Steve Martini - Trader of secrets

His eyes remained riveted on the Jeep and its driver. The vehicle pulled sideways in the street as the gunner on the back opened up with a machine gun. The Jeep sat there. Liquida got an even better look at the man behind the wheel. There was no mistaking him. There couldn’t be two that looked like that, the one they called Herman Diggs, Madriani’s investigator. What was he doing here? More to the point, how was it that he was still alive?

Within seconds Ben Rabin and his men vaulted over the sandbags and opened fire into what was left of the confused guards. Mangled arms and legs lay everywhere. The speeding car had left a trail of carnage and chaos that unnerved the remaining defenders. Some of them threw down their weapons and gave up, while others ran.

Ben Rabin could see the black smoke from the blockhouse at the other end of the street three-quarters of a mile away. He could hear the distinctive automatic fire from the SAW. He wondered who the driver of the red car was and whether he was still alive.

His men started to round up the guards. Ben Rabin handed the satchel bag to his sergeant, nodded toward the huge satellite dish, and told him to take it down. “Find the control room. Gather any papers, laptops, data drives-whatever you can find-and get it ready for transport. And find the technicians. Get them all together. They don’t know yet, but they’ll be joining us for the trip back home.” In the meantime, Ben Rabin had to find a phone or a radio. By now the backup C-130 should be waiting for them in Belize.

Resistance seemed to stiffen at the other end of the road. Flurries of rocket-propelled grenades whistled past the Jeep. Adin sensed they were down to hard-core fanatics, the handful of guards who would fight to the death rather than give up.

He told the commando to stick to short bursts on the SAW. They were running low on ammunition.

He tapped Sarah on the leg and motioned her toward the back of the Jeep. “Time for you to get off,” he told her.

“Why?”

“Between here and the end of the road it’s liable to get hot,” said Adin. He was worried that if one of the rocket-propelled grenades ripped into the Jeep, she could be seriously wounded, or worse.

He grabbed a pistol from a box in the back of the Jeep, a Glock 23 with a fifteen-round clip. “I’ll catch up with you,” Adin yelled to Herman.

Herman looked back and nodded. The Jeep moved on down the street.

Adin took Sarah by the hand and walked her toward one of the buildings. “You’ll be safe inside until we get back.” They crossed the small strip of grass and headed toward the door, Adin with the pistol in his hand to make sure they would have no problems.

“Wait here.” He peeked inside. It was a small lobby. The building had taken the brunt of some of the fighting, window glass on the floor. One of the doors was missing.

He checked inside, took a couple of minutes, and found the place was empty. “Come on in.”

Sarah stepped over the broken glass.

“We’ll look for Bugsy when I get back.” He smiled at her. “We’ll find him, I promise. He won’t go far. He’s a good dog.”

“I know he is. I just want him back,” she said. Sarah started to cry.

He wiped her cheek with the back of his hand. “Don’t think about anything now. Just sit and relax.”

She laughed. “How can I? That’s easy for you to say. This is probably all in a day’s work.”

He gave her a serious look. “No. This is at least two days’ worth of work.” They both laughed.

Sarah had seen enough violence in a few hours to last her a lifetime.

“Here, take this.” He handed her the pistol.

“What about you? Aren’t you going to need something for protection?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“No, really.” She tried to press the gun back into his hand.

Adin looked down and lifted his left pant leg a few inches. Strapped to his ankle in a holster was a small snub-nosed revolver.

They were still laughing when Sarah looked over his shoulder and saw him. At first she just stood there with a quizzical look on her face.

“What’s the matter?”

“Look out!”

Before the words cleared her lips, the shot rang out. The explosion of the Kalashnikov reverberated through the room as Adin flung himself into Sarah. They landed in a heap on the floor.

Liquida tried to line up for another shot, but the guy was on top of her. He moved for a better angle. As he did, the wall behind him came alive with bullet holes as the blast of gunfire echoed through the room. At first he wasn’t sure where the shots were coming from. Then he saw the gun in her hand pressed to the floor by the weight of the man’s body.

A second flurry of shots, one of which nicked his shoulder, told Liquida he’d had enough. He fired another round from the rifle as he retreated out through the back door, the way he had come in.

Sarah pulled herself out from underneath Adin and fired two more well-aimed rounds at Liquida’s fleeting shadow. “Are you all right?” She turned and looked at Adin. He wasn’t moving. There was blood on the floor. She rolled him over and looked into his face. She put her cheek to his nose searching for breath and felt for a pulse at his throat. There was nothing. She knew that the spark of life that had danced so freely in those large brown eyes had been extinguished. He was dead.

Sarah knelt there looking at him. She wanted to cry but she couldn’t. She tapped the muzzle of the gun on the polished stone floor as rage crowded out every other emotion. Fury filled her as she raised herself up and glared at the dark hallway and the wall with the two shadowed bullet holes.

With purpose she walked toward the rear of the building, squeezing the pistol in her hand. She saw drops of blood where Liquida had gone. Sarah knew she hit him. Now she would track him into the bush and kill him. She was not without caution, but anger filled her every pore. Her body was awash in a sea of adrenaline.

The wounded soldier leveled the barrel of the machine gun at the wrecked red sedan as it raced toward them. Finger on the trigger, he was trying to save the last few rounds. He would wait until the car was on top of them before he opened up.

The Jeep blocked the road. At the last second, Herman held up a hand. “Hold it! Don’t shoot.”

The commando eased off on the SAW.

“I know them.” Herman smiled as he saw Harry through the broken windshield. He looked like Poseidon holding a trident in his lap.

As the car pulled up next to them, Herman realized that the fire engine red exterior was not all paint. The driver’s-side window came down. Herman was left staring at the stern and angry face of his boss.

“Where is she?” I ask.

“She’s OK,” says Herman. “She’s in a building back there for safekeeping. Adin is with her.”

“Who the hell is Adin?”

“That’s right, the two of you never met,” says Herman. “A young man. Nice guy.”

“I’ll bet. So tell me, is he responsible for bringing her down here or are you?”

Herman swallows hard.

Joselyn is behind me with her hand on my shoulder. “Relax!” she says. “You’ve killed enough people for one day.”

“I’m just getting warmed up,” I tell her.

“Don’t say something you’re going to regret. She’s OK and that’s what counts.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” I tell Herman. “Where is she?”

He points up the road behind him. “Third building on the right. How you doin’?” He looks at Harry.

“Better than you at the moment.” Harry smiles. “See you later.”

We pull away and drive toward the building.

“Cut him some slack,” says Harry. “If you lived with your daughter and tried to tell her no lately, you would know it ain’t easy.”