The Dark Passage: A Sam Raven Thriller, page 16
“If you only knew.”
Then Raven shot the other man through the head.
Across the warehouse, Elena ran for a flight of steps leading to the catwalks and top level. She was fast, dodging between stacks. A gunner appeared from hiding, firing at her. She dropped him with a single shot. A second gunner came from her right, colliding with her in a hard tackle. They both hit the ground hard, Elena losing her grip on the Uzi. As the SMG slid across the floor, the guard adjusted his position to get his own submachine gun between them. Elena’s Glock barked in response. She held the gun low against her belly, muzzle forward, and put the rounds through the gunner’s abdomen. His eyes widened and a choked cry escaped his lips. Elena shoved him away and fired another shot through his head.
On her feet, pistol holstered, Uzi back in hand, she continued. Reaching the steps, she ran up the flight with Petra Carapic firing a pistol at her. But Petra couldn’t aim for crap, and the shots smacked into the wall beside Elena and over her head. She ran with her head down and shoulders hunched, however—she wasn’t charging headlong. When she reached the landing, Petra was out of bullets. The woman threw the gun, and Petra batted it away. The woman screamed and turned to run. Where she was heading along the narrow catwalk, Elena didn’t know. What she wanted to accomplish by running was also a mystery. She had nowhere to go but a small office at the end of the catwalk, and unless she had a machine gun hidden in there with which to continue the fight, Elena saw the move as a desperate attempt leading only to doom. Elena shouldered the Uzi, aimed at the woman’s back, and let her have it. The Uzi stuttered, Petra’s back opened, gushing bits of red flesh like a flower petal spreading in the summer, and then she was falling, momentum still carrying her forward, and then she landed on her face. The catwalk let out a clang as it took the brunt of Petra’s weight, and Petra’s face acted like a brake. Her body stopped moving forward; ceased functioning altogether. Elena calmly changed magazines and snapped back the Uzi’s bolt. Always be ready, her mentors had told her. She turned and descended the steps at a much slower pace than before.
Gunfire from the dock made her stop and drop. She peeked over the top of a crate. The ship was departing, slowly; the dock crew blocked access to the outside area, and they held automatic rifles. They were firing at Raven! She ran hard, calling his name. She didn’t want him to think she was a hostile and shoot her by mistake. Stray rounds smacked into crates around her. She heard the bullets whistle; felt the smack of splinters against her exposed skin.
Raven stretched flat on the ground, crawling from crate to crate, forklift to storage barrel. He wanted to get within grenade range. The ship still loomed large but was almost clear of the dock. If Hasanaj hadn’t come through…
More gunfire behind him, a sustained burst, the dock defenders falling back but unscathed. Raven looked over his shoulder at Elena as she ran to him, getting on the floor beside him.
“Keep it going!” he yelled.
She raised herself high enough to keep shooting, switching to short bursts. Raven plucked a grenade from his web vest, pulled the pin, and threw high and over. Elena ducked. The explosion rocked the warehouse, flame and debris flying toward the ceiling. The blast caught two of the shooters. Two remained. Raven yelled, “Now!” and he and Elena rose to fire and the last two shooters joined the other corpses littered around them.
They ran through the maze once more to reach the dock and watched the ship get further away. Somebody on the rear deck looked back at them and waved.
“This is not good,” Elena said.
The breeze off the water cooled the sweat on Raven’s skin, but his rapid pulse rate didn’t abate. There was no way to stop the ship if Hasanaj had failed. Raven turned his head left, right, searching the water for Hasanaj, any sign their smuggler ally survived to accomplish his part of the mission. A winkling flashlight—two flashes, a pause, two more—at the end of the dock spurred Raven to action once more. He grabbed Elena’s arm and they started running. There was no enemy resistance left to stop them. They reached the edge of the pier and found Hasanaj in his speedboat where he was supposed to be.
“Let’s go! Getting late!” he yelled.
Raven and Elena landed heavily in the smaller craft, Raven shouting, “The ship’s moving, Kemal.”
“Did you doubt me, my friend?” Hasanaj produced a small black box from his large jacket. It was a little smaller than a pack of cigarettes and had two buttons on it. He tossed the box to Raven. “Do the honors.”
The buttons were red and green. Raven pressed the red button and turned his attention to the ship. There was a whump from under the waterline, then a bigger blast ruptured the exterior hull. Orange flame leaped into the night. An on-board alarm blared. Activity on the deck began a rush of running bodies. Raven grinned and tossed the detonator back to Hasanaj.
“I never doubted you for a second.”
Elena, behind Raven, approached the two men. She gave Raven a nudge to get him out of the way and said to the smuggler, “Can we get out of here please?”
“Do what the lady says,” Raven told the smuggler. Kemal Hasanaj dropped behind the wheel, fed the engine a little throttle, and spun the speedboat away from the dock and took off across the smooth water in the opposite direction of the sinking ship.
31
Elena lay awake listening to Raven and Hasanaj continue their conversation. Their muted voices were difficult to interpret, but she heard a few of the words through the walls. They were strategizing. Plotting next steps. Raven wanted a surveillance team on Anton Vercuni and his wife to watch them give an alert when they departed so, assuming they were going to The Wolf, the rest of Hasanaj’s force, along with Raven and Elena, could follow them. Ridiculous. Too much talking. Elena had her answers and Ana Gray knew the truth and it was time to do more than only talk.
She waited in the dark bedroom until the talking ceased and waited longer for both men to fall into deep sleep. The safehouse was still foreign, still felt like an antiseptic hotel, a place for staying, not living, but she rose and dressed and found her way to the kitchen and the place on the counter where they kept the keys to the car. The only car Hasanaj had at the house. Once they discovered she was gone, Raven and Hasanaj would have to first get alternate transportation. The thought made her pause. Was a solo play really what she wanted to do?
She had a score to settle, and she wanted the accounts balanced.
So, yeah.
Her combat suit wasn’t the most pleasant-smelling garment but she pulled it back on, loaded her kit bag, and left the house. Quietly. She knew Raven wasn’t a light sleeper, but she had no idea if Hasanaj would awake at the slightest noise. The outside chill and crickets greeted her. The black Mercedes sat in the driveway, and a press of the key fob opened the locks. The headlamps flashed, too, highlighting the garage door; she didn’t think anybody inside would see the flare. Getting into the car, she started the engine, backed out, and drove away. She knew where to go. There was no need to consult a map. She had the route memorized. Burned into her brain, even. She’d know how to get to Anton Vercuni’s house blindfolded, if necessary.
Time to settle a score.
Elena drove with a grim set to her face and murder on her mind.
He told his wife he was working late.
Lieutenant Vojin Stojanovic hated lying to her, but didn’t see any other way to get the freedom he needed for what he wanted to do. When she asked when he’d be home, he told her he didn’t know—which was true, very true—but also not to wait up. Part of him wondered if he was coming back.
With the destruction of major Balkan Cartel facilities in the last forty-eight hours, pressure from Anton Vercuni was at its peak. He was asking for too much, especially with the department watching him, albeit quietly; he knew they were in the background wherever he went. Phantoms, chasing him. Vercuni wanted information on the “strike force”—and he didn’t want to hear Stojanovic say he knew nothing. The police had to know something, and Stojanovic was hiding critical information. Well, in a perfect world, they would, but Stojanovic had to admit he was as stumped as anybody else on the “official” side of law enforcement. Somebody was hitting the cartel, all right, and hitting them where it counted. He wondered if the activity was somehow connected to Irina Vukovic, and, if so, he wished the fighters Godspeed. They were doing more to avenge her death than he was able to.
Stojanovic was desperate for a way out, and the only way was to stack some bodies of his own. Whoever hit the cartel knew what they were doing. He hoped with Vercuni dead and one of his major distributors dead too, he could clear out any evidence pointing to him, anybody who knew what he’d done, and save his career. And his life. Tall order? Probably. But he had to try or die. There was no other way.
He drove a city car because he wanted some mark of official duty. He drove with the radio off. Traffic was light. He didn’t speed. First stop, Colonel Kovac’s nightclub. He hoped Kovac was still there. He planned to leave Kovac there if he found him. Otherwise, he’d proceed to his second target.
Anton and Melika Vercuni. He knew where they lived, too.
Elena had no intention of driving up the curving access road to the Vercuni house. She was already having flashbacks to the night she drove to the house the first time, when they caught her peeking through a computer she found in an office; the chill she felt wasn’t from the cold air coming in through the open windows. She’d rolled them down to dry the sweat on her skin, but nothing calmed her racing heart. She was going back into the lion’s den, alone, and questioning ever leaving the safehouse. But it was too late to go back. It was now or never.
She parked the Mercedes off the road and grabbed her kit bag from the passenger seat. Taking out the Uzi (she hadn’t had a chance to clean it since the action at the dock), her web gear, and assorted accessories, she donned the gear and started up the sloping hill to the house. Security lights burned on the outer perimeter, lighting up part of the house. She knew about the sentries. They wouldn’t be too hard to take down. Elena only hoped there weren’t too many.
Crouched in the shadow on the slope, she watched the portion of the outer wall visible from her vantage point; she watched for gunners patrolling the outside. None came across. They’d all be on the other side of the wall and inside the house.
Her mouth was dry and her hands shook. But she tightened her grip on the Uzi, took a deep breath, and continued her climb toward the wall. She wasn’t sure where her infiltration point would be yet, but she’d find it within minutes. Several, very fast minutes.
32
She climbed higher and stopped to listen; still no sign she’d been detected. Her boots sank into the soft dirt with each step. Elena tried to remember if they had any sensors in the ground but then realized her first visit had not covered such a topic. She’d been there on the auspices of selling guns to the cartel after the sudden “retirement”—the lethal kind, thanks to another of Ana Gray’s operatives—of their previous supplier. They hadn’t talked about the security around the house. She’d arrived by car, for heaven’s sake; totally different mode of entry than she attempted now. Elena climbed the slope, going faster, finally reached the wall. Her legs felt the strain of the climb but hadn’t turned to jelly. What she now wanted was a ladder to help get over the top. What she had in her back would have to suffice.
She slid the pack off her back and extracted the grappling hook and nylon rope. It wasn’t a hard toss. The hook locked onto the top of the wall, and she climbed up the side, pausing to peek over the top, then rolling over to land opposite in a low crouch. Gripping the Uzi with both hands, she scanned for targets while trying to check her surroundings at the same time. Melika’s garden, by the look of the patch of dirt she’d landed in; roses, tomato plants, and other vegetables grew around her. Marble statues were mixed within the rows and helped conceal her from the prying eyes about ten yards away. A pair of guards stopped talking to look in the direction of the garden. They casually cradled their submachine guns but took firmer grips on the weapons as they started in her direction. One spoke into a radio.
Elena cursed and looked for a way out. To her left, the garden continued along the wall but eventually ended at grass. To the right, the patio lead to the back of the house.
The approaching guards started moving faster. Two more came around the corner, on the far side of the house. They knew she was there. Elena chose the only option available. Attack first.
Uzi to her shoulder, she took out the nearest threat: the guards approaching from the front. The Uzi chattered in full auto. One guard dropped, the other tried diving for the grass, but Elena tracked his roll and fired again, pinning him to the grass with the three-round burst. She pivoted, rising slightly, and triggered another salvo at the guards coming from the house. They rolled behind patio furniture; she couldn’t get a sight picture. But they zeroed in on her. She ran as they fired single shots. As she ran into the open, heading for the far end of the yard, she fired at the house. Tripping on a crack in the cement and tumbling, she managed to recover and stop on her belly. The bullets aimed at her split the air overhead. She fired back, missing, and hurried to reload. Aiming toward the patio once more, she found no targets. The two gunners were well-concealed. Her eyes darted back and forth as she searched. Where had they gone? The crackles of gunfire began to fade, but the ringing in her ears did not. She hurried to move back toward the shadows of the far yard, and the wall there; maybe a quick hop over and back to the car was the best option. If she stayed in the fight, she wasn’t going to get out alive.
Elena scrambled toward the shadowed edge of the yard, her breath ragged, the Uzi slick in her sweating palms. The wall loomed ahead, her only shot at escape, but the silence behind her felt wrong—too heavy, too deliberate. She risked a glance back. The patio was empty, the furniture still, but a faint rustle came from the garden to her left. Her heart sank. They were flanking her.
She broke into a sprint, the wall now just yards away, but a sharp crack split the air—a sniper’s round, not from the house but from above. The bullet grazed her calf, a hot sear of pain, and she stumbled, crashing into the dirt. The Uzi skittered from her grip, landing just out of reach. She lunged for it, but boots crunched closer, too many, too fast. A shadow loomed over her, and the cold steel of a blade pressed against the back of her neck.
“Welcome back, Elena,” a low voice growled. Anton Vercuni’s voice!
Elena froze, her mind racing for an out, but the numbers were against her. Four guards materialized from the darkness, guns trained on her. The sniper’s laser dot danced on her chest, a fifth threat pinning her in place. She’d miscalculated, underestimated their response time, their coordination. No. That’s not what you did. You went off half-cocked because you let emotion get in the way of good sense. Just like last time.
The cartel wasn’t just muscle; they were disciplined.
Rough hands yanked her arms behind her back, a zip tie biting into her wrists. The same rough hands rolled her onto her back. Two men stood above her. One was the hulk named Dede Bizi. The other was Anton Vercuni, and he held a knife. He gave Bizi a nudge, and the big man moved away. Vercuni kneeled beside her, his face half-lit by the glow of the house. Her eyes were wide, her breathing shallow. He smirked and ran the flat side of the knife across her lips.
“We’re going to pick up where we left off, young lady.”
He brushed the razor edge against her cheek. She stopped breathing. Stopped moving.
“You’re going to talk this time.”
He gave the order and the guards hauled her to her feet, her injured leg screaming as she staggered. The Uzi lay abandoned in the dirt, her pack still tangled in the garden. No weapons, no backup, no way out. Elena’s eyes flicked to the wall one last time, so close yet impossibly far, as they dragged her toward the house. The cartel’s boss would want answers—answers she didn’t have. She’d bitten off more than she could chew, and now they’d make her choke on it.
33
The basement reeked of damp concrete. Elena sat bound to a metal chair, her wrists and ankles secured with zip ties cutting into her skin. The single bulb overhead cast harsh shadows, illuminating Anton Vercuni as he paced before her, his custom Damascus steel knife glinting in his hand. Its serrated edge caught the light, a wicked promise of pain. Elena’s heart pounded, but she forced her face into a mask of defiance, her jaw clenched tight.
She fought the flashbacks while feeling the bugs across her skin…
“Who do you work for?” Anton’s voice was low. He stepped closer, twirling the knife. “You’re no gun runner. You and your friends are too clean, too trained. Except for this latest disaster. Coming in alone? Why? Who sent you? I know it isn’t the CIA or MI6. Who, Elena? Who?”
Elena spat at his feet, her voice steady despite the ache in her bruised ribs. “You’re paranoid. I’m just a freelancer who got in over her head. No one’s coming for me this time.”
He smirked, unconvinced, and leaned in, the knife hovering near her throat. With a flick of his wrist, he sliced through the collar of her tactical shirt, the fabric parting like paper. The cold steel grazed her skin, not cutting but close enough to make her breath hitch. “Talk, or I carve you into something less pretty.”
She glared, her mind racing for leverage, but the ties held firm, and her weapons were long gone. “You’re wasting your time,” she hissed. “I work alone.”
Anton’s smile vanished. He slashed again, cutting away a sleeve, the knife’s edge whispering against her arm. “Who is Ana Gray?” he said, his voice hardening.
Elena stayed stoic.
“Who is Ana Gray, Elena?”
“Never met her.”
“Really? Irina Vukovic knew her. I saw the emails on her computer. My wife found them. Are you one of Ana Gray’s operatives, Elena? Tell me about her network. Tell me where I can find her.”
Then Raven shot the other man through the head.
Across the warehouse, Elena ran for a flight of steps leading to the catwalks and top level. She was fast, dodging between stacks. A gunner appeared from hiding, firing at her. She dropped him with a single shot. A second gunner came from her right, colliding with her in a hard tackle. They both hit the ground hard, Elena losing her grip on the Uzi. As the SMG slid across the floor, the guard adjusted his position to get his own submachine gun between them. Elena’s Glock barked in response. She held the gun low against her belly, muzzle forward, and put the rounds through the gunner’s abdomen. His eyes widened and a choked cry escaped his lips. Elena shoved him away and fired another shot through his head.
On her feet, pistol holstered, Uzi back in hand, she continued. Reaching the steps, she ran up the flight with Petra Carapic firing a pistol at her. But Petra couldn’t aim for crap, and the shots smacked into the wall beside Elena and over her head. She ran with her head down and shoulders hunched, however—she wasn’t charging headlong. When she reached the landing, Petra was out of bullets. The woman threw the gun, and Petra batted it away. The woman screamed and turned to run. Where she was heading along the narrow catwalk, Elena didn’t know. What she wanted to accomplish by running was also a mystery. She had nowhere to go but a small office at the end of the catwalk, and unless she had a machine gun hidden in there with which to continue the fight, Elena saw the move as a desperate attempt leading only to doom. Elena shouldered the Uzi, aimed at the woman’s back, and let her have it. The Uzi stuttered, Petra’s back opened, gushing bits of red flesh like a flower petal spreading in the summer, and then she was falling, momentum still carrying her forward, and then she landed on her face. The catwalk let out a clang as it took the brunt of Petra’s weight, and Petra’s face acted like a brake. Her body stopped moving forward; ceased functioning altogether. Elena calmly changed magazines and snapped back the Uzi’s bolt. Always be ready, her mentors had told her. She turned and descended the steps at a much slower pace than before.
Gunfire from the dock made her stop and drop. She peeked over the top of a crate. The ship was departing, slowly; the dock crew blocked access to the outside area, and they held automatic rifles. They were firing at Raven! She ran hard, calling his name. She didn’t want him to think she was a hostile and shoot her by mistake. Stray rounds smacked into crates around her. She heard the bullets whistle; felt the smack of splinters against her exposed skin.
Raven stretched flat on the ground, crawling from crate to crate, forklift to storage barrel. He wanted to get within grenade range. The ship still loomed large but was almost clear of the dock. If Hasanaj hadn’t come through…
More gunfire behind him, a sustained burst, the dock defenders falling back but unscathed. Raven looked over his shoulder at Elena as she ran to him, getting on the floor beside him.
“Keep it going!” he yelled.
She raised herself high enough to keep shooting, switching to short bursts. Raven plucked a grenade from his web vest, pulled the pin, and threw high and over. Elena ducked. The explosion rocked the warehouse, flame and debris flying toward the ceiling. The blast caught two of the shooters. Two remained. Raven yelled, “Now!” and he and Elena rose to fire and the last two shooters joined the other corpses littered around them.
They ran through the maze once more to reach the dock and watched the ship get further away. Somebody on the rear deck looked back at them and waved.
“This is not good,” Elena said.
The breeze off the water cooled the sweat on Raven’s skin, but his rapid pulse rate didn’t abate. There was no way to stop the ship if Hasanaj had failed. Raven turned his head left, right, searching the water for Hasanaj, any sign their smuggler ally survived to accomplish his part of the mission. A winkling flashlight—two flashes, a pause, two more—at the end of the dock spurred Raven to action once more. He grabbed Elena’s arm and they started running. There was no enemy resistance left to stop them. They reached the edge of the pier and found Hasanaj in his speedboat where he was supposed to be.
“Let’s go! Getting late!” he yelled.
Raven and Elena landed heavily in the smaller craft, Raven shouting, “The ship’s moving, Kemal.”
“Did you doubt me, my friend?” Hasanaj produced a small black box from his large jacket. It was a little smaller than a pack of cigarettes and had two buttons on it. He tossed the box to Raven. “Do the honors.”
The buttons were red and green. Raven pressed the red button and turned his attention to the ship. There was a whump from under the waterline, then a bigger blast ruptured the exterior hull. Orange flame leaped into the night. An on-board alarm blared. Activity on the deck began a rush of running bodies. Raven grinned and tossed the detonator back to Hasanaj.
“I never doubted you for a second.”
Elena, behind Raven, approached the two men. She gave Raven a nudge to get him out of the way and said to the smuggler, “Can we get out of here please?”
“Do what the lady says,” Raven told the smuggler. Kemal Hasanaj dropped behind the wheel, fed the engine a little throttle, and spun the speedboat away from the dock and took off across the smooth water in the opposite direction of the sinking ship.
31
Elena lay awake listening to Raven and Hasanaj continue their conversation. Their muted voices were difficult to interpret, but she heard a few of the words through the walls. They were strategizing. Plotting next steps. Raven wanted a surveillance team on Anton Vercuni and his wife to watch them give an alert when they departed so, assuming they were going to The Wolf, the rest of Hasanaj’s force, along with Raven and Elena, could follow them. Ridiculous. Too much talking. Elena had her answers and Ana Gray knew the truth and it was time to do more than only talk.
She waited in the dark bedroom until the talking ceased and waited longer for both men to fall into deep sleep. The safehouse was still foreign, still felt like an antiseptic hotel, a place for staying, not living, but she rose and dressed and found her way to the kitchen and the place on the counter where they kept the keys to the car. The only car Hasanaj had at the house. Once they discovered she was gone, Raven and Hasanaj would have to first get alternate transportation. The thought made her pause. Was a solo play really what she wanted to do?
She had a score to settle, and she wanted the accounts balanced.
So, yeah.
Her combat suit wasn’t the most pleasant-smelling garment but she pulled it back on, loaded her kit bag, and left the house. Quietly. She knew Raven wasn’t a light sleeper, but she had no idea if Hasanaj would awake at the slightest noise. The outside chill and crickets greeted her. The black Mercedes sat in the driveway, and a press of the key fob opened the locks. The headlamps flashed, too, highlighting the garage door; she didn’t think anybody inside would see the flare. Getting into the car, she started the engine, backed out, and drove away. She knew where to go. There was no need to consult a map. She had the route memorized. Burned into her brain, even. She’d know how to get to Anton Vercuni’s house blindfolded, if necessary.
Time to settle a score.
Elena drove with a grim set to her face and murder on her mind.
He told his wife he was working late.
Lieutenant Vojin Stojanovic hated lying to her, but didn’t see any other way to get the freedom he needed for what he wanted to do. When she asked when he’d be home, he told her he didn’t know—which was true, very true—but also not to wait up. Part of him wondered if he was coming back.
With the destruction of major Balkan Cartel facilities in the last forty-eight hours, pressure from Anton Vercuni was at its peak. He was asking for too much, especially with the department watching him, albeit quietly; he knew they were in the background wherever he went. Phantoms, chasing him. Vercuni wanted information on the “strike force”—and he didn’t want to hear Stojanovic say he knew nothing. The police had to know something, and Stojanovic was hiding critical information. Well, in a perfect world, they would, but Stojanovic had to admit he was as stumped as anybody else on the “official” side of law enforcement. Somebody was hitting the cartel, all right, and hitting them where it counted. He wondered if the activity was somehow connected to Irina Vukovic, and, if so, he wished the fighters Godspeed. They were doing more to avenge her death than he was able to.
Stojanovic was desperate for a way out, and the only way was to stack some bodies of his own. Whoever hit the cartel knew what they were doing. He hoped with Vercuni dead and one of his major distributors dead too, he could clear out any evidence pointing to him, anybody who knew what he’d done, and save his career. And his life. Tall order? Probably. But he had to try or die. There was no other way.
He drove a city car because he wanted some mark of official duty. He drove with the radio off. Traffic was light. He didn’t speed. First stop, Colonel Kovac’s nightclub. He hoped Kovac was still there. He planned to leave Kovac there if he found him. Otherwise, he’d proceed to his second target.
Anton and Melika Vercuni. He knew where they lived, too.
Elena had no intention of driving up the curving access road to the Vercuni house. She was already having flashbacks to the night she drove to the house the first time, when they caught her peeking through a computer she found in an office; the chill she felt wasn’t from the cold air coming in through the open windows. She’d rolled them down to dry the sweat on her skin, but nothing calmed her racing heart. She was going back into the lion’s den, alone, and questioning ever leaving the safehouse. But it was too late to go back. It was now or never.
She parked the Mercedes off the road and grabbed her kit bag from the passenger seat. Taking out the Uzi (she hadn’t had a chance to clean it since the action at the dock), her web gear, and assorted accessories, she donned the gear and started up the sloping hill to the house. Security lights burned on the outer perimeter, lighting up part of the house. She knew about the sentries. They wouldn’t be too hard to take down. Elena only hoped there weren’t too many.
Crouched in the shadow on the slope, she watched the portion of the outer wall visible from her vantage point; she watched for gunners patrolling the outside. None came across. They’d all be on the other side of the wall and inside the house.
Her mouth was dry and her hands shook. But she tightened her grip on the Uzi, took a deep breath, and continued her climb toward the wall. She wasn’t sure where her infiltration point would be yet, but she’d find it within minutes. Several, very fast minutes.
32
She climbed higher and stopped to listen; still no sign she’d been detected. Her boots sank into the soft dirt with each step. Elena tried to remember if they had any sensors in the ground but then realized her first visit had not covered such a topic. She’d been there on the auspices of selling guns to the cartel after the sudden “retirement”—the lethal kind, thanks to another of Ana Gray’s operatives—of their previous supplier. They hadn’t talked about the security around the house. She’d arrived by car, for heaven’s sake; totally different mode of entry than she attempted now. Elena climbed the slope, going faster, finally reached the wall. Her legs felt the strain of the climb but hadn’t turned to jelly. What she now wanted was a ladder to help get over the top. What she had in her back would have to suffice.
She slid the pack off her back and extracted the grappling hook and nylon rope. It wasn’t a hard toss. The hook locked onto the top of the wall, and she climbed up the side, pausing to peek over the top, then rolling over to land opposite in a low crouch. Gripping the Uzi with both hands, she scanned for targets while trying to check her surroundings at the same time. Melika’s garden, by the look of the patch of dirt she’d landed in; roses, tomato plants, and other vegetables grew around her. Marble statues were mixed within the rows and helped conceal her from the prying eyes about ten yards away. A pair of guards stopped talking to look in the direction of the garden. They casually cradled their submachine guns but took firmer grips on the weapons as they started in her direction. One spoke into a radio.
Elena cursed and looked for a way out. To her left, the garden continued along the wall but eventually ended at grass. To the right, the patio lead to the back of the house.
The approaching guards started moving faster. Two more came around the corner, on the far side of the house. They knew she was there. Elena chose the only option available. Attack first.
Uzi to her shoulder, she took out the nearest threat: the guards approaching from the front. The Uzi chattered in full auto. One guard dropped, the other tried diving for the grass, but Elena tracked his roll and fired again, pinning him to the grass with the three-round burst. She pivoted, rising slightly, and triggered another salvo at the guards coming from the house. They rolled behind patio furniture; she couldn’t get a sight picture. But they zeroed in on her. She ran as they fired single shots. As she ran into the open, heading for the far end of the yard, she fired at the house. Tripping on a crack in the cement and tumbling, she managed to recover and stop on her belly. The bullets aimed at her split the air overhead. She fired back, missing, and hurried to reload. Aiming toward the patio once more, she found no targets. The two gunners were well-concealed. Her eyes darted back and forth as she searched. Where had they gone? The crackles of gunfire began to fade, but the ringing in her ears did not. She hurried to move back toward the shadows of the far yard, and the wall there; maybe a quick hop over and back to the car was the best option. If she stayed in the fight, she wasn’t going to get out alive.
Elena scrambled toward the shadowed edge of the yard, her breath ragged, the Uzi slick in her sweating palms. The wall loomed ahead, her only shot at escape, but the silence behind her felt wrong—too heavy, too deliberate. She risked a glance back. The patio was empty, the furniture still, but a faint rustle came from the garden to her left. Her heart sank. They were flanking her.
She broke into a sprint, the wall now just yards away, but a sharp crack split the air—a sniper’s round, not from the house but from above. The bullet grazed her calf, a hot sear of pain, and she stumbled, crashing into the dirt. The Uzi skittered from her grip, landing just out of reach. She lunged for it, but boots crunched closer, too many, too fast. A shadow loomed over her, and the cold steel of a blade pressed against the back of her neck.
“Welcome back, Elena,” a low voice growled. Anton Vercuni’s voice!
Elena froze, her mind racing for an out, but the numbers were against her. Four guards materialized from the darkness, guns trained on her. The sniper’s laser dot danced on her chest, a fifth threat pinning her in place. She’d miscalculated, underestimated their response time, their coordination. No. That’s not what you did. You went off half-cocked because you let emotion get in the way of good sense. Just like last time.
The cartel wasn’t just muscle; they were disciplined.
Rough hands yanked her arms behind her back, a zip tie biting into her wrists. The same rough hands rolled her onto her back. Two men stood above her. One was the hulk named Dede Bizi. The other was Anton Vercuni, and he held a knife. He gave Bizi a nudge, and the big man moved away. Vercuni kneeled beside her, his face half-lit by the glow of the house. Her eyes were wide, her breathing shallow. He smirked and ran the flat side of the knife across her lips.
“We’re going to pick up where we left off, young lady.”
He brushed the razor edge against her cheek. She stopped breathing. Stopped moving.
“You’re going to talk this time.”
He gave the order and the guards hauled her to her feet, her injured leg screaming as she staggered. The Uzi lay abandoned in the dirt, her pack still tangled in the garden. No weapons, no backup, no way out. Elena’s eyes flicked to the wall one last time, so close yet impossibly far, as they dragged her toward the house. The cartel’s boss would want answers—answers she didn’t have. She’d bitten off more than she could chew, and now they’d make her choke on it.
33
The basement reeked of damp concrete. Elena sat bound to a metal chair, her wrists and ankles secured with zip ties cutting into her skin. The single bulb overhead cast harsh shadows, illuminating Anton Vercuni as he paced before her, his custom Damascus steel knife glinting in his hand. Its serrated edge caught the light, a wicked promise of pain. Elena’s heart pounded, but she forced her face into a mask of defiance, her jaw clenched tight.
She fought the flashbacks while feeling the bugs across her skin…
“Who do you work for?” Anton’s voice was low. He stepped closer, twirling the knife. “You’re no gun runner. You and your friends are too clean, too trained. Except for this latest disaster. Coming in alone? Why? Who sent you? I know it isn’t the CIA or MI6. Who, Elena? Who?”
Elena spat at his feet, her voice steady despite the ache in her bruised ribs. “You’re paranoid. I’m just a freelancer who got in over her head. No one’s coming for me this time.”
He smirked, unconvinced, and leaned in, the knife hovering near her throat. With a flick of his wrist, he sliced through the collar of her tactical shirt, the fabric parting like paper. The cold steel grazed her skin, not cutting but close enough to make her breath hitch. “Talk, or I carve you into something less pretty.”
She glared, her mind racing for leverage, but the ties held firm, and her weapons were long gone. “You’re wasting your time,” she hissed. “I work alone.”
Anton’s smile vanished. He slashed again, cutting away a sleeve, the knife’s edge whispering against her arm. “Who is Ana Gray?” he said, his voice hardening.
Elena stayed stoic.
“Who is Ana Gray, Elena?”
“Never met her.”
“Really? Irina Vukovic knew her. I saw the emails on her computer. My wife found them. Are you one of Ana Gray’s operatives, Elena? Tell me about her network. Tell me where I can find her.”
