Alicia myles 1 - Aztec Gold (7 page)

But down the alley they ran, unscathed. Shouts of anger went up from behind. Alicia gave it a three count, then turned and loosed her weapon, emptying it before ramming in another mag. Two men lay screaming.

Russo fired up the van, throwing open the side doors. Everyone piled in unceremoniously and then became even more tangled as the big man revved the engine. The van spurted forward, roaring. Alicia heard strangled shouts into radios but couldn’t make out the words. A quick look through the smeared rear window showed their pursuers hotfooting it after them. She tried to rise but found her knees were inexplicably locked with Cruz’s.

“What the hell, man?”

Then she saw his eyes. Their guide was barely holding it together. Christ, this wasn’t as easy as the Drake set-up, where every member of the team was pretty much a super hero. This was hard work.

“Take a breath,” she said. “You’re okay. Now ease up with the creepy boa-constrictor stuff.”

Cruz shuffled back. Healey grabbed his shoulders, giving him a winning if slightly blood-crazed smile.

“We all in one piece?” Crouch asked from underneath both Lex and Caitlyn.

The whole group slid around the back of the van as Russo slung the vehicle through a sharp right-hander. Alicia found herself having to fend off Cruz yet again.

“Feeling like I’m gonna throw up is all,” Lex gargled. “You want me to drive this fucker, big man?”

Russo only grunted. Alicia took it as a refusal.

Bullets clanged off the back doors. Both rear windows shattered. Russo slowed for a junction ahead and then floored it on seeing the road was clear. Unlit shops and bars flashed by to either side. The only lights were the dimly glowing streetlamps. Even the moon was having no part of this mayhem.

A gust of wind blustered in through the jagged rear windows. Alicia saw that they were pulling away from the runners now, but that three vehicles were already in fast pursuit. They appeared to be faster than the van. It was only a matter of time.

“They’re determined bastards,” she said. “We have to find a defensible position, Russo. Fast.”

The grunt came again, seemingly one of those replies that worked for every occasion. Alicia was shocked to see how fast their followers closed the gap.

“Shit!”

From out of nowhere a battered white truck crossed their path. Alicia caught the logo
Swift
before her face almost merged with it. Russo slung the van sideways, again forcing its occupants to crash into each other; coming to a jarring stop only when both vehicles smashed together.

The van wobbled, suddenly still. Alicia, though suffering from a bruised forehead, didn’t miss a beat. She scrambled furiously down to the back end, flung the doors open and jumped down. The chasing vehicles were already in view, not yet slowing. A conservative spraying of their front ends made them slew to the right, one smashing into a storefront. Men piled out, taking cover behind bins and railings, concrete posts and parked cars.

Alicia herded everyone around the closest corner. “Run like hell!”

An immediate problem snagged her attention. The area they were headed toward was severely lacking in buildings. A relatively small patch of open land with a dilapidated, rusted child’s playground set at the center, but the entire area was open plan.

“Of all the bloody luck,” she muttered. Maybe this was payback for not getting shot to death earlier.

Russo ground to a halt three feet away. “What’s the plan?”

“Remain unventilated.” Alicia pointed to the widest car parked behind them. “Think we could roll that over? Then, if we’re forced to retreat, at least it’ll offer us some protection.”

Russo nodded, called Healey over and motioned at the others to keep hurrying across the playground. “Be right behind you.”

Alicia moved to help the giant but Russo had the car turned over in seconds. Healey grinned at her surprised reaction.

“Don’t worry. He used to do it to my little Astra all the time.”

“You ever do that to my Ducati and the chances of you reproducing will be cut by at least a half. You get me?”

Russo made the grunt.

Healey grinned. “Oh, he’d just throw the bike onto the nearest roof.”

Alicia lined up with the far corner. When the fastest of their enemy showed his face she took aim, waited a few seconds, then opened fire. The man folded, blood spraying the wall at his back and the man to his right, whom Alicia also took out. There followed a momentary lull before a new weapon appeared, clasped in the hands of a man wearing full body armor.

“Shit. Are you kidding me? Is that a fucking Steyr?”

“Start running.” Russo rumbled and began to turn.

Alicia dived on top of him, dragging him to the ground. “It’s a tactical machine pistol, you idiot. Stay down or it’ll shred you to pieces.”

The Steyr burst into action, ripping through the car in a matter of moments, bullets passing straight through the torn metal. Their enemies ran hard under cover of the Steyr, crossing the road and approaching the area where Alicia, Healey and Russo were pinned down. The three twisted and covered up as best they could, rolling a short way down a sharp incline away from the side of the road and onto the grass-covered playing field.

But, prone as they were, when the well-armed pursuers flowed around both sides of the dead vehicle, Alicia and her two comrades didn’t stand a chance.

It was utter mayhem, utter devastation. Bullets chewed up the concrete and the soil and grass near the car. Lines of lethal lead stitched several haphazard paths of random death. Their only savior was that they had rolled out of the way, but now their enemies had seen them. Alicia fired back with Russo and Healey at her side, all three on their knees and with weapons held to their shoulders.

Men collapsed, tripping others; some were slammed back into the already devastated car. But there were too many; the stream kept coming. In another two seconds Alicia guessed the bullets would reach her.

Then another sound joined forces with the nightmare cacophony. Different caliber pistols, fresh gunfire. It came from behind Alicia. Without being able to turn she saw the oncoming men fall even harder and silently threw a grateful prayer toward Michael Crouch. The extra firepower deterred those attackers who hadn’t already committed themselves, giving Alicia the chance to scramble away.

The ditch was deeper than anyone anticipated. She flew ass over head, all the way down to the bottom, tangling with Healey and only just managing to get her head up at the bottom before seeing the mass of bodies rolling down toward her.

“Oh fu—”

Alicia ducked as the bodies slammed into her, forcing them over her lowered back and away. Still more came, some dead, some dying, tangled with others that were very much alive. Alicia fought to keep her balance, to keep her head above the growing jumble of arms and legs, whilst dodging out of the way of even more heavy, tumbling bodies.

At last the flow came to an end. Russo stood to her left, a man withstanding a tide, using the considerable strength in his arms and legs to divide the waters. In the end Alicia almost expected him to start beating his chest.

She fought to pull herself free, kicking with her legs, all efforts at grace or skill put aside. She used the cargo vest of a dead man to haul herself free, balancing on top of his body. Where the hell was Healey?

Russo was also searching the mass. Bullets still flew from Crouch’s position behind them, where they used the kids’ slide for cover. Alicia knew it was only a matter of moments before their enemies brought the guy with the Steyr forward.

One man rose before her. She headbutted him back down among his brethren. Another challenged Russo and found himself launched into the air, arms and legs flapping as if trying to fly. Alicia hopped from man to man, using their backs and chests as purchase.

“Healey!” Russo’s bellow surely woke half of Mexico City.

Alicia saw hands waving as a disabled soldier managed to untangle his limbs just enough to swivel a rifle at her. With the speed of a striking viper she reached down and tore the gun from his hands, upended it and blasted a hole through his forehead. She wouldn’t indiscriminately kill these men in their helplessness even now, as they clearly fought to kill her, but if they didn’t learn their place at her feet it was game over.

Alicia bounced her way over toward Healey’s hands. The young man was caught beneath a lifeless slab of meat, someone approaching Russo’s size, but lacking the hard lines and craggy exterior in favor of scars and black tattoos.

“Looks like you were enjoying that,” she said as she pulled him free.

Healey breathed hard, unable to retort between gasps. Russo joined them. Healey took a second to dig out his cellphone and take a picture of the big soldier’s neck tattoo.

Alicia wished she had a moment to comment. The possibilities were endless. But now was most certainly not the time.

“What do you say we get the fuck outta here?”

Alicia jumped down the struggling pile, running the instant her feet hit hard ground. By the time her eyes registered the terrible scene ahead she was too far to turn back and hunt for a new weapon.

A second team had clearly ambushed Crouch’s position. Crouch himself was pinned down underneath the slide, his arm around Cruz, keeping the attackers at bay, but Lex and Caitlyn were anything but safe. The uncommon feeling of terror gripped Alicia’s chest as she saw both Lex and Caitlyn being dragged away by a group of armed men.

“No!” Not after her promise. Not after Caitlyn had trusted her. And not after she’d brought Lex all this way.

To die.

Alicia increased her pace, outdistancing Russo with ease. The enemy soldiers continued to drag Caitlyn and Lex along, struggling up the ditch’s incline at the other end of the playing field. If Alicia had a rifle she could have started to pick them off, but it was lost under the groaning mass back there. A man turned, saw her, and took a potshot. Alicia didn’t flinch as the bullet droned past her face.

She was closing the gap.

Then more men saw her. Shouts went up. Guns were snapped in her direction and aimed. The moment they fired she anticipated and rolled forward, tucking her arms and legs in, passing under the deadly flight, and hit the incline at speed. The men vented their alarm. One of them suddenly spun Lex and shoved him hard down the hill toward her. Alicia, at full speed, couldn’t dodge out of the way. She hit the biker head on, the impact causing an explosion inside her head. Falling, plummeting to the ground, she tried one last time to correct her balance.

Above them, at the top of the slope, Caitlyn’s despairing eyes were more like an accusation than a statement of hope.

Licking their wounds, Crouch’s team melted into the night before finding a vehicle and using it to take them to a hotel. Alicia wondered if their escape hadn’t ended up being a little too easy in the end. Maybe all the enemy had wanted were kills and a kidnap. Clearly, they thought Caitlyn had been a part of the team since the beginning.

The worst part was, she hadn’t been. She didn’t have the whole picture, not by a long shot. Alicia knew the type of pressures their enemy would exert on her and it was driving her crazy.

“C’mon,” she said as the remainder of the team unloaded their belongings into the new hotel room. “We have to track down these bastards before they start hurting her.”

“Can’t believe they took Caitlyn.” Healey’s face was despondent. “Poor girl’s only just joined the frickin’ team.”

“At least she won’t be able to tell ‘em anything,” Lex said gruffly.

“That’s part of the point,” Alicia explained. “It will be worse for her.”

Crouch said nothing, but opened and booted up a laptop as soon as he found a seat. Alicia herded Healey straight over to him. “The tattoo. Show him.”

Crouch took the cellphone from the young soldier. “This is good. Gives us a fair starting point at least.”

“One thing worries me—” Russo began.

“Only one?” Alicia shook her head.

Russo ignored the comment. “Greg Coker. From what we know about the man this doesn’t come even close to his modus operandi. What are we missing?”

Crouch was busy downloading the tattoo from Healey’s phone onto the laptop. “We have to assume Greg’s merely a pawn, part of something that goes way deeper. Greg Coker would not do this to our team. It’s the criminal organization behind him that’s the concern.”

“But what could they do to Coker to make him cooperate in such a way?” Healey asked with an air of innocence.

Alicia eyed him but saved her comment. If the kid stayed in this game he would learn soon enough.

“You get any other pictures down there?” she asked, thinking a little ribbing might help take his mind off Caitlyn. “Tangled up with so many men?”

“Umm, no I—” Healey suddenly looked sheepish. “Oh, I see.”

Russo jumped to his rescue. “Did
you?
Seemed kinda at home underneath all those men.”

“They were throwing themselves at me.” Alicia spread her hands. “What’s a girl s’posed to do?”

Crouch made a noise as he finished uploading the data. Once he was happy with the picture he turned to his phone. “Let’s see who we can find.”

“Hope you never lose that thing,” Russo pointed out.

“Oh yes, the contacts on here are a treasure themselves. Cleverly though I’ve saved everything to the Cloud.”

“Really? From what I hear the Cloud ain’t exactly unhackable these days.”

Alicia nodded. “Yeah. Thank God I take all my nudes by Polaroid.”

Healey, unable to help himself, glanced over. Lex barked out a laugh. “She’s not serious, man.”

Alicia kept her face straight. “Aren’t I, Lex? How would you know?”

The biker shrugged indifferently. “Whatever.”

“That sounded a bit like ‘fuck you’.”

Lex almost smiled. “Whatever.”

Crouch waved them to silence as his first call connected. “Healey. Get on the database and start trying to match that tattoo. Russo, go for a recce and set up a watch. The clock is ticking, people. If we want to find Caitlyn in one piece we have to find her
now.”