‘Perfect,’ said Leavey. ‘I suggest we move the gear into the Erinia then hit the Hacienda when they least expect it.’
Even with his pulse racing and his brain working overtime MacLean had to admire Leavey’s coolness under pressure. He was sometimes more like a machine than a man, cool, calculating, always weighing the odds and usually always right. He had just killed a man and yet he was already thinking ahead like a chess player. At that particular moment it seemed like the most ridiculous thought on earth but MacLean suddenly realised why Leavey had never married. He was invulnerable. He had no weakness, he didn’t need a partner to complement his own being because he was already complete. John Donne had been wrong; Leavey was an island.
MacLean asked what Leavey had in mind when he heard a scuffle behind him and whirled round to see the man who had been unconscious spring up and catch Maria from behind. A knife had appeared in his hand and the point was being held at her throat. MacLean could see a thin trickle of blood start to escape from where the point had broken her skin. Without saying anything, the man, his eyes burning with malice, began to sidle towards the door. He held Maria in front of him while the others could only look on.
There was a moment when he had to move his knife hand away from the girl’s throat in order to open the door but it was over too quickly for Leavey or MacLean to exploit it. The door opened and the man backed out into the lane, using Maria as a shield. At that moment the stray dog in the lane decided to try its luck in Jose’s kitchen. It became entangled in the man’s legs and he overbalanced. Maria broke free and Leavey made to go for him but Jose, being nearer, beat him to it. Maria closed her eyes as she saw her father raise the meat cleaver and bring it down in a scything arc. Now they had two bodies to get rid of.
Jose brought his pick-up truck into the lane. It was agreed that Leavey would accompany him to get rid of the corpses at a quiet spot along the coast while MacLean returned to the apartment to clear it out and take their belongings to the boat in the marina.
At six o’clock, he was aboard the gently bobbing cruiser, waiting for Leavey to return. He remained below in the cabin, lying on one of the bunks and looking out through the porthole at the hypnotic white speck up in the mountains he knew was the Hacienda Yunque. He sat up smartly when he heard a noise up on deck.
‘It’s me,’ said Leavey’s voice. He came below and sat down on the bunk opposite.
‘Everything OK?’ asked MacLean.
‘No problems,’ replied Leavey.
‘What now?’
Leavey propped himself up on one elbow and said, ‘I suggest we wait until it gets dark and then we go back to the Hacienda. They won’t expect us to do that. They’ll think we’re either dead or on the run.’
‘I agree,’ said MacLean. ‘Willie must have found something big or there wouldn’t have been this much fuss.’
‘And that means Cytogerm,’ said Leavey. He swung his legs round and up on to the bunk and said, ‘It’s all or nothing time, Sean. We go in there armed and we come out with Willie and the Cytogerm.’
‘With our shields or on them,’ said MacLean ruefully. They shook hands on it.
At ten that evening they left the boat, wearing dark clothing and carrying guns. Leavey had the Colt Cobra that he had smuggled into the country in his specially designed camera case. MacLean carried the. 38 calibre Smith and Wesson that he had taken from one of the men at the cafe. They had decided to climb up to the Hacienda on foot since there would be no place to leave a car on the winding mountain road without it attracting attention. If they travelled on foot they could avoid the road altogether and scramble up the slopes of the Sierra.
After an hour’s hard going they paused for breath, leaning their backs against a large boulder to look back down on the lights of Fuengirola. Far out to sea they could see a freighter making for the Straits of Gibraltar, its navigation lights winking under a canopy of stars. All seemed serenely peaceful until MacLean felt the suggestion of a cold breeze on his cheek. He touched it and remembered the same feeling on the balcony of their apartment. ‘There’s a storm coming,’ he said.
Leavey got up to move off. ‘We don’t want to catch our death of cold do we?’
They resumed their climb.
Another half-hour and they reached the perimeter wall of the Hacienda, approaching it at the south-west corner where it was furthest from the road. Leavey scaled it first and lay horizontally along the top for a few moments before whispering, ‘All clear.’
MacLean climbed up to join him and they dropped down silently into the orchard.
The lights of the Hacienda blazed out from the cliff face like a beacon in the night as the two men flitted from tree to tree in a zig zag approach to the house. A roll of thunder overhead obscured any noise they might have made and the first large drops of rain began to patter among the trees. A fork of lightning ripped open the night sky and momentarily lit up the entire cliff face.
Leavey signalled that they make for the west corner of the building and MacLean raised his hand in acknowledgement. There were thirty metres of open ground to cover before they reached the safety of the shadows and they were right in the middle of it when lightning lit up the world around them. Both flung themselves to the ground and lay there for a few agonising moments before darkness cloaked them again. The smell of the wet turf under his face evoked for MacLean memories of the night of the fire.
They reached the comparative safety of the lower wall of the house just as the rain began in earnest. Water cascaded off the cliff face. The rock overhang made sure that it missed the Hacienda but it fell like a curtain in front of it. Leavey and MacLean were soaked to the skin by the time they reached a small, wooden door, which they surmised must lead to the cellars. Without any windows for reconnaissance, it was a moment of high tension for both of them when MacLean pulled it open, gun in hand.
They stepped on to a landing at the head of a flight of metal stairs, which led down to a lit area some ten metres below. MacLean found a catwalk to their right and indicated to Leavey that they should investigate. They crawled out along it until they could see down through ceiling pipework and observe the floor below. They were high in the rafters of what appeared to be the Hacienda’s boiler house. Below, they could see four men in overalls tending the machinery. MacLean counted four electrical generators, an oil-fired boiler and three steam sterilizers. They moved further along the catwalk and found one more man; he was sitting at a control desk with banks of dials and switches at his fingertips.
Leavey tapped the back of MacLean’s leg and signalled that they should go back. There was no room to turn round on the narrow catwalk so they had to crawl backwards on their knees and meet up again on the landing just inside the door.
‘What do you think?’ asked Leavey.
‘Looked pretty ordinary to me,’ said MacLean.
‘Me too,’ said Leavey. ‘Willie must have found something else.’
‘Let’s try the other side of the building,’ suggested MacLean.
They slipped out into the night again and moved in a crouching run to the west corner of the building, staying in the shadow of the wall. The wind was howling along the front of the building and they knew that they would meet the full force of it when they turned the corner. Even so, it took them by surprise and forced them to drop down and crawl along on their stomachs, presenting as little surface area to the wind as possible. They were close to exhaustion by the time they’d crawled along the entire front of the Hacienda and reached the shelter of the car park.
‘This is where Willie started out from,’ said MacLean when he had regained his breath. ‘Let’s try to retrace his footsteps.’
The initial choice was easy; there was only one door at that side of the building and it led to a short corridor, dimly lit by one bulkhead lamp. Two further doors led off the corridor; one had a glass panel at eye level, which revealed a flight of stairs leading up. MacLean indicated silently to Leavey that he would investigate. He pulled out his gun and held it at the ready in his right hand as he opened the door and slipped inside.