The Armada Legacy bh-8

by Scott Mariani

  Nico snatched up a sheaf of printouts and held them out with a flourish. ‘Oil test reports, dating back more than four years. This is why he wanted that land so bad. Half a million of acres of worthless jungle? I don’t think so, man. More like half a million acres of the richest untapped oilfields in the whole Amazon lowlands. No wonder Serrato went to so much trouble getting hold of the land grant. It could make him a fucking billionaire ten times over. Nothing was gonna stop him.’

  Oil, Ben thought. It did explain everything. Having already learned what lay underneath his ancestral land, Serrato must have been desperate to obtain from Roger Forsyte the only proof in the world that he was the heir to it. When Forsyte turned him down, believing he could score a better deal elsewhere by using the rediscovered documents to unmask a whole list of unsuspected English traitors from the time of the Spanish Armada, Serrato had then sent his people in to work on Simon Butler and find alternative ways of getting what he wanted.

  ‘Brooke just got in the way,’ Ben said out loud.

  ‘And she just happened to be a dead ringer for Serrato’s wife,’ Nico replied. ‘Wrong place, wrong time.’ Suddenly he tensed again, half-turned towards the door and then looked sharply at Ben with a frown creasing his brow. ‘You hear that?’

  ‘I heard it,’ Ben said. Suddenly alert and filled with energy again, he snatched up the rifle and pressed off the safety catch. Nico scooped the Colt Python from the desk. They both moved quickly for the doorway.

  Out in the corridor, they heard it again. The distinct sound of voices, whispering furtively in Spanish. Ben and Nico spaced out with their weapons ready and their eyes glued to the corner up ahead from beyond which the voices were getting closer.

  Five figures approaching. Ben saw them an instant before Nico did. As he stepped quickly round the corner and levelled the rifle into a close-range aim he could see that he hadn’t run into a squad of Ramon Serrato’s top goons.

  Three men, two women. They must have heard the sound of intruders in the near-deserted house and, with all the guards gone, banded together to confront them. Two of the men were wearing white smocks, like chefs, both in their sixties and armed only with a kitchen knife between them. Tagging along behind them was a young kid of about seventeen, with dazed-looking eyes and the bemused grin of a simpleton. The younger of the two women was a tiny cowering thing who let out a shrill gasp when she saw the two intruders appear in the corridor ahead. The only one Ben might have been concerned about was the brute-featured woman in a maid’s uniform. She had hands as meaty and rough as a longshoreman’s, and in them was a small-bore shotgun that she had pointed from the hip.

  The corridor was suddenly filled with cries and shouts. Ben and Nico yelled ‘Drop the weapon!’ simultaneously. The hatchet-faced woman might have toyed with the idea of letting blast with her shotgun, but only for an instant as she found herself peering down the muzzles of Ben’s .300 Win Mag and Nico’s Colt, both steadily and unflinchingly trained on the wide gap between her eyes.

  She dropped the shotgun and stepped back from it, raising her hands. The cook with the knife did the same. Ben and Nico advanced, keeping their weapons trained on them. ‘In there,’ Ben said, motioning with the rifle barrel towards a doorway. For the first time he noticed that the brute-faced woman had a raised weal on her cheekbone that was turning purple, as if she’d recently been in a fight. With a surly look, she followed the rest of the servants through the door into an unused bedroom. Ben and Nico herded them up against the far wall. Ben bolted the door.

  ‘We came here for Serrato,’ Nico said in Spanish. ‘You fuckers tell us where he is, you walk out of here alive. Or else—’ He drew his finger across his throat and stuck his tongue out. It had a remarkable effect. The two cooks exchanged frightened glances. The waiflike servant girl was ready to collapse in a faint. Only the simple-minded young guy, who was grinning as though this were all some kind of game, and the brute-featured woman, who was scowling with hatred at Ben and Nico, didn’t look scared.

  Ben returned the woman’s gaze. Something about her was oddly familiar, but he couldn’t place it. It wasn’t her face – he’d have remembered exactly where he’d seen a face like that before. It was something else; a strange kind of déjà vu.

  ‘Somebody better start talking pretty soon,’ Nico warned them, thumbing back the hammer of his Colt. The simple-minded kid was suddenly beginning to understand the situation and his lip had started to quiver.

  That was when Ben realised with a shock what it was that was familiar about the woman. It wasn’t her. It was what she was wearing. Round her thick neck was a little gold chain, simple and plain and yet distinctive enough to him that he’d have recognised it anywhere, even on this ugly brute. It was the same little neck chain that Brooke had chosen in the jeweller’s shop in Paris – the one she always wore.

  So Brooke had been here after all.

  Feeling suddenly weak at the knees he lowered the rifle and reached out with his left hand to grab hold of the neck chain. ‘Where did you get this?’ The woman protested, tried to wriggle away and snatch the chain out of his fingers. ‘That doesn’t belong to you,’ he said. ‘You stole it, didn’t you? You took it from the woman who was here. Give it to me.’

  The woman hesitated, then reluctantly took off the chain and thrust it into Ben’s hand. ‘Where is she?’ he demanded.

  One of the cooks finally found his tongue. ‘Desaparecido,’ he said. Gone. El jefe, the boss, had gone too. It had been after the fire.

  Ben reached into his pocket, flipped open his wallet and took out the photo of Brooke. ‘Is this her?’ he asked.

  The two cooks and the young servant girl all nodded in unison. ‘Si, si,’ the simple-minded kid blurted out in his slurred voice. ‘La Señora Alicia!’ The young servant woman shook her head wistfully at the mention of the name. ‘No, Guillermo, la Señora Alicia está muerta!’

  Under pressure, the servants explained between them that the fire had started the night before last. The rumour was that the woman had stolen a truck and made her escape while the men were putting it out. Not long afterwards, the boss had gone after her, taking everyone with him except a handful of poor staff. How could they cope on their own? The boss had been gone nearly two whole days. What would happen to them if he never returned?

  Ben slipped Brooke’s photo back in his wallet with a shaking hand. Now he knew for sure. He’d found her, but he’d been too late. Forty-eight hours too late.

  Instantly he started blaming himself. Thinking of how he’d wasted time over Cabeza in Montefrio, how he’d needlessly delayed in Chachapoyas, how he could have saved time by waiting for the storm to end and taking the floatplane from the Potro boat station.

  ‘Where did she go?’ Nico asked the servants. ‘Where’d your boss go after her?’

  Shrugs, blank expressions. ‘Out there,’ said one of the cooks, waving at the dark window.

  Nico looked at Ben. ‘How in hell could she have escaped? These guys are more tooled up than the Peruvian army.’

  ‘I found a smashed perfume bottle in the room where they were keeping her. That stuff’s highly flammable.’

  ‘You mean she set the place alight herself?’

  ‘That would be just like her.’

  ‘Holy shit.’ Nico shook his head. ‘Hate to say it, man, but if she’s out there all alone in that jungle, she doesn’t stand a chance.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have escaped without some kind of plan in mind,’ Ben said, thinking hard.

  ‘Need to be one hell of a smart plan if she wants to get away from Ramon Serrato and his whole hunting party. It’s been forty-eight hours. If he finds her, man, you know what he’s gonna do. She’s worse than dead.’

  Ben felt his resolve tighten like a fist. ‘Not if I find her first,’ he said.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Forty-eight hours earlier

  ‘Put on,’ Hatchet Face said again, holding up the negligee. ‘Señor Serrato not wait long. He get m
ucho enfadado.’ She shook her head in warning.

  Brooke stared at the flimsy garment and at the suspenders and stockings the woman had brought her to wear. She closed her eyes. Heaved a deep, shaky sigh. This is it, she thought. This is the moment.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll put them on.’

  Hatchet Face seemed strangely contented as she returned into the living area to wait as Brooke changed. Brooke shut the bedroom door. Took a couple more deep breaths and then moved quickly. She slipped a CD into the stereo system and turned the volume up high. To the strains of Brahms she tore the drapes of mosquito netting from the bed and grabbed the training shoes from underneath, as well as the bag containing the comfortable clothes Consuela had provided for her. She emptied out the clothing, stripped off her white cotton dress and pulled on the tracksuit bottoms and T-shirt, then quickly laced up the shoes.

  Hatchet Face rapped on the door. ‘You hurry,’ came her stern voice from outside.

  ‘Don’t come in,’ Brooke yelled. ‘I’ll be there in a minute, okay?’

  She ran into the bathroom. Snatched two towels from the rail and dampened one of them with water. She stuffed the dry one into the clothes bag, along with a tub of talcum powder, the mineral water bottle that she’d refilled from the tap and the packet of cold meats left over from dinner that she’d hidden in the shower cubicle. She grabbed a tall can of hairspray and jammed it into her pocket, then picked up all the perfume bottles and carried them into the bedroom with the damp towel over her shoulder.

  Brooke had been aware from the start that if she wanted to escape from this place she wouldn’t get very far without money, and she didn’t have a penny. But Serrato’s jewels were worth countless thousands. If she could trade them for a ride or a night’s shelter, even a phone call to the outside world for help, that’d be good enough for her. Chucking all of the perfume bottles on the bed she grabbed the jewellery from the bedside table. She slipped the bracelet over her wrist and put on the heavy necklace underneath her T-shirt.

  She was as ready as she’d ever be. She was breathing hard with tension. What would Ben have said in a moment like this?

  ‘Fuck it,’ she muttered. Then she picked up one of the Chanel bottles and dashed it as hard as she could against the solid wooden bedpost. It shattered, broken glass and perfume showering everywhere. She grabbed another, and another, smashing them into pieces.

  Suddenly the whole room was filled with the choking reek of perfume. The carpet was saturated with the stuff. Any second now, Hatchet Face would be sure to smell it and come storming in to see what was happening. Seconds counted.

  Brooke retrieved the stolen cigarette lighter from its hiding place under the mattress. She snatched up the negligee. ‘Here’s what I think of your pervy outfit, Ramon,’ she said as she offered the flame up to the material. It caught light instantly. She threw the burning garment down onto the perfume-saturated carpet.

  The fire leaped up instantly and aggressively with a breathy whumph. Suddenly everything was ablaze – the floor, the bedclothes, the four-poster’s drapes, its canopy. Even sooner than Brooke had expected there was a wall of fire licking its way hungrily to the ceiling and spreading outwards to engulf the whole room. Smoke alarms began to screech.

  Brooke leaped back from the fierce heat, grabbed the bulging clothes bag and sprinted for the bathroom door shouting ‘Fuego! Fuego!’

  The door flew open. Hatchet Face gaped in bewildered horror at the flames and opened her mouth to yell something. Before she could get the words out, Brooke had thrown all her strength and momentum into a punch that sent the woman crashing down on her back. Hatchet Face looked pretty strong and tough, and Brooke had no desire to get into a blow-for-blow fight with her, not even after the few lessons in unarmed combat she’d had with Jeff Dekker at Le Val. A swift kick to the head knocked her out cold.

  ‘Bitch,’ Brooke muttered, then ran into the living area.

  Within instants there were two, three, four guards storming into the room. By then, Brooke had already dived out of sight and was hiding behind the sofa nearest the door, clamping her damp towel over her nose and mouth as the smoke began to gather thickly. Alarms were going off all down the corridor now. The men balked at the intensity of the spreading inferno. One of them was carrying a tall extinguisher and aimed the nozzle at the flames. He had to retreat quickly as a surge in the blaze threatened to swallow him.

  In the panic of the moment nobody seemed to have thought about Brooke or spotted where she was crouching. She knew she couldn’t stay there long. The heat from the blaze was becoming unbearable. Worse, any second now Serrato would come running down here in person. She had no intention of being around when he turned up.

  The men were too busy spraying extinguishers at the flames to notice her slip out of the burning room. She held her breath as she darted away down the corridor, turning off every light switch she came to in the hope that semi-darkness could cover her escape. She ducked into a room as several guards came sprinting by, one of them yelling into a radio over the screech of the fire alarms.

  Then it was a clear run to the stairs. Nobody had seen her. The layout of the house was so familiar now that she knew almost exactly how many paces it was to the entrance – and that number was diminishing fast as she ran. Keep moving. Keep moving. You’re going to make it.

  Fresh, cool air on her face as she bolted through the main doorway, under the arch and out into the cream-coloured portico that ran alongside the house. Free!

  But she still had a long way to go. She kept to the shadows. Running men passed her, too intent on the emergency to look around them. She moved away from the house, leaving behind the din of alarms and yelling voices. The stink of burning was strong in the air. Smoke was pouring from her barred windows, as well as from the windows above and either side – but unless it was so out of control that it destroyed the whole building, the extinguishers would soon tame it. She couldn’t count on her diversion working for long.

  Running low, she passed the walled yard where Consuela and her daughter had been executed. Up ahead was the high side of the vehicle hangar. It seemed unattended as she approached – then suddenly a guard stepped out of nowhere and confronted her with a look of surprise that quickly turned to one of suspicion.

  ‘You wouldn’t turn me in, would you?’ Brooke said to him with a coy smile. ‘Look what you’ll get if you keep your mouth shut.’ She tugged the precious necklace out from the collar of her T-shirt and held it out for him to see. He stared at it, mesmerised, a glow of idiot greed dawning across his face.

  ‘On second thoughts, you’re not worth it,’ she said. She drew the can of hairspray from her pocket and gave him a good sustained burst of it right in the eyes.

  He screamed and clapped his hands over his face, dropping his rifle. Brooke rammed a knee into his groin, grabbed him by the ears as he doubled over and wrenched him headfirst into the side wall of the hangar. She dragged his unconscious bulk into the shadows and picked up his fallen rifle. It didn’t look much different from the semi-automatic weapon she’d become familiar with on the firing range at Le Val. She racked the bolt and ran towards the rows of vehicles.

  Guile wasn’t going to get her through those front gates, but something robust and heavy moving at speed might do the trick. She jumped up into the cab of the nearest four-wheel drive truck. The keys were in the ignition. She dumped the rifle on the passenger seat, fired up the engine and lights and hit the gas.

  The truck went skidding out of the building with a roar. Brooke floored the pedal and went speeding right through the heart of the compound. Running groups of men scattered in her headlights. Her escape suddenly wasn’t such a secret any more.

  Brooke saw the tall iron gates approach in her lights and braced herself for the collision. As she roared towards them at full throttle, four guards emerged from the gatehouse, took one look at the truck and aimed their rifles. Shots punctured the night air. The windscreen shattered. Brooke grabbed th
e rifle from the passenger seat and poked the barrel one-handed through the broken glass as she drove. A squeeze of the trigger; a massive eruption of noise as the thing let loose half its magazine. Bullets sparked off the iron gates. The guards dived for cover and scurried away just in time to avoid being pulverised by the truck’s impact.

  The truck crashed into the gates. The huge impact threw Brooke forward against the wheel. Bits of masonry and steel bars and pieces of truck flew everywhere. The windscreen disappeared completely. She was dead.

  But she wasn’t dead, she was through! The truck surged onwards, rolling over wreckage and debris in a massive cloud of dust. Suddenly she could see the road ahead in the yellow glow of her remaining headlight. Whooping with glee, she floored the throttle again and sawed at the wheel as the bouncing, careering truck sped away from the compound.

  Back at the house, Ramon Serrato came tearing down from the top floor to find his men in chaos. He grabbed a fire extinguisher from the nearest one and ran wildly into Brooke’s room, spraying foam in all directions at the flames.

  ‘Where is she?’ he shouted, his face blackened with smoke, eyes streaming. ‘Where is she?’ Nobody seemed to know. Blank looks all round, even from Vertíz and Bracca.

  Over the din of the alarms came the rattle of rifle fire from across the compound. Serrato beat back the last of the flames licking around one of the living area windows, hurled the empty fire extinguisher to the floor and peered out into the night to see the truck’s red taillights disappearing down the road towards the jungle.