JET - Escape: (Volume 9) (12 page)

He pulled up a map on his cell screen and studied it. The quickest way would be to stay on the Boulevard Libertadores until he neared the major intersection on the western side of town, and then take surface streets that paralleled the river. Once the course was committed to memory, he dropped the transmission into gear and wheeled out of the lot, barely pausing to hand the attendant his voucher.

The sparse morning traffic grew heavier as he neared the town center, and he battled his impatience as the cars around him jockeyed for position, darting in and out of openings without warning, turn indicators considered a sign of weakness. As he approached the intersection where he would divert to the smaller streets, an orange flash lit the sky, followed closely by the flare of a second detonation, and then a column of inky smoke snaked into the overcast sky.

Drago stood on his horn as an overloaded truck crawled along, blocking his way, and then he pulled impatiently onto the shoulder and passed illegally. He narrowly avoided a concrete post and swerved back into the lane, cutting the lumbering conveyance off as he accelerated for the off-ramp. Rain began pelting the car, and he wrenched the wipers on. Ahead of him, he could see smoke rising like a signal, and he rode the rear bumper of the car in front of him until he could get around it. The driver made an obscene gesture at Drago as he roared past, which Drago ignored. He tried to contain the ominous feeling deep in his gut – he’d underestimated the extent to which Mosises’ hit men would go to get the woman.

Drago had no problem with their tactics, only their competence. The Colombian cartels had a long history of brutal violence, but in spite of their reputations, were largely inept, using a sledgehammer where a scalpel would suffice. His fear was that they would make an attempt and fail, putting Matt and his whore back on alert, and that this time when the loving couple went to ground, they would stay gone. The thought of failure when he was this close made Drago physically ill, and he had to choke back bile as he drew near the clinic.

When he arrived, uniformed officers were swarming over the area, and it took him a few moments to realize there was a police station down the block. A grim-faced cop in a rain parka waved him past what remained of the clinic, smoke still bellowing from it in spite of the intensifying rain. He’d had more than enough combat experience to recognize the handiwork of rockets, and he wondered at the audacity of the attackers, given the proximity of the station.

This was typical of the sort of blunt-force trauma Drago had feared the cartel would employ: butcher dozens in an effort to kill a few, and hope their quarry died in the process of the complete destruction of the clinic.

He shook his head in disgust. Not at the loss of innocent lives; at the sloppiness. If he’d arrived only a few minutes earlier, he could have walked in, gunned his target down, dragged the woman and little girl out, and been gone before anyone realized what had happened. Now, his revenge against the woman who’d put him into the hospital was gone in a fiery blaze.

A gray sheet of rain pounded the roof of the car and he sighed to himself. “Well, that takes care of that, I suppose,” he muttered, and followed a line of vehicles away from the area. “Rot in hell, you miserable bastard. You certainly caused me enough grief.”

He debated sticking around but thought better of it. The cops would eventually begin looking for whoever carried out the attack, and would likely search questionable vehicles. He couldn’t afford to be caught with his tools of the trade. In light of the destruction, the police would be looking for a scapegoat and would be all too ready to hang the crime on the first person they caught who seemed a reasonable fit.

Drago retraced his path toward the airport and pulled off at a shopping complex with an American chain restaurant, its yellow sign glowing like a beacon in the rain. His growling stomach announced that he could use some coffee and breakfast – he hadn’t eaten since the prior night and had worked up a serious appetite with the lovely Alana. Now that Matt and his woman were ashes, he could afford to relax. Once he confirmed Matt’s death with his agent, money would hit his bank, and then he’d be off to the islands with a new identity. Perhaps Malta. Someplace off the beaten path, where his friends in the CIA would never think to look for him.

He parked and slung his bag over his shoulder, and then dashed to the front entrance, the cloudburst pelting him with the intensity of a jilted lover as his shoes pounded on the wet pavement.

Chapter 19

Officer Lopez watched the fire trucks arrive and stepped away from his fellow policemen. He fished his cell phone from his shirt pocket and, after looking around to confirm that there was nobody close enough to overhear him, pressed redial and listened as the line rang. He’d debated not making the call, but had decided that if the three targets materialized at some point in the future and he hadn’t called, he’d be dead meat. As usual for him, self-interest won the day.

When the phone picked up, he whispered urgently to Mosises’ contact person. “You botched it. The rockets didn’t get them.”

The voice on the other end sounded surprised. “What?”

“They got away.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw them take an ambulance.”

“An…ambulance?” the contact sputtered in disbelief.

“That’s correct. But now you have the entire police force, and soon, the military, in the mix. I can’t believe you bombed the place.”

The voice ignored his protest. “What can you tell me about the ambulance?”

“What do you mean, tell you? It’s an ambulance. Blue and white.”

“How long ago did it leave?”

“Maybe…five, ten minutes.”

“Which is it? And why didn’t you call immediately?”

“I have other things going on, what with World War Three down the block.” Lopez shook his head in disgust. “It was probably closer to ten minutes. Happened right after the blasts. You’ll be able to figure out the exact timing. That’s all I have. I need to get back to the job. You left a hell of a mess to clean up.”

~ ~ ~

Fernanda and Ramón were entering the airport grounds when Ramón’s phone vibrated. He punched the line to life and listened, the color slowly draining from his face as he muttered an acknowledgement and disconnected. Ramón pulled to the side of the road and stared at his cell like it was a poisonous snake, and then slowly slid it into his pocket and turned to Fernanda.

“They escaped. Our informer just reported that he saw them steal an ambulance.”

Fernanda’s face could have been carved from wood. One eye twitched almost imperceptibly, and then both narrowed to slits.

“That’s impossible,” she hissed. “Nothing could have survived that.”

“Maybe, but that’s what he said, and he has no reason to lie.”

“Damn it. If they were inside the building, they should be dead.” Her voice grew dangerously quiet. “Your informer screwed us. There’s no other explanation. Nobody walks away from a direct hit with two rockets. Nobody. Somehow they were tipped off.”

“I doubt it. He wants his finder’s fee as much as anyone.” Ramón hesitated. “So now what do we do?”

“
Do
? We find them and kill them. That’s what we
do
. Put a bulletin out to the cops that they’ve been spotted in a stolen ambulance and had something to do with the explosion. We don’t need it to all hang together logically, just for the police to throw everything they have at finding them.”

Ramón made another call and, after a muted discussion, hung up. “It’s done.”

“They’re headed for the border. We need to get there immediately.”

“There’s no way they’ll get across.”

“They just walked away from the impossible. Of course they’ll get across, you idiot.”

Ramón looked like he’d been slapped. His mouth tightened into a thin white line and he glared at her. “You’d be well advised to calm down,” he whispered, his voice glacial. “I don’t care who you are. Do you understand?”

She inhaled noisily and softened her tone. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I’m just…I need some sleep, and this comes as…an ugly disappointment. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

Ramón held her stare for a long beat and then turned away. “It will take us some time to make it to the river in this rain.”

“Please get us there as quickly as possible.” An idea occurred to her. “Maybe we can use the helicopter to patrol the border?”

Ramón shook his head. “Not in a million years. The police, the border guards, everyone will be on high alert after this. We’d be stopped inside of a minute, even assuming the pilots were willing to try in this storm and the tower gave us clearance for takeoff, which they probably wouldn’t.”

She stared through the window at the terminal on her right, and nodded slowly. “You’re right, of course.”

They had stopped and jettisoned the empty single-use rocket launchers in a dumpster at a construction site, so they had no fear of being discovered red-handed, but Fernanda had her rifle and associated gear in her rucksack, so there was some risk in returning to town. Still, Ramón had his orders, so he took the frontage road loop back toward Cúcuta and tried not to be furious with the Brazilian psychopath riding next to him. Her calm deliberation as she’d murdered God knows how many people had chilled him to his core, and he was no stranger to brutality. But this…this was a completely different level of indifference to slaughtering innocents than he was accustomed to.

He was shaken out of his thoughts by the pulsing flash of emergency lights on the boulevard. He slowed to let them pass, his breath catching in his throat, one hand instinctively moving to his windbreaker pocket, where he had his compact Glock pistol. Two fire trucks raced by, and he exhaled slowly, his eyes flitting to the rearview mirror before he returned his attention to the road and picked up the pace again.

The wipers thumped rhythmically as he eyed the GPS navigation system. Fernanda stewed silently beside him. If they got out of this intact, after carrying out a strike in a rival cartel’s hometown, with the police and emergency services all on high alert, it would be a miracle. While he understood Fernanda’s tenacity and even somewhat admired it, she was exhausted and subjecting them both to undue risk by demanding to go to the border rather than calling it quits and living to fight another day.

But Mosises had made it clear that she was to get whatever she wanted, and Ramón’s role wasn’t to second-guess the cartel boss.

Ramón rubbed his burning red eyes with a fatigued hand and turned onto one of the streets leading to the river that traced the Venezuelan border. This was madness, but he had no choice but to continue, regardless of the price. Jaime’s death would be avenged, and Mosises had made it clear that failure was not an option.

He just hoped his luck would hold a little longer, and he’d make it out of Cúcuta alive.

Chapter 20

The ambulance slid sideways when it hit a deep pothole filled with rainwater and lost traction. Hannah screamed as the van yawed dangerously, for a few harrowing seconds out of control, and then Jet mashed her foot on the accelerator and the tires grabbed. Matt hugged Hannah to his chest as Jet peered through the downpour, the wipers inadequate for the job.

“You really believe we can make it across on foot?” Matt asked.

“I don’t think we have much choice. Somehow, whoever’s after us figured out where we were going. We need to get clear of Colombia once and for all.” She took a corner too fast and the ambulance fishtailed before straightening out. “I’m betting that with this storm covering our tracks, we can make it. Nobody’s going to be out in it if they can help it, and that includes underpaid Venezuelan border guards.”

Matt nodded, clearly unconvinced. “And if you’re wrong?”

Jet kept her eyes on the road. “I’m not.” Then more gently, she asked, “You aren’t hurt?”

“My ears are ringing like nobody’s business, but we got out in the nick of time. I have a feeling we’ll be a little hard of hearing for a day or two.”

“I talked to Carl. He said he can’t help us get to Cuba, but he can take care of things once we’re there.”

“Then we’re on our own for now?”

Jet grunted. “Nothing new there. What did the doctor say about Hannah?”

“Infection. She’d just given her a shot and handed me some pills when the first rocket hit.” Matt patted Hannah’s leg. “She was very brave. Didn’t cry or anything.”

“So she’s going to be fine?”

“That’s what she said.”

They drove in silence for several minutes, and Jet slowed to a more sensible speed as they put distance between themselves and the clinic. The rain abated to a drizzle as they neared the river, and after going through a large intersection with signs announcing that the border bridge was only three hundred meters away, she turned onto a narrow side street that led to a residential area with rows of low-income housing. Iron bars adorned all the windows of the drab single-story homes, the few cars littering the drives were old and corroding, and graffiti marred the perimeter walls.

Two police officers stood beneath a tree at the community entrance, sheltered from the worst of the rain. When they spied the ambulance, they waved at it frantically, and the shrill screech of a whistle pierced the quiet. Jet ignored them and gave the heavy vehicle more gas, leaving them behind as she tore down the street.

Three more turns and they arrived at a dead end. She slowed to a crawl and pointed to a brown slurry in the near distance, barely visible in the drizzle. “That’s it. The river.” Jet opened the door. “And the rain cooled things off some, which is a relief.”

“We’re still going to get wet. Not to mention we need to figure out how to cross the river. Assuming we can dodge the patrols.”

She smiled, the tension receding from her expression. “Piece of cake. You ready to do this?”

Matt sighed. “I guess.”

“Honey?”

Hannah looked at her with wide eyes and nodded mutely.

Jet’s heart sank, but now wasn’t the time for regrets over the hardships they were forced to endure. She couldn’t help that unnamed adversaries had singled her out for destruction, and dwelling on how she felt about the situation wouldn’t save their lives. Their survival depended on successfully making it across the river without being detected. With each passing minute the odds of doing so diminished, and wasting energy on recriminations over the unfairness of their situation wouldn’t help. She needed to be strong for herself and for her daughter, so she wiped away the moisture welling in her eyes and stepped out of the ambulance.