Page 1 of Betrayed

Chapter 1

85ALBERT EMBANKMENT, Vauxhall Cross, London

A thunderous boom rattled the windows and shook the floor beneath Arturo’s feet. It was accompanied by a brilliant flash of light, which made the team gathered around the table shield their eyes and turn their heads. When their focus returned to the 70-inch screen, flames shot into the air and smoke billowed from what had moments ago been a late-model sedan. They were all experienced enough to know nothing could have survived the blast. But they leaned forward expectantly, waiting for the gray haze to dissipate and the rest of the horrific scene to unfold as if there was hope.

Long, excruciating moments later, a mangled metal frame became visible, all that remained of the obliterated vehicle, except for charred, flaming debris that crashed to the ground all around it. Through the speakers came the sound of a woman’s mournful wail.

As a seasoned MI6 agent, Arturo Durand had seen plenty of death. He’d watched enemy combatants killed, his own bullets often doing the deed. He’d seen suffering among the innocent bystanders who ended up as collateral damage simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In war, he’d watched helplessly as his countrymen fell, fellow soldiers in arms who had known the risks and accepted them as part of the job. And he’d witnessed car bombings like the one on the screen but in person, too close for comfort. But never in the course of twenty years of service had he watched a colleague, a man he called his friend, incinerated before his eyes.

Any loss of life was tragic, but this was heart-rending because he knew William Cleese left a wife and two young sons behind. Retired three years earlier, the man had paid his dues and had earned his reward for the dangerous life he led while serving his country. For this to happen after leaving the SIS was appalling. What was worse, this was the third assassination of a former agent in the past year.

Arturo’s thoughts turned to Will’s widow, made so in the blink of an eye and a flash fire of destruction, and the two now-fatherless children this heinous act had left behind. His heart ached for them. He wondered, not for the first time, how much more of this senseless violence, day in and day out, it seemed lately, he could endure.

Bottom line... He was getting too old and too damn tired for this shit.

Putting his emotions into a proverbial box and shoving them aside, he did what he had trained for and assessed the images on the screen. He took in not only the charred shell of the car but everything around it on what had certainly been a quiet Athens street only moments before. The damage appeared more extensive than was typical, the blast powerful enough to obliterate the five-thousand-pound-plus vehicle and produce a crater in the concrete street. It radiated to surrounding cars and blew out the windows of the buildings nearby, now fully engulfed in flames.

This wasn’t the work of an ordinary car bomb.

When the screen went blank, silence filled the room as he and his fellow agents tried to process what they had seen.

“That was hard to watch,” Danvers muttered brokenly while rubbing his face, his usually suntanned complexion having gone pale. He was one of their newest operatives, thirty years old at the most.

“Has anyone claimed responsibility?” Raymond Ashworth asked with deceptive calm. At fifty-two, he was the most senior agent on the team and known as much for his icy demeanor in a crisis as he was for his explosive temper. Arturo had partnered with him more times than he could count, and he noted the tension around his mouth and how his lips compressed into a thin line. From that alone, he knew the dreadful event they just witnessed had settled heavily on his mind. If Ray had a say in it, a painful retribution was forthcoming for the culprits.

“No credible group has taken credit,” Director Bancroft replied, disgust curling her upper lip. “The usual whack jobs are crowing, of course, but we have ruled all of them out based on the surveillance video recorded before the strike.”

“Strike?” Arturo repeated.

“We know for a fact this was no ordinary bomb,” she said, her expression grim. “It was carried out by a BSE M180 CADA with LO technology.”

“CADA?” Danvers asked.

“Covert aerial disposable aircraft,” she clarified, adding, “LO is low observability or stealth technology.”

“An urban stealth drone?” Arturo stated in disbelief. “Who has the capability of delivering a payload by drone that can inflict such damage?”

“We do,” the director answered succinctly. “This model was called the Kamikaze.”

“A remote-controlled suicide bomber, holy fuck,” he muttered.

“Was this a miscalculation or a malfunction?” Ray demanded coolly before he exploded. “Bloody hell, don’t tell me friendly fucking fire took out one of our own men.”

“No. We had no tests scheduled.” Bancroft queued up another picture and put it on screen. “This is the Kamikaze. It’s the size of a remote-controlled toy plane.” With a laser pointer, she circled the tail. “Notice the twin vertical and horizontal stabilizers? They scrapped this prototype eighteen months ago when tests found that a single vertical stabilizer and rudder had greater maneuverability.”

“This means we have a security breach on our hands,” Arturo put forward.

“Exactly, and if I were a betting woman, I’d wager my entire pension that the technology sold for a seven-figure price tag.”

“Where do we go from here if there are no leads and no one has claimed it?” Ray inquired in the same chilly tone.

“The only facility working on this stealth line is in Houston, Texas.” The director’s shrewd gaze homed in on him. “You have friends in security in Texas, don’t you, Durand?”

He nodded. “I worked a campaign several years back with the Americans. The captain of the unit retired from the military, but from what I’ve heard, he has an impressive security operation based in San Antonio. He will be an excellent resource, and his men are all special forces trained and could provide backup if needed.”

“Make contact and set that up,” the director ordered.

“One of his partners is a former associate of yours,” he told her. “Major General Davis, also retired.”

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