He nodded his head, tried to smile. He had a tough role to play – on the one hand, he needed to be suspicious, to guard his own safe house; on the other, he had to appear normal and at least half-friendly, so as not to attract suspicion to himself.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘they do like their fishing.’
It was as I thought; he knew there hadn’t been a for-sale sign in the lot, but he had no idea who really lived there.
‘Anyway,’ I said, ‘I promised to look after their yard while they were gone, and I’m not really that much into gardening. You look like you know a bit about it, yours is lovely. Do you happen to know anyone who looks after yards, anyone I could hire?’
He shook his head, and as he did so, I saw movement at one of the windows behind him. It seemed someone else was also up and around in there, and time really was running out.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘As you can see, I take care of my own, I don’t really have any details for gardeners.’
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘no problem. Can I give you my card? That way, if you hear anything, you can give me a call.’
I already had the card out, in my hand – it was a business card for a taxi firm that we’d used when we’d gone out for drinks in Laredo a few nights before, but that wouldn’t matter for long – and held it out for him, putting it in between the bars of the iron gate that still stood between us.
I could see the conflict in his eyes – the lack of trust, at odds with the desire to seem normal, to not refuse the gesture I’d made.
In the end, social propriety – and his desire to not seem out of the ordinary himself – won the day, and he extended his hand to the gate, accepting the card.
As he made contact, my other hand shot out through the bars, grabbing hold of his shirt and pulling him violently toward me.
His face hit the metal bars at high velocity, the impact shaking him; but although his knees sagged, his eyes were still open and I released slightly before pulling him in again, his skull hitting this time, the impact even harder.
The man went down, out for the count, and I immediately pulled the keys from his belt that I’d seen when he was walking toward me, instinctively selecting the one I thought would make the best fit with the gate’s lock.
It worked, and the gate swung open; I slipped in, closing it behind me and pulling the man’s unconscious body into the tree line to hide it from view. I checked the man’s pockets and found a wallet, a lock knife, and a Beretta 9mm.
The trees that made the house nearly invisible from the street also meant that – from a security standpoint – anyone watching from inside would also be at a disadvantage, as they couldn’t see the approach of an intruder.
I took full advantage of that now, pistol in my hand as I tracked through the trees toward the front door.
As I got nearer, Kane still at my side – his body keyed up on adrenaline, just like mine – I withdrew the FN pistol from the pocket of my combat jacket. I’d brought it with me across the river from Nuevo Laredo, never having had the chance to use it back at the abandoned farm.
A weapon in each hand – the FN in my right as it was lighter and my arm still wasn’t a hundred percent from the icepick incident – I concentrated on controlling my breathing as I approached the door, centering myself for the task ahead.
I hadn’t used the FN at the farm perhaps, but I was sure as hell going to use it now.
I left the safety of the trees, slipped across the brick driveway to the porch, and crept up the two small steps that led to the door.
‘Wait here,’ I told Kane with a nod of my head. ‘You know what to do.’
Kane sat to the side of the door, waiting with anticipation for what was to come.
Because even he knew that all freaking hell was about to be let loose.
Chapter Four
I knew the door would be open – the man outside would need quick access in case of trouble, and the people inside would also need to be able to escape quickly, through the front or the back.
I therefore put my hand on the handle, turned, and eased the big oak door open, my footsteps silent as I crossed the threshold.
Subtlety didn’t last long though – a face appeared across the hall, and disappeared just as quickly; the figure I’d seen moving about from the street.
The face reappeared moments later – the body hidden behind a rattan sofa – along with a burst of fire from a suppressed MAC-10 machine pistol. The suppressor reduced the terrifying noise, but that wasn’t its only job – it also made the weapon easier to control on full-auto, as it discharged twelve hundred rounds a minute, twenty rounds per second.
But despite the aid, controlling the little beast was still awkward at best – at that rate of fire, the entire magazine was discharged in just one and a half seconds, most of them up toward the ceiling.
I ducked low and aimed high, firing two shots from the FN that hit the gunman straight in the exposed face, a bright red spray of blood covering the sofa he’d been hiding behind.
Noise caught my attention from the left and I pivoted, seeing a half-naked man – tattoos covering his muscular body – charging down the stairs, a huge Smith and Wesson revolver in his hands. From the huge hole at the end of the six-inch stainless-steel barrel, I knew it must have been the .50 caliber version – overkill for a handgun if ever there was one, it would have put Dirty Harry’s to shame. The thing could take down a rampaging rhino.
He fired it on the move and I dodged again, hunkering down as the colossal rounds whizzed over my head, taking out half of the wall behind me.
The entire hacienda was erupting now, shouts and screams in Spanish from both lower and upper floors, everyone in the house aware now of what was going on.
Who would escape, and who would stay and fight?
It only occurred to me at that point that if Elena – sicario that she was – attacked me, I might end up killing her.
And what would I tell her parents then?
But it was time to move, not to think, and I bounced up momentarily, acquiring a sight picture for the man with the .50 and letting loose with rounds of my own.
Two shots hit him from the FN, one from the Beretta, and the big man went down hard; but there was no time to gloat, and I was already turning again, firing instinctively as I saw a man with a heavily scarred, pockmarked face racing toward me, carving knife in hand.
I shot him with the Beretta, one in the chest and one in the throat as the muzzle lifted slightly.
Four down, three – including Elena Rosales – left to go.
I had a decision to make – should I clear the entire lower floor before heading upstairs, or should I assume that the others had been sleeping, and would more likely be upstairs, in which case a full search of the lower floor might give them chance to regroup, arm themselves properly, or escape?
I tracked toward the stairs, not wanting to take the chance of Elena escaping; but when I was halfway up, I saw movement from below, a man running for the front door. Unarmed, and obviously wanting to get the hell out of there.
Guess I’d been wrong about everyone being upstairs.
But the next thing I heard was terrified screaming from outside, and I knew Kane would have stopped the man in his tracks. He wouldn’t kill the man if he was unarmed, but he would take him to the ground Shutzhund-style, keep him pinned to the floor with jaws around his neck.
I took the stairs slowly now, all too aware that it was easier to fight down than to fight up. Both pistols were aimed up the stairwell, fingers on the triggers.
But then something came hurtling toward me, out of nowhere, hitting me full in the chest and knocking me backwards, head angled toward the floor as I slid down the stairs on my back, each step banging into my spine, guns dropping uselessly to the floor.
I’d been hit by a man, even bigger than the one with the .50, and I realized he must have jumped over the bannister, from the landing above; I felt him on top of me as we slid down the stairs, saw his wild
eyes just inches from mine, felt his huge hands going around my throat.
We hit ground level, the back of my head striking the hard tiled surface and making me see stars, brain dizzy, my equilibrium gone; and still the huge man was on top of me, hands wrapped around my neck and squeezing hard.
I heard something from the side, a big splash, and turned my head slightly to see what it was. Through the fog of strangulation, I saw a big pair of French doors leading to the rear yard, golf course beyond. In that yard was a swimming pool.
And in that swimming pool, a young woman was swimming frantically to the side, having obviously just jumped in from the upper floor window.
Elena Rosales.
She was getting away.
My knee lifted sharply into the gorilla’s balls, without much effect; and so I took the little finger of one of the hands which was wrapped around my throat, pulled it away from the rest, and twisted it sharply.
It snapped like a twig, and the big man screamed out in pain; my knee shot up into the balls again and this time – not able to tense for it – he bucked with the impact, body weakened momentarily. The hands softened around my neck and I used the opportunity, driving my own arms up between his, thumbs raking across his eyes.
He cried out in pain again, and I threw him off me, regaining my feet; the big man wasn’t dead, but I didn’t have to kill everybody I met. Besides which, he was well and truly out of action, and I had a runaway teenage sicario to catch.
I started off at a sprint toward the French doors, hands out to open them, and then I felt the impact – a huge, bone-shaking impact that knocked the breath right out of me.
The big guy, damaged but evidently not out for the count, had decided to go another round, and had tackled me hard from behind, driving me toward . . .
The glass doors shattered outward as the huge sicario slammed me right through them, the shards cutting my hands, my face; and still he kept on propelling me forward across the stone-slabbed terrace, my body still unable to breathe, unable to resist.
We hit the pool together, his weight driving me under, and the cool water served to bring me around, to make me react.
My body twisted under the water, turning into him, hands now around his throat. I saw his damaged eyes go wide in panic, and I released slightly; and in his desperation to breathe, he opened his mouth wide, taking a huge gulp of pool water right into his lungs.
He coughed, spluttered, gagged, and panicked once more, mouth opening and taking in even more water; but his hands reached out and grabbed me, vice-like in a death grip. I tried to keep him under, but his survival instincts were too strong, and he propelled us both to the surface.
As our heads breached the churning water, we both took in great lungfuls of sweet, precious air; but I recovered moments before he did, and fired the edge of my hand into his throat in an oblique, chopping action. I could have sworn I heard the trachea snap, cartilage destroyed; but then I felt the beast’s hands grip me again, still possessed by ferocious strength, and he rammed me into the concrete side of the pool.
The impact was hard, driving the breath from me once again; and as I coughed in pain, I saw the girl, dripping wet, running for the rear fence that led to the Laredo Country Club beyond.
It was now or never – she would soon be away, never to be seen again – but the guy was so strong I wasn’t sure what else I could do, how I could beat him.
It was then I spotted it, out of the corner of my blurred, deteriorating vision; and reflexively my hand sought it out and put it into action.
The hosepipe snaked around the man’s thick, bulging neck, my hands wrapping it around again and again and again, pulling it tight until his hands left my body and went to try and pull the rubber garrote away; and it was then that I pushed away from the side of the pool with my feet, dropping low under the water and pulling down on the pipe, dragging the man under with me by his neck, his hands still frantically grabbing at it, trying to pull it off. But it was too tight, and he could no longer fight it; with his throat already damaged by my blow, the man’s breathing capacity already restricted, the hosepipe did its job quickly; the man jerked violently, but I held him tight until his eyes went wide, almost as if they would jump out of his head; and then he relaxed completely, body floating lifelessly in the water.
I burst to the surface again, just in time to see Elena’s legs disappear over the fence.
I sighed as I pulled myself out, resigned to more hard work.
The chase was on.
Chapter Five
I vaulted the fence in one smooth movement, saw the girl sprinting away over the fairway, just seventy yards ahead of me; then heard the sound of gunshots, felt the hot sparks as bullets hit the metal fence around me.
I looked back through the fence, saw two men running from the house, firing their AR15s on full-auto. I cursed myself for my stupidity – just because I knew about the potential of seven people being in the house didn’t mean that there weren’t more. Friends, colleagues, guests, it didn’t matter; what did matter was that as soon as they vaulted that fence, they would have a nice clear line of fire toward me, no matter how far I managed to run.
I’d dropped my guns back in the house but, without even thinking, I felt my hands scoop into the pockets of my combat jacket, fractions of a second later coming back out, throwing what was in them hard and fast toward the men racing toward me.
The ten-inch carbon-steel Smith and Wesson military-grade throwing knives span through the air, one after the other after the other, aimed through the bars of the fence.
The first hit one of the guys straight in the face, making the AR15 arc up high, firing to the sky; the next hit him in the chest and dropped him to the floor. As he was falling, the second man – obviously well-trained – tried to dodge to the side; but it was too little, too late, and the third knife hit him in the shoulder, the fourth – slightly adjusted – directly in the middle of the chest.
The assault rifles were silent now, the only sound the blood bubbling up from the men’s wounds, coughed from their mouths.
I turned my attentions back to the fairway, saw Elena a hundred yards away now, racing around the huge pond that provided a water hazard for the club’s golfers. I saw residential houses on the other side, a network of streets. If she made it round, I might lose her.
I took off at a sprint after her, desperate not to lose her.
There were other people on the course now, groundskeepers and caretakers, all coming to have a look at where the gunshots had been coming from, now surprised and shocked to see two random, soaking wet people charging across their well-kept lawns.
Legs pumping, heart racing wildly, I felt myself gaining on the girl – just eighty yards now.
Of course, I realized what it must have looked like to the people watching – big scary man chasing after small teenage girl.
Not good for me.
There were even people out in their yards now, or else watching from the windows of their palatial homes. I knew several people would have called the police already.
Police headquarters was not even five miles away – with a high alert, they could be here within eight minutes, or as little as five, depending on how they were driving; and if there were patrols close to the area, they could be here even sooner than that.
Shit.
I increased my pace, stride opening, eating up the yards.
I saw the men rushing toward me across the green, three of them, all obviously wanting to save the girl from the scary man.
Others were racing toward the girl, presumably to try and protect her.
I couldn’t blame them, of course; I would have done the same in their shoes.
But I also couldn’t allow them to slow me down.
Just forty yards left between us.
So close.
The men tried to tackle me from the side, and I sidestepped one in good football style, his bodyweight carrying him on forward into the pond; the next got an elbow jerked
sideways into his face that dropped him to the lawn, and I pulled the third down by his ears and just stepped on top of him, jumped forward off his prone body and carried on running.
Thirty yards, and the girl was nearing the edge of the water, where it curved toward the housing. A small crowd waited for her, to welcome her into their protection.
Twenty yards, and I heard the first sirens, saw four men approach me.
Ten yards and we met, the girl now within the protection of four earnest, well-meaning women.
I punched the first man on the chin, our bodyweights moving together to create knockout power, and he fell motionless on the floor. I kicked out sideways at another, taking the wind out of his sails; grabbed another, planted my forehead into his face; then round kicked the last man in the thigh, my hardened shin smacking straight into his peroneal nerve and dropping him to the ground.
I saw Elena’s face then for the first time – so young, and yet at the same time so very, very old; she’d seen things that nobody should have seen, at any age, and it had left her scarred in more ways than one. Tattoos lined her face and – though she had once no doubt been pretty – it seemed that Z13 had all but taken over, and Elena was almost gone.
Her face registered the horror of my arrival, and I could see her nervous, animal eyes running through tactics; and with the sirens sounding ever louder, she made her choice.
She wouldn’t know I was there to save her, would assume that I’d come to kill her; and why would she think any different? Even if I told her, she would never believe me.
She grabbed one of the women who’d been helping her, arm going around her throat while her other hand pulled out a wicked-looking serrated blade from a hidden pocket, holding it up against the victim’s neck.
The speed was incredible, one of the fastest draws I’d ever seen; and the look on the girl’s eyes made me think she had exactly what was needed to execute this woman in cold blood, and then go right onto another.
THE THOUSAND DOLLAR MAN: Introducing Colt Ryder - One Man, One Mission, No Rules Page 13