The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series)

by Maxim, John R.

  Twenty yards.

  He'd get them too. But first Grassi and the chopper. Then make a fast pass. They'd still be running around. Chinese fire drill. Still afraid to shoot. He'd empty a clip into them.

  Shit.

  Weiss's gun was out. In both hands. The Jew girl too.

  Tucker crouched and fired.

  Janet stood, taking in the scene. She lowered the steel needle to her side.

  It was a large bathroom. In the center, a wooden platform housed a raised Jacuzzi. Toilet and bidet at one end, twin wash basins and a mirrored wall at the other. There was blood everywhere.

  The floor was awash. The water was pink, clotted here and there with a deeper red. Random sprays of blood dashed the walls and ceiling. Carla's face and arms were smeared. The blond Englishman seemed painted with it.

  He was on the floor, near the toilet, still alive. Naked. On his knees and elbows. Mewing softly. Trying to raise himself. He could not. The tile was too slick. And he would not part his thighs.

  Carla sat, equally nude, on the Formica counter between the basins. Her knees were drawn up, her arms folded across them, her chin resting on one arm, her switchblade rolling carelessly between her fingers. She was watching the Englishman, her expression oddly at peace.

  Janet slipped out of her shoes, leaving them on the bedroom rug where they would not be stained. She stepped closer to the Englishman, assessing the damage that had been done. He was in shock, bleeding to death, but slowly. Blood oozed between his thighs. It dripped from both hands, each deeply slashed, now useless to him. As were his legs. She saw deep cuts, low on each calf, just above the ankle. The calves were flaccid, their musculature gone. Carla had sliced through both Achilles tendons, taking care, it seemed to Janet, to avoid the arteries nearby. Janet chewed her lip. Carla had played with him, all right. She certainly had.

  The distribution of the blood told the story. Carla had followed him around the room. Taking her time. He had tried to fend her off with his hands. She'd ruined them. Then, when he could no longer use them, not even to stop the hemorrhaging between his thighs, and when he slipped and fell, she went to work on his legs.

  Janet Herzog turned away from him. She approached Carla who squirmed to one side, leaving room for her to sit.

  ”I was afraid he had you,” she said, hoisting herself, leaving her own legs dangling. She kept her eyes on the Englishman. He was retching now. A string of spittle hung from his lips.

  “He tried,” Carla said. She took Janet's hand and guided it to the skin of her chest and shoulders. “But feel.”

  Janet had already seen the slickness and the soreness. She looked as if she'd had a peel. Her skin was hot to the touch. It felt like an underdone fish. Try to grab her and she'd squirt away.

  “It's not so bad.” Carla wet a finger and wiped at a smear of blood on her arm. “Most of this is Martin's.” What was not still seeped from her pores.

  “It'll grow back,” Janet offered, “probably smoother than before.”

  “Remind me to thank him.”

  Janet moistened a hand towel. She dabbed with it, gently. “Let me do you before we leave,” she said. ”I have some Oil of Olay outside.”

  “You've also got my blouse,” Carla noticed.

  Janet made a face. “You wanted me to come in and ask first? It seemed a bad time.”

  Martin Selly collapsed onto one side. Fetal position. His thighs tightly clamped. Although in deepening shock, he could hear all this. It drove him nearer the edge of madness. His mind now worked to deny what had happened to him. It could not have been done. Not by this tiny woman. And that thing she had held up, dripping, instantly deflating, could not have been . . .

  No! he screamed in his mind. Would they be sitting there? So calmly? Talking of skin-care treatments? Borrowed clothing?

  The other woman. How could she be here? Where was Amal? Where was Erna? He screamed their names, this time aloud.

  Janet patted Carla's knee.

  “Let's finish up,” she said.

  Lesko heaved to his feet as Tucker fired his burst. He slammed one hip into the side of Urs Brugg's wheelchair, knocking him to the flagstone surface. Leo Belkin, breaking his fall, went with him. Ronny Grassi covered his head, uselessly, and tried to flatten against the table surface.

  Lesko's gun was in both hands, held high, not yet aimed. He jigged to his left and hooked a leg over the shoulder of the crouching Elena, sweeping her to the ground behind him. She gasped in pain. He blocked it out.

  As Tucker fired, Billy had thrown himself backward, spoiling his aim. Off balance, the younger man fell, Billy with him. They sat, legs splayed, joined as if tethered. Tucker—Lesko heard someone shout his name—made no attempt to stand. He wrapped one arm, thickly muscled, under Billy's chin. Billy bit it, tore at it with his teeth. Tucker chopped the side of his weapon against Billy's ear, stunning him, then jammed the barrel against his neck.

  To Lesko's left, behind a molded concrete planter, Kurt Weiss was down, writhing, hands covering one cheek. A woman, not hurt, dragged him from the line of fire. Other guns were drawn. No one could shoot. Lesko dropped his sights onto a point just left of Billy's ear, now smeared with blood. He could see half of Tucker's face, part of one shoulder. An impossible shot. No chance.

  “SHOOT HIM,” Billy rasped. He meant anyone. All of them. Tucker clubbed him again.

  No one fired.

  Bannerman. Coming up the path. Making no sound. Gun ready. Sweeping the courtyard with it, assessing what he saw.

  “LESKO!” Billy again. Their eyes had met. “SHOOT HIM.”

  Grassi panicked. He stood up. Tried to run, find cover. But he stepped into the armrest of Urs Brugg's collapsed wheelchair. It snagged his foot. He stood there, upright, trying to pull free. Tucker saw him, swung the machine pistol. Urs Brugg shouted. His strong arms reached up, seizing Grassi, trying to drag him down, lifting himself in the process. Leo Belkin, in turn, shouting, clawed at Urs Brugg. Tucker snapped a burst. The barrel kicked upward, stitching from the flagstone behind Grassi to a low palm above him. A sharp cry. He pitched forward. The machine pistol returned to Billy's neck. Lesko still had no shot.

  “LESKO? SHOOT THROUGH ME. NOW.”

  He held his aim. But he could not.

  Bannerman now. Creeping up. Fifteen feet. Come on, move, shouted Lesko in his mind. A few more steps. Slap that gun away and kill the fucker.

  Susan—

  On the path behind Bannerman. Coming up. No. Stay away.

  It's as if she hears. She's ducking a little, moving sideways toward the cover of a bush. Reaching for it. No, he wanted to shout. Don't touch it. Just get down.

  But she touched it. Bannerman hears. He's whirling, crouching, swinging his gun around—

  “NO!!” Lesko wheeled on Bannerman. He fired. Bannerman spins, staggers, crashes down on the flagstone. Susan screams his name.

  Tucker jumped at the sound. A shot and a scream. He hesitated between them. Then he fired toward the shot. Bits of tree leaf rained on Lesko. He waited, held his aim, then squeezed the trigger. Twice.

  Tucker's cheek exploded.

  And a part of Billy's neck.

  The woman, the one with Kurt Weiss, ran toward them. Not breaking stride, she kicked at Tucker's weapon, then wedged herself between the two. Two muffled shots. Tucker's leg bucked once, then it was still.

  Carla Benedict unfolded her legs and, carefully, eased herself to the floor. The Englishman squealed. He tried to back away. There was no place to go. He could only scurry, crablike, into the space between the toilet and bidet, eyes wide with terror as she approached, the knife still rolling between thumb and forefinger.

  She knelt close to him, elbows resting on the toilet seat. He had covered his face, more mewing sounds. She waited until one eye peeked between his fingers. She glanced over her shoulder, just once, in the direction of Janet Herzog. Then she leaned closer.

  For the record,” she told him quietly, “we're not dikes/’

>   “Oh, for Pete's sake.” Janet threw up her hands.

  “I'm just telling him.” She tossed her head self-consciously.

  “Carla.” An admonishing tone. “Who cares?”

  She didn't answer. But she cared. No one knows what's on the other side. Who knows who Martin might bump into after she sends him there.

  “Hey, Martin.” Janet waved a hand, craning her neck to see past Carla. “In case you're wondering, this is for Gary Russo.”

  Carla turned. An angry glance. “Do you mind?”

  “Do you? Can we get this show on the road, please?”

  Carla turned back to the Englishman. His hands had dropped a bit. His eyes, duller now, beginning to cloud, showed no recognition of the name. Good, she thought. No harm done.

  She reached one hand to his arm and eased it away from his face. Helpless, he did not resist. He stiffened only when he saw the knife. It appeared where his arm had been. It moved toward him, but slowly, not threateningly. The blade came to rest at a place beneath his jawline. She held it there.

  “Last January.” She reminded him. “The Elena Brugg hit. The one you screwed up.”

  He blinked, still confused. These two, he now realized, were professionals. Specialists. Amal and Erna, surely dead. And what this one had done to him. So calmly. He'd known it then. But he'd thought, to the extent that he could think, that they must have been hired by a parent—a lover—of some other woman he had taken and bathed. That much he might have understood. But by the Brugg woman's family? It was only a job. Not personal. She's even still alive. Professionals simply do not do this. Work both sides of the street. They do not—humiliate each other. He heard himself saying that. Bawling it. Screaming it.

  She cut him.

  Her hand had barely moved. It was clean and quick, nearly painless. The Englishman winced, nothing more.

  “Dr. Gary Russo.” She repeated the name. “He was in that car. He was my friend. You killed him.”

  “No—I would never—the two outside, they—”

  She touched a finger to his lips. He flinched, and he was silent.

  “My name is Carla Benedict. Have you heard of me?”

  His eyes showed recognition. But he shook his head, slowly, as if to deny her as he had denied what had been done to him.

  She raised the knife to his eye. “Say my name.” A mock pleading tone. “Say that you know me.”

  ”C—Carla Benedict,” he managed. “With—Mama's Boy.”

  A tiny smile. “That's good, Martin,” she told him. “It's good that you know who killed you.”

  She gestured with her chin toward the cut she'd made. He could feel it now. It was throbbing. Pumping. He turned his head, in anguish, fearing what he knew he would see. Fresh blood, in rhythmic spurts, arcing onto his hip. Blood that would never reach his brain. He clamped a hand against its source. He made cat noises again.

  “I'll go hang the towel,” Janet Herzog said.

  -30-

  The first Bell Jet Ranger rose from its pad. It hovered 100 feet above the beach. Urs Ðrugg, the pain in his side easing, one of the Israeli woman, named Tovah, feeling his pulse, looked down on the activity below him.

  He could see the whole of the courtyard. As he watched, one man hosed blood from the stone. Two others walked about, picking up spent cartridges. Tucker's body was gone. It had been wrapped in a plastic tarpaulin and carried to the trunk of Grassi's Rolls. It would be taken to his boat where it would be suitably weighted, then disposed of in international waters.

  At the front entrance, Grassi himself. Being helped into his car. He, too, had been shot. Twice. Low on the hips. The wounds, although painful, were not dangerous. At his side was the other Israeli woman, also, like Tovah, trained as a combat medic. It was that one who had finished the man called Tucker. Grassi's Israeli had fitted him with a sort of diaper made of material cut from a beach umbrella and packed with towels. Humiliating, perhaps. And well deserved. But no good leaving blood in the Rolls. The Israeli had agreed to stay with him until discreet medical attention could be arranged.

  Also at Grassi's side stood Kurt Weiss, his driver. His left cheek bandaged but the wound not serious. Caused not by a bullet but by chips from a concrete planter. Tucker had fired wildly and with one hand; Bannerman's man McHugh spoiled his aim. Had Tucker been more competent and had it not been for Lesko, more might have died. Himself among them.

  Many other cars leaving. Or preparing to leave. His own nephews were there, having solicited rides as far as Malaga, having been denied the second helicopter. There was a greater need for it.

  It was lifting off now. It rose, over a maelstrom of sand, and banked immediately to the northwest. Fuel permitting, thought Urs Brugg, it should reach Lisbon within ninety minutes.

  The departing cars again caught his attention. A few had turned east. But most were crossing the Cadiz road and climbing a hill that, as far as he could tell, led nowhere. Now he saw where they were going. Several had already stopped at a house halfway to the base of the mountain. He could see two men standing on the terrace, gesticulating to new arrivals. Their body language seemed to convey great enthusiasm. Urs Brugg could not think what the cause might be. The house was unremarkable. Except, perhaps, that its occupants used their terrace railing as a laundry line. Unusual for Marbella. Probably Italians.

  The pilot looked over his shoulder, questioningly, concern on his face. Urs Brugg managed a smile. He raised his thumb, then turned it, gesturing in the direction of Malaga where his Gulfstream jet was refueled and waiting. His wound could wait. The bullet, steel jacketed, meant for Grassi, had entered under his armpit and exited high on his chest. It passed through four inches of his flesh, no more, deflected by a rib. It would be treated in Zurich. Meanwhile, he had Tovah. Then, too, there was Lesko, seated behind him with Elena. There was every reason to get Lesko out of Spain quickly. The helicopter banked and climbed.

  From his place behind Urs Brugg, Lesko watched the scene below, without interest, his expression sad and distant.

  Elena sat with him. She tried to soothe him.

  “You did well, Lesko,” she told him. “Susan will understand.”

  Lesko did not answer. In his mind he heard his daughter's scream. And he saw the look in her eyes. Disbelief. Then fury. Perhaps even hatred. He could not blame her.

  “David?”

  Katz would know. He knew Susan. Practically her uncle. He almost wished that Katz could go with her. Talk to her. Maybe he had. There was no answer.

  The way they had looked at him, the rest of them, Bannerman's friends, he was lucky to be alive. Several of them, maybe six or eight, ran over to Tucker, ready to pump insurance shots into him. But his head was already all over the courtyard. Then they swung their guns on him. Elena yelled at them, stepped in front of him, or tried to. He held her aside, his own gun lowered.

  But they didn't shoot.

  He almost wished they had.

  In the second Bell Ranger, Billy McHugh's head snapped up.

  The hot sun strobing across his face, the whine of the rotors, had revived him. He glanced around him. The Mediterranean, he saw, was on his left. This helicopter was heading west.

  ”Wha—where we going?” he gasped, trying to rise.

  Leo Belkin reached to restrain him, ease him backward.

  “To Lisbon,” he told him. “To the Soviet Embassy. We have a surgeon there. A good one.”

  The KGB colonel reached to adjust the field dressing that packed Billy's neck and shoulder. Beneath it, the wound had been crudely stitched. The collarbone pressed into place. No anesthetic. But the Israeli had worked quickly. And this man had not complained.

  “Where's Paul?” Billy asked, pressing forward against Belkin's touch.

  “Behind you. Resting. You must both sit quietly.”

  “Paul?” Billy ignored him. He raised his good hand to the space between the headrests.

  “Right here, Billy.” Bannerman took the hand in his. His left. Bannerman's
right hand and arm were also useless.

  “How bad? You, I mean.”

  “Not bad at all,” he lied. “Just a crease. You relax. We'll be there before you know it.”

  “At the Russian Embassy? What for?”

  “No police, no questions, a good doctor. Besides, there's something Colonel Belkin wants to show me there.”

  Billy met the Russian's eyes. Trying, through his pain, to read them. He saw nothing that gave him alarm. Nor did the Russian look away. But he saw Billy's suspicion. He shook his head. “You are quite safe,” he said. “It is not at all what you must be thinking.” Belkin gestured toward the empty seat next to Billy. Billy's automatic was there. “You may keep it if you wish.”

  Billy wished. And he wondered. What could be better than delivering Mama's Boy and Billy McHugh, wounded, mostly helpless, inside the walls of a Russian Embassy compound? But Paul showed no concern. Billy's mind turned to the last thing he remembered. The shooting, the chaos, at the Puente Romano.