Reckless

Except for Apollo.

Hunter hated using the stupid Greek codename. It was so pretentious. But as it was the only name he had for the bastard who had shot Bob, it would have to do. Apollo was always different. Angrier, surlier, more self-important than the others. Hunter had identified him early on as a bully and a nasty piece of work. But never in a million years had he thought Apollo intent on murder.

Bob’s execution had left the entire camp in a profound state of shock. It wasn’t just Hunter. The other guards seemed genuinely horrified by what had happened. People were crying. Vomiting. But no one had the gumption to face down Apollo.

This was it. The new reality.

They were all in it up to their necks.

The radio signal was fading. Hunter twiddled the knob desperately, looking for something, anything, to distract him from his fear. He’d been in dangerous situations before in his journalistic career. He’d been shot at in Aleppo and Baghdad, and narrowly escaped a helicopter crash in Eastern Ukraine. But in a war zone you had adrenaline to keep you going. There was no time for fear. It was easy to be brave.

Here, in the silence of the cabin, with nothing but his friend’s empty bed and his own fevered thoughts for company, fear squatted over Hunter like a giant, black toad. It crushed the breath from his body and the hope from his soul.

They’re going to kill me.

They’re going to kill me and bury me in the forest, next to Bob.

In the beginning, in the days and hours after Bob’s death, Hunter had dared to hope. Someone will find me. They’ll all be looking now. The Brits. The Americans. Someone will come and rescue me.

But as the days passed and no one came, hope died.

Hunter’s radio crackled loudly, then the signal dropped completely. Reluctantly, he crawled back under his covers and tried to sleep. It was impossible. His limbs ached with exhaustion but his brain was on speed. Images flew at him like bullets.

His mother in her Chicago apartment, beside herself with worry in her tatty chair.

His most recent lover, Fiona from the New York Times, screaming at him for two-timing her the day he left for Moscow. “I hope one of Putin’s thugs catches you and beats you to death with a crowbar. Asshole!”

Bob Daley, making some stupid wisecrack the night before he made the video.

The night before Apollo blew his brains out.

Would they make him record a video too? Would Bobby’s bloodstains still be on the camera lens?

No!

A cold prickle of terror crept over him, like needles in the skin.

I have to get out of here!

Hunter sat bolt upright, gasping for breath, struggling to control his bowels. Please, God, help me! Show me the way out of this.

He hadn’t realized until this moment quite how desperately he didn’t want to die. Perhaps because this was the moment when he knew for certain that he was going to. Any rescue mission would have happened by now.

No one knows where I am.

No one’s coming.

And really, why should they come? Hunter Drexel had never felt or shown any particular loyalty to his homeland. What right did he have to expect loyalty in return?

Hunter had never understood the concept of patriotism. Allegiance to a country, or an ideology, was utterly baffling to him. People like Group 99, who devoted their entire lives to a cause, fascinated him. Why? Hunter Drexel saw the world only in terms of people. Individuals. People mattered. Ideas did not. Hunter had more in common with Group 99’s worldview and political beliefs than he did with Bob Daley’s. Yet Bob was a good person. And Apollo, or whatever his real name was, was a bad person. In the end, that was all that mattered, not the labels that either man lived under:

Soldier.

Radical.

Terrorist.

Spy.