Not Jesus Henao Abadia.
The person that Rickard stood poised to gut with his knife was Abadia’s mistress: Jimena Antonia Grajales.
Chapter 35
Rickard studied the woman lying in the hospital bed. She in turn stared back at him, and there was barely a trace of confusion at his appearance. Her taut mouth spoke only of anger and one eyelid trembled in an effort to hold it in.
‘I guess that you weren’t expecting me?’
‘No,’ said the woman. ‘I wasn’t.’
Seven years ago Jack Schilling riddled Jimena Grajales with over half a dozen bullets. Three of those rounds had caused superficial injuries, but the remainder had torn through major organs and had nicked her spinal column. By all rights she should have been dead just like her lover, Jesus Abadia, and their child. Yet the woman had survived. And despite having lost the complete use of her body from a point just below her diaphragm – meaning she must suffer regular renal dialysis, a colostomy bag and a permanent catheter – she had clawed her way back to a position of power in Abadia’s organisation.
Cesar Calle might be the name at the head of the cartel, but Jimena was the iron hand that commanded it from this hidden chamber. It was Jimena who had sought Rickard’s services, when after seven years the rage tearing at her had become all-consuming. The need to avenge her child’s death was such that it twisted all reason. She ordered all of the team responsible, and their loved ones, murdered in the most vicious fashion. Joe Hunter, she commanded, should be left for last. Of all the men involved, Jimena held him most responsible. If Hunter had shot Abadia, she would not be this bed-bound freak. Her child would still be alive. Hunter was supposed to suffer as much as she had.
‘Why
are
you here, Rickard?’ Her voice was stronger than expected coming from such a frail body and sounded exactly as it had when passing instructions to him via his phone. It held little trace of an accent, and even less of the shock of having watched her latest lover cut down by Rickard’s bullets. ‘I told you to disappear for a while.’
Rickard grunted. ‘Told me?’
‘Yes. You were being paid a lot of money to do as you were told.’
‘That was never the way I saw our arrangement. You
told
me nothing. You asked and I delivered.’
‘That is not quite true.’
‘I did everything I was asked.’ Rickard dabbed at a trickle of blood on his forehead.
‘You failed to kill
his
woman.’
‘Ballard wasn’t his woman.’
‘That’s beside the point. Your instructions were to pose as Joe Hunter. I accept that you did that quite well. You framed him for murder, but that was supposed to force him into running for his life. Hunter did not run, though; he came after you. And instead of concentrating on your prime directive, you chose to go off on a private vendetta against your wife.’
‘My wife betrayed me. She led
your
people to me.’ Rickard laughed at that. ‘She needed punishing.’
Jimena’s breath sounded like a whistle in the back of her throat. She looked confused at his words. She stirred, attempting to sit straight in her bed. ‘I didn’t send anyone after you.’
‘Three men died in my apartment,’ Rickard crowed. ‘Explain that.’
‘I can’t. All I know is that your actions attracted the notice of the very people you were supposed to kill, but you didn’t do that.’
‘I haven’t finished yet.’
Jimena shook her head as though at a recalcitrant child. ‘You were attracting too much attention. That is why you were told to disappear. I
did
send a team to kill Joe Hunter because I lost confidence in you.’
‘The ones at the diner? They didn’t do a very good job.’
She shrugged. ‘They paid for their failure. The one who survived? He won’t survive the night . . . I have already arranged that.’
‘You have a low opinion of those working for you.’
‘Only when they displease me. You didn’t find Bryce Lang and ultimately you failed to kill Hunter.’
‘Like I said: I haven’t finished yet.’
‘Oh, but you have.’ She lifted a hand from under the sheets and waved it at Cesar Calle and his henchman lying on the floor. ‘This severs our contract, Rickard. You have led Alvaro Silva’s men to my home, and you have murdered the man who was financing you . . . it is over.’
‘It doesn’t work that way. Only I say when it’s over.’ Rickard put down his assault rifle and pulled his blade from his belt. ‘Not an ugly whore like you.’
A bullet had stroked her face, blinding her in one eye, and cutting a furrow up her forehead to her hairline. She was permanently disfigured, but only when viewed from one angle: from her untouched side she was still incredibly beautiful. Not that he saw her that way. Jimena’s beauty might hold power over the likes of Cesar Calle, forcing the man to do her bidding like her personal lapdog, but to him she was just a hopeless bitch in need of putting in her place.
Deep in his gut he felt the stirring of the serpent. It was not a supernatural creature that infested him, but the expression of the rage and fury he held for all women. It was the culmination of the seed planted there when as a child his mother had abandoned him and left him in the hands of his brutal and sexually deviant stepfather. He had suffered terribly and for that he hated all females. And he had a desire to show that he was not someone a woman could disregard like he was garbage to be thrown in the gutter.
The serpent coiled and demanded release.
He lifted the blade.
Jimena laughed at him.
Rickard paused. ‘I’m going to kill you and you laugh at me?’
‘Do it, Rickard. You will be doing me a huge favour.’ Jimena allowed her hand to flutter across her body and down to her paralysed legs. Then she reached up and touched the horrendous scar on her face.
Death is not the greatest of evils; it is worse to want to die, and not be able to. Rickard remembered the words that Jimena had once quoted to him. He believed they were the words of the philosopher Sophocles. ‘What is this, bitch? Reverse psychology. You think that if you invite death I’ll spare you?’
‘You will kill me or one of Silva’s men will do it. I don’t care. I will be with my child again.’ She glanced again at the wreckage of her body, then calmly at Rickard. ‘I will be whole again.’
‘That’s debatable,’ Rickard said. ‘Considering that I’m going to cut you to pieces.’
Jimena peered up at him with her one good eye. In its dark depths there was resolution. ‘Just make sure that you do it right this time. I’ve suffered enough: don’t leave me the way you left your wife.’
‘My wife’s dead.’
A smile tugged at Jimena’s lips. Again it was as if she was patronising an obstinate boy.
Rickard’s eyes puckered. ‘I shot her.’
Jimena coughed out a laugh. ‘I was shot, too, and much worse than Alisha was. You failed to kill her the way you failed everything else.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘Why would I?’
‘Because you’re a deceitful bitch, just like every other woman I ever—’ Rickard noted the subtle movement of Jimena’s other hand beneath the sheets. ‘What have you got there?’
He leaned down, readying the knife.
And that was when he heard the clipped command from behind him.
‘Drop the knife, Rickard.’
The metamorphosis that came over Jimena’s features was shocking. She went from calm resolution to insane hatred in a heartbeat. Without looking, Rickard knew who had just entered the room. Jimena twisted, surprisingly fast for one who’d appeared so feeble all this time, and the gun that she had concealed under the sheet switched from aiming directly at his gut to the man in the doorway behind him. Jimena shrieked and fired at the same time.
Bullets punched through the sheets, making a series of small black holes in the material. Then they sped at supersonic speed past Rickard. He was already reacting, spinning away, but he wasn’t quick enough and felt like he’d been kicked in the ribs. His feet caught under the bent knee of Cesar Calle and he stumbled, falling over the dead man to sprawl on the floor. Rickard immediately rolled over, going for his own gun, as he stared incredulously back at the woman.
Jimena was still screeching like a wildcat. She tore her hand from under the sheet, lifting out a Smith and Wesson Sigma, and reared up to get a cleaner shot at her target. Instinctively Rickard knew that the gun had a capacity for seventeen rounds; enough were left that Jimena was a real threat to his ongoing existence.
But so was Joe Hunter.
Rickard looked for the man, but couldn’t immediately see him. Maybe Jimena had killed him and he was on the ground, or he’d fled back out the door. He turned back to Jimena, just as she brought her Sigma round towards him.
It would have been more fulfilling to use the ceramic blade, but he was no sentimental fool. He fired. One-two-three bullets in a close group. Every one of them struck the target: Jimena’s chest. She was flung back against the pillows and her mouth opened with a rush of air and blood forced from her lungs. Then her head dipped and she didn’t move again. The Sigma fell from her limp fingers, bounced once on the mattress then clattered to the floor on the far side of the bed. In the brief moment that he paid her any notice, Jimena looked at peace. Bitch!
Rickard came to his feet.
He looked to the door. Beyond it he could hear the rattle of a machine gun. The fight now sounded like it was in the house. That, of course, was the least of his concerns. Joe Hunter was much closer by. He just couldn’t see . . .
Hunter came up over the top of the bed, a SIG Sauer in hand. He looked unharmed and wholly intent on killing.
But Rickard wasn’t one to stand round and wait for death.
They both fired at the same time.
Chapter 36
Jimena Grajales hated me with every atom of her being.
The instant she saw me in the doorway the switch on her sanity flicked over and hit meltdown.
It kind of blew my chances of saving her life.
Sounds crazy, I guess, but even as I realised the true identity of my enemy I couldn’t dredge up the minutest grain of enmity towards her. She’d been terribly wounded, had lost her child, and it was all because I hadn’t had it in me to shoot when I had the chance. As misguided as that was, it wasn’t so surprising that she hated me so much. She’d ordered the other members of the hit team killed, had extended that order to include their families: I should have hated her equally. But I didn’t. All I saw was a horrifically injured woman grieving the loss of her baby boy. In that moment I’d have given up my life to save hers.
Then she began shooting at me.
I saw the tug of the gun barrel on the sheet and I dropped low. Her bullets punched the wall above my head, scattering particles of plaster on my shoulders. She was struggling with the gun and I went to my knees, under her line of fire, dumping the machine gun which had become an encumbrance and pulling out my SIG. I still didn’t want to shoot her, but that choice was taken from me in the next instant. I heard three almost simultaneous cracks of a gun and Jimena went silent. Her Sigma clattered on the floor next to me.
Snatching a glance under the bed, I could see movement directly opposite me. Rickard had gone down, tripping over a corpse, but he was already coming back to his feet. I was only a beat behind him. I stood up, my gun extended, and fired.
Rickard fired too.
I felt the tug of his bullet as it struck my SIG. Damn well near tore my hand off as it ripped the gun out of my grip. That was either the best or the luckiest shot I’d ever witnessed. My bet was on the latter.
My bullet hit Rickard high in his left trapezius muscle and he twisted with the impact, so that his second shot went over my head, struck the light fixture in the ceiling and plunged us into half-light.
I looked for my gun. Couldn’t see it. Maybe it was damaged beyond repair. The Sigma was a few feet away. So was my assault rifle where I’d dropped it. There was no time for any of them; I vaulted up on to Jimena’s deathbed, then through the air at Rickard.