Hidden Agenda (Work In Progress)

Hi Everyone,

I've written another chapter of Hidden Agenda.  Please feel free to comment and let me know what you think.

Happy Reading.

Best wishes.

Sara

Chapter Six

London, July, 1996




Alessandro leaned back against the door of his black Mercedes. it was 6am and the sun was warming the smell of acrid smoke that clung to city after the bomb blasts. He'd been home to catch some sleep and shower but already he was beginning to feel like he needed another one with the dust and debris floating around in the air. His dark eyes scanned the back of the hospital.

He had men watching Ariadne's hospital room, partly to protect, partly to restrain should she decide to leave unexpectedly before his arrival. Still he wouldn't put it past her to make it out of the hospital despite her injured state and outfox his men. She'd seemed too confident that was a possibility because she knew the hospital so well. That's why another couple of his men were watching the front and he was at the back with his close aides Maurizo and Ethan. She wasn't going anywhere.

'She's on the move,' Alessandro straightened listening to Ethan's voice as he talked on his mobile phone and relayed information from the men outside her room. 'The nurses are in a panic looking for her. They never saw her come out.'

'Shit. Where are the men Vadala sent to apprehend her they clocked last night?' he asked Ethan quickly scrutinising every doctor, porter and other hospital staff coming out of the hospital's back entrance. Where was she? He felt his chest tighten with anxiety. She was going to get herself killed.

'They are heading north down the corridor. They've picked up pace. Looks like they've found her. Shit they are running now,' Ethan informed. Alessandro frowned as Ethan continued. ' They've just seen her, she's in a lift,' There was a pause and then surprise. 'She is heading up, not down.'

Before Alessandro could issue an order Ethan was already on another call instructing the two men at the front of the hospital to enter the building. Alessandro crossed the road closely followed by Maurizio and Ethan eager to get inside the hospital. He had a bad feeling he knew exactly how Ariadne planned to escape him. His suspicions were confirmed when he heard a loud noise overhead. Helicopter.

The Aylesbury was famous for its heart and transplant operations. They were always ferrying in vital organs and seriously ill patients by air ambulance. He glanced up. Sure enough there was a helicopter going in to land on the rooftop. Shit, he had to move quick or she was going to be on that chopper and out of there before he could blink.

'She's going for the roof. There's an air ambulance coming in to land. She'll be hoping she can get on it when it leaves, he told them increasing his speed into a run.

'All this trouble over a girl. We could have had the tape last night, Alessandro,' Maurizio told him with a bad temper. 'You should have been more persuasive with her. Why the hell weren't you?'

Alessandro decided to ignore the older man's rebuke and disapproval of his methods. At some point they were going to come to blows but he couldn't afford to antagonise him until Vadala was finished and he didn't have the fucking time right now. He needed Maurizio whether or not he liked it. Ethan answered for him as they rushed to the hospital entrance.

'Because he has a heart, Maurizio. Something you have to find, tin man,' Ethan said with heavy sarcasm.

They took the lift to the eight floor of the new modern building and walked out onto a floor in chaos. They hurried along the curving corridor unable to see what was up ahead. There were screams from a woman and the sound of cutlery falling to the white plastic floor. Then they heard a gunshot.

Alessandro's anxiety for Ariadne went into over drive. He cursed his men as they came through a door that led out to more lifts as he passed by. Too bloody late as usual. She could be dead. He careered around another clinical white curve in the claustrophobic and brightly lit the corridor that stung his eyes and burned his throat with its nauseating antiseptic smell. He came across some fleeing women who had come to serve breakfast to the patients in the ward on their left and noticed they were closely followed by a doctor and two nurses. Alessandro spied Ariadne being chased by two of Vadala's men. Both of them were armed and making every attempt to take her down, not caring who got in their way.

She was dressed in green scrubs, a cap on her head as though she had just come out of an operating theatre. No wonder she'd got past Vadala's men and his own. They wouldn't have recognised her like that. One of them fired another shot as she pushed heavily against the swing door that led out into another corridor. The bullet ricocheted off the wooden door missing her head by inches. Alessandro's heart skipped a beat. He watched her stop dead and stare at the door. Her pale injured face turned ashen. It was to cost her valuable time. Vadala's men were almost upon her and she would be dead if she didn't move.

'Run,' he shouted to her. She glanced in the direction of his voice and registered its urgency. It spurred her into movement and she was through the door and making her way up the stairs to the roof.

Maurizio brought the first of the men down in a rugby tackle as Alessandro burst through the door after her and the other man as she ran up the first flight of stairs. She was struggling and there was blood seeping through the bandage that covered her bullet wound from last night. She looked ready to collapse but the expression of sheer bloody determination mingling with her fear on her face told him she'd bloody die trying to get on that helicopter.

Vadala's man brought her face down hard on the cold floor of the landing after the first flight of stairs. Alessandro heard her groan dazedly as he took the stairs two at a time to get to her. The guy viciously turned her over not even realising he was about to be attacked.

He turned but it was too late Alessandro was down on him and dragging him off her. Another man burst through the door as he fought with Ariadne's attacker, clearly from Vadala and ready for a fight. If he'd got past Maurizio, Ethan and the others that meant there were more of Vadala's men in the building than he'd allowed for and would be on their way. Shit, what was on the bloody tape that they would risk shooting up a hospital and exposure for? If he didn't do something Ariadne was a dead woman.

Alessandro shouted at Ariadne to get up as he gained on his opponent and pushed him backwards down the stairs into his startled colleague bowling him over down the flight of stairs. At least she was on her feet. He caught her arm and propelled her upwards to the small air ambulance station office on the next floor.

'I know what you're doing. I need you on that helicopter. It's the only way I can get you out of here alive. But I'm coming with you.' He told her taking his semi-automatic out of his inside suit jacket pocket.

'I won't let you stop me taking the tape to the police' she told him with fury struggling in his grip.

'Too bad. Now do as your bloody told if you want to get out of this alive,' he snapped painfully tightening his hold on her arm.

He marched her through the door to the office and kicked the door closed behind him making everyone in the room jump to his attention. He ordered two frightened women and a man to barricade the door to stop Vadala's men getting through or they would all be dead. They wasted no time in doing as they were told and to his relief refrained from asking needless questions when they saw his gun. The men started to bang on the door and push against it as Alessandro pulled Ariadne out in to a small conservatory area filled with chairs, a coffee machine and a table with magazines. He could hear and see the helicopter outside preparing for takeoff. He opened the door and immediately the blast of air from the revolving rotary blades did it's best to knock them over.

They both bent their heads as he hurried her towards the helicopter. The pilot got out shouting at them about the danger and authorisation. Alessandro aimed his automatic at him and let it do the talking.

'We need to get out of here. It's a matter of life and death so get back inside and get us up in the air,' he informed the man coldly.

The man was flabbergasted. A bullet whistled past them and embedded itself in the door of the helicopter. Ariadne jumped. The Pilot ducked and ordered them both in as he climbed in. Alessandro looked around quickly. The two men from the stairs had broken through the door and where shooting at Ariadne. They would never aim to kill him but Ariadne was a sitting duck.

Alessandro placed himself in front of her as he shot back at them, bellowing at her to get in. They started aiming directly at the helicopter to damage it and prevent it's takeoff. He shouted at the pilot to take off with Ariadne but damn it she wouldn't go without him.

'I'm not leaving without you. Get in.'

'Go now. I will hold them off.'

'No,' she took hold of his jacket and pulled him to the door with her. 'I know they won't be allowed to kill you so if you come they won't try and bring the helicopter down. Now get in.'

He shot another round considering her words. She was right. As long as he was on the aircraft she was safe with the tape. He shot again and got in. The pilot took off. The two men came out of their places of cover and looked up at him. One of them aimed at the engine but the other knocked his hand away. He glared up at them as the pilot manoeuvred the helicopter away from the roof. Alessandro sat back with a sigh and looked over at Ariadne next to him. She surprised him by pulling off her cap and by lying her weary head against his shoulder for comfort. He slipped his arm around her waist and pressed her closer to him. The woman was trouble but he loved being around her. If he didn't watch out, she might be the death of him.