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With effort the Englishman fought his way to a half-prone, half-sitting position against the wall. “Despite my best efforts. I was bloody ready to go out in a blaze of glory.”
“And instead, you’re just bloody.”
Fitz sniffed.
Zoya moved up next to Court; she, too, was relieved to find Fitzroy animated. She said, “I heard an explosion.”
Fitzroy jerked a hand towards the window, and both Zoya and Court ducked a little, because the Glock pistol was still in the man’s hand and his motion waved it in their direction. “Oh…sorry,” he said, handing the gun off to Court. “I looked out this window when I heard a drone. There it was, flying right over the fountain and heading down towards the veranda.”
Zoya said, “I was in the kitchen then. It was probably coming for me.”
“Right. Well, I shot the bugger out of the bloody sky, didn’t I?” He touched his face and confirmed he was still bleeding from a half-dozen cuts there. “Caught some of the blast from up here, but it didn’t take me out.”
Court now began checking Tudor’s pulse, though the man’s eyes were open and unfixed.
“Don’t bother, lad. Jack’s free of this mortal coil.”
“He say anything?” Court asked, doubtful he’d get a satisfying answer.
“He wrote down two words.” Fitzroy looked up at Court now, over to Zoya, and he flashed a sly smile. “Martina Sommer.”
“Holy shit,” Zoya said. “The German asset in Singapore?”
“Yes. Now, someone please help me up.”
Court and Zoya both did so; Fitzroy was in considerable pain.
Zoya hugged him. “I’m glad you’re alive.”
Fitzroy shrugged. He seemed irritated by his survival. “Always dreamed of a valiant death. When am I going to get that opportunity again?”
Court answered this as he again looked out the window. “In about two minutes if we don’t get the fuck out of here, so stop feeling sorry for yourself for surviving and let’s go.”
They helped Fitzroy along, his broken ribs slowing the process markedly, and then he said, “You know, if I’d died tonight, you wouldn’t be so bloody rude to me.”
Court said, “The girls need their grandfather as long as they can keep him.”
Fitzroy smiled back. “You’re right, lad.” He began to reach into his coat, but when Court turned away and walked over to Zoya, he just followed along.
Court said, “We can’t drive out of here. We have to walk on the beach to the north until we get to the hotel zone.”
Zoya agreed; they raised their weapons and began heading back for the stairs.
•••
Twenty minutes later the three of them were half a mile to the north of the mansion, walking through sand and seagrass, leaving the sound of dozens of sirens behind. Fitzroy had called his team of Portuguese security officers with orders to secure a car by any means necessary and then come down from Soliman Bay to collect them, and the bright glow of lights to the north told them they were just minutes away from blending in with the foreign tourists of the Tulum Zona Hotelera.
Zoya and Court both walked with limps. The adrenaline had left their bodies, and now they felt the myriad aches and pains of falling down stairs, scrambling and tumbling and fighting for their lives. Court had the additional discomfort of first-degree burns on his hands and face, though in the low light of the moonlit beach he wasn’t able to see how badly he’d been singed.
Fitzroy, even with what he suspected to be multiple cracked ribs low on his right side, and dozens of cuts on his head, face, and neck, somehow seemed to be in the best shape of the three, at least when he was moving upright, not turning left or right. Court had warned him that if he felt the need to cough he should stifle it, because coughing with broken ribs could drop him to the ground in agony.
They moved mostly in silence, but finally Court said, “That was damn good work back there, Fitz. Getting Tudor to give up the name of his agent.”
“Wasn’t hard. For me, I mean. He was on his last gasp, I could see it, so I begged him for the woman’s name, and I promised him you’d use it to avenge his death.”
“I’ll do just that. At least we got something out of this night.”
The Englishman reached into a trouser pocket, took out a plastic bottle, and downed a couple of orange pills.
