Jim Randal's voice broke over his own, 'T. K.! For God's sake, help me!'
'Good enough?' the woman asked.
'Let me talk to him.'
'There's a parking lot at the end of the
Alsterchausseestrasse
- close to the Aussenalster. You can talk to him there, if you bring the lawyer.'
Malloy repeated the street name and then said, 'I'll find it.'
'Good, because you've got twenty-five minutes to get here. After that. . . Special Agent Randal is a dead man.'
St. Pauli District, Hamburg
Sunday March 9, 2008.
'Helena Chernoff has Jim,' Malloy told them. 'She wants to make a trade.'
'When?' Kate asked.
'Now.'
'You think she's on the level?'
Malloy wasn't sure, but a trade made sense. 'Ohlendorf obviously knows a lot about her. I expect she's desperate to get him back.'
'How did she know you kidnapped Ohlendorf?' Ethan asked.
'Contacts inside the police force, an accomplice with a police scanner. . . maybe it's on the radio and TV by now. Who knows? Point is she knows, and she wants him back.' He looked at Josh Sutter. 'You up for this, Josh?'
'You couldn't keep me away if you tried,' Josh Sutter answered.
Malloy nodded. He looked at Kate, who looked at her husband.
'We're in,' Ethan said. No hesitation either - and getting nothing for it but all the trouble Helena Chernoff could throw at them.
'I expect the best way to handle this is to make the trade and walk away,' Malloy told them. 'Trouble is I can't do that. I need to take this woman out.'
'She's going to have backup,' Kate answered.
'Then we'll take them out too.'
'Look,' Ethan said, 'she lost people tonight, and she's putting this thing together on the run. She
might
have a couple of people, maybe three still on their feet. It's not going to be like taking out an army.'
'Just so we don't risk losing Jim,' Josh said. He was clearly anxious to get moving.
'I'll drop Boy and Girl about a mile from the exchange and keep you with me,' Malloy answered. 'Once you and I make the trade,' he nodded toward Kate and Ethan, 'they'll take their best shot at Chernoff.'
'That means we lose Jack Farrell,' Kate answered.
'Farrell doesn't matter now. The important thing, after taking out Chernoff, is to get Ohlendorf back. I think he can tell us what we need to know.'
They found a pair of night vision goggles for Josh. Whilst they were looking for a vest for him, Ethan snagged the three hand grenades from his and Kate's arsenal and all the spare ammo clips he had for the Kalashnikovs. They reloaded their weapons, and then got their guns neatly stowed under their slickers.
That finished, Malloy cut Ohlendorf loose, got him bundled up in a coat and then cuffed him. Ohlendorf still wore a hood, but that wouldn't be a problem. Except for some ambient light from various windows the courtyard was dark. Besides, in this district, a man wearing a hood and handcuffs almost seemed a part of the milieu.
Malloy, Kate and Ethan took up their headsets but left them off for the moment. At this point they needed to think about saving their batteries.
'Everybody ready?' Malloy asked. When they had all checked their equipment and nodded their assent, he pointed to Josh. 'You run interference and make sure no one comes through the storage room.'
'How do I do that? What do I say?'
'Flash your badge and say,
Raus.
If that doesn't work, shoot them. Once we back out of the parking spot, lock it behind us, we might need to come back.' He passed the key to Josh. To Kate, 'You're on point. Make sure no one is coming through the passage while we're getting him into the car.' To Ethan, 'I want you and Kate in the backseat. Keep Ohlendorf out of sight.'
Once Josh had secured the stairway, Kate and Ethan followed, Malloy coming up last, guiding Ohlendorf with his voice. Outside they moved quickly to get into the car. Kate was already on the opposite side of the Toyota covering the passageway. Ethan held the Toyota's back door open for Malloy and Ohlendorf. Sutter, as instructed, came out the back of the building and stood at the front of the car waiting for Malloy to pull the car out so he could lock the parking slot.
When Ohlendorf hesitated, Malloy thought the lawyer didn't want to get in the car. He had no idea where he was, of course, and he might have thought by making a scene he could get help. Then, as Ohlendorf dropped toward the pavement, Malloy felt a live round of ammo thump into his armour. There was no sound accompanying the impact. Whilst Malloy was falling, three more rounds hit within an inch of the first.
'SNIPER!' he called as he tumbled back to the pavement.
Kate was on the opposite side of the Toyota when Malloy shouted. Next to her was Dale Perry's second parking slot, empty. Beyond this was a narrow passage to the street. She heard the bullets hitting flesh and armour as Malloy fell with Ohlendorf - hit or finding cover, she could not tell. She saw Ethan jump in surprise and swing his left arm, like a man who had just been stung. Then he dropped as several rounds smacked his vest. Kate dived toward the building, but she was exposed and three rounds drove into her back. A fourth scorched through the right thigh.
With her Kalashnikov trapped under her jacket, Kate had no choice but to draw her .45. She heard footsteps in the passageway and realised they were coming in fast for the kill. She hit the first in the chest and heard the thump of armour. He flinched and spun. The second was aiming his weapon when she rolled and fired three rounds under the blast of his shotgun.
The last was a headshot. She finished her roll and came under the first assailant, who was bringing the point of his weapon down on her. Before he could pull the trigger Kate emptied her gun into his groin.
Ethan saw a man running at him from the centre of the courtyard. With his AKS-74 still trapped inside his slicker and his left wrist numbed with pain, he reached inside his jacket for his holstered Colt.
He heard Kate's silenced .45 punching out rounds, but the man kept coming, then the blast of a shotgun close to her. Ethan rolled as the gunman approaching his position fired his shotgun. He felt the sting of buckshot in his legs and heard the sound of both guns echoing inside the square as he brought his .45 up. He fired once, but the shot was wild. He fired a second time. This drove into the gunman's vest but failed to drop him.
The gunman pumped a new round into his shotgun and was taking aim when Ethan put the sights on the man's head and squeezed off a third round. The shotgun jerked up and exploded harmlessly. The man dropped.
Chernoff hit Ohlendorf and Malloy with two quick bursts from her silenced M-4, weaving the sights in a delicate figure- eight. As both men fell, she released the trigger, dipped the sights into Brand, and then squeezed down again, taking the point of the weapon across to his wife. She finished the clip on the FBI agent, then slapped in a new clip and flipped the selector to single shot.
Everyone was down: wounded, cowering, or dead. Chernoff had warned her people to go for Kate Brand and her husband first, and they moved in even as she was finishing her clip.
Ethan Brand got the man in front of him with three shots. Chernoff was lifting her weapon for the kill shot when she realised the second team was down as well. She turned her scope on Kate, but felt the sting of masonry hit her face. Whilst she was processing this, a second round cracked past her face, colliding with a vent directly behind her. Ethan Brand had found her.
She pulled back before he scored a lucky hit and moved across the roof, coming forward carefully. She heard Kate Brand call out, 'I'm going after her. Cover me!'
Chernoff put her sights on Kate just as Ethan opened fire on her new position. She heard a round crack beside her as it passed. The second bullet slammed into her armour and sent her rolling back for cover.
Malloy came to a seated position as the shotguns exploded. He was still trying to get his Kalashnikov free when Kate dropped her first clip, reloaded her .45 and started running across the lot. As she went she called to them to give her cover.
Watching her move, Malloy realised she had been hit. She took cover at the centre of the lot and then moved on whilst Ethan unloaded his .45 at the roof. Malloy used the cover to check on Ohlendorf. The lawyer was dead. He scrambled toward the front of the car and found Josh Sutter down, breathing hard, and obviously scared.
'I'm hit,' he said.
Kate ran over the boot and across the rooftop of a sports car. She jumped for a piece of gothic trim some twelve feet off the ground and caught a ridge of stone in both hands as her boots slammed into the plaster wall. Above the trim the building offered blocks all the way to the roof. The only problem was that her wound was hot. The pain was starting to drain her strength. She got her fingers over the ridge of the first block and pulled herself up toward the next as she got her feet on the trim.
Whatever nausea she had felt clawing at her she forced away with sheer rage. She reached higher, settling her fingers into a mortar joint between two large stones. She brought her good leg up until she had settled her toe into another mortar joint and grabbed for the next block. She pushed herself up quickly. Chernoff was not going to stick around for the police to catch her, and Kate didn't care to give her another chance at them. Just under the roof, she reached back and grabbed the guttering. This kind of stuff was notoriously fragile. It could sag or break without warning. Still, she had no choice. She had to trust it or retreat. She pulled down hard. It seemed solid enough. The Germans were good about keeping things repaired even in a city's red light district. At least that was what she told herself as she swung out from the wall and dangled for a moment some twenty metres over the pavement.
The guttering groaned but it held. She snatched her heavy combat knife from her boot and took it into her teeth. Now she pulled her chin up to the edge of the guttering and held herself with one hand. Taking the knife she slashed it down through the tiled roof and anchored it into a solid piece of heavy plywood.
Four storeys below, she heard police sirens closing in from various points in the district. Using the knife, Kate pulled herself up across the guttering and then scrambled to her feet. She got her NVGs into place and pulled her .45, but Chernoff, as she had expected, had already retreated from the rooftop.
'T. K.?' Ethan asked.
'Josh is hit.'
'How bad?'
'He's conscious.'
Ethan dropped back and found T. K. holding Josh. 'It went right through my vest!' Josh gasped. He was scared.
'It happens,' Malloy said. 'The good news is maybe it's not
real deep. Can you walk?'
'I don't know.'
Malloy was pulling Josh to his feet when the first police car pulled through the larger passage - across the courtyard from their position. Its sirens were screaming, its lights whirling.
'Inside!' Malloy whispered. 'They were at the back door to
Das Sternenlicht
when a second car entered the square, following in close behind the first. Ethan snapped on his headset, calling, 'Girl!'
Kate didn't answer, and they no longer had a visual on her.
Once inside Malloy pointed at the storage room, 'Through the bar!' he told them.
Josh was hanging on to Malloy's shoulder for support but he was at least moving his legs and carrying most of his own weight. Ethan kept his .45 down as they passed in front of a thin, homely dancer. Two men were in the audience. Another stood behind the bar. They all watched as Malloy and Josh struggled across the floor, but no one said a word or reached for a phone. When they got outside again, Ethan saw a police car slipping into the narrow passageway - sealing off the courtyard. 'Girl!' he said.
Still no answer.
He went ahead of Josh and Malloy and stepped into the street in front of a BMW that had pulled to a stop for the sake of the police car. 'HALT!' Ethan shouted, pointing the weapon through the glass and aiming at the man's head. The driver lifted his hands. Keeping the gun on him, Ethan moved to the side of the car and shouted in German, 'OUT!'
Malloy got into the back with Josh. Ethan let the driver back off and then slid into the driver's seat. There were shouts from the sidewalks, and then the police car came back out of the courtyard passageway in reverse.
Ethan floored it and caught the back fender of the police car as it backed into the street. He clipped a parked car on the rebound and then forced his way through an opening. From the back Malloy was talking almost conversationally. 'They've still got a visual, but no one
is
following yet.'
Ethan took a couple of fast turns.
'Looking good!' Malloy told him
Looking good
, Ethan decided, meant they had about a ten second lead. He slammed on the brakes and skidded into the next side street - still free of cops. He saw what he wanted halfway down the block, a twenty year old Mercedes that looked well-tended. The older Mercedes models had less plastic and more steel - ramming power in other words.