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Yves was caught by surprise when a car burst through the garage door at the side of the safehouse. It took him a moment to recover, and when he did, he brought up his gun to fire at the car, which he saw was being driven by Sergeant Cortez, the man Jean-Paul’s source had identified as being closest to Sofia Torres.
The car swerved violently as the bullets struck the windscreen and Yves tracked the vehicle with his gun as it raced down the cul-de-sac. He fired until his gun was empty, his bullets leaving a series of small holes in the vehicle, though the damage did nothing to stop the car.
“Shit!” he swore when Cortez’s car skidded out onto the main road before disappearing from sight. “Get in the van,” he ordered the two men with him. “We’re going after that son-of-a-bitch. You drive, Guy.”
While Guy swung the van around, Yves dialled William’s number. The sharp crack of gunfire was all he could hear for several moments after the call was answered, and he had to wait for it to abate before he could deliver his instructions.
“The witness is gone,” he said, speaking quickly to avoid being drowned out by anymore gunfire. “She’s making a break for it in a car with the sergeant. I’m going after her with Jacques and Guy. You and the others stay here and finish off everyone in the house, but don’t let yourself get trapped. If backup turns up for those officers, get out of there, we’ve got other work to do so I don’t want you getting killed.”
“You can be sure of that. The moment we hear sirens, we’re out of here,” William said. “The only guys left are upstairs and charging the stairs would be suicide, but I’ve got a plan. Don’t worry about us, just get after the witness and deal with her.”
**
SKIDDING AROUND THE corner, Cortez ignored the blood that ran down his face from the cuts caused by the shattered windscreen and kept one eye on the road ahead of him and the traffic he had to contend with, and the other on his rear-view mirror. He wasn’t sure if he was going to be chased by any of those who had attacked the safehouse, but if they did come after him, he wanted to know about it straightaway.
When he saw the van race out of the cul-de-sac in pursuit of him, he pushed his foot down still further on the accelerator and swerved from one side of the road to the other, dodging in and out of traffic. A chorus of angry beeping and rude gestures rang out in response to his wild driving, but he paid them no mind, focusing instead on staying ahead of his pursuer and avoiding crashing into any of the other road users.
He had no sooner offered up a fervent prayer that those in the van would avoid shooting at him while they were in busy streets with lots of people around when his rear windscreen disappeared in a hail of bullets.
As he spun the wheel to take the next turn, Cortez wondered where all the other police in the city were. He had called in a report of his situation, and his location, but there was no sign of any backup or support of any kind.
**
CROUCHED IN THE DOORWAY near the foot of the stairs, William considered his situation while his men fired at every movement they saw near the top of the stairs. There was no sign of them hitting anyone, but they kept firing in the hope they would get lucky.
“You two stay here and keep this up. Andre, you come with me.” Without waiting for an acknowledgement of his instructions, he left the doorway and made his way into the kitchen.
“We’re looking for something flammable,” he told Andre, who was looking at him questioningly as he pulled open cupboards and checked bottles and tins.
Andre nodded in understanding. “I’ll look in the garage.”
William found nothing of use in the kitchen, but Andre did find a bottle of turpentine and a half-filled can of petrol in the garage. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for what William had in mind.
One thing that worried William as he tore a tea-towel into strips to use as wicks for the crude Molotov cocktails he was making was the absence of sirens. He had expected to hear them long before then and the lack made him wonder what was going on.
“Okay, I think we’re good to go,” he said after he had prepared a third cocktail. “We’ll go out into the garden and toss two of these into the back bedrooms. The third one goes up the stairs. Those bastards will be caught between fires on both sides and burn to death.”
“Better than us trying to shoot our way up the stairs to get at them,” Andre said, a mixture of relief for avoiding such a suicidal action and relish at the thought of police officers burning to death in his voice.
Before he was even out the back door, Andre had his lighter out. A quick glance at the bedroom window above made him realise it wasn’t a good idea for him to try and throw a cocktail through it. There was too great a chance the bottle would simply bounce back and then he would be the one likely to burn to death.
Swapping the cocktail to his left hand, he lifted his gun and fired a quick, three-round burst to shatter the window. As an afterthought, he fired a second burst to shatter the window of the other bedroom, and with that done he dropped the weapon, so it hung from the shoulder strap, while he lit the wick on the bottle in his other hand.
He was drawing his arm back to launch the bottle when he saw movement in the nearest of the two bedrooms and a tongue of flame seemed to reach out towards him.
As if in slow motion, William, who was still by the back door, saw Andre drop the bottle he was holding as he was knocked to the ground by the torrent of bullets that thudded into his chest.
The contents of the bottle spilled out, igniting as it flowed over the wick, and set the grass ablaze. In seconds the flames had jumped to Andre’s clothes, and from there they raced up and down his body.
William saw the flames licking at his friend’s skin and hair, yet he neither moved nor made a sound. He wanted to go to his friend in case there was any hope of saving him but he was sure he would be gunned down if he did, as Andre had been.
Instead of going to Andre, he lit the wick on the first of his Molotov cocktails and stepped away from the door. Tense, and ready to dive for safety at the slightest movement from above, he edged out into the garden, being careful to avoid the flames that were spreading rapidly across the dry grass.
The moment he had an angle to do so, he lobbed the cocktail through the smashed window of the bedroom he was sure the gunfire that had killed Andre had come from. He then darted back into the relative safety of the house. He glanced back briefly at the body of his friend, which was being consumed by the flames, and then forgot about him and returned to Luke and Mathieu. There was nothing he could do for Andre, and trying would only put him at risk.
He knew from their questioning looks that Luke and Mathieu were wondering what had happened to Andre, but he was more concerned with finishing his job so they could get out of there than in answering them.
“Make sure that bastard keeps his head down,” he instructed as he lit the wick on his remaining Molotov cocktail.
He waited until he was sure the officer at the top of the stairs was hiding behind whatever cover he had, and then William stepped out from the doorway so he could toss the cocktail he held. The flaming missile bounced once, right at the top of the stairs, and for one horrible moment he thought it was going to tumble back down towards him. He breathed a sigh of relief when it bounced forward instead of back.
**
THE SOUND OF CURSING from the head of the stairs brought Jovellanos out from the front bedroom, where he was watching the cul-de-sac. He already knew the situation was becoming critical, with his men downstairs dead and no sign of the backup he had been promised, he didn’t need more trouble.
No sooner had he reached the door than he saw that Rodriguez, the officer he had set to watch the stairs, was on fire and flames were spreading along the carpet and climbing the walls of the passage.
Jovellanos was frozen to the spot as he watched Rodriguez stumble along the passage, getting closer and closer. He tried to get out of the way, but his body didn’t seem to want to respond to the commands his brain was giving it.
It was only when Rodriguez fell on him that he rediscovered the ability to move. He tried to back away but wasn’t quick enough. Flames leapt from Rodriguez’s clothes onto his own before he could get out of the way, and swearing he let Rodriguez fall to the floor as he hurriedly returned to the front bedroom, tearing off his burning clothes as he went. Quick as he was to strip off, he could still feel the flames burning his skin and hair.
“We’ve failed and we’re in big trouble,” Jovellanos told Montoya. “It looks like it’s just you and me left,” he said as calmly as he could while stamping on his shirt and jacket to put out the flames. “And we’ve got a fire up here, right outside the door. If that bloody backup doesn’t arrive soon, we’re going to burn to death before we have to worry about being shot by those bastards downstairs.”
How things had come to this, he couldn’t imagine. He had thought his preparations were good enough to ensure Sofia Torres was safe from any attempt by Philippe Noir’s men, but he had been proved very wrong.
“We might be alright, sir, I think I can hear the backup now.”
Jovellanos strained to hear what the younger man had.
**
“I THINK IT’S TIME TO get out of here,” William said over the sound of approaching sirens.
He doubted there had been time for the fires he had started to kill everyone upstairs, but there was nothing he could do about that, nor did it matter. Their target was no longer there according to Yves, so there was no point in them staying and risking their lives any further just to kill a few cops and Interpol agents.
Darting across the passage, in case by some miracle the officer at the head of the stairs was still alive and a threat, he entered the dining room, and from there he led his men into the living room. The engine was still running on the delivery van and he quickly climbed behind the wheel while his men got into the back.
Less than two minutes after first hearing the sirens that heralded the approach of more police, William had freed the van from the wreckage of the house’s front wall, turned it around, and was heading out of the cul-de-sac.
He was aware the van was liable to draw the attention of everyone they passed because of how damaged it was. He wasn’t concerned about that, however. They only had to go a couple of streets before they could ditch the van in favour of the car they had prepared in readiness for their escape.
**
CORTEZ TURNED CORNER after corner as he tried, and failed, to shake off the van following him, which drew steadily closer. He even went past a police station in the hope that the van would back off — it didn’t.
Briefly, he considered stopping at the station, but his instincts told him he would be cut down by the gunmen in the van if he tried to make a run for it from the car.
As he turned yet another corner, it felt like his fiftieth, the van slammed into the rear of his car. He almost spun out of control, but after a fight with the steering wheel he managed to keep the car going in a relatively straight line.
Cortez felt the van slam into him a second time and he gripped the wheel until his knuckles went white as he fought to control the car. Before he could straighten up again, the van hit him once more, and this time the impact wrenched the steering wheel from his grasp and sent the car spinning. The car stalled as it spun, but he had no time to fully appreciate his predicament before the van slammed into the side of the car.
Frantically, he tried to restart the engine as he felt the car begin to tip, and for about twenty yards he was pushed sideways down the road on the passenger side wheels before the car tipped over completely. It landed on its roof, where it continued to slide for a short distance as the other traffic on the road swerved to avoid it.
**
YVES BROUGHT THE VAN to a skidding halt the moment the car tipped over and jumped out so he could hurry to it with Guy and Jacques. Sergeant Cortez was struggling to free himself from the wreck, but he ignored him and dropped to his knees to look for Sofia Torres. There had been no sign of her during the chase, but he was sure she had to be there. He was wrong, however.
“Ou-est-elle?” he demanded of Cortez, who had been dragged from the car by Guy and Jacques. “Where? Where is she?” he asked in English after realising he was speaking in French, which Cortez might not understand.
Cortez smiled. He knew he was going to die whether he told the man what he wanted to know or not, so there was nothing to gain by answering him. He wouldn’t have done so even if he thought it would save his life. He had set out to protect Sofia by drawing at least some of her attackers away, and he was pleased to see that he had succeeded. He was determined to keep doing what he could to protect her, no matter what happened.
“Where’s the girl?” Yves screamed, angered that he had been tricked in such an obvious way and by the mocking smile which was the only response he received.
“He’s not going to talk,” Guy said, trying to pull Yves away from the figure at his feet. “Forget about it. We’ve got to get out of here. The cops’ll be here soon. The girl’s probably back at the house. William will have dealt with her by now. We’ve got other things to do. If we don’t leave now, we’re going to end up dead or in jail.”
“Fucking bastard!” Yves yelled angrily. Lifting his gun, he fired a three-round burst into Cortez’s face, destroying the smile that tormented him. He then turned away from the body and the wrecked car to stalk back to the van.
He took a savage delight in running over Cortez’s body as he raced away down the street.