The waitress returned with Ricardo’s coffee. He added four sugars and stirred it. ‘The men outside, they are tough hombres, Lex,’ he said.
‘I’m no softy myself, and your sister has brought us firepower,’ he said. ‘Have you ever been in a gunfight? Ever shot anyone?’
Ricardo smirked. ‘Probably more than you.’
Harper laughed. ‘Now that I don’t believe.’
‘You can count on him, Lex,’ Lupa said. ‘You don’t work for a cartel without knowing how to shoot.’
Harper finished his coffee. Lupa and Ricardo sipped theirs. ‘Right, let’s get this done,’ said Harper. ‘Lupa, you go out the back way, take care of any guys there and then work your way round to the front. Ricardo and I will take care of business there. But remember, we’re in a city street, not the desert, so it’s got to be aimed shots, not close your eyes, pull the trigger and hope. I don’t want half a dozen passers-by wiped out as well.’
He took out one of the guns and kept it below the table. He slipped a spare magazine into his pocket.
Ricardo took the second gun and slipped it inside his jacket.
‘Do you think they’ll start shooting, or do they have something else planned?’ asked Harper.
‘It’s a hit team,’ said Ricardo. ‘They’re assassins.’
‘Terrific,’ said Harper. ‘Okay, Lupa, head out back. When you hear shots, you move out. The two men there will probably move too so with any luck they’ll have their backs to you.’ He forced a smile. ‘Not that we’re going to be relying on luck. Be careful.’
He stood up and shouldered his backpack. As Lupa moved towards the rear of the coffee shop, Harper nodded at Ricardo. ‘Translate for me, okay?’ He whistled and as the waitress and the other coffee shop customers turned to look at him, he held up the Colt and then said ‘There is going to be some shooting, ladies and gentlemen. Please get on the floor under the tables and stay there.’
He waited until Ricardo had translated and then, as the customers dived for cover, he and Ricardo walked towards the front of the coffee shop, and paused there just inside the door, scanning the street and noting the position of the car with four gunmen inside and the two others lurking in doorways.
They waited until the pavement in both directions was empty of pedestrians. Harper didn’t at all mind killing cartel members but he didn’t want innocent people who just happened to have been in the wrong place on the wrong day on his conscience as well.
He nodded at Ricardo and mouthed ‘Go’ and burst through the door, diving, rolling and already firing as he bounced back to his feet. Ricardo followed him.
In any gunfight, the most dangerous targets were always the first to be eliminated and, reasoning that the men in the car would be slower to draw their weapons than the two standing in the shop doorways, Harper targeted them first, aiming for the sternum at the centre of the body mass. He took out the one closest to him first, firing a double tap that punched holes through the man’s chest and blew him back through the shop door in a shower of flying glass. Harper was already dropping and rolling a few feet, targeting the other gunman as he struggled to bring his weapon to bear. Harper wasn’t even aware of thinking about whether to fire single shots or double-taps. Instead he drew largely on his instincts to decide whether one shot was enough or a double-tap was needed. The Colt barked again and the second man slumped against the stone doorframe, sliding slowly downwards as arterial blood pulsed from the wound the Colt had opened in his chest, blowing away his sternum and rupturing everything around it. His death spasm triggered a shot from his weapon but it ricocheted off the pavement and flew well over Harper’s head with a shrill whine.
Ricardo fired his gun and put a shot through the car windscreen, killing the front-seat passenger. The driver was already scrambling out of the car, but Harper’s first shot hit him in the shoulder and, though the second one flashed past the driver’s ear, he slumped to the ground alongside the car. As the men in the back-seat jumped out, firing wild bursts from their semi-automatics at him, Harper dived and rolled towards a parked car that would serve as cover, changing the Colt’s magazine even as he was still rolling across the pavement.
As he rolled behind the parked car, he heard shots from the rear of the hotel, the higher pitched crack of the Makarov, counter-pointed by a burst from a semi-automatic, and then two more shots from the pistols. Keeping a wary eye on the entrance to the side-street from which the survivors of that skirmish would soon emerge, he flattened himself in the dirt and peered along the road underneath the parked car. He had a clear view of the slumped body of the driver he had shot, but from this angle, it was impossible to tell if he was dead, mortally wounded or still capable of holding a weapon.
He could also see the feet of the other two gunmen, who were holding their fire until they saw their target. Both were crouching behind their car, one behind the front wing, with just the toe of his boot poking out from behind the tyre, and the other using an open car-door as cover. ‘Big mistake,’ Harper thought to himself. ‘If he knew what a Colt could do, he wouldn’t be hiding there.’ He aimed for the exact centre of the door panel and squeezed the trigger. The round drilled a neat circular hole through the front panel and then exploded out through the back one, smashing a jagged hole through the man’s solar plexus but still having enough residual velocity to sever his spine and burst out through his back, while shreds of metal from the car door tore the rest of his guts to shreds. There was no need for a second shot because no man could survive such an impact but, operating on autopilot, following the drills that would ensure a kill and guarantee his own survival, Harper had already swung the barrel and put the second half of the double-tap into the man’s head as he lay on the tarmac.
That left two targets: the man still crouching at the rear of the car and the driver who might or might not still be alive. Once more taking the most dangerous target first, Harper focussed on the man crouching behind the rear wing on the far side of the car. There was no point in trying to shoot him through the car. Although a .45 round from a Colt could punch through the sheet metal of doors and side panels, the engine block was an entirely different matter. The steel sidewalls of the tyres were also difficult obstacles that might block or at least divert a round away from its target.
Harper squeezed off another shot from the Colt at the only part of the man’s body that was not hidden by the car and the tyre. He saw the man’s exposed toecap explode into a mist of blood, bone and leather fragments. There was an unearthly scream as the man toppled over, howling in agony. He had fallen backwards, still behind the car, but Ricardo could get a clear shot and he pumped two rounds into the man’s chest.
Harper jumped to his feet sprinted across the street, keeping the Colt pointed at the prone body of the driver, the only one of the six who might still be alive. He dived for the far side of the gunmen’s car and then ran round the back, stepping over his victims’ bodies while the blood pooling around one of them, splashed from Harper’s boots as he ran. He paused a split second, then sprang out of cover. The driver’s eyes were open and though his shoulder was shattered, with a spreading blood stain covering his shirt, he still had a weapon in his other hand. His lips curled into a snarl as he saw Harper and his finger began to tighten on the trigger, but Harper was on him in one stride, kicking the weapon aside and drilling a round into the man’s head at a range of a foot, close enough for a spray of blood and brains to speckle his gun hand.
He caught a movement from the shadows in the side-street and swung round, bringing his weapon to bear, but he relaxed when he saw it was Lupa.
Harper grinned. ‘All good round the back?’
Lupa nodded. ‘One of them was on his phone, so he never got off a shot. The other fired a burst, but missed me and I hit him before he could fire again.’
‘Good work,’ Harper said. He glanced along the street. Emboldened by the silence after the last burst of gunfire, a few people were now emerging from cover and people in the uppe
r floors of the buildings were leaning out of the windows, staring at them.
‘Just walk, don’t run,’ said Harper, slipping the gun into his jacket. ‘Nobody will do anything, they’re in shock.’
He walked briskly towards Ricardo’s car and Ricardo and Lupa fell into step either side of him.
Ricardo opened the driver side door and got in. Lupa got into the front passenger seat and Harper climbed in the back. He put his backpack on the seat and unzipped it so that he could store his Colt. ‘Drive slowly, Ricardo,’ said Harper.
Ricardo did as he was told.
‘Lupa, what’s the plan to get back to La Paz?’
She twisted around in her seat. ‘There are several companies that fly from around here to unofficial air strips near La Paz. Most of them use C-47 aircraft left over from World War II and don’t fly to any fixed schedule, but if you pay them enough, they’ll fly you like a taxi.’ Ricardo groaned. ‘Take no notice of him,’ said Lupa. ‘He hates flying.’
‘Flying I don’t mind,’ Ricardo said, ‘it’s crashing that bothers me.’
‘Well, if it helps, you’re probably safer in a C-47 than a modern jet.’ Harper said. ‘The reason there are still so many around the world is because they’re such a strong and reliable aircraft - easy to fly and easy to maintain. I’ve flown in them quite a few times in Africa and Asia, and I’m still here. Okay Lupa, let’s give it a go.’
They kept to the back roads out of the city and then headed into the countryside, passing fields full of fruit, rice, corn crops and a plant Harper didn’t recognise. ‘What are those?’ he said, gesturing out of the open window.
‘Quinoa,’ Lupa said. ‘It’s been a subsistence food here for hundreds of years, but since it become fashionable in the West, the entire crop is exported because hardly anyone here can afford it anymore.’
They drove on through the agricultural land and climbed the lower slopes of the mountains, cloaked with rainforest, before eventually arriving at a crude airstrip. There was a cluster of palm-thatched buildings, one open-sided hangar, roofed with corrugated iron, and a runway of beaten earth. At the near end of the strip, three Douglas C-47s were drawn up in a row.
‘Perfect,’ Harper said. ‘Good call, Lupa.’
‘A rangy man with a grey crew-cut and a grizzled weather-beaten face, prised himself out of a crumbling armchair in the shade of the hangar and strolled over to them. He nodded to Ricardo and Lupa but gave Harper a quizzical look. ‘American?’ he said, in what sounded to Harper like a Texan accent.
‘Brit,’ Harper said. ‘I’m Lex. Who’re you and who are you working for here?’
‘Name of Randy, and not the DEA, if that’s what you mean. I fly these old birds.’
‘Then you’re the man we’re looking for. Any chance you can fly us up to La Paz?’
Randy gave him a shrewd look. ‘Without attracting too much attention about it, right?’
‘Is that a problem?’
‘Hell no, my only issue is whether I’ll get paid.’
‘Let me put your mind at rest on that score,’ Harper said, reaching into his backpack. How much?’
‘Four hundred dollars and I’m yours for the day.’
‘Deal,’ Harper said, peeling off eight $50 bills from the bundle he was carrying.
They waited while Randy finished fuelling the C-47 he’d chosen from the row of three in front of the hangar. Its fuselage had scores of dents in it and the perspex canopy was hazed with a myriad of tiny scratches, but when Randy fired it up, there was nothing wrong with the engine’s throaty roar. ‘All right,’ he said, raising his voice to be heard above the engine noise. ‘All aboard who’s going aboard.’
Lupa and Harper climbed in but Ricardo hung back for a moment. ‘Are you sure this is safe?’ he said.
Randy gave him a world-weary smile. ‘Friend, I may not look it, but I’m mighty attached to this life of mine. I’m not going up there in any aircraft that isn’t going to get me home to my Conchita tonight. And we need to get going now because once we’ve ditched the car, it’s a three hour flight and I’ve got to be back here before dark, so let’s do it, shall we?’
Ricardo still looked dubious. ‘There are some very big mountains between here and La Paz,’ he said.
Randy smiled again. ‘Really? You don’t say, son? I’ve been flying aircraft out of here for twenty years and I never knew that. But seriously, my Daddy was a pilot in the USAF and way back in 1944 he was flying C-47s right over “The Hump” as they called it then - the Himalayas in other words - and tall as the Andes are, the Himalayas are higher still, so getting over the Andes is never going to be a problem for a C-47. There are still thousands of them in use all over the world and you can’t get a more solid and reliable aircraft, but just to be sure, I maintain this baby myself. Now we’ve no time to argue about this any longer, so what’s it to be - fly or walk?’
Ricardo hesitated a moment longer and then climbed aboard with a face like a man on his way to the gallows. Randy turned to wink at Harper. ‘Hope your friend here is better on the ground than he is in the air.’
Without waiting for a reply, he opened the throttles and they bumped their way down off the mound and began rumbling along the airstrip. They took off, and began banking around to fly further over the dense canopy of the rainforest beneath them.
As they flew above the Andes, the warm, steamy air rising up the face of the mountains caused some turbulence that made Ricardo cross himself again and close his eyes, while the stomach-churning lurch as they hit an air pocket and dropped fifty feet, turned him an even whiter shade of pale.
Beyond the mountains, they flew on over the endless barren plain of the Altiplano, before Randy began the approach to landing, eventually setting them down at a dirt airstrip on the edge of a small town, a handful of miles east of La Paz. There were a few decrepit-looking buildings - more barns than hangars - to one side of the runway and one man in an oil-stained boiler suit, who got out of a crumbling armchair, stationed next to the fuel pump, and stood waiting for Randy to taxi over to him to refuel. There were no other aircraft or people visible.
‘Just how I like it,’ Harper said. ‘Nice and quiet.’
‘And it’s no more than a mile into town from here,’ Randy said. ‘You can pick up a flota- a bus - in the market square that will take you right into La Paz.’ He handed Harper a battered business card. ‘Just in case you ever need another flight any time. The phone service in Bolivia is a joke outside the cities but if you dial that number, Conchita will get a message to me and I’ll usually be back to you within a couple of hours. Okay, adios, and you take care now, y’hear?’ He raised a hand in farewell, then gunned the engine and taxied over to the man at the fuel pump.
By the time Harper, Lupa and Ricardo had walked up the track away from the airstrip, Randy was on his take-off run, bouncing and jolting down the airstrip and then climbing steeply back towards the mountains.
Harper, Lupa and Ricardo walked into the nearby town, their feet scuffing up clouds of reddish-brown dust that clung to their skin and clothes. Harper still hadn’t fully adjusted to the altitude and even at the steady pace they were walking, he didn’t have much breath to spare for conversation and they walked in silence most of the way. Just as Randy had predicted, a flota - the gaudily decorated minibus/taxis that, under a variety of different local names, were the cheapest and most widely used form of transport throughout South America - was parked in the town square. It was half full, the driver dozing at the wheel. As was the custom, he had painted his bus in vivid colours, and decorated it with hundreds of mirrors, religious medals, emblems of his favourite football teams, feathers, bits of cheap costume jewellery, motifs and photographs. He opened an eye wide enough to sell them tickets to La Paz, then went back to his slumbers.
‘Let me guess,’ Harper said, as they settled themselves on the back seat. ‘When does the bus leave? When the driver feels like it.’
Eventually, without any obvious reason for i
t, the driver stirred himself, started the engine and the bus began its slow, meandering journey into La Paz. At intervals people materialised out of the apparently empty plain and boarded the bus, while others, most of them carrying goods from the town market, got off and disappeared.
They reached La Paz at sunset, where the flota ground to an apparently final halt by the Cementerio General, a sprawling necropolis filled with thousands of graves and crypts, extending for a square mile through La Paz’s outer suburbs.
‘Know where we are?’ Harper said, looking around for a recognisable landmark.
‘Not really,’ Lupa said. ‘I’ve never been in this part of the city before, but do you know what they say about La Paz? You can never be lost here, because if you’re in doubt, you just start walking downhill and you’ll come to the centre.’
‘Then let’s try that,’ Harper said, setting off down the sloping street. They found a small hotel in a quiet square and Harper booked them three rooms before they headed to a nearby café.
Lupa chose for all three of them: sopa di mani: a spicy peanut, vegetable and pasta soup; salteñas de carne: empanadas stuffed with chicken and peas, that looked to Harper like Cornish pasties; and anticucho: which turned out to be skewers of barbecued ox heart, but tasted much more delicious than it sounded. They drank bottles of beer and then had a glass of San Pedro Singani - a fiery, grappa-like spirit made from grape skins - as a nightcap. ‘You should try a Chuflay as well,’ Lupa said. ‘It’s our signature cocktail: Singani, dry ginger and a twist of lemon.’
Breakout: A Heart-Pounding Lex Harper Thriller Page 6