‘What about the other two?’
‘I’ll deal with them. And if I shout ‘Down!’ just do it - flatten yourselves and stay down until I tell you otherwise.’
‘And where will you be?’
‘In front of you, but not in your line of fire.’
He lifted the two gas cylinders in either hand, working out from the weight which one had most gas left, then put the heaviest one next to him and stood the other one directly in front of the window. He tucked the last two single-shot pistols in the front of his belt and slid the knife - its blade still bloodstained from the knife fight outside Scouse’s cell - down the back, next to his spine. He took the clamp on the rubber hose of the heaviest gas cylinder in his left hand and held his disposable lighter in his right. Then he waited, motionless and silent, just watching the window.
They could hear the sound of running water from the yard for a few more minutes, but then it stopped. There were no voices from outside, but, straining his ears, he could hear the scuff of footsteps across the yard, growing louder as they moved closer.
The silence was broken by Don Lorenzo’s voice. ‘You hear me gringo? You have killed two of my men and you have cost me a great deal of money by freeing the other Inglés, and there is a price to be paid for that. But if you give yourself up now, you have my word that the other two will be allowed to go free. If you resist and I have to send my men in to get you, then you and the other man will both die, and I promise you that the beautiful señorita will be praying for death by the time my men have finished with her.’
Harper remained silent as the seconds ticked by.
‘Last chance, gringo, what is it to be?’ Don Lorenzo waited a few more seconds and then said ‘So be it.’
Harper could hear him holding a muttered conversation with his men and then a single set of footsteps could be heard moving away. ‘He’s not even staying for the show,’ he whispered to the others.
Someone standing outside the door slowly turned the handle. There was a pause and a faint creak from the door as the unseen person applied his weight to it, but then, realising it was securely locked, he slowly released the handle again.
‘Get ready,’ Harper whispered.
The silence grew, and Harper remained absolutely still, every sense attuned and his whole attention focussed on the window.
Two minutes passed, feeling like ten, and then he heard a few muttered words from outside, a brief pause and then a crash as a volley of stones and broken bricks were hurled through the window, shattering the glass.
He remained where he was as one of the thugs smashed the rest of the glass out of the bottom of the frame with a baseball bat, and was still motionless as the first two men, one with a murderous-looking machete and the other with the baseball bat, clambered through the window and began to push the flimsy barrier aside. Still Harper waited until the next two were halfway through the window frame as well and then shouted ‘Now!’ He only heard a single shot, but it struck home, dropping the thug with the baseball bat.
He released the clamp on the rubber hose and flicked the lighter. There was a spark and a jet of burning gas shot from the hose, engulfing the thug with the machete in flames. Harper switched targets at once, raking the other two with fire. One went up like a torch, emitting banshee screams of pain and terror as his clothes ignited and his flesh began to blacken and burn. The other man, partly screened by his comrade, dived behind the upturned table, before his clothing could do more than smoulder. The gas from the cylinder was already running out but Harper used the last of it to play his primitive flame-thrower over the second cylinder in front of the window, heating the metal valve and igniting the hose.
As the stench of burning rubber filled the air, he shouted ‘Down!’ and dropped to the ground himself as the hose was breached by the flames. There was a Whoosh! of fire and then a bang that sounded like a thunder-clap in the confined space of the room as the cylinder exploded. Fragments of metal flew past him, rattling against the walls and burying themselves in the mattress protecting Lupa and Ricardo.
‘Up!’ he shouted, but had to repeat it at the top of his voice as, ears ringing from the blast, they failed to hear him the first time. He glimpsed Ricardo peering over the barrier, then saw the thug who had been hiding behind the table burst from cover and, knife arm extended, launch himself into a dive towards Lupa and Ricardo. He was still airborne when Harper whipped one of his home-made pistols out of his belt and aimed and fired in one fluid movement. He aimed for the centre of the body mass - the percentage shot with such an unreliable weapon - and saw the round strike home, punching a hole through the man’s rib-cage and sending pink, aerated blood from his lungs frothing out of the wound. The man’s knife spilled from his hand as he crashed into the bed-frame in front of Ricardo and Lupa, and she was quickest to react, snatching up the knife and driving it through the man’s eye-socket and into his brain.
The flames, the shots and the explosion had given the remaining thugs pause for thought but after a flesh-creeping silence lasting almost three more minutes, two more of them, probably more terrified of what Don Lorenzo would do to them if they returned empty-handed, than whatever fate awaited them inside Harper’s cell, came bursting through the window together. Harper drilled the first one, armed with a knife, with a shot from his remaining loaded pistol and heard shots from both Ricardo and Lupa, but one missed and the other struck the other man in the left shoulder. He went down but sprang up again at once, still clutching an axe in his other hand.
Harper knew that none of them now had any shots left and he launched himself at the attacker, making a pile-driving hit that a rugby player would have been proud of. He crunched his shoulder into the man’s ribs just below his heart. The thug went down again with Harper on top of him. He swung his axe at Harper’s head, but he ducked under the blade and head-butted him, connecting with the bridge of the nose and shattering the bone. Before the man could swing his axe again, Harper drove his knife through the thug’s diaphragm and pierced his heart. He gave the knife a vicious twist before withdrawing it, just as he’d been taught in bayonet practice as a rookie Para recruit many years before. As he pulled the knife out, blood flooded out over his hand and arm, and the man gave a last shuddering breath and lay still.
Harper was already back on his feet, crouched in a fighting stance, facing the window. There were still two more of Don Lorenzo’s private army of thirty-year men outside who might have to be dealt with, but of equal concern, either his primitive flamethrower or the exploding gas cylinder had ignited the filthy rags of curtains around the window and flames licking up the walls had now set fire to the boarded ceiling, that was also the floor of the cell above them.
‘Lupa, Ricardo,’ he shouted. ‘We’ve no water, so you’ll have to beat those flames out with blankets or coats or something. There’s still a lot of black powder in the other room and if flames get even close to it, we’ll all be putting our heads between our legs and kissing our arses goodbye.’ Without waiting to see if they had reacted, he sprinted to the window, dived through it and rolled as he hit the ground, coming up with his knife gripped in his hand, ready to take on the last two thugs, but the yard was deserted. The two men had fled rather than risk sharing the fate of their comrades, but he could see faces at every cell door and window across the yard, where the other prisoners had evidently been enjoying the show. As Harper relaxed out of his fighting stance, he heard a few shouts and whistles from the watchers and one of them called out ‘Olé!’, while another shouted ‘Que hombre!’
He smiled and bowed, acknowledging the applause, then grabbed a bucket that was standing by the piscina, scooped a bucketful of water out of it and, shouting to Ricardo, passed it through the window. It took half a dozen buckets to extinguish the last of the flames, and each time he filled it again, he kept a wary eye open for any sign of Don Lorenzo’s men returning but the yard was still deserted when he climbed back through the window. Water was still dripping from the walls and
ceiling and the room stank of smoke, singed cloth and burnt flesh.
Harper double-checked that each of the thugs was dead, then said ‘Okay, good work, but we need to follow up on this straight away, which means paying Don Lorenzo a little visit at his place. So we need to reload at once.’
‘Already doing it,’ Lupa said, busily loading powder and shot into one of the crude pistols.
‘Great, but be gentle with that ramrod or you’ll be picking your fingers out of the ceiling with your other hand. And chuck the gun that misfired. We can’t trust it to fire next time either, but five will still be plenty for what we need to do. Ricardo, we need to take those bamboo bombs with us as well. We might well need a couple of them to get Don Lorenzo’s attention and anyway, if we leave them here, one of our neighbours might climb through the window and help himself to them. Lupa, when you’ve finished loading those, get a can of that Caiman stuff and bring it with you, will you?’
Within ten minutes they were ready. Harper checked the yard - still empty, though a few of the spectators were still standing at their windows, awaiting any further developments. ‘I still can’t believe you can fire weapons and detonate a gas cylinder inside a prison, and the guards don’t even turn out to find out what the hell is going on,’ Harper said.
‘Maybe they’re afraid it’s a diversion to lure them away from the gates,’ Ricardo said, ‘so some prisoners can escape.’
Lupa snorted. ‘Yeah, or maybe they’re just afraid.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ Harper said. ‘It’ll make getting out of here a bit easier.’
They made their way through the maze of yards and passageways leading towards Don Lorenzo’s cell, then waited in the deep shadow of the passage opening into the courtyard in front of it. After a few minutes, a bar of light stabbed out into the yard as one of Don Lorenzo’s remaining goons stepped outside. Harper tightened his grip on his knife, ready to take him down if he came their way. However, having scanned the yard and the entrance to the passage, the man merely leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette. Harper watched the end of it glow red as the man drew on it and blew out a stream of smoke. If he stayed out there on watch, it would make a surprise attack on Don Lorenzo’s cell almost impossible, but to Harper’s relief, having taken a last pull on the cigarette, the man flicked the butt away, hawked and spat, and then went back inside the cell and closed the door.
Harper waited a few more seconds, straining his eyes into the darkness and listening intently, but then he smiled. ‘It sounds like he’s not even locked the door,’ he whispered to the others. ‘They must be confident that no one would dare to challenge Don Lorenzo in his own lair, so let’s surprise them, before anyone else comes out for a cigarette break.’
He led them out into the yard, hugging the wall and moving without a sound from shadow to shadow until he was standing alongside the cell window. A blind hung over the window but one of its slats was slightly twisted, leaving a narrow gap through which Harper could peer into the brightly lit room. There was no sign of Don Lorenzo, but three more members of his army, including the smoker they had seen, were sitting around a table, talking. The door to the next room stood open, and the moving shadows on the wall by the door, suggested at least one more person was in there, pacing to and fro.
Harper hefted one of the bamboo grenades in his hand and gestured to Lupa to pour some Caiman spirit onto the fuse from the can she was carrying. He then gave her his lighter, put his mouth close to her ear and breathed ‘Hold the lighter ready and when I nod, light the fuse.’
He inched his way to the door, turned the handle so slowly that even though she was watching closely, Lupa could barely see it move. He pushed against it until it opened a few millimetres, making sure it wasn’t locked. He held out the grenade and nodded, and Lupa lit the fuse. He counted off three seconds as the flame raced up the fuse, then pushed the door open, threw the burning grenade into the room and slammed the door shut again. The thud of it closing was drowned by an explosion that blew out the window, sending shards of glass flying out into the yard, but Harper was already shouting ‘Go! Go! Go!’ and throwing the door wide open.
The sulphurous smell of gunpowder was thick in the air as smoke billowed around him. All three men were on the floor, with blood seeping from their mouths, noses and ears, and with scores of cuts to their faces and bodies from the primitive shrapnel the grenade had been packed with. One man was motionless, probably already dead, another was clawing at his face and screaming in Spanish. The other was trying to get to his feet but Harper booted him under the chin, sending him sprawling. He shouted to Ricardo ‘Finish them off!’ and with his crude pistol in one hand and his knife in the other, he burst through the doorway into the next room.
Don Lorenzo was sitting, still wearing a silk shirt and bootlace tie but now ashen-faced. He had just one remaining bodyguard to protect him. The man stepped in front of his boss and pulled a blackjack from his belt - a narrow handle with a bulbous, leather-covered lead weight on the end. A single blow from it could concuss a man or fracture his skull, if the bodyguard managed to get close enough to use it. Harper looked at it, shrugged and pointed his home-made pistol at the dead centre of the man’s chest. He pulled the trigger. The range was so short that a halo of burning powder fragments scorched the man’s shirt around the entry wound as it punched through the sternum. He stared at Harper, lips working as if trying to speak, then slowly buckled at the knees and collapsed to the floor.
Harper jammed the homemade pistol back in his belt, switched his knife to his right hand and sliced the blade across the man’s throat, severing the carotid arteries on either side of his neck. He bled out in seconds.
Don Lorenzo had remained frozen in his chair as he watched the grisly tableau unfold. Now his eyes shifted to Harper’s face. ‘What do you want, Inglés? Money? Cocaine?’
Harper shook his head. ‘Neither of those, Don Lorenzo. I want to be sure that I and my companions can get out of San Pedro safely and that no one will be coming looking for them afterwards, and the best way to ensure that, as far as I can see, is to kill you.’
‘I am a man of influence. If you kill me, my cartel will avenge me.’
Harper smiled. ‘That I doubt. They’d have to find me first, and anyway, your cartel bosses are men of business. Their only concern is that the product is produced, transported and sold. The loss of a man - even a man of influence like you, Don Lorenzo will concern them no more than a cockroach they step on.’
Ricardo and Lupa had walked into the room behind Harper. ‘I know those cartel guys,’ Ricardo said to Harper. ‘I can negotiate with them, make a deal.’
Harper paused, watching the nervous tic tugging at the corner of Don Lorenzo’s mouth, and the bead of sweat rolling down his forehead. ‘So it seems we don’t need you at all, Don Lorenzo, but there are still two things you can do for me. You can give me the keys for the punishment cells and you can tell me the name of the man you were going to sell the Englishman called Scouse to.’
‘If I tell you that he will have me killed.’
Harper gave a cold smile. ‘Very probably, but that prospect is the least of your worries, because I can kill you right now.’
There was a silence while Don Lorenzo weighed up his non-existent options. ‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘And if I give you the keys and tell you what you want to know, you will spare me?’
‘I will.’
‘The keys are hanging on the hook behind the door, the ring with six keys on it.’
Harper found the keys and pocketed them. ‘And the man my friend was to be sold to?’
Don Lorenzo hesitated, then bowed his head. ‘His name is Jacobo Guzman.’
Harper gave Lupa and Ricardo an enquiring look. ‘I’ve heard of him,’ Lupa said. ‘He’s a property developer, no? They have a big office on Avenida de 6 Agusto.’
‘And how do you contact him? I’m guessing you don’t ring his office.’
‘I have a number for him on my mo
bile.’ Don Lorenzo made to reach for the phone lying on the table behind him, but Harper shouted ‘Stop!’ He walked over to the table, knocking Don Lorenzo’s hand away and picked up the phone himself.
He held out the phone so Don Lorenzo could unlock it with his fingerprint, then opened the contacts and scanned down the list. ‘There’s no Guzman listed.’
‘Of course not. I would not be so stupid as to have it under his name. He’s listed as El Carnicero.’
Harper looked at Lupa for a translation. ‘The Butcher,’ she said,
‘The Butcher?’ Harper said. ‘And you’re the supplier of fresh meat for him. How much was he going to pay for this particular piece of English beef?’
‘Ten thousand US dollars.’
‘Scouse will be disappointed he was worth so little.’ He paused. ‘Okay, I think we have all we need from you, Don Lorenzo. So this is goodbye.’
‘So I am free to go?’
‘Not exactly. Ricardo do you want to deal with this? Perhaps it’s time for Don Lorenzo’s swimming lesson.’
Ricardo’s face broke into a broad smile. ‘It will be my pleasure.’
As the realisation of what Harper meant dawned on Don Lorenzo he began to curse him. ‘You swore to me, Englishman, you gave me your word.’ He half-rose to his feet but Harper prodded his chest with the point of his knife, pushing him back into his seat.
‘Indeed I did, Don Lorenzo, but I only swore that I wouldn’t kill you. I didn’t say Ricardo wouldn’t. And it’s no more than you deserve, you murderous scumbag. You would have had Scouse or any of us killed without a moment’s hesitation, but now your own time has come.’
Breakout: A Heart-Pounding Lex Harper Thriller Page 14
