The phony policemen fired into the crowd of criminals but overwhelming return fire blew them away. Even if they were still alive as they fell to the ancient stones, the crowd trampled over them, feet stomping madly at the prostrate bodies to make death certain.
It made for a horrid sight and Sokolov knew he was treading on dangerous ground.
If Paulina was being held somewhere inside the museum, he had to rescue her from the Venezuelan captors but he could not allow these marauders to get their hands on her first. A tightrope act, for sure, but there was no other option as he couldn’t single-handedly storm the building.
The mob was pummeling at the monumental entrance door but it held as they tried to bust it open with brute force. The attackers found no way of breaking into the palace, the stocks of their AKs and baseball bats causing no damage.
Then someone launched a Molotov cocktail into the scaffolding and it ignited.
With thirty minutes remaining until they moved out to start the mission, General Villanueva was studying an abominable Picasso painting when he heard the commotion out in the street. Clouds of black smoke billowed to the first-floor window level. A harried lieutenant rushed into the room.
“What’s going on down below?” the general demanded.
“The protesters are here,” the lieutenant replied.
“Excellent,” Villanueva said. “Spares us the trouble of having to search for them and makes the job of killing them much easier.”
“No, General, you don’t understand. It’s one of the gangs. They’re violent and they’re storming the entrance. Our sentries are dead! The building’s on fire!”
“We’re under attack? Puta,” the general cursed.
Where the hell did they come from? What did they want? It was madness. The entire operation was under jeopardy. The location was compromised and some of his soldiers would die, he knew. He hadn’t planned for this contingency but they could still recover from it and accomplish their mission.
“Grab the weapons and get your men into position! Our defense mustn’t be breached, no matter what the cost. Kill everyone, don’t let them get through!”
Finally, they succeeded as a burst of 7.62mm rounds destroyed the electric lock, sending splinters flying from the wooden palatial gate. The onslaught of bodies pushed the door wide open on its hinges and the swarm of attackers charged inside.
Palau Aguilar, like the other palaces, was built around a central courtyard with a stairway leading to a pointed arch gallery above.
Sokolov observed from behind, having a clear view of the courtyard.
As they ran into it, the Gypsy gangsters were met by a fusillade of fire raining down on them from the left-hand side, unleashed by shooters on the upper floor. Bodies crashed down before they could reach the stairway, spilling blood. Screams echoed around the courtyard through the booming gunshots. The Moldovan mobsters fired back from their AKs but the defending Venezuelan terrorists were in an unassailable position from their vantage point. Tracers ricocheted off the stones, finding targets.
The advantage was short-lived.
Molotov bottles hurled upward through the arched columns smashed against the floor and set the upper level on fire.
With the rapidly spreading smoke and flames suppressing the Venezuelan resistance, Dragos’ men piled forward, charging up the stairs, taking the fight to the Venezuelans and pegging them back.
More screams reverberated around the medieval stone walls, followed by gunshots as the skirmish reached a frenzy.
A man in police uniform crashed from the upper gallery down on the patio head-first, neck crunching as he landed next to the dead and wounded bodies of the Romanian raiders.
Holding his gun, Sokolov waited for the fighting to die down but the blaze burning through the scaffolding and raging inside the palace meant that time was running out.
He couldn’t wait much longer, not least because he spotted dark silhouettes appearing at the other end of the street. A group of black-clad operators with submachine guns.
Whatever their intentions were, he decided not to hang around long enough to find himself on the receiving end.
Before they came within shooting distance, Sokolov rushed through the entrance of the Picasso Museum.
The GATO kill squad entered Carrer Montcada from the opposite side, coming off Carrer de la Princesa as they found their way around the maze-like grid of the Gothic Quarter.
Their primary objective was to seek and destroy the Venezuelan terrorist suspects taking cover in the Picasso Museum and posing as police officers.
The secondary objective was the elimination of a Russian rogue named Sokolov. Luckily, the task was made easier by the fact that the man in question was somewhere in the vicinity of the museum. His phone’s GPS coordinates were being tracked. The Black Cat leader checked his tactical smartwatch which showed the target’s position on a mini map and indicated the distance.
Approximately fifty meters away, inside the building.
There was another complication. A crazed mob had invaded the museum, setting fire to it as a battle broke out. Was Sokolov one of them?
It didn’t matter. The Black Cats were capable of dealing with them all.
Weapons raised to shoot down anyone in their path, the paramilitaries moved in a file toward the burning façade.
Sokolov stepped through the dense, acrid haze shrouding the courtyard. The distant sound of fighting was carried only from beyond the burning stairway on the left-hand side. He darted in the opposite direction, down the wide hallway which connected Aguilar to the adjoining part of the museum.
The air cleared as he entered the next building’s courtyard, almost a mirror image of the first.
The five interconnected palatial townhouses all had a similar design laid out over two stories. The ground-floor courtyards led to the museum’s main exposition above it. An information poster proclaimed that it normally took one to two hours to view the exhibition, which wasn’t all that much, but Sokolov had no interest in examining the art displays, not with what looked like a team of killers hot on his heels. He had to probe the area in a matter of minutes.
If he had any time whatsoever at his disposal.
He heard gunshots cracking behind him, back in the first courtyard. The death squad was finishing off the survivors among the wounded looters.
And they were coming after him.
His mind raced. Who were they and how did they know about the Picasso Museum? The CNI must have hacked his phone and dispatched a black ops team. Sokolov could find no other logical explanation. Non-state actors wouldn’t have the technical capability to bypass his phone’s GPS spoofing and locate him. The paramilitaries had been sent to neutralize the Venezuelan plot but they’d kill him, too. It turned everything on its head, his plan falling apart.
Staying alive as he provoked the infighting was one thing. Being hunted by killers amid all the carnage made for an entirely different proposition that slashed his chances of survival. But he had to deal with it now.
The patio’s layout gave him a choice.
He could either escape through another massive door offering an exit back to the street—or follow another stairway into the depths of the museum.
Paulina. Find her. Was she there? Was Shaloy? The only certain presence was that of the Venezuelans, as evidenced by the ambush. The key was to find General Villanueva.
Retreat was not an option.
He charged up the stone steps, keeping his finger on the trigger, expecting to encounter a trap.
Instead, he found the upper floor to be empty and silent. Only now had he realized how enormous was the space of the museum area. The collection was spread across a maze of twenty rooms, arranged chronologically, progressing from Picasso’s early years of realism to the avant-garde and cubism.
Sokolov scanned the spaces of each room as he sprinted from one gallery to another, turning left, then right, again left.
He cleared seven cavernous white-walled, ma
rble-floored, spotlit rooms lined with paintings. Paulina was nowhere to be seen. Reaching Room Eight, dedicated to the Blue Period, he heard footsteps straight ahead.
The sound of heavy boots thudded down the hallways, past the exhibition rooms.
Gripping the gun, Sokolov pressed his body into an alcove next to a framed mess of blue blocks on canvas. The Roofs of Barcelona, according to the plaque.
He heard a heated exchange in Spanish.
Sokolov managed to make out only a couple of words.
Shaloy and Catalina.
Then he glimpsed the backs of blue police uniforms marching past the Blue Period room and disappearing.
The Venezuelans were headed toward the staircase at the other side of the building.
They were fleeing.
“Did you establish contact with the Catalina? Shaloy is supposed to be controlling these gangs! What the hell is happening?” Villanueva said angrily.
“General, we must evacuate the building first. We’ve lost half of our men,” the lieutenant replied. “The police will be here soon! Real police. You can deal with Shaloy aboard the Catalina personally, after we get you to safety.”
The lieutenant was right. Only he and four other officers remained, two of them bodyguards from Villanueva’s personal security detail. The rest had been killed or wounded during the surprise attack of those bandits. No matter how incompetent, the police and firefighters would have to respond to the reported incident and arrive at the Picasso Museum.
Villanueva hated to admit that their mission was aborted. The gang attack had compromised their plan, forcing them to leave the supplies and their fallen comrades behind. At least the police uniforms would aid their escape.
Accompanied by the five other Cartel of the Suns members guarding him, Villanueva hurried to the exit.
They only made it as far as the stairway.
Before they could reach the ground floor, intense gunfire sprayed them.
Slugs peppered the two officers in front of Villanueva, and crashing down, they rolled off the stone steps.
The general dropped down, making himself harder to hit. Sparks flew off the wrought-iron railing as bullets zinged, scarring the medieval stones all around him, shredding the leaves of a potted palm tree.
The shooting came from a group of men in black uniforms without insignia. They weren’t just some street hoodlums, they were pros. There must’ve been at least ten of them. Paramilitaries.
The bullet storm kept coming from their submachine guns. The general’s bodyguards fired back, H&Ks chattering, hitting a black-clad paramilitary unit before their bodies were riddled full of holes.
The Venezuelan lieutenant tossed a grenade. It bounced off the stone floor before going off in the midst of the attackers, the flying fragments tearing the flesh of at least two men, others scrambling away.
As the lieutenant popped off a few rounds from a bullpup FN P90, covering him, the general broke into a desperate run for the exit.
A sizzler pierced his flesh, ripping into his hip and Villanueva went down screaming, only meters away from salvation.
The paramilitaries regrouped and hit back to finish off the Chavistas, blasting at the lieutenant until his dead body tumbled down.
Crawling on the floor in agony, his SIG P226 trembling in his hand, Villanueva fired at the Little Black Men but missed. Gritting his teeth, he tried dragging himself across the patio to the exit door. Not that he had any chance of reaching it. His futile attempts ended as a slug cracked his skull open.
The Black Cats took stock of their casualties at the end of the battle.
Two dead from the frag grenade blast. Two killed in the shootout. One wounded, shoulder grazed by enemy fire.
The terrorist tally amounted to six corpses, including that of a senior officer. Remaining number unknown.
The death squad was down to five but they had unfinished business to attend to.
The Black Cat leader checked the display of his watch.
The secondary target was still there, upstairs.
The paramilitaries inserted fresh mags and ascended to the museum’s exhibition floor. They proceeded cautiously, on the lookout for more terrorists or rioters popping up along the way.
He kept an eye on the smartwatch display. The arrow pointed to the room at the far end of the hallway.
The digits ticked down the distance to the prey.
Thirty meters.
Twenty-five meters. Twenty.
They zeroed in on the last room.
It was a cul-de-sac. The Russian was trapped.
The Black Cat leader motioned for the death squad to storm in.
They rushed inside, sweeping the gallery.
The walls featured hellish, disfigured renditions of Velázquez.
Wooden crates were stacked on the floor in the center of the room.
The Black Cats crept forward, ready to fire.
Three meters. Two. One.
Jumping behind the crates, swinging the barrel of the submachine gun, the GATO commander found only thin air.
There was nobody there.
Yet the smartwatch indicated zero meters to target.
The death squad leader squatted, picking up an object off the floor.
The phone that was being tracked by the CNI.
That bastard Sokolov had tricked them.
39
Sokolov had made his getaway as the gunfight was raging below between the Venezuelans and the paramilitaries.
He hadn’t found Paulina but he’d discovered a weapons cache. The Venezuelans had been transferring their deadly load from wooden crates into duffel bags. Sokolov carried one slung over his left shoulder, a SIG Commando in his right hand, as he exited into the street from Palau Meca, the third museum building accessing the Montcada.
The blaze was consuming the scaffolding, the smoke and heat building up in the narrow street as if coming from a furnace, and he hastened to the Basilica.
His gut feeling told him that Paulina had never been held at the museum but where was she?
She had to be close. And so was Shaloy.
He spied the velvet purple R8 Spyder parked in the square, the rays of sunset rendering a shimmering pearl effect to its body. Roof lowered, engine idling, LED headlights glowing and hip-hop music blaring through the speakers.
Dragos was used to having his hoodlums do the dirty work while he waited in the sidelines.
Approaching from the cabrio’s rear, Sokolov stuck the muzzle of the SIG against the back of the Dsquared hat.
“Out.”
Knowing that he’d been conned, his brains a finger twitch away from splattering, Dragos did what he was told. He pushed the convertible’s door open and slid out.
“I’ll kill you,” he snarled.
Sokolov struck the butt of the rifle across the pockmarked mug, smashing teeth, Dragos’ bloodied mouth kissing the ground.
Sokolov jumped behind the wheel, dropping the duffel bag in the passenger’s seat, and threw the gear into D. The Audi responded as his foot depressed the accelerator, the V10 emitting a guttural growl.
He’d robbed the robber and sped away from the macabre museum. Sirens wailed in the distance. The fire brigade would probably be unable to save the museum buildings from significant damage but the police would recover dozens of bodies.
The sooner he got away from the scene, the better.
He zigzagged his way out of the alleys of the Gothic Quarter, turning off two hundred meters later and stopping the Audi opposite a glorious marble monument fountain.
He had no clue where to go next.
He scrolled through the car’s infotainment menu, looking for maps and navigation.
The damned music was still drumming away.
Suddenly he realized that Dragos’ mobile was charging off a USB port inside the car’s glove box and it was connected to the Audi’s multimedia interface.
It didn’t require unlocking.
He killed off the trashy beats an
d hit the Phone item on the infotainment screen.
A dial pad appeared and he punched in Constantine’s U.S. number.
The CNI would intercept the call if they were monitoring all communications in the area but it was a calculated risk. The phone had probably been stolen like the sports car. By the time the Spanish intelligence managed to react, Sokolov would get rid of it. Or so he hoped. The last thing he wanted was a team of killers chasing after him again.
“It’s me,” he told his brother. “Can you search the files for a woman named Catalina?”
“I’ve come across that name before. It doesn’t belong to a woman. She’s Shaloy’s yacht.”
“Is it possible to track her using marine traffic software?”
“I tried. She’s invisible. I don’t think she’s equipped with an AIS transponder to report her position.”
Sokolov cursed.
“We must find her. She should be somewhere near.”
“Hang on,” Constantine said.
Then Sokolov heard a faint clacking of keyboard keys.
“The Catalina is registered to a shell company. I’ve just checked and the same company owns a berth in a Barcelona marina. Does that help you any?”
“Sure as hell does. Which one? There are several.”
“Port Vell. Moll dels Pescadors Quay,” Constantine told him.
“Thanks.”
Sokolov mapped the route from his location at Font del Geni Català, as the fountain was called.
The marina was just one kilometer away.
He raced down Passeig d’Isabel II, rounding Plaça de Pau Vila when he saw the boats bobbing in the water.
Seconds later, he reached it.
Port Vell was a popular superyacht destination for the mega-rich, boasting luxury facilities, including fine gastronomic establishments. He pulled the sports car into the busy parking lot of a seafood restaurant and shut down the 560-horsepower engine.
He concealed the SIG Commando in the duffel bag where he kept a few spare mags and zipped it up. He didn’t want to be caught by the numerous security cameras openly carrying an automatic rifle. Grabbing the bag, he jumped out of the R8, and continued on foot.
Moscow Gold (SOKOLOV Book 5) Page 15