Brian Freemantle - Charlie Muffin U.S.A.

But he hadn’t quite sufficiently gauged the seriousness of the seizures themselves until that night’s meeting. As he and Patridge and Terrilli had talked, the full import had come to him and he had realised that the concern from above would be initially more with the interceptions than with whatever Terrilli was doing on the side, and that as the man who had established the Colombian operation in Bogota, there was a danger of the failure reflecting upon him.

So he had sat longer than he had intended in the car outside Patridge’s home, trying to find the proper excuses to the inevitable enquiries and to evolve, too, the correct approach when he got to South America to guarantee the interceptions stopped taking place.

He had been humming as he drove along Ocean Boulevard, happy with the solution. The affair with the stamps gave him the let-out here, just as it did with his return. If he were asked to explain, he would imply, because that would be the cleverest way to make the accusation, that Terrilli had been too occupied with this outside thing to devote his full attention to the shipments. Patridge, who was aware of his ambition and agreed that Terrilli’s tenure of the top place was endangered, would support him, Santano knew. Because Patridge recognised that he was the natural successor to Terrilli, Colombia would be easy. He would create a few examples and tighten everything up through fear.

There was a bend in the private road, which meant that approaching vehicles had to slow, and until it was negotiated it was not possible to see the high main gates. Santano was half way around and beginning to smile at the already open gates when the Cuban commando group mistook his car for the first of the robbery convoy and ambushed it.

They had concentrated at the bend, recognising it as the spot where vehicles had to reduce speed and were therefore easiest to stop.

Santano actually jumped, startled by his headlights picking out a man rising from the ditch about eight yards ahead. And then he realised that the man was bringing his hand up and that the hand held a Magnum, supported against recoil by the man’s stance and left hand clamped to his right wrist. Santano had survived before on his reflexes, and his reaction now was almost automatic. He ceased turning the wheel to complete the corner, instead straightening out and heading directly towards the gunman. The manoeuvre might have worked on someone less professional, causing him to falter or even leap aside. But this man didn’t panic. He remained crouched, eyes screwed against the headlight glare for sight of the driver beyond, legs bent and pistol unwavering before him.

The Cuban managed one shot before the Mercedes struck him, carrying him spread across the bonnet until it hit a bordering palm tree, instantly crushing him to death. Santano did not have the satisfaction of seeing the man die. The ·375 Magnum has one of the highest muzzle velocities of any hand gun. The bullet burst the windscreen and completely decapitated Santano at the very moment when the car struck his killer.

After hitting the tree, the Mercedes toppled slowly to the left, nose first, into one of the bordering storm ditches, its rear wheels completely free of the ground. Santano’s body was not thrown out of the driving position by the impact, but rather forward against the controls, so that his foot jammed down against the accelerator and the engine howled at the continuing thrust of power. Five of the Cubans surrounded the car, but because of the way it was lying they did not, in the few seconds available, realise that they had the wrong vehicle. One man was actually crawling in through the easiest opening, the destroyed windscreen, when Chambine’s car came around the corner.

Chambine’s reflexes were every bit as good as Santano’s and he had the advantage of almost half the interception squad being around the ambushed car, and the remainder caught unawares and temporarily out of position. But initially he misunderstood the situation. He thought that the Cubans were part of Terrilli’s personal squad and assumed the upended Mercedes to be a car that had been stopped while trying to penetrate that security. He did not imagine any danger to himself or those with him. Neither did he think the problem concerned him; his function remained to get in and out in the shortest time possible, particularly with the complication that could arise from the crashed Mercedes.

He swept by, accelerating up the straight part of the roadway leading to the open gates when the rear window exploded over both the stamps and the occupants of the station waggon as a bullet from one of the Armalite rifles ricochetted off the edge of the bodywork and Chambine heard Bertrano, in the rear, shout, ‘What the fuck…’

‘They’re firing,’ said Bulz incredulously. ‘They’re firing at us.’

Chambine was only yards from the entrance now. There were men grouped around it, gazing momentarily uncertain up the roadway, but one had already activated the controls so that the heavy gates were swinging closed. Chambine pounded on the horn and accelerated harder. The rear nearside wing clipped the gate edge as he squeezed through, throwing the car sideways into a skid and as he fought to control it, Chambine heard Bulz shout, ‘They’ve got Saxby.’

The Chrysler had been less than three seconds behind the larger vehicle, but the Cubans were ready now, concentration again fully on the road. Saxby had been driving, with Boella in the seat beside him and Beldini at the back. Saxby had slowed, at first because of the bend, and then more at the sound of the Armalite shot which had shattered the station waggon window. Beldini had drawn his own gun, a Smith and Wesson, and when Saxby began to come out of the corner he saw that they were confronted by at least nine men, all armed. Beldini fired through the clsed window, the sound so deafening within the enclosed car that Saxby screamed with the pain it caused in his ears. The shot did nothing except break the glass. Then the Cuban with the AK47 began firing, the weapon on automatic, so that the bullets sprayed the car, scything through the three occupants and killing them instantly. Out of control, the car plunged straight on, scattering the commandos and staking the rear of the Mercedes, knocking it further into the storm ditch. The automatic transmission raced on, adding to the howl from the Mercedes. One of the Mercedes’ spinning rear wheels made occasional contact with the bonnet of the Chrysler, throwing up spurts of black smoke as the tyres scorched the paintwork.

‘The gates are closing.’

The warning came, in Spanish, as the Cuban with the AK47 opened the driver’s door, threw Saxby’s body carelessly into the road and then thrust himself into the car. Before emerging, he switched off the ignition, at the same moment as someone else managed it in the Mercedes. They were momentarily disconcerted by the silence, shouting when there was no longer a reason.

‘There’s nothing here,’ said the man in the Chrysler, lowering his voice half way through the sentence. ‘It must have been in the first car.’

‘We’ll have to blow the gates.’

The uncertainty of Terrilli’s people disappeared at the sight of more than a dozen men, all armed, approaching near enough to be seen in the searchlight’s glare. Terrilli’s guards only had handguns, which were ineffective for the range, but their firing split up the Cuban group, driving them into the bordering ditches. Two began answering with their Armalites, hitting two of Terrilli’s guards with their first few shots and forcing the others through the small side gate to the protection of the wall beyond. The return fire from the mansion was sporadic because rifles hadn’t yet been hurried to the gates, and there was little hindrance to the men groping along the ditch towards the plastic explosives detonator.