Game of Shadows (3 page)

Agadir, Morocco

Sean spun around onto his backside just as the door to his room burst open. Whipping the long rifle around took a second longer than he would have liked, but it was still fast enough to squeeze off a round before the intruder in the blue T-shirt could train his weapon.

Sean squeezed off a shot from the hip, with the butt of the rifle wedged between his bicep and his ribcage. The extended barrel puffed loudly. The powerful round struck its mark in the man's chest and went out through his back. Red spots instantly splattered on the hallway wall behind him as he took two staggering steps back and fell prostrate on the floor.

Another man peeked around the corner with a handgun, a silencer on the end of it. He popped off five extremely quick shots, two narrowly missing Sean's feet. Sean wiggled back a few inches and propped himself against the railing. The gunman's hand was holding his weapon just at the edge of the doorframe, which meant his body was probably only eight to ten inches to the left behind two layers of drywall and some insulation.

Sean raised the rifle to eye level and pulled the trigger. The bullet zipped through the thin walls and was immediately followed by a grunt and a thud on the other side. He waited for a few seconds, keeping the barrel of the rifle pointed at the open doorway in case there were more of them. When no one appeared, Sean took a quick look back across the massive courtyard to Dufort's penthouse.

It was empty.

"Crap," he said to himself. He shifted onto his feet but remained in a crouch. It was entirely possible that Dufort had a sniper of his own on the other rooftop or on a balcony in the other wing.

He crept hurriedly over to the bed and dropped the big gun onto the cushion inside the still open carrying case. Next to it was another, smaller case. He flipped open the latches and withdrew his black Springfield XD .40-caliber and slid a fully loaded magazine of hollow points into the handle.

When it clicked, he pulled back the slide to chamber a round.

Sean rushed over to the door, past the hit man's body, and peeked around the corner and down the hallway in both directions. The corridor was empty, save for the other dead man on the floor.

Definitely not a good day to be one of the maids on duty.

He took off down the hall toward the stairwell. An elevator would be too slow. As he reached the door, the latch turned and started to open. He jumped back and aimed his weapon as the gap between the door and its sill widened.

A terrified old man in a red jogging suit with a bottle of water appeared in the doorway. His eyes were wide with surprise and fear. Sean let out a sigh and lowered his weapon, motioning the man through.

"Sorry," he said shortly. "Hotel security. Someone stole some towels."

The old man raised his eyebrows and scurried away, going through the first door on the left.
At least he probably didn't pay any attention to the body farther down the hall
, Sean thought. Sean shook his head and stepped into the stairwell, but was halted by a man in a white T-shirt and khakis. He looked to be of Arab descent, with dark eyes and bronze skin overlapping bulging muscles.

The sinister expression on the man's face told Sean everything he needed to know. Reinforcements had arrived.

He tried to raise the Springfield, but the man countered, chopping down on Sean's wrist then grabbing it with a vice-like grip. He pulled Sean close and swung his elbow at his face.

The pain screeched through Sean's jaw as the elbow struck squarely. The man still didn't let go of his wrist, and punched hard with his fist. The attack hit Sean in the abdomen, instinctively causing him to double over. A knee shot up quickly, aimed at Sean's chin, but he was able to regain his wits fast enough to tilt his head to the side. He reached out with his free hand, grabbed the man's knee pit, and leveraged his weight along with the attacker's to throw him off balance.

The man's reaction was immediate. Even as he stumbled backward and into the railing, he chopped down with his free elbow. It ended in a deep thud against Sean's shoulder blade. Even with the sharp pain suddenly searing through his back, Sean kept pumping his legs, driving the man backward on one foot. The hit man realized what was happening and let go of Sean's wrist in a panicked attempt to brace himself against the railing.

His hand touched the white metal tubing, but the palm slipped over it as Sean pushed the guy back and forklifted him up. There was a brief yelp as the man's big body toppled over the edge and down the narrow shaft between the stairs. He fell headfirst to the hard concrete below, the short fall ending in a sickening smack.

Sean gasped for a second, each breath sending new pain through his back and stomach. He twisted his jaw for a moment, trying to loosen the muscles that had been struck so hard. He leaned on the rail and stared down at the body lying below, the neck twisted at a grotesque angle.

Sean composed himself and took off down the stairs, bounding over them three at a time, nearly twisting his ankle on one as he clipped an edge upon reaching the second floor landing.

He pushed on and jumped the last four steps to the bottom floor, almost falling to the concrete with his hurried landing. He corrected his balance and darted past the body, reaching the door to the back of the hotel wing. As he sprinted through the back parking lot along the rear wall, he was careful to keep his weapon hidden from public view. The last thing he needed was a bunch of screaming tourists panicking and running for cover.

A woman in a white dress exited her BMW 5 Series, holding an expensive-looking handbag. She saw Sean jogging by but paid him little mind. When he rounded the corner, he sped up again for a few seconds before having to slow down once more due to a cluster of pedestrians strolling leisurely down the strip.

He pressed the gun close to his body, tucking it under his shirt as he walked as fast as he could toward the hotel's other wing. If Dufort were going to try to get away, he would have to use this road. Odds are he would go north.

If Sean could get to the other hotel entrance in time, he could cut Dufort off at the resort’s only entrance/exit.

It was a good plan. And it probably would have worked had the dead guy in the stairwell not slowed him down. Unfortunately, he was too late. He watched as a black Mercedes sedan whipped out of the garage’s other entrance and onto the road. The windows were tinted, but he knew from the way the car was speeding off who was inside.

Sean had purposely left his car close to the road in case he might need to get away. Now, his foresight paid off. He turned around, dashed back toward the rear of the hotel's north wing, and rounded the corner. He reached into his pocket, thankful he'd not set his keys on the desk in the hotel room when he returned earlier.

Thirty feet from the white Jaguar F-Type, he tapped the unlock button on the keyless entry. The car exploded in a ball of searing orange flame and black smoke. The concussion knocked Sean off his feet and sent him plowing into the asphalt, shoulder first.

He winced at the pain pulsing from his shoulder. It mingled with the ache from the injuries he'd incurred during the fight. The heat from the burning wreckage melted over his skin, making the heat of the late spring sun seem like a cool autumn day.

Sean pushed himself up from the ground and dusted off some dirt and debris from his shirt and pants. His messy blond hair had a few pieces of broken glass in it, and he had to run his fingers over his scalp a few times to get them all to shake free. A siren blared in the distance, signaling that someone had just alerted the authorities to the parking lot blaze.

The last thing he needed was to get nabbed in Morocco. While he was technically doing something for Axis, it wasn't exactly on the books. Getting him out might present a certain level of difficulty, even for Emily.

He remembered his weapons and the dead bodies on the third floor. Someone must have seen the carnage by now. He checked his watch. It was only 2:00 local time, one of those periods in a day when very few people check in or out of a hotel. If a staff member hadn't seen the bodies yet, there was still the possibility that he could get out.

Sean raced back into the building through the rear entrance. He grabbed the body at the base of the stairs and dragged the man over to a dark corner underneath the lowest staircase. Several empty boxes were stacked against the wall beside a Coke machine and he quickly grabbed them and piled them around the dead man, effectively hiding him from a casual observer.  Someone would find him eventually, but that wasn't Sean's problem. The present was what he worried about.

There was still some blood on the concrete, which he covered by disassembling one of the boxes and flattening it over the mess.

He ran up the steps, pushing himself to ignore the pulses of pain coming from his shoulder, abs, and back. When he reached the third floor, he warily pushed open the door and peered through the slit. The coast was clear, at least for the moment. The body still lay in the hallway against the wall near his room.

Sean eased the door open a little more, making sure no one was hiding in the opposing corners, then he made a break for it. He ran fast down the corridor, reaching his doorway in a matter of seconds. He hurried around the foot of the bed, picked up the rifle, and dropped it on the mattress. A tan canvas rucksack sat next to the two cases, and he bent down and picked it up as well then set it next to the big gun.

His hands worked like a blur, dismantling the weapon into several pieces before stowing them all in the rucksack, along with his handgun.

The sirens drew ever closer. From the sound of it, they were probably less than a half mile away.

Sean rushed back into the hallway, gripped the body by the ankles, and dragged him into the room, laying the arms over the top of the man's partner. He slung the rucksack over one shoulder and his backpack over both, then reached into his pocket for a lighter he kept handy for just such occasions. He hopped back onto the bed and ignited the lighter, holding it close to the sensor on the sprinkler system unit overhead.

Almost instantly, water spewed from the little round piece in an umbrella shape, and new alarms started bleating in the hallway. Sean jumped down from the bed and peeked into the hallway. The sprinkler system on the entire floor had activated, soaking everything. The bloodstains on the wall across from Sean's door began to run, a convenient byproduct of his ploy to get out unnoticed.

Hotel patrons started appearing in the corridor, wondering what was going on. Some appeared to be getting ready for the beach; others looked as if they'd just been asleep. In total, there were only nine other people on the floor at the moment. Not exactly a ton of cover for Sean's escape, but it would do.

He carried his sunglasses in his hand, not wanting to draw more attention to himself by being the guy who wears sunglasses indoors. He took the stairwell, following the other visitors down the same stairs he'd just been on twice before. In the stairwell, people from the floors above and below mixed on the concrete steps. They made an orderly, if not confused, procession downwards. Most of the patrons probably thought it was a drill, though they would have to have been nearly dead not to have noticed the explosion in the parking lot that surely rocked the building. Once they reached the bottom, Sean waited to see if anyone would notice the cardboard on the floor or the boxes stacked under the stairs. Sean was concerned someone might inadvertently kick the flattened cardboard, thus revealing the bloodstain underneath, but it never happened. No one seemed to pay any attention to it. They were too intent on obeying the rules and evacuating the building. Some hurried more than others on the off chance it wasn’t just a drill. 

He mixed in with some of the other people and made his way back out into the hot sunlight, sure to slip his sunglasses on to help keep from being too identifiable or memorable.

As hotel concierges ushered people through the exits and to the front of the building, Sean picked up his pace, slipping through the mass of bodies and trying not to bump anyone with the rucksack that held his weapons. People gawked at the flaming car that was now being tended to by firemen from the local department. Two police cars zoomed by with sirens screaming, which caused more than one person to cover their ears.

The people were herded toward the north, down the sidewalk away from the building. It was an international standard protocol in case of a fire evacuation, and one that Sean was happy to take advantage of.

A man in a white jacket with a hotel name tag attached to the left breast held up a sign that told everyone where to rally for the evacuation. Sean allowed some of the patrons to start collecting in a huddle around the man and then kept walking down the strip.

He never glanced back. He didn't need to. No one would recognize him or even remember that they'd seen an American in sunglasses with a backpack and a second bag. Why would they? They were too enthralled by the roiling black smoke pouring from the car.

Somehow, Dufort had got wind of his presence, something that now nagged at Sean's mind. The Frenchman had got away from him twice. Maybe the time away from the agency had made Sean rusty. To him, that only meant he would have to train harder.

As he strolled down the street, keeping his eyes peeled for the next taxi, he heard the phone ringing in his pocket. Odd timing for a phone call.