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Pain lanced through Cortez’s brain as he opened his eyes.
“He’s coming around, sir.”
The loud voice was unfamiliar, and Cortez looked around quickly to find the owner. In doing so he discovered that moving his head wasn’t a good idea, it made the pain worse.
He did his best to ignore the stabbing sensation above his right eye as he searched for the person who had spoken, only relaxing when he saw it was a uniformed officer who was standing a short distance away. Hearing footsteps, he attempted to push himself into a sitting position.
“You might want to take it slow, sergeant.”
The new voice was one Cortez recognised. Special Agent Ben Bright was making his way across the living room of the safehouse, and with slower moves than before to mitigate the pain, Cortez shifted about so he could see him without turning his head.
“What the hell happened to me?” he asked. “The last thing I remember is checking on Trotsky, Santos, and Madeira.”
“It looks like you caught a stray bullet,” Bright said as he settled himself on the upturned and scorched sofa as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “You got lucky. The bullet only creased the side of your head. The paramedics said that aside from a monster headache, you’ll be fine, though you’ll probably have a scar to show where you didn’t duck quickly enough.”
“If I’d known someone was aiming a shot in my direction, I might have tried to duck,” Cortez said with a groan. “Does anyone have anything I can take for this headache?”
“You should be thankful a headache is all you have to worry about. If you had done your job right, none of us would have to worry about this mess.”
Cortez groaned again at the harshly voiced comment. “Oh God! Does he have to be here? I don’t think I can cope with the headache and listening to him bitch about how everything is my fault,” he said, looking over at Pizarro, whose expression revealed his distaste for the mess that filled the room. “If you’re going to try and lay all of this on me, Francisco, I think I’d prefer it if you found whoever shot me and get them to come back and finish the job.”
“This is no time for bad humour,” Pizarro told him. “This is a very serious situation. Four Interpol agents and one officer from our station are dead because you screwed up. There will have to be an inquiry into what happened here tonight, and I think it very unlikely that you will still be an officer at the end of it. You are suspended.”
“Go screw yourself,” Cortez said in as calm a voice as he could manage to avoid worsening his headache.
Slowly, to avoid exacerbating the pain lancing through his brain, he got to his feet and moved to take a seat in one of the armchairs, after he had righted it. “You don’t have the authority to suspend me. Doesn’t anyone have anything for this headache?” he asked, looking around the room. Aside from Bright and Pizarro, the only people there were two armed officers, neither of whom appeared able to help him. “I guess I’ll have to endure it then,” he said when nothing resembling a painkiller appeared. “Where’s Sofia? Is she alright?”
“Miss Torres is fine,” Bright said. “She was escorted to the station by Officer Gomez and a couple of officers. I believe she’s spending the night in a cell for her safety. We’ll have to decide tomorrow how best to protect her after this attack.”
“I’m relieved to hear she’s alright.”
“We’re all glad she’s alright,” Pizarro said insincerely. “Of greater concern right now is the monumental screwup that took place here. Do you want to tell me how the hell five people died? You assured me that you had the situation well in hand.”
“You’re an idiot,” Cortez said, resisting the urge to shout at Francisco only with an effort. “If you had half a brain rattling around in that empty skull of yours, you’d remember that I wasn’t put in charge of this security operation. I was only here because the two of you felt that Sofia would find it easier to put up with any trouble she had to go through if I was here.”
“That does not excuse you. You assured me that everything was in hand. This does not look like everything was in hand.” Pizarro waved a hand around the destroyed living room. “This looks like a room from a bloody warzone.”
“Considering you ignored the information I gave you, that’s hardly a surprise, is it. You decided you couldn’t do anything when I told you where Noir’s hitmen were staying because the information came from a criminal, and when I asked you to position the backup closer so they could react quicker, you ignored me.” Cortez had to fight to keep his voice level and not let out his anger.
He wasn’t just angry over how bad things had turned out, he was angry because he knew Francisco would do his best to make sure he was the one who took the blame for what had happened.
“I even called you when I was told Noir’s men had left the hotel they were staying at, and again when I was certain they were coming here. You didn’t bother to have the response team move in, you just arranged for some patrol cars to head in this direction. What the hell did you think they were going to accomplish?”
“I arranged for them so they could help you. I didn’t want things to turn into an all-out gunfight, and I hoped they might be able to arrest your attackers.” Pizarro made no attempt to hide his disappointment that that hadn’t happened.
Bright, realising that nothing was going to be accomplished if the antagonism between the two men continued, stepped in. “You can discuss all of this later. For now, I think it would be more productive if Sergeant Cortez tells us what happened, from the start.” He turned to Cortez. “Would you like something to drink, or shall we jump straight into it.”
“Something to drink would definitely help, my throat is very dry,” Cortez said, pleased to see one of the two uniformed officers immediately leave the destroyed living room.
The requested drink arrived in short order, and he took several long sips from the glass he was handed before he spoke again.
“I got a call from my source, telling me that Noir’s men had left the hotel they were staying in. After letting Agent Trotsky know what was happening, I contacted Francisco to tell him, so he could make the necessary arrangements.” His tone revealed what he thought of the arrangements Francisco had made. “While Trotsky organised her men, I got updated reports on the location of Noir’s men from my source. When I was sure they were heading in this direction, I contacted Francisco again. After that I waited with the others. It was a longer wait than I anticipated, and I was beginning to think they weren’t coming here when the car Trotsky’s two agents were in blew up. I’d guess Noir’s men used one of the grenades I was told they’d bought on it. Things were chaotic for a while after that, with a fair amount of gunfire from both sides.”
Cortez paused to sip some more water and then he continued, “I stayed in the back bedroom with Sofia until the second grenade went off. The explosion came from downstairs at the front of the house and was followed by another at the back of the house. I couldn’t see anyone in the back garden when I looked out the window, so I figured whoever had been out there was already in the house. I left the bedroom to try and find out what was going on and spotted two guys at the foot of the stairs. Fortunately, I saw them first and emptied a full magazine into them. I wanted to make sure they were both dead before I headed into the front bedroom to check on the officers there and see what was happening.”
“You didn’t kill both the men you shot,” Bright said.
“What?” Cortez looked at Bright in surprise. “I put enough bullets in them to kill a whole bunch of guys.”
“Clearly you aren’t as good a shot as you think you are,” Pizarro said nastily.
“Considering the injuries I saw, it’s a miracle that either man is still alive,” Bright said. “I’d expect anyone to be dead after being shot that many times. Only one of them is dead, though. The other is at the hospital having emergency surgery. Given his chances of survival, I think you can say you did kill both men, the second just hasn’t died yet.”
“I’m so glad to hear that, for a moment there I was worried my reputation was in trouble,” Cortez said, not troubling to hide his sarcasm. “To be honest, I was more interested in making sure they couldn’t shoot me; dead was the best way to ensure that, but it’s probably better if one of them survived.”
“That’s true. We might be able to get some information from this hitman, should he recover. He might know something that will help us improve the case against Noir. What happened after you shot the two men at the foot of the stairs.”
“I went into the front bedroom, where Gomez and Addams were. Addams was dead, apparently hit by a lucky shot, and Gomez was doing his best to deal with the man at the front of the house. He reported that he had only seen two men and was fairly certain he had killed one of them, but the other was still moving around. I left Gomez and went back to get Sofia. I didn’t want to leave her alone while I came down here to check on things, so I got her into the master bedroom where Gomez could look after her. When I got down here, I found Trotsky dead, she’d been shot in the head. Santos was dead as well, while Madeira was alive but unconscious.”
“He was in the same condition when we got here,” Bright said. “I take it not much happened after that, since you were found only a short distance from Madeira.”
“Aside from me standing up, no,” Cortez said with a shake of his head that he immediately regretted. “I’d barely got to my feet when I felt a sharp pain in my head, and everything went black. I guess that’s when I got hit.” He chose not to dwell on how lucky he had been that the bullet had only grazed his skull and not caused more damage. “What happened after I got knocked out? I get the impression from the look on Francisco’s face that things didn’t go great.”
“I would have thought that everything that happened before you got knocked out would be more than ample reason for DS Pizarro to look unhappy.”
“Maybe, but since I know Francisco well, I know he’s only unhappy when something happens that could affect his career. He figures that everything that’s happened here, he can blame me or someone else for, so he doesn’t need to worry about it, yet he still looks worried. Something must have happened somewhere else, something he can’t blame me for, something he might have to take the blame for. So, what happened?”
“One of the gunmen got away,” Bright said when it became clear that Pizarro was not going to respond to the question. “We’re still a long way from understanding everything that happened tonight. Hopefully, we’ll have a better idea when we’ve put together all the available information. All we know for certain right now is that one of the gunmen killed the driver of a patrol car responding to the emergency call and disabled a second patrol car before escaping. He must have had a car nearby because a few minutes later he almost collided with another patrol car. After that he disappeared.”
“And you don’t have the slightest clue where he’s gone,” Cortez said.
“The car the killer was driving was found, abandoned, a few streets from the near collision,” Pizarro spoke up. “We’re trying to determine if he’s still in the area, or if he left it in a stolen car, or perhaps on foot. It’s a slow process. The officers involved have to be extremely cautious since we know he’s armed and dangerous.”
“As I said, you don’t have the slightest clue where he is. Have you bothered to send anyone to the hotel where he was staying to see if he’s gone back there?”
Bright saw that Pizarro was about to respond angrily to that question and quickly intervened. “I think it would be a good idea if we leave this for now. I don’t know about the two of you, but I’m tired, and I’m sure you could do with some rest,” he said to Cortez. “You must have a killer headache.”
**
EXHAUSTED, CORTEZ ENTERED his apartment as it was approaching dawn.
He wanted to sleep, both to rest and to rid himself of the remains of his headache, but he knew he couldn’t surrender to that need yet. He needed to call Vega, from whom he had received numerous missed calls and messages.
With leaden steps, he made his way into the kitchen, where he poured himself a large glass of wine, which he felt he had more than earned after what had happened that night. Alongside the wine, he prepared himself a snack to quiet his complaining stomach. Only then did he take out his phone.
“Where the hell have you been?” Vega’s voice exploded from the phone.
“Calm down.” Cortez yanked the phone from his ear with a wince as the loud voice lanced through his brain. “I’m not up to having you yell at me right now. I’ve had a very bad night.”
“And it’s not going to get any better. Mr Abrantes was furious when I told him your sole witness was killed last night.”
“What are you talking about? I was with Sofia no more than three quarters of an hour ago and she was perfectly fine, aside from being shaken up. Where did you hear she’s dead?” He didn’t imagine that anything could have happened to Sofia since he had seen her, and if anything had he was sure he would have been called.
“It sounds like I have been misinformed,” Vega said, relaxing a little. “I’m relieved to hear that.” Waking his employer in the middle of the night to deliver such bad news had not gone down well. He was glad that he was going to be able to report better news now, especially since he was not the one responsible for the original bad news.
“I’m sure you are. I don’t imagine Roberto was any happier with you and your men than he was with me when you told him Sofia was dead. So, how did you come to think she had been killed?” Cortez guessed that Vega’s inability to get in touch with him had something to do with the mistaken conclusion, but he would have expected him to get confirmation of his suspicions before waking his boss.
“The men you sent back to the hotel reported that one of the men they had tailed had returned there. He had a young woman with him, and her description matched what I know of Sofia Torres. Since my men couldn’t contact you, and you hadn’t contacted them, they called me for instructions. I told them to go in, take care of the guy, and get the woman out safely. Unfortunately, things didn’t go well, which is why I thought Sofia Torres was dead.”
“That would explain it,” Cortez said. “Rest assured, Sofia is alive and well, if a little freaked out by everything. So, how bad is the situation at the hotel, I’ve heard nothing about it.”
“I’m surprised. From what I was told there’s three bodies: the hotel clerk, one of my men, and the woman.”
“Sounds bad.” Callous as it might seem, Cortez wasn’t concerned that one of Vega’s men was dead, he was a criminal who had taken chances with his life, so his death was no great loss. He was sorry to hear about the deaths of the hotel clerk and the young woman mistaken for Sofia Torres, though. Where the woman had come from, he had no idea, and it was only the certainty that Vega didn’t know either that stopped him asking about her. “Francisco’s going to be embarrassed when he learns that the killer who got away went straight back to the hotel I told him about,” Cortez said, not even trying to hide the pleasure he felt at that thought.
“I imagine he will. I wouldn’t be surprised if he finds himself being taken off the case once Meteiros hears everything that’s happened.”
“We can only hope. They might put someone sensible in charge instead. Anyway, I’ll leave you to give Roberto the good news, I need to eat and get some sleep, I’m bloody knackered.” Ending the call, Cortez took his food and wine into the bedroom, so he could eat and drink while he got himself ready for a long sleep.