Ascendant

by Sean Ellis

  Come on, Mira. Get moving.

  She threaded her arms through the holster straps, then through those attached to the backpack, and waited. The second the gunfire stopped, she would expect at least one, maybe two, attackers to come through the front and side doors. There would be no second chances.

  Mira’s thought was cut short by the sudden intrusion of silence, followed by the side door exploding off its hinges. She took a deep breath as she bolted to her feet and hit the wall running, diving through the riddled gap her foes’ bullets had chopped in the back of the building. Beyond the structure, however, there was a solid earthen wall, which sloped outward and disappeared beneath the floor of the building.

  The staircase leading from the harbor up to the streets of the village passed directly above the office shed, and between the edge of the steps and the cliff there was almost enough room for someone of her size to squeeze through. Almost, thought Mira ruefully. It’ll have to be good enough.

  Wedging herself into the narrow space, she forced her way up the outside of the shack until the bottom of the staircase was in reach. Though she was hidden from the view of her enemies, stray rounds continued to burst through the wall, smacking into the unyielding stone and spraying her with dust and rock chips. There was no protection from the bullets; only luck and speed could save her. Somehow she found enough of the latter to compensate for any deficiency in the former.

  She quickly shed her backpack and fought her way through the narrow gap between the wooden risers and the cliff, until after what seemed an eternity, she succeeded in hauling herself onto the exposed staircase.

  It was difficult to tell over the ringing in her ears, but Mira was certain that she heard the sound of men shouting. Slinging the backpack over one shoulder, she drew her pistol and took off running up the steps.

  She reached the halfway point before anyone on the dock below spotted her. When the railing and steps around her began erupting into splinters, she returned fire in their general direction, but some of her assailants were already chasing up the steps behind her. When the Beretta was empty, she shoved it back into its holster and spun around on her heel, the MP5 now held in a two-hand grip, aimed low. The two men huffing up the stairs barely had time to register shocked expressions before a burst from the weapon swept them away.

  Suddenly the wooden steps around her began to disintegrate. Rapid fire from Turner’s assault rifle was systematically shredding the staircase. Fragments of wood battered against her as she leapt for the uppermost landing, the force of impact driving the splinters deep through the fabric of the wetsuit and into her skin. She hit the ground above the staircase running, bolstered by the evident escape.

  Three new Chevrolet Suburban heavy-use vehicles, their immaculate silver paint jobs masked beneath a layer of dust and mud, sat side by side twenty yards from the approach to a precarious dirt track leading down to the water. Each was linked to a boat trailer, two of which had been modified to carry multiple personal watercrafts. Mira fired a series of quick, controlled pairs into the radiator of each vehicle and then sprinted down the village main toward the hostel and her waiting motorcycle.

  She barely slowed as her hands reached out to take hold of the Harley’s handgrips, squeezing the clutch lever in her right fist. With all of her weight behind rigidly locked elbows, she shoved the vehicle forward off its kickstand and set the bike rolling. She continued pushing off with her feet until she was almost running again alongside it. Only then did she leap into the broad tractor-style seat, releasing the clutch and feathering the throttle. The bike jerked almost to a standstill as the clutch engaged, but its momentum drove it onward, turning the engine over in the process. As the motorcycle roared to life, Mira accelerated away.

  Rachel Aimes and her surviving companions finished ascending the staircase that had almost been destroyed by their own bullets just in time to see their quarry race through town on her motorcycle, the front tire lifted in a mocking wheelie. She leveled her MP5 at the shrinking figure, but Mira had already vanished into the forest.

  SEVEN

  Detective Michelangelo DiLorenzo stood on the street corner, casually munching a pastry and drinking coffee from a paper cup. To an onlooker, he appeared to be waiting for a bus, but his dark eyes, which seemed to be looking nowhere in particular, did not stray far from a building across the street, halfway down the block.

  With what might have seemed like an impatient brusqueness, he crumpled the empty bag that had contained his breakfast roll and crossed the street, where he bought a newspaper. Immersing himself in its contents, he stalked down the sidewalk, slurping from the coffee cup with every fourth step.

  He paused in front of the building he had been covertly surveilling for nearly half an hour, glancing through the window with the gilt letters that spelled out the name of the establishment: Hotel Imperial. The name was too grand for the roach-infested flophouse—an Armani suit worn by a beggar. It was the kind of place he had been in more than once during his years as a New York City police officer and criminal investigator. What difference did it make if he was in Argentina, half a world away from the Big Apple?

  The bottom floor of the Imperial was devoted to a small café, lifted right out of 1950’s Middle America. Cracked red vinyl upholstery covered the round metal chairs scattered haphazardly around a handful of tables, and a squadron of grossly enormous flies buzzed around the remains of a meal, left by an earlier patron and ignored by the proprietor. DiLorenzo batted one of the insects away from his face as he approached the apathetic man behind the counter.

  “Busco esta mujer,” he said haltingly, unsure of himself in the unfamiliar language. He laid a photograph on the counter, sliding it surreptitiously toward the man. Underneath the picture, the corner of a twenty-peso note, worth roughly an equivalent amount in US dollars, protruded invitingly.

  The man moved only his eyes, glancing down at the photograph then back up to lock stares with the detective, apparently disdainful of the monetary offer. DiLorenzo frowned, then laid another bill alongside the first. The man folded his arms over his chest, then turned away, passing through a curtained doorway into a storeroom. He returned a moment later and laid a discolored brass key on the counter, never uttering a syllable.

  DiLorenzo picked up the black and white photograph—a copy made from newspaper monochrome showing Mira Raiden looking spectacular, if a bit uncomfortable, mere moments before entering the American Museum of Natural History and going to war with a bunch of gun-toting party crashers—and returned it to his coat pocket. He left the money where it lay and picked up the key. The number “5” had been written on it with a permanent-ink marker, but was barely visible against the tarnished metal. Sensing that further taxing his limited Spanish vocabulary would be fruitless, he nodded to the man, then moved toward the stairs.

  Like any major city, Buenos Aires had its seamier side. Although DiLorenzo had previously never ventured outside of the tri-state area, much less left the borders of the United States, he felt strangely in his element as he combed the streets of the Argentine capital, looking for any trace of Mira Raiden. Despite the language barrier, his skills as an investigator had shone through. Some inquiries at the banks had set him on the trail of Mira’s traveler’s cheques. He next learned that a significant amount of the substitute tender had been redeemed, which in turn led him to the previous owner of a vintage Harley Davidson

  Between that discovery and his arrival at the Hotel Imperial, there was a lot of footwork and bribery, the latter of which was now seriously depleting his travel funds. But with any luck, the end of the search was finally at hand.

  He cautiously hiked up the stairs, watching for the telltale signs that might reveal trouble ahead. He had no reason to suspect an ambush, but he was an outsider in a strange city. The hotel proprietor could just as easily have sent him to the room of an accomplice who would mug him and make sure that the body was never found.

  The hallway was quiet, but this did little to alla
y his concerns. He found the door marked with the same digit as his key, but manners dictated he announce his presence rather than enter of his own accord.

  He knocked loudly, then stepped to one side. It was a habit he had learned back home; he knew of too many officers that had been shot through closed doors. He waited several seconds then repeated the knock. Without waiting for an answer, he used the key and swung the door wide open.

  A bare hotel room greeted his eyes. The space was small and roughly finished, with a single, made bed and a partitioned lavatory area near the door. He eased inside, first glancing into the bathroom, then gazing around the protruding inside corner wall. A small alcove lay just beyond the bathroom, with a horizontal rod for hanging clothes and a luggage stand on the floor. There was no indication that anyone had used the room in some time.

  Breathing a curse for forty lost pesos, DiLorenzo put his hands on his hips and stared at the empty closet.

  Five seconds later—five seconds that somehow passed without his conscious awareness—the New York detective found himself prone on the floor. His lower back was numb from the impact that had driven the breath from his lungs and flattened him. His ribs ached from the collision with the floor, and his chin, which had smacked the floor hardest of all, was scraped raw and smarting. Though the weight that sat squarely across his shoulders was not heavy enough to keep him from getting up, the hard metal object pressing into the flesh below his ear and the faint, familiar smell of gun oil, were an implicit warning against such a course of action.

  “Not your lucky day, amigo.”

  The voice, a sonorous blend of bird song and huskiness, tinged with a serious tone of authority, was very familiar, but it was the accent that gave it away.

  “Believe it or not, Mira,” replied DiLorenzo, as soon as his ability to draw breath returned, “my luck is finally changing.”

  In room number six of the Hotel Imperial, Detective DiLorenzo lay back on the bed, an instant cold compress from Mira’s first-aid kit pressed against his abraded chin, waiting for the ibuprofen tablets she had given him to go to work. Despite her petite size, the blow she had dealt him called to mind his high school football days.

  “Expecting someone else?”

  Mira paced impatiently at the foot of the bed. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’d like to hear it. If you found me, then it’s only a matter of time before they do.”

  DiLorenzo sat up, wincing. “Then you already know about them.”

  Mira stopped in front of him, resting her hands on her hips and leaned forward. “What do you know?”

  “Well, since you asked so nicely . . .” He lowered the ice pack. “New boots?”

  Her chocolate and amber gaze intensified for a moment, then she broke into unrestrained laughter. “It would seem that I underestimated your skills as a detective.”

  After her escape from Rachel Aimes and her gang of mercenaries, Mira had ridden nonstop for several hours, putting about two hundred miles between herself and the village where she had, hopefully, stranded her foes. Nevertheless, she had exercised considerable caution when deciding to pull off the dirt track for a short break.

  A ways off the road, behind a forest thicket, she had located one of the most beautiful places she had ever seen—a clearing around a crystal clear pool at the base of a fifteen-foot waterfall. The natural spring, apparently the end of an underground river, provided not only deliciously pure drinking water, but afforded her the opportunity to take a bracing shower. She had peeled off the wetsuit, which now reeked of stale perspiration, old neoprene and seawater, and plunged into the pool, resurfacing directly beneath the frigid downpour. Standing on rocks worn smooth by erosion, she had scrubbed away the sweat and grime, massaging splinters of wood gently from the torn skin of her knees and palms. The torrent reopened the wound in her upper left arm, but she had allowed it to bleed freely beneath the cold water, hoping to sluice away any lingering infection.

  Although she had left her enemies behind, she had not completely lowered her guard. Nevertheless, the three wandering Shining Path rebel soldiers who stumbled across the siren-like figure standing in the midst of the waterfall nearly got the drop on her. Had they not, captivated by her beauty, decided to attempt relieving their lingering sexual frustrations with her, she would have been helpless to defend herself. Laying their weapons aside, they had tried to subdue her with their bare hands, and paid dearly for that mistake.

  Always one to find the silver lining, Mira had determined that one of the men had approximately the same shoe size as she. With her Dr. Martens gone to the bottom of the Pacific, trapped forever in the burned-out remains of Muldoon’s boat, she took advantage of the unexpected victory over the three bandits by liberating the military issue boots from the rebel’s corpse, along with a set of olive drab fatigues, all of which she washed thoroughly in the pool. The three men had carried Type 56 rifles, Chinese-made versions of the AK-47. But a closer inspection revealed that neither of the weapons had any ammunition and had suffered so much abuse and neglect that they were unlikely to work anyway.

  Before leaving the clearing, she had stitched the long gash in her arm, wrapping it in a thick layer of gauze and waterproof tape, and treated all of her wounds with antiseptic. To protect her myriad wounds from further infection, she had dressed in the confiscated clothes as soon as they were marginally dry and strapped the still sodden boots on her feet. Sore and tired, but with the worst behind her, she had climbed back on the motorcycle and continued her journey, leaving the castoff wetsuit in the care of the dead rebels.

  Fearing the long reach of her adversaries, she had avoided commercial centers or any places in the city where she might be remembered or recognized. For the same reason, she had not been able to purchase new clothing and used only cash, from her very limited reserves, when purchasing food or securing lodgings. She tracked down the black market gun dealer who had sold her the Beretta and convinced him to take one of the Heckler & Koch machine pistols in exchange for several boxes of nine-millimeter 115-grain, hollow-point ammunition that would work equally well in her pistol or in the MP5. She had signed only one of her traveler’s cheques, giving it to the hotel owner and promising him another like it upon her departure if he kept a constant vigil in her behalf, alerting her to the presence of anyone looking for her. It was in this capacity that the man had misdirected the detective after alerting her to his arrival.

  She did not reveal any of this to DiLorenzo, despite his insistent inquiries. Instead, she directed him back to the lingering question of his presence in South America.

  “I guess it started when I left you that night at Aimes’ apartment. Jeff—my partner—had called to say that they were transporting the prisoner—the guy that you brained with that serving tray at the museum—to Riker’s . . .”

  Mira’s jaw dropped. “The man driving the boat. I knew he looked familiar.”

  “Boat?” DiLorenzo’s voice was uncharacteristically strident. “You mean you’ve seen him? He’s here?”

  “In a minute. Please continue. I have a feeling you’re about to tell me how he escaped your custody.”

  “Oh, yeah. He just waltzed away.” DiLorenzo spat derisive laughter, then jumped up and matched Mira’s pacing. “I went to the hospital where he was being kept. It was me, Jeff, and a couple uniforms. I mean, it was a prisoner transfer and the guy was practically comatose. It should have been a walk in the park.

  “Then everything went to hell. Jeff never—” DiLorenzo faltered, and he turned away quickly. “I don’t know how they missed me. Maybe their guy was in front of me or something. I don’t remember it all that well. All I know is that they hit us hard and fast.”

  Mira weighed the detective’s words. “I’m very sorry about your friend.”

  The detective tried to shrug his emotions away. “They got him to the roof and onto that damn helicopter. I’m surprised that you didn’t hear about it. A sho
otout and escape at the hospital—knocked you right off the front page.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to follow the news. However, I saw that man again a few days ago. He’s here—” Mira stopped suddenly, finally connecting the pieces of the puzzle. “But you already knew that. That’s why you’ve come.”

  “Not exactly.” DiLorenzo turned to face her. “A few hours after the escape, we finally got a positive match on the guy’s ID. His name is Jorge Montero, an Argentine national. He’s the heir to a pretty substantial cattle ranching fortune. But there’s more to the Montero family than just the beef.”

  “Let me guess. He is a grandson of an escaped Nazi war criminal.”

  DiLorenzo’s jaw dropped. “Maybe I should just let you finish the story.”

  “Lucky guess, I assure you. Please continue.”

  “Actually, the Montero’s are pure-bred Old World Colonial Spaniards. Joauquin Montero, Jorge’s grandfather, fought with the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, and reciprocated the support given by the Nazis during World War II. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has been investigating the Montero family for years, trying to find a connection between them and SS officers that might have escaped with plundered gold to South America after the war.”

  “Odessa,” muttered Mira, remembering Muldoon’s paranoia.

  “Right. So far the case is purely circumstantial, but we do know that Montero and his buddies are killers.”

  “But you aren’t here to take him back?”

  DiLorenzo sighed, pacing in a circle. “No. As a matter of fact, I’m on vacation. ‘Administrative leave’ is actually the official term for it. Apparently, the department psychologist thought that watching my partner die might have traumatized me.”