these new players did whatever they’d come to do.
Fisher’s solution to the GPS tracker was to play his tourist role to the hilt. He left the castle and drove through Chinchon until he reached the M-316, which he took northeast toward the town of Valdelaguna three miles away. Soon after leaving Chinchon’s outskirts, the gray compact appeared in his rearview mirror and followed him into Valdelaguna. Fisher spent an hour ignoring his pursuers, who seemed to worry less about being seen as time went by and Fisher went about his photography tour, snapping dozens of shots of architecture and scenery before finally heading back to Chinchon.
By the time he got back, siesta was over and the townsfolk were moving about. Fisher found a hotel, Casa de la Marquesa, within view of the bullring, and checked in, making sure to ask the desk clerk in halting Spanish about the bullfight the next day and nearby photography hot spots, in case his watchers should decide to ask the clerk about his gringo guest.
Once in his room, a quick peek through the curtains revealed his watchers had taken up station on the patio of a cantina down the block. After a half hour, they left. Fisher checked his watch: six thirty.
19
He waited until dusk, when the town’s lights began to flicker to life. He wandered down to the bullring and found it had been converted into an outdoor dance hall complete with pole-mounted torches and loudspeakers through which strains of
Though night had not yet fully fallen, half the town seemed to have already converged on the ring; it was standing room only. Fisher spent twenty minutes picking his way through the throng, smiling and greeting revelers and enjoying the spectacle, all the while keeping his eyes open for his watchers. They were nowhere to be seen, and this told Fisher something else about them: They probably had no backup, and they relied too heavily on the GPS tracker, a dangerous approach, especially in a town where a person could walk from edge to edge in ten minutes. Then again, he’d given them little reason to further pursue their curiosity about him. Clearly, he was a shutterbug tourist who happened to be in the same area as their target.
Sticking to side streets, Fisher proceeded south, using the decorative lights of the castle on the hill as his guide until he reached Cuesta de los Yeseros, where he stopped beneath the sidewalk trees and watched and listened. He then walked across the road, scaled the shrub-covered embankment into the field beyond, and turned west. Another hundred yards brought him opposite van der Putten’s rear patio, fifty feet across the road and situated atop a berm of scrub grass. Tiny halogen theater lights set into the patio wall cast soft white cones on the flagstone, and submerged lights glowed amber beneath the pool’s surface. Van der Putten’s master suite was dark save for a half dozen glowing candles. As Fisher watched, a door opened and in the rectangle of yellow light stood the silhouetted form of van der Putten’s companion. She stood still for a moment, one leg before the other, arms lightly braced on the jamb, clearly showing off for van der Putten, whom Fisher could now see was lying on the bed. He was still wearing his red Speedo trunks. The woman flipped off the light and the room went dim again.
Through the ground floor’s sliding-glass doors Fisher saw a circle of red appear, pan quickly across the kitchen, then go dark again. Only someone interested in preserving their night vision would use a red flashlight. His friends in the gray compact were making their move.
Fisher drew the SC, pushed his way through the undergrowth, zigzagged down the embankment, then sprinted across the road and up the berm to van der Putten’s patio wall. Through the ground-floor glass he could see two shadowed figures moving through the living room toward the front of the house — toward stairs, Fisher assumed. He rolled over the wall and ran, hunched over, around the pool until he reached the sliding-glass doors, where he crouched down. He tried the door. Locked. He drew the Gerber Guardian from its calf sheath. He laid the SC down, then used his right hand to pull the door to the right, while wedging the tip of the Guardian into the latch mechanism. With a click, the lock popped open. He sheathed the Guardian, picked up the SC, crab-walked inside, and paused to slip on his balaclava.
From upstairs came a woman’s scream, then a
SC extended before him, Fisher moved through the kitchen, checked the foyer, then peeked around the corner up the stairs. Somewhere upstairs a light was on. Another scream. Fisher mounted the stairs, stepping carefully and steadily until the second floor came into view. At the end of a ten-foot hall, the door to the master suite was partially open. He could see a nightstand and a lamp, which was the source of light.
He heard a soft
Fisher took two more steps down the hall and stopped at an open door on his right. A bathroom. He stepped in, carefully groped with his hand until he found a heavy, glass soap dish. He switched the SC to his left hand, picked up the dish with his right, then stepped back into the hall.
“Hurry up, Rodrigo!” said a male voice in Spanish.
“This ain’t as easy as it looks, damn it!” came the reply.
Fisher took a step forward, pressed himself against the left-hand wall. Now he could see around the lamp. On the bed were two pair of calves — one set on the bottom, unclothed and toes pointed up; the second wearing pants, toes pointing down. Their owner was kneeling on the bed over van der Putten. The bed was rocking from side to side.
Fisher cocked his right arm, took aim, and hurled the soap dish into the master suite. The dish flew true, striking the sliding-glass doors dead center. Even as the glass shattered, Fisher was moving through the door.
At the threshold he looked right and saw one man standing over van der Putten’s naked girlfriend. He had a booted foot pressed into her neck and a noise-suppressed 9mm pointed at her skull. Predictably, he was gaping at the shattered doors. Fisher spun, shot the man in the head, and he stumbled sideways and slid down the wall. Fisher turned again and took aim at the man kneeling over van der Putten.
“Don’t move,” Fisher ordered in Spanish.
The man had been in middle of turning his head. He stopped, his face in profile. His hands were out of sight, held in front of him.
“Let me see your hands,” Fisher ordered.
The man didn’t move.
Fisher repeated his order.
The man raised his left hand above his head; it was bloody up to the wrist.
“The other hand.”
Fisher knew what was coming. He could see it in the man’s posture, in the flick of his eyes.
The man turned his head back toward the sliding-glass doors, and said, “Okay, okay…”
Fisher took a wide step to his left, and a half second later the man made his move. Left hand still raised above his head, the man spun his torso counterclockwise, revealing his right hand and the 9mm it held. The muzzle flashed orange. The bullet thunked into the wall where Fisher had been standing a moment earlier. Fisher fired twice, both bullets entering within an inch of each other directly beneath the man’s armpit. Both bullets shredded his heart. Already dead, he pitched forward over the edge of the bed, his legs jutting skyward for a few moments before he crumpled into a ball on the carpet.
Behind him the woman whimpered.
“Don’t move. Don’t look up,” Fisher told her. “You’re going to be okay.”
