The Lost Testament (24 page)

As soon as he had gone, Angela climbed nimbly into the driver’s seat, turned on the ignition to lower the electric windows, as Bronson had asked her to do, and locked all the doors. Then all she could do was wait. And hope.

She realized that there was a good chance they were wasting their time. It was quite possible that George Stebbins had already been dead for hours, and was even then lying in some anonymous ditch on the outskirts of Madrid. But her fervent hope was that Pere, which she thought was a deceptively pleasant name, would have decided to keep Stebbins alive for a while longer, just in case he could still be used as a bargaining counter. And if that was the reality of the situation, then the chances were that her colleague would be imprisoned somewhere in the building that was now just out of sight.

Her thoughts wandered, as she thought about what might be happening to poor old George. She would never forgive herself if he got harmed because of her. She played out several increasingly terrifying scenarios in her head, then jumped as Bronson reappeared beside the car.

Angela unlocked the doors to let him climb into the passenger seat.

“What did you see?” she asked.

“It looks like a small warehouse,” he said. “There are two large roller-shutter doors at the front, which are down and locked. I can see padlocks securing them to brackets on the ground, and they’re probably bolted on the inside as well. Then there’s the door we saw at the front of the building, where the light was, and there’s a side door as well, about halfway down the right-hand side of the building. Both of those could be possible entry points. As well as the light showing at the front of the building, there’s also what looks like an office at the back with lights on, so it’s reasonable to assume that somebody—more likely at least three people, bearing in mind the three cars parked outside—are in there.”

“And your plan is?”

Bronson shrugged.

“The same one I always have, I suppose. I’ll play it by ear.”

“Which means what, exactly?”

“We both go across toward the building and find a suitable place where you can keep watch. I’m going to wait for a while, in the hope that somebody comes out. If they don’t, then I’ll have to try breaking in somehow. What happens then, I have no idea, but at least I’ll be carrying the Beretta. And like I said, I’ll have the element of surprise.”

“And I wait out here? Is that the idea?” Angela demanded.

“Yes,” Bronson replied, “because you’re the only backup that I’ve got.”

He reached into his pocket and took out the mobile phone he had removed from the body of the assassin. He’d replaced the SIM card in its slot, but the battery and back of the phone were still not in place. He handed all three pieces of the mobile to Angela.

“Only fit it all back together if it’s quite obvious that I’m in real trouble—shots fired, that kind of thing—and as soon as it’s working, dial 112. That’s the Pan European emergency number. When you’ve told them what’s going on, don’t end the call, just leave the line open so they can triangulate its location. As soon as you hear the sound of sirens approaching, drive away, whether I’ve come back or not.”

Angela didn’t look happy, but she nodded anyway. Moments later they climbed out of the car, closing and locking the doors as quietly as possible.

The two of them crept slowly around the back of the building that separated them from their objective, keeping close to the fence. There was no other cover they could use, but there were no windows in the side of the structure that they were approaching, and there were no streetlights near to them.

“What about cameras?” Angela whispered.

“As far as I can tell,” Bronson replied, just as quietly, “there are only two, both on the front of the building. One covers the pedestrian doorway and the other the main loading gate.”

“But as soon as you approach the building, the cameras will detect you,” Angela pointed out.

Bronson nodded.

“I know, but there’s nothing I can do about that. I’ll just have to work fast. And in any case, once I’m inside the building, anybody in there will know about it, surveillance cameras or not.”

He glanced around as they approached the end of the wire fence, and motioned Angela toward a slight dip in the ground.

“If you lie here,” he said, “you’ll have a good view of the other building, and hopefully nobody should be able to see you.”

Angela crouched down slowly, wincing as a couple of stones dug into her knees.

“Whatever you do,” she said, looking up at him, “just be careful out there.”

Bronson grinned at her.

“You’re starting to sound like an actor in a bad American cop show,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care. And I’m really glad I’ve got you watching my back.”

Without another word, Bronson walked away, his rubber-soled shoes virtually silent on the tarmac.

Bronson had already looked all around the building, doing his initial reconnoitre. As far as he could tell, both cameras were focused on comparatively small areas, in the immediate vicinity of each doorway. There were no cameras covering the parking area in front of the structure. Or, if there were, he hadn’t seen them.

Two of the cars he had observed earlier were parked directly in front of the larger of the two doors, while the third vehicle was farther away, over to one side. He could watch from there and be hidden from view, but still be close enough to the building to react quickly to intercept anybody who came out.

He moved toward the car as fast as he could to minimize his exposure to any potential watchers inside the building, and then ducked down behind it, crouching in the shadows.

For about five minutes, he concentrated all his attention on the building in front of him and the area immediately around it, just in case anybody inside had seen his fast but stealthy approach. But he saw nobody, and no indication of any imminent threat.

Despite what he’d said to Angela, he was worried about the two cameras. If it came to breaking in, he thought he would probably be able to open the door with his collection of homemade picks. But trying to do that while being watched by the unblinking eye of a closed-circuit television camera was a very different situation. If it came to that, his best option might be to rely on speed and violence rather than stealth, to smash the lock with a round or two of nine-millimeter Parabellum ammunition.

The problem with that scenario, of course, was that if the occupants were also armed, he’d probably find himself facing two or more men carrying pistols the moment he entered the building. And that didn’t sound like a particularly good idea.

He was also keenly aware that there was no certainty that George Stebbins was actually inside the premises and, even if he was there, that he was alive. He could be embarking on a fool’s errand.

A sudden metallic sound from in front of him interrupted his reverie. He crouched lower behind the car and peered cautiously around the front of the vehicle. As he watched, the pedestrian door in the front of the building swung open and a figure stepped out and walked briskly across to one of the parked cars. The hazard flashers on the vehicle pulsed twice as he approached. He walked over to the back of the car and opened the boot.

Bronson knew immediately that this was the best chance he was likely to get.

The moment the boot lid sprang up, hiding the man from his view, Bronson emerged from his hiding place and sprinted toward the parked car.

The man obviously heard his approach—he would have had to have been deaf not to have heard him—and stepped out from behind the car immediately.

But it made no difference. Bronson was running hard, the pistol clutched in his right hand, and at the moment the man emerged into view, he was on him. Bronson crashed into him, smashing his shoulder into the man’s chest and knocking him backward onto the tarmac surface of the parking area.

His opponent was down, but not out, and Bronson couldn’t take any chances. He slammed the butt of the Beretta M92 into the side of the man’s head. Instantly, the figure went limp as unconsciousness claimed him.

Bronson stood up and looked all around, just in case someone else had followed the man out of the building, but there was nobody in sight, and the pedestrian door was still standing wide-open.

Quickly, he bent down and searched the unconscious man. Any doubt he might have had that the man was an innocent employee of a blameless company was quickly dispelled when he discovered the leather shoulder holster he was wearing, and the Glock 17 that was tucked into it, plus two spare magazines, both fully charged. Getting it off the man was awkward because he was a deadweight, but inside a couple of minutes Bronson was able to pull the holster over his shoulders, attaching its base loop to his own belt and shrugging on his jacket over the top of it. He checked the Glock was loaded, with a round in the chamber, and then replaced it in the holster.

He looked into the boot of the car and saw a couple of cardboard boxes inside it, the tops undone. One man carrying a cardboard box, Bronson realized, probably looks very similar to any other man carrying a cardboard box.

He leaned forward, picked up one of the boxes and turned it upside down. A number of anonymous brown-wrapped packages cascaded down from it into the boot. He pushed the boot lid closed, placed the box on the roof of the car, then reached down and dragged the unconscious man alongside the vehicle so that he would be completely hidden from the view of anybody looking out of the building.

Then he picked up the cardboard box, holding it in his left hand, supporting its underside with his right forearm, which meant that the bulk of the empty box completely concealed the Beretta pistol he was holding in his right hand.

He took a final glance around, then strode confidently across the parking area to the pedestrian door.

As he reached the camera’s field of vision, Bronson lifted the cardboard box up high so that it obscured his face, strode quickly forward to cover the last few feet, and stepped inside the warehouse.

He altered his grip on the empty cardboard box so that he was holding it solely with his left hand, and held the pistol in his right hand behind it, ready for instant use. But the room he was standing in—a small square space occupied by a couple of desks and chairs—was devoid of human presence. At the back of the room he could see another door standing open and leading to a short passageway that was illuminated by a single fluorescent tube on the ceiling, which obviously ran down one side of the building.

Bronson strode across the room and glanced up the passageway, but neither saw nor heard anybody. About halfway down the passage was a door on the left-hand side bearing the universally recognizable symbol of a male and female figure separated by a vertical line. He checked it anyway, just to make sure that nobody was taking a toilet break.

At the end of the passage a flight of steps ascended to the next level. Still holding the box in front of him—if his basic disguise worked, then whoever was waiting on the upper floor of the building would be expecting to see a man carrying a box—Bronson climbed up the staircase.

At the top he paused for a moment and looked in both directions. There was another lavatory almost opposite the top of the staircase, and a couple of offices down the passageway to his left, but both doors were open, and no lights were burning, so he discounted them. To his right was another and slightly longer passageway, again lit by a fluorescent light, and at the end of that a door stood partially ajar, illuminated by lights from inside the room.

If George Stebbins was anywhere inside the building, that office or room was where Bronson expected to find him.

But as Bronson began to head down the passageway toward the door, it was suddenly flung open and a figure appeared there and shouted something at him in high-speed Spanish. Bronson didn’t understand more than a fraction of what the man was saying. But having delivered his tirade, the man stepped back into the room. It seemed that Bronson hadn’t—at least up to that point—been recognized as a threat.

He continued down the passage toward the door, clicking off the safety catch of the Beretta M92 in his right hand as he approached the end. But he’d only taken two or three steps when something hard jabbed him in the back.

Somebody had appeared behind him completely soundlessly. And whoever it was had a loaded pistol in his hand.

Bronson knew that in a situation like this, speed was everything.

He reacted instantly, dropping the cardboard box to the ground in front of him and spinning to his left as quickly as he could, slamming his left arm down and backward to knock away the weapon that his unseen assailant was carrying.

As the side of Bronson’s hand smashed into the assailant’s arm, the man’s weapon discharged, the noise deafening in the confined space. The bullet plowed into the concrete floor of the corridor before ricocheting away somewhere down the passageway. Bronson was determined that the man would not be able to fire a second time.

He continued to turn, forcing the man’s gun hand away from his body and at the same time bringing his own right hand, the solid lump of the Beretta pistol giving it extra weight, on a collision course with his attacker’s left ear.

Less than a second after Bronson had felt the barrel of the pistol jammed into the small of his back, it was all over. The moment the butt of the Beretta crashed into the man’s head, he collapsed in a heap on the floor, instantly knocked unconscious.

But that, of course, was only the start of Bronson’s problems. The sound of the gunshot would obviously have alerted everybody else in the building. He had just seconds.

He reached down with his left hand and grabbed the automatic pistol that the man lying on the floor had dropped, then took a couple of steps forward before easing himself into the doorway of a room on the left-hand side of the passage. For a few seconds, he waited, the Beretta held steady in his right hand, the muzzle aimed squarely at the open door.

But nothing moved. There was no sound from inside the office, no indication that anybody had even noticed what had happened in the corridor.

That left only two possibilities. Either the man who’d attacked him and the man he’d seen at the end of the passage were one and the same person, which he didn’t think was possible, or there was another way out of the room at the end, a fire escape perhaps, and the other man had already left the building.

Then a third possibility occurred to him, and he quickly moved two steps back into the office and dropped flat on the floor. Under a second later, two shots rang out, the bullets tearing jagged holes through the thin partition walls precisely where he’d been standing. Because in that instant he’d noticed the closed-circuit TV camera positioned above the office door at the end of the corridor, the lens pointing directly at him. The man or men in the other room didn’t need to actually look down the passage: they could watch him on the building’s internal security system.

He’d have to do something about that, and quickly.

The gunman wouldn’t know whether or not either of the two shots had hit him, because Bronson had moved out of sight of the CCTV camera, but the moment he stepped out of the office his position would be obvious. He had to destroy the camera, and try not to get shot in the process.

He didn’t risk standing up, instead opening the office door wide and lying on his stomach on the floor, presenting the smallest possible target to the unseen gunman. He crawled slowly toward the open doorway. The moment he could see the side of the camera, he took careful aim with the Beretta, eased out another few inches and squeezed the trigger twice.

The pistol bucked in his hand, and he immediately rolled back inside the office. He thought at least one of the bullets had hit the camera, but he obviously needed to find out for sure.

He slid across the floor once more and risked a quick glance down the passage. The camera was still in place, bolted high on the wall at the far end of the corridor, but one side had been blown off completely, and wires dangled from the jagged opening.

The opposition had lost their biggest advantage. Again there was complete silence.

Four more shots rang through the building, two double-taps, which suggested that the gunman knew his business, the bullets driving more holes through the partition walls at about waist height, the copper-jacketed slugs passing well above Bronson, who was still lying on the floor.

Speed seemed to be more important than stealth at that stage. He stood up, stepped out of the office in which he’d taken refuge and trotted as quickly and as quietly as he could down the passageway, tucking away the Glock he’d taken from the unconscious man who was still lying motionless a few feet behind him.

At the door to the office he stopped, ducked down and snatched a quick glance into the room, registering the scene there in an instant. He immediately took two quick paces backward. It was just as well that he did so.

Two bullets ripped through the wall just a few inches in front of Bronson, who ducked down, then raised his own weapon, aimed it through the hole that the gunman had just blasted and fired twice. The man might now have moved, but it was worth a try.

There was a yell of pain from inside the office, followed almost immediately by a clattering sound and a heavy thump, and then the unmistakable noise of a body collapsing to the floor.

He stepped forward again and took another quick look.

The man he’d seen in those few microseconds was sprawled on the floor, lying on his back, a dark stain spreading across the front of his shirt.

But that wasn’t what concerned Bronson at that moment. His attention was drawn to the far end of the large room, where a figure sat slumped in an upright chair, his ankles secured to the legs with plastic cable ties and his arms twisted behind his body. Even though the bound man’s head was hanging down, obscuring his features, Bronson was quite certain he was looking at George Stebbins.

Freeing him—assuming he was still alive—would be the work of a few seconds, but right then he knew there was no guarantee that either he or Stebbins would be able to leave the room alive.

Because crouching right behind the bound man was another figure, a pistol resting on Stebbins’s shoulder, the muzzle touching his ear and the man’s finger caressing the trigger.