He groaned once and then joined his buddy in unconsciousness.
Pine quickly searched them, but they were carrying no IDs. She stripped off their masks and took pictures of them both with her phone. She took a moment to examine their weapons and took photos of them, too.
The next moment she was hurtling down the stairs.
She left the way she had come.
Pine cleared the brick wall at the back of the rear garden area and dropped onto the street on the next block over. She walked swiftly to the next intersection, then turned left and made her way over to Priest’s street. She peered cautiously down it to see if there was anyone else lurking around the man’s house.
There was no one she could see. They might be in one of the cars parked on both sides of the street, but it was far too dark to make out anyone inside any of the vehicles.
She rubbed her knuckles where she had clocked the guy.
She would have to ice that later.
They weren’t cops. They weren’t federal agents. They were two guys in ski masks with guns. Who were they? More to the point, who were they working for? And why was Priest a subject of interest for them?
She had to assume that they weren’t there because of her. If they’d seen her break into the house they would have been far more cautious about entering the only room where she could have been hiding. One guy would have gone in and flushed her, and the second guy would have taken her out.
At least that was how she would have played it.
Her mind was working so rapidly that she had barely registered the fact that it was raining hard. That is until another streak of lightning made her realize she was standing under one of the many very large trees that dotted the streets of Old Town, their aged roots laying havoc to the laid brick sidewalks.
She turned in the direction opposite from Priest’s and made her way back to the Kia.
It was after three, and in another few hours the dawn would be breaking.
She wanted to get back to her place and see what was on the flash drive.
As she was approaching her car, Pine noticed a movement to her left.
It wasn’t stealth. The person wasn’t intending to sneak up on her.
“Can we speak?”
She turned to face the person. He was a small, trim man of Asian descent, maybe in his early forties. He was wearing a raincoat, spectacles, and a slouch hat. He had an umbrella in one hand, but curiously was holding it by the wrong end.
Pine answered his request by pointing her gun at him.
He didn’t flinch at the sight of the weapon.
He said, “I sincerely believe you are an intelligent person. I think a meeting might be in both of our best interests.”
His speech was slightly accented, but his English was perfect, if a bit awkwardly formal.
“Who are you?”
“Perhaps a person who can at least partially explain the, um, delicate situation you presently find yourself in.”
“I’m listening.”
“Not here. We shall be more comfortable somewhere else.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“I really must insist upon this.”
Pine indicated her weapon. “I think I have the upper hand.”
He moved so fast, she never really saw his umbrella hook her gun and rip it out of her hand. Pine simply realized she was suddenly weaponless, something she never liked to be.
Pine squatted down and feigned assuming a fighting stance. Then she lifted her pants leg and grabbed her Beretta. Before she could bring it up, he leapt forward and neatly kicked it out of her hand.
She stood and faced him. “Who are you?”
The man set his umbrella on the hood of a car parked on the street. “I must insist upon your accompanying me. I have a vehicle at hand.”
“I’m not going.”
Again, he moved so fast, Pine barely had time to attempt to block his kick. She was knocked backward and flipped over the car hood. She landed on the sidewalk on the other side.
She rose quickly, but not quickly enough. The next blow lifted her off her feet, and she slammed back into a tree growing through the brick sidewalk.
She rose, wiped the blood from her mouth, and set her hands and feet in a defensive posture.
“You are quite stubborn,” said the man.
Pine said nothing. She was conserving her breath. She’d never battled anyone as quick as this guy, not even her MMA instructors. He was five inches shorter and thirty pounds lighter than she was, and yet his blows were about the hardest she’d ever felt.
She kicked out with a feinting roundhouse, which he easily blocked. Her momentum had carried her into a crouch, which was intentional. She exploded out of this position with an elbow strike aimed at his throat. It was a clever move, yet he simply edged away, and kicked her in the backside, sending her sprawling into the wet street.
Pine slowly rose and brushed off her pants and blew on her scraped palms.
The man said, “I think we can agree that this situation is becoming a trifle ridiculous.”
Pine could see only one way out of this.
She launched herself forward and took a vicious kick to the head, followed by one to her oblique.
Both blows were staggering, but Pine’s skull was pretty damn hard, and a lifetime of lifting phenomenally heavy weights had made her core iron.
She started to stumble, as though she was going down.
At the last moment she lunged forward, wrapped her legs around the man’s torso and left arm, ripped his right limb straight up, and locked it down in an arm bar.
The momentum of her charge and their comingled weights caused them to topple into the middle of the street. The man’s hat fell off.
Pine squeezed her muscular legs around his torso, even as she levered his right arm over his head, trying her best to rip it from its socket.
She could hear him breathing heavily. She locked down on his torso even more, her goal to stop his diaphragm from moving up and down. Without that mobility, one could not remain conscious or alive.
She thought she could feel him weakening.
She was wrong.
With the index finger of his pinned left hand he jabbed hard into Pine’s inner thigh. As he dug into it, applying an immense amount of pressure, Pine lost all feeling in her leg, and then a jolt of pain shot through her muscle and joints and rocketed up her entire side.
She cried out, helpless, as he forced her useless left leg off him.
An instant later his elbow smashed against the side of her jaw with such force that her leg lock was completely broken. Another elbow strike and her arm bar also fell away, allowing him to roll to his left, get to his feet, crouch, and deliver a crushing stomp kick to her belly.
She threw up what little was in her stomach.
She lay on the street, so dazed that she could barely see the little man rise above her.
“I misjudged you,” he said. He balled up his fist. “You are not quite so intelligent as I first believed.”
The siren cut through the silence of the night. The sound seemed to be heading toward them at speed.
The man looked toward the sound, which gave Pine the only opening she needed.
Though he’d outmaneuvered her at every junction and was by far the better fighter, the man had made one mistake: He’d misjudged the length of her legs.
She shot her right leg straight up and kicked him hard in the balls with the toe of her boot.