answered it, then pushed him back on the bed so the body wouldn’t make any sound when it fell.”
“Do you think anyone in this building would care if they heard it?”
“Probably not, but our guy was careful. I bet if we’d stuck around and inspected the bow runner last night we would have found a pistol with a silencer.”
Juan checked every inch of the apartment, looking for anything that might give him an insight into what was behind the murder. He found a stash of marijuana under the kitchen sink and some dirty magazines under the bed but that was about it. There was nothing hidden in the few boxes of food, and nothing in the trash can but rancid cigarette butts and Styrofoam coffee cups. He patted down the clothes lying on the floor next to the bed and turned up a few local coins, an empty wallet, and a pocketknife. The clothing hanging from nails on one wall was empty. He tried raising the window but it was painted shut.
“At least we confirmed he’s dead,” he remarked grimly as they headed out of the apartment. He closed the door behind them. Before leaving the floor Cabrillo took a detour to lift the tank lid on the communal toilet at the end of the hall, just to be thorough.
“What now?”
“I suppose we could check out the chopper pilot’s office,” Juan said with little enthusiasm. He was confident that the South African had covered his tracks well and they’d find nothing.
“What I’d really like to do is go back to my hotel, take the longest bath in history, and sleep for twenty-four hours.”
Juan was at the top of the stairs and saw the light coming in through the wrecked front door flicker for a second as if something or someone had just entered the building. He pushed Sloane back a pace and drew the Glock.
How could I be so stupid, he thought.They must have figured out something went wrong with their attack on the Pinguinand on their murder of Papa Heinrick . Anyone investigating what was going on would certainly show up at Luka’s apartment eventually, so they staked it out.
A pair of men came into view, both carrying wicked little machine pistols. They were immediately followed by a third also carrying a Czech-made Skorpion. Juan knew he’d get one with the first shot but he’d never get the other two without the stairway turning into a slaughterhouse.
He backpedaled silently, keeping a hand on Sloane’s wrist. She must have felt the tension in his grip because she didn’t speak and made sure her footfalls were as quiet as possible.
The hallway was a dead end and in about five seconds the assassins would have them trapped. Juan turned and made for Luka’s apartment once again. He crashed through the door. “Don’t think about it,”
he said. “Just follow me.”
He ran for the window and dove headlong into the glass. The pane exploded around him, daggers ripping at his clothes. Just outside Luka’s apartment was a corrugated metal shed roof he’d noted when he first tried to open the window. He crashed onto it, smearing the skin of his palms and nearly losing the Glock. The steel was scalding hot and his flesh burned. As he slid he rolled himself over onto his back; when he reached the edge he kicked his legs over his head and did a tight backflip. His landing wouldn’t earn any Olympic medals, but he managed to stay on his feet as shards of glass cascaded off the roof like icicles.
He paid no attention to the old man mending a fishing net in the shade of the roof. A moment later he heard Sloane scrabbling across the metal. Her body was launched off the edge and Juan was ready to catch her. The impact drove him to his knees.
At the same instant dime-sized holes were punched through the roof, the sound of a machine pistol shattered the malaise of the street. Bits of hemp were thrown into the air as the big net absorbed a dozen rounds. The fisherman was well back from the roof ’s edge so Juan didn’t have to worry about him. He took Sloane’s hand and together they raced to their left to what looked like a busier street.
When they broke out from under the porch bullets stitched the ground all around them. The Skorpion was designed for close-in work and the gunman was too hopped on adrenaline to tame the notoriously inaccurate weapon. Juan and Sloane found temporary cover behind a ten-wheeled truck.
“Are you okay?” he panted.
“Yeah, just sorry for you that I’ve been eating like a pig since I arrived here.”
Cabrillo chanced a peek around the back of the MANN truck. One of the gunmen was inching his way down the roof, covered by his comrades crowding Luka’s apartment window. They spotted Juan and raked the truck with autofire. He and Sloane raced toward the cab. The tall cargo box hid them from the window, allowing Juan to step from the front tire onto the long hood and then onto the cab. He had his pistol ready and took the shot before the gunmen upstairs could see him in this unexpected position. The range was only twenty-five yards and Juan compensated for the difference in height. The bullet slammed into the gunman on the roof, tearing a chunk out of his right hand. The Skorpion went flying as he lost his grip on both it and the corrugated sheeting. He tumbled down the roof, slamming into the ground hard enough for his breaking bones to be heard across the street.
Juan ducked out of sight before the other assassins could pinpoint his location.
“What now?” Sloane asked, wide-eyed.
“One of them will stay in the window to make sure we don’t make a break for it while the other takes the stairs down.” Juan looked around.
While this was never a busy part of town, the road was utterly deserted now and in a way looked like it hadn’t been occupied for years. Trash fluttered in the gutters and he expected to see tumbleweeds blowing by at any second.
He wrenched open the truck’s passenger door and saw the keys weren’t in the ignition. Franklin Lincoln could hot-wire it in under a minute but Juan wasn’t as skilled. The gunman would be on them long before he got the diesel fired. He took another quick look up at the apartment. The assassin was well back from the window frame but maintained an uninterrupted view of the truck.
“Think, damn it, think.”
The building next to them had once been a grocery store but its windows were shuttered with sheets of plywood. Up the block was an open park with dirt rather than grass while behind them were more apartments and small single-family homes that seemed to lean on one another to stay upright.
He rapped a knuckle against the truck’s exposed fuel tank. It rang hollow: almost, but not quite, empty.
He unscrewed the filler cap and saw waves of diesel fumes rise in the hot air.
There were a few things Juan carried with him at all times: a small compass, a pocketknife, a tiny flashlight with a xenon bulb, and a Zippo lighter that would remain lit once the flint wheel was turned. He used the knife to cut a strip from the bottom of his shirt and lit it with the Zippo. He moved Sloane toward the front of the truck and dropped the burning rag into the tank.
“Step onto the bumper but stay low and keep your mouth open,” he warned and made certain Sloane plugged her ears.
Had the tank been full the explosion would have blown the truck apart. As it was, when the rag ignited the puddle of fuel pooled in the bottom of the tank the detonation was more powerful than Juan anticipated. And even though he was protected from its effects by the cab, and more important, the engine block, he could still feel its searing heat. The truck rocked on its suspension as if struck by a cannon, and Juan’s head rang as if he’d been hit with a hammer.
He jumped back to the ground and looked at what he’d accomplished. As he’d hoped the explosion had shredded the plywood protecting the supermarket’s windows and blown the glass halfway down the denuded aisles. “Come on, Sloane.”
Hand-in-hand they fled into the dark interior of the grocery store while outside the truck burned. At the back of the store was a door leading to a storage area and loading docks. Juan turned on his penlight and spied an exterior door. He assumed that the assassins knew where they’d gone, so he didn’t bother being stealthy. Cabrillo blew the lock off the chain securing the door with his pistol. The chain rattled to the concrete floor and he shoved the door open.
Across the street from the rear of the grocery store was the wharf where they’d docked the lifeboat. It looked right at home tied up amid the broken-down fishing boats and sagging docks. Running flat out they crossed the road and raced along the maze of interconnected jetties while behind them one of the gunmen emerged from
