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“You drive, Claude, you two in the back,” Yves directed his men when they reached their car, which was parked at the rear of the hotel. He didn’t need to give any other instructions just then, the five days they had spent together in the hotel had given them plenty of time to familiarise themselves with the simple plan he had come up with.
Oblivious to the car that pulled away from the curb to follow them once they started down the street, Yves and his men headed towards their destination.
“They’re on the move, Mr Vega,” Seve reported from the passenger seat as his partner concentrated on following the car containing the hit squad sent by Philippe Noir.
“Keep on their tail, but don’t get too close,” Vega instructed. He hoped everything was going to be okay. If it wasn’t, he knew Roberto Abrantes would hold him responsible. “You’ll be contacted shortly by someone else. Tell him where you are and keep him updated with your location. If he gives you any instructions, I want you to follow them as if I’m the one giving them to you. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir. Anything he says, we do.” The phone in Seve’s hand went dead then and he tossed it onto the dashboard while he waited for the new person to contact him. “We’re getting new instructions from someone else,” he answered his partner’s questioning look.
**
“YES?” CORTEZ ANSWERED his phone.
“Noir’s men are on their way,” Vega told him. “If they know where you are, they’ll most likely be with you in half an hour, perhaps less. I hope you’re ready for them.”
“Me too. Get Trotsky,” Cortez told the nearest Interpol agent. “Where are they now?” he asked of Vega, returning his attention to the phone.
“You’ll have to find out from my men,” Vega said. “I’ve told them to expect your call. They don’t know who you are, but they know to keep you up to date on the location of Noir’s men, and to do whatever you tell them to.”
“I’m surprised you trust me enough to give me that sort of control over your men,” Cortez remarked.
“Don’t make me regret it. I don’t think either of us would like that,” Vega said, a warning note in his voice. “I’m putting these men under your control for the sole purpose of ensuring that Sofia Torres stays alive, so try not to get them arrested. That would be awkward for everyone concerned.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve no intention of putting them anywhere near trouble. I’ll let you know how everything turns out when it’s all over.” Cortez ended the call then and looked around the room. “You should go upstairs to the back bedroom, Sofia,” he told her. He knew she was going to worry, perhaps even panic, but that couldn’t be helped.
Sofia, surprised by Cortez’s tone, was going to question him but the expression on his face told her it wouldn’t be a good idea. With a nod, she obediently left the room so she could make her way upstairs to the bedroom at the back of the house, where she had been sleeping during her stay there.
“Are Noir’s hitmen on their way?” Agent Trotsky asked the moment she arrived.
Cortez shrugged. “Hard to say right now. They’ve left the hotel they’ve been staying in and are heading somewhere. Chances are they’re coming here, though that raises an ugly question: how do they know where we are? I don’t think any of us likes the implications of them knowing where to find us.”
“You’re bloody right about that. If I find out someone’s told them where to find us, I’m gonna kill them.”
“I’ll help,” Cortez said, dialling the number Vega had given him. “Give me a minute and we’ll know if they’re heading in this direction. Fingers crossed they’re going somewhere else entirely.”
It was ten minutes before Cortez was sure they were in trouble.
Regular updates from Vega’s men made it clear the group Noir had sent to Barcelona was heading in his general direction, but it was a while before he was sure they knew where the safehouse was.
“Okay, it’s obvious they know where they’re going, you can back off now,” he told Vega’s men. “Head back to the hotel. I don’t expect any of them to get away, but if they do, that’s where they’ll go. I want you waiting for them. If they get there, I want you to follow them when they leave again.” He ended the call then. “They’re definitely coming here,” he reported to Trotsky.
“Shit! How far away are they?”
“A couple of minutes, perhaps a little more. It depends on whether they know exactly where we are. They might need a short while to figure out which house they’re looking for.”
“Okay, gentlemen, let’s get ourselves ready,” Trotsky said briskly. “Madeira, Santos, you two stay down here. Gomez, Addams, you two take the front bedroom and keep a lookout from there. Miguel, you go up to the bedroom with Miss Torres. You’ll be our last line of defence, and I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that.”
**
“OKAY, CLAUDE, STOP here,” Yves said. “We’ll give the two of you fifteen minutes to get in position and then we’ll make our move,” he told the two in the back of the car, who immediately got out and made their way across the road and up the drive of the first house they reached.
Yves left Claude to keep track of the passing minutes while he took out a pair of binoculars so he could examine the street ahead and the house their target was being kept in. The streetlamps were widely separated, leaving large areas of dark, which made it hard for him to make out much, but there was only one thing he was interested in.
“Have you got them?” Claude asked when Yves lowered the binoculars.
Yves nodded. “They’re just past the house, on this side of the road.” Although there were numerous cars parked along the street, only one of them was occupied. “I can’t see any movement at the front of the house, but I didn’t expect to. How long have we got?”
Claude checked his watch. “A little over five minutes.”
“We’d better get going then. Remember to keep low. I’ll take care of the car.”
When the last of the fifteen minutes he had given Henri and Julian were up, Yves took a grenade from his pocket and stepped from the shelter of the car he had been hiding against. His toss was gentle, just enough to allow the grenade to bounce twice before rolling under the car holding the Interpol agents.
The moment he released the grenade he turned and ran. He had only experienced a grenade once before, but that was enough for him to know that he wanted plenty of distance between himself and the explosion. Only when he had put more than fifty feet between himself and the Interpol car did he stop so he could duck between two parked cars, hoping they would protect him. He had barely done so when the grenade exploded.
Slowly, he counted to five, and then he got to his feet. His eyes darted all around as he dashed across the road, and he saw that the car with the two agents in had been flipped over and torn apart. There was no way the agents could have survived the blast, so he paid the vehicle no more attention.
“They know we’re here now,” Claude remarked when Yves reached him.
**
“WHAT’S GOING ON?” SOFIA asked fearfully when the sound of the explosion reached her and Cortez in the back bedroom of the house.
“Nothing good,” Cortez said. He was sure the explosion had been caused by one of the grenades Noir’s men had bought, but what it had been used on, he didn’t know. The only thing he was certain of was that the grenade hadn’t exploded in the house. It had sounded too far away for that. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”
He crossed to the door and pulled it open. With four quick strides he reached the door of the master bedroom at the front of the house. He was about to throw open the door when it occurred to him that it was not a good idea to barge into a room that contained armed men expecting trouble. Knocking, he announced himself before entering.
“What’s happening?” he asked of Gomez and Addams.
“We’re screwed, that’s what’s happening,” Gomez said as he smashed the window in front of him with the butt of his submachine gun so he could fire at the movement he had spotted. He was copied a moment later by Addams, who fired at the same figure.
After firing another burst at a second figure he had seen, Gomez turned his attention back to Cortez to say, “They’ve blown up the car with Oliveira and Ribera.”
“Shit!” Cortez swore. “That’s bad. We’re not screwed yet, though, Raul, so keep your mind on the job. If you see someone moving out there, shoot them. I’m sure Trotsky has backup on the way, and we’re only up against four men.”
“Yeah, well, those four men have already killed a quarter of our number, and we haven’t got any of them.” Gomez fired a prolonged burst that emptied his magazine but failed to accomplish anything other than to encourage his target to keep his head down.
“Just stay alive and keep them out. Once backup arrives, they’ll be caught between us and them and won’t stand a chance.” Cortez turned away and made for the door, keeping low to avoid any stray bullets that found their way into the bedroom.
**
HENRI AND JULIAN HAD barely made it to the back garden of the safehouse when the grenade exploded at the front of the house. Hearing the explosion, they crouched in the shadows and waited for the second grenade, which was to be their signal to move in.
The moment the signal came, they straightened up and hurried to the kitchen door. Julian took out a flashbang as they went, pulling the pin so he could throw the device while Henri kicked the door in.
Once the device went off, they burst through the broken door, their weapons at the ready. As expected, the kitchen was empty, all attention in the house having been drawn to the front and the street outside by the explosions. Despite that, they remained cautious as they crossed the kitchen and made their way down the passage beyond.
The door to the living room was burned and blackened and hanging from one of its hinges, revealing what room the second grenade had exploded in. There was gunfire coming from the room, however, indicating the grenade had not killed everyone in there.
Julian took out another of the flashbangs he carried and tossed it into the room. When he and Henri entered the room after the flashbang had gone off, they saw that it had been ripped apart by the grenade. The bay window was shattered, the furniture had been overturned and was burnt and scorched, and the walls were blackened.
Crouched behind the smouldering sofa, bleeding and injured, was a woman. Her left arm hung useless at her side, but she still held a submachine gun in her right hand, and she swung it from side to side as she squinted and strained her eyes in search of a target to fire at.
It was clear that her hearing had been affected as well as her vision for she neither heard nor saw Henri as he approached. A quick burst from his weapon finished her off, and once he was sure there were no more threats in the room, he left.
**
WITH HIS WEAPON HELD loose and at the ready, Cortez listened to the sounds from the rest of the house and concluded that things were not going well.
The explosion from the rear of the house, though not as strong as the other two had been, told him that Noir’s men had split up so they could attack the house from both the front and the back simultaneously. It was a good tactic, and one that should have been thought of and countered.
Looking out the window carefully, he searched the rear garden, but could see no sign of anyone there. He guessed that the attackers out there had already entered the house, since all the defenders were at the front and there was no opposition at the back.
A burst of gunfire from the living room, different in pitch to what he had heard previously, made Cortez leave the bedroom so he could try to make sense of what was going on. No sooner had he done so than he spotted two men at the foot of the stairs, neither of whom were part of the security team.
Before they could react to his presence, Cortez swung his submachine gun around and fired a long burst. He kept his finger on the trigger as he moved the weapon from side to side, spraying bullets down the stairs, to encompass both men.
He didn’t take his finger off the trigger until he had emptied his magazine and both men were on the floor. When they stopped moving, he ejected the spent magazine and quickly shoved a new one into place.
Stepping across the passage, he pushed open the door to the master bedroom and moved inside at a crouch. Cautiously, he crept across the room to the window. When he got there, he saw that Gomez was dead, killed by a bullet that had struck him just above his right eye.
“Have they got a sharpshooter out there?” he asked of Addams, who was okay, other than having a few cuts on his face and arms.
“No, they got bloody lucky,” Addams said angrily. “The bullet took a deflection. Just how screwed are we?”
“I’m not sure what’s going on downstairs, but I got two of them just now. They were at the foot of the stairs, so I’m guessing things aren’t good for Trotsky and the others. What are things like out there?”
Addams shrugged before firing another burst through the window at the movement that caught his eye. “Hard to say. I’m pretty certain I’ve got one of them, but there’s at least one more out there.”
“He should be the only one left then, and if the information I got is correct, he doesn’t have any grenades left, so all you have to do is keep him pinned down. Don’t worry about trying to kill him, just keep him where he is. The backup,” Cortez was relieved to hear sirens getting steadily closer, signalling the approach of the much-desired backup, “can take care of him when they get here. I’m going downstairs to see if I can find out what’s happened there. Keep yourself safe.” Patting Addams on the shoulder, he crept from the room.
Before he headed downstairs, he returned to Sofia.
“What’s happening?” she asked fearfully. The gunfire reminded her of all the people who had died at the estate, and it scared her.
Cortez ignored the question and said reassuringly. “Help’s on its way, they’ll be here soon. I need to go downstairs to find out how Trotsky and the other two are doing, so I want you in the front bedroom, where Addams can protect you.” Taking her hand, he gently pulled her off the bed and led her out of the room. When they reached the door of the master bedroom he stopped her and said, “Get on your hands and knees.” She looked at him questioningly, but he didn’t explain. “Crawl into the room and hide behind the bed, you’ll be safe there.”
Without another word, Cortez turned and headed back along the passage to the stairs. He stepped over the bodies when he reached the ground floor but slipped when his foot landed in the blood that had pooled under them. It was only by grabbing the banister that he kept himself from falling on top of the bodies and covering himself in their blood.
After righting himself and discovering that the slip had caused him to pull out the last of his stiches, which he wasn’t happy about, Cortez crossed the passage to the living room.
He found Trotsky’s body behind the sofa, which had been overturned and lay on its back, and saw that she hadn’t been killed by the grenade that had wrecked the room but had been shot in the head at close range. He assumed she had been killed by one of the men he had gunned down at the foot of the stairs.
Since he could do nothing for Trotsky, Cortez put her from his thoughts. He was far more concerned with the possibility that one of the two Interpol agents who had been with her might still be alive.
He found Agent Madeira by the window, dead from shrapnel wounds to his back and side. Santos on the other hand seemed to be virtually untouched, despite being unmoving, and Cortez was surprised to find that he still had a pulse.