The bell rang again and the doors opened. The ballroom doors were open wide, but there was no sign of Evelyn or her assistant Janet.
“Hurry, let’s go,” Lilly hissed, pushing her daughter toward the glittering banquet room.
8. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 7 P.M. AND 8 P.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME
Curtis spotted the gunman approaching the tool and die factory the moment he slipped through the hole in the back wall. It was a close call for the CTU agent, with Curtis emerging into the fading afternoon just as his stalker rounded the corner. Fortunately the man’s eyes were fixed on the sand at his feet — most likely wary of rattlesnakes — so Curtis managed to slip around the building without being seen.
Using the forgotten collection of Dumpsters for cover, Curtis kept glancing over his shoulder, trying to get a better look at his pursuer. A quick glimpse convinced him the man was one of six who’d arrived in the second SUV. All of those men had the same spare, hardened look of ex-military types, and the man certainly carried his assault rifle with assured familiarity.
Curtis paused in a narrow gap between two rusty steel containers, to stare up at the purpling sky. The sun was low on the horizon, but it would be over an hour before it was truly dark. Unfortunately, with at least one man on his trail and possibly more, Curtis could not afford to wait for night to hide his movements — he had to get out of here now.
On his knees, peering out from between two dented containers, Curtis watched as the armed man discovered the hole in the wall, then carefully crouched low and crawled through it.
The moment his stalker disappeared inside the factory, Curtis was moving. He had about thirty feet of barren, sand-swept concrete to cross before reaching the cover of a lone Dumpster set apart from the rest. He’d use it to boost himself over the eight-foot fence, then he’d cross three vacant lots beyond the fence to reach Pena Lane, where he’d parked his car.
Feet pumping, Curtis traversed the stretch of concrete in under three seconds — only to be stopped in his tracks when another man stepped out from behind the Dumpster, his AK–47 leveled at Agent Manning’s stomach. Immediately, Curtis threw his hands over his head.
“Don’t shoot,” he cried, resorting to Plan B. “I know I was trespassing. I lost all my money at the craps table and was lookin’ to find a place to crash, that’s all.”
The man was young, Curtis guessed in his early twenties. By haircut and physique, the CTU agent pegged him as ex-military. But this man was clearly a private in some socialist state’s army, because he was clearly not accustomed to thinking or acting independently. Curtis saw the man’s confused expression, knew he was wondering if he’d cornered the wrong guy, and if the real culprit was getting away.
“Get on the ground and take out your weapon,” he commanded in a thick Cuban accent.
“Chill man! I don’t have any weapons,” Curtis cried, adding a touch of hysteria to his performance while remaining on his feet.
“Get on the ground,” the man roared, moving perilously close. But still the gunman didn’t fire. Either he was reluctant to pull the trigger on the wrong man, or he feared alerting his prey. In any case, the youth stood there, eyes darting left and right, wondering what he should do next.
“I know… You’re looking for the other guy,” Curtis stammered, he hoped convincingly. “I saw him in the factory. He took off before I did. The dude had a phone in his hand, maybe a gun too…”
The gunman blinked, lowered the assault rifle’s muzzle, just a little.
“He went that way,” Curtis said. He kept his left hand over his head while he moved his right arm across his body, moving as if he were going to point. While the gunman was focused on the action over his left shoulder, Curtis dipped his hand into his jacket.
The Cuban spotted the move too late. Curtis whipped out the Glock, slapped the rifle barrel aside with his hand. The man jerked the trigger and the AK–47 chattered, blowing out chunks of concrete. Before he could recover, Curtis shoved the muzzle of his Glock into the man’s chest and fired twice.
Blown backwards by the impact, the gunman slammed into the steel trash container, then slid to the pavement. The man’s heart and lungs poured out of the basketball sized exit wound in his back, splattered to the ground. Curtis was more concerned with the assault rifle, which clattered to the ground a few feet away.
Spitting dust and concrete shards, Curtis lunged for the fallen rifle. But a sudden burst from an automatic weapon peppered the ground around the AK–47, denting the barrel and splintering the stock.
Unable to locate the direction of the fire, Curtis abandoned the now-useless rifle, rolled across the pitted concrete and onto his feet. More tracers tore the air around him as he took off in a run. He had no choice but to head right back to the forest of Dumpsters. Another burst struck the ground around his pounding feet, then punched holes into the steel containers.
Curtis hit the ground on his belly, used his elbows to drag himself forward, deeper into the tangle of steel boxes. Bullets ricocheted over his head, occasionally striking concrete. He felt hot pain and realized a piece of shrapnel had torn a hole in his leg.
Gasping, Curtis touched the wound, satisfied it was not life threatening. With the shooters’ location un certain, he decided to wait a few minutes before moving again. While listening intently for any sound, he rolled onto his back and yanked the PDA out of his pocket. He checked the display, silently cursing the continuing lack of signal. Then he activated the homing beacon inside the device and stuffed the personal digital assistant into a rust hole eaten into the side of a dirty Dumpster. He thrust his cell phone there, too. Curtis knew that if he was killed or captured, Morris or Jack, or another CTU agent could locate and retrieve these items and the data they contained, once the jamming was lifted.
Curtis heard angry voices. Two men. They’d found the corpse of their comrade. He strained to hear the instructions quietly issued by the leader. From what he could understand, the men were circling the Dumpsters to flank him. Keeping his head, Agent Manning noted that the leader spoke Spanish with refined Castillian accent — another Cuban, Curtis guessed.
When he’d counted to a hundred, Curtis adjusted his grip on the Glock. Then he rolled over onto his belly again and slithered among the Dumpsters until he found a place where he could stand.
With two eight-foot fences to climb and long, empty stretches to cross, Curtis knew that the gunmen would easily cut him down before he ever reached Pena Lane. Since that escape was blocked, Curtis decided to surprise his hunters and head right back where he came from — the factory. If he reached the building, which was right on Browne End Road, he could probably hold off a siege until help arrived.
Not that he was expecting to be rescued. Neither Jack nor Morris knew he was in trouble. But an explosion of automatic rifle fire, even in such a remote section of town, would probably attract someone’s attention, even if it was only the junkies at crack houses along Pena Lane.
Counting on the timely arrival of a Metro Police squad car was a flimsy plan at best, but it was the only one he had. Cautiously, Curtis rose to a crouch and moved back to the factory. He made it all the way to the hole in the back wall before shots rang out. Shells smacked the bricks above his head as Curtis dived across the threshold.
Without sunlight pouring through broken windows and holes in the roof, the factory’s interior was nearly pitch black. Fortunately, Curtis knew his way around the building, and he stumbled blindly forward, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Behind him, he heard a crash, then a burst of fire raked the room he’d just fled.