Blood of the Assassin (Assassin Series 5) (40 page)

But she couldn’t count on catching any breaks – she hadn’t yet. It was safest to assume the authorities would start looking for her any minute, which made getting to her escape kit priority number one.

Four blocks away, she turned and continued towards the park – her destination an English pub owned by a woman she’d befriended shortly after arriving on the island, who had helped her find an apartment and put her in touch with many of the workers needed to finish out the internet café. Chloé was a French ex-pat in her early forties who had been through two husbands, was on number three, and had wound up living on Trinidad by accident, as many did. She’d come on vacation and fallen in love with the bar owner – Vincente, husband number three. They had a nice business carved out catering to islanders looking for something different. Four months after meeting her, Maya had asked Chloé to store a few boxes in her cellar.

The King’s Arms was slow this Friday night. Most of the action was down at the waterfront for Carnival, and there were only a few stalwart hard drinkers at the bar, and three fat Germans enjoying a loud argument in their native tongue over why nobody but Germans could brew decent beer. Maya spoke seven languages, but when she entered, she kept her understanding to herself, even as they made leering comments to one another at what they’d like to do with her.

Chloé was wiping down the bottles with a cloth.

Maya approached her with a smile.

Chloé frowned in return. “Sweetheart! What happened to you? What’s wrong with your hand?”

Maya knew she looked worse for wear. She glanced down at the bloody mess of paper towels she’d hastily wrapped around her hand, keenly aware of the bruising that must have been starting on her face.

“I’m such an idiot. I was trying to hang some new art, and it got away from me. I was using wire to suspend it, and it cut me when I fell off the chair I was standing on. I’m going to get stitches after I’m done here.”

“What? Stitches? Good Lord! Did you hit your head hard?” Chloé exclaimed, her mothering instinct coming out.

“Hard enough, but my hand got most of the damage. It looks way worse than it is. It was so stupid using a swivel chair. Listen, Chloé, I need to get into the box I left with you. I’m sorry about the hour, but is there any way I can? I’ll only need a few minutes.”

“Are you crazy? Go and get that hand taken care of. The box can wait.”

“I know, I know, but I’m here now, and I have a few things I absolutely need to get.”

Chloé sighed her resignation. “If you say so. I can open up the cellar, but I’m single-handed so you’ll need to manage by yourself. Vincente is at Carnival with some friends. We expected it would be dead tonight. Everyone’s out in the streets.”

“I’ll only be five minutes. I know exactly what I’m looking for.”

“
Cheri
, you’re worrying me. The hospital will take hours to treat you. Let me make a phone call to a friend of mine – a doctor. A general practitioner, but he should be able to handle a few stitches. He lives above his offices. Only a few streets away.”

Maya considered the offer, balancing it against her sense of urgency. She’d need to take care of her hand eventually or risk being in a situation where it could incapacitate her.

“Oh, Chloé. Thank you so much. You’re the best friend ever. Really. I hate for you to go to the trouble…”

“Nonsense. I’ll open up for you and then make the call. Hopefully he’s not drunk yet.”

They walked together to the back, and she unlocked the door that led to the basement. Chloé switched on the light and pointed down the rickety wooden stairs.

“It’s right where you left it, at the back by the two scuba tanks.”

“I remember. Go take care of your customers. I’ll be back in no time.” Maya slipped by her and entered the dank space.

Chloé nodded and softly closed the door behind her.

Maya locked the deadbolt so she wouldn’t be disturbed and made straight for the box she’d left almost two years ago. It was still sealed with the original packing tape. She pulled it towards her and slit the tape with her keys, then reached in and lifted out a medium-sized aluminum suitcase designed for carry-on luggage. After thumbing the numbers on the latch dials, she flipped the levers, and they popped open with a snap.

Maya glanced up at the door and then began her inventory.

First came the Heckler & Koch MP7A1 machine pistol wrapped in oilcloth, followed by the sound suppressor. Then the four thirty-round magazines and three boxes of ammo. Next, a butterfly knife with a razor-sharp blade, and two hand grenades. A Ruger P95 9mm pistol with one extra clip, and a stainless steel Super Tool.

Weapons spread on the floor, she reached in and extracted a heavy waterproof plastic bag. Inside were twenty thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills, a Belgian and a Nicaraguan passport in different names, matching driver’s licenses, a corporate credit card with an expiration date good for three more years in the name of Techno Globus SA that would allow her to access the account with a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in it from any ATM in the world. The final items were a first aid kit, hair dye and a handheld GPS resting on top of an empty Swiss slimline nylon backpack – virtually indestructible, with two compartments that were waterproof to five meters. After loading the magazines she repacked the box, replacing the locked suitcase before sliding it back into place next to the scuba tanks. She checked her watch then packed the weapons and documents in the backpack, amazed at how little room everything occupied. Maya felt much better now that she had her own guns and a couple of new identities in her hands.

In no time at all she was back at the bar, thanking Chloé again.

“See? I told you it wouldn’t take long.”

“I managed to get hold of my friend. He agreed to see you in ten minutes at his office. It’s next to the little café that serves those great croissants. Do you remember?”

“How can I forget? Thanks again, Chloé. I didn’t mean to disrupt your exciting evening with the boys,” Maya quipped, eyeing the inebriated Germans.

“As long as they pay, I’m happy. Do you need his address? His name’s Roberto. Not bad looking, either.”

“No, I can find it.”

Maya reached out her good arm and hugged Chloé, kissing her on the cheek.

“
Ciao
, sweetie. Good luck with the stitches, and call me if you need anything. I’ll be here till two,” Chloé said, still concerned.

“I will. Be good.”

The streets became more crowded as she wound her way back to the waterfront. The doctor’s office was five blocks from the shore – far enough for the rents to be drastically lower, but close enough to receive sick or hurt tourists. She found it with ease, and he was waiting at the door, holding it open.

“Doctor Roberto?”

“That’s me. And you must be Carla…” Carla was the name Maya used in Trinidad – her third alias, which was now blown.

She nodded.

“Come in. Let’s see what we have here.” He led her to the little examination room, which was already illuminated.

Maya repeated her story for him as he examined the wound. She winced as he probed it and flushed it out with antiseptic rinse.

“You’re very lucky. You missed the artery by a few millimeters. No tendons severed, so you should recover with no problems. You won’t be playing the piano this week, but apart from the pain, it’s not the end of the world.”

“That’s a relief.”

“I’ll give you something for the discomfort – you’ll need a few stitches.”

“No, I’m good. I have a high pain threshold. Just do your worst.”

He regarded her. “You sure?”

“No problem. Just sew me up, and let’s get it over with.”

Five minutes later, he was finished and had applied a proper dressing with a bandage and gauze wrap. She held it up and inspected it, nodding.

“Thanks so much for this. I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour. Really.”

“Any friend of Chloé’s is a friend of mine. Besides, you’re lucky you got me before I headed out. Which is my plan now.” He gave her another look and smiled. “Can I interest you in a cocktail on the water?”

After a little back and forth, she was able to extract herself graciously, begging off due to a headache – Roberto refused to accept any payment but insisted she take his cell number. If she hadn’t been running for her life, she might have even been interested in having a beer or two with him, but tonight wasn’t meant to be. She had to figure out how she was going to get off the island while she still could. It was only a matter of time before the police locked it down.

~

Maya paused a hundred yards from her apartment building, wary of surveillance. Further down the block, a dog barked – a pit bull that she knew from experience was mostly attitude. But the tone of the barking, strident and agitated, gave her pause – there was an unusual urgency to it.

The few cars in the neighborhood were dilapidated, beaten by time, their exteriors corroded by the salt air and decades of neglect. She didn’t see any unfamiliar vehicles, so if her pursuers knew where she lived, they weren’t mounting a watch from the road.

A few porch lamps provided scant illumination, the street lights long ago having burned out, the city’s promises of replacement as hollow as most of the other assurances of change. She moved cautiously in the shadows, senses on alert. There was still at least the one man from the bar out there somewhere, and quite possibly more, although the number sent to terminate one target would likely be low, and her adversaries might continue to underestimate her.

Circling the block, she didn’t see anything suspicious. Maya always paid for the apartment in cash every month, no lease, so there was no way to track her to it short of following her, which she almost surely would have detected. Even if she was a little rusty, she still had the sixth sense for being watched that she’d honed. Many of the better field operatives developed it over time, and she had been the best.

On second approach, she came in from the back of the complex, having climbed over a wall separating the garbage area from the neighbor. Her second floor apartment was dark, and there was no sign that anyone had been there. No watchers in the trees, no suspicious loitering figures.

A black and white cat tore across her path with a hiss. Startled, she whipped out the pistol before registering what it was. Seeing its furry form scurry away, she took several deep breaths to slow the pulse pounding in her ears back to normal.

Maybe she was more than a little rusty.

In the old days, none of this would have raised her heart rate above eighty.

As she took another few silent steps, she caught movement on the periphery of her vision. The glint of something by the parking area. Maybe a watch. She peered into the gloom, eyes searching, but she didn’t see anything more.

It didn’t matter.

It was enough.

Someone was there.

The gunfire came with no warning. She rolled behind a low cinderblock wall, listening to the rapid-fire cracking of the silenced pistol some forty yards away.

The slugs slammed harmlessly against the concrete. The dark had helped her. Just enough. She’d caught a break at last. Now the question was whether to fight or run.

Her instinct was to fight, but she had no information about her attackers, which placed her at a distinct disadvantage.

She emptied seven shots at what she guessed was the shooter’s position and sprinted for the back of the building, weaving as she ran. It was dark enough and with sufficient cover, so she wasn’t worried. The gunman had probably been waiting for her to go into the apartment, having planned to take her there – if he hadn’t wired it with explosives already. Or there was someone inside waiting patiently for her to make the last mistake of her life.

Moments later, Maya was over the wall and zigzagging across the property. She didn’t hear any more shots, so her pursuer was probably wasting a few precious seconds debating what to do – seconds that would be the difference between escape and death.

She ran efficiently, effortlessly, with an economy that spoke to endurance. If necessary, she could keep up a good pace for an hour. Every morning she did so, part of her routine.

A bullet grazed her shoulder, burning as it seared a groove across her deltoid muscle – she abruptly cut between two small houses. As Maya regained her breath, she heard the rev of a car motor and the squeal of poorly maintained brakes, followed by the distinctive sound of two doors slamming. Another car revved, and tires squealed.

She vaulted over a fence, barely slowing for it, and cut back, returning the way she’d come, but three houses down from where she’d heard the car. That would be the last thing they’d expect – her doubling back.

Three slugs struck the wall behind her.

She saw the flash from a car sixty yards away – a black sedan, all of its windows down. Ducking, she emptied the silenced pistol at it as she scrambled for cover. A round whistled by her head, so she threw herself behind a brick garbage enclosure.

Enough of this shit
.

She slipped off the backpack, unzipped it, then gripped the handle of the MP7 and pulled it free. Another round thumped into the brick as she methodically screwed the sound suppressor into place, and then she slipped the extra magazines into her back pockets before dropping the pistol into the backpack and pulling it back on.

Maya rolled from the cover of the structure, took aim, then fired a slew of two-round bursts into the sedan. The submachine gun’s armor-piercing bullets sliced through the doors like they were warm butter; the horn sounded as the driver’s head smashed forward against the steering wheel. The shooting from the car stopped.

A dark Ford Explorer screeched around the corner and raced directly at her. She could see a figure leaning out of the passenger side window with a pistol, and she didn’t hesitate to use the MP7’s superior range. She flipped the weapon to full auto and emptied the gun into the SUV. Without taking her eyes off the Explorer as it bore down on her, she ejected the spent magazine and slammed another one home, then continued firing burst after burst at close range. The gunman fell back into the cab with a grunt, and his pistol clattered to the ground.