Torchwood: Exodus Code

path back to piazza. Enter there.’
    ‘I really don’t have time for that walk,’ said Jack, smiling and then reaching through the gate, he grabbed the guard’s head, and slammed it against the edge of the wall. The guard dropped to the ground.
    Climbing up onto the gate, Jack flipped over to the other side, landing gracefully on his feet directly behind a second guard, who turned immediately at the sound. Jack raised his elbow, slamming it into the guard’s nose. Then he pulled the guard’s body behind the nearest cabana, where he removed the man’s red T-shirt, his assault rifle, a knife, and his radio, which Jack clipped to his belt, slipping his earpiece out and putting the guard’s in his ear instead.
    Stripping off his coat, his shirt and his braces, Jack pulled on the guard’s T-shirt. He walked over to the fountain, splashed water on his hands and slicked back his hair. He needed not to be an easy mark for Rex until he was ready to be.
    Jack knew Rex had to be watching this entire raid after he’d made himself obvious in the piazza. Hugging the vine-covered wall, Jack sprinted to the front of the hotel, the speakers above him blaring traditional Aymara music like the tinny soundtrack to an old Western.
    Inside the compound, the hotel was made up of six pastel-painted bungalows in a U-shape around the main house that sat at the opening. Each bungalow had an inner courtyard containing a private swimming pool and its own lush tropical garden. After his arrival last night, Jack had discovered that all the bungalows were empty. Given the real function of this hacienda, Jack doubted there ever were very many guests who stayed voluntarily.
    The main building housed a massive colonial dining room, the kitchens and the Castenado family’s private quarters. Through a locked gate just beyond the main building, tucked under the heavy canopy of the jungle, Jack had discovered the camouflaged barracks for Asiro Castenado’s men.
    Dana’s intelligence had informed them that Castenado was running drugs and a sophisticated kidnapping business. A wealthy businessman goes missing while on vacation, his family, his business, his shareholders are alerted, and no one else; the money changes hands and after the exchange the businessman is found wandering the mountains, dehydrated but unharmed.
    Problem was the kidnapping scheme was the smallest obstacle Jack had to overcome to get what he needed in the village if he was going to get to inside the mountain in time.
    Six hours left.
    When Jack reached the locked gate to the barracks, he stopped, adjusting the volume on the radio. In his earpiece, he could hear Antonio calling Asiro’s guards to their positions.
    A voice in Jack’s earpiece crackled, ‘Acción!’
    From the belfry, someone fired off a shot.
    Damn! The girl was not just watching. Something else was going on.
    Jack sprinted to the wall, climbing quickly and in time to see the minibus’s front wheel explode. The bus careened off the sides of the canyon wall like a pinball, once, twice, and then wham, a final ricochet flipped it over, sending it skidding on its roof, coming to a rest against the canyon wall at the edge of the piazza.
    The bus was blocking the only road off the meseta.

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    FOR A FEW seconds after the minibus hit the canyon wall, Juan didn’t move, taking stock of his situation and his injuries. A cut above his left eye was bleeding heavily and he felt as if he’d been in a cage fight. Shoving the deflated airbag off his lap, he listened. Steam hissed from the engine. The bus creaked and moaned as it settled against the canyon wall. He could smell hot rubber. Behind him, the student, Eva, he’d heard her boyfriend call her, moaned and then was silent, her head flopping on her shoulder, blood trickling from the corner of her lips.
    Through the shattered windscreen, Juan saw the UN soldier sprawled a few feet from the wreckage. He was breathing, but bleeding from a head wound. Juan couldn’t worry about him right now because suddenly a line of armed men were fanning out from the gates of the hotel. As soon as they did, the piazza was ablaze with gunfire.
    Unfastening his seatbelt, Juan hit his comms.
    Nothing. Static. He decided to stay with the plan despite the chaos outside.
    Easing out of his seat, pressing his hands on the floor that was now the roof above his head. He stared at the other couple who had been tossed up to the front of the minibus and were unconscious, an avalanche of