Gunfire ripped from the just-arrived car as it squealed to a stop. Bullets tore divots from the sod around her.
She reached the little hollow where the playground equipment stood. For all her fitness she was breathing hard, so winded by exertion and the stress of mortal danger that she had to put a hand on a splintery wood upright to brace herself as she gasped for air. She made herself take control of her breathing. She drew air through her nostrils deep into her lungs, using abdominal breathing from Asian martial arts and meditation practices, which would oxygenate her system far quicker than panting like a dog in a hot car.
She glanced up the hill. The statue seemed to portray a somewhat larger-than-life-size youth in what she took for not very accurate Aztec warrior garb. He knelt cradling a maiden in a long gown who was apparently expiring across his knee. The statue gleamed as if made of something shiny, possibly painted fiberglass.
From the other side of the hill she heard more voices – harsh, masculine, calling out in slangy and not very grammatical local Spanish. These were homegrown bad boys, not immigrants. They sounded like a pack of hunting dogs giving voice as they pursued a fox. Their evil intent was clear even though their words were not.
Where are they coming from? she wondered in desperation. She summoned the sword again. She wasn't sure what good it would do her against ten or a dozen foes armed with shotguns and automatic weapons, no matter how gangster-terrible their marksmanship was. But dying with it in my hand will let me feel as if I'm doing something, she told herself.
Feeling the weapon's heft and hardness in her right hand, she knew that what she was truly arming herself against was the sense of helplessness. She knew giving in to despair would rob her of the resourcefulness that was the only thing that could give her whatever sliver-thin chance of survival she had.
They were all around her now, laughing and bantering, approaching slowly. The predators were playing with their food. She grasped the sword in both hands and stood with legs slightly flexed, ready to dive in any direction – or lunge in counterattack, should a chance blessedly present itself in spite of the odds.
Their heads started to come into view over the lip of the little depression. Their attitude was almost relaxed. They were still twisted near the snapping point, she knew – but entirely confident now of the kill. They were ready for fun.
"Remember your buddies back there," she called to them in Spanish. "You can join them if you want."
They laughed at that. "Give it up, girly," called their apparent leader, a small, wiry, swaggering man with tattoo-covered shoulders and arms bared by an undershirt despite the chill and hair shaved within a millimeter of his scalp. He carried a Beretta autopistol in his hand. "We won't hurt you."
"Much," added a tall, lanky man with snag teeth and a head of wild black hair who walked beside the leader. He carried another AK-47. Like his buddies he held it at a careless angle, barrel down.
One of the men cursed in Spanish. "She's got a sword!"
"Who's afraid of her little knife?" the bandy-legged little leader said. "Miguelito, why don't you shoot her in the leg for me?"
The tall guy started to bring up his rifle. Annja coiled herself for a final futile spring. The gunman was twenty feet from her. She could cut him with her sword, but she would also take a burst of jacketed Russian 7.62 mm bullets, pulping muscle, smashing bone.
The left side of Miguelito's head suddenly erupted red.
Chapter 13
Annja was already in motion, cocking the sword back to her right side, racing with all her speed at the leader. From her left she saw a man raise a shotgun. Then the leader lurched forward as if punched hard between the shoulder blades. His shirtfront blossomed blood. His head snapped back with blood starting from his mouth.
Eyes wild as a trapped animal's, the blood-soaked gang leader tried to shoot. He had no chance. Screaming in a release of terror and fury, Annja swung her blade savagely right to left.
Shots flashed and cracked all around her. She spun to her right, found herself confronting a gang member hammering futilely on the charging lever on top of an evidently jammed MAC-10 with the heel of his fist. He looked up and screamed as her blade flashed.
Ten feet beyond him another man pointed a shotgun at Annja's face. Before he could fire, a bellowing burst from an assault rifle took him and sent him spinning to the gravel.
The remaining gang members were fleeing, with the spraddling, loose-jointed panic of those who know death's gaping jaws are slavering an inch from the seats of their baggy pants. Attacks from at least two directions had finally shattered their morale.
Annja looked around to the south, from where the interloping shots had come. She had a feeling who her rescuer must be, improbable as it was.
"They will run until they literally drop now," Father Godin said as he tossed away a Kalashnikov and drew a bulky, short-barreled revolver with a black-gloved hand. "It will be weeks before they sleep through a night without waking screaming from the nightmares. If ever.
"No thanks are necessary," he added.
"Thank you," Annja panted. Her knees felt like overboiled pasta, and her stomach churned with exhaustion and after-action nausea. She staggered a few paces to brace herself against the swing set. "I can't believe they were that determined," she said.
"Evidently they were strongly motivated," Godin said. "One suspects both a large carrot and an equally large and heavy stick. You have made someone very powerful most unhappy, Annja Creed."
She lifted her head and looked at him through strands of loose chestnut hair. "Like the Pope?" she asked.
He laughed. "His Holiness doesn't find it necessary to operate through the agency of street gangs."
She watched him closely as he approached. He had opened the cylinder of his brushed-nickel gun, dropped six empties connected by a black spring-steel full-moon clip to his palm. He transferred them to a pocket, and came up with a fresh clip.
Despite the fact that he had come to her aid she felt uncomfortable at his proximity. Or even his presence.
"How is it," she said, still sucking in deep breaths, "that you happened by at such an opportune moment?"
"I was following you, of course," he said.
"Why?" she asked angrily.
He aligned the six cartridges gripped in the moon clip, slid them into the cylinder and snapped the revolver shut. Then he stretched out his arm, cocking it as he aimed it straight at Annja's head.
"Because I fear you have something that does not belong to you."
Deliberately she straightened. She forced her focus past weapon to meet his eyes with angry intent. "The sword?"
"Indeed."
Anger flashed inside her. "Why should you have the sword? Look what happened to the last sword bearer!" she shouted.
"Mistakes were made," Godin said. His voice was level, his eyes calm. They held hers. She realized he was trying to lull her. "Surely, they will be made again. Still, the church can be the only proper caretaker of such a holy artifact."
She held her hands out open to her sides. "Where is it?"
He shrugged. Somehow he managed to do so without the muzzle of his handgun wavering in the slightest. "An excellent question. Suppose you answer, and save us both a great deal of unpleasantness?"