But then Esparza let go of her, and Gabriel steered her toward the door.
“What was that all about?” Cierra whispered to him as they weaved their way through the crowd.
“Esparza had something to do with what happened at the museum,” Gabriel said, keeping his voice low.
Cierra stopped short. “What? Are you really loco, Gabriel? Vladimir is the museum’s biggest benefactor.”
“Then he probably knows all about General Fargo’s flag and the legend of the gringo warlord, doesn’t he?”
Frowning angrily, Cierra stared at him for a moment, but then Gabriel saw doubt begin to creep into her eyes. She was smart enough to know that what he was saying made sense. Or at least that he had no reason to lie about it.
“And he fits the description of the other man who went to Florida to try to find out more about the general,” Gabriel went on. “Do you know any of his associates who look like the man I bayoneted?”
“Of course not! The very idea is insane.” She paused. “Of course, I don’t know everyone who works for Vladimir…”
“I didn’t think so.”
“But that doesn’t mean—” She stopped and looked back the way they had come. Gabriel did, too, and they saw Esparza standing on the other side of the room watching them. His affable smile had disappeared, and now he had the look of a predator about him, an intense stare that had locked in on his prey.
“Dios mio,” Cierra breathed. “You could be right. He’s always been very generous when it comes to the museum, but he has a reputation for ruthlessness in his business.”
“And in getting anything else he wants, I’d bet,” Gabriel said. “Let’s get out of here.”
She clutched at his arm. “If he is who you say…will he allow us to leave?”
“I think he will. He won’t want any trouble in his own home, with all his fancy friends around.”
Gabriel was aware of Esparza’s hawk like gaze following them all the way out of the ballroom. As they passed the bodyguards, he had to wonder if either of them had been among the groups he’d traded shots with several times recently. It was certainly possible.
Danger seemed to lurk in the shadows along the driveway, but Gabriel and Cierra reached the jeep safely. “Hold on a minute,” he said as she reached for the door handle.
He knelt to take a quick look under the vehicle. When he saw nothing unusual there, he lifted the hood and checked under it, too.
“You thought he might try to blow us up?” Cierra asked in an astonished tone.
“Not really. Again, there would be too many awkward questions for him to have to answer, even for a man of his wealth and power. But it never hurts to make sure.”
As they climbed into the jeep, Cierra asked, “Where are we going now?”
“Take me back to the hotel and drop me off there. Your part in this is over. Esparza won’t bother you. He may suspect that I told you some things I shouldn’t have, but he can’t know for sure. And he probably thinks he can continue to make use of you in the future, so he won’t get rough with you.”
Her voice was chilly as she said, “No one uses me, Señor Hunt.”
“I just meant that he needs you to remain at the museum.”
Cierra started the jeep and backed up, then turned around and drove out through the massive gates at the entrance to the estate. She started down the winding road toward the bottom of the hill.
Gabriel heard the high-pitched growl of motorcycle engines behind them even before they were out of sight of Esparza’s villa.
“Son of a bitch,” he said as he reached under the seat for his gun. “I was wrong.”
“The notorious Gabriel Hunt, wrong?” Cierra said. “About what?”
“Looks like Esparza wants me dead bad enough that he doesn’t care if you have to die, too.”
Chapter 10
Cierra stared at him for a second before Gabriel said, “Punch it!” Her foot came down hard on the gas and sent the jeep spurting ahead. She hauled hard on the wheel as the vehicle skidded around a bend in the road.
Gabriel had the Colt in his hand now. He twisted around in the seat to look through the rear window. Four headlights came into view behind them, bobbing and weaving a little as the speeding motorcyclists fought to keep their bikes on the road.
“Déjà vu all over again,” Gabriel muttered. Instead of being pursued across the Queensboro Bridge by an SUV full of killers, now he had four assassins on Harleys chasing him down a Mexican hillside.
The big difference was that he wasn’t alone tonight.
Cierra Almanzar was with him, and her life was in danger, too.
“Take the turns as fast as you can without sending us off the road,” he told her as he started to clamber over the seat into the storage area in the rear of the jeep.
“What are you going to do?”
“Try to even up the odds.” He unfastened the flexible rear window and flung it up out of the way.
“Gabriel!”
She sounded alarmed, like something bad had just popped up in front of them. He jerked around to face front again. “What is it?”
“You can’t just start shooting at them! They may be innocent—”
The bullet that suddenly shattered the right-hand side mirror ended that argument. Cierra screamed and jerked the wheel involuntarily, sending the jeep in a screeching skid toward the edge of the road.
The drop-off wasn’t that far, but it was steep and Gabriel knew that if they went off the road at this speed, chances were neither of them would survive the crash. He was about to lunge back over the seat to grab the wheel and try to right the jeep, but before he could do that, Cierra tightened her grip on the wheel and pulled the vehicle back to the center of the road.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m still not used to being shot at.”
“You just keep us on the road,” Gabriel said as he turned back to their pursuers. “I’ll see what I can do to get them to stop shooting.”
He saw muzzle flashes from the bikers, who had closed the gap to about fifty yards. They were able to take the turns faster than Cierra could in the jeep. The bikes leaned far over as their riders careened around the bends in the road.
Luckily, they hadn’t run into any other traffic so far on the descent from Esparza’s villa. Gabriel hoped it stayed that way. He stuck the Peacemaker out the back of the jeep and squeezed off three shots as he moved the barrel from right to left. Accuracy was next to impossible under these conditions, but the way the motorcyclists were spread out across the road, he thought he had at least a chance of hitting one of them.
One of the bikes suddenly spun out of control. Gabriel didn’t know if he’d hit it or its rider or if the gunman had just lost control of the motorcycle. Either way, the rider slammed into the ground and then the bike landed on him with crushing force before bouncing and skidding along the road, sending up sparks. The rider didn’t get up.
Then the jeep was around another turn and all of the killers were out of sight for the moment. Gabriel looked around the back of the jeep to see if there was anything else he could use as a weapon.
He spotted a plastic gas can, picked it up and shook it. He heard a sloshing sound. Not full, but maybe half. That would do. He set the can down on the floorboard, pulled the tails of his shirt out of his trousers, and ripped off a thick strip.
“What are you doing back there?” Cierra called over her shoulder.
“Getting ready to set off some fireworks,” Gabriel told her. He stuffed the piece of shirt down into the gas can’s spout, then tilted the can so that the gas would soak the end of it and seep up the makeshift fuse. When he could smell the sharp tang of it, he knew it was ready.