A booming impact sent a shudder through the SUV, the sentry flying off into the air like he'd been dropkicked. The arc of his trajectory was interrupted by a lamppost; he flopped to the base of it, motionless.
There was a double bump as first the Explorer's front wheels and then the rear wheels hopped the curb as it plowed across the concrete apron fronting the building.
Vasco stomped the brake, slamming the vehicle to a halt. He and Paz were wearing seat belts; Carrancha and Aguilar were not, and the sudden stop bounced them around in the backseat.
Paz flung open his door and lunged sideways, in such a hurry to get into the fight that he'd forgotten to unfasten his seat belt, which caught him up short. Cursing, he hit the release, shrugged out of the harness, and hit the sidewalk with both feet at the same time, dropping into a crouch and bringing up the Kalash. The Kalash was fitted on the underside of the barrel with a loaded grenade launcher.
On the roof of the building, two riflemen popped up, showing themselves above the waist-high parapet, scrambling to draw a bead on Paz.
Paz beat them to the punch and let fly, lofting the grenade in a high arc that sent it plopping on the rooftop behind the riflemen.
It exploded in a booming fireball that filled the roof with red light, heat, and smoke.
A fragmentation grenade, it sieved the riflemen with shrapnel, the concussion picking up one of them and tossing him off the roof, to land with a splattery thud on the sidewalk in front of the building. The other staggered around for a few steps before flopping down out of sight behind the parapet.
* * *
On Paz's right, the second SUV had crashed through the locked gates of the chain-link fence surrounding the parking lot. They flew open as the vehicle bulled through.
A couple of armed men ran out from behind the back of the building into the lot, opening fire with handguns at the oncoming SUV.
Ramon leaned out of the passenger side front window, firing a machine pistol.
Sancho stuck his assault rifle barrel out of the left side window behind the driver's seat, shooting at the Supremo gunmen. He had a better line of fire on them than Ramon, since they were on the left side of the vehicle.
Incoming rounds racketed against the front of the SUV, punching into the grille, headlights, and engine block. The SUV kept on coming.
A shot tore a hole through the top of the middle of the windshield, passing so close to Septiembre that he could feel it whizzing past his head.
Sancho squeezed off some bursts but missed his targets; he held down the trigger and burned off one continuous rapid-fire blast. That took down one of the gunmen, and then the SUV was rounding the corner of the back of the building.
The second gunman broke to the right of the vehicle, running for cover and instead running into gunfire from Ramon's machine pistol.
The SUV slewed around on the gravel and loose dirt of the lot, the wheels on its left side lifting off the ground, threatening for a breathless instant to overturn the top-heavy machine.
They touched ground again, the machine skidding to a stop in a plume of pebbles and dirt clouds. It stood broadside at right angles to the loading platform.
For a few beats, the vehicle was hidden behind a curtain of dust. By the same token, the back of the building was obscured, too. The sectioned metal door of the loading dock bay was raised and thrown open.
Winds blew, dispersing the dust cloud. The murk cleared, revealing a machine gun just inside the loading bay. A.50-caliber machine gun, mounted on a tripod, manned by two defenders.
The gunner sat with crossed legs behind the weapon, gripping the twin rear handles with both hands, his thumb poised over the firing button. The other stood on one knee beside him, holding the cartridge belt lightly in his open hands. His job was to feed the belt steadily into the machine gun, avoiding snags.
Fierro, sitting on the right side of the backseat, flung back the sliding door and threw himself out of the SUV before the firing began. He hit the dirt, belly-crawling behind the right rear wheel for cover.
The others in the vehicle lacked his hair-trigger reflexes. They sat frozen in place for the split-second before the gunner opened fire.
The machine gun streamed big-caliber, high-velocity slugs into the SUV, making a sound like a jackhammer tearing up pavement.
It tore up the SUV, ventilating it at high speed, sieving it with rounds that tore through its shell like it was so much cardboard. Septiembre, Sancho, and Ramon were shot to pieces.
The machine gunner was an enthusiast. Standard doctrine stated that the weapon should be fired in a succession of short quick bursts, but he was having none of that. He held down the firing stud, loosing a continuous blast of bullets, swiveling the machine gun back and forth on its tripod, working over the SUV like he was spraying it with a fire hose.
Peppering it with hundreds of rounds in less than a minute. In that time, the gun barrel turned red-hot.
Fierro lay flat and at right angles to the right rear wheel, hugging the ground, eating dirt. The machine gunner was shooting high, the rounds passing harmlessly over Fierro's prone form. The SUV rattled and rocked on its chassis like it was throwing a piston rod.
The sideman handling the cartridge belt feed got so excited by the havoc wrought by the machine gun that he got careless and allowed the belt to get twisted. Causing the weapon to jam. There was a sudden silence as it ceased to operate.
That was what Fierro was waiting for. He had a couple of grenades stowed in the side pockets of his utility vest. Rising, he took out a grenade, pulled the pin, and counted to three before tossing it overhand at the open bay door. Throwing himself flat on the ground as soon as the grenade left his hand.
The machine gunner and sideman could see the grenade coming at them, fat and sassy. It hit the floor a few feet in front of them, then blew.
* * *
In front of the building, Aguilar and Carrancha had piled out of the Explorer, weapons in hand. Paz stood on one knee, fitting a grenade into the launcher sleeve below the barrel of the Kalash.
Aguilar moved up beside him on his left, only to step into a burst fired from inside the building. He wore no flak jacket and the gunfire chopped him in the middle, spraying Paz with blood spatter.
Joaquin, the big Supremo bodyguard, stood framed in the open front door, working a leveled assault rifle. Standing there outlined in the doorway, he made a sweet target for Carrancha, who returned fire.
Joaquin jackknifed, falling back into the interior and out of sight.
Paz shouted, "The window!"
Carrancha's big, bearish form dropped into a crouch as he poured some slugs into the hat company's big plate-glass display window. It came apart, glass shards falling like sheets of ice.
Paz fired a grenade through the hole where the window had been, into the showroom. The blast was satisfyingly spectacular.
* * *
Around back, Fierro reached into the rear of the SUV, grabbing a sawed-off riot shotgun from the floor where he'd left it.
It was his personal weapon — it cleared out a room with authority. It was fully loaded and there were more twelve-gauge shotgun shells stuffed in the front pockets of his vest. Along with another grenade in a side pocket.
The shotgun seemed to have survived the fusillade intact and unharmed but he checked it to make sure. It worked fine.
He caught a glimpse of Septiembre, Ramon, and Sancho. They looked like they been put through the human equivalent of a paper shredder.
Smoke poured out of the loading platform's open bay door. Fierro slipped around the rear of the SUV, charging the platform from the side, out of the direct line of fire of anyone who might still be left in the back of the building.
On the left side of the platform was a flight of stone steps. He climbed them, flattening his back against the wall to the side of the open bay door.
He peeked around the corner, inside. Just beyond the opening, there was a mess on the floor that had been the machine gunne
r and his sideman.
Fierro stuck a little more of his head around the wall edge, craning for a view.
Someone inside shot at him, the rounds tearing off pieces of concrete and spraying his face with stinging stone chips.
He ducked back, covering. The shots had come from deeper inside the space. He dug a shotgun shell out of his pocket and tossed it into the building, drawing another blast of gunfire.
Now he had a better idea of where the shooter was. He pulled the pin on a grenade and lobbed it in, underhand, in the appropriate direction.
A blast boomed, red and white light flashing out of a roiling smoke cloud.
Fierro rushed inside, moving off to one side, taking cover behind a head-high stack of wooden pallets. Waiting for the smoke to clear before continuing with the cleanup.
* * *
The showroom was a shambles of smoky wreckage. Overhead light fixtures swung at the end of loose wires dangling from the ceiling; clouds of plaster, sawdust, and straw hung in mid-air.
Colonel Paz prowled around, holding a leveled pistol at waist height, looking for Beltran. The big killing was done, and for close-in work, a pistol was better than a rifle.
The Supremo defenders were dead, all but one or two of them in the back of the building who were only critically wounded. Carrancha and Fierro were finishing them off, delivering the coup de grace of a bullet through the brain.
Vasco was outside, guarding the Explorer and keeping watch.
Not much mopping needed to be done in the showroom area. Joaquin lay just inside the front entrance, where he'd been cut down. Mrs. Ybarra lay sprawled nearby.
She'd been standing in front of the display window when Carrancha had shot it out.
Slugs had stitched her across the middle, nearly cutting her in half.
Paz went through the reception area, into the front office. Smoke clouds drifted across his field of vision, obscuring his view. Holes gaped in ceiling and walls, revealing broken wooden latticework and cratered plaster.
The body of a man lay facedown on the floor. His hair was white and his head was turned away from Paz, hiding his face.
Paz got excited: was this his man?
He crossed to him. The body lay so his hands were in plain sight, empty of any weapons. Paz still couldn't see his face. He toed the body, wedging a booted foot under it and flipping it over, so that it rolled over on its back and came to a rest faceup.
Disappointment. It wasn't Beltran after all. The hair had fooled Paz. What he thought was the white hair of age was an illusion, caused by a powdery covering of plaster dust that had fallen from the cracked and riven ceiling.
The other groaned, closed eyes fluttering open. Blinking.
Paz said, "Not dead yet? I can fix that… "
The other's glazed eyes came into focus, fastening on the man who stood above him, arm at his side, pointing a big-bore pistol barrel at his head.
He gasped, "El Colonello." The Colonel.
Paz grinned, his ego tickled as always by any sign of recognition that comported with his inflated idea of his own status. Especially by one who could be considered a colleague, a fellow professional in the field. Not professional enough, though, or their positions would be reversed, with Paz flat on his back on the floor and the other holding the gun.
He said, "You know me, eh? I know you, too, Monatero."
Earlier during the fracas, a grenade blast had picked up Monatero and bounced him off a wall. The wall was hard and he was soft and now he was all broken up inside. There wasn't much of him left, and what there was, was fading fast.
Paz said, "Surprised? You shouldn't be. I know many things. I know you're the boss of this outfit — you were."
Monatero found he could speak if he spoke slowly and carefully, his lips shaping each word. "So… Beltran didn't get you."
"I'm the one who does the getting."
"You can't kill me, I'm already dead. Thanks to him."
"That's all right, I'll finish the job," Paz said.
Monatero smiled, allowing himself a whisper of a chuckle. Anything stronger would finish him off. Paz was half puzzled, half amused. "What's so funny? Tell me the joke, so I can laugh, too."
Monatero said, "Beltran's killed me… and yet, I've never even met the man."
Paz frowned, waving the gun barrel like a chiding finger. "Don't lie. It's a sin to go to your Maker with a lie on your soul."
Monatero's voice was a husky whisper, as remote and distant as if it already emanated from the tomb. "No lie, it's the truth. I've never met Beltran face to face, never seen him. His identity's a mystery to me. I've only talked to him over the phone. I didn't have a need to know, wasn't important enough."
Paz said, "A dying man shouldn't play games."
"No games."
"You really don't know who he is?"
"No. Not even now, at the end."
"That is funny," Paz said, grinning.
Monatero was sinking fast, but he had more to get in. He took a new tack. "Garros — Garros… "
Paz said, "What about him?"
"It's not too late. You can save him."
Paz snorted. "Save him? From what? Too much wine, women, and song?"
Monatero nodded, as if to himself. "Then you don't know. He's been kidnapped. Beltran's got him."
Paz said, "I think maybe you've gone off your head."
"You must listen."
"Must I?"
"Yes. For the sake of your country. And mine." Sparks blazed up behind Monatero's fast-glazing eyes. "For the revolution!"
Paz was unimpressed. "That fancy talk's too much for me. I'm a simple man."
Monatero said, "Do you want Beltran to make a fool of you?"
"No one makes a fool of Martello Paz!"
"Beltran's a traitor. He went off on his own. Havana had nothing to do with the attack on you. All Beltran's doing."
"Why?"
"Perhaps because he knew you'd kill him for holding Garros for ransom. A million-dollar ransom."
Paz rubbed his chin, thoughtful. Off his head or not, Monatero was making sense. "A million dollars is a lot of money."
Monatero said, "On my dying breath, I swear to you that Cuba had nothing to do with it."
Paz shrugged. "Sure, sure, but what about the money? The million dollars?"
A glint of shrewdness came into Monatero's eyes. "You don't want Beltran to have it."
"I want Beltran dead!"
"I can tell you how to get him."
* * *
Paz went down on one knee beside Monatero, wanting to believe, the knowledge of that want making him cautious. He said, "You don't know who Beltran is, never met him, but you can tell me how to find him. How is that?"
Monatero said, "He's using my men to trade Garros for the ransom. My men! But I know where the exchange is going to be made." Paz said, "Where?"
Monatero told him. Paz said, "If true, I'll send word to Caracas that Beltran went off on his own and Havana had nothing to do with the plot. You have my word on that."
Monatero said, "You believe me, then."
"I'll believe you when I've got Beltran looking down the barrel of my gun."
"You will, if you act quickly."
Paz said, "One good turn deserves another. Now I'll do you a favor. This is funny — you know who Beltran is, you've known all the time."
Monatero said, "No, no."
"Yes. You know him but you don't know him. It all makes sense to me now and it will to you, too, when I tell you who he is."
Paz told him Beltran's true identity, who he really was. Monatero looked like a sleeper trying to awaken from a nightmare and failing. "No… it can't be! Him… Beltran?"
Paz nodded. "That's right."
The sheer, outrageous audacity of the revelation struck Monatero as funny. The funniest thing in the world. Too bad the joke was on him.
Or almost. It would be even funnier when Beltran found himself cheated of a million-dollar ransom and, with luck, face t
o face with Paz, thanks to what Monatero had told him.
Monatero laughed out loud. The effort was too much for him, snapping some vital thread inside him, the one that held him to life. He coughed, choking, blood coming out of his mouth.
He shuddered and died.
Paz went into the showroom, stuck his head in the door to the back of the building, and called for Fierro and Carrancha. He said, "All done?"
Fierro nodded. "All done. None left alive."
Paz said, "Here, too. Let's go."
The three of them piled out the front door. Vasco saw them coming and jumped behind the wheel of the SUV. The trio hurried toward it.
Gunfire blasted, hitting Carrancha in the back, ripping through him.
Paz and Fierro ducked, crouching, looking around in all directions for the shooter. More gunfire followed, coming from above, ripping up the pavement a few feet away from them.
Fierro spotted the shooter first. It was a rifleman on the roof, the one who hadn't fallen to the ground. Mortally wounded by the grenade, he still had enough left to try and take out the enemy before they made their getaway.
Fierro tagged him with a shotgun blast in the chest and head, knocking him backward out of sight.
Carrancha lay on the ground, bleeding from several bullet holes in the back, arms and legs thrashing, gasping for gurgling breath.
Fierro said, "Of all the filthy luck… "
Paz said, "We can't leave any wounded behind. He would do the same for me; I would expect no less."
Carrancha saw what was coming and raised a hand, pawing empty air, pleading, "No — no, don't!"
Paz shot him, putting a bullet in the back of his head.
Paz and Fierro hopped into the Explorer. Vasco drove off almost before they were entirely inside, putting distance between them and what was left of the Supremo Hat Company.
Paz reached inside his shirt, squeezing the talisman of Saint Barbara. Breathing a silent prayer of thanks to the dark spirit that was his guardian angel.
15. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 7 P.M. AND 8 P.M. CENTRAL DAYLIGHT TIME
24 Declassified: Storm Force 2d-7 Page 22
