Trained by Sansa Rayne

Chapter 3

Smoke rises from the barrel of my rifle. A buzz in my head washes away the irritation of my dry, sandpaper skin. For a week I’ve lived inside a partially buried box in the desert, only crawling out under the cover of darkness to relieve myself. I’ve subsisted entirely on protein bars and warm bottled water. During the day, I roasted. At night, I froze. I barely slept. Auditory hallucinations started by the second morning. If not for my men checking in on the walkie-talkie, I might have lost it. We kept each other sane.

“One target left,” I say. “Keep him pinned down. I’ll approach on foot.”

“Understood,” Henrik and Stanislaw respond in unison.

I’ve been looking forward to this part for a week. More than the look on Anton’s face, more than the catharsis of peppering his ride with bullets — more than witnessing his realization that he would be dead if I wanted him dead. More than all of that, I’ve dreamed of getting out of this fucking box, standing upright and hoisting my rifle like a championship trophy. Today, Anton learned that he’s not in control of the world anymore — that the days of his unchallenged reign are over.

Should I have simply killed him now and dealt with the consequences later? I had a clear shot from the moment he stepped out of his Hummer. I could have gutted him and made sure he died slowly — but this is about more than revenge. Before every move I make I ask, If I do this, what will happen to Kate? Her life is tied to Anton’s — if not electronically than for all practical purposes. I can’t kill Anton until she’s safe.

The plan to free her will take time, it won’t be easy and it won’t be bloodless — but it’s going to work. It has to. It kills me that she’s out there waiting. Every second she rots in Anton’s prison is an outrage. However, if Anton has even an inkling of a suspicion that she’s somehow helping me, he will kill her and everything I’ve done in the past months will be for nothing. I’ve let out a lot of fury on the shooting range; I’ve nearly knocked punching bags off their chains. I hate having to wait, but I know Kate will hold on.

I skirt the line of bullet-riddled cars so that the last man standing doesn’t have a clear shot at me. He mumbles to himself as every few seconds another bullet smacks a windshield or hood. By the time he hears my footsteps, I’ve got my rifle trained on him. There’s blood on his black suit, but I don’t think it’s his. Short-haired, clean-shaven and steady of hand, he has ex-military written all over him.

“Hands up,” I say. “Toss your gun.”

He yells at me in Arabic until I fire a warning shot into the sand.

“Stop it. I know you’re not some fanatic. You’re a mercenary who worked for an arms dealer. So let’s talk. What’s your name?”

“Nasir,” he says, tossing away his AK.

“How would you like to survive today, Nasir?”

“Fuck you. I’m not a fanatic but you killed Hamza. He was a good man. He paid us well; he took care of his people.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, glancing at my men as they approach. “But Hamza was about to sell weapons to a monster.”

“Then why didn’t you shoot the monster?” Nasir growls.

It’s a fair question.

“Because I can’t kill Anton yet,” I say, as a vehicle rises over the dune in the distance, heading toward us. “And if he thinks Hamza was the primary target rather than himself, that helps me too. I admire your loyalty to your employer. If you wish to die with honor, I can make it quick. If you have a family, I can see that they’re taken care of.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I’ve seen families destroyed from losing a father.”

Nasir nods, turning to look at the black, armored van that slows to a stop near the tables full of missiles.

The driver steps out with a handgun drawn, ready for any surprises.

“We’re clear, Eyal,” I say.

“Death,” he replies, surveying the spent bullet casings and the havoc rained on Hamza’s SUVs. “Well executed.”

“Start loading the missiles,” I say. “And get the laptop Anton’s man used. I want to be wheels up and exiting Saudi airspace in an hour.”

“Understood.”

I turn back to Nasir.

“If you come with us, there could be a job in it for you. No promises, but otherwise I have to shoot you.”

“Can I think about it?” he asks.

I’d laugh, if I thought he was joking.

“Sure.”

I secure his wrists with flex cuffs as my men load up all the missiles. Once we have everything, I lead Nasir into the van and buckle our seatbelts. I contact our flight crew when we reach the road so they can start preparing the jet.

With our mission complete except for extraction, I lean back in my seat and take a deep breath. I inhale the cool, filtered air and wash the adrenaline from my blood.

My leg throbs. I hadn’t noticed it while focused on the mission. A bullet’s been lodged in there for months, a chronic source of pain — a visceral reminder of Anton’s malevolence. He could have shot to kill; he didn’t. It’s a mistake he’ll pay for dearly. A surgeon could remove the bullet, but I won’t let one — not until Anton is dead. If Kate’s suffering every day, it’s only fair that I suffer too.

“Hey,” Eyal says once we reach the private airport. “Get some rest. We’ll take care of everything.”

“Thank you.” I clasp Eyal’s hand in mine. “Thank you for everything.”

“There’s more work to do,” he says.

I board the jet, chug down a bottle of water and collapse into bed.

—

I open my eyes twelve hours later. Our jet descends, our compound’s airstrip in sight. I shower and dress as we land, then join my men: besides Eyal, Stanislaw, Henrik and the three-person flight crew. Elyse, our pilot, completes the post-flight routine as the co-pilot, Hasan, heads for his quarters to rest. Baptiste, mobile operations coordinator, sees to Nasir.

Most of the compound has gone dark for the night. Disguised as a house and small farm in the mountains of upstate New York, less than an hour from the Canadian border, the facility used to be a U.S. government bomb shelter. We don’t have any neighbors to pay attention to our daily activities, and we’re surrounded by acres of hunting ground, where hearing distant gunshots isn’t unusual. Little air traffic passes by, allowing us to watch for any incoming attack — and should someone try to launch against us, we can dig in very deep.

We meet in the kitchen; Henrik makes a large salad for us to share. As we eat, we debrief.

“Currently our objective is to determine Anton’s next move and circumvent it,” says Eyal. “Based on satellite footage out of Riyadh, we believe Anton’s jet flew to New York, rather than the Enclave.”

If I were Anton, what would I be doing? Why not bunker down on my own island, which couldn’t be more secure? Perhaps because it’s full of men who hate him, men who might try to exploit the fact that he nearly died.

What if he has a line on another supplier for black market weaponry, a backup in case Hamza failed to deliver?

Or, is he looking to have a word with Kate? What if he’s going to take out his anger on her? I can only hope that he won’t — that he knows she had nothing to do with what happened to him.

As we eat, Eyal fills me in on everything I missed while waiting in the desert. Then he pulls up intelligence reports being disseminated regarding the shootout near Riyadh. The current assessment: an arms deal went south and turned deadly. Although my men burned the SUVs and the bodies, then swept the bullet casings, it didn’t take the CIA long to figure out Hamza Bin Khaled was the victim. They’d been keeping tabs on him for years; they may want to know who killed him and why, but as far as they’re concerned, someone did them a favor.

“Excuse me,” I say, once I’ve eaten. “I should update our silent partner.”

I head for the secure sat phone and make a call.

“Hello?”

“It’s me,” I say.

“How’d it go?”

“Well. We got the package, and made a new friend.”

“Did you offer him a job?”

“We will,” I say. “Pending an interview.”

“Good.” He pauses a moment; I hear his breathing on the other end of the line. “This is really happening, isn’t it?”

“It’s the beginning of the end. The plan is in motion. This will be over soon.”

“For her sake, I hope so,” he says, then hangs up.

I don’t disagree.

—

Nasir’s eating a bowl of oatmeal in his holding cell when I arrive. He wears a white TV shirt and black sweatpants; he’s not restrained in any way, and he sets his spoon down when I enter the room.

“I have to confess something,” I say. “You aren’t alive by luck. You were spared during the attack on purpose, Nasir Al-Zayani. We knew you were Hamza’s second-in-command. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

He frowns, but nods.

“What was Anton going to do with the missiles?”

“Why would he have told us?”

“Did Hamza have a theory?” I ask.

Nasir sighs.

“With those missiles, he could eliminate any person on the planet whenever he wanted. Business rivals, heads of state — whoever stood in his way.”

“Anyone specific?”

He doesn’t answer, looking away. He knows something.

“I wasn’t lying about having a job for you,” I say. “But you’re going to have to prove you’re loyal. That means giving us actionable intelligence. Again, I’m sorry that I had to kill Hamza. It was necessary. But you can ensure that he died for a good cause.”

“Okay,” says Nasir. “While Anton and Hamza spoke privately, Anton’s men were talking. Maybe they didn’t think any of us spoke English. Anton planned to test out the missiles soon. They said two names: Thor and Lincoln. I assumed those were codenames.”

No. Timo Thor and Lincoln Waterston.

“Did they say where the targets are? Or where they were headed next?”

“Possibly,” says Nasir. “One joked about testing the missiles on horses. Does that help?”

“It does.”

Waterston’s ranch in Kentucky. Not a bad place to lay low and stay out of Anton’s way. I have property records for every member of the Masters; finding out the exact location should be easy. We can set up surveillance to determine who, exactly, is currently living there. This could be our opportunity to acquire what we need most: one of the Masters, alive and alone.

Of course, that’s just part of the plan.

“So, Nasir,” I say, taking out a handgun. “Does this mean you’ve accepted my offer, or is this goodbye?”

He laughs.

“Can you even pay me? Hamza worked out of a palace, not a bunker.”

“Hamza had clients to impress,” I say, leaning in close to Nasir. “I have a monster to kill. Help me, and when this job is done I’ll pay you enough to buy that palace. How does that sound?”

Smiling, Hamza replies, “Your man called you Death, earlier. Is that what I should call you?”

“No,” I say. “Call me Ingram. Welcome to Anarchy, Inc.”