She had stopped screaming, but he could see her shoulders shaking as terrified sobs wracked her whole body.
The three unhurt gunmen had spotted his movement. They were shooting lower now, taking the time to aim. Nine-millimeter pistol rounds tore at the earth all around Jon and the Movement spokeswoman. Others, slightly wider off the mark, sent shattered bits of brick flying.
Smith grimaced. They needed to get out of here, and fast. He put his hand gently on the back of the frightened woman's head. She quivered but stayed down. “We've got to keep moving,” he said urgently. “Come on! Crawl, damn it! Head for that big cottonwood tree over there. It's onlv a few yards away.”
She turned her head toward him. Her eyes were wide in the darkness. He wasn't sure she had even heard him.
“Let's go!” he told her again, louder this time. “If you stay low, you can make it.”
She shook her head desperately, smudging her cheek against the ground. She was frozen, he realized, paralyzed with fear.
Smith grimaced. If he left her and scrambled into cover behind that tree, she was dead. If he stayed with her out here in the open, they were probably both dead. The smart move was to leave her. But if he ran for it, he doubted the gunmen would leave her alone. They did not seem like the kind who believed in letting potential witnesses live. There were limits to what he could stomach — and abandoning this woman to save his own skin would blow right through them.
Instead, he raised his pistol and began firing back at the barely visible gunmen. The SIG-Sauer's slide locked open. Thirteen rounds expended. He hit the release catch, dumped the empty magazine out, and slapped in his second and last clip.
Smith saw that two of the gunmen were in motion, edging rapidly to the left and right while staying low. They were trying to outflank him. Once they were in position, they could nail him with a murderous crossfire. The trees here were too widely spaced to provide cover from all angles. Meanwhile, the third man was still shooting steadily to keep Jon's head down — covering the pincers movement by his teammates.
Smith swore silently. He had waited too long. Now he was pinned down.
Well then, he would just have to fight it out here and see how many of the enemy he could take with him. Another bullet slammed into the ground within inches of his head. Jon spat out bits of torn grass and dirt and took aim, trying to draw a bead on the attacker swinging around his right flank.
More shots suddenly rang out, echoing across the Plaza. The gunman moving to his right screamed in agony. He went down, moaning loudly and clutching at his mangled shoulder. His comrades stared at him in shock for a moment and then whirled around — frantically looking toward the shadowy mass of trees along the square's southern edge.
Smith's eyes opened wide in astonishment. He had not fired those shots. And the bad guys were using silenced weapons. So who else had just joined this fight?
The new gunfire continued, hammering the ground and trees around the two unwounded gunmen. This unexpected counterattack must have been too much for them. They fell back rapidly, retreating north toward the street fronting the Palace of the Governors. One of them dragged the wounded man to his feet and helped him hobble away. The other made a sudden dash toward the man Jon had hit, but more bullets lashed the pavement at his feet — driving him back into the concealing shadows.
Smith saw movement at the edge of the trees to his right. A lean gray-haired man came out into the open, advancing steadily while firing the pistol he held in a two-handed shooting grip. He slipped into the cover provided by the Civil War obelisk and reloaded his weapon, a 9mm Browning Hi-Power
Silence again fell across the Plaza.
The newcomer looked across toward Smith. He shrugged apologetically. “Very sorry about the delay, Jon,” he called softly. “It took longer to work my way around behind those fellows than I anticipated.”
It was Peter Howell. Smith stared in utter amazement at his old friend. The former British Special Air Service officer and MI6 agent wore a heavy sheepskin coat over a faded red-and-green flannel shirt and a pair of denims. His thick gray hair, normally cropped short, was now a long, curling mane that framed a pair of pale blue eyes and a deeply lined face weathered by years of exposure to the wind, sun, and other elements.
Both men heard the sound of a car suddenly racing along the north edge of the square. Brakes squealed as it stopped briefly and then roared off into the night — heading east along Palace Avenue toward the ring road of the Paseo de Peralta.
“Damnation!” Peter growled. “I should have realized those lads would have backup and a quick way out if things went pear-shaped for them. As they have.” He hefted his Browning. “Keep watch here, Jon, while I conduct a quick recce.”
Before Smith could say anything, the older man loped forward and vanished into the shadows.
The Lazarus Movement spokeswoman raised her head warily. Tears ran down her face, trickling through the dirt streaking her pale skin. “Is it over?” she whispered.
Smith nodded. “I certainly hope so,” he told her, still scanning the darkness around them — making sure no one else was out there.
Slowly, shakily, the slender woman sat up. She stared at Jon and at the pistol in his hand. “You aren't really a reporter, are you?”
“No,” he said softly. “I'm afraid not.”
“Then who—”
Peter Howell's return cut short her question. “They've done a bunk,” he said irritably. His gaze fell on the shaven-headed man Smith had shot. He nodded in satisfaction. “But at least they had to leave this one behind.”
He knelt down and rolled the body over. Then he shook his head. “Poor fellow's deader than Judas Iscariot,” Peter announced coolly. “You hit him twice. Fairly good marksmanship for a simple country doctor, I'd say.”
He rummaged through the dead man's pockets, looking for a wallet or papers that might help identify him.
“Anything?” Smith asked.
Peter shook his head. “Not so much as a matchbook.” He looked up at the American. “Whoever hired this poor sod made sure he was clean before sending him off to kill you.”
Jon nodded. The would-be assassin had been stripped of anything that could link him to those who had issued his orders. “That's too bad,” he said, frowning.
“It is a pity when the opposition thinks ahead,” Peter agreed. “But all is not yet lost.”
The former SAS officer pulled a small camera out of one of his coat pockets and snapped several close-up photos of the dead man's face. He was using super-high-speed film, so there was no flash. Then he tucked the camera away and tugged out another small gadget — this one about the size of a paperback book. It had a flat clear screen and several control buttons on the side. He noticed Smith staring at it in fascination.
“It's a digital fingerprint scanner,” Peter explained. “Does the trick with nice clean electrons, instead of all that messy old ink.” His teeth gleamed white in the darkness. “Whatever will the boffins dream up next, eh?”
Working quickly, he pressed the dead man's hands to the surface of the scanner, first the right and then the left. It flashed, hummed, and whirred — storing the images of all ten fingerprints in its memory card.
“Collecting mementos for your old age, are you?” Smith asked pointedly, knowing full well that his friend must be working for London again. Ostensibly retired, Peter was periodically pressed back into service, usually by MI6, the British secret intelligence service. He was a maverick who preferred working alone, a throwback to the eccentric, sometimes piratical, English adventurers who had long ago helped build an empire.
Peter only smiled.
“I don't mean to rush you,” Smith said. “But shouldn't we be making tracks ourselves? Unless you really want to try explaining all this to the Santa Fe police, that is.” He waved a hand at the body on the ground and the bullet-pocked trees.
The Englishman eyed him carefully. “Curious thing, that,” he said, rising to his feet. He tapped the tiny radio receiver in his ear. “This is set to the police frequency. And I can tell you that the local constabulary has been very busy over these past several minutes — responding to emergency calls in all directions… and always on the very farthest outskirts of the city. The nearest patrol car is still at least ten minutes away.”
Smith shook his head in disbelief. “Good grief! These people don't mess around, do they?”
“No, Jon,” Peter said quietly. “They do not. Which is why I strongly suggest you find a new place to stay
