She had no more patience for being Mr. Nice Guy, was all out of caution and concern over avoiding collateral damage. This time the bets were off. The projection was smash and grab. Get in, get the girl, get the hell out.
A hefty payment to Raúl, and the taxi driver was willing to let go of his cab for the rest of the night—maybe forever. Bradford drove it, navigating the chaos and suicidal maneuverings of Buenos Aires traffic with the skill of a local, while Munroe followed in the Peugeot.
They stopped at a parking area a crooked half mile from the hostel, a place where the streets were still well lit and the vehicle was safe enough from vandalism during the hopefully brief time away.
Munroe stepped from her car and into the night. She pulled a nearly empty duffel bag from the passenger seat, tossed it into the back of the taxi, and locked the Peugeot by remote. She joined Bradford in the cab, handed him the keys, and they rode in silence to the hostel.
The building was sandwiched between others, fronting a two-lane road in a part of town where sidewalk traffic never died. On either side, up and down the street were mom-and-pop restaurants, tailors, repair shops, secondhand shops, all closed and dark, the street traffic coming from the many bars, all with their light and noise and smoke spilling onto the otherwise darkened sidewalks.
By contrast, the hotel was quiet, if dimly lit, a beacon of order in the midst of confusion.
Bradford stopped the cab a half block away from the hotel. Munroe slung the bag over her shoulder and stepped out.
“Ten minutes,” Bradford said, and she nodded.
Going in, she was carrying two blades and a Bersa Thunder 9, one of several firearms that Bradford had already picked up locally. Considering the hotel’s management and clientele, it would be insane to enter unarmed, but the plan was to move fast enough to avoid having to utilize any weapon at all.
The tiny hotel lobby was as Munroe expected. To her left as she entered was the open doorway to the cantina, and after only a few steps in, the hotel desk. The man behind it was easily six-foot-four, and half as wide. He was polite and deferential, and he treated her request for a room with the courtesy expected of any proprietor. She filled out the paperwork and he handed her a key, an old-fashioned-looking thing that hung on the end of a four-inch strip of wood.
The room was as Bradford described: clean, spartan, tiny, and, ironically, on the second floor directly under where Hannah slept. Munroe moved to the window and stared down at the rear alley only long enough to draw the image of the taxi out of the darkness.
Pulling Hannah from the third floor of this building required supplies that they didn’t have, and Munroe had been unwilling to wait to procure them. Like so many parts of an assignment that required split-second changes and last-minute improvisations, the extraction would be makeshift and sloppy, executed with what was already at hand.
Bag on the floor, Munroe tossed the bed, pulled both sheets off, and far corner to far corner, knotted them. Double-checked the tensile strength, checked against slippage, and then shoved them into the bag.
Door locked, she walked to the end of the hall and rapped a pattern against Bradford’s door.
He opened, and she stepped inside.
His bed was tossed, his sheets knotted. She checked his knots and said, “No offense.” He shrugged, and in turn checked hers. Munroe connected the two pieces, and together they worked the length of it. They moved fast. Thorough. And when complete, she stuffed the finished product back into the bag.
They left his room together, listened for the footsteps of the patrolman as he walked the halls until they placed him on the first floor. Bradford headed down the stairs, and Munroe headed up.
She had no business being on the third floor, no business standing in front of Hannah’s door, and Bradford, with his limited Spanish and necessary questions, would buy her time from prying eyes.
The door locks were basic and old-fashioned, the rooms without backup chains or dead bolts, and it took but a moment to work the mechanism and slip inside to the black of the room. Munroe relocked the door from the inside.
The click of the latch was a subtle sound. Not so subtle that Munroe or Bradford or Logan would have slept through it, but then, these two in the bedroom were not war hardened and at three in the morning were dead to the world.
Munroe paused long enough to allow her eyes to adjust to the room’s minimal light level, then lowered the bag to the floor and pulled from the side pocket a bottle and cloth.
On the bed and closest to the door was the woman Bradford had scrunched his face over. Munroe recognized her as one of the many from the dining-room scenes, one of the few who hadn’t had children about her. She was early fifties—possibly younger—and the years and the poor quality of life hadn’t been kind.
Munroe wet the cloth and placed it over the woman’s nose and mouth. The woman’s eyes opened, panicked for a moment, before they shut again.
On a foldout cot that barely fit between the bed and the window was Hannah.
Munroe stared for a moment while Logan’s daughter slept in innocent bliss. Then she knelt, placed the cloth over the girl’s face, and watched her eyes flutter open and the same terror settle into them before she too drifted back into oblivion.
With both of them unconscious, Munroe shifted the nameless woman off the bed and settled her on the floor. She tore the sheets off the mattress and added them to the chain that she and Bradford had already assembled.
Hannah was a much lighter load, and instead of lifting her out of the bed, Munroe curled her and took the four corners of the sheet, knotted them into a sling, and repeated the procedure with the second sheet, a backup in the unlikely event the knots on the first slipped.
The window was waist high, a narrow opening that did not give easily when Munroe tugged at it, and when it moved, it did so loudly and grudgingly. Munroe paused; listened to the night; listened for a response; heard none. Below, Bradford burst a quick flash of light in her direction. All clear.
Getting Hannah to the window was easier said than done. Although she was an easy ten inches shorter than Munroe, and even thin for her height, she was still a heavy weight to be safely raised and then lowered along the outside wall.
Bradford would have been the better, stronger choice for this part of the job, but to put him in this room with two women carried its own risks. While he might hesitate to use physical force against either of them if necessary, Munroe would not.
Munroe knelt with one knee to the floor, tight against Hannah’s cocooned body. She took the sheet’s tail, wrapped it around her forearm, and then around her torso, allowing the remainder to trail along the floor. Using her knee as a brace, Munroe pulled Hannah toward her, cradled her, and with all of the weight centered at her hips, stood.
There was only a step between where Hannah had lain and the window where she must go, but in that step came the reverberation of a door being slammed directly below. Inching backward, Munroe tipped her head toward the night and heard the window ten feet down scrape shut.
Munroe paused, arms beginning to shake from the weight they bore. Bradford flashed again from below, and feetfirst, Munroe tipped Hannah out the window. The sling held, tightened, and Munroe let go the remaining side. With the last of Hannah’s body through the threshold, the tightly wound sheet and the weight pulled Munroe hard against the wall. She braced, knees bent, pulling backward, allowing the sheet to unwind inch by inch, while counting down minutes until whoever had been downstairs was at the door.
There was no good explanation for why someone had been in her room. Best case was statistical crime. Theft, vandalism, even intent to rape or murder were better possibilities than that of the front-desk and security guys comparing notes. But barring the unlikelihood of the downstairs incursion being bad timing on the part of a common criminal, the sheetless bed would only confirm whatever suspicions the Cárcan foot soldiers had originally had for entering.
Given the proximity in timing between her preda
wn request for a room and Bradford’s return to the hostel, it wouldn’t take long to draw the connection. After that, it was merely a matter of minutes before the bad guys headed this way. If she and Bradford were lucky, there were rooms and things in this building that ranked higher in order of priority and would be checked on first.
Hannah was five feet down the thirty-foot drop when the first knock came at the door. Munroe ignored it, ignored the anxiety of having her back to the room and her hands tied, closed her eyes and continued to feed the cocoon toward Bradford.
The knock was louder, a pounding that couldn’t help but roust adjoining neighbors from their beds. Bradford’s light clicked a rapid succession. He’d heard the noise. Munroe slowed in feeding, pulled the flashlight from her teeth, and replied.
Company.
Hannah was ten feet down. Still too high to drop. Munroe’s back remained to the door, her hearing taking over where sight was absent. The door handle shook. And then came splintering as the door slammed inward.
She continued to feed. Fifteen feet. Halfway there.
They paused at the door, and Munroe didn’t need to see them to follow their movements. Long years spent in the night of the jungle, years of tracking in the dark, of hiding in the dark, of avoiding the worst kind of predator, had primed her for moments like these. She knew them by the rustle of clothing, the weight of foot to floor, and the carelessness of their breathing.
There were two of them, paused at the sides of the doorway, as if these thin walls would protect them from any return fire.
Seventeen feet.
Against the ambient light of the window, Munroe made a perfect target silhouette.
She fed the line. Eighteen feet.
One intruder knelt in the doorway, weapon trained on Munroe. The other moved into the room, nudged the woman on the floor with his toe, and then low and calm came the order for Munroe to raise her hands and to turn slowly.
Munroe ignored them. Nineteen feet. At twenty-four feet, Hannah would be close enough to the ground for Bradford to break her fall.
The order came again, this time not so low, not so calm.
Munroe continued to feed, calculating distance and accuracy. From fifteen feet behind, the chances of even a mediocre shot landing a fatal wound were high. It would be tragic to end it here, like this, but if this was how she went, so be it. She wasn’t turning, wasn’t letting go of Hannah.
Twenty feet.
A warning shot shattered a window pane above her head. Shards of glass fell away. From below Bradford muffled a yell.
“Drop her,” he said. “I’ve got her. Drop her!”
Twenty-two feet.
Footsteps crossing the room.
Munroe released the sheet from her forearm and it slipped slowly from her grasp. The full weight of Hannah wound around her waist, slowed only by Munroe’s weight against the windowsill.
“Follow the plan,” she yelled.
Bradford’s beam pointed upward.
Munroe took a step from the window, let go, and the sheet whipped wildly. From below came first a thud, then a grunt, a pause, and then a door slam.
The cold of gun metal pressed against the back of Munroe’s head. She raised first one hand and then the other until her fingers joined behind her head.
Tires peeled, and in her mind’s eye, Munroe saw the taxi launch forward.
Hannah was away, and every moment here, every moment stalled, facilitated that escape. Munroe filled with a mix of elation and regret. The sadness wasn’t for herself but for Bradford, because no matter what happened tonight, she knew well from personal experience the torment to come: he would feel helpless to protect her, he could do nothing but watch and wait; he would curse himself for his weakness, torture himself while wondering if he had done the right thing.
The muzzle stayed pressed to Munroe’s head, and she stared forward, out the window, into the night, a sad smile on her face while the other set of hands, rough and angry, patted her down.
Eventually Bradford would realize that there was nothing he could have done differently. She’d gone into the hostel, this third-floor room, fully aware that she was walking into a box. She had made the choice consciously, and her refusal to resist or fight was more of the same, this time to allow Bradford the opportunity to gain distance from the hostel. But in the end, no matter tonight’s outcome and no matter what her reasons, Bradford would ache, and this was the one thought that pained her.
The hands found the Bersa, found the blades. Took them. Munroe braced. Waited. And then the world went black.
Chapter 32
Bradford fishtailed out of the alley and onto the narrow connecting street, the street that led away from the hostel, away from Munroe and toward the objective.
He was breathing hard. Too hard. He needed to slow down, he couldn’t think, couldn’t focus. She’d been clear on what she wanted. Follow the plan. And so he followed, driving on instinct, moving on autopilot, every muscle, every nerve screaming the contra-order.
He’d left a man behind. And not just any man; he’d left Michael.
This was not the way things were done. Not the way it should be. Wrong. He had to go back, fight, protect her the way she refused to protect herself. Michael was the important one, not this girl she was giving her life to save.
Bradford swung a left, side street to boulevard, one more taxi blending into the city’s late-night or early-morning traffic. He eased off the pedal if only slightly. Every second took him farther away from Munroe—if she was even still alive.
Reason kicked in.
Of course she was still alive. She’d walked into the big dog’s den and taken his bone, and now that dog was going to want to know where to find it and how to get it back.
The realization was a double-edged sword. There was relief in the knowledge that Michael was alive, and would still be alive for a while; but there was torment knowing what would come when she refused to divulge any information. Not only because she wouldn’t, but because she couldn’t.
She’d foreseen this. It’s why she’d left the finer details of getting Hannah out of the country in Bradford’s hands, why even she had no idea how he was transporting the girl, or where in neighboring Montevideo he would take her.
More, she knew the way the game was played. As long as they thought she had what they wanted, they would continue to try to break her. The longer she lived, and the more they focused in the wrong direction, the safer Hannah would be.
Bradford pulled into the parking area next to the Peugeot and shut off the engine. He turned to the backseat where the little body was still bundled, and after staring at the girl for several seconds, he stepped from the cab and opened the rear door.
He sliced through the knots in the sheets and let the material fall. The girl looked so small, so fragile, sleeping as she was. She was unmistakably Logan, and the similarity brought on a surge of anger that crested above the tormenting conflict.
Bradford remained motionless, caught in the crosshairs of duty.
The child breathed a steady in-and-out, and his mind found the pattern, working through the maze. He would find a way both to fulfill his obligation and to avoid abandoning Munroe to the vises of the Cárcan family.
He lifted Hannah and transferred her from one car to the next. Left the items in the trunk where they were. Tossed the keys to the cab under the cab’s front passenger seat and climbed into the Peugeot.
He would do this.
Against his strongest instinct he would follow the plan. But he would add his own twist. This was the only way his conscience would allow him to both move forward and give Munroe what she wanted.
The time had come for Logan to pay his dues.
Bringing Logan into the mix wasn’t a decision made lightly, nor was it based on emotion, although granted, emotion ran high. These were Bradford’s terms. If he was to sacrifice Munroe to save another’s child, then everyone would pay a price. A life for a life for a life.
And
that, exactly, was the risk of bringing Logan or even Gideon into the fray. Sure, they were both kickass in their own little worlds, but that wasn’t the same thing as living on the edge. Skills got rusty, muscles got weak, and for whatever else, they were still living the civilian life. Munroe had a reason for wanting to keep them out of the fight—not just so that she wouldn’t worry—but because of the higher likelihood of one of them getting killed.
Life for a life for a life.
Bradford picked up the phone. Punched in the number.
“I’ve got Hannah,” Bradford said.
The relief on the other end was palpable. “Where are you?” Logan said.
“They’ve got Michael.”
Silence.
“I can’t go after her,” Bradford said. “Not if I’m to get Hannah safely out. The situation is volatile.”
More silence.
“You can either track Michael or I’m leaving Hannah where she is, right now, and going back myself.” Bradford stopped, waiting for the venom in his voice to fade.
“Why don’t you give me Hannah?” Logan said.
“Not an option. It’s either all or nothing. The people we just took her from are powerful, connected, and vicious. I have pieces in place to get your daughter safely out of the country, and my window of opportunity is closing. I don’t have time to dicker around with you. Either I do this or I don’t.”
Another pause, and Logan said, “Tell me where I should start.”
Bradford gave Logan the address of the hostel, provided general directions, told him how to find the taxi and what he would find in the taxi. Explained the layout of the hostel, the patterns of security, and what Logan could expect. He told him to move fast. Munroe was there right now. There was no guarantee for how long.
“Last thing,” Bradford said. “Tell Gideon the only way he’s ever going to get the information Michael had for him is if she’s alive to give it to him herself.”
Bradford shut the phone without waiting for a response, tossed it on the seat, and pulled out of the parking area into the thin stream of traffic. Gideon might have gone along anyway, simply to watch Logan’s back, but there was no motivator like self-interest.
The Innocent: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel Page 26