Stephen Leather - Breakout

He inched his way to the door, turned the handle so slowly that even though she was watching closely, Lupa could barely see it move. He pushed against it until it opened a few millimetres, making sure it wasn’t locked. He held out the grenade and nodded, and Lupa lit the fuse. He counted off three seconds as the flame raced up the fuse, then pushed the door open, threw the burning grenade into the room and slammed the door shut again. The thud of it closing was drowned by an explosion that blew out the window, sending shards of glass flying out into the yard, but Harper was already shouting ‘Go! Go! Go!’ and throwing the door wide open.

The sulphurous smell of gunpowder was thick in the air as smoke billowed around him. All three men were on the floor, with blood seeping from their mouths, noses and ears, and with scores of cuts to their faces and bodies from the primitive shrapnel the grenade had been packed with. One man was motionless, probably already dead, another was clawing at his face and screaming in Spanish. The other was trying to get to his feet but Harper booted him under the chin, sending him sprawling. He shouted to Ricardo ‘Finish them off!’ and with his crude pistol in one hand and his knife in the other, he burst through the doorway into the next room.

Don Lorenzo was sitting, still wearing a silk shirt and bootlace tie but now ashen-faced. He had just one remaining bodyguard to protect him. The man stepped in front of his boss and pulled a blackjack from his belt - a narrow handle with a bulbous, leather-covered lead weight on the end. A single blow from it could concuss a man or fracture his skull, if the bodyguard managed to get close enough to use it. Harper looked at it, shrugged and pointed his home-made pistol at the dead centre of the man’s chest. He pulled the trigger. The range was so short that a halo of burning powder fragments scorched the man’s shirt around the entry wound as it punched through the sternum. He stared at Harper, lips working as if trying to speak, then slowly buckled at the knees and collapsed to the floor.

Harper jammed the homemade pistol back in his belt, switched his knife to his right hand and sliced the blade across the man’s throat, severing the carotid arteries on either side of his neck. He bled out in seconds.

Don Lorenzo had remained frozen in his chair as he watched the grisly tableau unfold. Now his eyes shifted to Harper’s face. ‘What do you want, Inglés ? Money? Cocaine?’

Harper shook his head. ‘Neither of those, Don Lorenzo. I want to be sure that I and my companions can get out of San Pedro safely and that no one will be coming looking for them afterwards, and the best way to ensure that, as far as I can see, is to kill you.’

‘I am a man of influence. If you kill me, my cartel will avenge me.’

Harper smiled. ‘That I doubt. They’d have to find me first, and anyway, your cartel bosses are men of business. Their only concern is that the product is produced, transported and sold. The loss of a man - even a man of influence like you, Don Lorenzo will concern them no more than a cockroach they step on.’

Ricardo and Lupa had walked into the room behind Harper. ‘I know those cartel guys,’ Ricardo said to Harper. ‘I can negotiate with them, make a deal.’

Harper paused, watching the nervous tic tugging at the corner of Don Lorenzo’s mouth, and the bead of sweat rolling down his forehead. ‘So it seems we don’t need you at all, Don Lorenzo, but there are still two things you can do for me. You can give me the keys for the punishment cells and you can tell me the name of the man you were going to sell the Englishman called Scouse to.’

‘If I tell you that he will have me killed.’

Harper gave a cold smile. ‘Very probably, but that prospect is the least of your worries, because I can kill you right now.’

There was a silence while Don Lorenzo weighed up his non-existent options. ‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘And if I give you the keys and tell you what you want to know, you will spare me?’

‘I will.’

‘The keys are hanging on the hook behind the door, the ring with six keys on it.’

Harper found the keys and pocketed them. ‘And the man my friend was to be sold to?’

Don Lorenzo hesitated, then bowed his head. ‘His name is Jacobo Guzman.’

Harper gave Lupa and Ricardo an enquiring look. ‘I’ve heard of him,’ Lupa said. ‘He’s a property developer, no? They have a big office on Avenida de 6 Agusto.’

‘And how do you contact him? I’m guessing you don’t ring his office.’

‘I have a number for him on my mobile.’ Don Lorenzo made to reach for the phone lying on the table behind him, but Harper shouted ‘Stop!’ He walked over to the table, knocking Don Lorenzo’s hand away and picked up the phone himself.

He held out the phone so Don Lorenzo could unlock it with his fingerprint, then opened the contacts and scanned down the list. ‘There’s no Guzman listed.’

‘Of course not. I would not be so stupid as to have it under his name. He’s listed as El Carnicero .’

Harper looked at Lupa for a translation. ‘The Butcher,’ she said,

‘The Butcher?’ Harper said. ‘And you’re the supplier of fresh meat for him. How much was he going to pay for this particular piece of English beef?’

‘Ten thousand US dollars.’

‘Scouse will be disappointed he was worth so little.’ He paused. ‘Okay, I think we have all we need from you, Don Lorenzo. So this is goodbye.’

‘So I am free to go?’

‘Not exactly. Ricardo do you want to deal with this? Perhaps it’s time for Don Lorenzo’s swimming lesson.’

Ricardo’s face broke into a broad smile. ‘It will be my pleasure.’

As the realisation of what Harper meant dawned on Don Lorenzo he began to curse him. ‘You swore to me, Englishman, you gave me your word.’ He half-rose to his feet but Harper prodded his chest with the point of his knife, pushing him back into his seat.

‘Indeed I did, Don Lorenzo, but I only swore that I wouldn’t kill you. I didn’t say Ricardo wouldn’t. And it’s no more than you deserve, you murderous scumbag. You would have had Scouse or any of us killed without a moment’s hesitation, but now your own time has come.’

The scar on Don Lorenzo’s cheek stood out white against his puce face and a vein was throbbing at his temple. He bowed his head as if in acquiescence, but in the next instant he launched himself at Harper. Harper had been expecting just such a move and he swayed to one side like a matador side-stepping an onrushing bull and threw a vicious short-arm punch at Don Lorenzo’s throat. He crashed to the floor, his hands clawing at his neck as he tried to draw breath. Harper dropped on him with both knees, forced his arm up his back until he heard the joint crack and held him there while Ricardo tied Don Lorenzo’s wrists with the bootlace tie that he tore from around his neck.

Ricardo and Harper took one of Don Lorenzo’s arm each and, keeping a wary eye out for any other retainers of the prison boss who might try to intervene, they marched him out of the yard and through the passageway that led to the piscina . Lupa followed them, her face expressionless.

At the brink of the pool, Don Lorenzo let out a cry of fear and tried to throw his weight back. ‘I beg you,’ he said, ‘don’t kill me. I have money, you can have as much as you want.’

‘ Jódete ,’ Ricardo said, ‘Fuck you. How many men have you watched drown in this pool? When I was a prisoner here myself I saw you beating a man with a baseball bat, as if he was a piñata. Then you threw him in the pool, stamped on his fingers as he tried to drag himself out and laughed when he went under and drowned. Now it’s your turn.’ He kicked him in the back of his knee, and as his leg buckled, Don Lorenzo lost his balance and, still with his hands tied behind him, fell face forward into the icy water of the pool. He broke surface, coughing and gasping, unable to use his hands and flailing with his legs with panic in his eyes. ‘Help me, for the love of god,’ he said. ‘I can’t swim.’