Randi said nothing. The street lamps had been shot out, and the two police cars were parked side by side in the middle of the street, their headlights on bright, doors wide open. “It’s the Policia Municipal,” she decided as the men ran behind the cars for protection, shotguns pointing out and around like porcupine quills, while one grabbed his radio phone and shouted into it. “He’s probably summoning shock units of the Nacionals or the Guardia Civil antiterrorist units. We should be out of here when they arrive. They’ll have too much firepower, and too many inconvenient questions.”
“I’ll second that,” Peter agreed.
Randi listened. “They say they’ve got a witness who saw our attackers, and the police have deduced terrorists may be behind the trouble tonight.”
“That’ll take some of the heat off us.”
Jon saw a head pop up above the balcony railing on the safe house five buildings back. The terrorist fired a burst from an Uzi. Jon quickly pulled himself up so that his armpits were caught on the ridge, aimed carefully, and returned fire. There was a yelp and a curse as the terrorist pulled back inside the safe house, his arm bloody.
“They’ll try to hold us here until their buddies get ahead of us,” Jon said.
“Then we best be on our way.” Peter’s pale gaze swept the area. “You see that taller apartment building at the end of this row? If we can reach it and climb up to the roof, it looks as if it leads to those two other apartment buildings. We may be able to get to the next street from there, where it’ll be easier to lose them.”
The heads of two terrorists rose above the wall that rimmed the safe house’s roof garden. Jon, Randi, and Peter immediately dropped back behind the ridge, and the terrorists laid down a line of withering fire. But as soon as there was a pause, the trio rose again, returned fire, and when the terrorists ducked, the agents jumped up and ran. They had almost reached the taller apartment building that was their goal when another hail of bullets and polyglot shouts burst out from the rear. Gunshots slammed into the building’s wall, shattered windows, and raised shouts of terror from within the apartments.
“Inside!” Jon made a headlong dive through a shattered apartment window. Two terrified women in nightgowns sat bolt upright in twin beds and screamed, sheets pulled tight against their throats, eyes wide in horror.
Randi and Peter dove in after him, and as Peter rolled to his feet, he bowed to the frightened women and apologized in flawless Castilian, “Lo siento,” as he rushed after Randi and Jon, through the apartment, and out into a broad corridor. One of them was leaving a trail of blood drops.
They passed the elevator and ran up the fire stairs, not pausing to check for wounds until they reached a fire exit that opened onto a wide, flat roof.
“Who’s hurt?” Jon puffed. “Randi?”
“It looks like all of us, especially you.” She pointed.
There were long, bloody furrows on Jon’s left arm and shoulder under his ripped shirt and a narrower slash on his left cheek where he had gone headfirst through the shattered window with its jagged wedges of glass. Randi and Peter had lesser cuts, a few bruises, and a couple of bloody creases from the gunfire.
While Jon ripped the left sleeve off his shirt and Randi used it to bind the deeper gashes on his arm, Peter was scrutinizing the street below where it intersected with Calle Dominguin.
Randi studied the long, broad roof behind them as she bandaged. “We could hold off an attack from where we are, but there’s no point. Our situation would only get worse, especially once more police arrive.”
Peter spoke from the parapet, still looking down: “It’s going to be a dicey thing, one way or the other. Looks like the buggers are circling the block to head us off, and there appears to be enough of them to cover all exits.”
Randi cocked her head, listening. “We’d better do something quick. They’re starting up after us.”
Randi finished wrapping Jon’s wounds, and Peter ran from the parapet to join them. Randi pulled open the roof door. Three masked terrorists armed with an Uzi, an AK-74, and what looked like an old Luger pistol were halfway up the stairs. In the lead was a burly ruffian with a black beard so great that it sprouted out from beneath his black balaclava.
Without hesitation, Randi squeezed off a short burst of her MP5K, sending the fellow falling back onto the two behind him. One of them, in baggy jeans and a T-shirt as black as his balaclava, leaped over his fallen comrade, firing up as he climbed. Randi cut him down, too, while the third tripped over his own feet as he frantically escaped.
Peter broke into a run. “The next roof!”
They sprinted across the building, jumped the short space to the next one, and ran on. A series of shots sounded far behind from the third terrorist, who had braved coming out onto the roof and was now blazing away with the old Luger with little chance to hit them at this distance even if they had been standing still.
“Damn!” Randi skidded to a stop, staring ahead.
Three roofs away, on a building on the street that paralleled Calle Domingum, four figures had emerged. Their silhouettes, rifles cradled in their arms, stood out against the stars.
“Listen!” Jon said.
Behind them on Calle Dominguin, heavy vehicles had arrived. Now there was the clatter of booted feet jumping down to the pavement, of officers bawling orders in Spanish. The antiterrorist units were on site. Seconds later, that soft sighing whistle seemed to come from nowhere and hang suspended in the night air. Before the signal had faded, the four silhouettes on the distant roof spun around, ran back to the door, and were gone.
Peter looked behind. The terrorist with the Luger had retreated, too. “The bloody thugs are bunking,” he said, relieved. “Now all we have to do is get past the police. Which, I’m afraid, will not be easy, especially if they really are the antiterrorist Guardia Civil units.”
“We’ll go separately,” Jon decided. “A change of clothes would be helpful.”
Peter eyed Randi. “Especially the lady’s black tights and all.”
Randi turned her cool gaze on him. “The lady will take care of herself, thank you. Let’s agree where we’ll go next. For me, it’s Paris, Marty, and my CIA station chief.”
“I’m for Paris, too,” Peter said.
“Where will you go, Jon?” Randi asked innocently. “To report to your army intelligence bosses?”
Jon could hear Klein’s voice in his ear: Tell them nothing. He said, “Let’s just say I’ll catch up with you in Brussels, after I’ve been to NATO headquarters.”
“Right. Sure.” But Randi smiled. “Okay, after we do what we have to, we’ll meet in Brussels, Jon. I know the proprietor of the Cafeacute; Egmont in old town. Drop a message there when you’re ready. That goes for both of you.”
They said “good luck” all around. Randi ran lightly toward the building’s rooftop exit door, a stunning figure in her tight black working clothes and pale blond hair. The men watched her, then Peter jogged toward the fire escape, his lean, lined face inscrutable. Left alone, Jon walked to the parapet and stared down. The antiterrorist units, with their heavier weapons and flak jackets, were spreading out. There were no alarms, no shooting, no activity of any kind beyond their methodical dispersal. As for the terrorists, they appeared to have vanished.
Jon ran across the rooftops to the farthest building he could reach and took the interior stairs down. At each door, he paused to listen. On the third floor he found what he wanted: Inside, a television was on. He heard the volume decrease, a window creak open, and a man’s voice shout down to the street, “¿Que paso, Antonio?”
A voice called up in Spanish, “Didn’t you hear all the shooting, Cela? There was a terrorist battle. The police are all over the area.”
“Despueacute;s de todo lo ocurrido, eso nada mas me faltabd. ¡Adios!”
Jon heard the window close and waited for the man to speak to anyone else in the apartment. But the only sound was of the television, the volume again raised.
Jon knocked sharply and announced in peremptory Spanish, “Policia. We need to speak with you.”
He heard swearing. Soon the door was flung open, and a heavy man in a dressing gown with a potbelly glowered at him. “I been home here all”
Jon pressed the muzzle of his Sig Sauer into the man’s stomach. “Sorry. Inside, por favor.”
Five minutes later, dressed in a pair of pants and a sports jacket from the man’s closet, a white shirt with the collar open, and the dressing gown over everythingall far too big in the waistJon tied and gagged the Spaniard and left. He sauntered down the stairs to the street, where he joined a group of alarmed residents who were watching the police unit as it stopped before the apartment building. In their dark combat gear, the officers rushed in, leaving two behind to interrogate the onlookers. After a few questions, the pair sent one resident after another back into their buildings.