opportunity to round a corner and drop the phone into a trash can before picking up her speed. Up ahead was a bar she knew, which had a back outdoor area as well as the main barroom. That would pose an opportunity to lose the tail, assuming that whoever this was didn’t go overt and start gunning down everything that moved. Judging by the earlier attack, they wanted to take her out with a minimum of fanfare, although that had quickly gone sideways on them.
The doorway to the bar, El Pescador, was just a few more yards on her right. Music and laughter emanated in waves from within, and it sounded packed, which could work in her favor.
She slipped past a group of drinkers standing just inside and pushed through the mass of bodies, the rear outdoor area her target. A few jostled patrons shot her dirty looks as she pulled the new long-sleeved T-shirt over the one she was wearing. There was no point in making tracking her easy for her pursuers. She flipped the baseball cap onto a table and quickly pulled her hair into a ponytail, fishing a hair tie from her purse, the reassuring bulk of the silenced pistol brushing her knuckles. Within seconds, she was another woman — this one a serious college student on holiday.
Maya resisted the temptation to look back and see if her stalker had followed her into the bar, and instead pressed her way through the final five feet to the rear courtyard. There were fewer people outside, although she knew that within a few hours the entire establishment would be standing room only.
She looked around and spotted the area of the outdoor wall that had brought her to the bar — two bathrooms she remembered were in a brick enclosure that had open air over the commodes. Maya darted to the women’s room and locked the door, wasting no time in standing on the toilet seat and reaching to grab the lip of the wall.
Her injured hand screamed in protest as she pulled herself up and over, dropping silently into the alley before sprinting off. Whoever was chasing her was improvising now — there was clearly no plan other than to terminate her, and they were probably shorthanded since three of them had been neutralized at her shop.
A chunk of mortar tore off the facade next to her, and she heard the distinctive sound of a ricochet, so she increased to a flat-out run to put distance between herself and the shooter. Another shot missed by a wider margin — she dared a glance over her shoulder. The gunman was firing through the rear bathroom window, probably standing on the toilet to reach the aperture, which had iron bars on it to prevent break-ins. She didn’t want to waste any of her precious bullets, so she raced to the end of the long block rather than shooting back. A silenced 9mm round would lose accuracy every yard she put between her and the gun. Given the distance, she liked her odds — which changed when she turned the corner into an even smaller street and confronted a running figure thirty yards away brandishing a pistol.
They must have been communicating, probably by radio or a private com channel.
The gunman hesitated for a split second, and Maya fired through her purse. Two of the rounds went wild, but the third connected, and he went down, shooting even as he dropped. She felt a tug at the bottom of her new shirt, and she saw a smoking hole in the loose folds around her waist. The bullet had missed her by no more than a centimeter, which was enough, but still too close.
Another round went wide as the shooter tried to hit her. Moving a few steps closer to him, she pulled the Beretta free of her purse, aimed carefully, and fired. The man jerked as his weapon rattled against the cobblestone, and then he lay still.
Maya approached cautiously, gun trained on his inert body, and when she reached him, she toed his gun out of reach. She noted that his Beretta was the twin of hers — then her legs swept from under her, and she was falling backwards. The shooter had sweep-kicked her, and she hadn’t reacted in time, realizing her error even as she went with the momentum and rolled.
The pain from the impact shot up her side as she hit the hard street, but she ignored it and concentrated on maintaining her grip on her weapon even as she tried to get far enough from the downed man to avoid any more damage from him. Her wrist struck the ground and went numb for a split second, and she involuntarily dropped the pistol with a wince.
He kicked at her again, but she surprised him by launching herself at his face, leading with her elbow. She felt a satisfying connection with his jaw and heard his head smack against the street’s rough surface. She followed it up with another brutal downward blow with the same elbow and heard a crunch as his nose fragmented.
Her head snapped back and blinding pain shot up her jaw as his fist bashed into it, then she felt impossibly strong arms wrap around her upper torso, seeking a hold. She pivoted with his pull and rammed the heel of her damaged hand into his ruined nose, but he twisted at the last second, avoiding the lethal strike that would have ended his life. Maya instantly followed with an eye dig, ignoring her hand’s protest as she drove her fingernails into his corneas. This time he wasn’t quite fast enough, and he howled in anguish — the first noise either of them had made during the deadly contest.
The scream was cut off by her next strike: both palms slammed against his ears, instantly bursting his eardrums — an injury she knew caused unspeakable agony. His arms fell away from her as they groped for his head, and she completed her follow-through by slamming his skull against the pavement. The sickening crack confirmed that the fight was over, and he lay still, blood trickling into the gutter from underneath him.
She rolled away, rose to her knees, then stood and stepped to where his weapon lay. Confirming that it was the same as hers, she popped the magazine out and slipped the full clip into her purse. There would be time to reload her gun once she had some breathing room.
Another figure peered around the corner of the building at the end of the block, the muzzle of his silenced pistol pointing in her direction — she instinctively reacted, whipping the clip-less pistol at him and pulling the trigger.
The lone chambered round that remained in the gun discharged, and she watched as the side of his face blew off and his body collapsed back behind the building.
After dropping the empty gun, she scooped hers up and approached the latest attacker’s motionless form as she mulled her options. She could either keep running or stay and concentrate on taking out anyone else pursuing her. The momentary glimpse she’d gotten of the latest shooter hadn’t looked like the man who’d been following her, so there was at least one more out there. Maybe more.
She peered cautiously in the direction she’d come from, but the alley was empty. The gunman in the bar bathroom had likely elected to exit from the front entrance and loop around. That was valuable information. She could anticipate his approach.
Still watching the alley, she reached her throbbing hand down and quickly went through the fallen attacker’s pockets, noting the telltale smashed earbud wedged under his head. State-of-the-art closed-loop com gear — as expected.
His weapon was another Beretta clone, so she exchanged the clip for the one in her pistol and then melted into the darkness of a nearby doorway, prepared for the next attack.
Which never came.
She waited expectantly but nobody materialized. One minute, then two, and nothing.
From the opposite direction, she heard conversation in Spanish over shuffling footsteps. It sounded like three young men arguing about where to go next. Their evening would be ruined when they came across the corpses, but that wasn’t her problem.
She needed to get out of there, grab her pre-prepared escape kit, and disappear forever.
Maya eased from the gloom, quiet as a ghost, and edged into the night, the echoing voices of the young men following her down the street as she became one with the shadows.
Chapter 2
Sirens keened in the distance as she marked out an unobtrusive pace — just another local on her way home after a long day.
That she would wind up being hunted by the police was a given. The only question was how long it would take. If they had help, such as an anonymous call fingering her, it could be near instant. If they had to piece things together after finding the bodies at the cafe, she probably had a few hours.
But she couldn’t count on catching any breaks — she hadn’t yet. It was safest to assume the authorities
