Flames (A Special Agent Novel Book 3)

by C. P. Mandara

  When the first man triggered my tripwire, an ear-splitting noise shook the whole house as two of my grenades exploded. With any luck, the racket would send Adie running to my rescue. If it didn't, there was little chance of him making it out of here alive. He'd be a sitting duck in his bed if they'd sent guys around the back, and I'd be amazed if they hadn't. This was a reasonably well-orchestrated attack, and it would be touch and go if the three of us made it out of here alive. Still, I'd worked with worse odds.

  Grabbing a flare from my pocket, I edged closer to the open door of the lounge and pulled a lighter from my pocket. At the moment, I needed a distraction - one that would allow me to pick off several members of the opposition's team relatively quickly, so I could even up the score a bit. This was where the flare came in.

  Stepping back from the doorway, I waited until all the goons were inside. Feeling a whisper of air move behind me, I spun around to find Adie at my back. Perfect timing. How the bastard had got dressed so fast was beyond me, but I wasn’t complaining.

  “Do you sleep fully clothed?” I whispered.

  “Nah, I prefer to sleep naked. I’m just used to pulling my pants up quickly.”

  Adie’s hot breath in my ear did not do much for my foul mood, and the imagery that accompanied it had me shuddering. Concentrate on the matter in hand, James. There was stumbling and swearing all around us now, so I was pretty confident most of the men were now in the room.

  "You ready? We're about to have some fun." I didn't turn around to acknowledge him, but the small flutter of air across my neck was probably an indication of him nodding. I hoped so, anyway. If the bastard had somehow forgotten to take his safety off, I was going to gut him with a butter knife, assuming I was still alive after this fiasco to tell the tale.

  Edging forward, so I was nearly face to face with the doorframe, I set light to the fuse and threw the flare into the middle of the lounge, giving all the thugs a spectacular focal point. While they stared at the pretty red light, Adie and I fired off as many shots as we could handle, and the bad guys went down one by one. A few of them were quick enough to divert their attention back to us, but by that time, I was already moving around the lounge, and I knew all the hidden spots that would give me an advantage, so all I had to do was fling out the occasional bullet when and if a decent opportunity arose. Adie was holding his own to my rear, and as long as he didn't shoot me, I would probably have a newfound respect for the guy if we managed to get out of here alive. We hadn't managed to kill everyone in the room between us, but we'd done a bloody good job at giving them some relatively impressive internal injuries that would keep them out of our hair for the foreseeable future, and that was all that mattered. As the last man finally went down, the pair of us heaved a sigh of relief. It was short-lived. There was a team of operatives now coming through the rear. They'd finally broken through the present I'd left them at the backdoor and were heading our way.

  Spinning around, I estimated that eight men were now waiting to take us out from the opposite direction, and they didn’t look amused. My exploding present probably had something to do with that. I could see a couple of men were already down, and there was now a gaping hole in the back wall. Shit. Eight men. These weren’t great odds. Even with Adie beside me, it would take a damn near miracle to get out of here without having my body leaking more fluid than a burst water main.

  Bullets started flying past us as we both backed into the lounge, seeking cover. Adie took a near miss as one zinged past the side of his head, and I took another as I felt one graze my ear. Fuck. There were too many guns and too many people. I hoped to hell Lois got here soon because if she didn't, the only thing she'd need to worry about bringing were body bags. Flinging ourselves behind the sofa, Adie and I were quick to get back to our feet and continue the barrage of fire. We didn't need them advancing on us if we could help it.

  Popping out the last bullet from my round, I searched my jeans for another and found I was all out. Swearing, I turned round to Adie to see if he was faring any better. Three more blasts and a click, and he looked at me like I was the answer to all his problems. Giving him a pained look, I shrugged my shoulders helplessly. There hadn't been time to pack for the fucking Armageddon. Meanwhile, more bullets were flying, and this time, one of the bastards managed to rip into my shoulder. I probably don't need to tell you how much a bullet tearing through your flesh hurts, but if I did have to describe it, I would probably use every cuss word in the English language, and when I'd run out, I start on foreign ones. Jesus Christ. This was exactly what I didn't need right now. The only saving grace was that they shot my left shoulder rather than my right, although that mattered a whole lot less now I had no ammo, dammit.

  How in the hell had these goons found our location? What had led them to us? We hadn't been tailed. I'd made sure of it. Pushing Adie's head towards the floor, which was as good an indication as any that we were in deep shit, I tried to come up with a plan B. Could we make it to the front door and get through it? Unlikely. If we did, was there anywhere we could hide? I didn't fancy our chances. There was no way we'd get to the car in time. What the hell was Lois doing?

  It didn't take long for death to stare me in the eye. It wasn't the first time, and I sure as hell hoped it wouldn't be the last, but let me tell you, you remember these kinds of things. When the muzzle of a gun is pointing at your forehead, and you can see a finger beginning to tighten on the trigger, you either prepare to meet your maker or pray for a miracle. I did both. I've always been an overachiever.

  There was then a flash and the sound of an immensely loud bang followed by what I thought were several gunshots, but I couldn’t be sure. My ears and eyes were fried. Adie’s were rolling around in his head. It was the second time this week he’d been subjected to this kind of nastiness, so I almost felt sorry for him, but he wasn’t the one with blood pouring out of his shoulder.

  Struggling to my feet involved an almost superhuman effort, but when I did, it was to find that just about everyone else was lying on the floor. Most of them were surrounded by a pool of their own blood, except for my miracle, who was currently wearing a pair of ear defenders and looking enormously pleased with herself. She'd obviously been outside when she'd thrown the grenade in, but she'd tidied up pretty quickly afterwards. At the moment, she had a pistol in each hand and was wearing a utility vest with enough ammo to sink a ship. At least she'd come prepared. Adie then did his best to get to his feet, looking pretty pissed as he wobbled about, but when he finally did, he whistled at the carnage.

  We both looked at Lois, who had just taken down eight men on her own without batting an eyelid, even though her hands were shaking like she’d got Parkinson’s.

  “What?” She turned on us and rolled her eyes. “I’m sick, not fucking blind,” she yelled.

  I couldn’t help but smile. That was my girl. There was no time for chitchat, though. “We need to get out of here. There’ll be more where they came from. Can you clean up this mess while I patch myself up?” Looking at Lois, I indicated the guys littered around the lounge, some of whom were unfortunately still breathing.

  “I’ll help. Adie grabbed one of Lois’s pistols as I began walking from the room and the sound of yet more gunshots followed. Breathing a big sigh of relief now that my back was turned to the pair, I realised we’d just had a very lucky escape. Although it was always possible that Geraud would send men looking for us, I hadn’t expected that there would be so many of them, or that they would find us so soon. I had no idea what had gone wrong, but we would need to figure that little problem out between us very quickly. It would mean almost certain death if we didn’t. My money was on some kind of tracking device – and they’d either planted it on Adie or Lois. It was more likely to be on Lois. I’d like to think Adie would have noticed if they’d put something on him, but I didn’t rule the possibility out.

  Heading into my room for the first aid kit, I pulled it out of the wardrobe and unzipped it. Hissing through my teeth as
I used my bad arm to hold it steady, I quickly rooted through the contents and picked out what I needed. There was no time to get the bullet out. All I could do was stem the bleeding. I knew the thing was still lodged in me because I'd checked for an exit wound and hadn't found one. That meant someone was going to have to dig it out for me later. I winced at the thought. It would probably have to be Adie. Lois was all over the place. I still couldn't believe she'd managed to pull our rescue off. By rights, we should be dead. The woman shouldn't even be out of bed.

  Shaking my head, I tore open a strip of butterfly sutures and began applying them, one by one, until I'd closed up the gaping hole in my arm. There was a fair bit of swearing involved, but it wasn't a patch on what would come out of my mouth later when Adie tried to pull the bullet out. Still, I wasn't going to think about that right now. Picking out the biggest plaster I could find, I shoved a ton of non-stick gauze over the wound and applied it firmly. More swearing followed. I then wound a reel of bandage around the site, just in case the plaster couldn't contain the blood. I had no desire to be dripping bodily fluids all over the place, especially as we were about to find a hotel somewhere. Receptionists get kind of antsy when there's blood leaking out of you. After that, I began stuffing everything in my backpack as quickly as possible so we could clear out.

  Lois and Adie came in to check on me, but I waved them away, motioning for them to do the same thing as me. We needed to be on our way in ten minutes or less. The police would have been called by now, so unless all the neighbours were over eighty and had miraculously taken their hearing aids out at bedtime, the guys in blue would be en route shortly. To be honest, they were only a minor stumbling block, compared to our other problem. Geraud had plenty more men, and it wouldn’t be long before he sent more of them our way to finish the job. I didn’t want to be here when that happened. We needed to get as far away from here as possible.

  When we’d all got our shit together, Lois headed back to the car, but I shook my head. If the tracking device had been planted on the vehicle, we’d be leading them straight to us.

  “We need to find another ride. Let’s take a little jog around the block,” I said.

  "You've got to be fucking kidding me," Lois whined, looking at me as if I'd grown two heads. "It's all I can do to walk." Opening the car boot, she got out the black sports bag and slung it over her shoulder, grunting under its weight.

  I had no sympathy for her woes. “Yeah, well I would offer to carry you, but someone’s just blown a hole in my shoulder. Let’s all focus, team. We’ve got work to do.”

  Adie came up behind her, rolled his eyes, and wrenched the bag from her shoulder. She glared at him. “I’m perfectly capable of…”

  "You just moaned about a little jog, so you're obviously not capable of…" Lois was not going to take that lying down. Her eyes turned a dark, smoky shade of grey, and she got ready to sink her nails in.

  "I saved your ass a moment ago, didn't I?" Turning to me, she then said sweetly, "Are we running or wasting time chatting?"

  The sound of police sirens then cut through the air, and I sighed, breaking into a slow run. With any luck, my team would follow me. I wasn't much sure I cared if they didn't.

  After ten minutes or so, I found what I was looking for. The car in question was a mid-sized saloon, quite a few years old, and it wouldn’t require an Einstein-sized brain to break into. All I needed to do was remove the door seal. This enabled me to pop the window out, and hey presto I was in. By the time I’d got myself settled in the driver’s seat and hot-wired the thing, Lois and Adie had finally caught up with me. Adie was breathing hard, but Lois, to her credit, looked reasonably comfortable, although her shaking hands had gotten worse. We needed to get her in bed, fast.

  “Get in guys,” I said softly, unlocking the rest of the doors. They did without comment. Lois was quiet, probably because she was feeling like shit, and Adie couldn’t talk because his lungs were bursting. He obviously hadn’t done much more than weights in Carte Blanche, which was understandable. He wouldn’t have wanted Geraud to get suspicious, I guess.

  I drove in silence for the better part of forty minutes. No one asked me where we were going, which was just as well, as I was still figuring out that part myself. Lois had already fallen asleep in the rear of the car, and her head was currently lolling against Adie’s shoulder. He didn’t seem bothered by the fact. A little spiral of something rose up in my chest at the seemingly intimate act, but I brutally squashed it back down again. There was no future for Lois and me, and no way I could get close to her without almost guaranteeing to hurt her in the process. If I’d thought Carte Blanche was bad, our next assignment was a hell of a lot worse, and quite honestly, I didn’t want to think about that at the moment. Why on earth had I gotten myself into this crap?

  Pulling my cell out of my pocket, I dialled up HQ and asked them to make some reservations in a nearby hotel for us, before also getting a location for another safe house. We'd locate the tracker in the hotel and then drive off. It would keep Geraud's boys on their toes at the very least. We were going to be leading them on a merry dance through the English countryside. I sure hoped they had fun.

  When the text message came through, detailing our reservation, I put my cell on Google map mode and followed the directions. Arriving at a nondescript concrete jungle, I shut off the engine and waited for everyone to come back to the land of the living. It didn’t take long.

  Lois stretched and yawned, her eyes blinking sleepily. As it was now four am in the morning, I wasn't surprised. We'd all be feeling a bit off-colour for the next few hours, some more than most. I could do with a couple of hours sleep as well, but that wasn't on the cards just yet.

  “Come on guys, let’s go and see if there’s a receptionist about at this God-awful time of day. We’re not stopping here for long, though. There’s no point in taking anything more than a change of underwear.” Poor old Lois didn’t even have that luxury, but as she’d been naked for the last week or so, she probably felt majorly overdressed as it was.

  Check-in was a brief and perfunctory affair. The receptionist found the booking, asked me to sign a few details, and then handed over a key and a small parcel that had been left for us. I had thought we might get a rather odd look, being two blokes and one woman checking into a room at ridiculous o'clock, but clearly, she'd seen it all before. With a tired smile and a wave of her hand in the direction of the lift, she went back to reading her OK! magazine beneath the counter.

  We, on the other hand, marched towards the lift with purpose. We had a limited time to figure out what kind of mess we were in, and the sooner we did that, the better. Reaching our room, the first thing I did as soon as the door was closed, was open the package I’d been given by the receptionist. It was a radio frequency detector, and with any luck, it would give me the location of a bug. If it did, that would be one problem solved.

  "Adie come here. I'll sweep you first, but I'm pretty sure if we have a tracking device in our midst, it'll be on Lois." Adie obligingly stood in front of me while I ran the device all over his body. As I suspected, it didn't pick up a thing. "Lois, your turn. Get your ass over here." She did so, less enthusiastically and almost swaying on her feet, but thankfully, it didn't take long to find what I was looking for. The bastards had planted a chip in her ass. Fantastic.

  "Grab me a marker pen from my bag, would you, Adie? It's in the top pocket." Turning to Lois, I said, "Sorry hun, but you need to take off your jeans. They've planted a tracker in your ass, and it needs to come out."

  Her eyes flared in shock for a moment. "How on earth could they do that without me noticing?" Her eyes then went heavenward. "Of course. They probably did it while I was drugged or out cold." The poor woman looked suitably horrified, and by the looks of things, this was the first time something like this had happened to her. It probably wouldn't be the last in her line of business, but she wasn't going to enjoy what came next. I didn't add that they might even have done it while she wa
s fully conscious – it wouldn't be that hard to plant something while they were spanking her or performing an intense impact play session, but I wisely kept my mouth shut.

  “Get naked, Lois. We’ve got no time to waste. Either Adie or I can dig the thing out, but the bad news is we’ve got nothing stronger than aspirin or codeine for the pain, and in your state…” I left the words hanging.

  “I shouldn’t be taking anything,” Lois finished for me. “It’s fine. You do it. I don’t think I can face Adie and his knives again just yet. Just get it over with quickly.” Pulling her jeans down in one fluid motion, Lois let them fall in a puddle around her feet. I did my best not to stare, knowing full well she wasn’t wearing any underwear, and she took it easy on me, immediately going over to the double bed in the centre of the room, where she lay down on her stomach. Although Lois and I were very comfortable around each other, the last thing I wanted to be at this moment in time was aroused. Things were complicated enough already.