Hunting for Caracas

by Anthony Fox

  She took a deep breath. ‘Sometimes I just get this, sort of, feeling, about certain people. Not often, but it’s like I can sense something.’

  Grandad looked wholly uncomfortable just watching Assia speak. ‘You mean like you think they’re dangerous?’ he offered.

  ‘No, not necessarily. I mean they could be. But it’s more like–’

  ‘Like what, you don’t trust them?’ Grandad asked.

  ‘Kinda. But it’s not just a general thing. It’s like there’s intent there. Like something they might do.’ Assia huffed and threw up her hands. ‘I don’t know. I said it was dumb.’

  Grandad smiled a sympathetic smile, but Matthews’ face didn’t move.

  ‘You got a feeling about this man?’ Matthews asked her.

  ‘Not one man, from all three,’ she replied. Grandad explained that they’d encountered three men, one on this floor and two on the ground floor.

  ‘I’ve never had that sort of feeling about three people all at once.’

  ‘You don’t get these feelings often?’ Matthews probed.

  Assia shook her head. ‘Hardly ever until... until recently. I got the same feeling about that guy on the train. Right before you came in.’

  Matthews’s eyes narrowed. ‘Jenkins?’

  Assia shrugged. ‘I never knew his name. And one of the men at the apartment you took us to. One of the Americans.’

  ‘Connelly?’ Matthews said the name through gritted teeth.

  Assia shrugged her shoulders again. ‘I don’t know. The tall, good-looking one.’

  Something seemed to be decided in Matthews’ head. He straightened up, it appeared with a renewed energy, and spoke to the young boy who did his bidding. ‘Are we prepared to leave?’

  ‘As always,’ replied Grandad with a nod. ‘But you don’t think the girl can be right, do you?’

  ‘Girl. I’m as old as you, douchebag, and I’m standing right here,’ Asia said, scowling.

  ‘No, I don’t think she can be,’ said Matthews, ignoring her outburst. ‘But we must act all the same. I’ll clear up here. You head back out. And take a good look this time. You need to go right out to the main street and find cover across from the building. Call me from there.’

  Grandad looked unconvinced but obeyed without hesitation.

  ‘Gear?’ Matthews asked.

  ‘Just the two Brownings you have, fully loaded. There’s also a hunting knife in the bag with the other stuff.’

  As Grandad left, Matthews headed for his room. Assia asked what was going on and what she should do. He only answered the second question.

  ‘Nothing,’ Matthews called back as the bedroom door closed behind him.

  59

  Five minutes later Matthews re-emerged, looking calmer than she’d expected. Assia was sat on the floor in the hallway. Matthews had a phone to his ear as he moved awkwardly towards her. He wasn’t speaking, only listening, until he finally said, ‘OK. We’ll move now. Stay in place. I’ll call when we’re clear.’ Then he hung up and turned to Assia. ‘Where is it?’ he demanded.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We don’t have time. You’re right. Grandad said there’s four men in the building and three more covering the outside. Not including the one you saw on this floor that’s moved, plus any he can’t see. Someone found us. Only way is they tracked us. You had the music player hidden. I need to know what else you have.’

  ‘Nothing. How do you know they tracked us? Maybe someone followed Grandad when he went to get food.’

  ‘I’m not angry, Assia. I just need to know what it is.’

  ‘You sound angry.’

  She didn’t bother arguing again. She went to her room and retrieved the phone hidden under her mattress. When she brought it back to Matthews he immediately asked where she’d got it. ‘It was Charlie’s,’ she told him. ‘You had it when you came back from the barn. When you told me to phone Grandad. I found it in your pocket, and I didn’t want anyone to take it.’

  Matthews thought back.

  I took the boy’s phone on the train.

  Then he remembered, later that night, after he’d followed Connelly, after he’d confronted the arrogant American. After firing the bullet.

  I used the phone to call a taxi. The boy’s phone. But surely I threw it away.

  He tried to remember.

  Didn’t I?

  Everything happened so fast after that. He’d known he couldn’t waste any time getting back to the apartment. He was too late even so, too late for anyone but Assia.

  Surely I dropped the phone?

  He remembered not wanting to leave any trace at the scene with Connelly’s body. Every phone Matthews used was a simple throwaway bought with cash and used only briefly before being replaced, but the boy’s would likely be traceable.

  If a camera picked me up using the phone at the scene, they could easily have tracked it.

  ‘What?’ Matthews suddenly realised Assia was talking.

  ‘I said they couldn’t have found us with this phone anyway. I never used it. The battery’s dead. It was dead the first time I tried it.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Battery’s never dead, even when you can’t turn it on. Long as the core’s undamaged, the signal can be picked up almost anywhere.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘It’s complicated and involves local base stations picking up the pulse all mobile phones send out. The more base stations there are in your area, the easier someone can triangulate your position. Now come on, we need to move.’

  Matthews led Assia to his bedroom. Inside, the room was now completely stripped. No clothes or items on the shelves or floor, no bedding, pillow cases or towels, and no sheets of paper stuck to the left-hand wall. All that remained was a large shoulder bag on the floor to one side of the bed. Matthews walked around, picked it up. He ignored any pain from the effort.

  ‘What about my stuff?’ Assia asked.

  ‘Leave it.’ He turned to look at her. ‘All of it.’

  Assia seemed to catch his meaning. Charlie’s phone was on the floor in the hallway. Matthews had dropped it right where she gave it to him. She just nodded.

  Matthews walked over to the mirror hanging on the back wall. It was no more than a metre high and less than half a metre wide, hanging just above the ground. Matthews lifted it off the wall and set it to one side. Behind was a big hole in the wall.

  He pulled the bag off his shoulder and flung it through, then waved at Assia to come over. Without a word she slid her tiny frame through and Matthews followed as he thought about the people following.

  Did they have someone posted on every floor, searching for their exact location? If so there were six floors, which meant six people, along with at least two others on the ground floor and the three outside that Grandad spotted. This could mean there was possibly a minimum of eleven men and women here for them.

  A minimum.

  The space led to another apartment at the other side of the building. This one was completely empty. Matthews reached through the hole and grabbed the mirror. Whilst holding it backwards he was able to deftly replace it back on the wall. An identical mirror laid on the floor went over the hole on this side of the wall.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Assia asked meekly.

  ‘Basement parking.’

  Matthews took a few steps and then stopped dead and put a finger to his lips, indicating to Assia to be quiet.

  Noise. A door being kicked open.

  Then fast footsteps. Surely more than one set, or even two.

  He headed out of the room, straight out the apartment door and into the hallway, Assia following close behind.

  At the staircase they went up instead of down. Assia hopped rather than ran up the steps and Matthews stayed hunched as he hurried along with the shoulder bag, not wanting to affect the wound to his stomach.

  Whilst they were climbing a smash came from somewhere back in the building that could’ve been the glass of a mirror breaking.

 
They didn’t stop.

  They took the door to the sixth floor.

  Then a long corridor. At the end Assia saw a window.

  Matthews opened it, climbed through and disappeared.

  ‘Stay there,’ he instructed from the other side.

  Then he was gone.

  ***

  He’s leaving me.

  Assia heard sounds of people approaching from somewhere behind her. She took one look back down the hallway and climbed through the window.

  On the other side, outside, a metal balcony. Assia grunted as she landed. Pain fired through her knee. She stood and adjusted her eyes to the light. It’d been a long time since Assia had seen daylight, and she had to shield herself from the brightness.

  Matthews was crouched in the corner of the balcony with his bag under his feet. He swore as Assia appeared next to him, moving to pull her down and out of sight.

  But it was too late.

  Two men searching from the street below, apparently until then unable to see Matthews from his covered position, spotted Assia immediately. One pointed, the other relayed a message into the microphone on his collar, presumably to others close by.

  Matthews pushed Assia forward and made for the balcony opposite, separated from them by just a few inches.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Move!’ Matthews replied.

  The adjacent building was a shopping centre and the balcony window was unlocked.

  They ran through the seventh floor as best they could with their injuries. People looked, some pointed. Assia stumbled a little as they reached the lift and shared it with several other people.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Assia wanted to know. Her words came through sharp breathing. The pain in her knee rising rapidly.

  ‘I told you.’

  60

  The basement was a sprawling underground car park. As Matthews led Assia to an old Mercedes van on the lowest floor, her knee gave out.

  She tried to sidestep a couple that were coming in the opposite direction and fell to the side, knocking the woman’s handbag out of her hand, its contents spilling across the floor.

  ‘Sorry,’ Assia said as she raised herself back up.

  ‘Leave her,’ Matthews urged as he continued forward.

  He walked across the car park, took keys from his pocket and unlocked the van.

  Matthews went to the back of the vehicle and put his long shoulder bag in the boot. Searching through it he found the numbing spray and gave it to Assia, along with a handful of painkillers, telling her to get in the car and check her knee. Then he got a cloth and a bottle of miracle spray and quickly rearranged the dressing on his own stomach wound, which was wet with sweat and had slipped out of place. He took two more items from the bag and tucked them into his waistband.

  Across the car park he saw the couple were collecting the contents of the handbag and talking angrily about the rude people that’d barged passed them.

  Matthews closed the boot and got in the driver’s side. Assia sat next to him.

  He was just about to start the car when they heard the screeching of tyres.

  They sounded as if they were inside the building.

  Reluctantly, Matthews waited.

  ‘Come on,’ insisted Assia.

  ‘Be quiet. We’re in trouble.’

  Slowly, the sound of a car engine grew louder. Matthews told Assia to get in the back and for once she obeyed without arguing, unbuckling her seat belt and squeezing her body between the two front seats.

  A car appeared around the ramp. Then a second one appeared. The people in the first car must have noticed the irritated couple collecting the last items off the floor, and pulled over.

  The irritated couple moved off to the lift and disappeared, but not before gesturing angrily in the direction Matthews and Assia had gone.

  The area was now deserted.

  Nothing happened for a short while, then three young men and a young woman exited the first car, in formation, and formed a close group at the back of their vehicle.

  The second car pulled up behind, near the ramp. Two tall, strong men got out of the back and stood guard, perhaps anticipating any other vehicles that might approach. A man came out of the front-passenger door of the second car and stood tall and waited, supporting himself with one arm on the roof of the car. The man was plain-looking with thinning hair that was swept back. The driver of the second car remained in his seat behind the wheel.

  Matthews watched all of them.

  The four from the first car surveyed the area. One nodded and they each produced a long, heavy handgun from somewhere inside their jackets.

  Matthews unclipped his seat belt and silently slid into the back alongside Assia, not for one moment taking his eyes away from what was going on in front of them.

  The three men and one woman approached the area where the couple had been and looked to where they’d pointed.

  ‘I’m scared,’ Matthews was surprised to hear Assia whisper. Her voice sounded high and squeaky.

  ‘I know,’ was his barely audible reply.

  With hand signals he instructed her to lie down in the footwell and keep low.

  Matthews raised himself into the seat and produced two high-power Browning pistols from the back of his waistband and held them firmly in his grip. They felt both rough and smooth to his hands, the metal cold and familiar, supplying him with confidence.

  The group peered through the windows of the nearest vehicles.

  One of them turned to the man leaning against the second car.

  ‘All clear here, Mr Proud.’

  Mr Proud gestured for them to look in the same direction that the couple had pointed.

  Matthews knew the automatic pistols they were all holding were Glock 18s, each with the twin fat disk of a hundred-round clip at the bottom. On full automatic they could fire the lot in a few seconds. Matthews glanced to the side. Of the four men from the second car he assumed at least two were armed.

  If Assia and he were discovered in the back of the van, they were as good as dead.

  One of the group was looking at the ground and saw something in the dusty tarmac. He went over and bent low, examining closely. Then his eyes followed a path on the ground, moving in a straight line towards the van.

  Footprints. Surely not.

  But maybe scuff marks.

  Even as Matthews was thinking this the man raised his head and looked in their direction and smiled, revealing a mouth full of bad teeth. He whistled for the others to come over.

  The other three followed closely behind as the one who’d found the marks advanced towards the minivan.

  Matthews clenched his jaw and leaned his weight back against the seat, his arms relaxed in front of him, the high-power Brownings gripped firmly in each hand.

  He watched them move as they approached. They were light on their feet and carried themselves and their weapons confidently, if a little arrogantly. The invincibility of youth, he knew. Their approach, like the way they surrounded the car now, with little communication, no misunderstanding, and working as a unit, was professional, and meant professional training. None of which was positive for Matthews and Assia.

  Less than ten metres away, the group pulled up and stopped. They fanned out around the vehicle, dividing their force.

  Matthews raised one pistol and aimed at the man standing at 3 o’clock. Then he raised the other one to aim at the man at 9 o’clock. His grip was tight, prepared for the vicious kickback from the Brownings. He slid down in his seat to stabilise his position and took one glance at the men from the second vehicle. The man called Mr Proud was still leaning casually on the car.

  Matthews could feel a nervous heat coming from Assia. He sensed her watching him. He was thankful she was being quiet at any rate. Mr 3 o’clock looked up to signal something to the guy at the bonnet. Matthews fired with both hands.

  He knew the first bullets would hit the toughened glass windows and deviate from their initial t
rajectory, so he’d decided to fire two rapid shots with each pistol to ensure the second one at least would hit its intended target. He also knew the smashing windows would release an explosion of sound so sudden and loud it would shock everybody.

  Everybody except him.

  That was his only edge.

  He fired both pistols in unison, both twice, a double double-tap. They were so close together you could barely distinguish one from the other.

  Mr 3 o’clock and Mr 9 o’clock were hit and went down before they knew what had happened. Matthews instantly dropped one of the Brownings and spun to take aim through the smashed window, not at the other two around the van, but at the second car parked near the ramp.

  He quickly unloaded the rest of his clip at the second car without thinking about anything, then dropped down into the footwell on top of Assia.

  Only then did he register that Mr Proud had already dropped safely out of sight. Matthews hit the other two guys and felt like he’d hit them well, with any remaining bullets going into the car and the walls. Matthews knew he hadn’t hit the driver.

  ‘HOLY SHIT!’ someone outside the car shouted.

  The reason Matthews fired and dropped so quickly was because that was all the time it took for the other two to react, aim their guns, and unload at the van.

  Bullets rained down on them as the raucous fire came in rapid, semi-automatic bursts.

  Matthews covered Assia and she screamed. They were lying head to tail, Matthews with Assia’s shoes in his face, wondering if they’d survive the next twenty seconds.

  ‘DIE!!’

  Bullets continued to rain down.

  One shooter reloaded.

  Through the firing Matthews reached up and grabbed his other Browning off the seat where he’d dropped it. He tried to raise himself up enough to see the man at the front of the van, using the seats for cover. He couldn’t just lie here and do nothing.

  Just as he felt the man might come into view, something bit the side of Matthews’ neck and pain seared through him.

  Matthews growled and moved his free hand to the wounded area as he risked a quick look up, saw the guy had taken cover below the bonnet, raised the Browning, and fired. Only the head and shoulders of the man were visible over the bonnet, but the shot hit home and the guy fell back. Matthews thought he’d hit him in the shoulder and therefore doubted he was dead.