Silencer (40 page)

The glass shattered. Liquid erupted from inside, filling the room with a stink like ammonia and menthol.

I raised my hand, ready to hammer him again, but stopped myself. I’d done enough. Thick, almost brown blood oozed from his head wounds. His stare was empty, eyes wide open, pupils fully dilated.

I glanced down and read the label. It was horse liniment,
altamente inflamable
, and his clothes were soaking it up like blotting paper.

He was choking now. Wheezing, gurgling noises tumbled from his nose and mouth. His hair soaked up the spilled contents of the bottle.

I knew I couldn’t just lie there watching him; I knew I had to get up.

Miguel hurtled into the room, drawing down his bright yellow weapon. He wasn’t about to fuck up and shoot his boss.

I heard the electronic initiation, the nitrogen kicking off the barbs, and all I could do was drop behind Peregrino and use him as my shield.

The barbs crackled like a bonfire as they made contact, but I felt no pain.

Peregrino juddered, and then there was a vivid flash, yellow and orange like an oil-rig flare, as the liniment combusted and he burst into flames.

His screams echoed up and down the corridor as his body sizzled and my lungs filled with the acrid, gagging stench of burning flesh and hair.

Within seconds he was a human torch, his hands and cheeks melting, the skin bubbling and flaking away. His eyes pierced through what was left of his charred features like those of a demon from Hell.

I rolled away from him, my hands against my face for protection, but I was too late. My shirtsleeve and the side of my jeans ignited. Peregrino’s arms and legs were bouncing around the floor like a puppet dancing a horizontal reel. He squealed like a pig, his blistered hands outstretched as he called for his mama and the fire peeled back his lips in a hideous grin.

Miguel pulled a fire blanket off the wall; I knew it wasn’t for me. I kept low as he barrelled into the room, then jumped up and scrambled round the corner, swatting frantically at my clothes to kill the flames.

I finally got the better of them, but smoke still billowed around me as I ran. I kept on going, my hand on the pouch to stop it
bouncing into my face. I passed more expanses of bare concrete left and right – more admin cubes like on the other side of the house.

I turned left by the tack room and reached the steps. I threw myself up them three at a time, still pursued by ear-splitting screams.

Swivelling right, I pounded down the carpeted corridor towards the hallway. As my boots hit the marble, the hired help poured into the
casa
from the technicals, hollering, weapons up, confused.

I ran across the hallway shouting, ‘
Fuego! Fuego! Fuego!
’ I motioned behind me. ‘El Peregrino!
Fuego! Fuego!
’

They headed the way I’d pointed and I lunged for the door under the stairs, but as soon as I came level with the front entrance and saw the vehicles gleaming in the floodlights, I had a change of plan.

Miguel would know where the tunnel started and where it ended. He’d also know that only Liseth and Peregrino had the combination – so if he couldn’t find Liseth, where was she going to be, and where was she going to emerge? It would only be a matter of time before he went to the hangar – and he might get there before we did.

I took the nearest technical. The keys were in the ignition.

It was pointless trying to sabotage the others. There were too many of the fuckers: it would take too long.

I flicked it into drive and headed for the road to the hangar, not wanting to leave sign on the grass; they’d have to work that one out for themselves. Behind me, the HK spun on its firing post, a box of 5.56 link sliding around on the flatbed beneath it.

I kept one eye glued to the rear-view; there was no follow-up yet. I guessed they were flapping about Peregrino, and running around looking for Liseth. Miguel would save me for afters.

I braked to a halt, with the tailgate protruding far enough from the corner of the hangar to give me an arc of fire. I climbed onto it, checked back to the house, and brought the MG4’s cocking lever down into its horizontal position. The handle was loose on its way back and forward; the working parts
were already to the rear, cocked for when I squeezed the trigger.

There was still no threat emerging from the flood-lit house. And nothing outside looked any different from last night.

I pushed the cocking lever back into its upright position then jumped off and made for the inside of the hangar, hoping like fuck that Katya was this end of the tunnel – and fearing that she might have lost count and already legged it into the scrub.

I knocked four times. The whirring of the lock was a whole lot quieter than my breathing.

‘
Katya!
’

I propped the door open with the tool-box and moved inside.

‘Katya, it’s Nick! Hurry up – come to me. On me!
On me!
’

My shouts echoed down the tunnel. There was nothing in there to absorb them. In the darkness, I skimmed a hand along the concrete and was soon pushing against thin air. I turned into the money cave.

‘
Katya!
’

I could hear her reply, but I couldn’t understand it. ‘Move to this end! Move to the hangar end! Hurry. Move!’

I heard her again, this time a bit louder.

‘Come on! On me! On me!’

As I swung one of the thirty-kilo bags onto my back, a strap over each shoulder, I heard the steel walkway taking a pounding.

‘Nick?’

She appeared out of the gloom and I pointed her at the nearest two bags. ‘Take these fuckers.’

‘They’re at the kitchen door, Nick.’

I picked up a fourth and fifth bag, one in each hand, and led her back the way I’d come.

It had been a while since I’d hefted a ninety-kilo load, but this was a whole lot more worthwhile than a Bergen full of rocks.
Leaning forward, I half shuffled, half ran towards the technical, with Katya not too far behind me. As I reached the wagon the irrigation system went ape-shit and started treating the ranch to its nightly downpour. I dumped the bags on the flatbed and hauled myself up to man the gun.

Katya emerged from the hangar.

‘
Fucking – hurry – up!
’

Yelling at her wasn’t going to win me a Tree-hugger of the Year Award, but I wanted her close – really, really close.

Vehicles were now kicking off at the front of the house, their headlamp beams bouncing all over the sky. I checked the link, making sure there weren’t any obvious kinks, but kept eyes on the movements of Miguel’s crew. Where the fuck were they going?

The first of Katya’s bags joined mine, then the second.

‘You drive.’ I turned and pointed back towards the rear of the
casa
, well past where I’d broken cover last night.

‘I want you to drive straight there, OK? But only when I say.’

She nodded, but I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. ‘You see where I mean?’

‘Got it.’

‘Don’t move until I bang on the roof of the cab, OK?’

‘OK.’

She jumped in behind the wheel and fired up the windscreen wipers against the sprinkler spray as two of Miguel’s wagons surged our way along the concrete.

I gave them a couple of hundred metres, making sure the butt was in my right shoulder, left hand gripping it nice and tight, right hand on the pistol grip. I rested the pad of my forefinger on the trigger, ready to take up first pressure. As the lead wagon drew nearer, I closed my left eye and adjusted the weapon until the foresight rested just above its headlights.

When they were about four hundred metres away I started hosing them down with rapid five-shot bursts, controlling the rate of fire rather than just going for it. Each time I squeezed the trigger, the working parts pushed rounds from the feed tray into the chamber, then sucked the empty cases out again. They
bounced off my Timberlands as the disintegrating link rattled across the flatbed.

The wagons kept moving towards us; I kept up the five-round routine in return. White tracer pinged off their engine blocks and spun wildly into the air like miniature Catherine wheels until their propellant burned out. They veered off across the grass after the third or fourth burst, once they’d worked out what was going on and their windscreens were paying the price. Then they split up.

I fired at what I could see through the sprinkler haze, at where I thought their drivers might be. One stopped. Fuel must have been leaking from a ruptured tank. The tracer ignited it. The whole area was suddenly a riot of yellow and orange.

The other technical carried on coming, returning fire manically from the rear. I kept my finger on the trigger until there was nothing but a
clunk
from the working parts as they went forwards but had no more rounds to push into the chamber. I spun round and pounded on the cab roof. ‘Go, go, go!’

She put her foot down and drove off like a maniac – far too fast, slewing, skidding, almost losing it in the water haze. I dropped to my knees to stop myself falling out and banged on the window. ‘Left! Further left!’

We careered past the rear of the
casa
, then the Lincoln Memorial, which was about to welcome a couple of extra guests.

I checked behind me and couldn’t see any follow-up. We were nearly at the edge of the scrub. ‘Slower! Keep control! Slow down! Stop.
Stop here!
’

She braked to a halt. I vaulted off the flatbed and grabbed my three bags. She jumped out of the cab and followed suit; she didn’t ask why, or what was inside them.

Checking continuously behind me, I helped her thread each arm through the handles of the first, then threw the second over the top so that they looked like a sagging T. I did the same with mine, but with two on top. It was the only way to carry a big load; the higher on your shoulder, the less effort required.

‘OK, stay close. If you get lost, don’t shout. I’ll find you. Got that? But keep close and there’ll be no drama.’

There were still no headlights approaching through the spray, but there would be. I headed into the scrub. We had eight, maybe nine, hours of darkness ahead.

I wanted to get in nice and deep, then double back for the CamelBak.

I headed half-right from the vehicle and plunged about a hundred metres through the foliage before I stopped to listen. Then I bounced up and down on the balls of my feet, trying to adjust the weight on my back.

It was just like the old days: a Bergen as big as a removal van, straps cutting into my shoulders, leaning forward to relieve the weight because it was too much hassle getting the fucking thing off and back on.

Katya bumped into me. Her breath came in ragged snorts.

‘Lean forward. Put your hands on your thighs. Let them take the weight.’

‘How far, Nick?’

‘Later.’

She stood there, trying to control her breath.

I couldn’t hear any sign of pursuit, so I grabbed the earphones and moved closer to Katya. I pulled the iPhone out of the pouch and shielded it with my hand. Dino’s face filled the screen.

I lifted the mic to my mouth. ‘You hear me?’

‘Fucking A, I’m still here. But I can’t see shit, man. You both OK?’

‘Both good. We’ve got you. We can see you.’

He burst into a smile, the first real one I’d seen from him in two decades. ‘Is he dead?’

‘Didn’t you see what happened?’

He nodded. ‘Kind of. But is he dead?’

‘Mate, if he’s not, he’s Superman.’

Dino’s smile evaporated. ‘You don’t
know
he’s dead?’

‘I wasn’t going to go back in there and check his pulse, was I? He was on his last legs even before he blew up. But enough of this shit. I’m going to bin this phone now – you bin your SIM, too. I’ll call you at home as soon as possible and you can work out how the fuck to get us out of here.’

The smile returned. ‘No
problema
. I’m already on it – see?’

He swept the camera around the room he was sitting in. He wasn’t at home. No dark wood, just lots of cheap yellow pine. Dino zoomed through a glass sliding door to the neon-splashed Costera, where the Acapulco party people were gearing themselves up for a night out on the dancing juice.

Dino reappeared centre-screen. ‘I listened to you, man. I really did. I get it. I get that those two fucks only existed in my head. I’m here for you.’

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

‘Here’s the deal, man. I’ll be on the western outskirts of El Veintiuno – the Acapulco side – about an hour after first light. Copy?’

‘Got it.’

‘I’ll be in a white Chevrolet van. You’re going to have to move ass and find me. I’m not getting out of that fucking van.’

‘Yep, got it. Bin your SIM now, mate.’

I erased the call log. It wouldn’t stop them if they checked the cell system, but it would slow them down a little.

I shoved the earphones into the pouch and threw my SIM card into the undergrowth.

I could hear vehicles closing in on our abandoned technical as I led Katya towards the CamelBak.

A long burst of 5.56 raked the scrub about a hundred metres behind us. They were hoping to drop us now and maybe pick us up in the morning.

The rounds cracked as they went supersonic, then thudded into the dust ahead and to the side of us as they hosed down the whole area, until all I could hear was an almost rhythmic
crack thump, crack thump, crack thump
as they opened up big-time. ‘Keep going, Katya. Stay close!’

It was only effective fire when one of us went down. The trick was to get out of the arc, not stay static in it.

They slammed into the thorn bushes, still slightly ahead and to my left. ‘Stay with me!’

We had cover from view but not from fire; dead ground would give us both.

‘
We’ve got to keep moving!
’

The next thing I heard was a strangulated scream behind me. Half gasp, half howl of pain.

Another burst ripped through the scrub and the rounds gave a high-pitched whine as they ricocheted off the rocks.

The fire became increasingly relentless as I moved back towards the screams, keeping as low as possible.