Black Flagged Redux

Chapter 34





1:15 PM

Palermo Soho

Buenos Aires, Argentina





Goran Brujic sat patiently at the wheel of the white commercial van that sat several parking spaces back from the intersection at Nicaragua Street. He had long ago stopped the van's engine, opening both passenger windows to air out the cabin. The back of the van was beyond hope for proper ventilation, unless the van was moving. Windowless, except for two fixed windows on the back doors, he had done the best he could to keep them in a shaded spot where he could still survey the sidewalk café. Four men sat stuffed in the back of the van, waiting for a chance to grab Zorana off the street.

The men had been selected carefully for their previous experience with off-street kidnapping. This particular group had worked together for years to supply young women for prostitution rings in several different countries. Snatched off the street, nearly all of the women were exported immediately, bound for Africa or Europe.

The group had been warned to be careful with this one. Careful not to kill her… careful with the takedown. None of the men in the back had ever known her from Belgrade, which gave him the peace of mind that they wouldn't do anything stupid to jeopardize Srecko's wishes.

Josif had assured them that they would be paid handsomely for the capture, and once Srecko was back in circulation, they would be rewarded with high-ranking positions in the wealthy crime lord's new enterprise. This street grab was well worth the risk, though he had been specifically told to back off if any complications arose. There was a backup plan.

He started the van, sensing that she was about to leave. She no longer sipped her coffee and had started to check her watch frequently. The woman placed money on the table and reapplied her lipstick as the waiter came by with the bill, scooping the money up at the same time. Some pleasantries were exchanged, and she stood up from her table in the heart of the seating area. He started the van and pulled it out onto the street, attracting no attention from the woman. The men in the back pulled black ski masks down over their faces and prepared to pour out of the back. Goran had to time this perfectly.

He would get two chances. The first one would take place in a few seconds, right in front of the cafe as she crossed the street to walk in the direction of her apartment. The other would happen on Nicaragua Street. If the timing didn't work out now, he could turn the corner slowly and hope that she moved down Nicaragua Street to a spot that was shielded from the café. He had done this dozens of times in similar situations and knew how to read the scene. If she ducked into the coffee shop, like she was prone to doing, they might have to circle around and wait for their opportunity on Nicaragua.

He gently pressed the accelerator and moved to intersect, pretending not to notice her. Just another rude delivery truck cutting off a pedestrian. Buenos Aires was full of inconsiderate traffic. The woman didn't stop at the edge of the curb and wait for him to pass, which would have put her in the perfect position to be snatched off the street. Instead, she sped up and slapped her hand on the hood of his truck, causing him to apply the brakes hard enough to gently screech the tires and draw a few stares from the café. It didn't matter; they'd still grab her in front of everyone. She glared at him with an icy look, and he prayed that the men in the back weren't visible through the semi-transparent plastic cabin divider. She stepped in front of the stopped van, shaking her head, and Goran decided they would grab her from the other side. As he drove forward, she yelled through the driver's side window in Spanish.

"Cuidado, maníaco!"

He ignored her taunt as she passed the window.

"Stand by," he said to his men.

The van pulled forward, and he prepared to give the command. He knew exactly where she would appear in the mirror when her body had cleared the back of the van. Right about now, he told himself and started to press the brakes. Something in his peripheral vision told him that the scene was off. F*ck! He turned his head and saw a blue and white striped fiat turn the corner at the intersection. The presence of a thin rack of blue police lights on the car's roof caused him to ease off the brakes.

"Abort. Cops. We'll try it on Nicaragua," he said.

Their flower delivery van cruised past the Buenos Aires Police Department patrol car and stopped at the intersection. A minivan on Nicaragua had the right of way at the four-way stop. Goran took this moment to watch the woman enter the coffee shop on the corner, which meant he would have to circle for a while. No problem. They would have this wrapped up pretty quickly. He activated the right blinker and turned right. They had some time to kill.



**



The last thing she needed this morning was more coffee, but she felt compelled to duck into the Mama Gracha Café. Jessica scanned the coffee shop for the man she and Daniel had spotted a week ago. He had reappeared two days ago, and Jessica couldn't shake the feeling that she knew him. The man was definitely Balkan, possibly Serbian, but like Daniel had pointed out, this was becoming more and more common in Buenos Aires. Like most Europeans, Serbians enjoyed strong coffee, particularly Turkish coffee, and this shop served one of the best Turkish coffees in Buenos Aires. If strong coffee was your pleasure, you'd end up here eventually.

The driver of the flower truck looked like the same man she had seen in here, but she couldn't be sure. He wore sunglasses and a ball cap, but she had only caught a glimpse of him beyond the sun's reflection in the windshield. Her view of him through the passenger window lasted less than a second, and he didn't turn his head to acknowledge her purposeful insult. She was certain that the man was Caucasian, but beyond that, she had nothing but her instincts to support the theory that he was somehow familiar. She had learned to trust these instincts without question, and this policy had kept her alive for over six years as an undercover operative.

She decided it was time to head back to the compound. She was probably being paranoid, and a vicious hangover didn't help her think clearly, but she and Daniel had discussed the risks inherent with an ever increasing number of Serbian immigrants to Argentina. Between the two of them, they had spent over eight years in Belgrade and had come into contact with hundreds, if not thousands of people. If just one person recognized either of them, they could find themselves in immediate danger. She watched the flower delivery van turn right on Nicaragua and this gave her some relief. She would be headed in the opposite direction and would flag a taxi at the first opportunity. She'd pack up as soon as she reached the apartment and book the next available flight out of town.



**



Goran grew more infuriated by the second. He had circled back around, expecting to find her strolling along Nicaragua Street, but she was nowhere to be found. He had scoured the adjacent streets with no luck. At this point, he had driven down every street between here and that bitch's high-rise building on Avenida Raul Scalabrini Ortiz. He knew there was a backup plan, but he didn't like to f*ck things up in front of Srecko's nephew. He wasn't sure why the kid was here. He probably wanted to impress his uncle, just like the rest of them. At least he had enough sense to stay out of their way. He respected that, and if placating Josif was the key to securing a future with Srecko, he'd cover the kid's back.

He pounded the steering wheel, glancing desperately around the streets. Losing Zorana on the streets didn't help his position with Josif. There were plenty of other eager players on the scene. Right now, they were probably singing sweet songs of Goran's incompetence to Josif. He turned the car onto Avenida Castillo, after completing a sweep of Avenida Armenia. A few seconds later, his cell phone rang. He recognized the number. Josif.

"I'm almost done with the sweep…she f*cking vanished," he said.

"She's headed up to the apartment. Just arrived on the street. We're going with the backup plan."

"Understood. I'm less than three minutes away," he said and threw the phone on the passenger seat.

He floored the van, cruising through the stop sign on Malabia. The next street was Avenida Raul Scalabrini Ortiz.



**



Jessica walked through the door of her apartment and placed her purse on the brown granite-topped, cast iron foyer table. She glanced in the mirror and noted the puffiness under her eyes. She could see it through the makeup. She had taken full advantage of the ability to stay out later than Daniel usually preferred. He had never been a big fan of the club scene, but had played along with her everywhere they had lived. Two in the morning was the absolute latest she could keep him out on the streets and she never pushed it with back-to-back nights. With Daniel, she treated it like an infrequent indulgence. They had other thrilling and pleasurable ways to spend their time together.

She closed the door and decided to book her flight first. Something that left late in the afternoon and gave her enough time for an indulgent, midday nap. She crossed the shiny marble floor and stopped at the end of the foyer hallway, frowning. She detected a rancid smell that she thought hadn't been in the apartment when she left. She had eaten some leftover Thai food last night, but was pretty sure she had put it away…though she had been fairly intoxicated at the time. She turned the corner and glanced into the kitchen. The counters were spotless, but something else caught her eye and caused her to stiffen. Through the open bedroom door, she could partially see a small digital camcorder set on top of a tall tripod.

Jessica turned for the foyer hallway and sensed movement in the furthest reaches of her peripheral vision. She lashed out at the movement with her right elbow, catching a short, broad-shouldered man wearing a light blue shirt directly in the nose, splattering blood down his face. Halfway out of the foyer closet, he stumbled and tried to bring both hands to his shattered nose. She immediately followed with a solid front kick to his solar plexus. The kick drove him down the foyer and slammed him against the entry door, knocking him off his feet. He grasped for the cast iron table near the door, bringing it down with a hard thud onto the white marble floor.

She reached for the ultra-slim, serrated, four-inch blade concealed along her outer thigh. She managed to hike up her red knee-length skirt high enough to fully grasp the knife, but found herself suddenly paralyzed, struggling to move her hand another inch. She lost all sense of balance and fell to her knees, focused on the incredible surge of pain radiating from the right side of her lower back. She started to topple over against the foyer wall, unable to arrest her continued fall, and watched helplessly as the man with the bloody nose threw the heavy table aside. He walked up to her and spit a mixture of blood and mucus on her face, right before he kicked her in the stomach…harder than she had ever been kicked before. The image of his face grew hazy as he cocked his fist and delivered a crunching blow to her face.



**



Before her vision returned, Jessica's first instinct was to struggle. She could barely breathe and felt an unbearable pressure under her chin. She reached up with her hands to feel around her neck and was yanked up onto her knees by her head. Her fingers managed to find the source of the excruciating pain. She desperately tried to pull the thin wire surrounding her neck to ease the pressure that prevented her from taking more than a few, shallow gasps of air. She felt fresh blood trickle onto her hands and run down her chest. The pressure tightened, and she took her hands off the garrote, which resulted in a slight reduction in pressure.

Her vision settled on a bloodied figure in front of her. The man looked familiar through the blood pouring out of his nose and down over his mouth and chin. The bloodstains gave him a ghoulish look, like he had just dug into raw meat. She stared at him for a few more seconds, struggling to gain some leverage against the steel wire garrote that was yanked every time she moved. If she fought too much, additional pressure from the wire could cut into her carotid artery. She would bleed out within minutes if this happened…and kept this in mind as an option. She had no idea what they had in store for her, but she was pretty sure that a fast bleed out would be the best alternative.

"Did you really think you'd get away with it, you stupid cunt?" the bloodied man uttered.

"Get away with what?" she rasped.

"Stealing all of Srecko's money. I remember you from Belgrade. Whore. Zorana Zekulic. Queen of whores…until she started f*cking Resja. Then she was demoted back to simple whore."

She started to answer, but a quick flick of his head caused the man behind her to pull on the garrote, cutting off her response.

"Your filthy mouth opens when I ask you a question. Nod if you understand."

Jessica nodded and looked around the room. Details of her apartment blurred, as she directed all of her mental energy to the men surrounding her. The man standing next to the brute with the bloodied nose stood with his arms crossed. A poor choice in any situation, but he obviously felt pretty confident. Jessica wasn't going anywhere, as far as he could tell. Another man stood outside of her peripheral vision. She had heard him grunt. Four men, none visibly armed, which gave her some hope. She had to make her move now, before they tied her up. She had no delusions about their intentions.

"We're going to ask some questions about the money and about Marko Resja. If you answer them quickly and truthfully, I'll kill you mercifully. If not, this will be the longest day of your life. Srecko's nephew, Josif, flew into town to personally document your end. He told me Srecko is running out of movies to watch in his cell. He requested a twenty-four-hour documentary on raping and torturing whores. I guess it's a new passion of his. Josif is setting up the film studio as we speak. Are you ready for her yet?"

Josif Hadzic appeared in the doorway, and Jessica strained to turn her head so she could fully see him. He stood there dressed in white coveralls and finished pulling on a pair of matching white rubber gloves. He was young, in his mid-twenties, with long, thick, black hair. He looked clinically psychotic in the stark white outfit.

"Almost ready. I just need to bolt one more end of the harness sling to the floor," he said, turning his attention to Jessica.

"This should be a whore's dream come true," he said, then turned his attention back to Miljan.

"When will the rest of the men be here?"

"They should be pulling up any second," Miljan said.

"Good. Ten men and no real hurry. Should be a fun time for this whore. Once everyone's sick of f*cking her, we'll start the real work," he said and disappeared into the bedroom.

From the bedroom, she heard an industrial screwdriver attached to a small air compressor. She'd heard the same sounds when they were using nail guns and heavy duty hand portable equipment at the compound.

"I don't think I could ever get tired of sticking it to this one. Lots of holes to fill," the man with crossed arms said.

"I'd avoid the hole with teeth. This is a feisty little bitch," the man grasping the wire around her neck said.

"We'll just have to knock all of her teeth out," the man retorted.

Miljan leaned in close to her face and spoke softly. "If I were you, I'd start the beginning of your documentary with a little disclosure. We want to know where the money is located and how to access it. Then we want to know where to find Resja. Tell me this and I'll cut your throat right now. Josif might not like it, but his uncle is a rational man. He wants his money back, and I can always make him another snuff film. I need your answer before you walk through that door. Understood?"

She nodded again and decided it was now or never. She knew there would be no merciful deal on the other side of that door. Srecko didn't deal in mercy, and neither did any of his henchmen. Miljan Jendzejec had been a ruthless enforcer for the Panthers’ organized crime syndicate, and she had steered clear of him from the start. Even the endless supply of Russian prostitutes in Belgrade eventually learned to give him a wide berth in the city's clubs. Too many women disappeared in his company.

She gently slipped her right hand to her thigh, while pulling on the wire with her left. The struggle would hopefully provide enough of a distraction for her to remove the knife and cut the man's right forearm muscle to the bone. She could follow up with a quick jab to his groin, which should cause him to release the garrote. Once free from the piano wire noose, she would have a fighting chance. Not much of a chance, but she'd rather go down fighting than be chained to some kind of sick contraption. Her hand reached the scabbard, and she was yanked skyward.

"Looking for this?" Miljan said.

Jessica strained through blurry vision to focus as her knees settled back to the floor. Both of her hands were desperately clawing at the wire tightened dangerously around her neck. She felt a warm trickle cascade down her chest, filtering through her sticky fingers.

"I guess I have your answer," he said and lowered the hand holding her knife.

All of the men in the room laughed, and she made her decision. She closed her eyes and thought of Daniel. This was all her fault. She knew this would devastate him and wished she could change everything. Change all of this. At least she could count on him killing every last man in this room. It was a terrible consolation, but it gave her the strength to force a smile, as she prepared to fight ferociously against the wire that dug less than a few millimeters away from her carotid artery.

"Get her to her feet," Miljan said.

She heard a sharp crack, and the wire suddenly loosened. Jessica opened her eyes and saw that everything had changed. Miljan's light blue shirt was covered with bright red splatter and dark bits of tissue. Shock was plastered on his brutal face. She noticed that his right arm hung precariously by a few strands of exposed ligament below the elbow. Jessica understood what had just happened. A bullet had passed through her strangler's head and hit Miljan's forearm. The room froze, until her knife clattered against the marble floor, released from Miljan's useless grip. Without warning, she sprang forward with a single focus. Survival.



**



Jeffrey Munoz tossed the van keys in front of the empty ice bucket next to the coffee maker and heaved his black backpack onto the bed. Melendez tossed the oversized blue gym bag on the other bed and headed for the bathroom. He unzipped the backpack and removed a pair of binoculars and a spotting scope, placing them on the small table pushed in front of the balcony sliders. He opened the balcony door and pulled the curtains all the way to the side, opening the room to a wide view of the city, which was mostly blocked by a high-rise apartment building. He moved the table directly in front of the opening and plucked a small tripod from one of the suitcases jammed against the corner wall. Once unfolded, he attached the 15X spotting scope to the tripod and placed it on the table.

The Petroviches’ apartment sat on the eleventh floor of the high-rise in front of the Bianca Hotel and occupied the right front corner of the building. From their surveillance nest on the fourteenth floor, they could see into most of the apartment, although they had trouble seeing the back of the kitchen or the foyer. The apartment consisted of a combined kitchen-living area, and a dining nook space that occupied two thirds of the space directly in front of them. The entire front held ceiling to floor glass and several sliding doors that led to a balcony connecting the living areas with the bedroom, which comprised the remaining third of the apartment. A small white table and two chairs sat on the balcony in front of the living area.

Munoz situated the tripod on the table and angled it slightly downward before staring through the eyepiece, roughly guessing that it was aimed into the apartment. He was slightly off, and the bottom of the patio table filled his view. He gently corrected the scope until it was centered on the open patio door. What he saw froze him momentarily. He shot up from the scope and snatched his backpack from the bed, moving rapidly toward the door.

"Melendez!"

"What!" he heard from the bathroom, followed by a flush.

"They've got Jessica! Get on the gun and engage targets immediately! Don't wait for me! Channel eight on comms!"

Munoz had already slammed the hotel room door shut by the time Melendez charged out of the bathroom. He sprinted down the hallway to the elevator. If the elevator car was near his floor, it would ultimately be quicker than taking the stairs. It would give him time to attach a suppressor to the Steyr TMP machine pistol buried in his backpack. He glanced at the illuminated numbers above the elevator doors. Sixteen and five. He hit the "down" button, and stared at the numbers, ready to hit the stairs. The sixteen changed to fifteen. F*cking beautiful.

He reached into the backpack for the compact radio and headset, figuring that if he put this on first, people would be less likely to question his counterfeit Buenos Aires Police credentials and the evil-looking submachine gun that he would be readying in the elevator. The door opened, yielding an empty elevator. He jumped inside and jammed the button to close the door. He prayed that it went straight to the parking garage.



**



The hotel door slammed shut and a blanket of panic settled over Melendez. He had no idea what was happening, and for the first time since he joined the Black Flag program, he was on his own. What the f*ck had happened? Munoz had told him to start shooting and bolted through the door. That was it. While he tried to process the confusion, he shifted into autopilot and started mechanically running through his mental checklist. It was his best defense against the stress that had suddenly engulfed their situation. He didn't spend any time thinking about what he might see when he put his eyes to the scope. Right now, he needed to put rounds downrange as quickly as possible. Munoz's voice left little confusion about that fact.

He yanked the black RPA Rangemaster Standby 7.62mm sniper rifle out of the bag and grabbed the nylon ammunition pouch containing four additional ten-round magazines. While passing the second bed, he reached into Munoz's backpack and retrieved the other radio set. He threw this onto the table and shoved the spotting scope out of the way. After rapidly unfolding the rifle's stock and securing it into his shoulder, he opened both lens caps on the Schmidt and Bender 3–12 x 50 scope and extended the bipod. Finally, he rested the rifle on the table and canted it toward the eleventh floor of Jessica's building, methodically searching for the targets Munoz had assured him would appear.

The variable power scope had been set for 8X magnification and required no elevation adjustment in this case. The distance from the end of the rifle's barrel to the apartment was seventy-three meters, a calculation he had digitally assessed on their first day in the room with a laser rangefinder. At such short range, only a serious wind would affect his bullet. All of the flags on nearby balconies stood motionless.

As he settled into the scope, he detached the magazine already inserted into the rifle and replaced it with a different one from the small nylon pouch. The rounds in the new magazine were specialized bonded core bullets, specifically designed for shooting through glass obstacles. The only downside to the 180-grain bullet was that it would pass through its target, even after penetrating glass. At less than 100 meters, the bullet would strike its target at 2,600 feet per second and could easily kill someone in an adjacent room after passing through a human target.

He removed his hand from the rifle and switched the radio on, removing the headset from the compact unit. He glanced over to confirm that the orange LED read "8." Back on the scope, he continued to breathe slowly and searched for targets.

The scope's wide field of vision gave him a view of the entire room, which allowed him to immediately assess the situation. He could see Jessica on her knees behind a man that was actively struggling to keep her down. The man's hands were visible on both sides of his hips, tightly gripping and pulling backward. He was clearly strangling her. Three more men stood in the room, and he made quick mental notes to help prioritize his shots. The man close to the front window, on the far right, cradled an automatic shotgun in his arms. The man facing him, directly in front of Jessica's attacker, pulled a knife from behind his back. His face looked bloodied. The guy to his immediate left stood with his arms folded, laughing. Strangler, Shotgun, Knife, Chuckles…in that order.

He pulled the bolt back and chambered a round, steadying the scope at the highest point on the back of Strangler's neck. He started to depress the trigger, watching the crosshairs drift ever so slightly with his shallow breath. He found the drift's natural rhythm and removed a little more pressure. Any additional pressure would fire the weapon. As the scope's center dot eased into place on a point directly aligned with the man's spine, he barely activated the muscles in his finger, and the rifle kicked into his shoulder. He vaguely heard the glass shatter on Jessica's balcony, before reloading another round. He was in a different world right now, where all of his attention was focused on the mechanics of shooting. The fear and panic that had tried to overtake him less than a minute ago had vanished, replaced by an eerie, detached calm.



**



The man to Miljan's left started to reach behind his back. Jessica instantly closed the gap and executed a hinged high kick to his throat, sending him back against the foyer wall next to the hallway closet. Both of his hands instinctively reached for his own neck. The rest of her body hinged with the kick toward the floor, allowing her to grab the knife. From the downward position, she placed the serrated knife behind Miljan's knee and reversed the hinge, using most of the momentum to sever the hamstrings of his right leg. Miljan screamed and collapsed, falling into the crook of Jessica's knife arm. Bracing him against her body and keeping him upright, she slashed the blade viciously across his neck, feeling the knife's serrations tear through the tracheal cartilage. At the same time, she reached her left hand toward the small of his back and found the handle of a pistol.

As the knife came free and her slashing arm swung outward, she continued to spin into a stance facing the man she had just kicked. He had begun to gain some sense, but both of his hands were still occupied with his rapidly swelling neck. At point blank range, Jessica fired the semi-automatic handgun several times into the man. Her final shot sprayed brains and other dark matter against the closet door.

She ducked and spun, aiming the pistol with her off hand at the next target she could find. She didn't have much time to process the scene. The strangler's body lay face down in a massive crimson pool, centered on what remained of his head. Josif stood in the doorway with his mouth and eyes wide open, a pistol held limply in his right hand. Her main problem appeared to be the man aiming a Saiga semi-automatic shotgun at her head.

The shotgun erupted a fraction of a second after the wall behind him turned red. She felt a sharp stinging pain in her pistol hand and saw that Josif's white coveralls were now stained by a bright red lateral slash. The man with the shotgun fell to his knees; a powerful fountain of blood sprayed from his neck onto the ceiling as his body continued down to the floor. Jessica's left hand didn't respond to the electrical impulses ordering it to fire the pistol at Josif, despite the fact that it was aimed directly at his chest. She didn't waste any time trying to figure out why. In one easy motion, she threw her knife at Josif.

Despite its undeniable usefulness as a hand-to-hand weapon, her Spider knife had been designed as a throwing weapon. She had special ordered a serrated set from the company and found that the serrations barely affected their ballistic performance. She could accurately place the knives in a six-inch diameter circle at thirty feet, and Josif stood well within that range. The knife buried itself in his upper right arm and prevented him from raising the pistol. She watched him dash to the right and disappear behind the wall.

Both hands slick with blood, she pried the pistol from her damaged left hand and fired at the thin wall between the two rooms. The remaining several bullets in the gun formed a tight pattern on the wall, three feet above the floor, and two feet back from the doorway arch. If Josif had opted to hunch near the wall and wait for her to charge forward, he would have taken those bullets in the head or groin, depending on his choice of stance.

She tossed the weapon back and dragged Miljan's corpse into the foyer with her good hand. She could safely use the foyer wall as cover, since the dishwasher in the kitchen on the other side of the wall provided an additional layer of solid material. She turned Miljan over, looking for spare pistol magazines. Blood continued to pump out of his neck, connecting with the red tide expanding from the bullet riddled body slumped against the closet door.



**



Melendez chambered another round and started to center the scope's crosshairs on the man who appeared in the bedroom doorway, but he disappeared from sight before he began to remove any slack from the trigger. He had planned to target the guy with the knife next, but could tell from the scope's wide field of vision that Jessica had already turned that side of the room into a slaughterhouse. Several gunshots shattered the momentary calm, and he used the scope to scan the living area for more targets. Covered with blood, Jessica pulled one of the bodies behind the kitchen wall.

He heard loud voices down on the street and rushed forward to investigate. He watched as five men sprinted into the building, followed by a single gunshot from below. F*ck, she was about to have more company, and he didn't have any way to communicate with her. He got behind the rifle and found Jessica through the scope.

She had just finished reloading a pistol, holding the weapon upside down between her knees. He could see that her left hand was a mess and wondered how she would chamber a round. Amazingly, she flipped the pistol between her knees with her good hand and pulled back the slide while keeping the weapon anchored between her legs. The pistol was up and aimed around the corner in a flash.

He aimed the rifle back toward the window and looked for any shot that might have a chance of reaching the man he had seen in the bedroom doorway. He knew Jessica wouldn't back down from the situation and feared the worst. There could be more than one more attacker in the bedroom, and she wouldn't stand a chance bursting through the doorway. Even if she survived, she'd soon be up against five more men, unable to quickly reload her pistol.

The bedroom's windows were covered by thick shades that gave him nothing. He decided that he would fire blindly through the windows until she breached the doorway. It might distract whoever was left in the bedroom long enough for her to get the job done. If she survived, he might be able to keep the new arrivals pinned down long enough for Munoz to finish the job.

He took his hand off the rifle and jabbed at the radio, putting it to his ear. "Munoz?"

"Just hit the street. Tell me she's still alive."

"Miraculously, but five men just hauled ass into the building. You're about twenty seconds behind them. There's one more confirmed target in the apartment, but I don't have a shot."

"Do what you can until I get there," Munoz said.

"Understood," he said and focused on the scope.

Jessica was tensed, and he could tell she was about to make a move. He placed the crosshairs in the center of one of the bedroom sliders and fired. He saw Jessica sprint toward the bedroom before she could have possibly heard the rifle shot. Melendez chambered another round and fired hastily into the ceiling to floor bedroom window farthest from the wall that separated the two rooms. It was up to Jessica at this point.



**



Goran Brujic ran up the stairs with his pistol drawn. He knew they would all be physically spent by the time they arrived on the eleventh floor, but he didn't plan to take any chances with an elevator. He had no idea what had gone down in the apartment, but he was pretty sure that several rapid gunshots was not part of Josif's plan. He had no intention to step out of the elevator into an ambush. They would catch their breath at the top of the stairs and move cautiously from there.

He reached the door and kneeled beside it. Most of his team slid into place behind him with their pistols drawn while they waited for Jovan to move his oversized carcass up the stairs. The man was at least a half a floor behind them and carried a shortened pump action shotgun. As Jovan slammed into the concrete stairwell wall, out of breath, Goran opened the door slowly, peering into the elevator foyer. He didn't see anything out of place and decided to move into the lobby with his gun aimed forward. A man and woman turned the corner and gasped at the sight of five armed men in the lobby. Goran pulled a counterfeit Buenos Aires police badge out of his back pocket and flashed it at the couple, signaling for them to go back to their apartment. The man tried to speak, but Goran put his finger to his lips and shook his head. Whether they believed the five Caucasian men were police officers didn't matter. Goran heard a door slam and knew they wouldn't be a problem.

He peeked down the hallway leading to the Petroviches’ apartment and found it clear. Whatever had happened was confined to the apartment. He told the men to hurry and ran down the hall to the door. He pulled out one of several key cards that had been made for his team by the doorman this morning and waited for everyone to fall into place around the door. Once Jovan's sweaty, heavily breathing body settled in, he inserted the card and removed it quickly. The light turned green, and he opened the door quietly, sliding into the room with the gun aimed forward.

He edged down the foyer hallway, amazed by the amount of blood covering the floor. He saw two bodies, which he immediately recognized. Something had gone terribly wrong in here. He suddenly heard a desperate scream from deeper inside the apartment. He kept still, listening and scanning for clues. The scream was followed by sobbing and repeated begging, which ended in what sounded like a slap. He took a few more steps forward and froze. The sliding glass door in the middle of the living room lie shattered in pieces on the shiny marble floor and concrete balcony. Sniper? He wasn't going to take any chances. He glanced around for a few seconds, seeing an opportunity that would buy him some time.



**



Melendez tried not to pay attention to what was happening in the bedroom. Jessica had plunged through the doorway opening and opened the shades less than a minute later. Behind the curtains, he saw the man in white coveralls strapped into some unusual contraption on the floor next to the bed. He watched, slightly confused, as she adjusted a camera that had been knocked down by their scuffle. What she did next made him uncomfortable and he was relieved to turn his attention back to the foyer. He loaded a new magazine into his rifle and settled in to wait.

He heard a primal scream and expended considerable restraint from looking into the bedroom. He needed to focus on the impending arrival of the remaining attackers. A few seconds later, he saw light reflect off the marble floor in the dark recess of the foyer. Someone had opened the door, and he knew for a fact it wasn't Munoz. Munoz had followed the Serbians up the stairwell, trailing them by five floors, careful not to alert them to his presence. He had just checked in with Melendez from the stairwell.

From this angle, he couldn't see more than a quarter of the way into the foyer, so he placed the crosshairs at the furthest point along the foyer floor and waited. A foot slowly appeared, followed by another, as his next target moved cautiously down the hallway. He sighted in on the man's left knee and started to settle in for a shot. The man had stopped, which made his job easier. He started to apply pressure to the trigger, when the man suddenly bolted out of the foyer. His crosshairs found the man standing in front of an intact window, and suddenly, the view was obscured by a dark brown curtain. The curtain continued rapidly across the entire front of the living area, stopping a few feet from the wall separating the two rooms. Since he couldn't shoot effectively, he grabbed the radio. Everything relied on Munoz.



**



Goran pulled the curtain as far as he could bear and moved toward the bedroom doorway. He heard another scream filled with Serbian expletives, followed by a female voice speaking Serbian.

"Smile for your uncle, Josif. He doesn't want to see unhappy faces in prison."

"F*ck you, you miserable bitch. I'll carve your eyes out for this and force your husband to eat them!" Josif yelled.

Goran realized that she hadn't heard the curtains. He had tried to be as quiet as possible, which was quite a feat given the amount of slippery blood on the floor. F*ck, this was perfect. He would kill Zorana and rescue Josif on camera. Nothing could solidify his future with Srecko more solidly. He hated to deprive Srecko of the fun they had planned for Zorana, but they needed to get out of here immediately. The neighborhood would be crawling with police in a few minutes.

"Did you hear that, Srecko? Your precious nephew is somehow going to cut my eyes out. Doesn't he look so cute strapped into this thing? I know this wasn't the video you were expecting, but it'll have a few things in common. I'll just leave out the rape and sexual defilement, though some of the toys they brought along might spice up the show for you."

Goran stepped into the room, leading with the pistol. The sight of Josif writhing in the harness momentarily distracted him. Josif's white coveralls and undergarments were sliced open and pulled away from the center of his body to expose his entire torso. The act of splitting the clothing down had left numerous slashes extending from the top of his chest to his penis.

"Kill this f*cking bitch!" Josif screamed.

Goran tried to aim the pistol at Jessica, but she had already ducked behind Josif, placing her knife across his throat and jamming her head right against his. He wasn't a good enough shot to hit the sliver of her face that remained exposed.

Goran saw her pistol on the bed and knew he could make this work. If he could get close enough to her, he could shoot her through the head. She would never cut Josif's throat and sacrifice her only leverage. Unfortunately, he didn't dare venture any further into the room with a sniper watching the apartment. He'd wait for the rest of his team and charge her while someone else closed the curtains.

"Jovan, Predag…let's go!" he yelled and looked back.

His men emerged from the hallway and he knew this would be over quickly. Jessica crouched behind Josif, and Goran hoped she'd go for her gun. She wouldn't make it halfway across the room. He glanced back at his team and found it odd that they had all slipped and fallen at the same time. The thought was interrupted by a sudden, intense pain at the top of his neck. What the f*ck? He reached up, and his left hand hit something solid. None of it made any sense. He glanced toward Jessica and saw her crouch back down next to Josif. I'm gonna kill this bitch!

Movement in his peripheral vision brought his attention back to the other room. A stocky Latino guy dressed in jeans and a dark blue windbreaker stood near the foyer, aiming a silenced submachine gun at his chest. Goran heard a staccato popping sound and was hammered to the floor in front of the bed. He watched helplessly as Jessica leaned over him and pulled the knife out of his neck. She grinned as she wiped the blade clean on her red skirt. His attention drifted to the thick black cylinder that hovered inches from his face.



**



Munoz changed the selective fire setting on the TMP to semi-automatic and pulled the trigger once, putting the Serbian out of his misery.

"We need to go, right now," he said, glaring at her.

"I just need a minute alone with him," she said.

She looked half crazy, and Munoz wondered how in the hell they were going to pull this off. She needed immediate medical attention, as far as he could tell. Her left hand was mangled, showing bone through the torn flesh on at least two of her fingers. She pressed the bleeding hand against her breast, thoroughly soaking her white blouse down to her abdomen. Not that he could be sure this was the source of the blood stain. Cuts and abrasions across her neck slowly seeped dark red streams down her upper chest. If that wasn't enough, she had taken a massive blow to the face, which had cut her right cheekbone and left a swollen, red mark the size of a baseball on the right side of her face. He spotted something that might help them get her out on the streets without attracting too much attention.

"We need to be on the street in less than a minute. Melendez is packing up and expects us to be walking south on Loyola. Change your shirt. Something black. And wipe off as much of that blood as possible from your arms and legs," he said.

"I'm not done with the video. This piece of shit hasn't put on his best performance for the camera," she said.

Munoz watched in sheer amazement as she turned her back on him and walked toward the writhing figure strapped into some kind of sadomasochist bondage harness. He figured this contraption was meant for her and could understand her anger, but they didn't have time for this. He gripped the TMP with both hands and lined the sights up on the man's forehead. The weapon coughed twice, and a large red stain hit the wall behind the man's head.

"What the f*ck? I wasn't done with him," she said.

"If you want to see Daniel again, we need to be out of here in sixty seconds. I can hear police sirens. You need to make a choice, Jessica. One way or the other, I'm leaving in sixty seconds," he said.

"All right. Let's get out of here," she said.

She placed her face in front of the camera. "You're a f*cking dead man, Srecko," she said and ejected the small tape in the camera.

Munoz found a few packets of Celox powder among the supplies spread out on the floor next to the bed. Celox was used on the battlefield to stop bleeding and could even be used to treat a severed artery. He'd have her wash as much of the blood off her skin as possible before she applied the powder. With a change of clothes and some makeup, they should be able to pull this off. When he turned to check on her, she grabbed the Celox packets out of his hands and pointed to the bedroom door.

"A little privacy," she said.

Munoz walked through the door, which slammed shut behind him. He glanced at his watch and swore to himself that he'd walk out the door in forty-five seconds.



**



Melendez spotted them hopping down from a wall on the left side of the street, fifty meters ahead of his van. He had parked and vacated the driver's seat while they worked their way through several yards and alleys. From the back of the van, he watched several police vehicles form a roadblock at the corner of Avenida Loyola and Avenida Rual Scalabrini, which was one hundred meters back down Avenida Loyola. On his police scanner, he monitored the most active police channel he could find and determined that the police had found the murdered doorman. Once they found the apartment, the entire police department would swarm the area. The sooner they got out of here, the better. He pulled the van onto Avenida Loyola and cruised over to pick them up. Once Munoz and Jessica were in the van, they would call General Sanderson. He imagined this wouldn't be a pleasant phone call.