The armchair thumped against him under the force of another shot. Eddie pushed hard at the disintegrating seat, sliding it across the room. Another round blew off an entire corner of the backrest. He kept pushing – then grabbed the chair’s base and bowled it at the dark-haired woman as he rolled under the table and strained to tip it on its side. It crashed down with a bang.
The brunette shrieked and leapt away as the tumbling chair bounced past her. The blonde behind the bar kept firing. The granite slab took the impact – but Eddie, pressed against it, still felt as though he was being kicked in the back with each shot.
‘Go round it and shoot him!’ the blonde yelled. Another shot – and the granite cracked, a plate-sized chunk barely missing Eddie as he jerked sideways.
A slap of feet as the brunette moved. He was running out of time—
The quickest of glances through the broken section of desk revealed a fishtank set into the wall behind the blonde. He grabbed the hunk of granite and hurled it with all his strength.
The blonde ducked as the stone flew over her and hit the glass – which shattered, bursting outwards. She was knocked down by the deluge, shards and marine life hitting her near-naked body.
Eddie was already running. If he could disarm her before she recovered . . .
A horrific scream filled the room. He dived as the blonde’s AA-12 barked again and again, her finger clenched on the trigger and firing off its remaining rounds on full auto. Shredded debris spat across the room. The screaming continued, Eddie wondering what the hell was happening. Maybe she was
He got his answer as he scrambled behind the bar. Clamped to the woman’s right breast was a small octopus, patterns on its body pulsing furiously as it bit her again and again.
The shotgun clicked, the drum empty. The blonde’s movements were already weakening as the deadly paralytic flowed through her system, her screams fading to choked gurgles.
Bottles and glasses exploded above Eddie. ‘Jesus!’ Ricocheting pellets rained down on him like embers.
The firing stopped. Twenty rounds gone. Eddie vaulted the bar. The woman was still uselessly pulling the trigger, in her anger only belatedly realising she was out of ammo. She tried to club Eddie with the shotgun, but he easily dodged the blow. There was a time and place for chivalry, but this wasn’t it: he punched her in the face, knocking her down on the couch.
He grabbed her by the throat. ‘Where’s de Quesada?’
‘Fuck you!’ she spat.
He squeezed harder. ‘Where is he?’
‘Go fuck yourself!’ Eddie pulled back his fist, then thought better of it and released her, hurrying back to the bar. With a brief chill of revulsion, he took hold of the octopus by its body and plucked it off Sylvie’s breast. It squirmed, suckers clinging to his skin. The little monster writhing angrily, he went back to the couch. The other woman struggled upright; he pushed her down again and held the octopus just above her face.
Tentacles lashed out and stuck to her, the creature’s venom-filled beak snapping less than an inch from her cheek. She shrieked. ‘Tell me where he is, or I’ll let it bite you!’ Eddie shouted.
‘In there!’ she wailed, pointing at some shelves behind the bar. ‘He’s in there!’
She was too terrified to lie, Eddie decided. He pulled the octopus away and tossed it across the room into the tank’s remaining water – then punched the woman again, knocking her out. ‘Sucker,’ he said as he went to the shelves.
Close up, they were revealed as a disguised door, the sharp stench of melted plastic coming from inside. No way to know if de Quesada was armed and waiting within. He yanked it open, ready to dive—
The room was empty. Smoke belched from the smouldering remains of a computer, a hole burned right through it. Thermite; de Quesada had been in here to destroy anything compromising on his hard drive.
He wasn’t here now, though. But he was sure the woman hadn’t lied – and why would she and her friend have been defending an empty room?
A panel not quite flush with the wall, a cord attached . . .
He pulled it. The panel swung outwards, revealing a rocky passage leading downwards.
The coughing grind of an engine came from somewhere far below.
‘Oh, you are
Nina also heard the noise. Eddie had been right – the drug lord was using his own men as a decoy while he escaped in a hidden boat.
Only it wasn’t a boat that slid down the rails, but a light aircraft, riding on elongated pontoons. It reached the water’s edge, a brief snarl of power to the propeller pulling it into the channel. A door opened and the pilot clambered along a pontoon to detach the runner that had guided it down the tracks.
Even from high above, Nina recognised him. De Quesada.
Descending through the narrow tunnel, Eddie dropped on to a ledge. He was high up in a large cave, its mouth opening into the channel. A glance through a wide crack in the rock revealed the source of the noise: a floatplane bobbing on the water outside. De Quesada ducked beneath the rear fuselage and hopped from one float to the other, crouching to unfasten something from it. As soon as the drug lord finished whatever he was doing, he would be able to escape.
He had to be stopped.
A piece of equipment was bolted to the rock wall – an electric winch, hooked to a painted tarpaulin that had
