‘Jorge!’ Gladstone yelled at the black speakerphone in the centre of the table. ‘Are you any closer to tracking down the information source within the Portfolio department?’
‘Weesa gotta few leeeds,’ came back the thick voice. ‘But I’m a gonna needa few more deays.’
Gladstone’s brow crinkled.
‘You, Barry,’ he spat, focusing his ire on Shaftsbury, who visibly jumped in his seat. ‘This acquaintance of yours causing havoc on the continent, he hasn’t contacted you again?’
‘N-no, sir,’ Harry replied.
The Gladstone brow crinkled into a mini-ravine. The china teacup was placed on the boardroom table.
‘Let me tell you what will really happen in the next few days, gentlemen, without the backup of eighty “slides”. This thing is really going to explode. Either this Marshall chap will be dead, or he’ll turn up somewhere unexpected and go public with what he knows, and all the intelligence agencies of the Western world will be caught with their trousers down. Either way, all our masters in government will not be pleased. I am currently not pleased.’ He paused and looked round the room for effect. ‘Now you agents spend less time on laptops and more time in the field. Find this troublesome little bugger! Jorge!’
‘Yes, boss,’ came the accented voice.
‘Find that second information source in the Portfolio department within twenty-four hours, and grab him. I want that source in an interrogation room in the basement of this building by tomorrow night. All of you go. Now!’
Harry did not need to be told twice.
36
Madrid
On a rooftop diagonally opposite the plush Madrid hotel in which Jonathan and Julie’s lives had just taken another bizarre twist, their fates were being redesigned yet again.
The Tatar was just finishing setting up his sniper rifle and adjusting the scope to zoom in on the entrance to the hotel.
This will be easy, he thought to himself, as he allowed himself a rare smile while clicking the safety catch to the ‘off’ position.
Thinking himself on the brink of failure for the first time in his professional career in France, he could hardly believe his luck that the woman had made a rookie mistake by keeping her cellular phone. She had obviously thought it was kept safe by not being switched on.
She was wrong.
Even turned off, the battery still emitted a very faint, low-level signal to keep the memory of the phone going. You could track this signal if you had the right technology. The Tatar had access to the right technology.
The phone was in the hotel in front of him. That meant they would come out of the front door at some stage.
When they did, they would die.
This had become personal now for the Tatar, since they had evaded him back in France.
It would be easy this time.
He was contemplating whether to first wound each of them with a stomach shot, and maybe watch them writhe on the pavement for thirty seconds before finally sending bullets through their skulls.
He put his eye to the scope and focused the cross hairs on the main doors to the hotel as a large Mercedes with black tinted windows pulled up to the entrance.
So easy …
Julie’s eyes widened in horror as she saw Jonathan walking across the lobby, sandwiched between a scary-looking Arab with a murderous goatee hanging off a pointed face and bird of prey on his arm, and a creature looking like Lurch from the Addams Family.
She scrambled around in the lobby chair she was in for something she could use as a weapon: a pen, an ashtray – anything. She quickly stood up and reached across to pick up a nearby small table lamp to use as a club.
‘It’s okay, Julie,’ Jonathan said, as they approached her. ‘They’re here to help us.’
Julie’s eyes narrowed at the sight of the two men and the bird. She hefted the lamp up to her shoulder as though it was baseball bat, and looked back at Jonathan.
Jonathan was smiling, and his body posture was relaxed. She had known him long enough to recognize a genuine smile. She lowered the lamp slightly.
‘Help us how?’ she asked. ‘Drawing attention to us by walking around with wildlife?’
Jonathan looked around: the bird was causing quite a few people to look at them.
‘No, the meeting went well upstairs: we have to go and meet a middleman who can piece the whole thing together for us. These two gentlemen are going to take us there and act as our bodyguards.’
‘And where’s this middleman?’ Julie asked, still holding the lamp and eyeing up the two strangers with distrust.
‘They can’t tell me his name or where we’re going yet.’
‘But Jonathan, that’s crazy.’
‘After what I’ve just seen and been through upstairs, it actually seems quite normal. I’ll explain the whole meeting in the car. These guys are okay – trust me.’
Julie’s physique relaxed and she put the lamp back down. Jonathan was impressed yet again at her ability to seemingly take strange new events in her stride.
Avi the giant leaned forward. ‘Come, we must go,’ he said in a deep baritone that befitted his impressive physique as he made moves to herd them towards the main door. ‘We have a Mercedes waiting outside.’
As they walked out of the main doors of the hotel, the Tatar blinked twice through the small viewing screen of his sniper scope to ensure the best view of the target.
All he had needed to identify Jonathan was a glimpse of the top of his hair. The problem was that the target was being obscured by a huge man, who was at least seven feet tall.
The woman was there as well, but obscured by a man dressed in an Arab robes with a big bird on his arm!
It was all bizarre and unexpected, but would not ultimately matter for the task at hand. The Tatar could not get a clear shot – the two men were shielding the targets.
The Tatar recognized that they now had bodyguards.
Did they know he was here? Both the targets heads were bobbing erratically behind the two strange men as they moved towards the car.
One of the back doors of the car opened.
The Tatar needed to make his move now, or the targets would get into the car while still being covered by the men.
He shifted the cross hairs of the rifle squarely into the centre of the huge man’s chest and squeezed the trigger.
The huge man twitched forward.
The man in white yelled something and lifted his arm up. The bird flew off.
The Tatar fired again and the big man twitched again before reaching back with his arms and grabbing the front of Jonathan’s shirt and Julie’s right arm. The giant man fell forward towards the car, pulling them with him. The man in white went down towards the car at the same time.
There was no clear shot throughout the movement.
The Tatar spat and swore. Now he did not have a shot at all. They were all crouched behind the car.
Fine, he thought, no more keeping it clean. You can all burn in hell!
He stood up, pulled the long silencer off the rifle and switched it to fully automatic mode before levelling the gun at the car, then let rip by jamming his finger on the trigger.
The black Mercedes started rocking as it became riddled with the silver pockmarks of countless bullet holes.
As she huddled against the car, Julie’s screams could be heard over the cacophony of bullets tearing into metal and shattering glass.
Jonathan realized that Avi had been shot only when the bullets started to hail down on the Mercedes.
Avi seemed completely out of it, and the Arab could not be seen.
Jonathan moved over to his left on all fours to cover Julie. They both cowered down against the pavement by the centre of the car as fragments of metal and glass rained down from above.
The noise was incredible: a staccato of ding, ding, ding seemed to pierce Jonathan’s skull as the bullets continued to pour into the car at an unbelievable rate.
He wondered if the car would e
ventually explode.
Avi released a low moan and rolled slightly to his side. The jacket of the big man fell open to reveal the black butt of a handgun sticking out of a waist holster. Amidst the noise and shrapnel pandemonium, Jonathan felt he had a decision to make. If they just lay there, the assassin may make the car explode or do something else, like put down his rifle and throw grenades or pick up some kind of shoulder-supported missile.
This is probably incredibly stupid – but I’m going to do it anyway, he thought.
He reached over and unclipped the gun, pulling it out of the holster towards him. He had never held a gun before, and it was much heavier than he had expected. He eventually located the safety catch and shifted it to the off position.
I need to draw fire away from Julie.
On his hands and knees, he crawled past the car, towards the front and over Avi.
After taking three deep breaths, he quickly lifted his arm up and over the bonnet to fire. A searing pain tore through his triceps muscle before there was even time to look where he was going to fire.
He yelped, and his arm shot back down behind the car.
The Tatar paused for a second to see if the idiot would stick another body part above the car.
Hopefully his head this time.
The car remained still. It seemed the Tatar was not going to get any more gifts on this one.
He unclipped the magazine from the gun and replaced it with a different one from inside his jacket pocket. The new magazine had red tape around it.
Petrol did not explode in a tank when you shot it, but the Tatar had special rounds that sparked off metal and would thus ignite flammable substances housed in metal tanks. He clipped these special rounds into the rifle and moved to aim towards the back of the car.
He started firing again, this time in a concentrated line towards the fuel tank. The tank was positioned on the far side from him and at the bottom of the vehicle, but he knew that with enough concentrated fire, the bullets would soon get through.
The process was interrupted by a loud, inhuman screech from above that pierced even the repetitive noise of the automatic rifle.
The Tatar looked up to the sky in bewilderment, too late to see the desert falcon coming out of the sun to latch its talons onto his head and snap it backwards – just in time for the Arab to emerge from the sunroof opening of the car below and fire a nine-millimetre bullet into his skull.
The Arab saw the head go back and a spray of blood poured from it as the bullet shot through the skull. The bird released the head as the weight of the Tatar’s body fell onto the rooftop.
‘It is okay. The scene is clear.’
The shadow of the Arab covered Julie as she knelt in shock on the pavement against the shattered car.
She looked slowly, just in time to see the falcon re-alighting on the broad arm of the Arab, who was still standing through the sunroof.
‘You can get up now,’ the Arab said calmly. ‘The killer is dead. He was alone. There is no one else around.’
Julie looked down again to see Avi the giant slowly propping himself onto one elbow and loosening his shirt, to reveal a bulletproof Kevlar vest that held the indentations of two high-calibre slugs in the chest. The blows from the high-velocity bullets had clearly knocked the wind out of him badly.
Just beyond Avi she saw Jonathan, and let out a sharp shriek of alarm.
‘You’re bleeding!’ she cried.
His injury pulled her out of her own reverie somewhat, and she rushed over to him. The blood was coming from the top of his right arm.
‘It’s all right,’ Jonathan said, as she fussed over him. ‘It’s just a flesh wound.’ He had no idea what that meant medically, but it was what they always said in films.
He knew it wasn’t a proper bullet wound, however. The shot had just clipped the edge of his arm. He had staunched the blood flow immediately, and it was already starting to congeal.
‘I’ll be fine, don’t worry,’ he said, smiling.
His heart glowed from the concern on her face.
Within five minutes, they had been whisked away from the scene in different blacked-out Mercedes, after Avi had made a call from his mobile phone for another car to be brought up from the hotel car park.
Police sirens could be heard getting very close as they pulled away.
Inside the car, the Arab was driving with the desert falcon on his arm and keeping the car just below the speed limit to avoid any further unwanted attention. Julie was in the passenger seat, and Avi was patching up Jonathan’s arm in the back with a medical kit he had grabbed out of the boot.
‘Is it bad?’ Jonathan asked.
He winced while Avi taped sterile gauze around his arm.
‘It will require three stitches. I can do this on the plane. You will be fine,’ Avi replied.
‘Oh … okay,’ Jonathan said.
At the thought of being stitched on a plane, his feelings were less than joyful. But it was obvious that nice clean hospitals were out of the question.
Still, he believed he was being pretty damn tough – for an office worker.
‘What is that in front of us?’ the Arab asked aloud. Everybody in the car looked up and was taken aback by what they saw.
In the middle of the road was a huge man in a tan trench coat. He had a sallow face and two dark circles for eyes, which were focused directly on Jonathan in the car.
The Cajun had tracked down his prey.
‘Very strange,’ the Arab said. ‘If he does not move – we go straight through him.’ The car lurched forward as he planted his foot on the accelerator.
As they approached the Cajun at speed, he raised his two hands in front of him and slowly clenched them into fists to reveal modified gloves that showed inch long silver spikes coming out of each knuckle. At the last moment, the Cajun launched himself upward with a speed and agility that far belied his size. He cleared the bonnet of the car as it went under him, and disappeared over the windscreen. A large thud was heard in the car as his heavy bulk landed on the roof. With an almighty bang four holes appeared in the centre of a large dent that was caved into the roof. New holes started appearing around the first set, and the occupants of the car watched with incredulity: spikes were repeatedly punched through the steel roof as the Cajun started tearing it open, like a can opener slicing through tin, to get to Jonathan.
‘Get him off there,’ the Arab said as he started swerving the car left and right.
Avi slid the window down and pulled his gun out. He would not risk firing from inside the car. It would be too close to people’s heads to discharge a firearm – the danger of blowing out their hearing and sense of balance was too great. He grabbed the edge of the roof and heaved himself half out of the car to swing his free arm and confront the new threat on the roof.
As the gun came round the Cajun reacted with lighting speed and kicked out to connect with Avi’s hand. The gun went flying and clattering down the street behind them. The Cajun continued to kick out at Avi, who reacted by parrying and punching back as best he could with one free arm.
Inside the car, the Arab swore in his native tongue. Swerving the car was not having the desired effect of shifting the Cajun. ‘Here, you drive,’ he said to Julie, as he grabbed her arm by the wrist and placed her hand on the steering wheel. He shouted an Arabic word and the desert falcon obediently hopped off his arm and into the back seat, perching next to Jonathan.
‘What?’ Julie said in surprise, but the Arab already had his window down and launched himself half out the car. Julie quickly leant across to the other side of the car to get the best grip on the steering wheel, so that she could to hold the car as steady as possible.
On the roof, the Cajun now had to contend with two powerful men striking him from either side. He was forced to release the grip he had on the roof with his spiked gloves hooked into the metal below. He flipped onto his back, which was his best chance of defending against a double attack.
Passers-by ha
d to do double-takes as they saw a speeding Mercedes go by with three huge men fighting on the roof – one man struggling to stay on the roof and two stretching half out of the car.
The car was decelerating rapidly since the Arab had taken his foot off the accelerator to join the fight on the roof. Jonathan was the first to notice this in the back of the car. He’d been a passenger up to this point, unable to see how he could help Julie steer and wary of intervening outside the car while he was still bleeding after his last attempt at confronting assassins.
‘Julie,’ he said urgently as he leant forward. ‘The car’s going to stop soon. Then that maniac can get off the roof.’
‘Okay,’ Julie replied. ‘But I can’t reach the pedals and steer. I’m wearing a tight dress, for God’s sake – if I try to shift over to the driver’s side, I’ll probably crash the car.’
‘There’s no time, either,’ Jonathan said as he stretched forward from the back of the car. ‘I’ll take the wheel, and you lean down and press the accelerator with your hand.’
‘Got it,’ she said.
Jonathan leaned forward into the front of the car and took the wheel. Julie moved over the centre console as much as her dress would allow, and dropped her head and arm into the driver’s footwell. She reached forward and jammed her hand onto the accelerator pedal.
The car lurched forward and swerved. Amongst the flailing of fists and legs on the roof, the Cajun slid towards the boot of the car and pivoted slightly as the car zigzagged beneath him. His legs swung involuntarily towards Avi, who used the opportunity to grab a boot. He pulled as hard as he could to accelerate the momentum, and the Cajun slid towards the back of the roof.
The Cajun was too late flinging his arms down to get another grip, and sailed off the back of the car in a confusion of billowing trench coat, hitting the road and tumbling to a stop in a heap.
Avi and the Arab were straight back into the car, the Arab pushing Jonathan and Julie back as he regained control of the vehicle.
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