Burning Angels

9

The standard military round for the 9mm P228 weighs in at 7.5 grams. The three subsonic bullets that Narov had unleashed were each two grams heavier. Travelling one hundred metres per second slower, it still took them only a fraction of an instant to bite.

They tore into the gunman’s face, driving him backwards and over the edge of the roof in a death plunge. It was incredible shooting. But as he fell, his arm remained locked around the woman’s neck.

With a piercing scream, both figures disappeared from view.

The drop from the roof was a good fifteen metres. Jaeger let out a savage curse. Bloody Narov!

He turned and raced for the trapdoor. As he thundered down the ladder, the Kolokol-1 swirled around his knees like a ghostly fog. He dropped down the last of the metal rungs, tore along the corridor, then hammered down the stairway, vaulting bodies as he went. He raced out through the shattered doorway, turned right and sprinted around the corner of the building, coming to a breathless halt where two figures lay in a crumpled heap.

The gunman had perished instantly as a result of three shots to the head, and it looked as if Leticia’s neck had been broken by the fall.

Jaeger cursed again. How could it all have gone so wrong so quickly? He knew the answer pretty much instantly: it was Narov’s trigger-happy, dumb-ass attitude.

He bent over Leticia’s crumpled form. She lay face down, unmoving. He placed a hand on her neck, checking for a pulse. Nothing. He shuddered. He could barely believe it: the body was still warm, but she was dead, just as he had feared.

Narov appeared beside him. Jaeger glanced up, eyes blazing. ‘Nice bastard work. You just—’

‘Take a closer look,’ Narov’s voice cut in. It had the characteristic cold, flat, emotionless ring to it – the one that Jaeger found so disconcerting. ‘A proper look.’

She reached forward, grabbed the fallen figure by the hair and jerked the head roughly backwards. No respect, not even for the dead.

Jaeger stared at the ashen features. It was a Latino woman all right, but it wasn’t Leticia Santos.

‘How the—’ he began.

‘I am a woman,’ Narov cut in. ‘I recognise another woman’s posture. Her gait. This one – it wasn’t Leticia’s.’

For a moment Jaeger wondered whether Narov felt even the slightest remorse for having killed this mystery captive, or at least for taking the shot that had sent her plunging to her doom.

‘One more thing,’ Narov added. She reached inside the woman’s jacket and fished out a pistol, holding it up to Jaeger. ‘She was a member of their gang.’

Jaeger gawped. ‘Jesus. The drama on the roof. It was all an act.’

‘It was. To draw us in.’

‘How did you know?’

Narov turned her blank gaze upon Jaeger. ‘I saw a bulge. A gun-shaped bulge. But mostly – instinct and intuition. A soldier’s sixth sense.’

Jaeger shook his head to clear it. ‘But then – where the hell’s Leticia?’

With a sudden flash of inspiration he yelled into his radio: ‘Raff!’ The big Maori had remained in the target house, checking the survivors and looking for clues. ‘Raff! You got Vladimir?’

‘Yeah. Got him.’

‘Can he talk?’

‘Yeah. Just.’

‘Right. Bring him here.’

Thirty seconds later Raff emerged from the building with a figure thrown across his massive shoulders. He dumped the man at Jaeger’s feet.

‘Vladimir – or so he claims.’

The leader of the kidnap gang showed the unmistakable symptoms of a Kolokol-1 attack. His heart rate had slowed to a perilously low level, as had his breathing, his muscles going strangely slack. His skin was clammy and his mouth dry.

He’d just been hit by the first waves of dizziness, which meant that vomiting and seizures would quickly follow. Jaeger needed to get some answers, before the guy was rendered beyond any use. He whipped a syringe out of his breast pouch and held it before the man’s eyes.

‘Listen good,’ he announced, his voice reverberating through the mask’s voice-projection system. ‘You’ve been hit by sarin,’ he lied. ‘Know much about nerve agents? Horrible way to die. You’ve only got a few minutes left.’

The man’s eyes rolled in terror. Clearly he understood enough English to get the gist of what Jaeger was saying.

Jaeger waved the syringe. ‘You see this? Compoden. The antidote. You get this, you live.’

The man thrashed about, trying to reach for the syringe.

Jaeger shoved him with his foot. ‘Right, answer the following question. Where is the hostage, Leticia Santos? You get the injection in exchange for an answer. If not, you’re dead.’

The man was twitching violently now, saliva dribbling from his nose and mouth. Yet somehow he raised a shaking hand and pointed back into the villa.

‘Basement. Under rug. In there.’

Jaeger raised the needle and plunged it into the man’s arm. Kolokol-1 requires no antidote and the syringe contained a harmless shot of saline solution. A few minutes in the open air would be enough to ensure his survival, though it would take him many more weeks to fully recover.

Narov and Jaeger headed inside, leaving Raff to keep tabs on Vladimir. Back in the basement, Jaeger’s torch revealed a bright Latino-style rug laid across the bare concrete floor. He scuffed it aside, uncovering a heavy steel trapdoor. He tugged at the handle, but it didn’t budge. It had to be locked from the inside.

He dug out a shaped explosive charge from his rucksack and unrolled it, exposing the sticky strip, then chose a spot at the back of the trapdoor and taped the charge along the crack.

‘Soon as the charge blows, get the gas in,’ he announced.

Narov nodded and readied a Kolokol-1 grenade.

They took cover. Jaeger triggered the fuse, and instantaneously there was a sharp explosion, a thick cloud of smoke and debris billowing through the air. The trapdoor was now a blasted ruin.

Narov lobbed the gas canister into the smoke-filled interior. Jaeger counted down the seconds, allowing the gas to take hold before lowering his frame through and letting himself drop. He hit the deck, taking the impact on his knees, and immediately had his gun in the aim, sweeping the room with the flashlight attached to the weapon. Through the thick fog of gas in the air he could see two figures lying on the floor, comatose.

Narov dropped in next to him and Jaeger swept his torch over the two unconscious men. ‘Check them.’

As Narov went to do so, he slid around the wall towards the back of the room, where there was a small alcove containing a heavy wooden chest. He reached out with his gloved hand and pulled at the handle, but the chest was locked.

Screw searching for the key.

He placed both hands on the handle and a foot against the front, tensed his shoulder muscles and yanked with all his might. With a snapping of wood the lid came away from its hinges. Jaeger threw it to one side and flashed his torch inside.

In the depths of the chest lay a large formless bundle wrapped in an old sheet. He reached in and heaved it up, feeling the distinctive weight of a human body inside, then lowered it gently to the floor. When he peeled away the sheet, he found himself gazing into Leticia Santos’s face.

They’d found her. She was unconscious, and by the looks of her ravaged features Vladimir and his crew had put her through hell these past few days. Jaeger didn’t even want to think what they had done to her. But at least she was alive.

Behind him, Narov was checking the second body, just to make sure he was dead to the world. Like many of Vladimir’s gunmen, this one was wearing body armour; no doubt about it, they had been a serious bunch of operators.

But as she rolled the cumbersome figure on to his back, her flashlight glinted on something that had been left lying beneath him on the floor. It was spherical and metallic, about the size of a man’s fist, its outer surface segmented into scores of tiny squares.

‘GRENADE!’

Jaeger whirled about, taking in the threat in a matter of instants. The gunman had set a trap. Believing himself to be dying, he’d pulled the pin on a grenade and lain himself on top of it, keeping the clip in place with his own body weight.

‘TAKE COVER!’ Jaeger yelled, scooping Leticia up and diving for the shelter of the alcove.

Ignoring him completely, Narov slammed the figure back down on to the grenade, throwing herself on top of him to shield herself from the explosion.

There was a massive, searing detonation. Narov was catapulted into the air by the blast, the force of which hurled Jaeger further into the alcove, his head smashing against the wall.

A bolt of agony shot through him… and seconds later his whole world went black.