Circle of Death - Strike Back Series 05 (2020)

by Ryan, Chris

  Not from the guard’s rifle.

  From across the foyer.

  Porter, giving the target the double-tap special.

  The guard gave out a howl as the first round thumped into his groin, hot lead tearing into his balls. The second bullet struck several inches higher, slapping into his chest. Keyhole surgery, Regiment-style. The guard dropped his weapon and fell backwards, arms flailing. He knocked over a china vase before he flopped to the ground. Blood pooling around him, mixing with the broken shards.

  Bald spun round. Saw Porter standing in the middle of the foyer, weapon still trained on the slotted guard. There was no time for Bald to say anything to him. He just nodded his gratitude. Bloke just saved my fucking life, he realised.

  Maybe I was wrong.

  Maybe he’s not over the hill just yet.

  Hulk moved towards the dining-room doors and barked at the terrified woman in Spanish. She didn’t move. He stormed inside, grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet, repeating the same words as he pointed at the porticoed entrance. Bald understood what the American was telling her. Get the hell out of here.

  The maid understood. She stumbled out of the dining room, hands shaking and eyes wide with fear as she hurried towards the front door. Hulk watched her go before turning to the others.

  ‘Move on,’ he growled.

  They pressed on through the foyer, crossed a great room lined with more nude bronze statues and headed for the corridor to the left. Bald guessed that five or six minutes had elapsed since the cyber-attack on the barracks. Hulk reckoned it would take the soldiers fifteen minutes to smash their way out of the base. Minimum.

  We need to be out of here by 04.15, Bald reminded himself. We’ve got ten minutes left to find Fuller and bug out. Otherwise we’ll get overrun by forty fucking soldiers.

  The voice inside his head told him to hurry the fuck up.

  He looked ahead as they hit the corridor. The kitchen was located through a bland grey door at the far end, eight metres away.

  Four metres away, on the left side of the corridor, he spotted the unmarked door that led directly down to the basement.

  He was two metres from the door when Porter suddenly halted. glanced back down the corridor in the direction of the grand room, wearing a look of puzzlement.

  ‘Where the fuck is Hulk going?’

  Bald followed his mucker’s line of sight. He saw Hulk marching off in the opposite direction from the rest of the team. Making for the corridor that veered off to the right of the great room, leading towards the master suite and family bedrooms.

  ‘This fucking way!’ Bald shouted out. ‘Over here!’

  Hulk didn’t appear to hear him. He carried on down the other corridor, turned the corner and disappeared from view.

  ‘Stupid bastard,’ Bald muttered.

  ‘Should we go after him?’ asked Porter.

  ‘No time. Fuck him. We’ll get him on the way out. Come on.’

  He wheeled round and quickened his stride as he hurried over to the unmarked basement door. The alarm was still sounding as Bald wrenched the door open and trotted down a metal staircase, boots pounding on the treads, Porter breathing heavily at his six o’clock.

  They hit the bottom of the stairs, crossed another foyer and emerged into a long fluorescent-lit corridor.

  The basement was dusty and dank. Not at all like the luxurious quarters on the ground floor. Bald saw three metal doors on the right side of the corridor. There was another door on the left side of the room, seven metres away from the assaulters. At the far end a separate corridor led off to the right, towards the president’s private wine collection, but Bald wasn’t interested in expensive French plonk. Not today.

  The first door on the right housed the boiler, Bald knew. The second door led to some sort of interrogation room.

  The prison cell was behind the third door.

  He saw movement from the door on the left side of the corridor. The guardroom.

  Two guards were rushing out of the room, guns ready to go. The first guy out of the door was a lanky streak of piss in a brown polo T-shirt and jeans. The guy behind him was a greasy fucker, with slicked-back hair and a black chevron moustache. Like an eighties porn actor. Bald guessed they had heard the muffled reports of the explosions and gunfire outside and had decided to hurry upstairs to find out what was going on.

  The lanky guy was three paces outside the guardroom when he caught sight of the two Brits bearing down on them. He saw Bald levelling his M4 at his face, at a distance of four metres. Close enough for Bald to make out the individual beads of sweat on the fucker’s brow.

  The lanky guy looked at Bald with bug eyes, face registering horror. He raised his weapon. Then Bald drilled him through the head. The two rounds bored holes through his skull, his brains painting the wall behind him a bright mushy red. Bits of gooey matter slicked down the wall as Porter emptied two rounds into the greasy fucker, nailing him in the chest before he could return fire. He jolted like someone had just rigged him up to the national grid. He dropped to the floor next to his comrade in a tangle of contorted limbs, blood disgorging out of the exit wounds in his upper back.

  Bald took a moment to admire his work. Like a painter stepping back from the canvas to take in his masterpiece. Then he made for the cell door. Tested the handle. Locked. He stooped down beside the lanky guy. Snatched a set of keys from his belt, moved back over to the door. He struck gold with the third key, unlocked the deadbolt and yanked the door open, iron hinges groaning in protest.

  He pushed through the gap and stepped inside. Porter stayed back in the corridor, covering the approaches.

  The cell was small and dirty. Three metres by three. There was a stained mattress on the floor, a bucket in the corner. A single light bulb dangled from an exposed wire. Thick scent of piss and sweat hung in the air.

  A red-haired woman sat on the edge of the mattress. She hastily backed away from the figure standing in the doorway and pressed herself against the wall. Her hands were visibly shaking as she raised them above her head. Eyes as wide as saucers.

  ‘Please, no,’ she said in a frail tone of voice. ‘Please, don’t kill me. Don’t.’

  It took Bald a few moments to recognise the woman. Her white blouse was blood-stained and torn in several places. Her jaw was swollen. She had a deep cut on her lower lip and purpled bruises on her arms. Her long hair was matted and filthy.

  Caroline Fuller looked bad. But not as bad as he had feared. Vasquez and his interrogators hadn’t yet done their worst.

  They had reached her in time.

  ‘Please. Don’t do this,’ she begged. ‘I don’t know anything.’

  Tears stained her cheeks. She said a few more words in Spanish. The same desperate pleas, but in the local tongue.

  ‘Caroline will panic,’ he remembered Cantwell telling them in London. ‘You’re going to have to calm her down before you do anything else.’

  ‘It’s okay, love,’ Bald told her in as soft a voice as possible. ‘We’re from London. We’re here to bring you home.’

  Fuller stopped trembling. She lowered her hands and looked up at Bald with a mixture of hope and disbelief.

  ‘London?’ she repeated. A flicker of recognition in her eyes. ‘You mean—’

  ‘We’re the good guys,’ Bald replied. ‘We’ve been sent here to rescue you. We’re getting you out of here. You need to come with us.’

  Fuller studied his face for a moment, as if wondering whether to trust him.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘We’ll explain later. Right now, we need to fucking move. Can you walk?’

  She nodded and struggled to her feet, wincing with pain. He wrapped an arm around her waist and helped her along. They shuffled out of the cell and started back down the corridor, with Porter. Fuller paused as she spared a brief look at Lanky and Pornstar.

  ‘The guards . . . they’re dead?’

  ‘Aye,’ Bald said.

  ‘All of them?’
/>   ‘Aye.’

  ‘Good.’

  Bald hurried alongside the academic, with Porter moving a step ahead of them. It had been a surgical operation so far, thought Bald. They had decimated the guards. Rescued the prisoner. Even Porter had rediscovered his old magic.

  We’re going to win.

  All we’ve got to do now is find Hulk and bug out.

  ‘Hurry,’ he urged Fuller. ‘Fucking move.’

  They hustled back down the corridor and climbed the staircase leading to the first floor. Fuller grimaced with every step, slowing the two ex-SAS men down. Bald willed her to move faster. He reckoned seven minutes had passed since the cyber-attack on the base.

  Eight minutes left to get out of here.

  He followed Porter out of the basement door and looked down the corridor. No sign of Hulk. The American was nowhere to be seen. He had fucked-up big time. Which was strange. And definitely out of character. The guy was a solid professional. Hulk didn’t strike him as the kind of guy who fluffed his lines on the big night.

  So why the fuck did he head off in the wrong direction?

  They paced back down the corridor and cut across the great room. Fuller tilted her head quizzically at Bald. ‘We’re going the wrong way. Exit is down there.’

  ‘One of our lads got himself lost,’ said Bald. ‘We’ve got to fetch him first.’

  ‘There’s three of you?’

  ‘Four,’ Bald explained. ‘Two other lads. Americans.’

  An uneasy look flashed across her face. ‘They’re here?’

  ‘One of them. The other bloke’s outside. Sniper, covering the approaches. Anyone tries coming through the front door, they’ll get dropped.’

  Fuller said nothing.

  They swerved round the corner and pushed on down another corridor, moving as quickly as Fuller could manage. They passed an office on the right, and a games room and a guest bedroom. Beelined towards the door leading to the master bedroom at the opposite end of the passage, twelve metres away.

  The door to the suite was ajar. Porter picked up the pace and barrelled shoulder first into the room. Bald piled in after him, left arm still supporting Fuller.

  They stepped into a room the approximate size of a London penthouse. There was a four-poster bed with golden posts and a diamond-encrusted crucifix hanging from the wall. A separate door led through to a gold-tapped en-suite bathroom. There was a walk-in closet to the left, with the president’s usual array of cowboy hats on a long wooden shelf above a rack of white linen jackets and trousers, and framed pictures on the walls. The president, hanging out with different celebrities. In one snap he was giving it the thumbs-up with Charles Bronson. In another he was bumping fists with a retired heavyweight boxer.

  To the right of the bedroom there was a private sitting area with a pair of leather armchairs arranged around a glass coffee table. An antique fireplace with a cavalry sword mounted above it. Mustard-coloured velvet curtains pulled across a tall window.

  Hulk was standing in front of the fireplace.

  The American had his M4 hanging from his sling, barrel down by his right side. He had drawn his Glock 17. Gripped it in his right hand. His close-quarters weapon. Chambered for the 9x19mm Parabellum round. A better tool for shooting in a confined environment.

  In his left hand Hulk held his satellite-enabled phone. The guy was pointing the antenna in different directions as he searched for a signal. Like a scientist with a Geiger counter, checking for radiation.

  Bald was about to ask him what the fuck he was doing when something caught his attention in the corner of his vision. He shifted his gaze back across to the fireplace. There was a polished wooden cabinet next to it, the shelves filled with baseball trophies and memorabilia. Autographed baseballs and gloves. Pennants. Photographs of the president shaking hands with players. The president was a big baseball guy, apparently. But that wasn’t what caught his eye.

  Next to the cabinet, he saw a strong-room door. A big steel thing, roughly the dimensions of a Smeg fridge.

  The light on the panel next to the door glowed red.

  Locked.

  The voice whispered to him.

  Something is badly wrong, John Boy.

  ‘What the fuck is going on?’ he growled.

  The American lowered the phone. Looked from Bald to Porter to Fuller and back again. A sly look in his eyes that Bald hadn’t seen before.

  ‘Following orders,’ he said.

  ‘What are you fucking talking about?’ Porter snapped. ‘We’re here for the hostage. Those are our bloody orders.’

  Hulk stared blankly at him. ‘We have another mission to carry out.’

  Bald felt something like acid leaching into his guts. He glanced again at the strong-room door.

  ‘What mission?’ he asked.

  But he already knew the answer.

  ‘We’re not here for the hostage,’ Hulk said. ‘We’re here to kill the president.’

  TWENTY-SIX

  Nobody said anything for a long beat. Hulk watched the two Brits and the hostage carefully, his weapon at his side. The siren continued to wail in the background, overlapping the faintly audible cries of the wounded men pleading for help. The savage pounding between Bald’s temples grew louder.

  Porter said, ‘You’ve got orders to slot Vasquez?’

  Hulk nodded.

  ‘From who?’

  ‘Who d’you think?’

  ‘The CIA?’

  Hulk nodded again. Fuller was listening intently, Bald noticed.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Regime change. There’s a plan in place. The people running this thing have got their own man waiting in the wings. Pro-American guy. We scrub Vasquez out of existence, put him in charge.’

  Bald felt a bayonet twisting inside his guts as he listened. Several thoughts clicked together inside his head. Questions that had been nicking away at the back of his mind.

  The CIA’s keenness to help to coordinate the mission. The directive from headquarters to push on after the fatal accident on the range.

  The intelligence they had provided. The manpower and resources.

  The Company is keen to help in any way it can.

  A lot of effort to rescue a British citizen, Bald had thought at the time.

  But not if you were planning to murder the Head of State.

  ‘You fucking lied to us,’ Porter said.

  Hulk said, ‘Not our call. Langley told us to keep you out of the loop. Didn’t know if you could be trusted.’

  ‘Where’s Vasquez now?’

  ‘In there.’ Hulk pointed at the strong-room door. ‘Son of a bitch crawled inside before I could drop him.’

  ‘You told us he wasn’t supposed to have arrived yet.’

  ‘We lied. Had to. If you knew Vasquez was already at the mansion, you might have got suspicious.’

  Bald turned his attention to the door. It looked solid as fuck. He had seen similar rooms before. The walls and ceiling would be bullet-resistant and blast-proof and soundproof. Steel sheeting, probably, placed over concrete blocks reinforced with rebar. The room would have its own ventilation system, comms and emergency supplies. The president could stay holed up in there for days if necessary.

  ‘No way of busting that thing open,’ Bald said. ‘Not with a few M4s and grenades.’

  ‘We have a way.’

  ‘How?’

  The American indicated his phone. ‘Soon as I’ve got a signal, I’ll speak with Langley. The strong room is rigged up to the Internet. Satellite modem, for continuous comms in the event of a power cut. We’ve got people who can hack into the hardware remotely. Same deal as the army barracks. They can unlock the door for us in sixty seconds.’

  ‘From two thousand miles away?’

  ‘They’re good at what they do.’

  Porter said, ‘This is fucking madness.’

  ‘You’re looking at it the wrong way, brother. We put a hole in Vasquez, we’re going to be rich.’

  ‘We?�
�� Bald repeated.

  Hulk said, ‘Me and Dudley. Once the new guy is installed as president, we’ll handle security for the oil installations. Worth a lot of money. Langley says that you’re to join us, taking control of the contracts. Help us out now, you’ll have millions of dollars coming your way.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Ten per cent of the profits. We’ll hire a couple of hundred guys to do the work, split the company profits between us four ways. You’ll be richer than you ever dreamed.’

  Bald glanced at the clock on the far wall: 04.09.

  Nine minutes since the hackers had locked down the barracks.

  Six minutes to get out of the mansion.

  We’re running out of time.

  Porter shook his head, shaking with anger. ‘We’re not getting involved.’

  ‘Too late,’ said Hulk. ‘This thing is already in train. The new guy has got his own people on the ground. They’re rounding up the generals as we speak. Making them an offer they can’t refuse. Twenty-four hours from now, he’ll declare himself the new president.’

  ‘Does Six know about this?’ Porter demanded.

  ‘Company business. Doesn’t concern them.’

  ‘This is bullshit. We didn’t sign up for this shit.’

  ‘You want to get rich or not?’

  ‘Sod the money.’

  Hulk said, ‘We’re killing a corrupt dictator. Nobody’s going to be shedding tears over this fat—’

  He stopped mid-sentence. Eyes narrowed, head canted to one side. As if he’d heard something. Then Porter heard it too. A soft whimpering.

  Coming from behind the mustard-yellow curtains.

  Hulk back-pocketed his phone and spun round. Keeping his Glock raised, he grabbed hold of the velvet drapes with his left hand and yanked them back.

  Standing in front of the window was a young maid.

  She was dressed in the same domestic uniform as the woman they had seen fleeing out of the dining room. But she was ten or fifteen years younger. Mid-twenties or thereabouts. Around the same age as Sandy, thought Porter. She was dark-eyed and slender, with heart-shaped lips and long flowing hair the colour of ground coffee.

  She saw the Glock pointed at a spot between her eyes and began trembling. Lips quivering, a look of terror in her eyes as she begged and pleaded with Hulk in tearful Spanish.