Barbish stepped from the elevator. “Of course.”
Rikki exited, smiling at the guards as he walked to his pile of weapons and crouched.
The burly guard eyed the Warrior suspiciously. “I don’t know about this,” he said, his right hand drifting under his jacket.
“Believe me,” Barbish assured him. “Everything is fine.”
Both guards glanced at their boss.
And Rikki uncoiled with the dazzling quickness of a striking cobra. He spun around, a shuriken in his left hand, the kyoketsu-shogei in his right.
His left arm arced up and out, and the gleaming shuriken streaked straight into the second guard’s forehead, the razor teeth biting deep.
Powered by Rikki’s steely sinews, the shuriken sank over half its width inward. The guard tottered backwards, his right hand gripping the shuriken and tugging, but all he succeeded in doing was slicing his hand and three fingers. Crimson flowed over his face.
The burly guard was drawing a pistol.
Rikki released the kyoketsu-shogei in an underhand motion, the last two fingers on his right hand retaining a hold on the metal ring as his thumb and first two fingers sent the five-inch knife into the burly guard’s throat. The man grabbed for the double-edged knife in sheer reflex. Before his foe could snatch the weapon, Rikki wrenched on the metal ring connected by the leather cord to the knife hilt. The knife was yanked free, its trajectory marked by a geyser of spurting blood.
Pressing his slippery, crimson-coated hands over the hole in his neck, the burly guard fell to his knees.
The guard struck by the shuriken collapsed onto his back.
Rikki scooped up the yawara and stepped up close to the burly guard.
He delivered a roundhouse blow to the side of the man’s head with the tip.
With a loud groan, the guard sprawled onto his face.
Rikki crouched and began reclaiming his gear.
Blade hastily joined him. “Stay right where you’re at!” he said to Barbish.
The Dealer appeared pale, his eyes on his dead men.
Blade replaced his Bowies first, then aligned the backpack between his shoulder blades. He lifted the Paratrooper.
“You’ll get yours, bastards!” Barbish snapped.
Blade stepped up to the Dealer. “Keep your mouth closed.” He glanced at Rikki.
The martial artist had put the kyoketsu-shogei, the yawara, and his three other shuriken in his belt pouch. He was donning the backpack, his eyes on the lobby, when he suddenly dived for the M-16 while shouting, “Look out!”
Blade whirled.
Three men in suits were charging the two Warriors. All three held pistols. Two of the trio already had a bead on the giant; the third was sighting on the diminutive man in black.
Blade tried to bring the Paratrooper into play, realizing he was way too late, expecting to hear the boom of their guns and feel their slugs tear through his body. Out of the corner of his left eye he caught a motion.
Hickok. Crouching and drawing his right Python, his arm nearly invisible, the gunfighter fired three times from the hip, the shots thundering in the lobby, unerringly on target.
The three charging bodyguards died on their feet; not one managed to squeeze the trigger. They tumbled to the carpet, head-shot, brain dead.
Hickok sprinted to his friends, pulling his left Python on the fly. “We’d best skedaddle.”
Blade nodded, then shoved Barbish toward the front entrance. “Move it!”
Rikki slid his katana under his belt and brought up the rear.
“You’ll never get out of here alive!” the Dealer taunted them.
Hickok took the lead, his revolvers sweeping from side to side; covering the people in the lobby.
Blade realized there were over two dozen men and women surrounding them. How many were in the Dealer’s employ? Would Barbish plant men in the—
A man in a dark brown suit burst from behind a column to their left, an Uzi in his hands.
Hickok’s Pythons cracked.
His eyes rupturing as they were perforated by the slugs, the man in brown was catapulted onto his back by the impact.
Hickok walked faster, his blue eyes darting every which way.
Barbish was dragging his feet, moving as slowly as he could.
Blade gave the Dealer a brutal push, and Barbish stumbled forward, cursing under his breath.
Hickok was within eight feet of the entrance.
A brunette in a green dress, standing to the left of the glass doors, suddenly whipped a revolver from her black leather purse.
The gunfighter shot her in the forehead.
Blade covered a group to their right. So much for abducting the Dealer without attracting attention! Every Dragon in the city would be on the lookout for them! Which meant they had to get out of the city as quickly as possible. But how?
A portly man with a shotgun abruptly jumped up from concealment behind the front desk, his appearance accompanied by the instantaneous, simultaneous discharge of a pair of pearl-handled .357 Magnums. He dropped from sight.
Hickok reached the glass doors and stood to the right, his Pythons trained on the lobby.
No one else seemed disposed to dispute the Warriors.
Blade grasped Barbish’s left shoulder and propelled the Dealer outside.
They’d made it!
Or had they?
A pair of Narc patrol cars, their sirens wailing, their lights flashing, took the nearest intersection to the south at 50 miles an hour and roared toward the Oasis.
Chapter Nine
Blade was fuming. His simple plan had gone awry with potentially disastrous consequences. The last thing he’d wanted to do was draw the Narcs into the conflict. The Narcs were, after all, the legal arm of the law in Miami, even if they were allied with the Dragons and the drug trade.
But now, as he watched the two patrol cars screech to a halt at the base of the concrete steps leading into the Oasis, he knew he could no longer afford the luxury of minimizing conflicts with the Dragons or the Narcs.
Two officers piled from each cruiser. All four were armed with revolvers. They started to train their weapons on the giant at the top of the stairs. “Freeze!” one of them bellowed. “You’re under arrest!”
Blade fired from the right hip, sweeping the Paratrooper in a semicircle.
A pair of Narcs were stitched across their chests and flung to the tarmacadam.
The pedestrians on the sidewalk between the concrete steps and Collins Avenue, many of whom had stopped to stare at the Narc cruisers, panicked. Screaming and shouting, they frantically endeavored to remove themselves from the line of fire. Some were trampled in the process. The flow of traffic on Collins was disrupted by drivers slamming on their brakes. Horns blared. Bedlam ensued.
Hickok and Rikki came through the glass doors.
The surviving pair of Narcs took cover in the shelter of their patrol car.
One of them jumped up and fired a hurried shot. He missed.
Hickok didn’t. His right Python blasted, the slug boring through the Narc’s skull and knocking the officer backwards.
“On me!” Blade barked, running to the south, his left hand clamped on Barbish’s arm.
Hickok jogged after them.
The last Narc tried to shoot the gunman in the back, rising and placing his gun hand on the roof of the cruiser to steady his aim. He glimpsed another man on the concrete steps to his left, a man in black, and perceived that he’d miscalculated. Drastically.
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi fired the M-16 from a distance of less than 20 feet.
The final Narc twisted and fell, his head riddled.
Rikki took off.
The people crowding the sidewalk were scrambling to get out of the path of the Warriors. Many ran into the avenue, causing cars to brake abruptly, adding to the mass confusion. More sirens pierced the night, drawing ever closer to the Oasis.