Chapter 16
CHAPTER 16
INSIDE, THE HOUSE seemed bigger than it did from the outside. I barely took in the decor as we swept through each room, but it was obvious even from a glance where the Ramos family spent a good chunk of their income. The place made Eduardo’s villa look tasteful.
We met little resistance as we prowled through the bottom floor. All the fun was going on outside, where the high-velocity rounds from Carmen’s rifle broke through the crackle of small arms fire.
A muttered expletive came over the radio.
“What’s up?” I asked Nate. His team had cleared the gatehouse and come in through the other end of the villa.
“That old woman we saw threw a rolling pin at me.”
I stifled a laugh and ducked into a doorway as a dude in pyjamas ran past, carrying an AK-47. He pitched forward as I put a bullet through the back of his head, coming to rest spread-eagled across a Queen Anne-style armchair upholstered in blue leather. I got more relaxed about my “don’t shoot anyone from behind” rule when I was on holiday.
Nick paused next to me and jerked his head towards the stairs. I nodded my agreement. As we got halfway to them, a muffled boom shook the house, originating from the opposite end. Nick glanced at me, and Nate quickly came on the radio to confirm his team was okay. I shrugged and carried on walking.
“Keep going. We haven’t come this far to give up now.”
It was the right decision.
We found Hector Ramos in his bedroom, crouched in front of a safe, stuffing paperwork into a duffle bag.
His eyes widened as he saw us, and he reached for the gun on the floor next to him. Nice try, estúpido . I shot it out of his hand before he got it halfway up. A couple of fingers went with it. The bullet kept going through his balcony window, and the acrid smell of smoke drifted in through the hole the shattered glass left behind.
Under normal circumstances, I’d have been professional and just killed the man, but this was too personal. I stalked over to him, leaving Nick to watch the door. Hector collapsed back on the bed, clutching his hand and muttering curses. What a drama queen.
I stopped out of arm’s reach and looked down at him. “Why?”
A fleeting flash of recognition lit his eyes, but after calling me a mujer loca , which I took as a compliment, he fell silent. So I shot him in the foot.
“I said, why? Why did you kill Charles Black?”
He let out a howl of agony before fixing his gaze on me. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Did he think I was stupid? His knee went next.
“All that time you thought I wouldn’t bite back? Well, I was just sharpening my teeth.”
He simply glared.
“And then you tried to kill me. Do you have a death wish?”
Oh, if looks could kill… But they couldn’t, and he clenched his jaw in an attempt to control the pain.
“Why didn’t you stay out of our business?” he asked. “I warned you enough times. You left us no choice.”
“I didn’t even know I was in your business, you idiot. Your threats were so vague, I had no idea what I could and couldn’t do. Then you were dumb enough to send fourteen men to my home. Fourteen! You might as well have shot them yourself and saved the airfares. Put that together with killing my husband in front of me, and you know as well as I do I couldn’t let that go. And my question is why?”
His face hardened, and I was about to shoot him in the other knee when he started laughing. “You’ll never know.” He laughed harder, as if it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. “You’ll. Never. Know.”
Forget the knee. I shot him between the eyes, the brain spatter vastly improving the appearance of his ugly bedspread. Parrots were so last year.
Nick stared at me as I gathered up the papers that were so important to Ramos and stuffed them into my rucksack.
“Don’t look at me like that. He deserved it.” I had a quick poke around in the open safe. The rest was all cash and drugs, and I didn’t care about either.
“Poor guy didn’t know what he was up against.”
“I’m the black freaking widow, Nicky.” I finished rummaging and straightened up. “Chop chop, no time to waste. We still have two Ramos brothers to find.”
He shook his head and followed me out, informing the rest of the team over the radio of Hector’s not-so-sad demise.
We didn’t see another soul in the house, at least until we reached the lounge. There, we found Dan slumped in an armchair with a pistol in her hand as Jed bandaged up her leg. Blood oozed through the dressing as he twisted the tourniquet tighter.
“What happened?”
He pointed at a dead guy sprawled across the floor, an assault rifle lying out of reach beyond him.
“That guy came out of nowhere and hit Dan before we could get him.”
“How bad is it?”
“The bullet missed the bone and artery, but there’s still a lot of blood.”
“Okay, look after her. We won’t be too much longer.”
Nick and I made a last check around the north end of the building. The south wing was nicely ablaze, and smoke rolled into the air, darkening the rising sun. Where were the two Ramos brothers? An eerie quiet had descended over the compound, the loudest sound the crackle of the building flames.
My radio burst into life and Alex’s voice came into my ear, as steady as if he was out for an afternoon stroll.
“I asked one of these gentlemen where our remaining two targets were.”
This was Alex. For “asked,” read “tortured until he told me.”
“And?”
“Diego flew off in his helicopter yesterday evening, destination unknown.”
“There was no helicopter in the hanger,” Jack put in.
Marvellous. “And Carlos?”
“The man claimed he hadn’t seen Carlos for months.”
What? Diego said Carlos was home just a few days ago. “That can’t be right.”
“I tried a second one. He bled out quicker, but the result was the same. Diego told him Carlos moved out.”
What the fudge was going on? I wanted to kick something. With steel toecaps. All this time and effort, and we were missing two of the main men.
As the team exited, one at a time, staying low, I glanced at the far end of the building and saw the flames spreading, window by window. There was poetic justice in that, with Hector about to be cremated as Black had been.
I cursed politely as I took in the wreckage of the compound. There wasn’t any more we could do there, and with the state of Dan’s leg, I didn’t want to hang around. Felipe, who seemed to be having most of the bad luck, had also been shot in the shoulder.
“I’m calling the choppers in,” I told everyone. “We leave as soon as they arrive.”
Team Blackwood had survived mostly intact. One Ramos was down, and we could regroup and come back at the remaining two. The trip hadn’t been an entire disaster, but that still didn’t stop me from feeling utterly demoralised.
While we waited, the uninjured swept through the buildings one last time, apart from the burning ones, obviously. We found nothing. If men had gone to ground, we’d never find them now. Our plan had called for the element of surprise, for us to hit them before they had time to think about hiding. Six steps into the jungle and they’d be invisible.
The thwap-thwap-thwap of approaching rotor blades sounded over the tree line, and I looked up to confirm it was our two Hueys approaching. Yep, right on time.
Nick and Jed picked up Dan and carried her to the nearest helicopter. She’d barely murmured, but her face contorted in pain. I took one final, lingering look around before I followed them, my eyes pausing on the doorway of the house. Hector’s funeral pyre. His mausoleum. A monument to the dead.
Or was it? A shadow darted across in the haze.
Were my eyes playing tricks?
I kept watching, and nothing moved but the smoke, but my inner nemesis wouldn’t let me take any chances. If there was someone left alive, I wanted to know who.
“I’m going back in.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Nate told me, and of course I ignored him.
Radio chatter came across the airwaves as the first Huey closed its doors and took off with both of the injured on board, then Mack’s voice sounded, loud and clear.
“Eduardo’s got a doctor waiting for Dan and Felipe.”
At least that was one problem solved. I preferred to avoid visiting the local hospital if it could be helped. The bribery system was more complicated over here, and I wasn’t sure I’d find anyone as tame as Dr. Beech.
Now, about that shadow…
I’d got as far as the lounge when I sensed movement behind me and whirled around, gun up. I’d been right; I wasn’t alone.
The Asian woman Nate and I had seen on our first trip to the compound stood by a hideous painting of a donkey. When she saw the gun, she threw her hands up and sank to the floor, pleading with me in high-pitched Spanish not to shoot.
The sound of gunfire outside interrupted her, closely followed by Nick shouting in my ear to hurry up.
What was I supposed to do? Leave her there? She didn’t seem to be a threat, and she was pregnant. I took hold of her arm and started pulling her towards the door. In turn, she grabbed my wrist, dug her heels in, and tried to tug me back in the opposite direction, deeper into the house.
For goodness’ sake.
The sound of shooting outside intensified, as did Nick’s yelling, and I was tempted to let her burn.
“Look, lady, if you want to get out of this hole, we’re leaving now or our ride goes without us,” I snapped at her in Spanish.
“Please,” she begged. “You have to come with me.”
“I don’t think you understand. If we don’t leave now, we’re stuck here. And in case you haven’t noticed, the building’s on fire and there are men out there who want to kill us.”
She burst into tears and jabbered in Spanish. I was considering whether to abandon her or knock her out and drag her along when my ears pricked up at the word, “Carlos.”
“Carlos? Did you say Carlos?” Was she about to make me a happy woman?
Her head bobbed up and down. “Yes, Carlos. You come.”
“Carlos is here?”
She nodded again.
I had a decision to make, and two seconds to make it in. The fact I was completely, undeniably, freaking nuts probably made that decision easier.
When she tugged again, I let her pull me along behind her. The radio crackled, and I spoke into the mike.
“Nick, get out of here.”
“What?”
“I’m staying. Get out of here.”
“Don’t be stupid. Foot soldiers are shooting at us and we have to go. Get in your seat!”
“I can’t. You still have to pick up Pink, and if you don’t do that now, I’ll shoot you myself. Drop everyone off then come back for me. I’ll meet you at last week’s rendezvous point.”
“You’ve lost your mind!”
“What’s new?” I yelled back.
The rotor blades whined as the Huey took off, then the gunfire started up again. I needed to deal with that first.
“Hold on—I have to take care of a little problem outside,” I told the woman. “Just stay here, okay?”
Without waiting for an answer, I ran to the door. A man crouched behind a wall, shooting at the helicopter with an AR-15. He clearly had no idea I was there because he’d left his back wide open. Two quick shots to the head took care of that issue.
Another started shooting, and I fired a quick burst back but missed as he ducked behind a vehicle. Over by the hillside, the helicopter descended for Carmen, and I needed to hold him off long enough for her to climb on board. I was almost grateful when he popped his head up and aimed at me instead. Someone threw a ladder out, and Carmen scrambled up it. Seconds later, the Huey sped away.
Good. Now I could concentrate all my efforts on getting rid of the trigger-happy thug. Actually, make that thugs. A second gorilla popped out of a building across from the house, and I dived sideways. My radio went crunch. Oh, shiitake mushrooms. Was I ever going to be able to go on a mission without destroying every means I had of communicating with the outside world? It appeared not, on current form.
It took me ten minutes and two magazines to eliminate the pair, by which point the helicopter was long gone. Even if I had been able to call it back, it wouldn’t have had enough fuel anyway.
Well, happy days. I might as well have another look for Carlos—I had time to kill, after all. I ran back to the villa. The woman hovered in the doorway, unsure what to do with herself as smoke billowed out around her. A splintering crash from inside made me hesitate—nothing about this was a good idea. Then I thought of Black, and I thought of Carlos, and I stepped into the gloom.
The woman took point and I followed her through the house, both of us doubled over in a crouch as the smoke drifted above us. I almost bumped into her as she stopped in an alcove. Her fingers trembled as she felt along a wooden panel, but she must have found a hidden latch because the wall swung open to reveal a set of concrete steps going downwards. A cellar. I guess I wasn’t the only one to have secrets in my house.
I hesitated at the top of the stairs, not knowing what to expect, but she urged me on.
“It’s all right. It is only him down here.”
Acrid smoke was swirling in the cellar already. There must have been another entrance from the south wing where the fire was worse. We didn’t have much time. The woman led me along a narrow passage, dark and dank-smelling, slippery underfoot. Our steps echoed on the stone floor until we got to a dead end. A single metal door blocked the way, solid except for a panel of bars at the top and a narrow hatch in the middle, big enough to slide a tray through.
A prison cell.
She pointed at it. “Carlos.”
Carlos was in there? What the…?
It was black inside. I peered through the bars and smoke, and as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I saw a man crouched at the back, holding a cloth over his face. When he felt my gaze, he straightened slightly and turned his head.
If I’d been surprised earlier, it was nothing compared to what I felt now as dark eyes stared at me from under a floppy fringe.
The woman had been telling the truth. It darn well was Carlos.
Wasn’t it?