Taking Chances (55 page)

‘He is here,’ he said, grinning as Chambers reached him.

Chambers felt the knots tighten inside him. Despite the many fraught and dangerous situations he had been in in his life he had never yet killed a man, and was now beginning to wonder if when it came to it, he could actually go through with it.

The few neighbours hanging about watched with small interest as four men in combat fatigues and carrying M60 machine-guns crossed the pavement and disappeared inside Gavira’s purple shop.

The door clanged shut behind them, leaving them facing a steep concrete staircase. They mounted swiftly and quietly, stopping at the third floor where a middle-aged, suited man opened a door and stood back for them to enter.

The room beyond was a medium-sized rectangle, with a half-dozen or more hanging rails stuffed full of vests and jackets of all sizes, colours and descriptions, pushed down one end. There were a couple of desks where a receptionist and secretary were seated, and beyond them through an open door were the machinists and cutters, apparently intent on their work.

Valerio looked at the middle-aged man who nodded towards a closed door in the opposite wall. ‘He is with a sales representative,’ the man said.

Valerio turned to Chambers. Chambers looked at him,
his
grey eyes glowing in his unshaven face, which was showing cruel signs of the stress he was under. He knew these men would think him a coward if he started to back off, but goddammit, now he was here he just didn’t know that he had what it took to kill. The shame he felt at this sudden weakness was as bitter as the anger, but right now he was finding it impossible to move.

Then the door opposite opened and a man, a stranger, came out. He took no notice of either Chambers or the armed officers, but went to a hanging rail and took down a smart brass-buttoned blazer. Then he re-entered the office, leaving the door wide open. There were two men inside, both seated, one with his back to the door, the other with his feet up on the desk. This man must have been able to see them, but that he showed no sign of it indicated he was one of the general’s men. He and his companion appeared relaxed and confident, enjoying their coffee and the importance they obviously felt at their need for bulletproof clothing.

‘This is one of our newer designs,’ the salesman was saying, as he took the blazer from its hanger. ‘It is a little expensive, but it is of excellent quality and with this Kevlar padding it will stop .357 magnum, .45 calibre or 9mm sub-machine bullets.’ He opened the jacket to reveal the inside. ‘These pouches here are for the steel plates which, should you choose to insert them, will protect your vital organs even against 7.62 NATO rounds. Perhaps you would like to try it?’

Molina put down his coffee and got to his feet. The other man walked behind him, helped him off with the full-length leather coat he was wearing, then took the blazer from the salesman. As Molina slipped it on, Valerio walked into the office.

‘Salvador Molina,’ he said.

Molina’s head snapped up. ‘What the–?’ He stopped, almost physically shrinking at the sight of the combat gear and heavy artillery.

‘We have someone here to see you,’ Valerio told him.

Molina swung round. His tall, muscular frame was dwarfed by the blazer, his wide-set eyes were slits of terror and confusion.

‘You remember me,’ Chambers said. ‘I’m the man you sent photographs. The man whose girlfriend you raped and murdered.’

Molina started backing off, eyes darting from side to side as he tried to assimilate this sudden change in his surroundings and work out who everyone was. His large face was yellowing with fear; his shaking legs stumbled into a chair. He was trapped and he knew it, but still wasn’t quite accepting it. He began reaching inside his jacket, then squealed and flung his arm against the wall as Valerio fired at his wrist.

‘What the
hell
?’ he cried. ‘Who are you? I don’t know who you are.’

‘He just told you who we are,’ Valerio reminded him.

‘I don’t know him. I’ve never seen him before in my life.’

A man behind Chambers fired a handgun into the wall next to Molina. Molina jumped. His face was starting to twitch.

‘You’ve got the wrong man,’ he cried. ‘Jesus Christ, look what you did to my hand.’ Blood was dripping from the wound and running into the sleeve. ‘What are you doing? Who the hell are you?’ he demanded, as Valerio delved inside the leather coat and pulled out Molina’s ID.

‘Just wanted to remind you who you are,’ he said, thrusting it at Molina. ‘We didn’t have any doubt. But you said you were the wrong man. Seems not. So, why don’t you start by getting down on your fucking knees and begging Señor Chambers here for your life, the way you made his girlfriend beg for hers,
cochino
!’

Molina’s eyes were flat with horror. The nightmares he’d had that the bitch’s boyfriend would one day find
him
were suddenly right here in this room. He knew already that he was going to die, and if he was then he had nothing to lose.

‘Beg nicely,’ Valerio advised him, ‘because all the decisions around here belong to Señor Chambers, and he doesn’t have a lot of reason to like you.’

Molina’s eyes darted back to Chambers. ‘Are you out of your mind?’ he sneered. ‘I don’t beg no scumbag
gringo
. Let him beg me. Let him ask me what she did those three days we had her. Let him get off on how we all fucked her and how she begged us for more and more.’ He put on a female voice. ‘“Oh Salvador, Salvador, please come and fuck me, Salvador. Oh, Gustavo, I love your cock. Give it to me Gustavo.” The bitch just couldn’t get enough,’ he snarled. ‘This asshole here wasn’t man enough for a
moza
like her, so we gave her what she wanted, up her cunt, in her ass, down her throat …’

He flew back hard against the wall as the first bullet hit him with all the might of a boxer’s fist. Seconds later, the echo of the gunshot still ringing fiercely in his ears, he looked at Chambers and grinned. ‘You want to hear how many of us fucked her?’ he jeered.

Chambers fired again. And again, and again.

Molina danced and jerked, grunted and twisted and attempted to keep on laughing. He was like a punchbag inside the blazer, the bullets hitting him with punishing force, but none could reach him. ‘Asshole! Lily-livered
gringo
cunt!’ he spat.

Chambers suddenly grabbed his throat, glared into his eyes, then head-butted him in the face, breaking his nose. The man screamed. Blood poured from his nostrils. Chambers stepped back and aimed his gun at Molina’s groin.

Immediately Molina’s hands dropped from his face, the terror of Chambers’s intention registering hard in his eyes.

‘You’ll never rape another woman in your goddamned life,’ Chambers growled. His heart was thumping fast, his loathing was tightening the trigger. ‘I don’t know how many women or children you’ve beaten, abused, or got working on the streets for you even now, but this is going to be for them. Every single one of the poor bastards you’ve corrupted, victimized, tormented, and killed. And when I’m through, when your cock is on the floor and your balls are all full of bullets, you’re going to pick your cock up and you’re going to fucking eat it, do you hear me? You’re going to shove it down your own fucking throat, the way you did to Rachel.’

Molina’s eyes were glassy with panic. He was shooting glances at the others, seeing if there was any help to be had. ‘He’s crazy!’ he yelled. ‘He’s a fucking madman. You can’t let him do this. She was just a whore. A no-good fucking whore, who couldn’t mind her own fucking …’

Chambers fired.

Screams tore out of Molina as he slammed back into the wall. Blood and urine burst from his groin. He clutched it frantically, his face twisting in shock and agony, his skin rapidly turning grey as he slid, whimpering, down to his heels. ‘Aaaay, no,
hijoeputa
!
Mis huevos
! No. No.’

‘I think my friend here means what he says,’ Valerio remarked mildly.

Shaking uncontrollably, Molina looked up at him. His breath was fast and shallow, shredding his voice as he struggled to speak. For the moment it was only possible to groan as he rocked forward in pain, jerkily fumbling with the end of his tie as though to bandage his wound. ‘You’ve got to stop him,
dios mio
. Please, stop him,’ he choked. ‘I am a man. He cannot do this to me.’

Valerio looked at Chambers, whose face was ashen and strained as he stared down at the man in loathing.

‘What did you do when Rachel begged?’ he demanded. ‘Did you give her any mercy, or did you just find ways of shutting her up?’

Molina was crying with his mouth open. Blood, mucus and saliva ran down his face. ‘You’ve ruined me, man,’ he wept. ‘You’ve ruined my fucking cock.’

Chambers watched him in disgust. His hands were shaking. His head was spinning. He couldn’t hold on to the gun. He hated what he’d done, but knew he’d do it all over again. ‘You’re going to jail, Molina,’ he snarled. ‘You’re going to jail for the rest of your fucking life where every pimp and pervert that ever crosses your path is going to do everything to you that you did to Rachel and more.’

Molina looked at him, his wild black eyes starting to dim as his body continued to shake and jerk in shock and pain. For a moment he didn’t understand what was happening. Was the
gringo
backing off? He wasn’t going to kill him? No eating his own cock? Holy Mother of God, yes, the
gringo
was backing off.

Chambers was walking out the door, vomit rising in his throat.

Valerio and the others were watching him.

Molina was slipping a bloodied hand to his waistband. Then, before anyone could move, he whipped out his gun and fired twice with a .44 magnum. Both bullets hit Chambers full in the back and mushroomed on impact.

Chambers flew forward, crashing into a desk and taking it over with him. Then the entire place erupted in gunfire, as every armed officer in range shot Salvador Molina with ammunition that no bulletproof blazer could stop.

It was only when the mayhem was over and the final echo of gunfire drifted into silence that Chambers allowed himself to move. Valerio came to stand over
him
, offered him a hand and pulled him to his feet. He was winded, cut and bruised and shaken to the depths of his being.

‘I think Señor Gavira’s vests are to be recommended,’ Valerio stated.

Chambers could barely hear him through the deafening aftermath of gunfire. He slipped off his vest and held it up to look at where the bullets had entered. The bitter stench of gunsmoke mingled with the meaty smell of torn flesh and blood. For a moment he blacked out, was revived with water, then dropping the vest he looked over at Molina. There wasn’t much more to see than a pile of bloodied clothes and the splash of brains on the wall. Again he felt his stomach rise, and turning aside he threw up on the floor.

General Gómez stepped out of his Mercedes as the dark grey Explorer came to a halt beside it. The wind was blowing a gale across the huge flat plains of the airport, driving bracken and brush to this far, empty corner.

Valerio got out of the Blazer and saluted the general. ‘Everything is in order, sir,’ he reported.

The general turned to watch the take-off of an American Airlines 757. He stayed with it as it soared overhead, and rose on higher and higher into the clouds. Then looking back at Valerio he said, ‘Did you tell him?’

‘That Hernán Galeano is dead? Yes, sir.’

The general nodded.

‘He said,’ Valerio continued, eyes straight ahead, ‘“Seems you just can’t get the chefs these days.’”

The general allowed himself a grin, then got back into the Mercedes and drove away.

Chapter 25

MICHAEL WAS STANDING
in the doorway trying to see past all the white coats that were gathered round the bed. Ellen was watching him, her eyes shining with forced humour and tears. She had regained full consciousness a few hours ago, after drifting in and out for the past day, coming around just long enough to murmur and hold his hand before slipping away again. In all that time he hadn’t moved from her bedside, except to visit the bathroom and make way for the doctors.

Now she had been breathing unassisted for long enough to start becoming agitated by the need to speak. To enable that the ventilator tube had to be removed from her lungs, which was what the respiratory therapist was now doing.

‘OK,’ the therapist said, ‘are you ready to cough?’

Ellen looked up at him and nodded. Her face was still frighteningly pale, but to see her eyes open and to watch her respond felt like such a miracle to Michael that he could barely contain his emotion.

‘Off you go then,’ the therapist instructed.

Ellen took a breath, then coughed. The therapist eased gently on the tube. There were murmurs of well done, and squeezes of her hands. She coughed again, and after two or three more tries the tube came free.

More congratulations. More coughing. Her lips were dabbed, the inside of her mouth was washed, then after
checking
the rest of her IVs the room finally started to empty.

Michael walked forward. She looked up at him, her eyes so anxious and full of love that he felt tears come to his own.

‘Hi,’ he said.

She smiled, then tried to speak, but nothing came out.

He leaned forward and kissed her softly on the mouth. There was still a tube in her nose, and all kinds of other attachments he had to be careful of, but to feel her lips beneath his, and the touch of her hand seeking his, was all that mattered.

‘I like the beard,’ she managed to croak.

He smiled and kissed her palm as she touched his chin.

‘You look terrible,’ she said. Her voice was so faint he could barely hear, but he laughed at that.

‘You look wonderful,’ he told her.

‘Can I see the baby?’

‘They said in a couple of hours.’

She looked disappointed. ‘Tell me some more about him,’ she said, rallying.

Michael grimaced. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘he looks a lot better than he did a week ago. A week ago he was a bit scary. He looks more human now.’