In his respirator and suit he looked twice as large as normal. He figured Leticia would have little idea who was behind the mask, and his steely, voice-projected tones would be equally unrecognisable.
Was he friend or foe?
She would have no way of telling.
She took a fearful step backwards, the bad guy fighting to keep her under control. The edge of the roof was right at their backs. There was nowhere to retreat or to run.
‘Drop your weapon!’ Jaeger repeated. ‘Drop the bloody gun!’
He held the SIG before him double-handed and tight to his body: the silencer tended to force the gases from the barrel back into the shooter’s face, so it was crucial to keep as firm a stance as possible in order to dampen the kickback. He had the bad guy pinned in his sights, the pistol’s hammer was back and his index finger was on the trigger – yet still he couldn’t take the shot. In the faint light he couldn’t be certain of his aim, the bulky gloves making the shot doubly difficult.
The bad guy had his own pistol jammed in Leticia’s throat.
Stalemate.
Jaeger felt Narov move up on his shoulder. She too had her long-barrelled P228 in the aim. Her hands remained rock solid: steady and ice cool as always. She moved a step ahead of him, and he flicked his gaze across to her. No response. Not the hint of a reaction. She didn’t break eye contact with the iron sights of the SIG.
But there was something very different about her profile now.
Narov had ripped off her respirator, leaving it hanging on its straps, and slipped on a pair of AN/PVS-21 night vision goggles. They lit up her features with a fluorescent green alien glow, and she had also pulled off her gloves.
For a horrible moment Jaeger knew exactly what she was about to do.
He reached out a hand to try to stop her. He was too late.
Pzzzt, pzzzt, pzzzt!
Narov had pulled the trigger.
She’d taken the shot.
9
The standard military round for the 9mm P228 weighs in at 7.5 grams. The three subsonic bullets that Narov had unleashed were each two grams heavier. Travelling one hundred metres per second slower, it still took them only a fraction of an instant to bite.
They tore into the gunman’s face, driving him backwards and over the edge of the roof in a death plunge. It was incredible shooting. But as he fell, his arm remained locked around the woman’s neck.
With a piercing scream, both figures disappeared from view.
The drop from the roof was a good fifteen metres. Jaeger let out a savage curse. Bloody Narov!
He turned and raced for the trapdoor. As he thundered down the ladder, the Kolokol-1 swirled around his knees like a ghostly fog. He dropped down the last of the metal rungs, tore along the corridor, then hammered down the stairway, vaulting bodies as he went. He raced out through the shattered doorway, turned right and sprinted around the corner of the building, coming to a breathless halt where two figures lay in a crumpled heap.
The gunman had perished instantly as a result of three shots to the head, and it looked as if Leticia’s neck had been broken by the fall.
Jaeger cursed again. How could it all have gone so wrong so quickly? He knew the answer pretty much instantly: it was Narov’s trigger-happy, dumb-ass attitude.
He bent over Leticia’s crumpled form. She lay face down, unmoving. He placed a hand on her neck, checking for a pulse. Nothing. He shuddered. He could barely believe it: the body was still warm, but she was dead, just as he had feared.
Narov appeared beside him. Jaeger glanced up, eyes blazing. ‘Nice bastard work. You just—’
‘Take a closer look,’ Narov’s voice cut in. It had the characteristic cold, flat, emotionless ring to it – the one that Jaeger found so disconcerting. ‘A proper look.’
She reached forward, grabbed the fallen figure by the hair and jerked the head roughly backwards. No respect, not even for the dead.
Jaeger stared at the ashen features. It was a Latino woman all right, but it wasn’t Leticia Santos.
‘How the—’ he began.
‘I am a woman,’ Narov cut in. ‘I recognise another woman’s posture. Her gait. This one – it wasn’t Leticia’s.’
For a moment Jaeger wondered whether Narov felt even the slightest remorse for having killed this mystery captive, or at least for taking the shot that had sent her plunging to her doom.
‘One more thing,’ Narov added. She reached inside the woman’s jacket and fished out a pistol, holding it up to Jaeger. ‘She was a member of their gang.’
Jaeger gawped. ‘Jesus. The drama on the roof. It was all an act.’
‘It was. To draw us in.’
‘How did you know?’
Narov turned her blank gaze upon Jaeger. ‘I saw a bulge. A gun-shaped bulge. But mostly – instinct and intuition. A soldier’s sixth sense.’
Jaeger shook his head to clear it. ‘But then – where the hell’s Leticia?’
With a sudden flash of inspiration he yelled into his radio: ‘Raff!’ The big Maori had remained in the target house, checking the survivors and looking for clues. ‘Raff! You got Vladimir?’
‘Yeah. Got him.’
‘Can he talk?’
‘Yeah. Just.’
‘Right. Bring him here.’
Thirty seconds later Raff emerged from the building with a figure thrown across his massive shoulders. He dumped the man at Jaeger’s feet.
‘Vladimir – or so he claims.’
The leader of the kidnap gang showed the unmistakable symptoms of a Kolokol-1 attack. His heart rate had slowed to a perilously low level, as had his breathing, his muscles going strangely slack. His skin was clammy and his mouth dry.
He’d just been hit by the first waves of dizziness, which meant that vomiting and seizures would quickly follow. Jaeger needed to get some answers, before the guy was rendered beyond any use. He whipped a syringe out of his breast pouch and held it before the man’s eyes.
‘Listen good,’ he announced, his voice reverberating through the mask’s voice-projection system. ‘You’ve been hit by sarin,’ he lied. ‘Know much about nerve agents? Horrible way to die. You’ve only got a few minutes left.’
The man’s eyes rolled in terror. Clearly he understood enough English to get the gist of what Jaeger was saying.
Jaeger waved the syringe. ‘You see this? Compoden. The antidote. You get this, you live.’
The man thrashed about, trying to reach for the syringe.
Jaeger shoved him with his foot. ‘Right, answer the following question. Where is the hostage, Leticia Santos? You get the injection in exchange for an answer. If not, you’re dead.’
The man was twitching violently now, saliva dribbling from his nose and mouth. Yet somehow he raised a shaking hand and pointed back into the villa.
‘Basement. Under rug. In there.’
Jaeger raised the needle and plunged it into the man’s arm. Kolokol-1 requires no antidote and the syringe contained a harmless shot of saline solution. A few minutes in the open air would be enough to ensure his survival, though it would take him many more weeks to fully recover.
Narov and Jaeger headed inside, leaving Raff to keep tabs on Vladimir. Back in the basement, Jaeger’s torch revealed a bright Latino-style rug laid across the bare concrete floor. He scuffed it aside, uncovering a heavy steel trapdoor. He tugged at the handle, but it didn’t budge. It had to be locked from the inside.
He dug out a shaped explosive charge from his rucksack and unrolled it, exposing the sticky strip, then chose a spot at the back of the trapdoor and taped the charge along the crack.
‘Soon as the charge blows, get the gas in,’ he announced.
Narov nodded and readied a Kolokol-1 grenade.