He fired the first shot and missed, the bullet striking the sidewall in a puff of white drywall and stucco dust. Sean let out a long breath and fired again. The metal round zipped through the man's hamstring and out the other side, sending a splattering of blood onto the patio floor. The killer yelped, and his leg lost its power, but his momentum carried him on. He reached the wall and jumped with his one good leg, but he'd lost too much speed, and the jump back to the other rooftop was at a slight elevation.
Sean watched as the man desperately reached out both hands to grasp the edge of the roof on the other side. His palms struck a metal beam just under the terracotta, and he wrapped his fingers over the thin edge as his lower body swung forward and smacked into the wall. Sean stopped at the low retaining wall and stared across at the man now desperately clinging to life. He kept his gun aimed at the killer even though he knew there were no more rounds left in the magazine. He let his eyes drift down for a moment, but fought off the natural dizzying reaction his body normally produced, subconsciously convincing himself he was safe behind the little barrier.
"Who do you work for?" Sean barked at the man whose fingers continued to slip and regrip the steel girder. There was no response.
The man tried to pull himself up, using his feet against the wall as a means to help his weakening arms, but when he reached up to grab ahold of a clay tile above his head, it slipped off, and he had to retreat to the momentary safety of the steel beam.
"I can get the fire department here to help you," Sean offered. He fully knew that there was no way he was going to make that call. Much less that the firemen would arrive in time. He figured the guy had less than two minutes before his tendons and muscles gave out. Maybe less. "Just tell me who you work for, and I'll call them. I won't even call the police."
Sean repeated the line in Spanish and Arabic; the latter was just in case, though the man was clearly not of Arab descent. He was white. And from the looks of him, from somewhere in the West. European? Maybe. But there was a more insidious suspicion in Sean's head. He believed the man was American.
The killer grunted as he tried to hold on. Blood oozed down his pant leg from the bullet wound and dripped off his foot and down onto the street below.
Mustering his courage, Sean propped his foot up on the flat part of the wall and leaned over carefully, placing his elbow on his knee. He looked down at the pavement. The smooth cobblestones may as well have been a pit of scorpions to him, but he fought off that feeling and bluffed instead.
"A drop like that probably won't kill you." He hurried his words, knowing time was running out. "Most likely, you'll break your legs or back or pelvis, or all of the above. And when you do, I'll figure out who you work for and what you want."
The man looked over his shoulder for a second and glanced down at the ground. He grunted again and tried to reach up to the terracotta roof once more to pull himself to safety.
This time, he grabbed onto the edge of the tile and pulled hard. Sean took a step back and watched as the killer tried to use the piece of clay as a handhold. The man started pulling himself up, which surprised Sean since he'd likely used most of his strength. For a moment, it appeared that he might be able to get his other hand up to roof level, but when he removed it from the steel beam to reposition it, the higher hand slipped. Arms outstretched, his hands flapped in a panic, fluttering past the girder as he fell backward and down.
The first thing to strike the pavement was the upper part of the man's back. His head followed closely behind, smacking into the cobblestones below. Sean winced as the body made contact but made himself keep watching, just in case the killer had miraculously survived the fall.
After ten seconds, Sean could see the blood pooling in the cracks between the cobblestones, and he knew the man was gone. Wolfz's killer was dead, and Sean had no idea who had sent him.
15
Sean had to get out of there. A dead man lay at the bottom of the building, another in a building at the other end of the street. Not even Emily's string pulling could get him out of this one. If he stuck around, he'd be arrested and put away. Corruption in the Argentine government was the stuff of legend, tracing its ancestry all the way back to before the Peróns were in power. Sean was in no mood to try to test the justice system at this point in history.
He took a step back from the ledge and considered his predicament. There was a clear escape route if he decided to go back the way he came, across the rooftops and down through Wolfz's house. That would mean time, and more than a small amount of trepidation when taking into account how the first traverse had gone.
The door to the inside of the home he stood upon was locked. Picking locks had never been his area of expertise. The thought reminded him of Adriana and her particular set of skills that basically allowed her through any door in the world. The only exceptions being the best bank safes.
His head turned a little to the left, and he noticed the hillside rising up behind the house. A hardwood tree stood on the side, its naked branches stretching out like gnarled arms and fingers toward the large home. Sean unconsciously made his way over to the back of the patio in seconds. He examined the tree and estimated how far the fall was to the ground. It wasn't quite three stories due to the hill's slope, but it was still more than two and could be just as deadly or worse than the one he'd just witnessed.
There were three options, and none of them were good.
He heard a voice yelling something in Spanish. It came from the street in front of the house. He'd not seen many pedestrians since arriving, he assumed due to the cold. One of the stragglers must have come upon the body in the alley. Whoever it was, they kept yelling. Sean listened closer. They were calling for the police and for help, which meant it would only be a few minutes or so before other onlookers, and eventually the authorities, found their way to the area.
For Sean, that meant two of his three options had just been eliminated. If he went back via the rooftop, he'd be easily spotted from the street. And if he were able to break in through the nearby rooftop door, it would be impossible to walk out without being noticed. There was only one way out.
He hurried back to the wall, stuffing his weapon back inside the heavy coat before climbing up. He kept his body low to preserve his balance, though looking down at the ground below caused him to waiver momentarily. The jump over to the thickest tree branch was a good six to seven feet. Not a huge distance, but if he missed or wasn't able to grab onto the limb, the result would be catastrophic. There was also the possibility that the branch would snap. Sean guessed the diameter of it was around eight to ten inches. It should hold, but there was always the chance it wouldn't.
There was no time to waiver on the idea. Sean swayed back and forth for a second to give himself a little momentum, then bent his knees and pushed off the ledge with all his strength. He reached the branch faster than expected, and struck it with his abdomen. As soon as he felt the limb hit his body, he wrapped his arms and legs around it like a boa constrictor and held on tight. The limb shuddered and bent down, but it held true. The massive tree trunk only wavered slightly from the additional weight added to one of its extremities. Horrific thoughts filled his imagination again; falling through the air, hitting the ground, and seeing everything go black. He pushed the fear-driven ideas from his mind and pulled himself onto the branch, straddling it with both legs.
Sean placed his hands on the top of the limb and pressed down, lifting his body slightly to allow himself to shimmy forward. He repeated the same movement over and over again, inching his way to where the branch merged with the tree trunk. As he got closer, the limb thickened significantly, giving him a sense of security for a moment. Arriving at the first destination, however, removed any thoughts of safety. His next move would be to climb down to the next branch, which was about six feet down and a few feet over. Sean was six feet tall and would have been able to hang down and plant his feet on the limb's surface with relative ease, had it been directly below him. That extra few feet to the right changed everything.