The bigger, older man turned to his protégé. “Turn on the compactor.”
“No… wait.”
“Put it on slow, Mehmet.”
“Yes, boss.”
Mehmet trudged across the mechanical floor and turned the machine on. Its motor began to whine and Mason felt the vibration through his chair.
Kerem, the bigger man, picked up a chair and walked over to the machine. It was a solid chair with metal legs and a wooden seat, but when he dropped it into the compactor the machine crushed it as if was made of papier mâché. The older man turned and gave Mason an innocent shrug. “You see why it’s better if your head goes in first, no?”
Mason’s reply was to spit out more blood.
“That way, it’s over in a second, but if your legs go in first it’s very painful. Trust me, I’ve used both methods on men who have incurred the displeasure of Mr Omar.”
Goodbye, Jed. It’s been nice knowing you, but it’s time we went our separate ways….
The hopeless sense of treachery and betrayal was slowly giving way to anger and rage. Kat Addington was a highly skilled extraction specialist. She knew all the tricks. She had contacts all over the world. But he was better, and so were the other Raiders. Together, they would track her down and…
Suddenly he was aware of the old man right up in his face. He was gripping him by the chin and forcing him to look into his eyes. Sweat was beading on his forehead and running down his nose. When he spoke, it dripped off and landed on the floor in a tiny splash.
“Last time I ask you. Where is Mr Omar’s property that you stole?”
Mason’s head was swimming now. He was no longer sure what was happening. He could still hear the whine of the trash compactor and something about Kerem told him he wasn’t the type to bluff.
Say goodbye to the other Raiders for me, won’t you, darling?
He heard her say it over and over again, but the upper class English accent that once chimed his heart strings now made him feel nothing but hatred and revenge.
Milo.
Milo and the others would get him out of this.
But how?
Then he heard a scream. At first he thought his fevered imagination had cooked it up, but then he heard it again. A man’s scream. It sounded like Mehmet. Something was happening in here. Kerem had released his chin and was fighting with someone using a metal bar as a weapon.
Mason turned his face and strained to see through his battered, swollen eyes.
His heart started to pound with hope — was that Zara?
It was hard to see through eyes almost sealed up with dried blood, but if it was Zara then these two men would end up begging for the trash compactor before too long. He almost felt sorry for them.
For the next thirty seconds he was reminded strongly of a program he’d once watched about how lionesses hunt and kill to feed their young. Watching the two heavy-set Turkish men desperately trying to keep up with a Silat guru was in many ways more painful to watch than seeing a baby gazelle getting brought down on the African savannah.
At least the TV show blurred out the really graphic parts.
When she had finished pummelling them, she strolled over to Mason and cut his hands free with her knife.
“Aaand you’re welcome,” she said.
“How did you get here?”
“Same way you did, but I took the scaffold to the roof.”
“Thank God. She betrayed me, Zara,” Mason took a deep breath. “After all the times we shared together she double-crossed me and left me for dead, not to mention the fact she stole the damned asset as well.”
“No, she didn’t,” Zara said.
“What do you mean?”
“What do you think I was beating those two assholes with?” She held up the steel bar, and now in the peace and quiet Mason saw for the first time it wasn’t a steel bar at all, but the steel tube he had recovered from Omar’s safe.
He was astonished. “You have the asset! How?”
“Some freaking idiot left it lying around on the roof.”
“It must have come out when I dropped the bag up there!”
“You think?”
Mason changed the subject. “We’re going to need to get out of here in a hurry, and when I say here I don’t just mean this building, but Turkey.”
“No problem,” Zara said. “Cal just got another call from his old buddy. Turns out he was in Germany on a job and when he found out we were in Istanbul he made the trip down.”
“Sounds like this guy’s pretty serious about getting Cal on board. I wonder what the job is?”
She shrugged. “We’re not going to find out in here,” she said.
“Where is he?”
“At the airport.”
“So let’s get going.”
“Can you walk?”
He nodded and held up the asset. “Whatever this mysterious job is, we have to get this back to its rightful owner before the world finds out what happened.”
CHAPTER TEN
“Ezra Goddam Haven.”
The man in the black suit returned Caleb Jackson’s smile and the two men clasped hands in a solid shake. “It’s been a long time, Caleb.”
They were standing in a hangar over in the general aviation apron of Istanbul Atatürk Airport. “You can say that again.” The former Ranger and CIA man looked at Ezra shrewdly. “Maybe not long enough?”
“I see you haven’t changed.”
“What the hell are you doing in Turkey, Ezra?”
Ezra Haven studied the confused faces of the Raiders, dwelling for several seconds on the badly beaten face of Jed Mason, and then glanced at his watch. “Like I said, I have a job for you, and since we spoke last it’s gotten way more serious.”
“What is it?”
“On the plane first.”
Mason took a step forward, still battered and bruised but now thinking clearly again. “Just wait a minute. I trust Cal with my life, but until someone tells me just who or what the hell you are, me and my team aren’t going anywhere.”
Ezra’s mouth curved into a respectful grin. “I can understand that, but I think just this once it might be smart to get on the plane. Your little stunt at the Istanbul Sapphire has not gone unnoticed. It’s being reported as a bungled robbery and murder by a foreign thief and just about every alphabet agency in the country is hunting you down. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life in Silivri Prison I’d trust your friend and get on the Citation. Plus, there’s a medic on board who can take a look at you.”
Mason fixed his eyes on the man in the black suit, determined not to waver or show any weakness. What he’d said about the Turkish authorities was true and the last thing he wanted was for his crew to get arrested and broken up and scattered around the country in different prisons. On the other hand, this guy could be anyone. Even if Caleb had known him once, there was no way to know who he was working for now.
He turned to look at his old friend. “Who is he, Cal?”
“He left the CIA at the same time as me, and the last government job he had was with the DIA.”
Ella frowned. “What’s that?”
“Defense Intelligence Agency,” Caleb said, still smiling at his old friend. “But you’re freelance now, right Ezra?”
Ezra’s smile faded. “We need to make tracks, Cal.”
Mason sighed impatiently. “Can we trust him?”
“For sure,” Caleb replied, returning his attention to his old friend. “But I still want to know why you’re here. Seems like one hell of a coincidence that you show up at the same airport, and at the exact same time.”
“I need you, Cal. You and your team. You’re the best.”