Rogue Asset (Rogue Warrior Thrillers Book 11), page 15
He took out his phone and checked the building’s address on the map. Then he dialed the Padova Police.
“Polizei Locale Padova, pronto.” Padova police, ready, a bored-sounding dispatcher said. “What is your emergency, or can you hold?”
“I’m on the roof of our home.” Bob read off the address. “My wife and I are under attack from robbers. We have the hatch closed, but we’re trapped, and they have guns! Please, quickly! We need—” He cut the call off, then turned off the phone.
That should give any reinforcements a problem.
But it also meant they had to get clear somehow. He scanned the wide, square roof, but there was nothing really to see except the hatch and a water tank. He wandered over to it and around.
“Goran, come here.”
The bodyguard joined him. “Eh?”
Bob pointed to the reel of firehose attached to the side of the water tank. “You ever see a movie called Die Hard?”
Goran peered at him warily. “You are not possibly thinking—”
“I mean… I kind of am. How long do you figure that reel is?”
Goran walked over to the case. “It say twenty meters in ink print on it. But—”
“I’m not sure how much choice we have.”
“But, Bob—”
“We can tie it off, around both of us, and go over the side. The building isn’t much more than forty, fifty feet tall.”
“But, Bob… I am afraid of heights.”
“Me too, in that when you fall from them, generally, you die. Having said that… I’m much more afraid of bullets.”
To their left, a head popped out of the hatch. Goran spotted it in his periphery, turning quickly and bracing, the gun extended, as instructed.
The man popped back out of sight. “YOU CANNOT HOLD OUT FOREVER!” someone yelled in Italian. “BE SMART. COME DOWN BEFORE WE ARE FORCED TO COME GET YOU!”
Goran yelled back, “DO US A FAVOR, WOULD YOU? STICK YOUR HEAD OUT AGAIN SO THAT I CAN BLOW IT OFF.”
“Very convincing,” Bob said with an affirming nod. “Now… the hose.”
Goran looked genuinely aggrieved, like a man told the wait in line will be hours long. “But… I hate this. And if we die, I will be proven right.”
“Yeah… but at least it won’t bother you,” Bob suggested. He stepped up to the spool and grabbed the end. “I’ll unspool it to the edge. You go back over by the hatch and keep them entertained for a minute.”
He began rolling the woven polyester-and-rubber hose out, to a spot just above the fire escape. He returned to the spool and locked it off with what looked like about fifteen feet unspooled, then jogged back to the roof’s edge.
Goran trotted up to the hatch. “HEY! I THOUGHT SOMEONE WAS GOING TO COME SEE US, GIVE ME SHOOTING PRACTICE! WHAT HAPPENED?”
“OUR FRIENDS COME SOON. THEN YOU’LL STOP LAUGHING, YOU SONS OF WHORES! RAFFI LOST A TOE ON YOUR TRAP, BASTARDS!”
“Sure, sure,” Goran said. “Poor, poor Raffi. You are all brave boys. But whoever come first… he’s gonna get a bullet. Remember that.”
He trotted back to Bob. He peered over the edge, then almost immediately flinched away. “That looks much higher than fifty feet, that’s all I am saying.”
Bob tied the hose around both of them, under the armpits. He looped the trailing end between them and double knotted it. “This is probably going to hurt a little, so hold the main portion of hose tight. When we jerk to a stop, try to pull yourself away from the ground, as if climbing the hose, to help slow our momentum more quickly.”
They stepped up onto the edge. “I… I am not sure I can do this, Bob. Please…” Goran was flop-sweating, rivulets running down his cheeks, neck and forehead. “Molime te… there must be other way.”
Across the roof, the head popped out of the hatch again. Goran reflexively swung the empty pistol that way. The head ducked down and away slightly… but on not hearing a shot, their pursuer continued quickly up the ladder.
“Shit.” Goran held the pistol aloft for a moment.
“THEY ARE OUT!” the lead man screamed. “THEY’RE OUT OF AMMO!”
“Time to go,” Bob said. “Who knows? Maybe the fire escape will hold.”
Goran shook his head. “Fire escape is older than my ancestors. Fire escape… will not hold.” He closed his eyes and muttered a silent prayer, then started whispering, “Nez brige, nez brige.”
A bullet pinged off the concrete near their feet, then another, the other two men almost on the roof. “Only one way to find out,” Bob said, hurling them both sideways, into space.
23
Bob’s body slammed side-on into the old iron fire escape, Goran’s too, the other man facing him, eyes surprisingly wide open.
“Hnhh!” The bodyguard winced. “I think I crack rib. But… fire escape! It hold! It ho—”
There was a terrible shudder of tearing metal as the rusty old platform collapsed, the entire bottom dropping out, both men plummeting towards the ground even as the men above them opened fire.
The hose uncoiled, Bob twisting in midair to ensure his feet – and Goran’s – were pointed down as the building’s exterior wall rushed by. At the last second, he grabbed the hose and yanked upwards with all of his strength just as it ran out of length, snapping taut and leaving them dangling.
Shit. Bob looked down.
Miscalculated.
We’re twenty feet short.
The men above had sidearms and were roughly forty feet away, the hose swaying slightly, the remaining parts of the fire escape also offering some scant cover. It was out of realistic accurate range, given the conditions, but they were still, effectively, sitting ducks, Bob realized.
Need to get us down. Bob yanked at the knot, but their weight was pulling it tight. Shit. Hadn’t considered that. “Uh… Goran, buddy… don’t suppose you have a knife on you, do you?”
The lead pursuer was at the roof’s edge, firing at them, the half-hanging fire escape getting in their way.
Goran tilted his head and gave Bob his most withering, circumspect stare. “You must be joke. A knife?” He looked up. “Uh, Bob…”
“What?”
“We have other problem.”
Bob followed his gaze to the fire escape, which was creaking ominously, a single wrought-iron piece of rebar holding it to the wall.
“If that falls on us before we can get down…” Goran didn’t need to finish the sentence.
“Annnd… that’s why we need to get down, now! A knife, Goran! Quickly, before one of the assholes actually manages to hit us.”
Goran was trying to reach for his leg, the firehose under his armpit making it impossible. He tried using his stomach muscles to raise his legs. “It is in ankle sheath. Is just clip-on, but… I cannot reach.”
From a few blocks away, sirens grew louder.
The police would be there any second and find them dangling fifteen feet above the ground, outside a townhouse that had called in a burglary.
If the fire escape doesn’t crush us first. Good going, Bobby; brilliant move.
“I’m going to try to use my toe to get the sheath loose, then push it up your leg with my foot to your hand. But I’m only going to get one shot at this. If I drop it, or you drop it, we’re severely fucked. Okay? I’ll say ok, then ‘now’ as I make the move.”
Goran gave him a thin smile. “Thank you for… how you say in English? Pep talk.”
A bullet pinged off the brass fitting on the end of the hose, the pair beginning to swing again, from momentum.
Shit, that’s not helping.
He could hear the sirens getting closer.
Can’t be more than a half mile off.
Out of time.
Has to work.
“Okay… NOW!” He found the bottom of the sheath with his toe and pushed upwards. He had the knife pinned against Goran’s knee. “I can’t get it closer!”
Above them, the fire escape creaked loudly again, then dropped… but just a half foot, the rebar pulled half out of the wall, barely holding.
“Prokletstvo!” God damn! Goran muttered, staring up at it. He looked down again, stretching every ligament in his shoulder, straining with his fingertips. He found the black rubber grip, and he pulled it up carefully into his palm. “Got it!” He reached up and shook the sheath off the blade. Then he began to saw through the line above them.
“NO! NOT THE LINE, THE KNOT, THE KN—!” Bob tried to get the warning out, but it was too late, the razor-sharp blade slicing through the reinforced fabric, their weight doing the rest, the firehose ripping. Both men plunged to the ground and slammed into the sidewalk.
They began to clamber to their feet, Bob checking the left side of his ribs, which he’d broken many times before, worried about fractures.
In one piece, but there are going to be some bruises.
There was a mighty creak of twisting metal. Bob just had time to grab Goran by the collar and hurl them both to one side as the fire escape tore free from the building and crashed to the ground below.
They got up again, both men labored. “You save me,” Goran said, shocked at the near miss. “You save my life.”
Over parked cars, Bob could see a revolving blue police light less than thirty feet away. He grabbed Goran by the lapels and hurled them both sideways once more, into the wide bush at the base of the building.
A line of police cars sped by, brakes screeching as they turned down the alley. Bob waited until the last had passed. “You still got the knife?”
Goran nodded. He cut the knot binding them together, and they slipped out of the hose. The big Serb looked back towards the alley. “Roberto’s gonna be pissed about his BMW.”
“We need to get going,” Bob said, pulling the other man along. They could worry about Roberto’s temper later.
The hotel was only a few blocks away, and they weren’t being hunted, Caruso’s men clearly tied up by the sudden arrival of the law.
Before they could push open the lobby doors, Goran gestured to a bar patio a few doors down. “Bob… after that I need strong drink. Come. I buy.”
Ah… hell. His adrenaline was still firing, warding off the natural stress of what they’d just done. The last thing I need right now is the smell of booze. But the place looked tiny, and Goran had done his part, with both his knife and his willingness to face his fears. “Okay, big man, I’m buying,” Bob said.
“Damn straight,” Goran said in English, so smoothly it had to have come from a movie or something.
They got a table just inside the door, Bob wary of sitting out in the open so close to the scene of a fight. “I go call Roberto and tell him what happened. You order,” Goran said, walking towards the back of the room, by a large, open veranda window.
“What do you want?” Bob asked.
“Whatever you have.”
“So… a little Sanpellegrino Limonata, then? I don’t drink booze.”
Goran’s shoulders slumped, as if he could take little more. “Whiskey. Johnny Walker Black Label, two ounces, neat.” He wandered away, dialing.
They were alone aside from a pair of elderly tourists at the other end of the bar. Bob ordered the drinks. Goran returned a minute later.
“He is very angry. He suggests if Corrado Caruso was after us, you must have done something very bad.”
“Me?” Bob said. “Never met the guy.”
Goran looked a little pale. He accepted the Scotch from the barman and downed it in one quick swallow. “Another, with ice, please.” He handed the glass back. “He is particularly angry because he say he already hear from the Carusos, vowing vengeance. He says you cut off the toes of Corrado Caruso’s younger brother.”
Bob took a deep, cleansing breath and downed half the bubbly lemonade. The trap on the stairs. He’d gotten his wish, apparently. Just not the best target in the world. “Goran… you ever have a day when things just seem to go wrong all day long? Just… everything?”
Goran looked down, his expression sober. “I… think if you do not think fast back there, we are overwhelmed and very dead by now. And if you do not push me, we are both crushed to death by fire escape. I think you save my life, Bob. Twice. I think we are lucky despite all.”
“What now?”
“Roberto will come to pick me up in a few minutes. I tell him what really happened.”
“Sounds like he has his own agenda,” Bob said. “Make sure whatever you tell him, you also tell Alessandra. She seems to be less prone to losing her mind.”
“Whatever he has to say… I would not be here when he arrives, my friend.”
Bob nodded. He downed the cold lemonade in four swallows and set the bottle down. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“As rides go… that was one,” he said. “Let’s never do it again.”
24
Back in his room, Bob applied a numbing gel to the bruises on his side, double-bolted the door, then took a two-hour nap.
His alarm woke him just after nine o’clock. He spent twenty minutes exercising, concentrating on his midsection via sets of crunches and on his shoulder and arm strength via push-ups.
He opened up the laptop case on the circular breakfast table by the window. He took out the laptop, as well as a voltage converter “brick” that he could use for the computer and his phones.
He booted the laptop and retrieved the USB stick left by Adam Renton at the airport store in Chicago. He plugged it into the side of the machine, and it immediately launched a peer-to-peer encrypted connection via satellite.
Bob waited patiently for the three minutes it took Renton to jump onto the call, using it to type out his request and info list, knowing his job as a freelance handler could tie the other man up on incoming calls repeatedly.
“Adam.”
“You’re safe and sound, I take it?”
“More or less. Had quite the dust-up this afternoon, but for the most part everything’s playing out as expected. I’m going to send you a list of names in a second. I need a workup on the handful of guests listed, as well as a local gangster and a few others. I’ve also got a short video for you of an account login for my host. You might be able to crack her network access using it.”
“Check.”
“I also need blueprints, if possible, on a parish church and its attached seminary and convent, as well as a private estate in the country.” He ran down the specifics. “Anything you can find that might tip me to less-than-obvious security weaknesses or opportunities.”
“Check. And the gear?”
“Working well so far, I think. I’m about to check on the tags to see how they’re performing. If there’s anything awry, I’ll let you know. Assuming you can make use of the video, the smart glasses work pretty darn well.”
“Let me know,” Renton said. “Anything else? I’ve got a client on the hook in Jakarta…”
“Noted. Talk later.”
Bob ended the call. He double-clicked the desktop tracking app Renton had installed, and a map of Padova came up. He zoomed out until he could see the map of the surrounding countryside. A half dozen red blips were concentrated at the estate.
But one was moving rapidly towards the city.
Alessandra.
Bob checked his battered old Seiko wristwatch. Nine forty. Where would she be going at this time of night? If they were the creatures of habit they appeared, the families would be in mid-dinner right about then.
Instead, she’s taken a trip into town. Has to be for a reason.
There was something off about her, Bob knew. Between her decision to bring in a rank outsider, the obvious contempt she had for her “love” Johnny and her efforts to constantly rein in both dons, Bob couldn’t help but feel that the mob princess was exhibiting a rare degree of control over everyone around her. It reminded him of how she’d paused her speech at Grant Park, deliberately timing their walk to finish at their exact starting point with nothing left to be said.
She’s pulling strings. Me included. She’d made a point of telling him they’d all be staying at the estate for security reasons. And now she’s breaking that the moment I’m out of view.
He felt sore, but alert after the sleep. His rib, still cracked from Chicago, ached. He’d been off Percocet for three months, since Washington State. Bob went over to the luggage stand, unzipped his suitcase and took out the small bottle. Has to be safe by now. He knocked back one of the small pills, then walked over to the bathroom sink, took a drink of water and washed it down.
He changed out of the grubby clothing from that afternoon, into a fresh pair of medium wash denim jeans, a green golf shirt and a new pair of Adidas Stan Smith sneakers. He’d seen enough baseball caps around Padova in two days to make it an option, so he retrieved his new Detroit Tigers cap from the suitcase to finish it off.
He pocketed his wallet and phone and headed for the door. There was an e-bike rental place down the block; the city was small enough that it probably wouldn’t take him more than twenty minutes to get somewhere. Unless she was coming into the city just to drop something off, there was a good chance he’d get to her location before she took off for the estate.
He headed for the door, checking his watch again. It was nearly ten o’clock.
Bob opened the door. The policeman on the other side had a fist raised as if about to knock on it. He stood back, surprised. “Signore Robert Smith?”
“Yes.”
“Signore Smith, we must inform you that we have a warrant for your arrest.” He handed Bob a letter. “This letter outlines the charges and your rights while under arrest. You are being arrested under a charge of sexual violence. I will further inform you now of those rights…”
The pre-arraignment holding cell was large, modern, clean, devoid of anything save for four beds attached to the walls, a sink, a showerhead on the ceiling high above, and a toilet. There was a plastic button inset into the wall by the door to call for a guard, but he doubted it could be pried loose, or of much use.
