Leonid frowned. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Adnan studied Leonid’s face for some sign that he was lying, but he seemed genuinely sympathetic.
“Thanks.”
“But,” Leonid went on, “I don’t fully understand why you’re after the two doctors. If they invited your daughter for the treatment, shouldn’t you want to pay tribute to them rather than kill them?”
Adnan shook his head. He’d gone through the medical documentation so many times that he knew it by heart. “There was a whole list of side effects they didn’t tell us about!” he hissed. “If we had known everything we know now, we would never have agreed to it! They lied to us right in our faces!”
Leonid nodded. “I understand.”
But Adnan didn’t seem to hear him. He pounded on the table, and Leonid recoiled.
“Curse them!” Adnan cried. “They killed my daughter in their experiment, and when my wife couldn’t live with the grief anymore, she took her life! Can you understand that? The pain after our daughter became so great for her she couldn’t live anymore!”
Leonid swallowed. “That . . . that must have been terrible.”
“Have been? No, try is. Every day, I wake up to another day of hell without my wife and daughter. If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to catch up with the people who are responsible for this.”
The helicopter sound outside grew louder, and Leonid froze. A troubled expression spread across his face. He pointed up.
“Is that your helicopter?”
Adnan shrugged when he heard the sound. “Nope,” he said. “It’s not mine.”
Before Leonid could say anything, the door flew open, and a black-clad man rushed in.
“Leonid, there’s a police helicopter here!”
Leonid stood up with a jolt. Surprise, and then anger, morphed through his face. He glared at Adnan.
“It’s a trap, goddamn you! You planned this!”
Adnan got to his feet. “No, you moron,” he growled. “It wasn’t me. Think about it—why would I lead the police here?”
Another of Leonid’s men rushed into the room. “They’re landing!”
Leonid picked up his gun and pointed it at the Spaniard. “It doesn’t matter if it was you or not. If the police are here, you’ll never find out where the doctors are. You can have the pleasure of waking up to another day in hell, as you so beautifully describe it.”
Adnan’s face was like a mask as he pulled a small, dark flash drive from his inner pocket and said, “Leonid, I have this. It’s a full copy of the experiment. What would you give in exchange for this information?”
Leonid stared at the drive. The seconds ticked by. Outside, someone shouted, and the helicopter’s pounding now vibrated through the entire house. Small dust clouds slid down from the ceiling.
“No, no deal. This wasn’t the deal. You can keep that, and I’ll keep my information,” Leonid said.
Adnan kept his eyes fixed on him. “You don’t want to make me angry, Leonid. You know who I am and what I’m capable of. If you don’t give me the information now, I’ll cut out your heart when I get hold of you.”
Leonid chuckled and stretched. “Whatever you say, Adnan,” he said, giving a nod to his men.
A shot echoed out somewhere far away, and everyone in the room flinched except the Spaniard. Adnan stood still and stared at Leonid as if he could force him to stay in place with sheer willpower.
Leonid glanced at his two men again and said, “Shoot him.”
The men pointed their weapons at Adnan and pulled the triggers. In the cramped kitchen, the sound was deafening. The air itself resounded as the heavy rounds slammed into the wooden table, which Adnan pushed over and threw himself behind. Leonid took a step aside, and the two men moved closer, never letting up on the triggers. Hundreds of shots pulverized the thick, old wooden surface.
After a few seconds, Leonid bellowed, “Cease fire!”
The shooting stopped, and the kitchen was filled with searing smoke. Leonid’s ears rang, and he took a few steps to the kitchen table and leaned over it. He swallowed when he didn’t see a body. Slowly, he looked over both shoulders, ready for anything. A few meters behind the broken table stood the open doorway to the living room. Adnan must have crawled through it just before the shooting started, Leonid figured.
He groaned. This was the last thing he wanted, to have the Spaniard in the next room and the police outside. What a day.
***
Better to flee and live to fight another day, Adnan thought as he crawled deeper into the living room as hell broke out behind him in the kitchen. While the two men unloaded their weapons on the table, Adnan made his way through the living room and crawled behind a couch. He breathed heavily. He’d hoped it wouldn’t go down like this, but he hadn’t been sure. But it didn’t matter now. It didn’t change anything. He would have to catch Leonid and force him to reveal where the doctors were.
He spat and got up. Crouching, he made his way to the edge of the sofa and peeked around it. In the kitchen, the shooting stopped, and through the open door, he saw Leonid and his men coming his way. Frantically, Adnan looked for something to use as a weapon. On a side table next to the sofa were a lamp and a stone ashtray.
He grabbed the ashtray and weighed it in his hand. It was heavy. His heart pounded in his chest, and sweat ran down his back, but he barely noticed. Adnan had been in situations like this so many times before that he knew exactly how his body reacted when met with the rush of adrenaline.
One of Leonid’s men showed up in the doorway. He swept the barrel of his gun across the room and opened fire. The thunderous sound that had previously filled the kitchen now permeated the living room. Adnan held his breath and counted. Three, two, one. The shooting stopped as the man dropped an empty mag and replaced it, and Adnan flew up from behind the couch. In a single sweeping motion, he flung the ashtray at the man in the doorway. It crashed into his skull with a crackling sound, and the man fell. Someone behind him screamed as blood ran out beneath him.
The shadow of the other thug hesitated at the sight of what had happened to his partner, and Adnan saw his chance. He rushed to the door, and when he was three meters away, threw himself at the dead body and the weapon lying next to it.
Adnan timed his jump so perfectly that when he reached out, he grabbed the weapon in one swift movement. When he had cleared the body, he curled himself into a ball, landed softly, and rolled. He came up in a crouching position just as the other man pulled the trigger. But Leonid’s man was too eager, and the gun kicked in his hands, sending the rounds high over Adnan’s head. But Adnan didn’t miss. He lifted his weapon and pulled the trigger, and five shots landed on the man dead-center in the chest. He recoiled, coughed blood, and collapsed.
Adnan perceived movement on his right and saw Leonid. Standing to his feet, Adnan glared at him. He displayed his teeth in a shark-like smile.
“I told you. You should have just given me what I wanted.”
Leonid’s expression slowly transformed into one of horror when he realized he was alone with the Spaniard. Leonid looked for his men, but the ones who were still alive were outside in the alley. Gunfire echoed out from above the house. It became too much for Leonid, and he turned and ran.
Adnan flexed every muscle in his body and grinned. This is what he was born for, what he lived for. He ran after him.
***
The flashing blue lights behind him got closer. Hugo Xavier stared into the rearview mirror as the cop car approached. He was only a few miles from Pacculi; he couldn’t give up now. Not when he’d gotten this far. The cruiser behind him got even closer.
Hugo passed a line of trucks and peeked up toward the vibrant village of Pacculi. The place was the picture of a quintessential romantic Italian town. A medieval stone wall stretched around the town, and inside its borders, old, colorful houses stood side by side. As he got closer, he saw a helicopter approaching. He froze and leaned forward over the steering wheel
to get a better look.
“Who are you?” Hugo whispered.
But his attention was interrupted as the police car pulled up to his bumper. A loudspeaker roared, “This is the police! Pull the vehicle over!”
Hugo bit his lip. If he stopped, he would definitely be arrested. At the very least, he would spend the next few hours in the local jail before Madeleine could pull enough strings to get him out. And in the meantime, the Spaniard would get away. With the helicopter heading down toward the village, Hugo became even more sure that this was the place the Spaniard had made it to. There was no other option. He had to take his chances.
He took a deep breath and slammed on the brakes. Behind him, the police car didn’t have time to do anything. The driver tried to turn away, but it was too late. The front of the cruiser crashed into the back of Hugo’s car. Hugo was thrown forward, and he swerved hard to maintain control of the vehicle. Then he stepped on the accelerator.
Behind him, smoke rose from the cruiser’s engine as it moved into the emergency lane and stopped. Hugo rolled down the window, stuck out his hand, and shaped it into a thumbs up. “Sorry about that!” he called back.
He passed a couple more cars and approached the final stretch up to Pacculi. From the corner of his eye, he saw the helicopter hovering above a rooftop. Men threw ropes from it and then slid down. It had to be cops, Hugo knew. Along one edge of the wall, he saw a group of tourists shouting, pointing, and taking pictures.
“Never a quiet moment,” he muttered. He eased off the gas and entered the cobbled main road that went straight through the village. A dozen cars had stopped, and people stood outside them, pointing up at the helicopter. Hugo braked, narrowly avoiding crashing into a stopped car. He rolled down the window and shouted to a man staring up at the spectacle.
“What’s going on?”
The older gentleman turned to Hugo and pointed excitedly at the helicopter. “It’s the police! Look!”
Hugo peered up and saw the chopper still hovering above one of the houses. Its heavy rotor made the air vibrate around the entire village.
“The police?”
The man nodded excitedly. “Yeah, they must be after whoever was in the first helicopter that landed on the other side of the village earlier.”
Hugo stared at the man. “There was another helicopter?” he asked.
The man spun around and pointed to the northwest. “It landed over there!”
“How long ago?”
The man’s forehead wrinkled. “Half an hour, maybe.”
“Is this the only way up to the village?” Hugo asked, pointing to the gridlocked road.
The man nodded. “Yeah, it is.”
“Okay, thank you,” Hugo said and rolled his window back up. Hugo threw the car into reverse, spun around, and then pulled it a few meters to the side so that it at least wouldn’t block the main road. He jumped out of the car and saw the same older man staring at him. Hugo smiled and pointed up at the houses and the helicopter.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I’m a cop.”
The man kept staring as Hugo ran past the bumper-to-bumper traffic. People stood around, wildly discussing what was going on. A dog barked, and several cars honked. In the utter chaos, it took a while for Hugo to move through the crowd. A couple of men shouted as he pushed his way past them, and someone grabbed his shirt. But Hugo pulled away and kept going. There was no time to lose; he had to get up to the house. The Spaniard must be in there—or nearby, at least—if the police were here.
But how had the police found out where the Spaniard was? Hugo ignored that for now—there were more important things to worry about at the moment.
He made his way through the crowd and proceeded to the edge of a house. Its stone walls stretched up and obscured his view of the helicopter, but he still heard its intense roar high above. A narrow alley appeared, and Hugo ran into it. A stone staircase led him farther upward, and the farther he went, the greater pressure from the helicopter’s rotor became. The air thundered through the narrow alley as he continued up toward the house. When Hugo finally came out into the open, he caught a glimpse of the helicopter. It was just three blocks away. His legs pumped like jackhammers and his still-healing hand throbbed.
Hugo slipped and slammed into a wall but kept moving. Against the wall, a man sat crouching from the bedlam, his hands over his head. Hugo kept running. Two blocks. He sprinted around a corner and up another staircase. The narrow alley became even tighter as he got closer, and the chopper’s roar was now so intense that Hugo felt it in his chest. It was almost right above him.
Then something boomed, and Hugo flinched. Gunfire from what sounded like two weapons. The gunshots resonated through the air, and Hugo grabbed his own gun. He recognized the sound of automatic weapons when he heard them. His sidearm wasn’t much use against these types of weapons, but it didn’t matter. If the police were here, he would let them take care of the Spaniard. He was just going to observe. Nothing else.
He kept going, every muscle in his body flexed. Rushing around the last corner, Hugo arrived at the house, and the helicopter hovered overhead.
***
Hugo rushed to the house, looking for a door. He followed the wall around the corner and froze when two black-clad men spun around. One of them screamed something Hugo didn’t make out, but he understood well enough what the gist was when both men pointed their weapons at him and pulled the triggers. A huge roar echoed through the narrow alley. Hugo threw himself backward, rolled as he hit the ground, and moved into cover. The men kept shooting, and Hugo darted back the way he’d come.
“That was a bad idea,” he breathed as he ran.
The helicopter descended onto the roof of the house, and the air in the alley boomed. Hugo took a deep breath and pressed down the air in his lungs. It was hard to breathe when everything around him thundered. He ran on, and when he looked back, he saw that the men didn’t seem to be chasing after him. Hugo breathed a sigh of relief as he continued up to a stone staircase that wound up and around the house.
Taking the steps two at a time, he came up on a ledge. Shots echoed from inside the house, and he flinched. Fully automatic weapons, two long salvos. Then nothing. Hugo had to get into the house. The thugs who were down there guarding the entrance weren’t cops. He looked up and now clearly saw the police emblem under the helicopter.
What the hell is going on?
He looked back. He was on an elevated pathway that passed by the house. A little to the left was a window. It wasn’t more than a two-meter distance—a jump he could manage. He peeked into the darkness and saw nothing, then took a few steps back, readying himself to run toward the window. Just then, another gunshot volley echoed from inside, this time much closer. It had to have come from the room he was about to jump into. Instead, Hugo ran over to the wall again and crouched. Voices emanated from inside the house.
“I told you. You should have just given me what I wanted.”
Hugo peeked over the edge and stared as a giant black-clad man appeared in the window. His eyes darted left and right, looking for an escape route. Then his gaze met Hugo’s. Hugo stood up halfway, and the man in the window climbed up on the window ledge. He was going to jump.
Hugo held out his hand and said, “No, wait!”
But the man didn’t listen. With a tiger leap, he hurled himself through the air and grabbed onto the crest of the wall. Hugo threw himself forward, grabbed the man’s arms, and helped him over. The man scuffled down the other side.
“Thank you!” he gasped.
Hugo squatted next to him. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Who are you?”
The man shook his head and pointed back. “Not now. He’s coming.”
“Who?”
“The Spaniard.”
Hugo froze. “How do you know about him?”
But the question didn’t get an answer because the Spaniard appeared in the window. His eyes locked with Hugo’s, and a chill went down Hugo’s spine. It
was him.
“There you are,” Hugo said, nodding at him.
The Spaniard pointed to the man sitting next to Hugo. “This has nothing to do with you,” he said. “I want him.”
Hugo shook his head and replied, “Then you’ll have to go through me.”
“That can be arranged,” said the Spaniard, his eyes gleaming.
Hugo grabbed the man’s arm and pulled him up. “Can you run?”
The man nodded.
“Then run,” Hugo said. “I’ll take care of this.”
The man muttered something Hugo didn’t perceive. He turned around. A fraction of a second later, the Spaniard flew through the air, landed on the crest of the wall, and did a somersault. All in one smooth motion.
Hugo grimaced.
“Impressive.”
The Spaniard put his hands together, braided his fingers, and cracked. He smiled.
“You have no idea what you got into, do you?”
Hugo took a step closer.
“Yes. I know exactly who you are and what you are. And I’m going to catch you and turn you into the police.”
The Spaniard laughed.
“To the police?” he pointed to the house he just came from, “They’re in there, and they can’t catch themselves even if they tried.”
Hugo took a few more steps aside and assessed the surface. The shiny polished stones were slippery, and he walked gently around in a semicircle. In a fight, balance was alpha and omega. One misstep, and you were dead.
Hugo shook his head.
“Give up now, and you’ll get out of here unharmed,” he said.
The Spaniard looked for the man who ran away.
“You know the man you saved was a Russian mercenary? And he has something I very much want.”
Hugo clenched his jaw.
“What does he have what you want?”
The Spaniard was silent for a moment.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re going to die anyway, so you can know. He knows where the men who caused my wife’s and child’s deaths are. He knows where the cowards are hiding, and I’m going to find out and make sure they suffer.”
The Hugo Xavier Series: Book 1-3 Page 54
