The woman hesitated. “Hold, please.”
Another truck appeared from nowhere, and Hugo yanked the steering wheel for king and country. The woman came back.
“A patrol car was nearby and was sent to check it out. They should already be there.”
“Only a patrol car? You need to send more!”
“Listen, sir, I don’t know who you think you are, but it’s standard procedure to send a patrol car first before we send the cavalry.”
Hugo lost what was left of his patience when he saw the faint red-and-blue flashing lights two streets away. A thin pillar of smoke rose into the sky along the side of the building.
“Do it now! Send everything you have!”
The woman hesitated, then stammered, “Okay, I understand. I’ll . . . I’ll send out another couple of patrols.”
He took a deep breath before ending the call. “Thanks.” He tossed the cell phone down onto the passenger seat and exhaled. The snowstorm had increased in strength, and thick, greasy snowflakes swirled in front of his windshield as he turned toward the Novus headquarters parking lot.
Novus wasn’t a well-known name in the security world, but they had in a relatively short time managed to establish themselves as a serious player in the industry. The company had been founded and was managed by Madeleine Singh, and she had created a security consulting firm that served companies and well-funded individuals. Total discretion for the customer—that was Novus’ motto.
Hugo glanced around the corner. Two police officers were squatting behind a police car, and four black-clad, hulking men stood in a crescent-moon formation. Without warning, the men fired their automatic weapons at the police car, which was reduced in seconds to a twisted metal lump.
The men stopped shooting for a moment when they saw a silver vehicle come sliding around the police car, but to their surprise, it neither stopped nor escaped the scene; instead, it increased speed in the men’s direction. One of them shouted a warning, but it was too late.
The silver sedan skidded around the cop car so tightly that the rear bumper scraped the front of it, but then the car continued forward, sliding sideways, its tires screaming, and cut down two of the men.
“Shoot! Shoot him!” Xi yelled.
The remaining dark men opened fire on their new targets, but the silver car’s driver knew what he was doing. He skidded hard against a snowdrift, causing the snow to fly. Xi and another goon barely had time to throw themselves back and take cover. Xi hurried to his feet just as the car’s tires got stuck in the snowdrift, and he gave a joyful cry.
“Now, men! He’s stuck! Shoot him!” Xi and the others who remained started shooting again, and the normally quiet parking lot of Novus’ offices was once more transformed into a hurricane of flashing lights, screaming men, and blazing automatic weapons. Xi watched as the silver sedan turned into scrap metal in front of his eyes. He signaled for the shooting to stop, and motioned for one of the men to check on whether the driver was dead.
The man stepped forward, ripped open the door, and gave a surprised howl.
“There’s no one here!”
Xi gritted his teeth. Somehow, the driver must have gotten out when the vehicle circled past the police car. That was the only possibility. How had he not seen it?
His thoughts were interrupted by gunshots. The goon who had opened the car door to check on the driver stumbled back and fell to the ground hard.
*
Hugo had no real plan as he turned the corner and caught sight of the police car. Despite his speed, he made brief eye contact with one of the cops kneeling behind the car. A fraction of a second later, he yanked hard on the steering wheel and slid past both squatting policemen, using his vehicle as a weapon against the dark figures who stood lined up in a semicircle.
He managed to smash into two of them, sending them flying. When Hugo saw the wall of a snowdrift on his right, he acted on sheer instinct. He threw open the door and curled himself into a ball, rolling out and thumping into the thick, soft snow. Muffled shouting reached his ears a couple of seconds later, and a jolt of satisfaction passed through him as he realized his improvised plan had succeeded. He crawled backward away from the car and the approaching men. The cold air and the snow made the hair on his skin stand on end, but he didn’t even notice it.
Hugo watched as one of them approached the car and flung the door open.
“There’s no one here!”
Hugo raised his weapon and aimed. He squeezed the trigger, the gun coughed, and his target topped backward. The rest of the goons shouted and opened fire in any and every direction, without any clue as to where the threat was coming from. Hugo flattened himself on the ground and could only hope that more police officers were on the way.
A faraway voice yelled, “There are more of them. We have to move!”
Hugo peeked out over the snowdrift and saw one of the dark figures skulking toward the police car. The man raised his weapon.
“Whoever you are, come out now—or we’ll shoot these cops!”
Hugo knew the guy wasn’t lying; he could see it in his eyes. He pursed his lips. These assholes had him after all. He rolled over and stood to his feet.
“Hey!” he called out. “I’m here!”
Xi raised his visor. The heavy snowfall mostly obscured his face, but the long scar running from his forehead, around his eye, and down his cheek was still clear. He pointed to the fallen men.
“Most impressive.”
“Thanks.”
“Are you a cop?”
“No.”
“Military?”
“Ex.”
Xi shrugged. One of his men came up beside him and whispered close to his ear, motioning toward the fallen men.
“We have to go,” Xi said to Hugo. “Again, very impressive. But . . . you will pay for that.”
Hugo heard the faint sound of sirens growing louder. There was more than one—more than a few. People must have heard the shooting and called the police. Xi and his men climbed quickly into their two waiting Jeeps, and as they burned rubber out of the parking lot, Hugo saw a small, dark object sailing toward them through the heavy snowfall.
“Grenade!”
The two cops, who had only just gotten up on their unsteady feet, now threw themselves down again. The ground shook as the explosion thundered and shattered their world.
4
The heavy snow dampened most of the force of the explosion. Hugo pulled himself up and rushed over to the policemen, helping them up again. One of the cops had a long gash on his cheek, and blood trickled in a steady stream down his throat. The other officer seemed to be in shock but was otherwise unscathed. Hugo studied the wound on the first officer’s face.
“It doesn’t look like it’s that deep. If you’re lucky, you’ll only have a hairline scar later. Just enough to show off at the bar.”
The policeman blinked uncertainly at the unexpected comment, then made a strange, chirping sound. At first, Hugo was concerned that the officer was suffering delirium from blood loss or was having a stroke. He understood a moment later that what he was hearing was laughter—or an attempt at it, anyway.
“Whoever you are, thank you,” the officer said. “You got there at just the right time. A few seconds more, and they would have shot us to pieces.”