Second Chances

By Will Jordan

She’s wanted by the CIA, but Ryan Drake has other plans, in this gripping novella from the espionage series.
 
Olivia Mitchell defied orders and failed to kill her target. Now she’s severely injured, and CIA operatives are waiting to intercept her at an Istanbul hospital, and extradite by any means possible.
 
Little does the Agency know that Ryan Drake and his team are also on the scene, and for them she is a valuable asset, with history and connections of immediate interest. If they can escape, the gamble may pay off handily. If not, the consequences will be grave.

Is Drake taking one risk too many?

Second Chances is a thrilling novella from the bestselling author of Deception Game and Ghost Target, full of Will Jordan’s trademark ingenuity and no-holds-barred action.
 
Praise for the Ryan Drake series
 
“Entertaining.” —The Telegraph
 
“Jordan knows how to make a book both smart and fun, and in an age where most of our entertainment is bland and predictable, that’s remarkable.” —The Strand Magazine

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781911420651

Will Jordan

Will Jordan’s Ryan Drake novels draw on extensive research into weapons and tactics, as well as the experiences of men who’ve fought in some of the world’s most daunting combat zones. Other books in the series include Redemption, Sacrifice and Betrayal. He lives in Fife, Scotland, with his wife and sons.

Book preview

Second Chances

Will Jordan

Canelo

Chapter 1

Central Hospital, Istanbul – 14th May 2009

She was alive.

Christ only knew how. With an ugly gunshot wound to the abdomen, severe blood loss, internal injuries, fractured ribs, and enough bruising and lacerations to put your average cage fighter to shame, she should have died when they brought her in. If reports were to be believed, she’d come dangerously close a couple of times on the operating table.

Yet somehow she had clung to life, fighting just as hard as the team of surgeons who worked tirelessly for six hours to stabilise her condition and repair the damage as best they could.

And now here she was, lying in a recovery room in the hospital’s intensive care ward not twenty yards away. Frustratingly close, but still impossibly far. The doctors wouldn’t allow anyone near the woman except their own medical personnel; not the Turkish police practically lining up to get access, not the occasional reporter lingering in search of a scoop, and certainly not the CIA field team that had been dispatched to extract her.

CIA operative Frank Wheeler shifted position on the hard plastic chair that had been his home for the past couple of hours, trying to ignore the sharp scent of disinfectant, and the less savoury odours it was intended to mask. Sickness, sweat, shit… the kind of smells given off by the poor bastards who were admitted here daily. The smell of death.

He fucking hated hospitals.

Officially, Wheeler and colleague Greg Krasinski were here as representatives of the US State Department. They were on hand to make sure the patient was treated fairly, afforded the rights and protections due to an American citizen in a foreign country, and given access to legal counsel before the Turkish police got their hands on her.

None of which was actually true, of course. Their real objective was to get in first, find out what exactly had happened to her, then quietly and quickly extract the patient before she could compromise the Agency. Their superiors at Langley would handle the full debriefing.

And question her they would, for there was much to answer; like why she had made her way to Turkey in the first place, without official sanction, and how she’d become involved in a deadly shootout at an office complex three days earlier. Hard facts were in short supply, but already rumours were swirling of illegal clandestine operations on Turkish soil.

It didn’t take a genius to realise that serious shit had gone down that night, though who exactly had been involved and what they’d been willing to kill for remained a mystery. Right now, the only person left alive to explain it was lying handcuffed to a hospital gurney, just down the corridor.

Wheeler loosened his tie. The ward’s air conditioners were doing their best, but the heat of the late afternoon was oppressive and unrelenting, and seemed to have soaked into the very fabric of the building. The polluted air of central Istanbul was acrid and unpleasant, but Wheeler would happily take it over the smell of antiseptic and illness.

One of his team’s technical experts had already tapped into the hospital’s security system, allowing them to take control of everything from security cameras to elevators to electronic door locks. From this digital vantage point, he could see and follow everything that was happening in the hospital.

If necessary, they could shut down the entire building, or seal every exit and trap the occupants inside. However, it was unlikely they’d have to go that far. The chaos caused by a fake fire alarm would provide the necessary cover for their field team, already standing by, to intercept the woman and spirit her away to a waiting car. Then they could be out of this goddamned place.

Wheeler looked up at the clock on the wall, willing it to move towards the top of the hour, when the specialists would reassess the patient’s condition. No such luck. The minutes crawled by with maddening slowness, as if each were fighting not to relinquish its hold on the present.

A low groan returned his thoughts to the present, and he looked at his teammate Greg Krasinski seated nearby. The young man, normally possessing the kind of robust good health and tanned complexion that any Californian would be proud off, now looked decidedly pale and unwell. He was leaning forward, one hand against his stomach, jaw clenched tight.

What’s up with you? Wheeler asked. Montezuma’s revenge?

Nothing. I’m fine, Krasinski replied thickly, beads of sweat dampening his shirt collar. He took another sip from the cup of water he’d been nursing since their arrival, grimacing as it settled on what was clearly an upset stomach.

"Like hell you are. You look like you belong in the same ward as her. He nodded curtly towards the room where the patient was being held. The specialists aren’t due for another twenty minutes. Go outside, get some fresh air or something. I don’t need you puking or passing out in the corridor."

Short and to the point as always. Wheeler had a way of making his thoughts known loud and clear. Anyway, by this point Krasinski was clearly in no condition to argue, as his stomach cramped and gurgled ominously. The only place he was heading was the restroom.

Fine, whatever, he conceded, standing up and making for the men’s room at the far end of the corridor, his steps growing faster and more urgent with each moment.

Throwing open one of the stall doors, the field operative doubled over and clutched at the wall as the contents of his stomach flew out of his mouth and into the toilet bowl. Unable to do more than gulp for air and brace himself before each heave, Krasinski closed his eyes and clenched his fist as frustration welled up inside him. As if it wasn’t bad enough to have been posted in this shitty hospital for the past couple of days, he’d had the rotten luck to contract some kind of stomach bug in the