Torchwood: Exodus Code

luggage piled on top of them.
    They were alive, but they were not likely to be making any sudden moves for a while. Juan crawled out through the shattered windscreen and, hugging the side of the van to avoid calling any attention from the gunfight in the piazza, he slipped round to the back of the minibus, and released the emergency exit. Gunfire strafed the top of the van. He pulled open the doors and threw himself into the rear of the bus.
    ‘Señor Donoso,’ he called, tossing backpacks and camera bags from his path. ‘Señor, you must come with me.’
    Suddenly, Juan’s earpiece crackled to life. ‘Get him out of there now. This is Deputy Director Rex Matheson. We need you to take Donoso straight to the extraction point. Do not, I repeat, do not go near the piazza or the hacienda. Do you copy?’
    Juan tapped his earpiece twice. ‘Señor Donoso, please come with me. You will not be hurt. Your freedom has all been arranged.’
    Donoso shoved his wife off his chest and scrambled up. ‘I’m already hurt, you fucking idiot. This was not supposed to happen. Who took out the bus?’
    His wife was regaining consciousness, calling his name over and over again.
    ‘Olivares, please, what has happened?’ she cried.
    ‘Now, Juan,’ said the voice in his earpiece. ‘This village is a war zone. Get the mark to the extraction point.’
    ‘Sir,’ pleaded Juan, trying to ignore the demanding voice in his earpiece. ‘We do not have a lot of time. You must come.’ Juan did not speak Portuguese so he spoke in English. The cut above his eye was stinging as sweat dripped from his forehead. The temperature inside the van was stifling.
    Donoso scrambled to his knees in the debris, sliding a gun from his jacket pocket as he did so.
    ‘Sir, please,’ said Juan, drawing his.
    With no hesitation Donoso shot Juan in the head. His wife screamed, scrambling frantically inside her Louis Vuitton satchel looking for something.
    ‘Is this what you’re look for?’ With his free hand, Donoso lifted a second gun from under his waistband, holding it up for his wife to see.
    Cash began to stir from the backseat, his earpiece screaming static. Donoso pointed his gun at Cash’s face.
    Cash raised his hands in surrender. ‘Stop. Wait. I’m nobody.’
    ‘Everyone’s somebody!’ Donoso glared at him, cocked the gun, but then after a beat he lowered it. ‘Don’t move, Mr Nobody.’
    Cash slid down in the seat, fiddling with his earpiece. A cut on his leg was bleeding down his calf, wetness seeping into his boot. That can’t be good, he thought. Up ahead, Vlad was staring back at Donoso and the executed driver in disbelief.
    Donoso pushed Juan’s body out of his way, watching his wife crawl frantically to the nearest smashed window, dragging her LV bag behind her.
    Cash put his fingers to his lips. Vlad closed his eyes. Cash couldn’t see Hollis or Gwen because of debris, but he could see that Hollis’s arm was moving, trying to shift a section of the side door that was pinning him on top of Gwen.
    The minibus reeked of petrol, the iron odour of blood and Donoso’s own perfumed stink. Donoso pulled a cigar from his pocket, inhaling its scent, then he crumbled it in his hand, flaking the tobacco over Juan’s limp body. He shoved his wife’s gun into the waistband of his trousers then reached across and grabbed his wife’s leg before she could make it all the way through the window. She screamed. Shards of broken glass shredded her arms and legs as her husband hauled her back inside the wreckage. She raised her arms to shield her face.
    ‘You stupid bitch,’ he spat at her. ‘Did you really think your skinny body could buy you more loyalty from Antonio than mine?’
    Through the open emergency doors at the rear of the bus, Antonio raised his weapon and shot Donoso’s wife. Vlad gasped. Donoso turned and stared at him, then he picked up the LV bag with his ransom money in it, reached his hand out to Antonio and stepped from the rear of the bus.
    ‘You have ten minutes to gather your men,’ said Donoso, kissing Antonio on the mouth before heading for the other side of the bus where two armed guards waited next to a hummer. He handed one the LV bag.
    ‘Then we must go. I’ve business to take care of.’

63
    FROM HER POSITION in the tower, Isela couldn’t believe what was happening. The entire hacienda was under siege and it was all her fault. She’d watched the bus flip, but that was part of the plan. It always was.