tried to shoot another human being it would be in some classic film noir setting, possibly a city park at midnight or the murky hallway of a derelict motel.
The last thing she’d imagined, when she set out with Matt Cooper to retrieve his witness from a mansion in the heart of San José, had been a bullet-riddled car chase leading to the riverfront.
If they survived that long.
She saw more muzzle-flashes from the nearer chase car and replied with two rounds from her own weapon. The sharp reports, though swiftly blown away, still stung her ears. The target vehicle swerved jerkily, but once again she couldn’t tell if either of her bullets had made contact.
In the excitement, Herrera had forgotten that she was supposed to count her shots. Had she fired six or seven? Since the pistol’s slide was closed, she had at least one cartridge left before she had to fumble for the spare clip in her handbag.
Now the second car was gaining ground, trying to pass the first or pull abreast so that gunmen in both chase cars could fire at her and Cooper. Angry at the presumption of her enemies, Herrera triggered her first shot at the second car—and saw her pistol’s slide lock open on an empty chamber.
“Damn it!”
She ducked back inside the Ford’s window, wind-tangled hair obscuring her vision as she reached down for her purse. She’d dropped it on the floor between her feet, after they shoved Favor into the car, before their enemies had shown up and begun the chase.
She snatched the bag and opened it, rooting past wallet, lipstick, compact, facial tissues, hairbrush, searching for the one thing that might save her life. Of course the pistol’s extra magazine had slithered to the very bottom of her bag, beside a jingling key ring.
She dumped the purse into her lap, snatched up the slim black magazine and let the other items spill between her legs, onto the floorboard. One touch of a button dropped the empty magazine out of her pistol’s grip, and she replaced it, thumbed the catch to close its slide and put a live round in the chamber.
Ready.
I’ll count this time, she thought, and know when I run out of bullets.
When she was unarmed, helpless against her enemies.
“We’re getting there,” Cooper said from the driver’s seat.
She knew he meant the riverfront, but couldn’t say how far they’d traveled while she was exchanging gunshots with the enemy.
“I’ll try again,” she said, kicking the contents of her purse aside and turning toward her open window.
“Wait. How many rounds do you have left?” he asked her.
“Eight.”
“What caliber?”
Another bullet struck the Ford, making her wince as she replied, “Three-eighty.”
“Better save them for the main event,” he said. “I can’t replace them.”
Main event, she thought. Kill or be killed.
“But if they overtake us—”
“Two blocks, tops,” he promised her. “We ought to have some stretch then. See what happens.”
As if answering his comment, two more bullets whispered through the broad rear window’s vacant frame and punched holes through the windshield. Herrera was surprised that it did not collapse entirely.
With windows blown away or open, Herrera smelled the Rio Torres well before she saw it, with the docks along its southern bank. Another moment, and she saw warehouses where the merchant ships unloaded cargo seven days a week. Some also docked at night, she reasoned, but she saw no crews at work in the immediate vicinity.
What now? she wondered, startled when Matt Cooper answered her. She wasn’t aware that she had spoken.
“Now we improvise,” he said. “No rules. We need an edge of some kind, but I haven’t found it yet.”
Cooper had turned onto the waterfront. Behind them, Herrera saw the chase cars following.
Squeezing the pistol in her fist until her knuckles ached, she watched their enemies and told him, “I think we have run out of time.”
“WE HAVE THEM NOW,” Armand Casale said. The anger that had burned inside his gut during the chase was fading now, relaxing into satisfaction.
Killing was the best part, always.
“After them,” Casale ordered, settling back into his seat as his driver stepped on the gas. Off to their left, the other chase car kept pace, both engines growling in the night.
Casale didn’t know these people who had snatched his target out from underneath his very nose, killing a number of his people in the process. Given half a chance, he would’ve liked to question them at length, but something told him that they were not likely to surrender.
Fine.
Eliminating them would be the next-best thing—more satisfactory for him, in fact, than keeping them alive. Above all else, he had to carry out his main assignment and make sure Gil Favor’s mouth was shut for good.
Casale carried a submachine gun manufactured from a Ruger Mini-14 automatic rifle, designated the AC-556F. It had a folding stock, unlike the parent weapon, and could fire full-auto or in 3-round-burst mode, using a custom brake to keep the muzzle from climbing. If he needed backup with a little extra kick, the stainless-steel Colt Anaconda in a shoulder rig below Casale’s left arm ought to fit the bill.
Casale didn’t care about the men he’d lost so far that evening. They were expendable, no friends of his, and could be easily replaced. Only his duty to Antonio Romano mattered at the moment, and that duty was to guarantee that prosecutors in New York would have no traitors to support their case against the Don.
The Rio Torres waterfront appeared to be deserted at that hour, no one to disturb them or to summon the police. Casale clutched his weapon as they sped along behind the bullet-scarred sedan, wondering whether any of the shots they’d fired so far had wounded Favor.
Maybe he was dead or dying even now, huddled inside the vehicle.
Be sure. And kill the others, too.
No witnesses.
It was a rule that always served Armand Casale well.
So far, he hadn’t fired his weapon during the pursuit, but that would change as soon as they were close enough for him to reasonably guarantee a hit. He had spare magazines, along with other tools and weapons, but Casale hated wasting ammunition—hated wasting anything, in fact, except the people he was paid to waste.
And this time he was being paid quite well.
The bullet-pocked Ford was doing sixty miles per hour, based on the speedometer on Casale’s own dashboard. Granted, his vehicle was stolen, like the other chase car, but its gauges seemed to function properly.
At that speed, his intended prey would soon run out of waterfront.
