The Lost Testament

81

As he reached the camera’s field of vision, Bronson lifted the cardboard box up high so that it obscured his face, strode quickly forward to cover the last few feet, and stepped inside the warehouse.

He altered his grip on the empty cardboard box so that he was holding it solely with his left hand, and held the pistol in his right hand behind it, ready for instant use. But the room he was standing in — a small square space occupied by a couple of desks and chairs — was devoid of human presence. At the back of the room he could see another door standing open and leading to a short passageway that was illuminated by a single fluorescent tube on the ceiling, which obviously ran down one side of the building.

Bronson strode across the room and glanced up the passageway, but neither saw nor heard anybody. About halfway down the passage was a door on the left-hand side bearing the universally recognizable symbol of a male and female figure separated by a vertical line. He checked it anyway, just to make sure that nobody was taking a toilet break.

At the end of the passage a flight of steps ascended to the next level. Still holding the box in front of him — if his basic disguise worked, then whoever was waiting on the upper floor of the building would be expecting to see a man carrying a box — Bronson climbed up the staircase.

At the top he paused for a moment and looked in both directions. There was another lavatory almost opposite the top of the staircase, and a couple of offices down the passageway to his left, but both doors were open, and no lights were burning, so he discounted them. To his right was another and slightly longer passageway, again lit by a fluorescent light, and at the end of that a door stood partially ajar, illuminated by lights from inside the room.

If George Stebbins was anywhere inside the building, that office or room was where Bronson expected to find him.

But as Bronson began to head down the passageway towards the door, it was suddenly flung open and a figure appeared there and shouted something at him in high-speed Spanish. Bronson didn’t understand more than a fraction of what the man was saying. But having delivered his tirade, the man stepped back into the room. It seemed that Bronson hadn’t — at least up to that point — been recognized as a threat.

He continued down the passage towards the door, clicking off the safety catch of the Beretta M92 in his right hand as he approached the end. But he’d only taken two or three steps when something hard jabbed him in the back.

Somebody had appeared behind him completely soundlessly. And whoever it was had a loaded pistol in his hand.