No Tears for the Lost

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The blast was deafening in the room, the shock waves making Riley’s ears ring. On the bed, Myburghe took the full force of the bullet and was flung over onto his front, a fine spray of blood fanning out across the bedspread, bright and vivid against the pale fabric. He groaned once and lay still.

Riley was stunned but took care not to move. Henzigger was watching her like a hawk, the gun now aimed at her. His hand was as steady as a rock.

‘That was a demonstration. I only winged him. You refuse me again, he gets another one. And believe me, I can keep this up for hours without killing him. I’ve done it before. Want to see?’

‘No!’ She felt nauseous with anger. She couldn’t see where Myburghe had been hit, but even a slight wound could kill him with the shock.

‘Perfect.’ Henzigger relaxed and blew down the gun barrel in a sick parody of an old-style gunfighter. Suddenly he was all geniality again. ‘Now we have a working understanding. Ironic, really, because those Colombians have been itching to do that for weeks. They may be peasants and have shit for brains, but they know how to read a man, you know? Low animal cunning, I guess. They figured he was going to be a liability long before I did. In fact, I was the only thing stood between them and him getting a taste of the blade.’

‘I’ll make sure he recommends you for a medal,’ she said with unrestrained sarcasm.

It rolled off his back like water. ‘First things first: I need to get out of the country. Seems my former employers — the DEA — never quite bought the story about my innocence, and they’ve slammed most of the doors on me. I bet they’ve got photos up at every port, too. But I figure a kick-ass reporter and a former British Ambassador might know where all the gaps are — am I right?’

Riley stared at him. He was actually expecting her to get him out on a boat or plane? He must be mad. She had no more idea of a back door out of the country than he did. At best she could take a stab at guessing, like stealing a boat and hoping to get across the channel without being run down by a super-tanker. But that wasn’t what he meant.

He wanted a plane, preferably something with a lot of range to put himself quickly beyond the reach of Weller and Portius. That meant a corrupt pilot or a busy commercial flight, neither of which could be rustled up in the middle of the night on a whim.

But if she suggested that, Myburghe would get another bullet.

She had to stall for time. Time for Mitcheson or Palmer — and where the hell was Palmer? — to come and narrow the odds. And time for Weller’s men in black to come abseiling through the windows.

‘I need to think about it,’ she said, hoping it sounded convincing. ‘There are a couple of places, but I’d have to check.’

‘Okay. That’s cool.’ He surprised her by agreeing readily, then added the killer line: ‘Say, twenty minutes. That do you?’ His smile was a cold, empty facial gesture, like a death mask in a museum, and she realised that sometime in the past few hours, maybe even days, Toby Henzigger had strayed over the borderline from paranoia into the cloudy realms of madness. ‘Ten seconds longer and he dies.’

He picked up the steel briefcase and walked out, leaving Riley staring after him. At least he hadn’t tied her up. Then she realised why as the key turned in the lock.

She hurried over to the bed. Myburghe was groaning softly, his body quivering with shock. Gently, she eased him over so she could locate the wound. He cried out, his voice shrill as a child, and she felt for where the stickiness was worst. It was a stomach wound, and deeper than Henzigger had probably intended.

Riley fought to quell a rising sense of panic. Unless she got him out of here, he was going to die.

She crossed to the window. What she could see of the garden showed nothing likely to help her out of the room. She didn’t fancy her chances of climbing down, as there was no handy drainpipe, merely a glass conservatory roof below, waiting to break her fall.

And if she survived that, there was the man on the roof; he’d have her in his sights the moment she appeared. It would be like potting lame ducks.

She went over to the door and listened. No sounds from out there, but it didn’t mean Henzigger wasn’t within reach, waiting for her to make a break. It would be what he’d expect her to do. She tried the handle, anyway. Locked.

She heard a sound behind her. Myburghe was watching her from the bed, his face creased in pain. ‘I have a spare key,’ he said with surprising clarity. ‘In the dresser.’ He moved his eyes to indicate the piece of furniture where Henzigger had been standing.

‘Don’t move,’ Riley urged him, and checked his stomach. It was seeping blood in a faint but steady flow. His skin was horribly pale and covered in a film of perspiration, and she could feel a faint tremor running through him, as if an internal motor was chugging away but gradually running down, starved of its vital fuel. Grabbing a pillow off the bed, she ripped off the covering and wadded it under his shirt, pressing it tight against the wound. It wasn’t ideal battle-trauma treatment, but it was all she could think of for the moment.

‘Top… top drawer left,’ Myburghe whispered. ‘Socks.’

Riley stepped across to the dresser and pulled open the drawer. Under a pile of socks she found a large, ornate bronze key with a cloverleaf top. She hurried over to the door and tried it. It turned with a slight grating sound.

She inched the door open, praying the hinges stayed silent. The landing was clear. She pulled the door shut behind her and ghosted across the thick carpet to peer over the banister. No sound from the foyer downstairs, no sense of anyone waiting to blow her head off. On the other hand, that didn’t mean they weren’t there. She chewed her lip. It was a stark choice: either go down and face whatever was there, or stay up here and wait for Henzigger’s twenty minutes to tick away.

She checked her watch. Two minutes gone. Eighteen more and Henzigger would be in here with his tame vaqueros. She didn’t want to be here when that happened.

She went down the stairs as quietly as she could. If Henzigger or his men put in an appearance now, she wouldn’t stand a chance. Still, she could always pelt them with the portraits of Myburghe’s ancestors, who were still glaring down at her as if she was responsible for everything that was happening right under their starchy noses.

The Chinese vase. Her mobile was still inside where Henzigger had dumped it. The top was too narrow to get her arm in, and when she turned it upside down, the mobile wedged across the neck. With a sigh, she looked round for inspiration, and spotted a narrow run of Persian carpet. She eased the vase onto its side and rolled the carpet around it, then stamped on it as hard as she could. She was rewarded with the muffled sound of breaking porcelain. She unravelled the carpet to find the vase in a million pieces, with the mobile among the fragments. Hopefully, Myburghe would think the sacrifice of the vase worthwhile.

As she scooped up the mobile, she spotted the automatic lying on the floor. There were no bullets because Henzigger had slipped the magazine in his pocket. She grabbed it anyway. If things got truly desperate, she could always throw it at someone. She was contemplating going to see what else Mitcheson might have in the rear of the Land Cruiser when there was a double-tap in the distance. She froze.

A handgun?

There was silence, then the heavier boom of a shotgun. Palmer or Mitcheson?

Alarmed voices echoed close to the house in urgent Spanish. One of them must be the lookout on the roof, directing operations for his colleagues below.

Riley ran back upstairs, abandoning all attempts to keep quiet. Now Henzigger’s men knew Riley had company, they would be coming back in double-quick time to begin a classic hostage situation. She hit the bedroom door on the run and made straight for the bed. She had to get Sir Kenneth out of here, whether he was ready to move or not. Without him, Henzigger and his men couldn’t do much but stand and fight or turn and run. Either way, they wouldn’t be able to use hostages if they couldn’t find them.

‘Come on,’ she said, and shook Myburghe gently by the shoulder. He didn’t respond, so she slapped his face. He gave a start and looked up at her, eyes dulled with pain and shock. He looked even worse than before, yet she’d only been gone a couple of minutes. Riley realised he must be losing blood at a terrifying rate, his energy and life-force seeping away with it. ‘We have to move,’ she told him fiercely. ‘If we stay here, Henzigger will kill us.’

He gave a faint nod and tried to lift himself off the bed, gasping in pain. Riley put her arm beneath him and eased him upright, then helped him to stagger towards the door.

The only problem was, where to go?

The roof? It’s where everyone goes in films, she thought, when they’re being pursued by bad guys. God knows why, because they always get caught. Downstairs, then. It would also be easier for Sir Kenneth than climbing stairs.

But he didn’t see it that way.

‘Up,’ he gasped, and pointed with a mottled hand to a stretch of blank wall, where no furniture stood. She thought he’d lost it completely, because she couldn’t see anything. Then she realised there was the faint outline of a door in the heavy embroidery-style pattern. It must lead to a staircase to the roof.

‘You can’t climb,’ Riley told him. There was also the gunman up there, waiting for them to show their faces.

‘Yes… can,’ he insisted. ‘Fresh air… please.’ He looked sideways at her, his eyes flickering in a beseeching manner, and she nodded. Hell, why not — it was his house.

They crabbed through the narrow door and out onto a small landing, with the stairs leading upwards. The stairwell was cold and dark, and every small sound seemed to echo with terrifying loudness. Riley slipped the automatic out of her pocket and helped Sir Kenneth sit on the stairs. He nodded and urged her on, apparently understanding that the next bit was best done without carrying a dying man.

She flexed her arm, already aching from the strain of supporting the injured man, then crept up the stairs and tried the door. It gave with a faint click of the lock, reminding her of the last time she’d come this way. She waited a few seconds, but there was no sound of movement. There was nothing for it but to step outside and investigate.

She pushed the door open and felt around on the floor with her free hand. Nothing. The wind must have swept it clear of any remaining nutshells. She stood up and stepped through, closing the door behind her, then flattened herself against the wall of the stairwell structure. Up here the night sky had never seemed so attractive, or so far away. A breeze drifted through the treetops beyond the parapet, and a plane droned somewhere high above her. There was no sound to indicate the presence of the enemy, although she knew he was up here somewhere. And his gun carried live rounds.

She peered round the corner of the structure and immediately spotted a darker shadow against the parapet a few feet away. She waited, her eyes adjusting to the poor light. The shadow shifted and became a heavily built man. He was peering over the edge in the direction of the stables.

She couldn’t see a weapon, but she knew it must be in his hand.

She thought about Myburghe, his life leaking away on the stairs behind her. And Palmer and Mitcheson, moving around below in the darkness, possibly even now being watched by the gunman. There was no other choice.