Bad Turn

by Zoe Sharp

  As I neared the spot where I’d made my makeshift hide, I slowed, bringing the butt of the F2 up into my shoulder but keeping the muzzle lowered and my finger alongside the guard. Out on the driveway, I could see the outline of the Land Rover, its front end ripped and distorted from the impact with the stonework. It was a wonder the full-size stone bear hadn’t toppled off the top of the gatepost and crashed down on top of them.

  The front glass of the vehicle was crazed but I couldn’t see inside. Nor could I see any sign of Schade and Kincaid behind it.

  I waited.

  Nothing.

  After maybe twenty seconds that felt no longer than an hour or two, there was no further gunfire. I keyed the mic on my comms unit and whispered into it.

  “Schade? You still there?”

  “More or less,” came the response through my earpiece. He still sounded casual, even now.

  “I need you to draw fire.”

  There was a pause. Then a sigh. “If you insist…”

  He didn’t hesitate beyond that brief silence, even though he must have realised that I knew he’d been the brains behind the attempt on me, not simply the brawn.

  A second later, his head popped up from behind the Land Rover’s bonnet. It should have been a rapid up-and-down-again, little more than a bounce, but he held it for a beat. Then two. And three.

  It was so blatant it was provocation, a case of whose nerve was going to break first.

  Ahead of me and off to the right, I saw movement in the leaf litter. A figure started to rise up onto one knee, head tilting towards the sight on the rifle he carried. He was lining up on Schade, who was still exposed.

  Good God, man. Are you trying to get yourself killed?

  Without time for hesitation or regret, I swung the barrel of the F2 up so my eye fell in behind the scope, slipping my right forefinger inside the trigger guard. The back of the man’s neck dropped dead centre into the graduated markings on my reticle. My target was less than a hundred metres away from me. I’d set up the sight for three hundred and had to assume it hadn’t been altered since. Calculating the offset was instant, a muscle memory.

  I squeezed the trigger.

  The rifle kicked hard into my shoulder, momentarily disrupting the sight-picture. When I reacquired the target, he had splayed forwards and now lay sprawled motionless amid the moss and the leaves.

  Nevertheless, I approached him with caution, working the bolt to chamber another round before I did so.

  I didn’t need to get too much closer in order to recognise that had been an unnecessary precaution. A relatively small entry wound was visible in the hairline at the back of the man’s skull. He was lying face down, for which I was grateful. I knew well enough what effect a high-velocity round would have as it exited. I didn’t need to see it again.

  I patted him down, found a wallet in his side pocket that contained a wad of euro currency but no ID. I left the money where I found it. It was no use to him now, but I wasn’t about to steal from the dead.

  I had intended to take his weapon with me—that didn’t feel like looting. It was simply good tactics not to leave something behind that another enemy fighter could easily pick up and use against us.

  But when he’d dropped, the man had fallen on top of the rifle he’d been using. I couldn’t bring myself to kick his corpse aside to get to it. If that made me a hypocrite, so be it.

  I keyed the mic on my comms unit. “The sniper is down. I’m coming out. And this time, Schade, try not to shoot at me.”

  63

  Lopez was dead. I didn’t need to check the pulse in his neck to know for sure. Not when he had at least two bullet holes in his skull and had redecorated the back of his seat with brain matter.

  Mo Heedles hung forward against her locked seatbelt, her body limp. Her face and upper body were bloodied. I checked her over quickly but found no obvious wounds.

  Schade appeared in the open driver’s doorway. He nodded to the state of Mo.

  “She hurt? Or is that mostly Lopez she’s wearing?”

  “Lopez,” I said. “I don’t like to move her without knowing if she’s damaged her neck or spine.”

  “We leave her here, she’s likely to end up dead anyhow.”

  “She comes with us,” Kincaid said, his tone allowing for no argument. “We carry her if we have to.”

  I could have pointed out that carrying her ran the risk of making whatever injuries Mrs Heedles had suffered far worse, but they knew that anyway. Instead, I said, “Call Williams, then, and get him back out here. She needs medevac. The Land Rover makes sense.”

  Schade spoke without pausing in his constant scan of the treeline. “If it turns into a casevac, we can’t afford to lose another vehicle.”

  I’d been out of the army for a good few years, but you never forget the difference between the straightforward evacuation of casualties, or medevac, and a casevac—casualty evacuation under fire.

  When Kincaid hesitated, I glanced at him. “You’d rather lose another employee?”

  He said to Schade, “Call him.”

  “I’ve tried, dude. He’s not answering.”

  Which opened up a whole new list of concerns.

  I took in a breath, gauging the distance to the chateau from here. Why the hell did aristocrats have to build their houses so damn far away from the front gate?

  Kincaid opened the rear door of the Land Rover and dragged a long wool overcoat out of his suitcase. I was suddenly reminded of the one Orosco had been wearing, back at the port.

  The coat came to mid-thigh on someone of Kincaid’s frame, but when we carefully lifted Mo Heedles out of the Land Rover and onto it, the material enveloped her, head to knee, like a blanket.

  She wasn’t a big woman. Either of the two men could have slung her over their shoulder and made it to the house without having a coronary on the way. It would not be comfortable, however—least of all for the casualty. Using the coat as a makeshift stretcher meant not making possible spinal injuries worse.

  Kincaid gathered the sleeves across her chest and knotted them.

  “If you two can carry her, I’ll stay out here,” I said, nodding towards the buckled gate, the front end of the Land Rover still embedded halfway into it. “We’ll need some kind of early warning system if Hamzeh turns up.”

  No, when Hamzeh turns up.

  I reached for the F2, which I’d stood on its butt by the Land Rover door while we manoeuvred Mrs Heedles out. Schade caught my sleeve.

  “I’ll stay.”

  I stilled, glanced down at the hand on my arm. Schade didn’t remove it. He continued to meet my gaze, his head slightly tilted and nothing in his face.

  “One or other of you stays—I don’t care which,” Kincaid said through his teeth. “Just make a fucking decision and make it fast.”

  Divining the reason for my reluctance, Schade stepped in closer. “Come on,” he murmured. “I’m not gonna risk taking a shot at you while you’re carrying Mo.”

  “You mean another shot.”

  He shrugged, part acknowledgement, part irritation. “You still think like a bodyguard, Fox. I don’t have that problem.”

  “OK.” I let my breath out in an annoyed huff and turned to Kincaid. “Schade stays.”

  Kincaid picked up Mrs Heedles’ upper body by the sleeves of the coat, leaving me with her legs. Another advantage of buying quality clothing, it seemed, was strong stitching. With her slung between us, we set off at a brisk walk, falling into step. As fast as a trot but less of a rough ride for the casualty.

  It was only when we were halfway along the drive that I realised something was different about the front façade of the castle.

  “They’ve pulled up the drawbridge,” I said. “I didn’t think that even still worked.”

  “Oh yeah. Gilbert has been known to use the traditional methods of deterring uninvited guests.”

  “Does that apply to us, or Hamzeh?”

  To that, Kincaid made no reply.


  As we rounded the northeast corner, I was acutely aware of the blank eyes of the arrow slits and barred windows, gazing down at us. The hollow of the moat, even devoid of water, made the walls appear taller and more forbidding.

  Williams had abandoned the Land Rover he’d used to bring Helena back to safety on the grassy terrace near the French windows. It was slewed at an angle, the ruts in the ground testament to how fast he’d driven and how late he’d left his braking. No bad thing.

  Mrs Heedles had not stirred or made a sound. I glanced down at her face as we hurried across the terrace. It gave me no sign—of reassurance or otherwise. The blood had dried dark against her pale skin. I remembered Ugoccione’s fear when Bernardo was injured, back on Isola Minore. It was Sod’s law the medic always went down first.

  The far left-hand French window opened as we approached. I felt a lift of relief at the prospect of help close at hand.

  The feeling did not last long.

  The figures who came out did not have the air of rescuers. They came out armed and ready, assault rifles pulled up into their shoulders. They split right and left, covering not just us but the area around and behind us, too.

  I recognised both the men instantly. One was Mr Clean-Shaven from the truck ambush. The other was Khalid Hamzeh.

  Eric Kincaid, ahead of me, came to an abrupt halt. I had no choice but to follow suit. And I realised that Schade’s position out on the driveway might not be to prevent our enemies from arriving, after all. Patently not—they were already here.

  But Schade might have chosen his position precisely to cover their escape.

  64

  “Mr Kincaid. Mrs Kincaid,” Hamzeh greeted us. He gave me a bow that was more than a little mocking. “Or should I say Ms Fox? It is so hard to keep track.”

  I made no reply to that. There were any number of ways he could have found out who I was. After the incident at the dockside with the truck, when Schade had commandeered me to drive him back north, Hamzeh had got hold of Orosco, clearly. And he’d talked.

  He probably didn’t have much of a choice.

  Just as the thought formed inside my head that I wondered what they had done with Orosco afterwards, the man himself appeared. He stepped out through the French windows. I guessed whose side he’d plumped for by the fact he was unmarked and did not appear to be supervised or restrained. Hamzeh and Clean-Shaven ignored his arrival. They were still scanning the area for other dangers.

  Under the guise of shifting my hold on Mrs Heedles’ legs, I shuffled half a step closer to Kincaid. Unarmed against at least two opponents who were armed—even discounting Orosco—there wasn’t much I could realistically do. But it was ingrained in me to try.

  “What in the hell do you think you’re playing at, Darius?” Kincaid asked, his voice more wearied than angry.

  “Could ask you the same goddamned question, Eric. We had a deal going, hey? You messed it up.”

  Kincaid shook his head. “In this case, there is no ‘we’. You made a deal you knew I would not approve.”

  Orosco stalked forwards, hands clenched and chin thrust out. “Who the fuck are you that I need approval for anything to do with my own fuckin’ company, hey?”

  Kincaid stood his ground without flinching, even when his father-in-law got right in his face. When he replied, his voice held a deadly calm.

  “I’m the man you signed over control to.” He paused. “Complete control.”

  “Yeah, when I thought I was—” Orosco broke off sharply.

  “When you thought you were dying,” Kincaid finished for him. “So, either I am competent to take the reins, or you didn’t give a damn what was gonna happen to your organisation after you were gone. Now that is not reassuring for the people you do business with, is it?”

  Orosco scowled and said nothing. Kincaid nodded as though he’d spoken and turned to Hamzeh.

  “We will, of course, return any payment made.”

  But the Syrian shook his head. “Things have gone too far for that. Blood has been spilled.”

  “On both sides,” Kincaid said pointedly. He shifted his hold on the overcoat to reveal Mrs Heedles’ face. She was still unconscious and looked terrible. “I trust you have no objection to us taking her inside and making her more comfortable?”

  Hamzeh stared down at her for a moment without expression, then stepped back, which we took as acquiescence. “And my own man?”

  Kincaid hesitated. “He did his job—and my people did theirs.”

  Hamzeh nodded. His eyes flicked to me. “Of course.”

  But as we moved to pass him, he muttered to Clean-Shaven, “Raqib almar’a.” I knew from time spent in the Middle East exactly what he’d said: “Watch the woman.”

  It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it.

  The younger man checked us over before we were allowed in. I’d left the sniper rifle with Schade and the SIG in the Land Rover, so I had no weapons for them to find. Despite Hamzeh’s order, his search of me was cursory. He paid more attention to Kincaid, who was obliged to give up a Beretta semiautomatic I didn’t know he had. From the look on Orosco’s face, he didn’t know about that one, either.

  Inside, the first thing I saw was the body of Chatty Williams, lying face down on the polished floor by the wall. A jacket had been draped over his head and shoulders. One sleeve was stained with blood.

  Another of Hamzeh’s men—one of the Moustache twins—was standing guard over Gilbert de Bourdillon and Helena Kincaid. They’d been made to sit on low sofas in the salon, but neither looked comfortable.

  Helena’s head snapped round as we entered, her mouth opening in shock at the sight of the burden we carried. I saw her eyes flick to the doorway, waiting for others who were not coming. I saw the moment the realisation of that fact hit, too. The way her shoulders drooped a fraction, then squared.

  We laid Mrs Heedles gently onto another sofa. The room was large enough for five such pieces of furniture to be dotted about the place, fussy Louis XIV style, some foxed and faded, others over-bright to the point of gaudiness. Not somewhere to relax, regardless of the circumstances.

  Kincaid would have gone to his wife, but Hamzeh stepped between them in warning, flicking his fingers towards an empty seat that was too far away for the couple to touch.

  I crouched alongside Mrs Heedles, pulling undone the knotted sleeves of the overcoat. I checked her pulse again. At least it seemed stronger than it had been.

  “I need to clean her up,” I said. “I can’t tell which blood is hers.”

  Helena gave a quiet gasp and I cursed myself for speaking without a filter.

  Gilbert de Bourdillon half-rose from his seat, tilted his head towards Hamzeh. “Do you have any objection to my assisting the lady?” he asked politely.

  Hamzeh’s face was expressionless as he considered for a moment, then gave a curt nod.

  The Frenchman returned the gesture, more elegantly, and rose. He came upright slowly, as though his joints ached, and shuffled across to an antique side table where a jug of water sat with glasses and a neat stack of linen napkins. His shoulders were slightly stooped, I noticed. Normally, de Bourdillon had a very upright posture and, despite his age, a sprightly manner. So, either they’d roughed him up a little on the way in—and there were no overt signs of that—or he was doing his best to appear no threat to the intruders. Was that down to self-preservation, or something more? The man had seemed no coward but I didn’t know him well enough to be sure.

  He brought the water and the linen across to me. As I reached for them he didn’t immediately let go. My eyes jumped to his. The way he was bending over us, only I could see his face. Either he winked or he had a slight twitch in his left eye, and I understood.

  “Thank you.” I dampened one of the napkins and began wiping Mo’s face.

  The water revealed a bruise spreading outward from a dark vertical mark across her forehead. It went diagonally from the corner of her eyebrow up into her hairline and around her temple.
r />   “How is she?” De Bourdillon sounded genuinely concerned for her.

  I touched her head with experimental fingertips, feeling for any give in the skull beneath the skin. There didn’t seem to be any. Still, I didn’t like the fact she had not yet come round.

  “Looks like she just hit the windscreen pillar in the crash,” I said. “She’s going to have a hell of a black eye when she wakes up.”

  When de Bourdillon looked relieved, I didn’t have the heart to add, “If she wakes up, and if she hasn’t broken her neck…” But I didn’t say the words out loud.

  Hamzeh, meanwhile, had been watching us in silence.

  “So, Mr Kincaid,” he said at last, “can I suggest that we complete our business without further…unpleasantness?”

  Kincaid was sitting back in the corner of his sofa, one arm stretched along the back, legs crossed. Only the movement of his foot gave lie to his apparent calm.

  “I’m afraid that will not be possible.”

  Hamzeh’s face twitched. “That is not an acceptable answer. I have paid for the merchandise. You will deliver it.”

  “You will be compensated for any…inconvenience caused.”

  “No!” Hamzeh said, the single word suddenly loud and stark. “No refunds. No compensatory amounts. We made an arrangement. It must stand.”

  Kincaid tilted his head slightly to one side, as if assessing. “Like I said, that will not be possible. We have rules, particularly when it comes to family. By coming after my family, you have broken those rules.”

  “We had an agreement. Until you decided—you decided—without consulting me, to revoke that agreement. It could be argued that, by doing so, you brought trouble upon yourself.”

  “And you, Mr Hamzeh, caused troubles of your own by ambushing my wife.”

  “I wished only to get a message to her. To ask her to put our cause to you. What happened was regrettable, but I am told your men…over-reacted.”