Ryker didn’t dwell on the thought. He stepped over the edge...
The man had no clue what was coming. Ryker landed on Rambo’s shoulders with a thud and a crack, and both men tumbled to the ground in a heap. Rambo was dazed and confused from the sudden attack. Ryker was alert, ready, one thing on his mind: he wanted that gun.
Without hesitation, Ryker swivelled his body round and put Rambo into an arm bar, hyperextending the elbow joint to the point of bursting. Rambo squirmed, grunted, and moaned – maybe he knew what was coming. Ryker pushed against the resistance and there was a crack and a pop as the man’s arm dislocated. Rambo screamed out in pain. Ryker reached down and pulled the handgun from Rambo’s limp grip. Then he sprang to his feet, gun in hand, pointed at the man’s face.
Ryker smiled. Yeah, he was rusty, out of practice for sure, but it felt good to be back.
Ryker spotted movement. He spun and saw the glint of metal as Buzzcut’s wrench arced toward his face. He ducked. The wrench hurtled through the air but missed. Ryker saw his target, a yard away. He sprang up, fist-balled, and sent a crushing uppercut onto Buzzcut’s chin. His head snapped back. He wobbled, stumbled. Ryker smacked him in the side of the head with the grip of the gun. Buzzcut collapsed to the ground and landed in a heap next to his buddy.
Ryker shook himself down and looked over the two lumps. Both were out of the fight. But Ryker wasn’t finished. He wanted answers.
He was about to begin his interrogation when something unexpected happened: a gunshot rang out. A blast of concrete powder burst in Ryker’s face from the nearby ricochet. Ryker darted back toward the buildings, trying to find cover from the unseen shooter. He pulled up against a wall.
In front of him, the two men lay on the ground. Buzzcut’s eyes were closed. He was out cold. The movement in his chest told Ryker he was at least breathing. Rambo was awake. He was still writhing on the ground in agony, clutching at his stricken limb and staring aghast at the misshapen mass.
Neither man was an immediate threat.
Ryker looked up and searched the area outside. He had clear sight down the row of apartments and across the nearby coastline. There was no shooter in that direction. There simply wasn’t anywhere for them to hide. Ryker dashed across the building and pulled up against the adjacent wall. From there he had a better view back to the road.
No sign of a shooter, or even a potential hiding place. Ryker crept along the wall, heading further into the apartment shell. He moved through a doorway, his eyes focused on the bright glare coming through the open window space in front of him, through which he had an almost unobstructed view of the street.
Still no sign of anyone with a gun.
Ryker felt pressure against the back of his head so he stopped.
A male voice spoke to him in Spanish. Ryker could understand the language quite well, enough to know what the man had just said – who he worked for. In fact, one of the words he’d used, above all the others, was understandable in countless languages. Policia.
That was a fight Ryker didn’t want.
Ryker dropped his gun and put his hands above his head.
A second before something hard was smashed against the back of his skull.
CHAPTER 20
The throbbing in Ryker’s head was still there the next morning, making it an effort to move even an inch. He’d been pistol-whipped, knocked unconscious, by an officer from the Policia Local – the municipal police in Marbella and the surrounding area. From what Ryker had gathered, the officer was responding to an anonymous call claiming an armed man was wandering the streets.
After falling unconscious, Ryker had woken up in the back of the patrol car and then been frog-marched into a cell at a police station in Marbella where he’d been left for a number of hours before anyone had come to speak to him.
Then, when he’d finally been moved from the cell to an interview room the previous evening, events had got really interesting. Despite Ryker’s protestations, the arresting officers claimed there were no other people on the construction site. That Ryker had been alone.
Ryker certainly didn’t believe that Rambo and Buzzcut had suddenly jumped up and vanished. And then there was the supposed call from a worried citizen that the police were responding to. Ryker didn’t buy it.
The only explanation was that at least one bent policeman was on the payroll in Marbella, and they were likely working for the person who’d sent those two goons after Ryker. Kozlov was the obvious culprit, but Ryker was keeping an open mind.
When Ryker had finally been allowed to make a phone call in the small hours of the morning, he’d managed to briefly speak to Green. Less than impressed – not just about being woken, but by the trouble Ryker was causing him – Green had soon been onto Walker’s lawyer, Graham Munroe, and then his contact at the Policia Nacional, an inspector named Miguel Cardo.
Ryker wasn’t in tune with the many nuances of the Spanish police but from what he knew the Policia Local took on everyday policing in urban areas. Then there was the Guardia Civil, a more military-orientated force that had responsibility outside urban areas, including policing highways and borders. Finally there was the Policia Nacional, responsible for major criminal investigation.
It was the Policia Nacional who was leading the investigation into the murder of Kim Walker. Unfortunately for Ryker, that meant he was at something of a loss with the Policia Local who’d arrested him. Because not only did they have no clue who Ryker was, they also knew nothing about Kim Walker’s murder. They were a different police force in fact from the equivalent Policia Local who patrolled the Mijas area where the murder had taken place.
Which meant Ryker had no chance of a quick release once he’d been arrested for possessing an illegal firearm.
Nonetheless, Green, Munroe, and Cardo had together somehow set in motion a chain of events that ultimately led to Ryker being released without charge that morning, and Cardo was the man who arrived with this welcome news. By that point, Ryker had been at the station for the best part of twenty-four hours.
The inspector could have been a cartoon character. Every inch of him screamed policeman. He wore a navy-blue suit and light-blue shirt, and had slicked-back black hair, a pointed nose, and a thick black caterpillar moustache.
‘It seems you have some friends in high places,’ Cardo said to Ryker. His English was good, though came with a thick Spanish accent.
The two men walked out of the police station into the bright light and heat of another sunny morning in Andalusia, which only seemed to make Ryker’s headache worse. He badly needed some aspirin.
‘Friends isn’t really the right word,’ Ryker said.
Cardo frowned. ‘My English was not right?’
‘No, your English was fine. I’m just not sure the people you’ve been speaking to are really my friends.’