Glancing briefly at the camera in the tree nearest her, she saw it was pointing towards the door, and away from her. She ran to her chalet and opened the message tube.
The numbers and letters were meaningless unless you knew the code. Taking her favourite book, the Masqueraders, by Georgette Heyer from the shelf, she quickly deciphered the short message.
FOUND REAR TRUCK ACCESS TO UNDERGROUND BUNKER. GOING TO TAKE A LOOK.
“Stupid bastard!” she said, now really worried. She slipped out of the expensive dress she had been wearing and donned a very utilitarian style black sweater and pants. In place of her precarious stilettos, she slid her feet into some black Reeboks. It took her just a moment to open the hidden compartment in her suitcase and remove the Sig that had been there since she arrived. She chambered a round efficiently and slipped the gun into the rear waistband of her pants.
After removing her jewellery, she tied her hair back into a ponytail, and ducked out onto her small veranda.
She now knew where each camera was, and was only too well aware that they seemed to follow her wherever she went. She could imagine the bored security men in their control room, playing with the controls and following any attractive women around to alleviate the boredom.
The cameras weren’t facing her tonight, so she made full use of the fact, despite believing that they were diverted in at attempt to trap her lover.
Taking out a previously unused and un-registered cell phone she had for just this purpose, she sent a brief text to Sean. It was simply 911. Then she turned the phone setting to vibrate only before slipping it into her pocket.
Then she skirted the garden, but keeping to the line of trees and bushes. All her senses were on edge, and she felt so alive it was amazing. They had told her that adrenaline could have this effect, but she earnestly wished that Ryan wasn’t in danger.
All the cameras were facing the stairwells, so she knew that there would be no point heading for there. Ryan mentioned a rear truck entrance and an underground bunker. This made sense to her, for that would explain so many things about this location.
If there was one stairwell in plain sight; why would there not be more out of sight of the guests?
It was a quiet evening. A handful of guests were still in the bar, but the dining room was now in darkness. On pushing open the door, she had one hand on her gun. The place was deathly quiet, with all the tables laid for breakfast.
She slipped through the dining room and pushed the door to the kitchen. It was open, and the kitchen was equally deserted, with all the kitchen staff either at home or on the way.
On the other side of the kitchen were the pantries and storerooms. In the middle was a service elevator with a crude metal cage-type door. It was large enough for the big trolleys that carted about the food, laundry and crockery. There were four buttons, all below this level.
The next one down was marked laundry & stores. The others weren’t marked. She pushed the bottom one and closed the cage.
It was a slow and noisy elevator, so by the time it came to the first stop, she was so nervous, she had the gun out.
The elevator continued, and she glimpsed a semi-dark corridor with what must be the laundry to the left. She then had the bright idea of turning the elevator light out. That way she could keep to the back corner and be in almost darkness, so able to have some advantage if confronted by one of the enemy.
The next floor was in total darkness, but appeared to be carpeted. She could draw no conclusions as to what went on there.
The gap between that floor and the last was far longer than any of the others. She felt her nerves getting quite fraught as the elevator just trundled on and on.
Finally, the lights of the last floor illuminated the car before it reached the bottom. Michelle was crouched in the back corner with her gun out in both hands. It was a brilliantly lit but very utilitarian corridor. With a plain concrete floor, dull walls and a basic strip-light on the ceiling, this was not a place designed with aesthetics in mind.
She waited for a moment, straining her ears to hear anything.
On hearing nothing, she slowly opened the door, which seemed to make far more noise than when she closed it up above.
Which way?
She heard something to the left, but wasn’t sure what it was.
Gritting her teeth, and with her gun pointing forward, she hugged the wall and set off down the left hand corridor. The phone in her pocket showed no signal.
Meanwhile, Sean received the text.
“Damn!” he said, keying 007 and sending the text back. Then he tightened the straps of his body armour.
He called another number.
“Mike, it’s Sean. How are you doing?”
The specialist team leader had just breached the warehouse end of the tunnel and the heavily armed team was making progress into the tunnel itself.
“We’re facing some opposition; mainly handguns and the occasional automatic weapon. We’re deploying Bertha.”
“Okay, then you probably can expect company soon. We’re going in from the other end now,” he said, disconnecting the call.
“Okay people, listen up!” he said to the assembled agents and police officers.
“We’re going in now,” he said. He turned to address the uniformed police chief.
“Chief Lamb, you take your uniforms to the main clubhouse, and simply lock the place down tight. The intelligence is that they have a large quantity of narcotics in an underground bunker system, so we need to ensure there are no holes for the rats to escape through. If anyone questions you, show them a copy of the warrant and state that this is a joint operation with the DEA. I don’t suspect you’ll see Ricardo, but if you do, arrest him.”
“On what charge?”
“Illegal importation of narcotics and conspiracy to murder for starters.”
“The Swat team will take all stairwells and elevators, working your way down, clearing each room on each level before progressing down to the next. Hopefully, we’ll meet you coming up, but that depends on how easy it is to get through the tunnel.”
The law enforcement officers all went to their vehicles, and set off.
Sean took his cell phone out and checked. Nothing further had come from Michelle.
The phone in the control room started ringing just as they caught the unconscious Ryan.
“Boss, someone is entering the warehouse at the far end. I think it’s the feds!”
Roberto swore. He had hoped his contacts within the federal building would have kept him better informed. He had heard nothing for weeks. This meant they had been compromised.
“Get the men down to stop them,” he said to Manolo.
As Manolo started using the radio to despatch different teams to deal with the incursion, the monitors displaying what the cameras at the front of the club were watching made him curse even more. A large number of local and federal cars were arriving, all with flashing lights.
If the tunnel was breached and this end was now teaming with cops and feds, he was trapped, and with several million dollars worth of cocaine in the bunker.
His only resort now was to overwhelm the law enforcement officers so they’d have to retreat to regroup. This would give him enough time to set the charges and escape, blowing an enormous crater where the country club now stood.
He knew his helicopter was on the pad to the west of the clubhouse. It was away from the publicly visible one, but as it was shielded by trees, no one should know it was there. That was his means of escape.