Terminal Vendetta (A Diana Weick Thriller Book 3) Read online

  PERSONAL VENDETTA

  Copyright © 2021 by Cate Clarke

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

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  Chapter 1

  Diana Weick

  Seoraksan, South Korea

  The paint was smooth and untouched. Three colors were spread out in the square palette: green, black and beige. With two fingers, she swiped across the green, covering her face in it, joining it together with black streaks and beige smears—One swipe at a time, methodical and practiced, because Diana Weick had done this several times before.

  In the small park bathroom, the stall doors were made up of slats of wood. There was one sink and one mirror, Diana gripping her hands to either side of it, staring at the paint smeared across her face. Yes, she’d done this several times before, but it had been a long time since she had seen herself like this—full green face, full SEAL.

  Against the wall was the gun bag, a long sniper rifle affixed to its straps, the scope packed into the zippered sides. Sniping had always been Nelson Rank’s specialty. But this wasn’t about getting that right shot, not right now anyway. It was about finding out what the hell the Readers were doing in South Korea and who they were after. Besides, Rank was a traitor and dead.

  From the bathroom, Diana slipped out into the woods of the mountain, trekking up and off the trail. The air was thick with humidity, low rolls of mist crawling across her ankles as she climbed. Spring was long gone, the bloom of summer already settling in the Korean countryside. Green everywhere, Diana blending in with the surroundings, keeping her eye on the trail she was hiking adjacent to, a concrete walkway with metal railings.

  She wasn’t convinced that Zabójca and David were here for a romantic tour of Seoraksan. They were after something important, meeting somewhere way out of the way and secret just to… do what? Exchange information? Purchase a highly encrypted password?

  This had been the difficulty that Diana had run into after a few weeks of working independently. No government backing. No Dominic Ratanake or superior officers or detectives giving her any information or reconnaissance beforehand. It was all up to her and only her.

  And that’s what she wanted.

  Her breathing was heavy by the time she reached a rocky outcrop, climbing up and over it while adjusting the gun against her back.

  At least, Kennedy was home safe. And Diana knew—they would call her a bad parent, a terrible mother, for leaving her daughter behind as she went off on her personal revenge mission. Kennedy had just lost her brother and her father. Diana, her son and ex-husband. But the exact same thing that would make her a terrible mother would make her an effective soldier. If she waited the time to grieve, the Readers would be so far ahead on their plans that Diana would never be able to catch up. And more people would die.

  Besides, she couldn’t sit in that empty house in Seattle, waiting for something to happen, waiting for the shadow of a ghost to walk through the door and remind her of everything that the Readers had taken from her.

  Revenge was petty. But motivating. Intoxicating. It was personal. Not only her only son and Rex, but Ratanake, the officer who’d trained her, who’d loved her, who had framed her whole career—killed by the Readers. Ratanake had passed his enemies on to her, and Diana was settling up.

  Perhaps Zabójca was the reason Ratanake had drunk so much, covering up the intoxication of revenge with alcohol.

  Up ahead, Zabójca and David were sitting on stone steps with the temples of Singheungsa below them. Curved slate roofs, dotted with foliage, green and white illustrations of lotuses and dragons wrapped around red wooden pillars, holding up ancient open rooms that had been burned and rebuilt too many times throughout history.

  Diana crouched herself against the mountainside, taking the sniper rifle out and screwing the pieces together. Through the scope, she watched them.

  The back of Zabójca’s bald head was shining with sweat in the humid air. David’s red and gray beard had grown out and jutted out from the bottom of his face like an angled dock when he turned his head. With one hand, she adjusted the scope, taking a closer look. They were whispering to one another, exchanging quick words.

  Zabójca took his pointer finger and his thumb and put it under David’s chin, mimicking a gun going off beneath him. They both laughed, but Diana saw the concerned look in David’s eyes. There was an uncertainty in this partnership. Zabójca was a well-off, well-trained international terrorist. The Readers were an organization working to take down the United States Military in whatever way possible—both equally chaotic and dangerous and with a common enemy, but very different tactics. That and Zabójca was, simply, much more terrifying.

  A woman in a long skirt and tank top approached them from behind, her sandals brushing against the stone steps with rehearsed steps. She nodded her head at both of them, muttering something quickly and then gesturing for the two of them to follow her.

  From the steps, she led them to one of the temple halls at the back of Singheungsa.

  “Shit,” Diana muttered as they disappeared from the scope’s view and beyond a sliding paper door.

  With more swears muttered under her breath, Diana partially disassembled the sniper rifle and stuck it back in the bag. The high ground she’d gotten not completely useless, just mostly useless. Diana made her way down the mountainside, slipping in the fresh mud several times, wishing she’d taken the concrete trail. If only she could have paraded around as a regular civilian. She’d proven to herself—in that time with Idris Amber, the MI6 agent—that undercover work was not her strong suit.

  With one final slip, Diana almost knocked herself out on the bottom of one of the temples, running into the pillar that held it above the gravel below. She shimmied herself around it, sneaking her way underneath the raised temples, staying as close to the trees as possible, weaving back in and out of the forest as she needed to.

  From behind the temple she’d seen them enter, Diana slipped herself over the edge of the forest. The mountainside was almost right outside the back windows of the hall. It was convenient that these temples were so damn old; everything was made of ancient paper and wood, allowing sound to transfer easily to her crouched spot in the trees.

  “You came a long way,” a woman’s voice said from beyond the paper.

  “It is worth the trip,” Zabójca replied.

  “For him? You’re sure?”

  “I’m certain.”

  “If we were going to have
a conversation about what we’re certain of,” David said, Scottish accent abrasive even through the paper doors, “let’s be certain that you’re not wasting our time.”

  The woman laughed.

  “Ms. Gwan... Yoonah, I think what my colleague is trying to say,” Zabójca said, “is that we are after something particular, and we wouldn’t have come all this way if we weren’t… positive that you have it.”

  “I do know where he is.”

  “Then tell us.”

  “Pay me.”

  There was shuffling and a thunk like a briefcase or a bag placed down against wood. Some Korean was exchanged between the woman and others, contemplating and discussing the two foreigners in their midst.

  “It seems like…” Yoonah said. “Not enough for someone of his ranking.”

  “This is what was agreed,” Zabójca said.

  “Don’t pretend like you can’t afford my rates, Mr. Fedoruk.” Her voice slid through the paper like she was right next to Diana, whispering in her ear. She added, holding every letter in a hiss, “Zabójca.”

  There was a slight laugh and another shuffling of feet.

  “This is not a negotiation,” Zabójca said. “We already did that.”

  “Take the money and tell us where he is,” David snapped.

  There was a click, the pulling back of the safety on a gun. Diana moved between the trees, trying to get an angle with a view. She managed her way to the other side of a paper window, the morning sun striking through it, providing a glimpse at their silhouettes. The shadowy form of a woman sitting cross-legged, two others on either side of her. Zabójca’s frame, tall and skinny, holding his gun down at his side, almost blending in with the shadow of his leg. And David with his arm outstretched, pointing the gun directly at her forehead.

  Zabójca lightly pressed his hand against David’s outstretched gun, pushing it down and out of the woman’s face.

  “I just feel that you have more to give,” Yoonah said after a moment, her silhouette unflinching.

  “The feeling is mutual,” Zabójca growled, his patience wearing a bit—David’s already worn.

  “You have very little power here,” she snapped. “You will only connect with him while he’s in this country if I allow you to do so. I am the contact. You are the buyer. I am the mother. You are the child. You will eat what I give you. You will drink what I give you. You can throw as many tantrums as you like but this is the way it will be if you wish to get your hands on someone as important as him.

  “Besides,” she continued. “You’re running out of time. Only a few days left to accomplish whatever it is you set out to do. No. Don’t tell me. Those are the details I don’t want to know.”

  “Aye. That’s right,” David said, fiddling with the gun, his shadow twitching. “We’re in a hurry. So quit havering on and get it over wit’.”

  The shadow of the woman grabbed the bag and slid it toward her. She undid the zipper—the sound of it way too loud. It made them all stiffen. Diana ducked down into the tree line as a group of tourists made their way past the temple, snapping quick selfies in front of the steps.

  With an elegant gesture of her hand, Yoonah motioned to the bag, and one of the silhouettes next to her picked it up and dragged it into their lap, peering down into it, counting.

  There was a long silence as the counting went on. Yoonah and Zabójca both stayed quite still, only occasionally turning their heads to sounds outside. David began to pace back and forth, his heavy boots squeaking against the ancient wood.

  Whispers were exchanged in Korean.

  “Tonight, he will be at JangSen,” Yoonah said. “It’s in Gangnam. He will likely be bringing a girl there with him. Tomorrow, he will be at the American base in Yongsan.”

  And as soon as the information was out, both David and Zabójca raised their pistols simultaneously. Three silenced shots and all of the crossed-leg shadows against the temple walls slumped into one another.

  Zabójca gathered up the bag between them and slung it over his shoulder.

  “So tonight or tomorrow?” David asked, sticking his gun back in his pocket.

  “Tonight,” Zabójca replied. “We’ve got to get back to Seoul, so let’s move.”

  Diana waited a few moments, listening to their boots crunching against the gravel in the distance, leaving the dead behind them. There were no thoughts of consequences with them, not anymore. They were sick with the power of blowing up Ratanake’s funeral—on an untouchable high.

  Slowly, Diana slid back the paper door, gliding inside from the forest, this temple smelling of the same wood as the trees she’d been hiding between.

  One of the slumped figures was the woman that had approached the Readers on the stairs. Her black eyes were frozen open, staring down at the ground, and a singular streak of blood cut down her face. The other was a man, not sitting up but instead laying across the wood, not able to hold himself up after death like the women.

  In the middle, Yoonah took a large gasping breath.

  Diana rushed toward her, but she didn’t touch her. First, because she was unsavable, the bullet right through her face, under her eye. Second, because Diana couldn’t afford to be incriminated right now—she couldn’t get any of this blood on her or spread her DNA anywhere in this oncoming crime scene.

  She took gloves out of her back pocket, slipping them over both of her hands.

  “Yoonah,” Diana tried.

  The woman struggled, her breathing thick with the sound of building blood in her throat.

  “Who are they after?” Diana asked.

  Her wide blank eyes turned to her, looking at her with confusion, then realization and then nothing—nothing at all. The light dimmed, and Yoonah went still. Had she remained a silhouette, Diana wasn’t sure if she would be able to tell that she was dead. She had such a graceful motionless quiet about her. Her legs still crossed, leaning against the wooden ledge of the temple behind her, the light from outside carving through the paper windows and shining off her manicured fingernails, wrapped around both of her knees.

  Chapter 2

  Amita Voss

  London, England

  She could have been so much more. There was a time when she thought they would write about her or if not about her, about the things that she did, the problems that she solved—in the news, on TV, letters passing between terrorists, warning each other about Amita Voss. But that wasn’t the way it went. Life doesn’t always turn out how you expect it to or how you want it to. Not that being the vice-chief of MI6 wasn’t what she wanted; Amita would take what she had with humility and grace. She was too old to get what she wanted. Too old and too tired to go back out in the field and take down all that opposed her.

  With a quick swipe of her thumbs, Amita sent a text.

  The laptop in front of her was filled with unanswered emails. Perhaps, this recent reflection on the past, ever since the Readers, was the reason why she’d been unable to focus on her day-to-day work. She had put trust in Zabójca, and that had clearly been a mistake. Amber had failed as well, though. This wouldn’t all fall on her shoulders.

  Perhaps, if she’d hired the American, Diana Weick, if she’d put some trust in her, things could have unfolded differently—less people would be dead. But part of her knew, with absolute certainty, that the Readers would have found a way to burn up those American officials with that stolen UCAV or without.

  They were writing about her in the papers and on the internet. But it was bad press. Terrible press. They accused her of being one of the worst vice-chiefs in MI6 history after the murder of Dominic Ratanake right on her doorstep. Amita couldn’t even bring herself to imagine what they would write if they knew about the failed interception of the UCAV controller in Dubai a few weeks ago. Or of the other failures from her past. Those she could take some responsibility for.

  But that American lieutenant? That was on Chief Harlow. The bastard who couldn’t even bring himself to work out of Vauxhall for more than an afternoon
at a time, spending most of his time with his girlfriends in the Maldives.

  She sipped on the ice water at the edge of her slate-gray desk. Vauxhall Court had been wrapped in a quiet shame over the last few weeks, and it was finally starting to ease up, agents getting more comfortable walking through the halls once again.

  There was a soft knock on the frosted glass door.

  “Come in,” she called, standing up from her desk, straightening her black blazer—the wrinkles at the base of her fingernails reminding her that she had been out of hand lotion for almost a month.

  Idris Amber entered the office.

  “I got your text,” he said as he plopped himself into one of the armchairs, facing himself toward the window that overlooked the River Thames.

  “I wanted to check in with you on your first day back,” Amita said, leaning on the desk behind her, looking him over. His burns had healed nicely; the doctors had grafted him up like an experiment in desperate need of reviving. She took a few steps toward him, her long legs and snakeskin boots stretching out across the carpet. With one pull, she yanked down his blazer and started to undo his button-up shirt.

  “Okay,” Amber said. “I guess the boundaries conversation with HR didn’t really sink in.”

  She ignored him, pulling his shirt down to check his arm. The scars crisscrossed over his olive-toned skin, reaching all the way up his neck in uneven patches, cutting off at his jaw with one more scar across his cheekbone.

  “You’re lucky Weick wrapped you up with those damp scarves,” Amita said. Satisfied with her inspection, she took a step back.

  Re-doing the buttons on his navy collared shirt, Amber said, “Yeah. Doctors said she saved my arm if not my life.”

  “Have you gotten the chance to thank her?”

  “Not formally…” Amber sighed, pulling the blazer back over his shoulder. “Not properly.”

  “Do you know where she is?”

  The corners of his mouth pulled up into a grin as he pushed black curls out of his face, leaning back in the chair. He asked, “Do you, ma’am?”