the fractured oath

(Book 3 of The Ambush Files Saga)

Chapter 1: Shadows in Istanbul

Jack Rourke blended with the crowd, not because he wanted to, but because Istanbul’s ancient arteries demanded it. The market was a living organism, a feverish, sweating, ever-renewing body of bodies, pressing, bargaining, wheedling, shouting, shoving, all with the inevitability of the tides. To stand still here was to die of exposure; to move carelessly was a different kind of suicide.

He kept his gait lazy, unhurried, making his way through a thicket of bodies, the overlapping calls of hawkers and the punch of unfamiliar perfumes forming a buffer against the inside of his skull. Even now, he clocked at least five languages inside a ten-meter radius: Turkish, Russian, English (London accent), Arabic, and a cracked undertone of Mandarin. The soup of voices lent cover, but it was never enough to silence the ghosts that trailed him. Or, for that matter, the ones that hunted him.

The first tell was the old man with the knockoff wristwatches, leathered face, rheumy eyes, slow shuffle that spoke of a lifetime of uneven cobbles. Jack saw him once, offering a tray of contraband goods. He moved past, didn’t make eye contact, let the moment pass. Three turns and a covered alley later, there he was again, same tray, a different stall, but the identical weary hitch in the left leg. The geography didn’t make sense unless the old man had a purpose, and in this corner of the city, nobody had a purpose unless they were paid for it.

The second tell was more subtle: a young woman, probably mid-twenties, skin a shade too pale for this part of town, with hair pulled back so severely it sharpened her entire face. She trailed Jack for a good fifty meters before ducking into a phone store. He waited, staring at a pyramid of dried figs, until her reflection appeared in the glass of a battered public payphone across the street. She pretended to fuss with her scarf. He pretended not to notice.

Jack’s mind ran the probabilities while he navigated the maze: He had burned two safehouses in the last seventy-two hours. Someone with resources was running the manhunt. None of these people acted like cops; too careful, too subtle. Black Phoenix? He wanted to laugh at the paranoia, except the other option was worse.

A stall of dried herbs bulged on his right, the pungent tang of sumac and pepper stung his nostrils. Jack drifted close, letting the color and motion obscure his body as he stole a glance over his shoulder. The girl was gone, but two stalls down, a merchant hunched over a crate of cheap electronics had frozen in a moment of perfect inattention: head cocked, gaze unfocused, as if listening for something outside of sound.

Jack’s peripheral picked up on the man’s right hand. It hovered just a beat too close to the loose apron at his waist, and the bulge beneath it was the wrong shape for a wallet. He knew the posture: ready, waiting, neither too nervous nor too relaxed.

He kept moving, deliberately casual, hands in the pockets of a battered jacket. There was a half-moon of sweat cooling against the small of his back. He tracked the geography: the open market continued for another seventy meters before bottlenecking at a chokepoint where two lanes of vendor stalls converged. He mentally plotted exit routes. Up ahead, a narrow alley for service access; left, a set of shallow steps leading to the mezzanine above the shops; right, a crowded tea garden bracketed by iron railings. No matter where he went, they had coverage.

He took the mezzanine steps, careful to linger with a pair of giggling teenagers whose blinding sneakers and vape smoke provided a moving shield. From this height, the patterns of the market were easier to parse, a human flowchart of movement, hesitations, collisions, and stalls. He spotted the girl again, moving with a fluid certainty now, cutting off the avenue below with practiced ease.

Jack felt the old adrenaline thrum in his wrists. He rolled his shoulders, made himself slow his breathing. Anyone watching would see a tourist, perhaps hungover, perhaps lost, never dangerous. He’d cultivated the look: a week’s stubble, sunglasses too big for his face, a hoodie fraying at the edges. The only incongruity was his walk, military, even when he tried to hide it. Old training was a bastard that way.

He pulled up at the railing, leaned in, and looked down into the market. The young woman, the old man, the electronics hawker: all in position, waiting for his next move. There were at least two more, probably more, one at the far end of the spice corridor and another lurking in a shop that specialized in knockoff football jerseys. The angles were all covered, and each hunter seemed to coordinate with a series of gestures and brief glances, never overt, never theatrical, but unmistakable if you’d ever run a black-bag operation.

He checked his watch, for show. There was no message, no rescue window, no cavalry. It had to be a grab, not a kill. If they wanted him dead, they would’ve used a bullet in the stairwell. Jack let himself smile, just barely.

He took the long way down, doubling back along a twisting gallery crowded with tourist detritus: evil eye charms, counterfeit Nikes, keychains shaped like hand grenades. He feigned interest in a rack of faded soccer scarves, fingers absently tracing the embroidered names: Galatasaray, Fenerbahçe, Beşiktaş, even a battered Chelsea in blue and white. He kept one eye on the mirrors fixed above the stalls, security for shoplifters, but perfect for surveillance.

There. A flicker of movement. One of the new players: mid-forties, dense with muscle, hair shorn close to the scalp. American, or close enough. Too big for this city, moved with the certainty of someone who’d kicked in doors for a living. The man made a show of checking his phone, then scanned the crowd with a cop’s gaze.

Jack shifted his body, so the big man couldn’t get a clean line of sight. He stepped into a shop that sold plastic household goods, all pastel buckets and novelty mugs. The air inside was cooler, the blare of a nearby TV flickering through ads for a toothpaste he’d never seen. For a brief moment, he allowed his eyes to close, forcing his heart rate to baseline.

The shopkeeper eyed him with practiced boredom. Jack grabbed a bottle of water from a display, tore off the label, and handed over the lira. No words exchanged. In that moment, the big American brushed past, just outside the threshold, and Jack caught the dull glint of a comms earpiece behind the man’s lobe. The man exhaled, flexed his hands, and moved on, but not before glancing at a reflective surface above the register, checking for a tail, or for Jack.

They were closing the net. Jack uncapped the water, downed half of it, and returned to the alley. His mind played out the possible next steps. If they wanted him alive, the first move would be to separate him from the crowd. They’d herd him to an isolation point, then execute the grab, quiet and surgical. If not, they’d settle for a killbox in the market square, maximize the chaos, pin the blame on terrorists or local gangs.

Jack went left, following the alley past a series of service doors. He upped his pace, keeping his shoulders loose, until he found a door propped open with a battered crate. He ducked inside, entered the dim corridor behind the shops. The light was an anemic yellow, walls festooned with posters for concerts and nightclubs. The scent of sweat and bleach mixed with the sweet rot of discarded produce.

He slowed, listening. Heavy footsteps echoed behind him, no attempt to mask the approach. Jack stopped at a junction, pretending to fiddle with his phone, but really listening for the secondary. A shuffle above: mezzanine access. They’d anticipated his cut through the back. Smart. He would’ve done the same.

The footsteps grew closer, and then the big American filled the corridor, shoulders almost scraping both walls. He was calm, but Jack saw the faint tic in his jaw: the thrill of the hunt. The American spoke first, his Turkish surprisingly fluent. “You’re lost, friend.”

Jack looked up, offered the tiniest shrug. In this city, ignorance was its own armor. He replied in slurred English. “Restroom?”

The man’s eyes darted to the phone in Jack’s hand, outdated model, nothing threatening. He jerked his head left. “End of the hall.” He made a show of moving on, but lingered just long enough for Jack to catch the hand signal: a tap on the shoulder, then two fingers toward the ceiling.

Jack turned down the hall, ducked into a side room. He waited, breath silent, until the footsteps faded. He scanned the room, storage for surplus market supplies. The shelves were piled with cheap cleaning products and crates of unsorted stock. There was a window, paint-caked but unbarred, high on the far wall. Jack sized it up, climbed the metal shelving, and pressed a palm against the glass. It didn’t budge at first, but a quick heel strike loosened it enough to slide open. He hoisted himself up, squirmed through, and landed on a slanted rooftop behind the market.

The roof was tiled, slick with morning dew, and the height gave a clear view over the market’s chaos. He scanned the crowd. The young woman had moved to the western exit, chatting up a food vendor; the old man had abandoned his watch, now loitering near the tram stop. The big American was nowhere to be seen, probably circling to cut off Jack’s new vector.

From up here, Jack saw the market’s true anatomy: arteries branching off into side streets, blind alleys choking the main drag, every surface alive with motion. He checked for shadows moving along the adjacent rooftops. There, two forms, moving with unnatural sync. Professionals, probably ex-mil. Not Turkish. They kept their hands out of sight, movements loose but calculated. Jack admired their restraint. He would have picked them himself.

He moved along the roof, using the ventilation shafts and crumbling parapets for cover. At the edge, he dropped down onto a fire escape, metal shrieking in protest. He took the stairs two at a time, wincing as a dull ache flared in his hip, old injury, always there when he didn’t need it. At ground level, he landed in a tight courtyard, empty save for an abandoned bicycle and a stray cat that hissed, then bolted.

He blended into the pedestrian flow, choosing a path that doubled back toward the heart of the market. He could feel the noose tightening, but also sensed that someone on the hunt had lost visual, if only for a moment. He needed to press the advantage.

Two blocks away, he slipped into a small café, tucked between a shoe repair shop and a newsstand. The café was empty but for a heavyset man in a linen suit, nose buried in the morning paper, and a barista too young to care about the world. Jack took a seat by the window, ordered coffee in passable Turkish, and waited.

Through the glass, he watched as the market’s actors repositioned: the old man now scanning the crowd for unfamiliar faces, the young woman pacing the tram stop with growing impatience, the electronics hawker making periodic checks of his phone. The coordination was too tight for freelancers. This was an operation. But they still had a blind spot… him.

He checked the reflection in the window. In the street behind, a black sedan inched past, the driver’s face an unreadable mask. Jack clocked the time: ninety seconds between laps. Whoever was running this had discipline, and resources, but they didn’t know him. Not yet.

He drained the coffee, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and left a few coins on the table. On the way out, he stopped to buy a disposable lighter and a pack of cheap cigarettes from the newsstand. He didn’t smoke, but sometimes habits made you invisible.

He drifted toward the tram stop, trailing two paces behind a pair of elderly women gossiping with the rhythmic certainty of metronomes. He saw the young woman again, now openly scanning the street. Her eyes caught his for a split-second, just long enough for Jack to see the glint of recognition, the tightening of her jaw. She touched her earring, a simple signal. No more pretense.

At the end of the block, the electronics hawker and the big American appeared, moving in sync. The sedan pulled up at the curb, and a fourth operative stepped out, a woman, middle-aged, sharp in a navy blazer. She carried herself with the confidence of command. Jack revised his threat assessment.

They were going to box him in, right here, at the tram stop. Civilian traffic was thinning. Jack glanced at the schedule, next tram in four minutes. Not soon enough. He didn’t have time for finesse.

He flicked the lighter, holding it as if fidgeting, but used the flame’s reflection in the newsstand glass to watch the approach from behind. The big American was now twenty meters and closing. The girl moved to flank. The woman in the blazer conferred with the driver, then strode forward, eyes locked on Jack.

He stepped out from the shelter of the stop, tossing the lighter as a distraction. He cut diagonally across the street, forcing the old man to pivot, stumbling as if startled. The old man’s hand twitched toward his apron, but Jack was already past, heading into an open area fronting the market’s main entrance.

The sedan peeled away, likely circling for intercept. The girl barked a command, English, American accent, stripped of any attempt at local color. “Rourke! Don’t run.”

So much for subtlety.

He broke into a run, but not toward escape; instead, he doubled back into the thick of the market, ducking behind a fruit stand where two teenage boys argued over the merits of pomegranates versus persimmons. The commotion covered his movement. He turned sharply, upending a crate of fruit behind him, and barreled through a mesh curtain into a spice vendor’s stall.

Chaos bloomed instantly. Vendors screamed, pedestrians spilled sideways, and a handful of children laughed, believing it was street theater. The American crashed through the curtain, gun drawn but shielded by his own body. Jack grabbed a jar off the counter, ground cayenne, and flung it point-blank into the man’s face. The red powder hit with a fine, atomized burst. The American staggered, coughing, and Jack kneed him in the thigh, hard enough to drop a normal man. This one grunted and swung wild, catching the edge of Jack’s jacket.

Jack twisted out of the grip, using the momentum to launch himself between two vendor carts. The old man with the watches tried to block his path, arm raised, but Jack swept the leg, dropping him to the ground with a practiced efficiency. A woman shrieked. The young woman in the scarf appeared, gun raised, eyes locked on target.

“Don’t,” Jack said. He meant it.

She squeezed off a shot, but the round went high, lost in the rafters. Jack ducked low, grabbed a folding chair from a nearby stall, and hurled it like a discus. It hit her shoulder, sending her sprawling.

Shouts erupted from every direction. In seconds, the crowd’s density reversed, an animal panic, bodies surging away from the violence, creating a tide that threatened to crush even the pursuers. Jack rode the momentum, letting himself be swept toward the rear of the market. Another shot rang out, this time clipping the archway beside his head. Stone splintered, dust clouding the air.

He risked a look back. The woman in the blazer was now directing traffic, her voice cutting through the chaos: “Alive! He’s worth more alive!” Her eyes found Jack’s, and for the first time he saw something approaching respect.

Jack ducked through a bead curtain into a closed café, the air thick with yesterday’s tobacco and old coffee. He grabbed the first chair he saw and wedged it under the door handle. Through the side window, he watched the black sedan screech to a halt at the corner, two more operatives spilling out.

He was boxed in, no question. But the market’s chaos was the only thing buying him seconds. He ran to the back of the café, found the kitchen door, and kicked it open. Inside, a teenage cook and a dishwasher froze, eyes wide with terror. Jack raised a hand. “Not here for you. Stay low.”

He crossed the kitchen, scanned for exits. There: a narrow window, barely big enough for his shoulders. He took two steps, leapt onto the counter, and heaved himself through. The frame bit into his ribs, the force knocking the wind out of him, but he landed in a narrow passage littered with trash and broken glass.

Footsteps pounded in the alley behind. He ran, hugging the wall, searching for handholds. Above, a row of rusty pipes offered an improvised ladder. Jack grabbed the lowest, pulled himself up, and climbed hand over hand until he reached the roof.

He lay flat for a second, heart hammering, sweat streaming into his eyes. He heard the pursuit below, shouts echoing off the stone, the word “Rourke!” ricocheting in the morning air. He allowed himself one sharp breath. This was Istanbul. This was the game. And he still knew how to play it.

The next bullet sent a hail of brick shards across Jack's face, stinging his eyelids and painting his tongue with the taste of dust and iron. He pushed off the rooftop, rolling behind a squat water tank as another round punched a gory hole in the terracotta where his knee had been. Down in the street, the screams of civilians rose into a single, ragged scream, a chorus of confusion and pain. It was Istanbul at its most primal: every instinct weaponized, every move life or death.

He didn’t hesitate. Jack vaulted the gap to the neighboring roof, ankles absorbing the shock of the landing. A thick haze of gun smoke drifted up from the market below, veiling his movement for a half-second, just enough to give him ground. He scanned for hostiles; there, two rooftops over, silhouettes outlined against a billboard. They were already tracking him, rifles braced against air conditioning units. He darted right, ducking low, feet slapping the tiles.

Another round chewed a fist-sized crater in the coping stone to his left. He angled for the building’s edge, skidded down a narrow concrete slope, and landed on a rickety balcony stacked with clay pots and laundry bins. Behind him, the window rattled open. Jack registered the shock in the old woman’s face, the hairnet, the nightgown, the rolling pin, and offered a half-nod, apology and gratitude in one. Then he was off, dropping three meters to a rain-soaked awning, which buckled but held.

He sprinted along the incline, firing neurons ahead of muscle: route, escape, next cover. He felt the rhythm of his pursuers, one lagging on the left, another dead center, two more circling wide. They’d done this before. Good. He respected professionals, especially when the margin for error was a bullet.

A fresh volley of gunfire tore through a bank of satellite dishes. Shards of porcelain and twisted metal rained down onto the street. Jack ducked and wove, crossed the final stretch of roof, and launched himself at the steel ladder bolted to the next building. He caught it one-handed, pain lancing through his wrist as the weight yanked his bad shoulder. But it held.

He climbed, every muscle burning. At the top, he rolled flat and hugged the parapet, peeking over for a visual. Two shooters were sprinting along the roof’s edge, one already taking a knee for a better angle. Jack palmed a fist-sized chunk of stone, waited for the shooter to line up, then hurled it sidearm. The rock caught the man in the side of the helmet, stagger, curse, gun up but slow. Jack took the chance, crossed the expanse at a dead run, and barreled straight at the man.

He hit like a linebacker, drove his shoulder into the shooter’s gut, and they tumbled together in a blur of limbs and sweat. Jack used the shooter’s own momentum, twisted, and slammed his head against the gravel. The helmet saved the guy from a concussion, but not from the stun, nor from Jack’s follow-up elbow to the throat.

Jack rolled off him, disarming with the clean, practiced efficiency of years of training. He took the man’s sidearm, racked the slide, and, without thinking, double-tapped a shadow flickering on the stairwell. The target shrieked, then crumpled behind the concrete. Jack didn’t check the kill. Time was the real enemy.

He pressed forward, ribs screaming with every breath, shoes leaving bloody prints across the gravel. On the next roof, he saw the world open up, across the Bosphorus, the dense tangle of the old city, and beyond, the blue haze of the sea. He let the map soak into his skull: fifty meters to the next building, then a drop to the street. At the end, a narrow alley that ran straight to the docks.

Jack was already calculating velocity, wind, friction, probability. And then he felt the burn: a hot, liquid sting on his right flank. He looked down. The bullet hadn’t missed, just grazed, tearing a two-inch groove through skin and fat. Blood was already soaking his shirt, hot and bright. He pressed his hand to it, hissed, and pushed on.

Below him, the market had become a running riot. Vendors abandoned their wares, tourists sprinted for cover, kids dove under carts, and the lucky ones pressed flat against the ancient stone, praying for invisibility. The shooters worked through it all, methodical and ruthless, moving to block the exits with military precision.

Jack hit the next gap, landing hard on the roof of a butcher shop. His momentum shattered a clay roof tile, sending him sprawling on the incline. He skidded, heels digging for purchase, then caught a rusted pipe at the gutter. Below, he heard the yells of the team closing in, a woman’s voice, barking in clipped, angry Turkish.

McAdams… her presence was everywhere. Jack didn’t know his face, but he’d heard enough through the grapevine to respect her game. The voice in the headset, the hand on the lever, the mind at the center of every net. She would be waiting at the alley’s end, not trusting subordinates with the final move.

Jack dropped from the gutter to a balcony, then to a fire escape, ribs almost buckling at the impact. He ran, feet pounding steel, skipping steps and vaulting handrails. Blood now ran slick to his waistband, but it didn’t slow him. The pain was a fact, like gravity or the price of a bullet.

He reached the alley, moving at full sprint. He heard the chatter in the comms, English, with Turkish curse words woven in. They’d clocked his location, were already vectoring teams to intercept. He risked a glance behind; the young woman in the scarf was already on the roof, moving to keep him boxed.

The alley was tight and twisting, the walls slick with damp and moss. Jack used every dirty trick, climbing trash bins, bouncing off stone, rolling under hanging laundry and ducking blind corners. His world narrowed to the echo of footfalls, the panting of his own breath, the shock of each impact.

Halfway down, a gloved hand shot out from a doorway, aiming to clothesline him. Jack dropped to a slide, went under the arm, and swept the assailant’s legs out. The shooter crumpled, but not before getting off a wild shot that whined off the stone and sliced Jack’s left calf. He cursed, kept running.

He burst out onto a street already gridlocked with panic. Police cars screeched to a halt at both ends; locals scattered in every direction, some clutching bags, others clutching children. Jack picked the only opening, a cafe under construction, scaffolding webbed up four stories high.

He dove through the half-built doorway, ignored the yells of workers, and sprinted up the stairs, each landing a little harder, a little slower. He could hear his pulse over the gunfire, a deep, insistent drum in his ears.

McAdams’ voice crackled through the team’s headsets, calm and precise: “He’s wounded. Keep him moving, but don’t let him double back. Two teams on the roof. I want visual confirmation before the grab.” Jack could almost smile. He’d always wanted to see her in action.

At the top floor, the interior was unfinished, just concrete and rebar, open to the sky. He climbed onto the scaffolding, testing each joint before trusting his weight. The blood was now dripping in hot splashes, leaving a breadcrumb trail of red. Jack ignored it. He moved up, then sideways, scrambling across narrow beams, hands numb and slipping.

From below, a shooter saw the movement and took the shot. The round pinged off steel, ricocheted into the city, but Jack kept going, crossing a six-meter gap on a wobbly plank. He landed, almost lost his balance, but recovered. The next building was under construction too, a narrow wedge squeezed between two stone towers.

He looked up, saw the sky darkening with incoming rain. It would help. He climbed higher, until he could see over the city, the Bosphorus rolling black and electric in the growing storm.

That’s when McAdams made her move. She was waiting at the end of the scaffolding, gun drawn, stance perfect. Jack didn’t bother with a pretense. “Rourke,” she said. “Stop. Don’t do anything stupid.”

He wiped the blood from his side, tasted the metallic tang. “If I did anything stupid, I’d already be dead.” McAdams watched him, eyes steady, gun unwavering. “We don’t want you dead. They want you for questions. You know who.” Jack’s breath fogged the air. “Think I’ll pass.”

She shrugged, as if conceding the point. “You’re not making it out. Let’s end it here. No more running.” Jack glanced at the rain slicking the steel, the dizzy drop to the alley below, the uncertainty in her team’s positions. He ran the math. Then he ran at her.

She was good, maybe the best, but nobody was ready for the kind of crazy Jack could bring to the table. He barreled forward, feinted left, then swung a length of loose rebar at her gun arm. McAdams dodged, got off a shot that grazed Jack’s rib, then countered with a punch to his face.

It was a good hit. He tasted blood, staggered, but grabbed her coat and twisted, using their combined weight to overbalance. Together they tumbled off the scaffolding, falling three meters before crashing onto the balcony below.

He landed first, absorbing most of the impact. McAdams hit hard, but rolled to a knee, gun up again. Jack kicked the weapon, sending it spinning. He lunged, but McAdams caught him in a chokehold, the pressure instant and lethal. He clawed at the grip, elbows flailing for soft tissue.

Then he bit her wrist, just hard enough to make her yelp and let go. McAdams drove her thumb into the wound on Jack’s side, causing him to scream in pain, and let the adrenaline dump into his system. He broke free, vaulted the balcony, and landed on the adjoining roof with a thud that made the world go white for a second. He heard McAdams curse, saw her retrieve the weapon. Then more voices, her team closing in. Jack staggered, found his footing, and ran the final stretch.

The pain in his side had settled into a hard, bright line, each step threatening to unspool him entirely. He pressed a palm against the wound, feeling the warmth and wetness, watching the stain spread through his shirt. He didn’t have a plan beyond the next five seconds. The old saying, always live five seconds ahead, this was what it meant, stripped of theory, distilled to a pulse and a target.

McAdams was first over the parapet, vaulting with the smooth precision of a lifetime’s discipline. The rest of her team fanned out, weapons drawn, eyes never leaving Jack. He had seconds, maybe less. He could hear the click of safety switches, the labored breathing of the big American behind him, the unsteady rhythm of the woman in the scarf to his left. They were good, but not flawless.

McAdams slowed to a walk as she reached the edge. The city’s orange sodium light rimmed her face, turning every hard angle to gold. She leveled her rifle, eyes unblinking. “Nowhere left to run, Rourke.”

Jack leaned on the parapet, letting his body hang loose, gathering wind. The water below looked like a wound itself, stitched with ship lights and littered with the ghosts of centuries. He calculated the drop, thirty meters, maybe more. The margin for error was a fraction of a heartbeat. Too flat, he’d break both legs; too shallow, and the river would finish what the bullet started.

He met McAdams’ eyes. For a heartbeat, nothing else existed, just the space between predator and prey, a stillness as perfect as prayer. Jack drew a slow breath, feeling his chest catch on the pain. “You should’ve brought a bigger net,” he said, low, just for him. She smiled. “They never told me you were funny.”

He smiled back, wry, haunted, and then he stepped up onto the balustrade. For an instant, his silhouette hung against the haze, every tendon and scar etched by the city’s neon and flame.

Then he was gone.

He arced out into the night, body weightless, city spinning overhead. The wind ripped the breath from his lungs. For a moment, he was free, truly free, untethered by mission or memory, just a body in flight.

The river rushed up, black and bottomless. He hit hard, the impact a universe of pain, but he let himself go limp, rode the shock. Darkness closed over him, cold and final.

McAdams ran to the edge, gun ready, jaw locked. She scanned the river, looking for ripples, bubbles, anything. For a second, she thought she saw a hand break the surface, then it was gone, swallowed by the Bosphorus.

She stared at the water for a long time. Then, softly, she holstered the gun, and whispered into her headset. “Next time, I won’t miss.” The hunt had just begun.