The Valedictorians by David Annandale

Author:David Annandale
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780888014788
Publisher: Ravenstone, an imprint of Turnstone Press
Published: 2014-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

17

Blaylock and Luzhkov came into the hotel room. Flanagan took in their faces, felt a pinch of something bad. They were brother hunters. He knew the night hadn’t been a banner triumph, but that wasn’t what tweaked his gut. They were fuming, but they were high on battle. Bonding over bloodshed. All he’d done was tend the home fires. Blaylock wouldn’t let him play. “Have fun?” he asked.

Blaylock gave him a sharp look.

Washington was hot, but Baghdad was worse. This was a no-mercy heat, fifty centigrade and up. Water was over halfway to boiling. Flesh curled up like bacon. Screw finding AC. It was rare, it was crap, it was killed by the power outages. Keeping cool was like staying alive: high risk, low payoff. The sane people were leaving.

It was good to be back in the field.

Chapel knew his trip was on Korda and Reed’s radar. No way he could use a passport now without the flags going up. No point using any Agency means to reach Iraq quietly. He couldn’t raid company stationary without Korda knowing. Losing physical tails wasn’t a problem. Korda could put all the men he wanted on his scent. Chapel would spot them, dance with them, shake them. He knew a lot of the operatives he made. He didn’t think they were trying very hard. There was war in Langley, and everyone knew it. Chapel was poison, to be avoided. But Korda was king asshole, and commanded zero loyalty. Chapel was an intelligence soldier, not a manager parachuted in because he had friends and was owed favours. So Chapel had his breathing space.

Machines, though, didn’t care about politics. They ready-aye-readied to whoever controlled the buttons, and that was Korda. The little big man wouldn’t have Chapel’s location pinpointed, but he knew he was here. Good. That would give him a few more sleepless nights. Chapel could use the paranoia. Channel it in the directions he wanted. Korda and Reed might sniff what was in the wind. Chapel hoped they crapped their pants.

He was sitting in a café off Monsour Street. He was all the way at the back, out of the sightline of sun, Korda and insurgents. He was sweating his way to dehydration. He didn’t trust the water, and was chugging back warm Cokes. He checked his watch. It was 1445 Baghdad time, who the hell knew what it was by his body clock. His contact was half an hour late. There’d been a time when he would have been early. Chapel wasn’t sure if that was a sign of how far his own stock had fallen, or of the total disintegration in Iraq.

The man sauntered in just after 1500, when Chapel was half-past pissed off. He sat down, grinning wide, big show of teeth, white against his leathered white-boy tan. His name was Donovan Victor Donovan. Thank you so goddamned much, mum and dad, you shits. He went by DVD. He was English. After one year on his parents’ money at the University of Leeds, he’d come out to Iraq in the lead-up to Bush Daddy’s excellent adventure.

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