Page 342 of The Black Trilogy

“Okay, look after her. We won’t be too much longer.”

Nick and I made a last check around the north end of the building. The south wing was nicely ablaze, and smoke rolled into the air, darkening the rising sun. Where were the two Ramos brothers? An eerie quiet had descended over the compound, the loudest sound the crackle of the building flames.

My radio burst into life and Alex’s voice came into my ear, as steady as if he was out for an afternoon stroll.

“I asked one of these gentlemen where our remaining two targets were.”

This was Alex. For “asked,” read “tortured until he told me.”

“And?”

“Diego flew off in his helicopter yesterday evening, destination unknown.”

“There was no helicopter in the hanger,” Jack put in.

Marvellous. “And Carlos?”

“The man claimed he hadn’t seen Carlos for months.”

What? Diego said Carlos was home just a few days ago. “That can’t be right.”

“I tried a second one. He bled out quicker, but the result was the same. Diego told him Carlos moved out.”

What the fudge was going on? I wanted to kick something. With steel toecaps. All this time and effort, and we were missing two of the main men.

As the team exited, one at a time, staying low, I glanced at the far end of the building and saw the flames spreading, window by window. There was poetic justice in that, with Hector about to be cremated as Black had been.

I cursed politely as I took in the wreckage of the compound. There wasn’t any more we could do there, and with the state of Dan’s leg, I didn’t want to hang around. Felipe, who seemed to be having most of the bad luck, had also been shot in the shoulder.

“I’m calling the choppers in,” I told everyone. “We leave as soon as they arrive.”

Team Blackwood had survived mostly intact. One Ramos was down, and we could regroup and come back at the remaining two. The trip hadn’t been an entire disaster, but that still didn’t stop me from feeling utterly demoralised.

While we waited, the uninjured swept through the buildings one last time, apart from the burning ones, obviously. We found nothing. If men had gone to ground, we’d never find them now. Our plan had called for the element of surprise, for us to hit them before they had time to think about hiding. Six steps into the jungle and they’d be invisible.

The thwap-thwap-thwap of approaching rotor blades sounded over the tree line, and I looked up to confirm it was our two Hueys approaching. Yep, right on time.

Nick and Jed picked up Dan and carried her to the nearest helicopter. She’d barely murmured, but her face contorted in pain. I took one final, lingering look around before I followed them, my eyes pausing on the doorway of the house. Hector’s funeral pyre. His mausoleum. A monument to the dead.

Or was it? A shadow darted across in the haze.

Were my eyes playing tricks?

I kept watching, and nothing moved but the smoke, but my inner nemesis wouldn’t let me take any chances. If there was someone left alive, I wanted to know who.

“I’m going back in.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Nate told me, and of course I ignored him.

Radio chatter came across the airwaves as the first Huey closed its doors and took off with both of the injured on board, then Mack’s voice sounded, loud and clear.

“Eduardo’s got a doctor waiting for Dan and Felipe.”

At least that was one problem solved. I preferred to avoid visiting the local hospital if it could be helped. The bribery system was more complicated over here, and I wasn’t sure I’d find anyone as tame as Dr. Beech.

Now, about that shadow…

I’d got as far as the lounge when I sensed movement behind me and whirled around, gun up. I’d been right; I wasn’t alone.

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