested wryly.
“Or it was stolen,” Blade agreed with a small upwards curl of his lips. He handed a canteen to Jack. “Thirsty?”
Unable to stop it, Jack smiled, then regretted it. He was here to survive, not make friends. No matter how reasonable Blade sounded or acted, he was still the enemy. Right now, he might also be the enemy of Jack’s enemy and therefore a potential ally, but definitely not one Jack should let himself get comfortable with.
He took the canteen and sipped. As much as he wanted to drown in the water, he didn’t want to puke it all back up and waste what might have to last for days.
“You saw the search?” he asked as Blade settled opposite him.
“Yes. Standard procedure search pattern. They found our tracks but lost them when we hit the harder ground. A team passed the cave around midday. Didn’t even look in this direction. They think we kept going, to get as far away as possible.”
Taking another small drink, Jack shook his head. “Valadian has some very experienced ex-military types in his troops. They should be smarter than that, especially if they have any idea about you.”
“And you. SAS, now working for a counterterrorism department. Should we look a gift horse in the mouth?”
Jack stared at him. “What do you mean, I work for a counterterrorism department?”
Blade’s smile was wide and open this time. “Aha, so I was correct. You do work for the Office.”
“I’m sorry?” Jack scrambled for some handle on the discussion. All he found was the old crutch of he shouldn’t know that. It wasn’t much support at all.
“The Office of Counterterrorism and Intelligence. Colloquially known as ‘the Office.’ I suspected but was far from certain. Samuel Valadian is a mobster, not a terrorist, after all. Organised crime, some high-stakes espionage, accumulation of troops and weapons, but no proven acts against Australia or your secret Meta-State agreement. However, he has the connections and alliances in place to make the shift into domestic terrorism all too easily. So, I suspected. As for you, Jack, all I knew was you weren’t military intelligence. Since few other Meta-State departments would have the knowledge or ability to infiltrate Valadian’s core group, I guessed you were an Office operative.” He smirked triumphantly. “And you just confirmed it.”
All true, and supposedly very, very secret information.
Neither confirming nor denying, Jack said, “You told Mr. Valadian you thought I was military intelligence.”
“He didn’t need to know the truth, just some semblance of it. That way, if things didn’t go according to plan, he would go looking in the wrong place for you.”
Jack blinked. “You used me, but at the same time, tried to protect me?”
“Of course. Your endangerment was never a goal, just a necessary risk.”
“Did you really take down Nikonov just to convince Mr. Valadian he had a spy in the organisation?”
Blade looked up from holstering his Desert Eagle. “I wouldn’t say ‘take down’ as such, but yes, I facilitated his capture by the FSB. At the same time, I spread rumours the leak that led to his capture came from somewhere in Valadian’s territory.”
Jack shook his head in disbelief. “All that just to get The Man on his own. Nikonov wasn’t an easy target.”
“Not as easy as some, no, but easier than Valadian.” Blade checked his coat for damage. “He was also ticketed to a quarter million roubles.”
“Fuck,” Jack muttered. “I’m on the wrong side of this business.”
“The money is nice,” Blade said softly, not looking up from his meticulous work. “The freedom of choice is nicer, though.”
There were enough tonal undercurrents in those words to sweep away the unwary. Tired and sore, Jack didn’t have the mental capacity to navigate those waters, so he fell quiet. Unable to look away, he watched Blade go over the coat twice more before he was seemingly satisfied. The obsessive actions left Jack even more unsettled by this strange man.
Wish you were here?
He returned to the entrance. Outside, the world hadn’t changed. Still hot, still hostile, still empty of help. If Jack wanted any chance at all of making it out of the desert, he needed Ethan Blade. He just needed to stay one step ahead of the assassin.
He snorted. Like he’d managed to do that so far.
“Is there a problem, Jack?” Blade asked.
A big bastard of a problem, but he said, “I don’t get why the search team walked right past us. If I were leading it, I would have them scouring the ridgeline, looking for exactly this cave. I wouldn’t care what I personally thought about the subjects of the search; I’d cover all possibilities regardless.”
“Yes, but that’s you. Not everyone is as thorough.” Blade shuffled about behind him. “May I sleep, Jack?”
Turning, Jack frowned at him. “Why ask?”
Blade was lying down, head on his coat. “I wished to ensure you didn’t object.”
“Oh. I thought maybe you didn’t trust me to keep watch.” Or not kill him in his sleep.
“I trust you, Jack.” He closed his odd eyes and, within moments, was asleep.