The Bleeding Sun (7 page)

He planned to setup operations in
Cuba and the Americas in near future with a lucrative potential
clientele consisting of dictators, cartel and the mafia. However
owing to the debacle he was facing in India, and the recent
involvement of security partnership between India, US and the South
American countries, he would need serious connections to set up his
operation. Also he needed help regarding the Indian debacle; he
wanted to get the Indian agencies off his back. He believed that
Romanovich was the right person who could guide him with his
resources, connections and man power to achieve the same. In
return, he was ready to transfer 35% of the shares of Zipline which
would in turn make Romanovich the majority stakeholder of the
company.

Romanovich had presented a grim
face at first, which gradually changed into a wry smile. ‘But why
me Mr. Adams? With your clientele, you are already in touch with
people dealing with things which I would barely call legal; so why
come to me’. Lucas needed to disclose more to convince Romanovich.
So he brought up details on Romanovich’s list of friends and
employees about whom he had heard rumors ranging from Suleiman and
Bakhtiyar to Rosmus. He explained that he had also heard about
Romanovich’s connections in Cuban politics, Kremlin and the White
House. So he believed that he was the only person who could help
him with Zipline’s operational difficulties.

Although Romanovich was pretty
surprised regarding how he had obtained such details, he was
pleased overall with the praise that was heaped upon him. Lucas
also justified his narration by explaining that he too had some
contacts in the Interpol as well as the CIA who had been helping
him out in carrying out his operations. So Lucas’s backstory looked
really convincing. Romanovich rose up from the recliner and went
back to the bar. He pulled out another glass, poured the scotch ad
handed it over to Lucas.

‘
This calls for celebration Mr.
Adams; usually I tend to find the organizations that I would want
to fund. However, yours would be the first case where the reverse
is true. I am impressed by what I am hearing and I think I should
be able to turn you into a true global organization. Let’s raise
the toast.’ Lucas smiled and emptied his glass. He had done really
well considering the very limited resources that he had. He
couldn’t believe that convincing the Russian would be so easy. Now,
all he needed to do was extract information on possible safe houses
in Havana where Annie could have been held hostage.

‘
Well Mr. Rosmus didn’t look too
happy when he left the room earlier. Is everything all right? As
far as I know, given his credentials and the inputs from Interpol,
he is your right hand man.’ Romanovich was in a mood to brag. He
talked about how he had set up is operations in Cuba a few years
back and how Rosmus had ensured that every single person ranging
from politicians, bureaucrats to even the law enforcement agencies
had complied with the demands that Romanovich had put up. Well
Rosmus’s way of working always ensured there was a bit of a blood
trail, but that in return also served the purpose of setting an
example for all those who dared to oppose him. Now Cuba is
completely under my control. Anything and anyone that goes in and
out of the country must have approval from my men.

Lucas presented an amused look and
directly asked the question, ’With all due respect, in spite of
your authority across Cuba, I don’t think Cuba is still safe for
business. The primetime news agencies were reporting about a
suspected missile attack somewhere near Havana as well as the fact
that a gunship had destroyed a reputed hotel yesterday. Based on
this scenario have you ever considered building a safe house or a
fortress for yourself, in case your organization came under attack
in Havana?’

Lucas had managed to hurt
Romanovich’s pride by questioning his authority in the country.
Romanovich’s face had turned red as he lighted another cigar. ‘Mr.
Adams, first you come to me for help and then you decide to taunt
me and my authority in Cuba. Well, if you must know the truth, the
gunship that destroyed the hotel belonged to me. This is the second
Indian agent that I have eliminated within the last month. The same
folks who are causing you pain in the Indian subcontinent, are
present here too; just that they are here with a death wish, and
I’m granting their wish. I have a third one that was recently
captured alive, you can only imagine how I’ll create an example out
of that agent so that they never ever dare to set foot on the Cuban
soil.

Rosmus is personally taking care
of it as we speak. As of the missile attack, it was actually a
series of IEDs. Rosmus had personally ensured that the whole
operation went smooth and the community was destroyed. We had
information from India that the community had several Cuban
residents who were helping the secret agents from India.’ The
mobile phone vibrated as Romanovich checked the notification. He
remained still for some time, then reached for the drawer, before
continuing his narration. ‘So, it had to be destroyed; once again
an example was set to ensure no one else dares to do the same type
of mistakes in future. After all, Rosmus belonged to the Russian
mafia before I roped him in. So you need not worry Mr. Adams, as I
had said earlier, even a fly cannot enter or exit Cuba without my
men knowing about it.

Now tell me Mr. Adams, why and how
a man like you would carry a gun in my hotel without the security
agencies knowing about it. Also my security agents have informed me
that you were using a room which is currently allocated to some
other guest. I think you have been lying about a lot of things Mr.
Adams, or should I say Mr. Lucas’

Romanovich brought out and pointed
a pistol at Lucas while alerting his guards by pressing the panic
button on the side of the minibar. Lucas’s cover was blown. Someone
had clearly disclosed his identity along with his aliases. Even if
they had tracked his movement using the prototype device that he
had recovered, it was not possible for others to know about his
fake passports and identities. Also, he had planned this visit to
the casino very discretely and had not made any form of contact
with the head office. He had destroyed the power source of the
prototype device and hence no one could have tracked him or
followed him any further. He was also under disguise as the
European businessman. On top of these he had failed to extract the
location of the safe house.

Since Rosmus was
already on the way, Lucas didn’t have time to lose. He needed to
follow Rosmus’s trail before the tracking signal was lost. He would
need to get out of the casino and go for Annie. As the door flung
open and the Viper agents entered the room, Lucas turned the dial
of his watch and pressed a button. The C4 sticks he had placed
along the fire extinguishers and the elevator detonated. The blast
rocked the building as smoke and flame engulfed the upper floors.
The elevator was stranded on the 45
^th
floor when the C4 sticks
had detonated. It went for a freefall. Due to the blast, both
Romanovich and the Viper agents had started to
panic.

Before eliminating Lucas, their
task at hand was to secure Romanovich and move him safely out of
the building. Romanovich fired a shot and ran towards the door as
Lucas took advantage of the situation. He jumped behind
Romanovich’s recliner as the Vipers started firing their hand guns.
He crawled to the back of the bar. The firing had temporarily
stopped as two of the Viper agents secured Romanovich and headed
out to take him to safety. He would surely be taken to a safe
location, possibly the safe house where Annie was being held. It
would probably be the same place where Rosmus had headed
earlier.

Lucas looked around for choice of
weapons. He picked up a cork screw from the racks and also took out
a bottle of tequila. He also pulled out his Swiss knife from his
shoe. Romanovich’s half burnt cigar was still lighted up and was
lying on the ground. The viper agent moved towards the bar with his
eyes on the target and fingers firm on the trigger. As he came
close enough, Lucas leapt out of the bar counter and smashed the
bottle of tequila on his head. He used the cork screw and the Swiss
knife to vigorously stab the agent a few times to force him to drop
his gun. As the agent thrashed around in pain, Lucas picked up the
gun and the half burnt cigar. He threw the cigar on the Viper
agent’s face as he swiftly headed towards the main door. The
tequila soaked agent immediately caught fire and scream out in
pain.

As he rushed to the front door,
Lucas could hear footsteps of more agents heading towards the room
in order to eliminate him. He took cover behind the door as two
more agents rushed in. They were surprised to see that Lucas was
missing and instead their fellow agent had been set on fire. As
they moved towards the burning agent, Lucas took them down with two
shots. He killed the agent who had been screaming out in pain owing
to the burns, to put him out of his suffering. He headed out of the
main door, collected his gun from the entrance and stormed down the
stairs.

As he headed to the floor below,
he went straight for the service elevator. The guests on the floor
were in utter panic. They screamed and ran around the corridor
trying to get out of the floor. As they rushed out of the emergency
staircase few people were injured in the stampede. Lucas opened the
service elevator shaft to recover his backpack. He couldn’t
possibly manage to swiftly head towards the basement using the
emergency stairs owing to the large number of people that were
present in the staircase in every floor. He would not be able to
get hold of Romanovich as he escaped. Instead he had a much better
idea.

He headed towards Romanovich’s
suite once again. The suite had a personal helipad located on the
top. He could use his hand glider to glide down to the ground. He
would also be able to track, trace and follow Romanovich’s car if
he managed to leave the building before Lucas reached the ground.
Lucas headed to the helipad on the roof and brought out his
retractable hand glider. It took just a couple of minutes to set it
up and attach it to his back. He set up his goggles in a tracking
mode and pulled up the maps on the screen, so that he could use the
same to navigate. He also checked the dial of his watch to redirect
the signal to his goggles. He could see Rosmus’s last location on
the map of his screen and was pretty sure that Romanovich would be
heading over to the same direction.

Rosmus’s tracker was not emitting
a signal any more, most likely due to interference from signal
jammers. Lucas jumped off the western end of the building like the
paratrooper commandos with whom he had been trained. He opened up
the hand glider and glided towards the harbor. He glided carefully
as Romanovich’s tracking signal started to appear. His car was
heading in the same direction as Lucas had anticipated. What really
surprised him was that Romanovich had been able to get off the
building so quickly even with the number of guests who had jammed
up the emergency staircase. Surely a large number of guests must
have been forcefully cleared or eliminated to ensure that the
Russian could escape from the building unharmed. Romanovich was
travelling in a black Rolls Royce being escorted by a black
SUV.

Lucas was
lurking near the western entrance of the harbor as he noticed
Romanovich’s convoy. Based on the tracking signal, he had
anticipated that the safe house Romanovich was travelling to, was
the
Castillo De La Real Fuerza; a perfect
place to set up operations. Being a UNESCO designated heritage site
as well as a popular tourist attraction, no one would ever expect a
base of operations to be located there. Also the fortification in
the castle along with the number of mercenaries securing the place,
made it a perfect place for Rosmus and Romanovich to carry out
their shady operations.

As Romanovich’s car passed
through, he hurled himself onto the SUV which was following it. He
managed to attach his grappling hook to the rear bumper towing hook
of the SUV as he continued to be dragged on. In spite of the
enormous pain and damage that he experienced being dragged on by
the speeding SUV, he tried his best to keep his head low and pull
himself onto the rear of the car without the driver noticing him in
the rear view mirrors. By the time the cars had reached the
Castillo De La Real Fuerza, Lucas had managed to slide himself
below the SUV as he continued to hold on. The cars passed through
the security in the main entrance and headed to the rear of the
castle.

As the cars came to a halt in
front of the keep and Romanovich was being escorted by multiple
viper agents, Lucas looked around trying to familiarize himself
with the surrounding. He could see at least twenty five viper
agents with weapons ranging from shot guns to automatic rifles
patrolling around. The signal jammers and security cameras were
placed all around the main keep. There was a make shift hangar
located to the south which was heavily guarded. Lucas was pretty
sure that something interesting must have been going on in there.
He would need to visit the hangar whenever he had an opportunity.
On the southern side beyond the inner walls was the draw bridge
over the waterbody leading to the Gulf of Mexico. Lucas sneaked out
from the car and took refuge behind a nearby watch tower. He needed
to figure out a plan quickly as to how he would rescue Annie and
find out what Rosmus was up to.