by Rob Jones
The man at the bar gave them their drinks and Arocha paid with a folded bill, casually waving his change away. The CDI was obviously picking up the tab, Lexi thought, and they walked to a corner table without further acknowledgement of each other.
They reached the table and took a seat. On the small table between them was an unlit candle in a bottle and a torn menu that looked like it had seen better days. In Lexi’s opinion the whole place needed an intimate date with a wrecking ball and a couple of bulldozers, but Arocha seemed to fit right in.
Lexi looked at the menu. “How romantic.”
Arocha glanced briefly over his shoulder before speaking. Lexi thought he looked like he was expecting someone, but too many years in the business had warped both their perceptions for the worse.
“What do you want?” he asked at last.
Straight to the point, she thought. Obviously he was in a generous mood tonight, and not going to play around with her. For that, at least, she could be grateful.
“Repayment for that job I did for you in Santo Domingo last year.”
The man nodded. “You’re calling it in.”
Lexi raised her glass and took more of the cheap rum. “Yes.”
Arocha rested his elbows on the tabletop and began gently drumming his fingertips on the scarred wood. He was starting to look vaguely nervous, she considered. “Name it.”
Lexi ran her finger around the rim of the glass and made it sing for a moment – B flat, she thought. Two men with serious tattoos turned to see what had made the noise, but turned their backs when they saw she was sitting with Arocha. Obviously this was his local. “Word has it there’s an island in the Caribbean that isn’t exactly on the tourist trail.”
A heavy sigh from the Cuban. Life looked like it was getting on top of him. “There are so many islands in the Caribbean, Agent Dragonfly.”
She nodded and sipped the rum. “Do you know what I’m talking about or not?”
A long pause and then a brief nod. “Perhaps.”
“I’m talking about an island owned by a private consortium headed by an English politician. A maverick archaeologist named Sir Richard Eden.”
“In that case, I know what you’re talking about, but not many do. Its location is really only known by a few intelligence agencies and maybe some local fishermen. Why do you want to know about it? I can hardly believe a tiny island all the way out here is causing the Chinese Government any difficulties.”
“I have my reasons, Arocha.”
Another businesslike nod from the Cuban. Lexi thought he looked like he had gained at least twenty pounds since their last meeting.
“And if I tell you, we’re even?”
“Of course. That’s the deal.”
“You’re going to cause trouble down here?”
“What makes you say that?”
“I heard a rumor about an assassination getting played out somewhere in my little sea.” He gestured with his hand out the window of the bar at the vast ocean on the far side of the road.
She smirked and winked at him. “You mind your business and I’ll mind mine. I won’t cause any trouble for you, I promise.”
“Your promises are of very little value to me, Xiaoli,” Arocha said with genuine disappointment. “In a few months I will be out of this business. The most stressful thing in my life will be deciding which fishing rod to use.”
“Give a man a fish, Miguel, and you feed him for a day, but teach him how to fish and you put a trawlerman out of business.”
Arocha suppressed a laugh, and pulled the label off his beer. He drew a pencil from his shirt pocket and Lexi watched with feigned disinterest as the Cuban scribbled down the information she had crossed the world to secure. “I like the old things in life, Xiaoli… pencils over pens, typewriters over computers…”
Lexi smiled as she took the piece of paper from Arocha. “We have a saying in China, Miguel. The palest ink is better than the strongest memory.”
*
Outside the bar Lexi wasted no time in calling a cab and ordering the driver to take her down to the Cangrejo Arriba district. One glance at the information Arocha had given her told her that she was going to need to take a short flight to a neighboring island and from there get hold of a small boat. Anything less might risk Eden and his team discovering what she was up to and that would be the end of the mission. Arocha had also given her the name of an intel agent by the name of Raoul who might know more.
The cab driver had started to ask questions about what looked like the very heavy tool bag she was carrying, but a hundred dollar bill made him look the other way, and moments after watching Arocha waddle into a side street she was on her way.
As the battered Chevrolet made its way around the north side of the Laguna Los Corozos, she repeated the mantra to herself over and over: All is fair in love and war, all is fair in love war…
All is fair in love and war.
She knew in her heart she should have done this a long time ago, even if it meant the sort of betrayal and deceit she was now ready to engage in. She knew she could never be forgiven for doing what she was about to do. She knew she would make enemies for life who would stop at nothing to track her down and kill her, but she had no choice.
She simply told herself that there was no other way. She went over the scenario in her head once again. They would kill her family if she did not redeem herself in the eyes of the Ministry. She had wasted the opportunity to deliver the Map of Immortality to the Chinese authorities and now they would kill everyone she loved if she did not make amends in the ultimate way: she had to kill Sir Richard Eden, and anyone else who got in her way. Only then could she achieve the redemption she needed to make things right again. Deception and redemption… betrayal and murder… darkness and light.
Was she capable of doing such a thing? She knew in her heart she was. She had done far worse, and she wasn’t afraid of making an enemy out of Joe Hawke. She knew taking Hawke out of the game was simply a case of exploiting the feelings he had for her. Like all men he was weak and she would play him like a violin if she had to, all the way until his last breath.
That last thought made her pause for a moment and she considered who she would have to take out on Elysium in order to get to Eden. How many would be there? She had no idea. Lea? Scarlet – she might be a challenge… and then maybe even Hawke.
With a bit of luck, she considered, most of the ECHO team would be off on one of their wild goose chases in some far-flung corner of the world, leaving Eden alone and unprotected. Sure, he had some moves – he was a former Paras officer after all – but he was getting on in life and no match for a world-class assassin in the prime of her life. Perhaps Raoul would know who was on the island tonight.
She turned to glance over her shoulder and watched dreamily as the setting sun illuminated the skyscrapers of San Juan. A moment later it sank into the Atlantic and a purple twilight began to cross from the eastern sky ahead of them. She could see why Eden had chosen this part of the world for his hideout – isolated from the rest of the planet but still close enough to get to America or Europe in just a few hours by jet.
To say she felt on top of her game was an understatement. She would plow through dozens of armed guards if it meant achieving her objectives and neutralizing the English politician. She flattered herself that she was probably only one of a handful of people in the world capable of storming the island without aerial backup, and with a bit of luck, Eden himself would know it too in a very short time.
Now, as the taxi cruised the final few miles to the airport, she did what she had done so many times before – she started to build in her mind an outline of how she was going to execute her mission. She had completed similar jobs often enough to know how it would play out, but in one way this was totally unique. There would be no going back after this one.
She glanced at her watch. It would all be over sooner than she knew it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Hawke went to the doo
r and peered around the arch into the stairwell. The sound of men shouting and hurried footsteps echoed up the steps of the castillo’s tower.
“Sounds like our friends from Florida, all right,” he said. “They’re speaking French.”
“But how could they possibly know we’re here?” Scarlet asked again.
“Like I said – maybe something in Dad’s research,” Lea said. “They must have gone up one side of my flash drive and down the other ten times by now.”
Gunnar looked like Lea had slapped his face. “I was convinced I was the only one who knew how to read the script…”
Hawke gave him a look of consolation. “It doesn’t look that way now, Gunnar… sorry.”
Gunnar’s crestfallen expression was wiped from his face by the sound of the men’s screams as they stormed their way further up the tower’s winding, stone steps. They sounded like a pack of wild animals.
“Guys,” Ryan said. “I hate to break up the debate here, but we have an undetermined quantity of heavily armed Belgian psychopaths running toward us and I’m thinking they’ll be here in less than twenty seconds.”
Victoria gawped at Ryan and blinked. “Oh gosh…”
“He makes a solid point,” Scarlet said.
“So let’s get the hell out of here then!” Ryan added with emotion.
“Sounds like a capital idea to me,” Victoria said, peering anxiously over Hawke’s shoulder and looking down the stairwell. “They’re already too close for comfort.”
Hawke turned to Javier. “Are the shutters on those windows nailed down?”
Javier shook his head. “No.”
“Excellent.”
“There’s no need – we’re five storeys up.”
“Ah…”
Hawke looked at the door. “What’s this wood?”
“The strongest Spanish cedar!”
“Strong enough to keep them busy for a while, in other words.” He slammed it shut. “Give me the key, Javier!”
Javier handed him the key and the Englishman locked the heavy door. “They’ll waste a lot of ammo trying to get through this and that will give us some time to work out a way out of here.”
“Perhaps we can use this to our advantage?” Javier said, taking the cloak back from Lea. “Below the two windows on the right is a drop all the way to the outer courtyard but there is a narrow battlement below the window on the left that leads to a parapet walk. From there we can make our way to the roof of the old chapel and descend to the inner courtyard.”
Hawke opened the shutter and looked at the route Javier had just described. It all seemed straight-forward enough and beyond the north wall of the castle was a large olive grove they could use for cover.
Outside the room they heard the men reach the top of the stairs and began pounding on the door. After a few seconds of rethinking the problem they heard the obvious next step as dozens of bullets smashed into the heavy cedar door.
“Right,” Scarlet said, cocking her gun. “Ladies first, and that means you, Ryan.”
“Hey!”
“You object?” she asked.
“Are you kidding?”
A second later Ryan was following Victoria through the window, then Scarlet climbed out. Lea was next and then Hawke turned to Gunnar and Javier.
“Right you two – out now!”
“Absolutely not!” the Spaniard said with wounded pride. “I go last! My family has defended the castle for seven centuries from people like this!”
Hawke yielded and turned to Gunnar. “Come on – out!” Gunnar made his way quickly to toward the window, axe handle in his grip, but Javier was undeterred and draped the cloak over his shoulders, vanishing from sight.
Outside the window Ryan jogged back from the parapet walk. “It’s an easy trip to the chapel roof and… wait a minute – where’s Javier?”
“Playing the Predator again,” Hawke said.
“What?”
Hawke sighed. “All right Gunnar, out you go!”
“What about Javier?”
“He’s going next”
“No!” protested the Spaniard. “I will surprise them when they enter the room and shoot them with the blunderbuss!”
Hawke rolled his eyes. “Javier, these men have automatic machine pistols. An invisible cloak and a three hundred year-old gun won’t save you if they spray the entire room with lead, which I predict they will do about five seconds after blasting their way through the door.”
“You think?” Javier said with regret creeping into his voice.
“Yes!”
“All right then on this one occasion,” Javier said, holding his finger up to Hawke to underline the point. “I will retreat, but only so I can kill them later with the blunderbuss!”
Hawke fought hard not to look at Javier like he was a total fool, and agreed he could kill them later with the blunderbuss, but only if there was a later, and that meant getting out of here as fast as possible.
But then the door finally burst open and a man stormed in with a Heckler & Koch MP7, raking full metal jackets all over the room. Hawke watched in horror as the rounds drilled mercilessly through Gunnar Jónsson’s chest and throat. He dropped the axe handle and fell on top of it a second later, stone-cold dead.
The gunman turned the weapon on Hawke but the Englishman grabbed the gun’s muzzle and pushed down hard. The man squeezed the trigger in response, firing off dozens of rounds into the floor, but Hawke spun him around and aimed the weapon at the open door, taking out the second man at the top of the stairs and giving them a few more seconds.
“Out now!” he screamed at Javier.
“Never! Defend or die!” Javier snatched up the blunderbuss and ran toward the stairs. As he reached the door one of the men lobbed a grenade into the small room. Hawke picked it up and dived out of the window, using a shoulder roll to propel himself up with his own momentum back to his feet where he hurled the grenade over the battlement.
It exploded before it hit the ground and as the fireball fell down to the courtyard in a smear of black smoke and fire, he turned to see Javier was climbing through the window.
“What happened to defend or die?” Hawke said.
“There are more of them than I thought!”
Javier began to clamber through the window. He was still wearing the cloak. It was draped over his back so from Hawke’s perspective he was perfectly visible, but to the gunmen who now were rushing back into the room the Spaniard would be invisible. That, at least, was something they would hardly be expecting.
“Hurry up, Javier!” Hawke said, the frustration growing in his voice. “We don’t have much longer.”
“Lo sé!” Javier said, but it was too late.
No sooner had he uttered these words when the men were in the room once again, guns raised and ready to fire.
Javier seemed calm, knowing the cloak made him invisible to the men, but he had made a terrible miscalculation. As soon as the gunmen re-entered the room they saw the open window and looking right through the Spaniard as if he weren’t there they immediately caught sight of the Englishman helping him and opened fire.
Hawke watched in horror as the bullets ripped through the cloak and blasted into poor Javier’s back. Blood ran from his mouth, just inches from Hawke’s face, and then the fatally wounded man released his grip on the coquina casing of the window and fell backwards into the room. He collapsed in a wheezing heap alongside Gunnar’s dead body which was still smoking from the terrible wounds inflicted on him earlier.
Hawke knew there was nothing he could do as the enemy swarmed further into the room, firing their guns and rushing the open window.
“Get moving!” Hawke shouted at the others.
Lea led everyone along the parapet walk while Scarlet kept up the rear, walking backwards to cover Hawke as he hid at the side of the open window, pushed back flat against the wall.
“We’ve got to get that axe!” he shouted.
A gunman appeared – the same who had mur
dered Javier – and leaned out of the window with his submachine gun a few inches ahead of him.
Hawke grabbed the muzzle of the gun and yanked it forward, raising his right hand and driving it into the man’s surprised face at the same time. A crunch of broken nose bones followed a split second later before he pulled the man out of the window, wrenching his gun off him as he fell outside.
Taking his gun, Hawke fired into the room once again forcing the men back, but when he turned to run the man outside on the battlement was now on his feet, arms extended and lunging toward him.
Hawke swung at him, turning his hips as he went to put as much momentum into the punch as possible. Striking the man in the jaw he drove him backwards to the wall where he teetered uneasily for a moment before lashing out at Hawke.
The Englishman dodged the punch and fired a second back at the man, catching him in the face and smashing his cheekbone into shards. He brought his left hand up and plowed his knuckles hard into the man’s eye socket, creating another terrible crunching sound and filling the cavity with blood.
Behind Hawke, the gunmen were at the window again, aiming their weapons at him, so he grabbed the disoriented man and spun him around, using him as a human shield. Holding him up to cover himself from the onslaught, Hawke raised his gun and fired back, driving them back once more. He knew he had to get the axe handle and cloak – they hadn’t even had time to grab an image of the markings on the axe yet.
He hauled the half-dead man to the wall and pushed him over on his way back to the window. His blood-curdling screams filled the Spanish twilight but it was all over in a second when he landed with a squelchy smack on the cobblestone courtyard hundreds of feet below.
With the man’s gun in his hands, Hawke used the window casing as cover as he pointed the muzzle of the weapon into the aperture and sprayed the room with hot lead. Knowing that there was only one narrow exit in the room, he knew this was the definition of shooting fish in a barrel, and it was no less than they deserved after murdering Gunnar and Javier in cold-blood. Plus, the Cloak of Invisibility and the axe handle fragment were still inside.
