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The man looked at him like he was crazy, but only until Lancer reached down into his pants, removed his entire money belt, and handed it over. Kincaid would be making three million for today’s hit; passing this guy ten grand meant nothing.
The Cuban had seen all the hundreds in the belt when Lancer opened it down at the van, so he snatched it greedily, shoved it into the front of his waistband under his yellow guayabera, and flicked the safety off his weapon.
To the American he said, “The Mexican watching us…he say everything okay?”
Lancer had been cut off from Zero One for the past thirty seconds, but he just nodded. “All good. Fourth door. Go get him, I’m right behind you.”
FIFTY-TWO
With gunfire raging all around, Chris Travers shoved his head back hard against the headrest, braced his legs, and then slammed the yard truck into the three-meter-high fence at sixty-eight miles per hour. The engine in the tractor was massive despite the small cab, but the added momentum of the steel box in back containing fifty thousand pounds of copper wire helped propel the big vehicle through easily.
Most of the razor wire went above the terminal tractor and the big container behind it, and the fence simply tore and flattened.
Travers found himself instantly bouncing over a small dirt embankment, out of control, and then he slammed on the brakes, downshifted, and skidded onto a street that ran parallel with the container terminal.
Pace spoke up now. “Cops coming from the south! Go right! Go right!”
“Everybody with me?”
The men counted off over their headsets, and Travers was relieved to hear all five call signs.
The tractor swerved hard to the right, rising up on its left tires as it did so, though the chassis and container in back stayed on the ground.
He drove down the road with half his tires in the air for a few seconds, then crashed back down on the tractor’s suspension.
“Punch it!” Pace shouted, but the Ground Branch team leader’s foot was already stomping on the gas.
Travers immediately said, “We’re clear, Overwatch. Get your ass out of there!”
•••
The Cuban launched forward, spinning off the walkway and through the doorway of the fourth room, his gun out in front of him.
Lancer advanced, as well, just five feet behind.
Gunshots rang out in the apartment.
At first Lancer thought the Cuban was wasting the CIA officer, so he started to follow him in, but he pulled up short just as the baldheaded man lurched back out of the doorway, twisting, wet crimson across his yellow shirt, his arm lowering and the gun dropping from it.
More gunfire cracked, the Cuban’s head snapped back, and Lancer dropped to a knee, then reached through the doorway and opened fire without looking.
The Cuban tumbled over the railing of the walkway and fell the three stories to the concrete quay next to the water.
The window glass right above Lancer shattered as more gunfire came from the apartment, and Scott Kincaid wished like hell the drone pilot hadn’t hung up on him, because he really needed eyes on his target right now.
•••
Jim Pace emptied his little pistol’s seven rounds, then ejected the magazine and loaded a fresh one from his back pocket. Simultaneously he retreated into the kitchen, heading for the back door and getting himself out of the line of fire, although the walls in this shit building didn’t look like they were solid enough to slow down a lawn dart.
Once he’d reloaded he dropped back to his knees and put his hand on the kitchen door. He knew it would lead out to a catwalk that looked out above the artisans’ market, and he also knew that he and the men trying to kill him had already made a lot of noise.
Still, getting away from Lancer was key, even if it meant ending up in a Cuban prison and creating one hell of an international incident for the United States.
But just before he opened the door, he stopped himself and looked up. Suddenly, he had another idea.
•••
Court made it to the top of the stairwell, passed a dead Cuban police officer with a bloody knife wound in his sternum, then opened the door to the walkway. Just as he was about to spin in the direction of the gunfire, Zoya’s voice came through his earpiece.
