David Lindsey - The Face of the Assassin

In some ways, it was more difficult to escape surveillance in the rain. People running surveillance were taking cover from the rain, hiding from the weather as well as from their targets, and therefore doing a better job of concealing themselves. And for the target, the rain itself was a distraction from detecting surveillance.

But in other ways, the rain offered possible advantages. In hiding from the rain, the surveillers often sacrificed a wider field of vision to stay dry, sometimes opting to squint through a narrow space or peer through a foggy window.

Either way, Sabella took it all into consideration without even thinking about it, these small adjustments having become second nature to him. Every compensation made to adjust to the environment was only a reflex now, embedded long ago into his unconscious.

The car was only a few doorways away, but it wasn’t parked on the street. It was behind a closed garage door that opened right onto the street.

The rain had been coming in waves, a hard, driving downpour, followed by a momentary letup, and then another hard, driving deluge. Sabella waited in the corridor doorway for the downpour, waiting the way a dancer waits for his body to get into the stride of the music before he moves into the stream of dancers.

And then it came, a roaring, thunderous downpour. He stepped out into it and ran, ignoring the rain and the swollen gutters. He was concentrating on timing and on what his eyes picked up along the street. Did a parked car suddenly turn on its wipers? Did he see a hand wiping the fog from the inside of a window?

He punched the button on the garage-door opener and darted into the garage without even breaking stride. The keys were in his hand as he opened the car door, and he was already turning the ignition by the time the garage door hit its stopping position above the car. He backed out into the street and drove away in the rain.

With one hand on the wheel, his eyes darting to pick up any movement outside the windows, his right hand flipped on a radio receiver sitting on the passenger seat. The reception was strong.

“My advice,” Baida said. “If you get a chance to kill Vicente, do it.”

“Wait! Listen-” Bern’s voice was frantic.

“Listen to me, my friend,” Baida said, his voice taut, urgent, impatient. “The deal for my cooperation was my guaranteed safety. That isn’t happening, is it? And it doesn’t look like it’s going…”

Sabella continued listening to the tense situation in the apartment above the pharmacy overlooking the plaza at Jardin Morena. It was a riveting exchange, and the farther he got away from it, the better he felt.

But he wouldn’t be able to relax just yet. Learning that Mondragon was alive and in pursuit had been a stunning surprise. It had almost panicked him. But then, through the fog of sudden dread, Sabella had had a revelation: This new development was actually a hell of a piece of luck, an opportunity to turn the fast-moving and unstable events to his advantage.

Now, as he leaned toward the windshield to peer through the sweeping rain, he listened closely to the transmission from Jardin Morena. If he knew anything about human psychology, about hatred and revenge, then he knew that he would soon be hearing a familiar voice. When he did, then he would know that all of his meticulous planning was about to pay off. It would soon be over. Finally.

Again, Bern had the sensation of the moment stretching out into the long, rainy afternoon. Killing Baida was possible now. He was right there in front of him, stuffing one last thing into his bag, and all Bern had to do was flick the safety off, raise the gun, and fire. The terrorist whom a secret U.S. operation had been trying to hunt down and kill for over a year would be dead.

But the game had changed. Even if Bern could actually muster the guts to kill a man up close like that, to murder him, he couldn’t be sure that he was doing the right thing. Ghazi Baida had put his defection on the table, and suddenly there was a hell of a lot of incentive not to kill him, but to keep him alive at just about any cost. And Baida had even increased the stakes-and the tension-by implying that there was an imminent terrorist action in progress that would kill thousands of people… and he was the only one who could stop it.

And now Mondragon’s betrayal had changed the game yet again. The options had shifted. The odds had shifted. Bern was no longer sure of anything.

When the door burst open, all three of them spun around at the same time. The woman was between Bern and the door. There was a loud smack, and her head flew apart in a liquidy red spray, drenching him in the living warmth of her last moment.

Baida shot the man, flinging him back, as Bern fired wildly into the empty doorway.

Then Baida went down for no reason at all, falling awkwardly on his own arm.

A soundless bolt of fire blew through the outside of Bern’s left thigh, spinning him around as two men barreled through the door.

The gentle rain of a few minutes earlier had become a drumming downpour now, hammering on the roof of the Mercedes like the roar of a train. When Quito’s phone rang, it was almost drowned out by the noise. He answered it and listened. Glancing over the backseat at Mondragon, he nodded.

“There was a woman with Baida, and they killed her. Cochi is dead. Baida was shot in one leg and one arm. Bern was shot in the leg.”

“I want to go up there,” Mondragon said.

“The boys used silencers,” Quito said, “but Baida got off two shots and Bern three. So there has been gunfire. People may have heard that, even in this flood.”

“I want to see him right where he was knocked down,” Mondragon said. “I want him to see me with the body of Carleta.”

He picked up his mask and gently began putting it in place while Quito told his men that they were coming up, then closed the phone. He looked at the driver and told him to stay with Susana, and then he got out of the car with the umbrella and went round to open the door for Mondragon.

When Mondragon had his mask in place, he glanced at Susana. He hadn’t spoken a word to her, acting as if she didn’t exist. He glanced at her hands, which were bound with a plastic security band, and then his door opened.

The two men made their way across the street in the downpour and entered a doorway that took them into a corridor that opened out into a courtyard. The gutters in the courtyard were throwing water out onto the flagstones in loud waterfalls as the two men continued around the covered walkway to the stone stairs that led up to the second floor.

Quito went through the door first. They had dragged the woman and Cochi out of the way, off to one side of the room, behind a sofa. Bern and Baida were both sitting in armchairs that roughly framed the windows that overlooked the plaza. They were gagged, their hands bound with plastic bands. The men’s wounds had been wrapped in pieces of a bedsheet that had been ripped up for the purpose.

On the dining room table, behind Baida’s armchair, were Bern’s and Baida’s pistols and the gray bag with all of its contents dumped out, the passports and documents displayed in neat order.

The lights were out in the apartment, and the room was washed in the gray light of the noonday rain. The windows were open, and a little spray was glistening on the windowsills.

When Mondragon came into the room, he glanced at Bern, but immediately his masked head turned to Baida and stayed there. He approached Baida and stood in front of him, saying nothing, his tall, lean frame immaculately clad, as always. Even with his trousers rain-soaked up to his knees, he was elegant.

Bern’s leg was killing him, but his only fear was bleeding to death. He didn’t know what kind of ammunition they were using, but he still had the woman’s blood and brain tissue all over him to prove what it must have done to his leg. But even that worry took a backseat to watching Vicente Mondragon.