Matt Hilton - Cut and run

His bullets and his frantic shout did the trick: they confused the men into thinking that he was one of their own defenders. It was a charade that would last only as long as it took for them to cast their gaze on him, but that was enough for him. He made it along the passage and into the room without being cut down, whereupon he immediately lifted his rifle.

Staring back at him in incredulity were three people. Two of them were armed with handguns and he indicated that they drop them. Cesar Calle and a henchman both allowed their guns to fall to the floor and they raised their hands in surrender. Rickard eyed them in disdain, then he shot them both as though they were paper targets beneath his contempt.

Calle dead was a promise fulfilled to Alvaro Silva. Maybe Rickard hadn't made him scream but he didn't care. What he was here for was his prize. Rickard smiled at the figure propped in the hospital bed.

'I bet you weren't expecting me?'

'So much for plans,' I muttered over my shoulder.

Nunez didn't look happy at the sounds of gunfire ringing in our ears but he was pragmatic enough to shrug and then follow me. Charles, bringing up the rear, swore quietly under his breath, but he moved after us. Neither man had bought into a full-on war, thinking they had nothing better to do than play chaperone to the ones who were really going to pick up all the shit. But they were there and experience told them that they would most likely have to kill men if they were going to get out of this alive.

Both Jungla troopers were good men. I knew that the first time I looked at them. They would be top notch warriors – no one who wasn't made it into the Junglas, even men placed there by the CIA – but they were still cops and they were governed by a different rule book than me and my friends. I only wished that it was Rink and Harvey watching my six, except they were up on the cliffs. I trusted them to make the correct decisions based on what was happening in the valley below us: they wouldn't be hiding and watching for Gutierrez to arrive now.

At the end of the cleft was a jumble of boulders that had fallen from the cliffs across the years. The jungle had got its hooks in and bushes and vines made a tangled maze between the boulders, but Nunez pointed out a trail under the foliage that he'd used last time he was here. I had to go down on my belly to slither through, but then I could stand with the rocks obscuring me from anyone down below. As my Jungla friends joined me, I peered around the rocks and tried to take in the chaos below.

Five vehicles had made it all the way across the valley and had parked in a scattered formation before Cesar Calle's house. Men in paramilitary uniforms used the jeeps and trucks to shield them from the bullets of other men defending the buildings. Those with the vehicles had the edge on firepower, but Calle's people held the advantage of position. From up on the clifftops the sentries were firing at the exposed backs of the attackers, forcing them to fight a battle on different fronts. Suddenly, above me, the guns of the sentries went silent and I guessed that Rink had decided to take them out of the equation.

Nunez nudged my elbow.

'That man there.' He indicated a soldier on the back of a jeep, a round-faced man with black wiry hair, who was manning a M240 machine gun with devastating effect. 'That is Manuel Cervantes. Known as Guarapo. He is an officer of Organizacion Halcon de Roja, one of Alvaro Silva's top killers.'

The Red Hawks I'd heard of, but Alvaro Silva's name meant nothing to me. 'I take it they're enemies of Calle?'

'Not that I was aware of. But who knows? Since the break-up of the AUC many factions have been jostling for power and for control of the narcotics industry. It looks like Silva's decided to bring the fight directly to his nearest competitor.'

'Just because they're Calle's enemies, it doesn't make them our friends.' No, it was probable that every man down there would lift guns against us. Some of them – Guarapo for one – appeared to be competent fighters. A tall, fair-haired man looked like an anomaly, but when I started to look further he wasn't the only Caucasian. Mercenaries, I realised, had been drafted in by Silva to help him wipe out the opposition.

I'd come here to find Jorge Gutierrez, the man playing go-between with Luke Rickard and his employer, and to force that name from him. But if Silva's army managed to kill everyone then that route would be closed to me. No information had come in to say that Gutierrez was at the Calle house, but he could have been missed for all we knew. The prospects of having to intercede in this war between opposing military factions was beginning to look like a real probability.

The Junglas were probably wondering how the hell they were going to explain their reason for being here, but that was for them to worry about. Still, I offered them a way out. 'The plan's changed. Stay here. I'm going in alone.'

'We can cover you,' Nunez offered.

'You can do that from here. If I'm killed, get away. No one needs to know that you were ever helping me.'

Before they could argue, I slipped round the side of the boulders and negotiated the slope at a jog. Below me to my left was an outbuilding. A pile of logs was stacked beneath a lean-to and I headed for them. At the woodpile I crouched, using the timber as cover while I spied along the side of the building. I'd just gained that position when I heard gunfire very close by and a window on the side of Calle's house shattered. A dark-haired man dressed in fatigues, heavily armed, followed the volley through the window a moment later.

Despite myself, I blinked in surprise.

To say I was confused was an understatement. The way I'd seen it, Luke Rickard had been working under the guidance of someone associated with Gutierrez – my bet going on Cesar Calle – and yet here he was, in all his glory, leading the attack on behalf of Calle's enemy. The dark hair and the tint of his skin didn't fool me. The man had walked directly towards me, cold-bloodedly shooting his own wife, and I'd burned that image into my memory. He could have had green hair and a clown's painted face and I'd still have recognised him.

What the hell was he doing?

From within the house came the rattle of a machine gun. The noise snapped me out of my confusion.

And I knew.

Luke Rickard was not only a murderer. He was a rapist, and misogynist. He was also a control freak beyond any I'd ever come across before. Rickard, I believed, had come here to exact retribution for some perceived slight against his twisted ego. Maybe Calle had dispensed with his services following his failed attempt at ruining me, and this was Rickard's way of showing his dissatisfaction at the betrayal.

Didn't matter.

Whatever his reason for turning up at Calle's place, he was here now. My hunt for him had just been offered a great boost I'd never expected. And regardless of the fact that he was embroiled at the centre of a power war, I had a chance at nailing him. It was time to get down to killing the bastard.

After that thought followed immediate action. I stood up, ready to follow Rickard through the broken window, then had to duck as tracer rounds zipped by my head. Bullets knocked chips of wood from the pile and I screwed my eyes tight to avoid being blinded by flying splinters. The smell of sap competed with the stinging burn of heated wood to overwhelm my senses.

Retreat wasn't in my plan but I'd no option. I ran at a crouch away from the woodpile towards the far corner of the building then ducked round the side. The rear end of one of the vehicles could be seen, but there was no sign of any of the attackers. Whoever had been shooting at me must have been further away. Making it to the front corner of the house, I searched for targets. Men bobbed up and down behind the shielding trucks and jeeps, but none of them was paying me any attention. The shots fired my way had to have been random. I backtracked to the woodpile.