Hot Ice

by Gregg Loomis

  Leaning over the keyboard, Jason made a few clicks that sent the screen’s contents to Sybil. He’d call later with an explanation.

  Right now, he wanted to steal as much information as he could in the time he had left.

  In the bodega, Judith wondered how the hook and ladder had navigated the old city’s narrow streets. But it had, as evidenced by the firemen hopping down from it. In the first moment, all seemed confusion as every firefighter was shouting at another. Order quickly emerged as a hose was connected to a nearby hydrant, a ladder slowly rose toward the roof of the first house, and two men dashed inside.

  Judith keyed her BlackBerry. “Two on the roof, two inside.”

  “Which house?” came the reply.

  “The one closest to the intersection.”

  Jason shoved the BlackBerry back in his pocket. Shit! The roof! When the fireman found what had been put into the air-conditioning housing …

  No time to worry now. Just keep calling up files and forwarding them to Sybil.

  Perhaps a minute later Judith watched a fireman scamper down the ladder. Her heart sank when she saw what he was carrying: A large flowerpot from which thick, white smoke poured. A part of the crowd drawn by all the excitement was already jostling for space at the bottom of the ladder before the man reached the last rung.

  She noted the big man with the shaved scalp push his way to the front. The one with the bandaged face was close behind. Were there others? None she saw. With growing consternation, she saw each take a look at the smoking clay pot. She could imagine the cartoon lightbulbs above their heads.

  The reaction was immediate. Shaved Head pointed to the roof of Number 23. Two men she had not noticed before broke from the spectators contained behind hastily erected barricades and shoved aside the fireman blocking the doorway of Number 23. The man with the shaved head and the one with the bandaged face also pushed firemen aside, this time to appropriate the ladder as they scrambled toward the roof, followed by Spanish invective from the firefighters. And orders in vain from the police.

  Jason was somewhere between the two who had entered from the street and the pair on the ladder.

  Judith threw a twenty onto the bodega’s table, slung the purse strap over a shoulder, and lurched into the street past the concerned owner, who tried to slow her down long enough to enquire about any problem with the food. She slid by him impatiently and was already running down Calle Luna as she speed-dialed Jason.

  51

  Calle Luna 23

  Jason returned the BlackBerry to his pocket with the hand that wasn’t on the computer’s keyboard. He’d never have time to copy and send all these files, let alone check out the filing cabinets. He hadn’t expected to have all night but he had hoped for a few more minutes before the origin of the “fire” was discovered.

  He thought he heard footsteps pounding up the metal stairs. He picked up the Glock he had set beside the keyboard and stuck it in its holster in the small of his back. Sending the monitor crashing to the floor, he dragged the table to and through the door. It took effort to stand it on end, but he was gratified to note it neatly filled the landing outside the room he had occupied. He shoved harder, wedging it fast. Though the two men who, according to Judith, were on their way up, would not be impeded for long, he very well might need any delay he could get.

  Now he was certain he heard feet clanging on the metal stairs. Pulling the Glock from its holster, he fired two shots into the generator. The crash of gunfire reverberated in the narrow stairwell as sparks flew and the smell of cordite mixed with the acrid odor of fried circuitry. The electrical hum became a whine and then was silent. The lights, already dim, flickered and died.

  It took seconds to reach the top of the stairs. Behind him, Jason could hear the scrape of the blockading table being wrestled aside. On hands and knees, he crept out onto the roof. The rain had stopped but the moisture clung to the air like a living embrace. Keeping low so that the roofline was limned against the glow from the fire trucks and police cars below, he edged slowly toward the adjacent building, moving sideways like a crab so he could keep both the roofline and the staircase entry in view.

  The rain had provided secrecy to get Jason in and now its remnants saved his life. He heard a splash, the sound of something striking the surface of one of the numerous puddles the earlier shower had created.

  He flattened himself against the tiles of the roof just as there was a coughing sound and something nasty whined by where his head had been an instant before.

  The muzzle flash had come from the adjacent building. His opponents had apparently discovered the breach in the razor wire he had cut. He was caught between the men trying to come up the stairs and the shooter.

  On the street below, Judith was hurrying to the place where she and Jason had gotten up onto the old city’s defenses. She had no idea what she could do, only a sense of urgency to get there. Twice she nearly slipped on the sidewalk still wet from the evening’s rain.

  Her concentration on keeping her balance was the most probable reason she didn’t see him: another man with a shaved head. Well over six feet, she guessed he weighed two hundred pounds or more as he materialized out of the darkness of a doorway to block her path.

  “Excuse me,” she said, sidestepping in a fruitless hope the man meant her no harm.

  That prospect disappeared with the whisper of a knife being drawn from its sheath. She cursed her carelessness in not spotting him sooner.

  He moved forward, streetlights reflecting on what looked like an eight-inch blade. The space between them was not enough to give Judith any chance of slipping by him. She could only watch the blade move side to side. No stabbing or slicing movement, just the sure and certain advance of a man who knew what he was doing. At some point he would lunge with practiced precision, but at the moment he seemed to enjoy toying with her, feeding on the fear he sensed.

  She knew she had two chances of survival. First, if she could delay his assault long enough, there was a good chance someone would see her plight and summon the police.

  Secondly, her assailant was confident, perhaps overly so. She was unsure how this might help her; she could only hope.

  Not far away, Jason lay belly-down, soaked by the roof’s wet tiles. He had crawled fifteen or so feet from where he had been when someone had taken the shot at him. He turned his head slowly, aware the corner of the eye was more likely to catch movement than a direct stare was. Nothing moved other than a breeze, swaying leaves of several potted marijuana plants on the adjacent roof. Even if he could see his enemies, taking a shot would betray his position as clearly as a beacon. Staying put was not an attractive option either. Sooner or later, someone would risk making themselves a target by using a flashlight.

  He had no sooner considered the possibility than it happened.

  Judith’s back was all too literally against a wall. Her antagonist had backed her up step by step until she was pressed against the side of a house, one of the few on the street that was dark and shuttered. She considered making a desperate effort to escape, maybe find a house with doors open to catch the rain-cooled breeze before her assailant could drive the knife into a fatal spot.

  The old adage of watching your opponent’s eyes to predict a move is just that: an old adage. Any skilled street fighter feints with his eyes as well as any other part of his body. Judith’s attention was on the blade he held.

  She faked a move to her left, instantly trying to come right. He easily anticipated her. It was an amateurish ploy, one he would expect of one untrained in close-combat tactics. But it gave her a reason to extend her arms from her sides as though trying to keep her balance.

  She repeated the move to the other side, provoking a grin from the man with the knife; she was too dumb to know she had no chance. This time, though, she swung her purse at his head, a clumsy effort easily deflected.

  But grabbing the purse strap required him to watch the intended blow, not her.

  Only an instant, b
ut enough.

  Pushing off the wall, the top of her head struck his chin with an audible crunch while her spread arms kept the blade at a distance. He lost his grip on the purse strap and staggered back half a step. Trying to clear his head, he brought the knife up as though to fend off further attack by the purse.

  Too late he realized his mistake.

  Being a physician, Judith was aware of the more tender parts of the anatomy. As a woman she chose the obvious. With all the force she could muster, she delivered a fifty-yard field-goal kick to the groin. Her assailant turned to try to take the blow with his hip rather than his crotch but was only partially successful. She got enough of the testicles. He folded like a jackknife. Then he knelt slowly, his hands clutching his groin.

  Judith had no idea what happened next other than the fact she was running as fast as she could.

  Jason’s immediate problem was avoiding being targeted by the seemingly random sweep of flashlights. There were three of them now, painting the roof with erratic movement. There was also enough light both from the flashes and from the emergency vehicles on the street to see that the lights were held by firemen.

  So far, the men in the fire-retardant suits and unique rear-billed fireman’s helmets hadn’t noticed they were not alone up there. Because each house’s roof was separated by razor wire, they had been forced to use the ladder to ascend to the top of each of the three smoking homes.

  Jason had an idea as he watched the three firemen remove the still-smoking pot from the air-conditioning housing. Perhaps not the best idea, but the only one he had at the moment.

  Still on his stomach, he crawled commando-style to a position that put him on the side of the air-conditioning unit opposite from the firefighters. He was close enough to hear a conversation in Spanish even if he could not understand it. The man holding the remnants of the smoke bomb carried it to the edge of the roof, holding it aloft so those on the street below could see. A second man gave the roof a cursory sweep with the beam of his flashlight before he, too, headed for his turn to descend the ladder. Somehow the men who had come up the stairs remained unseen, although Jason knew they were around somewhere.

  Now came the tricky part.

  As the third man turned to leave, Jason reached out and grabbed his foot, sending him sprawling. Before the guy had a clue what had happened, Jason was holding his head in one hand, the Glock pressed against it with the other.

  Jason had always thought the old description of eyes big as saucers was an exaggeration. Even in the dim reflected light, he had living proof it wasn’t.

  “Nobody’s gonna get hurt,” Jason told him with little effect. “I just want your hat there and maybe that jacket.”

  He would have liked to have the big turn-down-top boots, too, but he hadn’t the time required to pull them off the fireman and put them on. Sooner or later, the men on this roof and the one next door were going to come looking for him. The fact there had not been another shot made him fairly certain they didn’t know exactly where he was and that they had no night-vision equipment.

  Clad in the fireman’s attire, Jason stood, leaned over, and took the strap from around the man’s shoulder and the small radio attached to it. “If I hear a peep out of you, you are dead,” he said to the trembling fireman, who was still prone. “Comprende?”

  A violent nod was his answer.

  Jason forced himself to walk slowly to the place the ladder jutted above the roofline, praying the lights from below would only silhouette a figure in a fireman’s helmet and bulky jacket. If not, he made a perfect target.

  Just as he reached the ladder, the radio he had confiscated crackled with words he didn’t understand. He could only hope that, if someone were calling the fireman left on the roof, they wouldn’t come looking for him for a few seconds yet. He swung a leg over the roof’s edge and looked down into a maelstrom of flashing lights and upturned faces.

  At the bottom, he was greeted by relieved firemen, slapping him on the back and chattering in Spanish. Until one got a look at his face.

  For an instant, there was a shocked silence punctuated by the idling of big engines.

  Jason didn’t wait to see what happened next.

  He ran without looking back.

  If there was pursuit, he never heard it. Instead, he shed the hat and jacket as he alternated turning corners of the narrow streets. Finally, he glanced over a shoulder. The street was deserted. The chase, if there had been one, was over.

  He called Judith’s BlackBerry.

  “Where are you?” were her first words.

  He looked across the street into a small plaza. In the center was a bronze statue of what looked like a conquistador. He told her as much.

  “Plaza de San José,” she informed him. “The statue is of Ponce de León and was cast from English cannon captured in the late eighteenth century. You are panting like a dog.”

  “Did a little roadwork. Good for the heart. You know how to get to this Plaza …”

  “Plaza de San José. I can be there in a few minutes.”

  “Best come in a cab if you can. I have a feeling we may have worn out our welcome.”

  How the hell had she known the name of the plaza? Or the history of the statue?

  52

  Five Minutes Later

  “You want to go where?” Even with the heavy Latino accent, the cabbie’s disbelief was quite clear.

  “Mercedita Airport, Ponce,” Jason said. “You know, the city on the south side of the island.”

  “It will cost you a hundred fifty.”

  Jason managed both shock and indignation. “For an hour-and-a-half ride?”

  The driver shrugged. “It is late, Señor.”

  Jason knew what the man meant: They had been lucky to flag this cab down. After dark, tourists tended to move between the casinos at the big beach resorts, not the old city.

  Guessing GrünWelt would immediately put the San Juan airport under surveillance, Jason had opted for the other Puerto Rico airport with flights to the States, Ponce. The problem, as revealed by using the BlackBerry’s Internet app, was that the next plane to the continental US was a JetBlue flight to Charlotte at one o’clock tomorrow afternoon. By that time, Ponce would likely be watched as well.

  “You have a hundred fifty dollars, Señor?”

  The taxi driver was getting nervous, not wanting to miss other fares if these gringos did not have the money.

  Jason waved a wad of bills in front of him. “And a tip if you get us there in a hurry.”

  “You have your passport?” Judith asked.

  “Of course. You?”

  Jason knew well the wisdom of carrying cash, credit cards, and travel documents at all times in case an expedited departure became necessary. Although passports were not required of US citizens or legal residents traveling to or from Puerto Rico, the precaution was fortunate. The first flight from Ponce was to St. Maarten, an island half Dutch, half French. From there almost hourly flights departed for the mainland United States.

  By seven o’clock that evening, the weary travelers were in another cab, this one from Dulles International.

  “You have no idea what you sent to your computer expert?” Judith asked.

  “Nope.” Jason was staring out the window. “But if any of it was half as incriminating as the papers I swiped, I’d say GrünWelt is finished.”

  “You don’t think there will be reprisals?”

  He shook his head. “No point. The organization will already be exposed for what it is. I think everyone connected to GrünWelt will be scattering for cover like cockroaches when you turn on a light.”

  She leaned back into her seat with a sigh. “I hope so. I’ve had about as much excitement as I can stand.”

  “That’s why you insisted on coming along.”

  “If I do that again, you have my permission to slap my face until I return to reality.”

  The cab pulled up to Judith’s contemporary-styled town house.

  “
No point in your going all the way back to the base tonight,” she observed as she climbed out of the car.

  “No point,” he agreed as he paid the driver.

  The inside of her home was as modernistic as its exterior. Chrome and glass was far more in evidence than wood tone, if the blond Danish modern pieces could be described as having any tone at all. Canvases paraded as contemporary “art”—blank, single-colored earth tones hung above a pair of acrylic cases housing blobs of metal in no ascertainable shape. One corner was occupied by a bust only vaguely human. It might have been life-sized, had any such creature existed.

  In short, the place was hideous, a physical assault on his artist’s eye. Even worse than he remembered from his first visit. It did, however, awaken a question he had about so-called metal sculptors: did they have any form in mind when they began, or did they simply let the laws of physics determine the end product?

  But then, the decor was not the reason he was there.

  He was headed to the kitchen, where Judith kept the liquor. “Make you a Martini?”

  She was standing in front of one of the cases, staring at one of the metal slugs as if she had never seen it before. She didn’t answer.

  Jason walked up behind her, putting hands on her shoulders, “Tired?”

  Reaching behind her, she ran a hand along the back of his neck, her touch tingling like electricity. “A little. And I think I feel a headache coming on.”

  Jason turned to look at her. “That old excuse?”

  “Not that kind of headache. But I do have bottle of aspirin in the glove box of my car. Would you be a good boy and go down to the garage and fetch it? I’ll start drawing a nice, hot bath for both of us.”

  Jason stepped away. “An offer I can’t refuse. I didn’t even know you had a car, thought you used the Metro.”