This was only a secondary operation, and the first took precedence over his desire to test himself against his twin. Apparently, similar logic had forced Hunter to flee, and he would keep running while he too had to prioritise – Trey’s welfare trumped a battle to the death for bragging rights – but their clash was an inevitable one, Cahill hoped. All of the running around was pissing him off, and the fact he’d almost lost his prey back there where Hunter had played a blinder in scaling a wall had only added to his displeasure. Luckily he thought the way that Hunter did, and was fortunate enough to spot them emerging from the front of the hotel they’d backtracked through, as he might have done if their roles were reversed, so he was still in line with getting his fight. As he coordinated his team, he truly considered telling them to keep Hunter alive for the time being, but then that would be a selfish request. Or would it? He must first discover how loose-lipped Trey had been concerning Mikhail’s plan. Had she had time to mention it yet to her protector, or worse still, to any of the others from Tampa who might even now be spilling the beans to the police? He doubted the latter, but she could have told Hunter about what was about to go down.
Then again, prior knowledge of their operation would have given Hunter leverage with the cops responding to the attempted hit on them at the hotel. He wouldn’t have fled with Trey if he could negotiate the protection of the FBI or Homeland Security in exchange for what he’d learned.
Fuck it, he decided. Hunter couldn’t know yet. And besides, anything Hunter knew could die with him, and with Trey as well.
He spoke into his cell, telling his B-team to move in now.
Even as he did so he checked and spotted his A-team speeding along 15th Street towards him. He glanced towards the flashing police lights, but nobody down there was aware of the Mercedes’ haste. Nonetheless he turned to wave at its driver to slow down.
The Mercedes was filled to capacity with men Cahill had worked alongside for years. He briefly wished it was they he’d sent to the hotel to carry out the hit, but the past was the past and there was no changing it. He didn’t waste any time repeating descriptions of their target – he’d already done so over his phone – but immediately ordered two of the men, Monk and Hussein, out of the back seat and sent them up the path in pursuit while he leaned across and accepted the semi-automatic pistol from the third man previously crammed in the back seat. Out of habit Cahill worked the action on his gun, checking a round was in the chamber, and then dropping the clip and making another quick check that it was fully and correctly loaded. He’d nothing to worry about, because it was another ex-soldier that’d prepped it for him, his English pal, Dan StJohn. In the front were two more colleagues from back in the day when you could merrily cap a rag-headed jihadist and not worry about the politically correct ramifications. He grunted in humour at the memory: ironic that they should now make bedfellows of their previous enemies.
‘Let’s go get ’em, boys,’ he announced as he slipped in alongside StJohn. He grinned at his colloquialism-spouting buddy, slapped the headrest of the driver’s seat and added, ‘Don’t spare the horses, mate.’
Distantly there was the throaty roar of a speeding vehicle. A dull wumph! Thunder grumbled overhead, almost rattling the Mercedes on its wheels. If the thunder had come a second sooner he wouldn’t have discerned the impact for what it was. All humour was lost from his next command. ‘Go! Go! Go!’
14
‘Run across there and hide in the doorway of that shop.’ I pointed her destination out to Trey, a darkened alcove at the front of a store selling artists’ supplies.
‘They’ll see me.’
‘Exactly.’
‘You’re using me as bait?’
‘It’s either lure them towards you or we get caught in the mouth of this path. There are guys coming behind us; we can’t fight them all. Please, Trey, this is our best chance. Go, run.’
Less than fifty yards away a large silver SUV was prowling along Collins Avenue, having completed a sweep of 16th Street. Even as I exhorted Trey to get going, the driver must have received fresh instructions from Cahill, because he hit the gas and the SUV surged forward to head us off at the end of the path. I actually slapped Trey’s backside in my urgency. There was nothing lascivious about the gesture and I’m certain she didn’t take it as a cheap grope. She grabbed at the hem of her dress, dragged it up and galloped across the road, ungainly in her over-sized sneakers. She was the proverbial startled doe as the SUV’s headlights caught her in their glare. Thankfully she didn’t halt in terror but kept going, mounting some steps and charging into the darkness of the alcove. Nobody fired a gun at her, which was fortunate. But I hoped all eyes were on her. The SUV began a tight swerve towards the kerb on that side of the road. That was when I bobbed out of hiding, and hurled my rock with all the strength in my arm.
If the rock had been bigger and weightier it would have fallen short, if smaller it would have ricocheted harmlessly off the windshield, but this was a Goldilocks rock: just right. It punched into the windshield directly in line with the driver. It didn’t go all the way through, but busted a crater in the glass, and sent jagged cracks in a starburst pattern over the rest of the screen. The noise was surprisingly loud. For the briefest of seconds the driver was shocked into incomprehension, in the next he misconstrued that he was under fire, and only after that he recognised the hurled rock for what it was. But by then he’d reacted on instinct to the attack, and that was what I’d prayed for. The SUV swerved wildly as the driver took diversionary tactics. The front slammed the rear of a parked van at the roadside.
The SUV had already been slowing to disgorge its occupants in pursuit of Trey, so the impact wasn’t as devastating as I’d prefer, but it was bad enough. The van was lifted off its back wheels, shunted around in a tight arc, and the SUV bounced up onto the sidewalk, so it ended up jammed against a low wall. Instantly steam plumed from its ruptured engine compartment, and something whirred in protest.
All the while I hadn’t stopped moving.
There were the vague shapes of three figures within, and they were still recovering from the impact. The driver was nearest me, so he was my initial target. I yanked open his door, and as he swung round to meet me, mouth open in a wordless curse, I pounded my hand into the side of his neck. In the front passenger seat was another man, and I didn’t pay him much attention, too intent on the gun in his fist that he swung towards me. I shoved his swooning pal in his way, and he made the mistake of trying to reach past to shoot me in the face. I grasped the barrel of the pistol – noting that it was fitted with a screw-on suppressor – and drove it towards the windshield even as he pulled the trigger. My hurled rock had smashed the glass, but the bullet didn’t. It ricocheted off the glass, perhaps hit the steel of the door frame, and ended up in the driver’s left thigh. The driver was blasted out of semi-consciousness by the sudden agony, and he reared back in his seat, further entangling the gunman’s arms with his. I tore the gun out of the man’s grip even as their backseat passenger lurched over and tried to grapple me. He should have decamped the vehicle and gone for a clean shot. I easily avoided his reaching hands, took a half step back and shot him first. It was a small calibre round, a .22, but at that range it had killing power. It hit the guy in the right orbital socket, immediately beneath his eyeball, and that did it for him.
The two living men were vocal. The front passenger was now unarmed, but the driver pushed his pal out of the way so he could reach under his jacket for his own pistol. I shot the driver twice for good measure, one bullet in his side, the next in his neck where I’d recently struck him. The passenger threw open his door and fell out onto the sidewalk. He was on the far side, momentarily concealed by the car, and I let him scramble away. I dug under the dead driver’s armpit and drew out his gun. This one hadn’t been prepped with a silencer. The escaping passenger was the would-be silent assassin tasked with killing Trey and I. I felt justified in shooting him in cold blood, and would have if not for the two m
en who hurtled from the mouth of the alley I’d recently come from. They both held guns. Neither of them was Cahill.
The first was wraith thin, with the hollowed-out features of a mummified corpse. His expression was centred on pinched raisin eyes, so black that they were like pinholes in his skull. The second man was thicker-set, with wavy black hair and a darker cast to his skin. Their initial reaction to the devastation I’d wrought among their friends was to take stock, their next to separate so they didn’t offer a single target, and then they went for concealment. I didn’t try to shoot either because I too went for cover, scrambling over the buckled hood of the SUV to the far side. Instantly I sought the fleeing passenger, and if he’d run around the back of the wreck and across the road he might have survived my wrath. But the fool went up the steps, directly towards Trey’s hiding spot. I shot him in the back, and he sprawled before hitting the top step. He rolled over, writhing in place, injured but not dead, not even crippled. I shot him again, and this time he lay still.
I then started taking rounds. Or rather the SUV did. The shots weren’t designed to kill me, but pin me down as the two hitters attempted to flank my position. I swarmed up the steps on my hands and knees, a gun in each hand, bypassing the recently slain man. I didn’t even glance at him. As soon as I hit the sidewalk, I hurtled up, momentarily vulnerable to a shot to my back, but made it into the relative safety of the alcove. Trey emitted a little squeak of alarm as I crushed up against her. She was tucked down into the deepest corner of the doorway. If we stayed there the two gunmen could move in on our blind sides, and we’d be trapped. I’d still give them a fight, but only until Cahill and whoever else he was with arrived.
I helped her up. ‘Stay tight,’ I told her, ‘and ready to move.’
The door to the art supplies store was locked, probably bolted too, but was never designed with more than minimal security in mind: who robbed a shop of its paint and pencils? I threw my shoulder against the glass and it fell out of its frame, crashing down inside the shop and tinkling in a thousand pieces. I was glad I’d managed to get Trey some footwear, because she’d be walking on broken glass. I helped her through the gap, then had to force my own thicker set frame inside. We set off motion detectors and an alarm began wailing. I didn’t mind too much. If the car wreck and gun battle outside wasn’t enough to bring the police then the alarm would, because it would probably be connected to a remote monitoring station, and the security company would dispatch people to the scene. It narrowed down the time Cahill’s team had available to catch us before they’d have to make a speedy retreat.
I’d no intention of making a stand in the shop, waiting for the cavalry to arrive. Despite our close call, I still felt that for either of us to survive the night, it was better to keep moving than submit to a jail cell. I backed from the door, the silenced gun in my right hand, while I waved Trey towards the back with the other. ‘Find us an exit,’ I hissed.
I followed her deeper into the shop, bypassing shelves filled with acrylics and oil paints, brushes and palette knives, canvases and other artists’ paraphernalia. There was a unique, clean aroma in the air, and it struck me how fecund the atmosphere outside had grown since the onset of the storm. My hair was dripping with rain.
A shape loomed at the right edge of the doorway. Someone taking a peek inside, and by the shape of the head it was the Middle-Eastern guy. He dodged out of the way, and then his scarecrow pal bobbed out and loosed three bullets into the shop’s interior. None of them troubled me or Trey, who had already gone to the right into a back room. I didn’t bother trying to hit the skinny man, because he was already taking cover. I waited a beat, and then his buddy leaned out and extended his gun. I fired, and he jerked back to cover. They didn’t show for long seconds after that. I was deep in cover, while they presented as silhouettes against the back glow of streetlamps and lightning: I had the upper hand in any exchange of rounds. I heard them whispering to each other, guessed they were already planning to cut off our escape. One would stay out front and draw my fire while the second gunman made his way around the back. Time to go. I rushed after Trey and found her in an office-cum-staff kitchen, standing in front of a fire exit door fitted with a push bar. The bar had been double secured by way of a chain and padlock. We wouldn’t be leaving by that way. But there was a window high up. Without pause I pushed my guns into my waistband, grabbed a printer off a desk and lobbed it through the glass. I used the barrels of my guns to knock out the larger chunks still stuck in the frame, then kicked a chair across the floor for Trey to climb on and through the window. She hissed sharply as she clambered outside, picking up scratches on her bare arms and legs. He dress caught momentarily on a sliver of glass, and I yanked it loose for her. She dropped out of sight.
Before following her, I returned to the showroom and fired a blind shot, using the un-silenced pistol for effect, to keep those outside guessing where we were. From beyond the broken doorway I caught the squeal of tyres on wet asphalt, but there was no alarm from the duo of shooters. Cahill and other reinforcements had arrived. I charged back into the staffroom as someone commanded a hard entry to the shop. I guessed Cahill would also direct someone to the back. Without pause I stepped on the chair and went bodily out of the window, my heels kicking the chair over on the floor in my urgency. I hit the ground in an ungainly heap, knocking my left shoulder on something indeterminate in the dark, but solid all the same. Small hands grabbed at me to assist me up. I almost fell into Trey’s arms, and felt her loose hair adhere to the slick skin of my face. I blew more strands out of my mouth, then checked I still held both pistols. ‘Can you shoot?’ I asked breathlessly.
Her eyes were moist glimmers in the darkness. They shook side to side.
‘Never mind.’ I shoved the silenced pistol into my waistband and transferred the other to my right hand. I hadn’t had a chance to make an inspection of the gun, but knew from experience it was a bog-standard Glock 17, and judging by the weight it came with a fully loaded magazine of nine rounds – less the one I’d fired blindly in the shop. At that moment in time I’d no idea how much ammunition was still in the silenced gun. More than I’d had five minutes ago when all I could throw was a Stone Age weapon. Don’t knock the rock, I thought whimsically as I searched for the most direct route out of the small service yard we stood in.
There was a small door at the back, bolts thrown, but no obstruction from this side. I poked my head out first, and discovered a narrow alley that serviced a number of the surrounding buildings. It was almost full to bursting with trashcans and dumpsters, hidden from the view of tourists and wealthy residents of the neighbourhood. The fecund stench was back, and so was the rain. Thankfully none of Cahill’s team had made it there yet. I urged Trey out and ahead of me, just as a clatter resounded behind us. Gunmen were in the art supplies store, and would soon be on our tails. I shut the door, and then dragged over a couple of dumpsters and jammed them in the way. In the shop, they didn’t try to scale out through the open window; I heard somebody hammering at the lock and chain, and then the door being thrown open. A moment of trepidation followed while they checked they weren’t running out into an ambush, but then I caught their harsh words and rumble of feet as they rushed for the door. By then we had made it to the end of the alley, and turned left up the next. We spilled out into an unused patch of ground, separated from the next building across by a chain mesh fence. I stared up at the building looming ahead. Smiled at Trey and said, ‘Remember when you suggested stealing a car?’
15
Rink was icy cold, and it had nothing to do with the pelting rain. He stood rigid at the side of the road peering up at the second-floor apartment home of Albert Greville-Jones, in the same spot he had for a full minute since paying his fare and watching the taxi pull away. The rain had plastered his dark hair to his brow, and dripped from his scarred chin. He was an intelligent man, and understood that what he was about to do could end badly for him, but there was another part of him that spat in the ey
e of consequences. The bastard moving back and forward behind the second-floor windows had sent the three gangbangers after Hunter, and they had murdered Jim McTeer. Rink felt justified in ripping the unctuous piece of shit limb from limb.
Rink had arrived at McTeer’s room too late to get more than sketchy details from Velasquez before the police arrived and took him into custody. But he’d learned enough: that the man who’d set up the hit was the self-same security manager they’d worked for only hours earlier. Rink heard about the woman who’d turned up at Hunter’s room, and how she’d most likely been an intended target of the hit, along with Hunter, as a consequence of his run-in with her husband at the hotel. To protect her from harm Hunter had booked with her, and Velasquez intended buying him some time by taking the rap for two of the dead – the third killing was on McTeer, and nobody but his God could judge him now. With Hunter on the lam and Velasquez locked up pending interviewing and processing, it was on Rink to right the wrong done to them by Greville-Jones, and hopefully help both his friends out of the pinch they were in. He’d woken another friend a few states away in Arkansas, but after hearing what Rink needed, Harvey Lucas didn’t complain about the ungodly hour. Harvey was a whiz when it came to interrogating the web, and had supplied Rink with Greville-Jones’s home address much faster than if Rink had returned to the villa-hotel and turned the place upside down in search of the employee files. Harvey also promised to make tracks for Miami to assist in any way he could. To buy Rink time, Velasquez had promised to play ignorant about who was behind the delivery of beers to their room, but the cops would figure it out soon enough and arrive at the security man’s apartment.
Marked for Death Page 9
