To The Lions - 02
Page 45
The jacketed rounds struck the man in his torso, cutting through him like a sharp pencil puncturing a thin sheet of paper.
Though the rest of the onrushing man had stopped working, curiously his legs managed a few more wobbly strides. But that soon ended as the man fell facedown, his face burrowing to a stop in the sand.
Gage turned back to the fray, watching as Angelines opened her mouth and finally released the screaming Xavier. The mobster’s hand, having long since released the blade, shot to his neck. Unfortunately, for him, his trademark tattoo was now missing a chunk of skin the size of a muffin top.
Angelines struggled to a standing position while Gage checked his rounds and surveyed the beach for threats. The lights at the road showed twin shadows, one tall and one short. Gage squinted at the images, watching as the tall shadow dropped to its knees, burying its head in its hands.
Justina…
Refocusing, Gage dragged himself to Xavier. The impact from his parachute had left the Spanish gangster in bad shape, made worse by Angelines’ bite.
Gage didn’t care.
Reminiscent of what Xavier had done to Camilo, his narcotics lieutenant, Gage grabbed the gangster’s hand, twisting it and pulling the pinkie finger all the way back.
“Who else is out there?”
Xavier spit at Gage, clawing at his eyes. Despite his leg’s twisting, Gage fell flat on the parachute with Xavier, striking him with the pistol.
Xavier cursed Gage in three languages.
Both men greatly weakened, chests heaving, Gage resumed his grip on Xavier’s hand, pulling his pinkie all the way back to his wrist.
It sounded like a hard pretzel snapping.
“Who else is out there?” Gage growled.
“No one!”
Gage pulled the Spaniard’s ring finger back, snapping it also.
“Who else?”
“I swear on my mother it was only the two gunmen,” Xavier blubbered.
“He wanted to kill us, Gage!” Angelines yelled, her mouth still dripping with Xavier’s blood.
Still holding Xavier’s arm, Gage twisted it so the Spaniard would have to roll to his stomach. Keeping the arm in the center of Xavier’s back, Gage positioned himself on top, so he could control the man without much effort.
“Yeah, he was going to kill us,” Gage agreed. He turned his eyes to the road now seeing Justina and Señora Moreno staggering toward the boardwalk. With them was—
“Do it, you twat!”
Gage turned, seeing that Angelines had moved to the right and had found the AutoMag. She gripped it in both her hands, aiming it at the Spaniard’s head.
“Angelines, wait!” Gage yelled.
“I don’t care what the repercussions are,” she said, her glinting red smile broad and scary. “This man is pure toxin.”
“Go ahead!” Xavier yelled, jerking his battered body under Gage. He twisted his head back to Gage, maniacal. “You better letter her do it, coño, because I’ve killed a million men and I’ll kill a million more and I’m starting with your ass. I’m the law in Spain! You got that?”
Gage slid back off the man.
Xavier rolled over, opening his arms wide, beating his own chest, still ranting in a demented monologue as he sat up.
“Just today, I proved what kind of man I am, coño, when I resisted my urge and I spared your two women but destroyed a woman I was close to. I didn’t want to kill her but I went through with it.” Using sticky blood from his neck, he swept his hair back, smiling proudly. “You know why I killed her? You know why? For preservation of my kingdom, capullo!” he yelled, gesturing his arms all around. “That’s right! Not Navarro’s kingdom. Not King Juan Carlos’ and damn sure not your kingdom, motherfucker! This bitch is all mine! Every house—every business—every man, woman, and child! And unless you kill me now, I’ll be walking these streets by sundown tomorrow with you and your fat whore first on my—”
A long tongue of flame emerged from the wide barrel of the powerful handgun, sending with it the death shot that struck the mobster in the back of his head and exploded from his right eye. Xavier twitched before falling backward, his body benignly accepting two more of Angelines’ gunshots squarely in his crotch.
She spit on him afterward.
Having seen, and acted upon, such rage before, Gage understood.
He turned to Gennady, now lying still as a trickle of blood exited his mouth in the low surf. There was no rise and fall of his chest. Gennady’s pistol, Gage realized, had saved them. Still uncertain of what other threats were out there, Gage clawed his way back to Gennady and found another full clip in the Russian’s pocket.
Growling in pain, Gage again reset his leg. Sitting there with the Mediterranean’s tide rushing in around him, he held the pistol at the ready as his mind replayed all that had happened. Xavier had surreptitiously positioned a sniper on the roof to kill all involved once he had the bearer bonds. Gennady and Gage had anticipated something of the sort—that’s why they had stationed Dmitry at beach center, hiding him back behind the first row of buildings.
Gage assumed Dmitry had killed the sniper with the grenade.
But, Gage reasoned, if that were the case, then where was Dmitry? Perhaps Xavier’s backup man, the one Gage had just shot, wounded or killed Dmitry. Gage hoped not. Certainly these Russians knew they were getting into a dangerous situation, but it was not Gage’s intention to lead them both to their death.
“You okay?” Gage grunted.
Angelines had fallen to the sand next to Xavier, her again-bleeding leg outstretched, her body shuddering with tears. She was covering her face with her hands and, through her tears, nodded.
“You can take that cash and go, Angelines. The cops are going to be here any second and I can delay my explanation under a shroud of shock.”
She lowered her hands, wiping her eyes. “No, Gage. I’m staying.”
“Thank you for your help. You saved me.”
“No…you saved me,” she said. “Because no matter what happens, I’m free now.”
As she spoke, Justina and Señora Moreno approached, trudging to the end of the boardwalk behind a man in a wheelchair.
Even through his considerable pain, Gage remembered the man. He was another soldier, Gage’s worldwide brotherhood.
Justina stepped around the wheelchair, staggering to where Gage sat. She knelt beside him, lowering him to the sand and finger-depth surf. And, as was her habit, she ran her fingers through Gage’s hair.
Their smiles turned to relieved, warm laughter.
She’s still alive, Gage thought, the joy overriding any agony his physical body was enduring. Thank God, she’s still alive.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I am now.”
Angelines and Señora Moreno staggered up to the man in the wheelchair while Gage and Justina remained in the water.
“Is Dmitry dead?” Gage whispered.
“We thought so but—”
Movement catching his eye, Gage lifted the pistol, aiming it at the brawny man staggering around the trio, his hand clamped over his shoulder.
Dmitry.
He trudged forward, eyeing the scene, focusing on Gennady. When Gage realized Dmitry meant no harm, he lowered the pistol. “Gennady’s dead.”
Dmitry just stood there, seemingly in shock.
“Spain’s yours for the taking, priyatel. I’d suggest you haul ass and get busy.”
Recognition flooded Dmitry’s face as a weak smile appeared. Bolstered, he turned and hurried away.
Gage fell back and closed his eyes, his hand again finding Justina’s face. “I just want to hold you,” he said, pulling her on top of him.
“Together again,” Justina said, pressing her lips to his.
When she pulled back, Gage whispered, “We made it.”
Then he passed out.
* * *
Twelve minutes later, after the beach was sealed off by a Catalonian state police SWAT team, each of the
individuals involved were loaded into a line of ambulances. Gage, under the influence of heavy morphine, and accompanied by two armed police officers, mumbled questions to his accompanying police.
Most puzzling to the police were Gage’s repeated, out of place questions about the well-known Catalonian Acusador Cortez Redon.
Gage Hartline would have surgery in two hours and not awaken until the following day.
And somewhere, well up the beach, clinging to a wet rock, was the single bearer bond Xavier Zambrano had held when Gage collided with him.
It was the only one of Señora Moreno’s bearer bonds still unaccounted for.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Barcelona, Spain
Nine days later, Gage and Justina held hands as they waited on the closed-door meeting to end.
Gage, having refused a wheelchair for this, his first trip away from the hospital, sat in a desk chair, his leg propped on another chair.
Justina, sitting to his right and looking vibrant in cheap, off-the-sale-rack clothes provided her by someone at the Polish Consul General, winked at Gage as they waited.
Señora Moreno, flanked by three of her own attorneys, spoke. Though her voice was slightly modulated by her redone stitches, it was still quite clear. She proudly remarked about what a dashing couple Gage and Justina made. She asked each of her attorneys—gray-haired, scowling, overstuffed men—if they agreed. After much throat clearing and collar adjusting, each of the men, as if she were the only person on earth who might somehow cow them, mumbled undecipherable yet obsequious agreements.
Finally, after nearly an hour, the closed-door session ended. All of the officials exited the office, returning to the well-appointed ante-room. Among others were the United States Consul General from Barcelona, her counterpart from Poland, Colonel Hunter (who had been with Gage for nearly a week now), numerous officials from the Spanish State Department, and a host of suited, yet shadowy, men whose presence was never explained.
The chief man from the Spanish State Department, another whose name and position were never given to Gage, stood in the center of the group, continuing in English as they had done prior to the private session. He looked at Señora Moreno, smiling in a suddenly unctuous manner.
“Señora Moreno, after reviewing your involvement in this…well, this regrettable and astonishing set of circumstances…it is our position that, provided you vow your continued silence and sign agreements to that end, you shall be free to go. Your employees who intervened in the escape will also be free of any charges. Additionally, due to the hazard created by the alleged criminal activity that occurred, you will—”
“Alleged?” one of her attorneys roared.
The man next to the state department representative spoke up. “Let’s not split hairs, Molina,” he whispered forcefully.
Molina.
“Pardon me, Señora Moreno,” Molina said, recovering smoothly. “Due to what you endured, the Catalonian government, through an agreement that will accompany your vow of silence, will compensate you for all future medical treatment, and we agree to work vigorously with your representation to finalize a pain-and-suffering settlement within thirty days,” he cut eyes to her attorneys, “as demanded by your battery of representation.”
Despite the hidden stitches in her face, Señora Moreno looked around, crossing her hands on her lap and smiling as if her pie just won the contest at a county fair.
“You may go, madam,” Molina said, gesturing to the door.
“No.”
Molina stiffened, looking to the man to his right. That man, probably also an attorney, said, “Señora Moreno, what we have to discuss with the others is confidential.”
Ignoring him, Señora Moreno huddled with her attorneys. Anyone in the room could hear that she was doing one hundred percent of the talking. Finished, one of her attorneys spoke for her. “Señora Moreno wants to stay. It’s her right to hear all that is said.”
“That wasn’t part of our agreement,” Molina said, his ears glowing red while his clasped hands fidgeted with one another.
“Let her stay,” Gage remarked in a soft voice. “The rest involves Justina and me—we have no secrets at all from this fine lady. Her intervention saved our lives.”
The state department’s attorney again massaged the bridge of his nose as he seemed to whisper something acquiescent. The only truly audible portion was a well-known English curse word.
“Fine, then,” Molina murmured. He turned to Gage, his tone turning to one of distaste. “Mister Hartline, in a similar accord, we are going to suspend prosecution against you provided you also vow silence, through an airtight non-disclosure agreement, and leave this country immediately with an agreement to never return.”
Gage turned to Colonel Hunter. Hunter, in that way of his, where he smiled with only his eyes, gave a slight nod of his head.
“And?” Gage asked, adjusting himself in his chair.
“Provided you sign the agreement, that is all.”
“My injuries?”
“Your medical bills will be forgiven,” the lawyer next to Molina said, his lip curled. “We’ll see to that.”
“And Miss Kaminski, what about her?”
The state department attorney’s words cracked like three well-aimed bullets. “Same—exact—agreement.”
“And?” Gage asked.
“And, what? Were you hoping for something else?” Molina asked, his accent overdone, emphasizing “else,” making it sound like the nastiest of words.
“Before you went into that room, I had several requirements.” Gage rose, supporting himself with his crutches. “Were they met?”
“They will be when the agreement is signed.”
Again, Gage turned to Hunter, who spoke in that soft steel voice of his, sounding like a Montanan rancher talking about his cattle. “In return for you not talking about all the damned corruption they got in this government”—his eyes surveyed the room as he said this—“they’ll compensate you to the tune of five grand, U.S., for each week you’ve been here, rounded up.”
Gage let out a relieved breath. “And what about Angelines de la Mancha?”
Hunter shook his head. “They’re going to take care of the mother and son, and they’ve agreed to transparency to our state department so we can monitor the situation.”
“What about Angelines?” Gage asked.
“Short stint in prison,” Hunter said flatly. “Club-Fed type…nothing like that animal farm where you were.”
“The laws she broke were egregious,” Molina said, lifting his pointy nose.
“You mean, the laws she broke along with your government officials?” Gage asked.
Molina and the attorney joined eyes then looked away.
No one said anything for several moments until Justina broke the silence. “What about my friend, the man in the wheelchair in Tossa de Mar?”
“He doesn’t want his name revealed,” Molina replied, his tone much different when speaking to Justina. “He’s under a full pension due to his war injuries and he told us to tell those involved that he was ‘just doing his duty,’ whatever that means.”
As the meeting was ending, Gage brought up a subject he’d brought up every day since the incident at Tossa de Mar. “What about Cortez Redon?”
Molina let out an exasperated breath. “He’s missing. If we had found him, we would tell you.”
“Perhaps someone killed him,” the attorney said, staring at Gage with an arched brow. “Perhaps that person who killed him keeps asking about Redon in an effort to throw the investigators off his trail.”
Before Gage could speak, Hunter spoke for him. “Begging your pardon, buddy, but if my boy here had killed that little pecker he’d proudly let us all know how the rubbin’ out went down.”
“What about the money?” Justina asked.
“No one recovered any money other than a single bearer bond. It was found nearly a kilometer away,” the attorney said. “We’ve been over this.”
Gage rubbed his face and said, “Let’s just end this.”
A battery of papers was produced for Gage, Justina, and Señora Moreno. Gage and Justina’s agreements were carefully explained by attorneys from the U.S. and Polish consulates. Colonel Hunter sat in the corner, leaning back against the wall, quietly nibbling sunflower seeds, depositing the hulls in a paper cup.
After the meeting, before they were led from the nondescript federal building, Gage asked to see Molina in private. When he was told that Molina was busy, Gage steadied himself on his crutches, telling the Spanish officials that he would wait.
Their escorting envoy, a young Spanish man with little diplomatic ability, rolled his eyes in irritation before stalking away. Minutes later, Señor Molina and his attorney—attached to his hip like a Siamese twin—reappeared.
“I’d rather hoped you were on an airplane by this time, Mister Hartline,” Molina said, pursing his lips afterward.
“I’ll be gone by sundown,” Gage said, glancing at the clock that showed it to be nearly five in the afternoon. “But I’d like to see Angelines de la Mancha for just a few minutes before I leave.”
“Absolutely not!” Molina snapped, shaking his head while clamping his eyes shut. It was the gesture of a man who’d been terribly spoiled as a child.
Gage made his own expression earnest. “Why not, sir? She’s going to prison. What’s ten minutes?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, using the tone of a man who is anything but sorry. “I can’t allow it.”
Gage eyed the man, softening his own voice as he said, “Please.”
Molina’s eyes were bleary. Tired. He looked at his attorney, who shrugged. Finally, Molina threw his hands up. “If you’re not in the air by sundown, that agreement is considered breached and we will prosecute you.” He pointed to the toadying envoy. “Take them to the hospital and call my cell if you don’t witness them board their aircraft before nine tonight.”