Skeleton Coast

Cabrillo led her into the apartment building. The interior was dim but the heat remained oppressive and the smells were nauseating—the stink of poverty that was the same the world over. There were four apartments on the first floor; one of them housed the crying child. Juan paused outside each door for a moment to inspect the cheap locks. Without comment, he took the stairs to the second floor.

At the landing he heard what he’d most feared, the incessant buzz of flies. The drone rose and fell like a tuneless song. The smell hit a second later, something that carried above the background stench. It was an odor he’d know on a primordial level even if he’d never smelled it before. It was as if the human brain could discern the decomposition of one of its own kind.

His ears and nose led him to a back apartment. The door was closed and the lock didn’t look damaged.

“He let his killer in, which means he knew him.”

“The pilot?”

“Probably.”

Juan kicked the door. The wood around the handle was so brittle that it shattered. The flies hummed angrily at being disturbed and the smell was thick enough to coat the back of their throats. Sloane gagged but refused to shy away.

The room was filled with pale light diffused by the grime covering the only window. There was little furniture—a chair, a table, a single bed, and a packing crate used as a night table. The overflowing ashtray on top of it was made from a car’s hubcap. The walls had been whitewashed thirty years before decades of smoke had turned them a murky brown and they were spotted with dark stains from i

Luka lay on an unmade bed wearing a pair of dingy boxer shorts and unlaced boots. His chest was soaked in blood.

Quashing his own distaste, Juan inspected the wound. “Small caliber, twenty-two or twenty-five, and at close range. I can see powder burns.” He looked at the floorboards between the bed and the door.

Drops of blood formed an easily recognizable trail. “His killer knocked at the door and fired as soon as Luka answered it, then pushed him back on the bed so the body wouldn’t make any sound when it fell.”

“Do you think anyone in this building would care if they heard it?”

“Probably not, but our guy was careful. I bet if we’d stuck around and inspected the bow ru

Juan checked every inch of the apartment, looking for anything that might give him an insight into what was behind the murder. He found a stash of marijuana under the kitchen sink and some dirty magazines under the bed but that was about it. There was nothing hidden in the few boxes of food, and nothing in the trash can but rancid cigarette butts and Styrofoam coffee cups. He patted down the clothes lying on the floor next to the bed and turned up a few local coins, an empty wallet, and a pocketknife. The clothing hanging from nails on one wall was empty. He tried raising the window but it was painted shut.

“At least we confirmed he’s dead,” he remarked grimly as they headed out of the apartment. He closed the door behind them. Before leaving the floor Cabrillo took a detour to lift the tank lid on the communal toilet at the end of the hall, just to be thorough.

“What now?”

“I suppose we could check out the chopper pilot’s office,” Juan said with little enthusiasm. He was confident that the South African had covered his tracks well and they’d find nothing.

“What I’d really like to do is go back to my hotel, take the longest bath in history, and sleep for twenty-four hours.”

Juan was at the top of the stairs and saw the light coming in through the wrecked front door flicker for a second as if something or someone had just entered the building. He pushed Sloane back a pace and drew the Glock.

How could I be so stupid, he thought.They must have figured out something went wrong with their attack on the Pinguinand on their murder of Papa Heinrick . Anyone investigating what was going on would certainly show up at Luka’s apartment eventually, so they staked it out.

A pair of men came into view, both carrying wicked little machine pistols. They were immediately followed by a third also carrying a Czech-made Skorpion. Juan knew he’d get one with the first shot but he’d never get the other two without the stairway turning into a slaughterhouse.

He backpedaled silently, keeping a hand on Sloane’s wrist. She must have felt the tension in his grip because she didn’t speak and made sure her footfalls were as quiet as possible.

The hallway was a dead end and in about five seconds the assassins would have them trapped. Juan turned and made for Luka’s apartment once again. He crashed through the door. “Don’t think about it,”

he said. “Just follow me.”

He ran for the window and dove headlong into the glass. The pane exploded around him, daggers ripping at his clothes. Just outside Luka’s apartment was a corrugated metal shed roof he’d noted when he first tried to open the window. He crashed onto it, smearing the skin of his palms and nearly losing the Glock. The steel was scalding hot and his flesh burned. As he slid he rolled himself over onto his back; when he reached the edge he kicked his legs over his head and did a tight backflip. His landing wouldn’t earn any Olympic medals, but he managed to stay on his feet as shards of glass cascaded off the roof like icicles.

He paid no attention to the old man mending a fishing net in the shade of the roof. A moment later he heard Sloane scrabbling across the metal. Her body was launched off the edge and Juan was ready to catch her. The impact drove him to his knees.

At the same instant dime-sized holes were punched through the roof, the sound of a machine pistol shattered the malaise of the street. Bits of hemp were thrown into the air as the big net absorbed a dozen rounds. The fisherman was well back from the roof ’s edge so Juan didn’t have to worry about him. He took Sloane’s hand and together they raced to their left to what looked like a busier street.

When they broke out from under the porch bullets stitched the ground all around them. The Skorpion was designed for close-in work and the gunman was too hopped on adrenaline to tame the notoriously inaccurate weapon. Juan and Sloane found temporary cover behind a ten-wheeled truck.

“Are you okay?” he panted.

“Yeah, just sorry for you that I’ve been eating like a pig since I arrived here.”

Cabrillo chanced a peek around the back of the MANN truck. One of the gunmen was inching his way down the roof, covered by his comrades crowding Luka’s apartment window. They spotted Juan and raked the truck with autofire. He and Sloane raced toward the cab. The tall cargo box hid them from the window, allowing Juan to step from the front tire onto the long hood and then onto the cab. He had his pistol ready and took the shot before the gunmen upstairs could see him in this unexpected position. The range was only twenty-five yards and Juan compensated for the difference in height. The bullet slammed into the gunman on the roof, tearing a chunk out of his right hand. The Skorpion went flying as he lost his grip on both it and the corrugated sheeting. He tumbled down the roof, slamming into the ground hard enough for his breaking bones to be heard across the street.

Juan ducked out of sight before the other assassins could pinpoint his location.

“What now?” Sloane asked, wide-eyed.

“One of them will stay in the window to make sure we don’t make a break for it while the other takes the stairs down.” Juan looked around.

While this was never a busy part of town, the road was utterly deserted now and in a way looked like it hadn’t been occupied for years. Trash fluttered in the gutters and he expected to see tumbleweeds blowing by at any second.