Excitement rushed through Jon. “I’ll be there in two hours or less.” He hung up and turned, almost laughing with relief. “Marty’s out of the coma!”
“Jon, that’s wonderful!” Randi flung her arms around his neck in a joyous hug.
He hugged back and swung her up off her feet.
From the sofa, Peter cocked his head, listening closelyhellip;. And jumped up. “Quiet!” He ran back to the window and leaned toward it, listening intently. His thin, muscular body was like a coiled spring, taut, nervous.
“Did you hear it again?” Randi’s whisper was tense.
He gave one sharp nod. He whispered back, “That same breathing whistle on the wind in the night. It was there. This time I’m certain. A signal. We’d better”
Above them, there was a faint clink of metal striking stone. Jon padded to the staircase and pressed his ear against the wall, feeling for vibrations.
“Someone’s on the roof,” he warned.
And then all three heard it: A strange sound, like a breathy whistle through the teeth of someone in restless sleep. Or perhaps from a lonely nightbird far away. Not just from below, but from above. They were surrounded.
Chapter Eighteen
The harsh, splintering sound of a door being forced open below signaled the attack.
Randi jerked her head up. “The stairs!”
Her weapon aimed ahead of her, she sprinted from the office, her blond hair flashing with white light as she bolted past Jon.
Peter’s leathery face was grim as he sped toward the shutters that covered the balcony door, snapping off lights as he ran. “Check the back windows.”
As gloom descended, Jon raced through the bedroom behind the office to the rear, while at the stairwell Randi peered down and opened up with her H&K MP5K in careful bursts of three. There was a scream from below, followed by the sound of feet and two wild shots. She held her fire.
In the sudden vacuum of sound, Jon checked out the windows. Beneath the safe house, the back patio appeared inhabited only by benches and plants awash in moonlight and shadows. He studied the area, looking for movement, but then heard a muted shuffle in the office behind him.
As he tore back to investigate, there was a choking gasp. Jon stopped just inside the door. Peter was crouched over the fallen figure of a man in black street clothes, wearing heavy black gloves, and a flat hat like those worn by Afghan mujahedeen. His head and face were completely hidden by a black balaclava.
“Glad you haven’t lost your touch.” Jon stepped past Peter to check the balcony. It was empty, except for a nylon rope that dangled from the roof. “Not particularly clever, but it got him inside.”
Peter wiped the blood from his old Fairbairn-Sykes stiletto on the attacker’s pants. “Fellow thought he was quiet as a dormouse.” He peeled up the balaclava, revealing brown, sun-dried skin, a beard trimmed short, and an expression of outrage. “I’ve got a plan. If I’m right about their plan, it should give us a chance.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
There was another burst of gunfire from Randi on the stairs followed by another cry of pain from below. Eerie silence again settled over the safe house.
Peter shrugged. “Then we’re probably cooked, as the goose said to the gander.”
Jon hunched down beside him in the shadows. “Tell me what you have in mind.”
“We’re in a box, true. But they’re in a bind, because we’ve shown sharp teeth, and the gunshots will bring the police. They know that. They must make their move soon. Any forced action leads to carelessness and thus errors. They attacked openly from the street level, which I think was cover to send our dead friend here”he gestured at the corpse at his feet”to hold the balcony, while others would come down from the roof to trap us between them and the bottom assault team.”
“So why don’t we hear a charge down the stairs from up top? What are they waiting for?”
“I suspect for a signal from the forward reconnoitererthis poor sod here. A weakness in their plan, and now we can take advantage of that weakness.” Peter put on the dead man’s balaclava and flat Afghan hat. He stepped out onto the balcony.
Seconds later, Jon heard the soft night-whistle signal once more. This time it came from Peter. Soon after, a door creaked upstairs. An old door, warped and damaged by the weather where it opened onto the roof, as was true of so many Madrid buildings.
Peter stepped back into the room. “That should do it.”
Jon ran into the room he had chosen as his bedroom, aimed his Sig Saner at his laptop, and fired. He was going on the run, and the laptop could hold him back. He sped back across the landing and told Randi, “Fire a burst, and get in here.”
Randi shot one volley, then a second, and bolted back into the office, where she joined Jon on the balcony. Peter was already climbing the rope, while Jon steadied it with both hands, one foot anchoring it.
Randi gazed down warily. The street was deserted, but she could almost feel the eyes of terrified innocents hiding in doorways and behind windows, poised to flee, but also drawn almost hypnotically to witness others’ violence and danger. It was that atavistic grip of the hunt, the ancient will to survive that lurked in the Cro-Magnon brain and influenced so many human actions.
Jon looked up and saw that Peter had reached the top. “You next,” he breathed into her ear. “Go.”
She slung her submachine gun over her back and jumped up onto the balcony railing. She grabbed the rope, andas Jon continued to steady itclimbed. She saw Peter extend his head over the roof parapet to make sure she followed safely. He touched his forehead in salute and vanished, his teeth white in a Cheshire cat grin. She climbed harder, faster, worried because Jon was exposed where he stood alone on the balcony, but it could not be helped.
Meanwhile, as Jon held the rope, he surveyed carefully all around for trouble. His Sig Sauer seemed very far away, although it was simply tucked into his holster. He looked up, noting Randi’s rapid progress. His chest tight, he saw what an easy target she was for anyone who spotted her. As he was thinking that, footsteps sounded: They were searching the rooms on the floor directly above him. They would be down to this floor any moment. And now the undulating wail of police cars had begun. Yes, they were heading in this direction.
With relief he saw Randi had disappeared onto the roof. He jumped up and climbed, hand over hand as fast as he could, his fingers and palms burning on the corded nylon. He had been lucky so far, but now he must be on the roof before the terrorists discovered their dead comrade, and before the police arrived. Second only to staying alive was not being caught by the police.
Alarmed oaths in Arabic came from inside the house below as the terrorists found the body of their comrade and the destroyed laptop. At that moment, Jon reached the roof. He gave a powerful final pull, surged over the edge, and flopped onto the shallow slope of red tiles, still holding to the rope to keep from sliding backward. With a tug, the rope moved, dragging him up toward the ridge line. He could see the top of Peter’s head. As he slid over headfirst and started to fall, Randi grabbed his shoulders to keep him from nose-diving onto flagstones, He shoulder-rolled up onto his feet and looked around. They were in a small, rooftop garden.
“Nice job.” Peter sliced through the rope, and the cut end rushed back over the rooftop. A shout of rage rose from below, followed by a despairing shriek and crash.
Without another word, the three agents leaped, grabbed the peak of the rooftop, and pulled themselves up to their feet Straddling it, they ran carefully, one after the other, Jon in the lead, jumping gaps and dodging birds’ nests as fast as they could without slipping and falling the six stories to the ground. They were five attached roofs away from the safe house when their pursuers burst up and out to the rooftop garden behind them.
As a fusillade of shots buzzed, whined, and ricocheted around them, they dropped flat on the other side of the incline, only their fingers exposed to the gunfire as they gripped the rough tiles that crowned the peak. Below, police cars were roaring onto Calle Dominguin There were angry Spanish shouts and running feet.
“¡Cuidado!”
“¡Vamos a sondear el ambiente!”
As the police consulted below, Jon was thinking about their attackers. “They’ll try to get ahead of us, break into any building they can, and find a way to get up here and cut us off.”