No reply.
“Liesel! I need you to focus.”
“I ... I can’t think,” she murmured, looking at her dead sister. “My head’s not right, Casp.”
Caspian looked around him, then grabbed a tablecloth from a fallen table and laid it over Sofie.
“I’ve got you, okay?” Caspian said. “Just follow me.”
He dragged Liesel low across the terrace, keeping below the sniper’s line of fire. He entered the restaurant and headed toward the far side. Behind the bar, he spotted a service door he assumed led to the kitchen. His pistol up, he opened the door and cleared the space. It was indeed the kitchen. It was empty. He guided Liesel through, past the prep stations, and into a corridor stacked with crates of sparkling water bottles. There was a delivery door at the end. Caspian, still with his pistol in his hand, opened it a crack and peeked out.
No one.
“Let’s move,” he said.
They stepped into the alley, Caspian leading the way. At the T-junction, Caspian paused. He checked left. Two police vehicles were parked less than sixty feet away, their emergency lights casting harsh blue flashes across the facades of the nearby buildings. Two officers were crouched behind the passenger door of the closest car, weapons drawn. Another, clearly injured, was seated next to them, his back resting against the front tire as a fourth officer was applying pressure to his leg.
None of the officers were looking his way.
Caspian tucked his pistol inside his waistband, then turned to Liesel. Her expression was steadier now. The raw shock of her sister’s death still lingered in her eyes, but Caspian could see she had pulled herself together and had regained most of her composure.
“Ready?” he asked her.
“Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter Fourteen
Port de Sóller
Mallorca, Spain
Maximilian Kross stepped off the sailboat. The suppressor on his CSR had done its job. But he couldn’t be sure no one had heard the faint thumps of the three subsonic rounds he had fired. Disassembled, his rifle now sat in his backpack, each of the three major components secured in its foam-cut compartment. But he kept his pistol—a Glock 19 holstered under his light jacket—within easy reach.
The firefight that had erupted across the bay between the police and Verena’s second two-man team had done him a favor. The chaos had thinned the crowd, and most of the dock had emptied except for a few curious onlookers. Kross kept walking, trying to blend in with what little foot traffic remained. He replayed the engagement in his mind, frame by frame.
His first shot had been perfect. He had dropped the woman in the green blouse with a well-placed shot close to her heart. He’d followed with a second shot, this one aimed at the woman in the pink blouse, a second later.
That was the moment everything had turned to shit.
The man with the blue shirt had moved at lightning speed. He had tackled the woman out of the line of fire just as Kross had pulled the trigger. The bullet meant for her had caught another man in a whiteshirt instead. Kross wasn’t proud of that, but he wouldn’t lose sleep over it either. In his line of work, a certain number of collaterals were to be expected.
Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about the man in the blue shirt. How had Blue Shirt reacted so damn fast? How had he seen it coming? There had been no muzzle flash to warn him and no sound to tip him off.
He acted on pure instinct.
Kross remembered what Verena had told him about Blue Shirt.
He neutralized two of my officers earlier today. Left them zip-tied on the beach, one of them with a sock in his mouth.
Whoever that man was, and despite his nonchalant demeanor, he was a trained operator. Of that Kross was sure.
Kross had remained in position, waiting, watching. He’d seen one of Verena’s two-man teams close in. Then the lead man had dropped, shot through the chest. The second had dived to the side, only to reappear with a hostage. Kross had taken his third shot when a civilian—probably the kid’s father—had charged in with a knife. Kross had aimed fast, and it hadn’t been a great shot, but at least his round had nicked the man and stopped him in his tracks.
But it hadn’t been enough, because at the same moment, the hostage taker had collapsed, picked off by Blue Shirt. Kross hadn’t seen him fire his weapon, but who else could have killed Verena’s men? That was when the first police vehicle had arrived, and instead of retreating, Verena’s second two-man team had panicked and opened fire on the officers.
Bunch of fools!
Kross, who had already fired more rounds than he had wanted to, had no intention of adding cops to his list of targets. That was how you ended up dead.
