Strait of Hormuz

by Davis Bunn

  And for once, everybody went down. Remy dropped into the garden behind the stair’s wall. The tall security agent tossed Sir Geoffrey onto the grass and landed atop him. The swift reaction saved three lives, because the first attacker was joined by another rising from the car’s other side. The two men were dressed in black—shirts, ties, slacks, belt, shoes, shades. Their hair was black, their skin olive; the only thing bright about them was their teeth.

  The grenade blasted gravel in every direction, taking out two windshields and pelting the spa’s façade. The attackers lifted Heckler & Koch (HK) machine pistols and released a double spray of bullets. The German-designed submachine guns were favorites for mayhem-makers around the world. They were lightweight and intended to be held at waist level and fired from a crouch. Their stubby snout and truncated grip meant they could be almost as easily concealed as a .38. Their elongated clips held an astonishing thirty bullets, which was necessary because the HK sprayed like a hydrant.

  It was also impossible to aim. The guns tended to ride up even when gripped by pros, which these two men clearly were. At a distance of more than twenty feet, the attackers would have had a better chance of hitting their targets if they threw the guns.

  But at this stage the attackers were not after a strike. They were after mayhem.

  A second grenade rattled across the top step, then took out the front door with an earsplitting blast. The HKs kicked up their own fuss, hammering the air with a ripping, shredding sound. Before the gunners could level down their fire, the tall bodyguard had crawled behind an ornamental stone fountain, dragging a terror-stricken Sir Geoffrey along with him.

  Remy Reynard showed amazing speed for a man moving like a crab, rising and shooting and then ducking down just as the left-hand gunner chewed the wall beside Remy’s head.

  The Rolls trunk lid popped open, and another pair of attackers scrambled out. They too were dressed in black—slacks and sneakers and tight black T-shirts. Though they wore sunglasses on their sweat-streaked faces, they squinted in the sudden light. Marc saw this because he had been waiting for their appearance. He was already moving around the Ferrari, not quite on his knees, but close.

  He had to assume the inspector and Bernard Behlet would be targeting the attackers already firing. So Marc headed for the second squad. The ones who would be the least prepared for what he intended to unleash.

  The man closest to him showed immense surprise when Marc popped up beside him. He lifted his HK, but too slowly, and Marc was ready.

  The attacker snarled something Marc didn’t need to understand, tried to hammer his nose with the gun. Marc responded with more force than the man expected, and powered the gun back into his forehead. The attacker shouted for help and fired off a long round, which was what Marc had been after.

  The HK had another troublesome feature. The stubby barrel tended to overheat, hardly a surprise given the speed of fire. So long as the shooter kept his hands on the trigger and the forward grip, there was no problem. But as the superheated gasses expelled with the bullets, the barrel turned into a branding iron.

  Marc forced the gun back, until the barrel touched the attacker’s neck. The man screamed in agony and tried to scramble away.

  Marc let him turn, and spun along too. He flipped the man over his shoulder, flinging him high up and then down hard, straight onto the trunk lid of the neighboring Rolls. The man arched his back in agony and released his weapon. Marc saw the man fumble at his waist. He was going for his backup piece.

  A voice to his right shouted, “Down, get down!”

  Marc hammered the attacker’s forehead, then leaped over the trunk, pulling the inert attacker with him. Behind and above, a metal rain struck the Rolls, the bullets hitting so fast they sounded like a giant metal zipper.

  From the array of cars came a response of pistol shots from the other side. They sounded impossibly slow after the HKs, but they were enough to cause the second man by the trunk to spin away. Marc watched from beneath the car as the other attackers dropped empty clips to the ground, slapped fresh ammo into place, and fired at the front keep.

  Marc had no idea whether the attacker he held was fully unconscious, nor could he take any chances. He slammed the man’s head into the gravel, punched him in the temple, then scuttled behind a tire as another gunner pelted the Rolls with fresh fire. He dragged the inert man over close enough to search his pockets and found two clips for the HK and an oversized .45 Colt in a shoulder holster. Marc shoved the Colt into his belt, slapped a loaded clip into the HK, and came up firing.

  At nothing.

  The three attackers were gone.

  He yelled, “Where, where?”

  Behind him, Bernard replied, “Circling behind the spa!”

  They were running around the building, using it as a shield, still intent upon their target. Marc yelled for the inspector, “Remy!”

  “Here!”

  “Go left!”

  “On it.”

  “Bernard, go right!”

  Marc headed for the fountain while shouting, “Friendly inbound! Say again, friendly! Move Sir Geoffrey back inside!”

  The guard was moving before Marc finished the words. He gripped Sir Geoffrey’s jacket by the collar and literally plucked the man from the ground. Sir Geoffrey’s air was partly cut off, and he struck ineffectively at the man’s grasp as he tried his best to race backward across the lawn with his employer.

  Sir Geoffrey’s position was impossible to maintain, especially when his limbs were turned liquid by fear. Marc managed to get there just as the industrialist tripped. He hefted Sir Geoffrey onto his shoulder and slapped the HK into the guard’s hands just as gunfire erupted from the rear of the building.

  Marc said, “Man in tan jacket, he’s on our side. Ditto for agent in white shirt. Anyone in black, you blast.”

  “Done!” The guard turned and lowered himself into a crouch.

  For someone carrying one and a half times his own weight, Marc made good time. The only external sign of his effort was the grunt he gave with each step. The tall guard swept the grounds in constant tight arcs, covering their backs.

  Which proved to be a very good thing. The three attackers came around the building’s rear at full roar. From their speed, Marc had to assume the police inspector was down.

  The guard managed to get off three bursts. Marc saw one of them stumble. But the lead attacker flipped over, went prone, and shot back. The guard yelped and went down. “I’m hit!”

  Marc did not climb the final stairs so much as take a single great leap, bringing him close enough to flinging Sir Geoffrey through the ruined doorway. The older man cried out when his ribs made contact with the doorframe. Marc said, “Get inside!”

  The industrialist grabbed his chest with one arm and scrambled into the building.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The sound of gunfire resonated through the cellar chamber where Kitra sat. They were twenty-nine in total, all females except for the chef, who was more frightened than any of them. He had the olive skin and broad features of a North African, and when the first blast struck, he gibbered with such terror Kitra knew he had hidden before from men with guns.

  “My friend is outside,” she said calmly. “His name is Marc. He is trained for such times. He will protect us.”

  One of the younger attendants shredded the words with her fear. “How can you be so certain?”

  “Because,” Kitra replied, “he has saved me before.”

  Rhana was settled into the nicest of the chairs, backed in the furthest corner from the doorway. “Saved you from what?”

  “I was working at a refugee camp in eastern Kenya. Perhaps you heard of the volcano’s eruption? I was there . . . on another project. My brother was kidnapped. I had stayed to search for him. Marc was sent in to help. He was investigating—”

  The sound of shots came fast and furious, a vicious hail that left several women weeping openly. Rhana’s gaze did not waver. When the shots faded, Rhana
said in the same calm voice she had used in the rear garden, “Yes? Your Marc was in Kenya investigating?”

  “He was searching out corrupt officials. Then I was kidnapped. He rescued me as well.”

  Rhana’s next words were cut off by more gunfire and shouts. One of the attendants wailed, “They sound so close.”

  “I expect,” Rhana said mildly, “it means they have blown open the entrance.”

  “What do they want?”

  “That’s simple enough,” Rhana said. “They are targeting one of us.”

  “Are they coming for us?”

  “No,” Kitra replied. “Marc won’t let them.”

  Once Marc was certain Sir Geoffrey was safe inside the spa’s foyer, he dropped to the steps, shielded partly now by the knee-high stone wall that climbed alongside the steps. He slipped the pistol from his belt, cocked it, and rolled down the stairs. He did not come up where he would have been expected, which was on top of the wall. Instead, his gun hand pushed through the flowering shrubs at the stairs’ base. And caught the gunman completely by surprise.

  Marc gave him a double tap to the chest. Or tried. His limbs were trembling now from the effort required to get Sir Geoffrey to safety. He knew the first shot went wild. But the second connected and spun the man about, sending his HK flying.

  But the attacker was not done. He tried to pull his pistol free from its holster. Marc raced over and kicked the gun away, then kicked the man again at the point where his jawline met his chin.

  Marc spotted one of the other gunners swing his way, and yelled, “Hand! Hand!”

  The injured guard caught the message and was reaching out when Marc scrambled past. He snagged the hand and dragged the man behind the wall as the gunner took aim. They were showered with stone dust and clumps of earth. Marc yelled, “Bernard!”

  In reply, the agent appeared around the palace’s side wall, firing and running hard. Marc scrambled back into view, his body a target, forcing the two remaining gunners to split their aims. Marc ran sideways, curving out and around the ornamental fountain. The cherubs were chipped, and the spray was a sheet rising from half a dozen new holes. Marc fired back and saw one gunner go down. Then the second dropped, and Bernard shouted, “Clear!”

  “Where’s Remy?”

  “One in the leg. You?”

  “Fine. We have another injured. What—?”

  Marc’s words were chopped off by the sound of more gunfire and a revving engine. Two of the guards were firing back through the doorway. One had red fingers to his neck as he fired. Behind them, the second Rolls roared and spewed gravel in a wide arc as it raced from its parking space. Marc got off his remaining three shots, as did another guard through the keep’s blasted window. Bernard remained where he was, his pistol directed at the downed gunners. The Rolls bounded over the central lawn, plowed a ragged furrow through the carefully tended flowers, clipped the front keep’s side wall, and was gone.

  Marc raced for the Ferrari, yelling, “Gun, gun!”

  One of the security men by the guardhouse doorway slapped in a fresh clip and flipped his pistol like a Frisbee. The gun sailed over the Maybach and into Marc’s hand. He pried open the Ferrari door, slipped inside, and mashed the starter button so hard he felt the engine’s ignition at the base of his skull.

  The passenger door flew open and Bernard tumbled in. “Go!”

  “Who’s securing the gunners?”

  “Everybody else! Drive!”

  Marc dropped the pistol, a black Beretta .45, into the side well and slapped the miniature shifter into drive. He jammed the gas pedal to the floor. The Ferrari did not so much depart as launch.

  Marc overcorrected and made a spinning exit, plowing the rear tires all the way across the central postage stamp of lawn. He caught sight in his rearview mirror of rose bushes and ornamental shrubs spewing out from behind. Then the tires found traction and he flew through the front gates.

  Bernard said, “You are bleeding?”

  Only then did he notice the red stain on his gun hand. “Not mine, the guard’s.”

  Bernard lifted the pistol, wiped the grip on his pants, made certain the safety was on, and set it back down. “Stop fighting the car.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You are fighting it.” The agent sounded impossibly calm. “You’ve never driven a sprint machine, yes? This is how they are known in Italy. An entirely different category from normal sports cars. Sprint machines cannot be fought, because they will win. They cannot be pushed to the limit, because their limits are beyond yours. They must be managed.”

  Marc caught the steady drone of a professional instructor, and forced himself to ease back. “So how do I manage?”

  “The paddle on your left. Hit it now. Curve coming up. Downshift. Don’t oversteer. Good. Hit the paddle on your right. Accelerate out of the curve. Straight ahead. Right paddle, upshift, left paddle, downshift, prepare for the curve, brake, brake, turn, not too much, accelerate out of the curve.”

  “You should be driving.”

  “Perhaps you will let me do so on the return, yes?” He pointed through the windshield. “There is your target. Two kilometers, three o’clock.”

  “I see them.”

  “Watch this curve, it’s a hairpin, downshift, downshift again, don’t worry about redlining this engine. It’s only happy above seven thousand rpm. Good. Now push it hard, gear up, again, accelerate harder, now gear up, curve coming, forget your speed and watch the road. Distance to target is down to fifteen hundred meters and closing.”

  The Rolls was close enough for Marc to see it tilt sharply at the next curve. The massive limo was not made for a high-speed Alpine descent, and it left four black burn marks in the road. The driver overcorrected out of the turn and hammered the guardrail before accelerating away.

  Marc forgot about the Rolls. He forgot about the distance. He ignored the approaching truck and the blaring horn. He stopped worrying about the next curve, the next rise or blind spot, the paddles and the shifter. He had worked with spotters before. A good agent learned to trust his spotters with his life. The spotter was responsible for everything beyond the life-or-death instant. Bernard was the best spotter Marc had ever worked with. He never raised his voice. He showed no fear. He spoke in a flat drone, giving terse instructions, relaying intel on the target ahead, freeing up Marc to do his assigned duty. Which was to manage this amazing vehicle and close the distance between them and the escaping killers. And keep them both alive.

  Bernard interrupted twice to lift his phone and make terse phone calls. Both were in French. Marc did not need to understand the language to know he was ordering backup. The second call was made the instant the Rolls took the downward turning at the Chamonix crossing. Bernard spoke in clipped sentences, cut the connection, and said, “Roadblock is being set up this side of Aigle.”

  “How far out?”

  “Eight kilometers.” Bernard permitted himself a smile. “At your current flight speed, about forty seconds.”

  The road descended to the valley floor. The Rolls hit the straightaway and started pulling away. Marc pushed the Ferrari up to 140, 150 mph.

  “Don’t worry about catching them. Let the roadblock do that for us.”

  The Rolls continually had to brake before racing around slower vehicles. The two-lane road was not full but well traveled, and all the horns blended into one angry blare of protest by the time the oncoming vehicles reached Marc.

  “Roadblock dead ahead, nine hundred meters.”

  Marc saw the flashing lights and the burning flares. The Rolls saw them too, for its brake lights came on. But only for a second. And then the vehicle started accelerating.

  Bernard yelled his protest in a rising wail, “No, no, no!”

  The Rolls struck the barrier going well over 130 mph. The car smashed through, only to ram into the line of police vehicles beyond. Policemen sped away as if fleeing a bomb, which they were, as a myriad of gas tanks exploded in one unified blast of heat
and sound, enough to cause the slowing Ferrari to shudder and almost leave the road.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning, Marc was seated at Chief Inspector Remy Reynard’s bedside. Bernard leaned against the window, through which Marc watched a sailboat plow a lazy furrow through the lake’s sunlit waters.

  “Let us be precisely clear on where we stand,” Bernard Behlet told Marc. “For you, this is about an international terrorist threat. This is about protecting your national interests. For us, this is about an attack on our homeland.”

  Sir Geoffrey’s helicopter had flown Remy and the two injured bodyguards to the nearest trauma unit in Lausanne. The attackers were driven by ambulance to the secure unit at the Geneva hospital. Because Switzerland handled so many diverse people groups, with the possibility of their importing both danger and infectious diseases, the hospital’s wing was very secure indeed. Marc had driven the Ferrari down with Bernard, but only after they had finished speaking with the local police, which had taken hours. Kitra had left earlier in Rhana’s Bentley. The older woman had assured Marc that she could protect them both, and Marc had believed her.

  “This is domestic terrorism,” Bernard went on. “This is the Swiss government’s nightmare come to life. Just like what happened in the Second World War, we have become pawns in someone else’s conflict.”

  After his surgery the previous evening, Remy had woken up twice, just long enough to open his eyes and glance over. The first time he had asked Bernard about his family but fell asleep before hearing the reply. The second time he awoke, his wife was seated next to his bed. Remy took her hand, smiled at Marc through the observation window, and was out again.

  Remy’s wife was an attractive woman with an athlete’s frame and a leathery Alpine tan. She carried herself with the no-nonsense air of many police spouses. She shed a few tears over her husband’s state and the might-have-beens, but only when Remy was asleep. Marc and Bernard had relieved her a half hour earlier and sent her home to rest.

  Marc asked Bernard, “Why are you telling me this?”