Matt Hilton - Cut and run

Glancing back up to the cleft, I could see Juan Charles leaning out from the rocks, his face a pale blob against the deep-green shrubbery. He'd moved further across from where I'd left him and Nunez, and was now in a position to offer covering fire. He gave me a thumb-up signal, before leaning into the stock of his assault rifle. I nodded and then ran full pelt for the shattered window. Now the tracer rounds zipping over my head were heading in the other direction.

A small fence was no obstacle. I went over it without breaking stride and pounded through a flower bed. At the house I turned, pressing my left shoulder to the wall, and brought up my H amp;K. Smoke drifted in my vision from all the gunfire and I caught the same smell that follows a firework display. But I had no target. Charles continued to lay down covering fire and I could hear the metallic ting of his bullets striking the vehicles. Quickly I stood, taking a glance in the window and sweeping the room with my gun. It appeared clear. Grabbing at the sill, I clambered inside, over a dresser and into the room beyond. A man lay ten feet away. He was dead. Unfortunately it wasn't Rickard.

Moving through the room, I heard the rattle of a gunfight somewhere in the house, someone screaming in Spanish. At the door I peeked out into a hallway. Cordite hung in the air. I walked slowly, checking and clearing rooms as I progressed. One room I came across held the bodies of two men who looked to have been cut down from behind. Almost opposite that room were a door and a short flight of steps leading down. I thought I heard voices.

Just as I turned to investigate, bullets cut through the house, knocking pictures out of frames and plaster from the walls. In reaction I ducked. At the other end of the hallway a man ran into view. He was a second or so in recognising I was a stranger – and therefore an enemy – and in that time I brought up my gun and gave him a measured burst. The bullets knocked him sprawling, his gun flying out of his hands.

The walls of the house shook to a detonation. Not the boom of a Hollywood explosion but a dull thud. Someone was throwing hand grenades. Following the noise there was a moment of utter silence, but it didn't last long. Somewhere a man began to scream. Guns began rattling again, and I turned my attention back to the short flight of stairs. I went down them stealthily, holding my H amp;K ready for anything that might present itself. Periodically I checked over my shoulder for anyone following but it seemed I had the stairs to myself. The short passage in front of me was also empty.

When caught up in battle your senses can compress so that you are operating in a narrow sphere of consciousness: the vision can become tunnelled, the hearing a dull whoosh in the ears, touch and taste and smell can be relegated to some hidden corner of the mind. Other times quite the opposite can be true. I felt like a plucked guitar, I was buzzing so much. It was as though electricity played over my skin, prickling me like a static charge. Partly it was due to the endorphins flooding my system, but more than that it was because I felt that an end to everything that had happened the last few days was in the chamber at the end of the passageway.

Rickard was there – I felt it.

But so was whoever had hired him to destroy me.

Gritting my teeth, I moved forwards.

The antiseptic smell hit me, but I paid it no mind. I continued along the passage, listening for my enemies and gauging their positions. Surprisingly they spoke with lowered voices, as though in gentle conversation. I could make nothing of their words. But the tone and timbre of one voice gave me momentary pause.

I shook my head.

Couldn't be.

But then I lunged into the room and found my worst fear come true.

It wasn't for the fact that two men lay dead, their bodies riddled with bullets, or that Luke Rickard stood with a knife in his hand poised to strike his victim. The hospital-style bed, complete with medical accoutrements and electronic gauges, didn't halt me in my tracks. It was because of who was in the bed.

The person Rickard had been getting his orders from, on whose behalf he'd murdered my old team-mates and their families, and for whom he'd tried to kill Imogen Ballard, was the last person I expected.

Not Jesus Henao Abadia.

The person that Rickard stood poised to gut with his knife was Abadia's mistress: Jimena Antonia Grajales.

Rickard studied the woman lying in the hospital bed. She in turn stared back at him, and there was barely a trace of confusion at his appearance. Her taut mouth spoke only of anger and one eyelid trembled in an effort to hold it in.

'I guess that you weren't expecting me?'

'No,' said the woman. 'I wasn't.'

Seven years ago Jack Schilling riddled Jimena Grajales with over half a dozen bullets. Three of those rounds had caused superficial injuries, but the remainder had torn through major organs and had nicked her spinal column. By all rights she should have been dead just like her lover, Jesus Abadia, and their child. Yet the woman had survived. And despite having lost the complete use of her body from a point just below her diaphragm – meaning she must suffer regular renal dialysis, a colostomy bag and a permanent catheter – she had clawed her way back to a position of power in Abadia's organisation.

Cesar Calle might be the name at the head of the cartel, but Jimena was the iron hand that commanded it from this hidden chamber. It was Jimena who had sought Rickard's services, when after seven years the rage tearing at her had become all-consuming. The need to avenge her child's death was such that it twisted all reason. She ordered all of the team responsible, and their loved ones, murdered in the most vicious fashion. Joe Hunter, she commanded, should be left for last. Of all the men involved, Jimena held him most responsible. If Hunter had shot Abadia, she would not be this bed-bound freak. Her child would still be alive. Hunter was supposed to suffer as much as she had.

'Why are you here, Rickard?' Her voice was stronger than expected coming from such a frail body and sounded exactly as it had when passing instructions to him via his phone. It held little trace of an accent, and even less of the shock of having watched her latest lover cut down by Rickard's bullets. 'I told you to disappear for a while.'

Rickard grunted. 'Told me?'

'Yes. You were being paid a lot of money to do as you were told.'

'That was never the way I saw our arrangement. You told me nothing. You asked and I delivered.'

'That is not quite true.'

'I did everything I was asked.' Rickard dabbed at a trickle of blood on his forehead.

'You failed to kill his woman.'

'Ballard wasn't his woman.'

'That's beside the point. Your instructions were to pose as Joe Hunter. I accept that you did that quite well. You framed him for murder, but that was supposed to force him into running for his life. Hunter did not run, though; he came after you. And instead of concentrating on your prime directive, you chose to go off on a private vendetta against your wife.'

'My wife betrayed me. She led your people to me.' Rickard laughed at that. 'She needed punishing.'

Jimena's breath sounded like a whistle in the back of her throat. She looked confused at his words. She stirred, attempting to sit straight in her bed. 'I didn't send anyone after you.'

'Three men died in my apartment,' Rickard crowed. 'Explain that.'

'I can't. All I know is that your actions attracted the notice of the very people you were supposed to kill, but you didn't do that.'

'I haven't finished yet.'

Jimena shook her head as though at a recalcitrant child. 'You were attracting too much attention. That is why you were told to disappear. I did send a team to kill Joe Hunter because I lost confidence in you.'