She heard a thunk from behind her and rolled to see Rob leaning against the wall, the gore-crusted machete in hand, his two attackers dead on the pavement. She grabbed her purse off the ground and launched herself at the alley mouth.
“Move!” she yelled, and then tore off without waiting for him. She rounded the corner as more shots followed her, blood streaming down her leg from where the bullet had grazed her quadriceps. Rob was behind her and was also oozing blood: from his abdomen. Jet slowed her pace.
“How bad is it?”
“I’ll live,” he hissed. “You?”
“Same here. You have a gun?”
“Nope. Too dangerous carrying one in the club.”
“Good thing I was packing.”
He nodded. “Still got at least one shooter back there.”
“I know. In here,” she cried, then ducked down a pedestrian shopping area, the startled strollers backing away from the blood-sodden pair.
They continued running another two blocks, and then she slowed, taking cover in the shadows of a darkened building.
“What the hell was that?” Rob asked, gasping for air.
“Ambush. But question is who?”
“Lap Pu?”
“But why?”
“The kid?”
“Makes no sense. Could have been because of the money I flashed around, but that didn’t feel like a robbery. More like a hit.”
Rob frowned. “But if it was a hit, why the amateurs? Why not just gun us down by the car?”
“Good question. Did you notice that they were all pretty rough-looking? Not city rough. Outdoor rough. Their skin was like leather. I’ve seen that on Bedouins…”
“What now?”
She pulled some Kleenex from her purse; after tearing three loose for herself and pressing them against her leg, she handed Rob the packet.
“We need to get out of here.”
“I’ll call Edgar,” Rob said, pulling his phone free of his shirt pocket.
A twinge of anxiety tickled Jet’s stomach, but she couldn’t place what was causing it. She nodded to Rob, and he dialed Edgar’s number. After a few terse sentences, he hung up.
“There’ll be a car here within ten minutes. White Yaris.”
“And a doctor?”
“Already arranged. We’ll go straight there and get patched up.”
“So now all we need to do is stay alive till help gets here,” Jet said, eyes scanning the dark street. A motorcycle putted by, two locals astride it, laughing together as they bounced down the road.
When the Yaris pulled to the curb and flashed its lights, they hurried to it and slid in without a word. The driver was rolling away before they’d slammed the doors, his eyes roving in the rearview mirror, on the lookout for threats.
“Nice shooting back there,” Rob said in a low voice.
“Not too bad yourself with the Slingblade impression.”
“What I really want to do is direct.”
The little car purred along, and Jet stared out through the tinted window, lost in thought. Whoever had attacked them had known exactly where they would be, so it couldn’t have been Lap Pu — they’d gotten there before him, so at best he would have had to follow them.
The implications weren’t positive.
Someone knew their every movement.
Someone who wanted them dead.
“We’ll dress this and stitch it up, and you’ll be as right as ninepence,” the doctor, a wizened British man, assured her with a nod.
She winced as he sutured her but didn’t make a sound.
“Now, then. Let’s take a look at that stab wound, young man” he said, motioning for Jet to get off the exam table.
“Do you have a sink?” she asked. “I need to rinse out my pants. Blood and all.”
“Other room. Take your time. All right, then. What have we got here?” he asked Rob, who merely sat on the table and pulled his shirt up.
The doctor peered at the gash and flushed it out with antiseptic, Rob’s sharp intake of breath hissing as the pain hit.
“Well, it’s messy, but superficial. A few stitches for you, and the drama will be over. Hold still,” the old man instructed, then blotted the injury with gauze before threading the hooked needle. “You’re lucky I hadn’t polished off the second half of the Balentines I’d started on. As it is, steadies the hand and soothes the spirit.”
Rob ignored the banter, preferring to suffer the ministrations in silence.
“There. No worse for wear, I’d say. Just watch for swelling or redness. I’ll give you both a five-day course of antibiotics, purely precautionary, to stave off infection. I dare say you’ll be fine. Do try to avoid getting stabbed or shot, though. Bloody inconvenient to have to open the office near midnight.”
“Thanks, Doc. I’ll keep that in mind.” Rob began buttoning up his bloodstained shirt.
“No, no. You can’t go out like that. Here, let me see if I have a spare in the closet. I’m sure I do. If not, at least an exam coat.” The doctor opened an en suite door and rummaged around before emerging with a gaudy Hawaiian print rayon shirt with dancing dogs cavorting all over it. “Ah. One of my favorites. I’ll be sorry to see it go. Wear it in good health. World’s going to the dogs, and so forth…”
He handed it to Rob, who eyed it skeptically before pulling off his more conservative one. Jet returned wearing her jeans as he donned the dog shirt and strained to button it across the chest. The result was absurd, and when he faced the mirror, he joined Jet in laughing at his reflection.
“Looks brilliant, young man. Magic, really,” the doctor said without a trace of a smile.
“I wonder if they make a set of matching pants?” Rob remarked drily.
Their business with the doctor concluded, they descended the stairs to the street, where the Yaris was parked out front, the driver napping behind the wheel.
Rob pounded on the window. “Come on, wake up, you lazy…”
“Run,” Jet whispered and then spun, tearing back up the stairs.
Rob stood by the car for a second, unsure of what was happening, and then ducked and darted for the front door just as a shot gouged a chunk of plaster out of the entry foyer wall by his head. He was a third of the way up the stairs when the glass door behind him exploded, showering him with tiny glittering shards. He scrambled the rest of the way to the landing and heard the sound of running footsteps from the street below, then darted down the hall to where Jet had sprinted for the doctor’s office. He was just through the door and twisting the deadbolt shut when rounds thudded into the steel. The doctor gaped around, panicked.
“Is there another way out of here?” Jet asked in a low voice.
He nodded, pointing. “Back exit. What on earth is going on here?”
“Come with us. It’s not safe. They killed the driver,” Jet explained, then threw the back door open. A raw concrete landing led to another metal door that was bolted shut. She caught Rob’s eye.
“They tracked us here. Go down the back stairs. I’ll be with you in a second.”
The front door groaned on its hinges as the attackers threw their weight against it. Rob nodded, grabbed the doctor by the arm, and led him to the rear stairs. Jet dashed to the drawers and opened them, finding what she wanted in the second one. She grabbed some gauze, a small plastic bottle and the paper-sheathed disposable scalpel and then ran for the stairwell, where she could hear Rob and the doctor clumping down to the ground level.
If they were lucky, they would have a minute or two before their pursuers began looking for another way in. Her only hope was that it wasn’t a large team. If it was, they were screwed.
Rob and the doctor were waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
She thrust the scalpel at the doctor.
“Quick. You need to cut this thing out. Now.” She unbuttoned her top and slid a sleeve off, pointing to the spot where the chip had been imbedded just a few days earlier.