Henry turned his face away, pulled a fistful of his t-shirt up over his nose and mouth, and tried to take a breath, just to see if he could. For a long moment, his mashed-flat lungs refused to inflate. Then mercifully his chest expanded. He knew his heart was still beating—he could feel his pulse in his eyes.
As he raised his head, there was a sudden sharp pain in his cheek; something wet ran down his face. He felt around carefully with his fingertips, then removed a long shard of glass from a spot barely an inch below his eye. He reached for the burn bag and found it had disappeared along with a lot of the railing and part of the staircase. He was going to have to make do with the rifle, the Glock, and the two magazines of ammo he’d stuffed in his pockets. Once again, chance favored the prepared mind. He was just sorry he hadn’t stashed ammo for the rifle as well as the Glock, so maybe this really was only pure dumb luck. If so, it might be the last lucky break he’d get for a long time since he and Junior Hitman had broken that goddam mirror.
Then he reminded himself he wasn’t superstitious; the kid had to handle all the bad luck by himself. So maybe that was his last lucky break.
All he knew for certain right now was pain. Everything hurt, like he’d been tuned up for days by a team of experts. He could barely keep from crying out as he forced himself to get up and run down the closed hall just off the walkway. You can go faster, he told himself, keeping his eyes fixed on the staircase at the end of the hall. The stairs went up; he could do that. He could make himself climb the stairs because if he didn’t move his ass, good ol’ Junior Hitman was going to put him out of his misery.
The stairs led up to another dark hallway with a closed door at the end. Lines of light showed all around it; Henry ran with everything he had and hurled himself at it. The door broke into pieces when he hit and he stumbled forward onto yet another staircase, shorter than the others and made of iron. He didn’t so much climb as he fell up the steps, then tumbled through an open doorway that spat him out onto the roof.
Sound was still so muffled that he wasn’t sure whether he was hearing birds or traffic or the high-pitched tone that meant part of his hearing was dying off for good. He staggered across the roof to peer over the waist-high barrier that ran along all four sides. A graffito informed him that someone named Monte had been there.
Good for you, Monte.
It was about a thirty-foot drop to the ground, he estimated; a fall he could survive but not walk away from. Fortunately there was a fire escape that ran from the roof to the ground. It was pretty old but it didn’t look like it was falling apart and Henry couldn’t see any places where it had come loose. Still, there was a fair amount of rust; it was a gamble as to whether it would hold his weight.
Or he could just keep dithering until Junior Hitman caught up with him.
“Oh, hell no,” Henry muttered. He stuck his sidearm into his waistband, slung the rifle, clambered over the barrier, and climbed down the first length of the fire-escape ladder. It felt solidly attached to the stone and so did the first platform but he didn’t linger. The second platform, however, swayed as soon as he stepped onto it and he all but flung himself at the next section of ladder.
He reached the lowest platform to find that part of it had pulled out of the wall, along with the upper part of the last section of ladder, something he hadn’t been able to see from his vantage point on the roof. He was still too high up to jump without breaking something. He’d just have to move so fast the goddam thing wouldn’t have time to come apart under his weight.
The platform groaned but he made it to the ladder. Large flakes of rust on its rungs stuck to his palms, rubbed off on his shirt, fell into his hair. The ladder itself was a little shaky but it didn’t start pulling away from the building until he was halfway down.
He froze, clinging to the rusty metal while he scanned the wall in the vain hope of finding some kind of protrusion he might grab onto and pull the ladder back toward the building.
And thankfully, he found it—a bolt slightly thicker than his thumb, sticking a few centimeters out of the stone at the level of his waist. As he reached for it, the rifle slid off his shoulder and down his arm to his wrist, but he managed to grab the bolt. It didn’t give under his touch so he wedged his fingertips under the head and pulled.
The ladder tilted back against the building. Henry breathed a sigh of relief, then looked up, half-expecting to see Junior Hitman taking aim at him.
But he wasn’t there—yet.
Still holding onto the bolt and attempting to keep his weight forward on the ladder, Henry tried going down a rung. Immediately, the ladder started to lean away from the wall; at the same time, the rifle slipped from his wrist onto his hand. Henry tried to counter the movement of the ladder by pushing forward with his body. The rifle slipped farther, from the back of his hand past his knuckles to the first joints of his fingers.
Henry groaned. He could let go of the bolt, flip the rifle strap toward his wrist and then grab the bolt again, although he would have to do it fast, before the ladder could tilt backwards. But the moment he let go, the rifle slid over his fingers and dropped to the ground while the ladder leaned even farther back than before. He braced himself, thinking the ladder would yank itself free and fall to the ground as well. Then there was a dull clang and the ladder stopped short; Henry had all of a second to see that it had caught on the platform above him before he lost his grip and fell the last several feet to the ground.
His breath went out of him in a painful whoosh. Damn, he kept getting the wind knocked out of him today. At least it wasn’t another grenade. Nonetheless, it took every bit of effort in him to roll over and get to his feet. As he reached for the rifle, something zipped past his hand and kicked up some dirt. Henry didn’t bother looking up before he dove behind a mango tree. Junior Hitman, right on cue—or maybe just ever so slightly late. Two seconds sooner and the round would have gone through his chest. After a few moments, he risked taking a peek around one side of the tree.
Gunfire shredded the foliage, took chunks out of the trunk. Junior Hitman was now coming down from the roof by way of the fire escape and shooting all the while. Henry decided not to stick around to see how he managed the last ladder. As soon as there was a break in the gunfire, he vaulted over the rough-hewn stone wall behind him and landed in a cluster of bushes on the other side.
Thorn bushes, of course—was there any other kind? Henry tore himself free and ran forward, into yet another square. Damn. Squares were definitely the big thing in Cartagena, squares and cafés, Henry thought. This one was paved with red clay tiles that were surprisingly clean and bright. Henry wondered who took care of them. Maybe all the café managers—Cartagena was a tourist destination, after all. Which was no kind of a damned thing to be thinking about right now. He looked around for something, anything that might help him—
Behind him a motorcycle engine suddenly roared into life. Henry felt his heart leap as he turned to see a small cluster of bikes parked under a mango tree between two buildings. A man was sitting astride one of them, strapping on a helmet while he chatted to a woman sitting in a car beside him. In spite of everything, Henry broke into a broad grin. The colors and design told him the bike was a Honda Enduro—just what he needed. It would go from road to off-road and back without missing a beat. Henry rushed at him, ignoring the pain in his legs and his ribs and every other part of his body.