Tristan yelled from the back as the impact launched him out of his bench and nearly into the ceiling before he landed in a heap on the armored floor. “Hey!”
“Hang on, kid!” Boxers said through a laugh. The humor evaporated as quickly as it had arrived as he caught a glimpse of what lay ahead. “I think we’re in trouble, Boss,” he said.
Jonathan saw it, too. A pair of soldiers had a woman in custody, each with a hand on a different biceps while the one on the right spoke into a radio.
“Turn on the headlights,” Jonathan commanded, flipping his NVGs out of the way. “And keep going forward.”
Boxers shot him a confused look, but he complied without a word.
The guards looked startled as the headlights caught them. The one on the left shielded his eyes right away, but the one on the right had to put his radio down first.
“Go in like we belong,” Jonathan said. “I want them to think we’re the cavalry.” As he spoke, he unclipped his M27 from its sling and drew the MP7 from its holster on his left thigh.
“Your plan is just to go out shooting?” Boxers asked. His tone made it clear that he did not approve.
“She’s our ticket out of town,” Jonathan said. “I don’t see-”
Maria Elizondo moved with startling speed. While her captors stared at the approaching vehicle, she made a wild flapping motion with both arms, breaking free from their grasp. She took a step back.
Jonathan saw that as his cue and he shouldered open his door.
The soldiers were still reacting when petite Maria produced a massive pistol from somewhere. She drew and fired in the same motion. The guy on the right fell.
The recoil was a problem for her, though. Before she could regain control, the soldier on the left had found his own weapon. He was bringing it to bear when Jonathan snap-shot a bullet from his MP7 into the guy’s right ear.
Startled, Maria brought her revolver around and took a shot at Jonathan.
He read her body language in time to spin around and duck behind the panel of his open door. The bullet punched through four inches from his ear.
So much for the vehicle being armored.
Maria hadn’t meant to fire at the truck. It was a reflex, a body twitch reacting to the sound of a gunshot. She saw a man drop as she pulled the trigger, and now she expected to be shot herself.
For an instant, she considered running away, but the urge evaporated from her brain seconds after it formed.
She had to make it clear that she’d meant them no harm.
“She dropped her weapon,” Boxers said. “She’s got her hands up.”
Jonathan felt relieved. He didn’t think that her gunplay had been an act of aggression. It would have sucked to have to kill her.
“Put your hands in the air!” Jonathan called from behind the door. He raised up high enough to see through the closed window and saw that she was doing as she was told.
Satisfied, he let the MP7 hang at his side as he stepped out into the open. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Are you the Americans here to take me to the United States?”
“That depends on what your name is,” Jonathan said. He was nearly certain, but they’d had no visual ID for her, so even shadows of doubt had to be taken seriously.
“My name is Maria Elizondo,” she said.
“And who do you work for?”
“Felix Hernandez.”
“What is the name of your FBI contact?”
“Veronica Costanza.”
Jonathan felt his shoulders sag with relief. He motioned for her to come to the Sandcat. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Can I take my pistol?” she asked.
“Are you going to shoot at me again?” He made sure to ask that one with a smile.
“I didn’t mean to,” Maria said. Obviously, she couldn’t see the smile.
Jonathan pointed to the.44 with his chin. “Sure, go ahead. Quickly.”
“Don’t be crazy, Scorpion,” Boxers said from the driver’s seat.
Jonathan ignored him. Maria wasted no time. She bent at the waist, picked up the weapon off the street, and jogged over to him. When she closed to within a few feet, Jonathan extended his hand and smiled again. “You can call me Scorpion,” he said.
He opened the back door for her. “The driver is Big Guy, and that young man is Tristan.”
Jonathan offered a hand to help her up the big step, but she didn’t need it.
He closed the back door, holstered his MP7, and climbed back into the shotgun seat.
“Let’s go to America,” he said.
Boxers gunned the engine.
She was beautiful.
As incongruous and stupid and juvenile as it seemed, that was Tristan’s first thought. Maria Elizondo was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He’d only caught a glimpse of her in dim yellow streetlamp light that made it through the windows. Her huge brown eyes glinted in the light, and as she sat on the bench opposite him, he could make out every contour of her body through the soaked clothing that clung to her skin.
Clung to her breasts. Her breasts that had no bra. The suspension on this truck left a lot to be desired, and every bump caused the breasts to bounce.
Christ, he was getting hard. How much of a pervert do you have to be to get a hard-on when people are shooting at you?
“Hello,” she said in English. From her smile, he sensed that she’d read his mind.
Tristan’s ears turned hot. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Tristan. I’m the one who actually has a real name.”
“Maria,” she said.
“Tell me where we’re going, Maria,” Jonathan called from the front seat.
She rose from her bench and duck-walked to where she could look between the two front seats to see out the windshield.
God, her ass looked great, too.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Palma keyed the radio mike again. “I said, bring her to me,” he said. “Do you copy?”
They, too, were dead. It was a conclusion drawn purely from speculation, but given the way everything else was going, that was the only answer.
And why not? Clearly, the plan for their escape would bring Harris and Lerner to the alley where his soldiers had been waiting. It was just a matter of timing.
He spat a curse and kicked the door of the car that had become his command post. He flashed on how furious Felix was going to be when he found out that Palma had not only ignored his order to grab the girl right away, but that as a result she had gotten away.
And make no mistake, she had gotten away. The ruses and diversions had all worked perfectly for them. They could be anywhere now, and they could be driving anything-
Wait.
The Sandcats! In his mind, he plotted the locations of the explosions as a function of the vehicle locations, and it made sense. But how could the Americans have known they were there? Did Palma have an informer among his men?
That didn’t matter.
At least he now knew what they were looking for. As he radioed for a helicopter, he dialed his phone with his other hand.
“Do you know the warehouse district off of Hermanos Escobar?” Maria asked.
“I don’t know anything about your city,” Boxers said. “Start with compass points.”
“North and east of here,” Maria said. She gave Jonathan the address from memory. “It is very close to the American border.”
“It’s a freaking tunnel,” Boxers said. “I hope to hell it’s close to the border.”
Jonathan entered the address into his GPS system. He also made sure that Venice got the address and the coordinates back in Fisherman’s Cove. When he got the results, he shot Boxers a look. “Fourteen-point-three kilometers.”
“That’s like nine miles!” Tristan exclaimed from the back.
Boxers’ foot grew heavier on the accelerator. “I think I read somewhere that these TPVs have a top speed of seventy-five miles an hour,” he said. “What say we test that?”