Viper Nine Read online

  He reached between his legs and hitched up the front of his gown to reveal the catheter tube, disappearing up the end of his penis.

  Baptiste took a breath. This was bound to hurt. And he went as gentle as he could, pulling the tube down and out of his bladder and along the urethra.

  It seemed to go on for an age, his groin tensing at the hot, burning pain, making the agony ten times worse.

  Finally, the catheter tube came out, the bag halfway full with urine. Baptiste left the bag on the bed and swung his legs over to the right, where the bed rail had been left down. He shifted to the edge of the bed, body parts vying for the top honour of Biggest Stabbing Pain.

  The relative cool of the grey hospital linoleum felt good to the soles of the Russian’s feet. And even though he’d been unconscious for the duration of his stay on the ward, Baptiste couldn’t wait to get out of that bed.

  There was something about hospitals he hated. He found them suffocating, devoid of life. And the former double agent couldn’t stand to be around the sick or broken-bodied.

  He felt sure his own physical condition would improve the further he got from the hospital. After all, ninety per cent of healing was in the mind.

  There was also the little matter of the police officer outside his door. The Belgian authorities were waiting for Baptiste to wake up so they could question him. Perhaps other interested parties lurked close by, too.

  Then there was the prospect of Viper Nine tracking him down and finishing the job.

  Baptiste had one window of opportunity. If he could escape unnoticed, he could leave and disappear without a trace. And there were plenty of ways for a man to fake his own death.

  Paris would be out of the question, of course. Russia too. But there were other places to make a life. Ontario or Florence sprung to mind. And from what the nurse had to say, the world was no longer in crisis.

  But if he found himself waking up from a coma in a hospital bed, what of Driver and Wells?

  A sense of urgency returned to Baptiste’s mind. He reached for the TV remote and turned on the news, muting the volume. With one eye on the door, he caught up fast with events courtesy of a Belgian news channel.

  The nurse was right, the hacks that had crippled economy and infrastructure were falling like dominoes. But there was no mention of a nuclear weapon, or even the identity of the man Driver had photographed during the chase.

  Yet those cybercells couldn’t have crumbled on their own, which gave Baptiste hope that at least a few of the others had survived the pursuit.

  Whatever the case, Baptiste had only a few seconds to make a decision. One that would determine the entire trajectory of his life.

  Taking a moment, Baptiste turned the TV off and set the remote down on the bedside table. He rose gingerly to his feet and re-acquainted himself with the act of walking.

  The Russian dragged the ECG machine with him, the wheels squeaking and the power cord just about long enough to make it to the end of the bed.

  His legs were weak and a light nausea pervaded, brought about by the slow return of blood to his head. Picking up the chart, he read the doctor’s notes for a diagnosis on his condition. There were no major injuries. A miracle. A sign?

  After everything he’d done. All the lies, deceptions and betrayals… All the people he’d consigned to death, or killed with his own hands… This was a second chance. It would be heinous to waste it.

  Baptiste replaced the chart and returned to his bed. He picked up a steel bed pan along the way, climbed back in and threw the sheets over him. Sliding down in bed, Baptiste hurled the bed pan at the window. It crashed loud and startled the police officer in his chair. As he jumped to his feet and entered the room, Baptiste lay still with his head on the pillow.

  Out of the corner of an eye, he watched the police officer enter the room. He was six-foot and stocky with flame-red hair and a matching beard.

  ‘What the hell?’ the man muttered in French as he picked up the bedpan and looked over at the motionless Baptiste. He approached the Russian, feet thudding and uniform smelling of food from the canteen.

  Baptiste saw the shock on his face as the officer noticed the loose cuff. He snapped his eyes open. The policeman reached for his duty weapon. But not fast enough.

  Baptiste grabbed the man’s wrist and snapped the cuff on it before he could draw. He smiled and winked as the man pulled at the cuff.

  Sitting bolt upright, the Russian spun the man around into a chokehold from behind. The officer kicked and writhed as Baptiste held firm, but he was robbed of his voice and soon unconscious.

  The Russian transferred the ECG clamp to the finger of the gendarme and got out of bed. He dragged the officer around, dumped him on the bed, shut the door and closed the blinds over the window.

  The heart monitor beat slow and steady. Baptiste stripped the man of his uniform, removed his gown and changed into shirt, cap, boots and trousers, complete with holster and weapon.

  He robbed the officer of his phone, holding the man’s relevant digit against the fingerprint scanner on the Android device.

  Unlocking the phone, Baptiste disabled all security settings, along with the GPS. He left the man in his socks, boxers and shirt. Peering around the doorframe, the Russian looked both ways and noticed a sign for the elevators to his right. He fixed the Velcro straps of his dark-blue stab vest in place and slipped on the police officer’s cap.

  Turning the corner, he found the next corridor busier with activity – doctors, nurses, porters and more members of the Gendarmerie.

  Baptiste called a number on the phone and spoke his password after the tone.

  The call connected immediately. It was Anna who picked up. ‘Baptiste?’

  ‘What did I miss?’ he asked, following the signs on the corridor walls.

  As Anna overcame her relief and surprise, she brought him up to speed, two police officers heading his way. Passing them in the corridor, Baptiste kept his head low and nodded in acknowledgement.

  He thought he was clear. Yet they turned as the Russian walked away.

  The pair of them stared on the drip connector still taped in place on the back of his hand.

  It was the smallest of oversights, but the biggest of errors. Proof he wasn’t as mentally sharp as he thought.

  Baptiste quickened his step along the corridor and rounded a corner to the left, finding an elevator filling up.

  There was just enough time and room for him to step inside as a female voice announced the elevator was going down. Baptiste heard the hard slap of police boots along the corridor, the officers shouting at hospital staff to clear out of the way.

  Yet the doors were closing, the officers too late. Baptiste shrugged and smiled as they rounded the corner. The elevator dropped towards the ground floor and Anna finished catching him up.

  ‘What’s the plan from here?’ he asked.

  ‘The plan is you get some rest,’ Anna replied. ‘You’re in no condition—’

  ‘I’ve been in a coma, I’m rested enough,’ Baptiste insisted. ‘Tell me where the rendezvous is and I’ll be there.’

  ‘Well in that case you’re headed for Dubai,’ Anna said. ‘I’ve not heard from Lim yet.’

  ‘How about Rios and Pope?’ Baptiste asked as the elevator hit zero.

  ‘I think they’re close to arrival,’ she replied.

  * * *

  Pope held on for dear life as the diminutive Latina thrust back and forth at terrifying speed.

  This was the hottest, wildest sex he’d known. Damn, it was the only sex he’d known since Christ knows when. And yet his sole focus was keeping the wolf from the door as Rios straddled him like a rodeo rider on a gram of speed.

  Pope struggled for grip. Her skin slippery with sweat, her hips grinding fast and relentless, bringing him to the brink of explosion.

  At forty-thousand feet over the Persian sea, no one could hear you scream. So Rios didn’t spare the decibels.

  Not that Pope was complainin
g. He was too busy holding his breath and tensing whatever muscles needed to tense to keep a bloke in the game.

  He checked his watch. Five minutes almost up, the minimum time the Australian considered acceptable when scoring with a chick. Especially one he couldn’t trust not to share his performance stats with the rest of the team.

  So as the big hand ticked around to the top of minute five, Pope breathed a sigh of relief and allowed himself to enjoy the moment.

  The moment lasted three seconds. Thirty seconds later, Rios brought it in for landing, collapsing on top of him with pert, heaving breasts.

  ‘Well held,’ a breathless Rios said, straightening up and brushing her long, dark, post-sex hair out of her face.

  ‘No worries,’ Pope replied, throwing himself a mental high-five.

  The Mexican paused astride him and caught her breath. ‘Thanks,’ she said, patting him on the chest. ‘It’s been affecting my aim.’

  Pope lay naked on top of the sheets as Rios climbed off him and slid off the edge of the bed.

  ‘Is that it? Are we done here?’ Pope asked, as she pulled on her underwear.

  ‘Yeah, why?’ she replied, fixing her bra.

  ‘Did I do something wrong?’ Pope asked, sensing a challenge to his manhood.

  Rios sought out the remainder of her clothing from the floor. She paused by the door to the en suite shower. ‘Listen, let’s not make this a big deal. You had fun. I had fun. No need to complicate it.’

  ‘Hey, “simple”’s my middle name,’ Pope said.

  Rios laughed. He wasn’t sure at what, but she turned on her way out of the door. ‘And let’s keep this between us.’

  ‘Sure,’ Pope replied, as the Mexican disappeared through the doorway. ‘So we not gonna cuddle?’ he yelled after her. ‘I like to cuddle after.’

  The Australian heard a shower head burst into life. As he gazed out of the window at a carpet of fluffy white clouds, he couldn’t help feeling he’d been used and dumped like a cum-filled rubber.

  I’ll take it, Pope thought, putting his hands behind his head with a smiling sigh. ‘Yep, still got the magic, Russy.’

  As if there was any doubt.

  Chapter 44

  Saudi Arabia

  At least the night offered some form of respite from the searing temperatures. The lumpy stone wall felt cool against Driver’s back as she sat on the floor in the shadows of her cell. She put a finger to her nose and peeled away a thin crust of blood, clotted following the strike of an elbow from one of Kovac’s guards.

  Driver turned her head to the right, her mouth dry and, like her British counterpart, deprived of water. Wells sat with his back to the same wall on the other side of a double row of thick metal bars. Cast in moonlight, his head was down, with elbows resting on his knees, rubbing the back of his neck where he’d taken the force of a rifle butt.

  It was quiet in the cells, the walls built out of solid rock with solid steel doors. They were being held away from the other cells above the atrium. To stop Driver and Wells listening in to their conversations? Who the hell knew.

  Driver shifted on the seat of her jeans. The silence was killing her, so she broke it. ‘You shouldn’t have entered the compound. It wasn’t part of the plan.’

  ‘Oh, you were on top of it were you?’ Wells snapped, eyes still glued to the floor.

  ‘Yeah, I was,’ Driver replied with a shrug.

  The British agent lifted his head and raised an eyebrow her way.

  ‘Okay, maybe I wasn’t,’ she conceded.

  Wells shook his head. ‘I thought you were gonna pull the trigger back there.’

  ‘Had to play along,’ Driver said.

  Wells felt his ribs and winced. ‘Did you have to play along so hard?’

  Driver smiled. ‘Gotta make it convincing.’

  ‘Funny, I thought you meant it,’ Wells grumbled. ‘So what do you think about escape? Any ideas?’

  ‘Let’s see,’ Driver replied. ‘A locked prison cell. A compound full of highly-trained mercs. And a hundred miles of burning desert in either direction. We’re about as locked down as it gets.’

  Wells laughed to himself.

  ‘What?’ Driver asked.

  ‘You have to admit,’ Wells replied. ‘It’s pretty ironic, ending up back in a cell.’

  Driver pulled her knees into her chest. ‘At least it’s not twenty below. And the company is better.’

  ‘You sure about that?’ Wells asked.

  ‘Okay,’ Driver said, getting to her feet. ‘Can we put the tattoo thing to bed?’

  As she grabbed the bars and looked into Wells’ cell, her fellow Wildcard agent stood and faced her on the other side of the divide. ‘What’s there to say?’ he replied. ‘I am who I am. You believe what you believe.’

  ‘Please, don’t say that’ Driver said, resting her forehead against the rough iron bars. ‘It’s not what you think.’

  ‘Then enlighten me,’ said Wells, waiting on an explanation.

  ‘It was back in Siberia,’ Driver began. ‘The first few weeks were just – nightmare doesn’t cut it. I was new. An American and ex-CIA. It was before the suicidal tendencies had kicked in. And I was naïve enough to entertain hopes of escape.’ Driver felt herself transported back in time to The Boneyard, feeling the chill of the cold up her spine as the images flashed through her mind. ‘I had three attempts on my life in the first two weeks. In the showers, the laundry room and the yard.’

  ‘What happened to your attackers?’ Wells asked.

  ‘I dealt with them,’ she replied, recalling the viciousness of the assaults. Driver also remembered the brutality of her response. Breaking a woman’s neck, strangling another with a bed sheet and a shank reversed on another would-be executioner. ‘But I couldn’t watch my back forever,’ Driver continued. ‘Sooner or later, they’d have got me, an inmate, a guard or a man from the neighbouring prison.’

  ‘So, how does that fit with the tattoo?’ Wells asked.

  ‘You know what it’s like inside,’ Driver said. ‘You either align yourself with a gang or you’re heading to the morgue.’

  ‘I kept to myself,’ Wells replied.

  ‘Well inside the gulag, you align or die,’ Driver continued. ‘And the only gang in town were White Daggers, all with the same tattoo.’ She backed away from the bars and paced around her cell, too ashamed to look Wells in the eye. ‘Before I knew it, they were introducing me to a guy called Sergei Molevchek.’

  ‘The guy who makes all those YouTube videos,’ Wells nodded. ‘MI6 were monitoring him when I was there. He’s been at the heart of the right-wing uprising across Europe.’

  ‘A few of the guards were big fans,’ Driver continued. ‘So they let him cross the walls and hold classes in the female wing of the complex. I learned his teachings and recited them with the rest. And after I’d proven myself…’ Driver stood close to the bars and hitched up her linen top. ‘They gave me this.’

  Disgust gripped her as she remembered her branding. Lying on a table with a joyful smile while in her heart, she spat obscenities.

  ‘I had it done here, where no one else could see,’ Driver said, looking down at her ribcage. ‘The others wore theirs in plain view.’ She dropped her top, covering the tattoo. ‘Can you believe I was one of Molevchek’s favourites?’

  Wells shrugged. ‘Blonde hair, blue eyes. You’re the perfect Aryan.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Driver said. ‘It makes me sick.’

  ‘You didn’t look sick in the company of Kovac.’

  ‘Thought I could earn his trust,’ Driver said. ‘That I could take Viper Nine down from the inside.

  ‘But then I showed up,’ Wells said. ‘Shit, I blew it.’

  ‘You weren’t to know,’ she replied. ‘Besides, the man trusts no one. Not surprising when you consider what he’s planning.’

  ‘And what’s that?’ Wells asked.

  Driver dropped her gaze to the floor, a curdling in her stomach. ‘Something terrible. Far
bigger than we imagined.’

  ‘Kovac has a nuke,’ Wells said. ‘How bad can it be?’

  ‘Try genocide bad,’ Driver replied. ‘The guy makes Gaddafi look like Gandhi.’

  ‘You get any specifics?’ Wells asked.

  Driver shook her head. ‘Just the grim highlights. I only had a few seconds alone on his laptop.’

  Wells chewed on his lip, his eyes narrowing as if doubting her intentions. ‘If you hate the tattoo so much, why have you still got it?’

  ‘You know what it’s been like the last few months,’ Driver replied. ‘It’s been one mission then another. I haven’t had time.’

  The British agent let out a sigh and shook his head, the frost between them melting away.

  ‘So this camera lens,’ Driver asked, leaning in close to the bars. ‘Getting a good look, were you?’

  ‘Like I said, your top rode up. I happened to be zooming—’

  ‘Oh, you “happened”,’ she smiled.

  Wells laughed and flinched once more, a hand to his side. Driver reached instinctively through the bars, her fingertips to his toned abdomen. They lingered there, the softest of touches. As their eyes connected, his hand rested on hers around the bars. The frisson was enough to blow the generators.

  The British agent brought his face to the gap between the bars, their lips almost touching. Driver leaned closer for a kiss, but a steel shunt broke the spell.

  As the cell door flew open, Graf strode in with a pair of guards. They were on Driver’s side of the bars. And quick to drag her across the stone floor.

  ‘Leave her alone!’ Wells yelled.

  Graf spat through the bars at Wells. A racist slur following fat behind it. He grabbed Driver by the neck as she kicked and screamed in resistance.

  She glanced back at Wells as they dragged her out of the cell. One last look as he yelled at them to take him instead.

  That was Wells all over. But Graf kicked the steel door shut as they marched her down a dark corridor to meet her fate.

  Saudi Airspace. 30,000 ft.

  Baptiste ached all over as he adjusted the straps of the backpack on his shoulders. The jet-black chute matched the rest of his gear – boots and a jumpsuit zipped over polypropylene clothing.