Avery raised his aim, waiting for the next target to appear.
He saw another shadow come across the floor, heard the heavy breathing, but the intruder, stopping in the doorway before the corpse of his partner, became cautious and didn’t advance into the suite beyond the cover of the fridge. Instead the shadow lingered in place and lifted an arm up, seemed to reach for something.
Then Avery caught a glimpse of the hand making an overhand pitch past the fridge, launching a grenade into the kitchen.
The Arges HG86 mini-grenade, the size of a tennis ball, bounced against the wall and hit the floor where it rolled further into the suite. It was followed by a second and — Avery’s eyes widened — a third grenade.
The second grenade landed past the island, rendering the sturdy slab of granite useless as possible cover. Avery pivoted on the balls of his feet and took off. He sprinted out of the kitchen, into the living room, his eyes scanning for cover. He aimed for the square-shaped wooden table. Its surface was about an inch thick and solid, and it was the sturdiest object in sight.
Just beyond the table, Pablo Munoz was sprawled on the floor, face down in a pool of blood, with the back of his head opened up. There was a single hole through the glass of the terrace doors, with spider web cracks around it.
Avery launched himself at the table, grabbed onto it, and flipped it over onto its side. He threw his body behind the overturned table, ducked, and folded into a tight ball. He tucked his head in, covered his organs, and prepared to be ripped to pieces.
The grenades kicked off, one after another, like loud firecrackers, the noise amplified in the close confines of the suite. There was the terrifying sound of shrapnel blasting into the ceiling above Avery and the walls around him. The sliding glass doors shattered behind him. He felt the heat of the blasts and smelled the burning sulfur stench of the smoke. The table top shielded him from the tiny, jagged metal pellets cutting through the air. Most of the fragments became embedded in the thick, solid wood in front of him, while a few of the larger ones went right through. Avery felt the wood splinter against his face, taking a couple through his cheek, and he felt something hot and sharp go through his left shoulder, slicing through the meat of the deltoid, and he cried out. Pieces of glass hit him and showered the carpet around him.
And then quiet and calm settled over the smoky, wrecked suite.
There was tonal ringing in Avery’s ears, and everything sounded muffled, as if he had cotton stuffed into his ears. There were frantic and frightened voices from the neighboring suite. A woman screamed hysterically for help, and doors slammed and more voices shouted in the hallway. The paper-thin walls were shredded.
As Avery bolted onto his feet, painfully lifting the Glock two-handed and swinging it around over the top of the table toward the entrance to the suite, to track the inevitable enemy entry, he heard the impact of a shot bore through the underside of a table right where his head would have been less than a second ago had he not been in the process of jumping up.
It came from behind him, but he hadn’t heard the subsonic round whiz past his head.
Fucking sniper!
Avery sidestepped away from the table and ran right. Every muscle in his body tensed as he envisioned a set of crosshairs tracking him. As he reached the bedroom, he just glimpsed through his left peripheral someone entering the kitchen from behind the fridge.
Crossing the threshold into the bedroom, Avery saw that instead of a solid exterior wall, there were more sliding glass doors for terrace access, as well as conceivably providing the sniper line of sight into this room as well.
Avery turned left, wanting to get as deep into the room as possible and find cover on the floor behind the bed or in the bathroom, but the sniper was ready for him, and he barely made it two steps.
He heard glass crack behind him and felt the blunt blow strike him center in the back against his armored vest with the force of a sledgehammer. His whole body reeled from the blow, the shockwaves seizing his upper body. He staggered and fell over onto the carpet.
Pushing through the pain, he rolled to the right, behind the queen bed and hopefully out of the sniper’s view. He tried to reach a hand around his back, but he couldn’t reach the spot where he was hit. Despite how badly it hurt, he didn’t think the bullet went through. If it had, it’d be in his lungs or through his spine right now, and he wouldn’t be fumbling around on the floor.
He rolled over and lay flat on his back, trying to catch his breath.
Aguilar stepped off the elevator onto the thirty-third floor. His first observation was that Castillo didn’t man his post in the lounge area and was nowhere in sight, but Aguilar also didn’t see a body, blood, or signs of a fight.
He advanced quickly down the hallway with his hands tucked into his jacket pockets. His right hand held the SP-21 Barak with the safety disengaged. Doors opened on either side of him, and guests poured out and rushed past him. One man tried to stop Aguilar and tell him in Spanish that there were gunshots and explosions and to turn around, but Aguilar ignored him, his eyes scanning hands for weapons, and continued forward.
Nearing room 3314, Aguilar saw the lean, tough looking Latin man standing in the open doorway, and caught a glimpse of the wrecked, smoky room inside. Maneuvering around another group of hotel guests, Aguilar saw the pistol the man held against the outside of his leg, and the tattoos signifying his membership in Los Perros, a local street gang. The man’s eyes locked onto Aguilar, instinctively recognizing a fellow predator when he saw one, silently daring the Colombian to try something.
There were too many civilians present. Aguilar didn’t want to risk engaging. He averted his gaze forward and continued walking, aware of the gang member’s eyes on his back until he rounded the corner.
Avery heard broken glass crunching beneath boots, followed by a broken lamp kicked and sent rolling across the floor, stopping short against something solid. On his back, Avery held onto the Glock, but he didn’t know what he was going to do. He was in no shape to move quickly. That sniper would take him the minute he lifted his head above the bed.
“Are you in here, Avery?” Jon Castillo’s voice called out from the living room. He waited a couple seconds. “If you’re alive, then slide your gun across the floor, put your hands in the air, and stand slowly up. I’m supposed to take you alive. But if you don’t answer me, I can’t take the risk that you’re not playing dead, so I’ll toss in another couple grenades. First one goes right over the bed. Then I step in and toss the next into the bathroom.”
Avery’s mind raced through his options.
He could either get shredded by the grenades or make a move against Castillo and likely get his head blown off, either by the sniper or by Castillo. He couldn’t place Castillo’s voice accurately enough to try putting bullets through the wall dividing the bedroom from the living room. He couldn’t hold out for Aguilar, who might be dead by now, for all he knew.
He heard the high pitched blare of sirens on the street below. He estimated they had maybe five minutes at most before cops swarmed the floor.
“This really isn’t necessary, Avery, but I can’t stand around here all fucking day. Last chance.”
Avery set the Glock down and gave it a shove, sending it skittering several feet across the carpet and into the center of the room.
Leading with his Uzi, Castillo entered the bedroom while the Glock was still in motion. He came around the bed and stopped, towering over Avery and pointing the Uzi at him. Castillo held up his free hand high to signal the sniper through the terrace door.