Sacrifice Read Online Free PDF

to a crude wooden chair, his mouth gagged, his clothes ripped and torn and stained with blood, from injuries sustained either in the crash or afterwards. His head lolled to one side, his eyes barely open, one of them blackened and swelling shut.
    Drake felt his stomach churn. He had seen videos like this before, and could guess where this one was heading.
    The camera, shaky and clearly manipulated by an amateur, zoomed out a little to show Mitchell’s surroundings. He was in a room of some kind. There was a bare brick wall behind him, the mortar crumbling, the stones cracked and stained in places by yellow mould. Electric light was coming from an off-camera source, though it flickered from time to time as if the bulb was about to give out.
    Another man walked into view. Dressed in loose flowing trousers, a heavy, worn-looking camouflage jacket and ancient webbing that looked as if it had been pilfered from a dead Russian twenty years earlier, it didn’t take a genius to work out that he was an insurgent. He was tall and lean, and even the thick jacket couldn’t mask his spare frame.
    He was an older man, his skin leathery and lined from years of sun and wind, his heavy brows and thick beard greying. Drake could have sworn he recognised him but immediately discounted the possibility. There was no way the man he was thinking of could be on this video.
    ‘You know now what we can do,’ he began, his voice deep and heavily accented. ‘None of your men are safe from us. Not on the ground, not in the cities, and not in the air. We can strike anywhere we wish, at any time. Nothing can stop us, because we are Allah’s holy warriors. Everywhere we go, we will root out traitors, unbelievers and spies.’
    At this, he gestured to Mitchell.
    ‘You send men like this to our country to turn our own people against us, to ask the faithful to betray their brothers. And you dare to call us terrorists?’
    Reaching into his heavy camouflage jacket, he withdrew an automatic pistol. Drake couldn’t be sure, butit looked like a Browning 9mm; a reliable old semiautomatic that had been around since the 1930s.
    But there was another thing Drake noticed as he pulled the jacket aside to draw the weapon. The last two fingers of the man’s hand were missing. In that instant, he felt as though a knife had been driven into his stomach.
    He knew this man.
    Without hesitation, the insurgent aimed the gun downwards and calmly squeezed the trigger. There was a flash, a sharp crack, and suddenly Mitchell was no longer semi-conscious. His body went rigid and he strained against his bonds, screaming into his gag, his eyes wide with agony. A crimson stain was now spreading out across the left leg of his trousers.
    ‘Fuck …’ Frost said under her breath, shaking her head.
    Drake ignored her, concentrating instead on the video.
    The gag muffled Mitchell’s cries, but the gunman was forced to raise his voice to be heard when he spoke again.
    ‘You are illegally holding dozens of our brothers captive inside the Parwan Detention Facility. You will release these prisoners, make a public statement condemning the illegal torture and interrogation of innocent men, and shut down the facility for ever. If you do this, your man will be returned to you unharmed. Well, more or less.’ With malicious glee, he pressed the barrel of his pistol into the bullet wound on Mitchell’s leg, prompting another agonised groan. ‘If you do not comply by midday on August 14 th , we will execute this spy and shoot down more of your aircraft. And believe me when I say our next target will be … bigger.’
    A moment later, the screen was replaced by a blur of movement as the camera operator turned the device onits side to power it down, then at last the feed went blank.
    Silence reigned for several seconds as each of them digested what they had seen and heard, though Drake was quick to break it.
    ‘Tell me that isn’t who I think it is, Dan.’ The initial shock of his