Through the branches and bushes in the woods ahead, the four companions could see the cars. As they drew closer, the distant sounds of the muffled pops could be heard, but thankfully no one was around the parking lot except for a few scared tourists crouching next to their vehicles.
Adriana burst out of the forest first. Her feet pounded the asphalt, moving even faster. Tommy, June, and Sean were twenty feet behind her but moving quickly.
Sean took the key fob out of his pocket the second his shoes touched the pavement. He pressed the unlock button as Adriana arrived and opened one of the back doors.
She stood next to it, waving her hand, urging Tommy and June to hurry. June made it to the car next and slid into the back seat. As she did, a door opened on a sedan parked just a few spots away.
Sean watched as the man got out, looking right at his three friends. It was one of Baldwin’s men. Then he saw another guy get out of the passenger side.
A sinking feeling shot through Sean’s gut. He knew immediately what happened. Like a good chess player, Baldwin had anticipated Sean’s move and set up a safety net to make sure the Americans couldn’t get away if they tried to make an escape.
Sean bent his run to the left and charged the man closest to his friends.
The guy was raising a pistol when Sean’s shoulder plowed into his ribs.
The gunman grunted loudly from the impact, and then again as the two hit the ground. He maintained a grip on his weapon and tried to overpower Sean to take aim at his chest.
Sean grabbed the guy’s wrist and started smacking it against the ground until the pistol rattled out of the man’s hand.
Meanwhile, the other gunman saw what happened to his partner and hurried around the front end of the sedan to assist.
Tommy had started to get into the rental car when he saw Sean take down the gunman. Out of breath, fatigued, and hampered by burning muscles, Tommy pushed all those factors out of the way and ran as fast as he could around the cars separating him and the two struggling men on the ground.
He and the second shooter saw each other at the same time. The guy brandished his weapon. His finger tensed on the trigger for a second, and Tommy thought he was certainly going to get off a shot. Suddenly, his hand holding the weapon flailed skyward as his knee buckled.
Sean had seen what was about to happen and for one second took his focus off the man he was fighting and punched the side of the other gunman’s knee. Sean’s reward was a set of strong fingers wrapped around his throat as his opponent attempted to choke him out.
With the other shooter thrown off for a second, Tommy took advantage and launched foot first. Tommy was more of a brawler than a martial arts kind of guy, but his flying sidekick worked perfectly on an enemy who’d just been knocked off balance.
Tommy’s shoe landed squarely in the guy’s abdomen, the force sending the man sprawling over the hood of his car. Not used to landing a kick like that, Tommy stumbled forward and nearly landed on top of the guy.
His gunman used that to his advantage and grabbed Tommy by the shirt. He forced him onto his back and punched hard. Tommy reacted fast, putting up both hands to block the first punch and then the second, but the third sank into his gut. He felt the air fly from his lungs and suddenly found himself gasping for air. His guard went down, too, which opened up his face as an easy target. The guy landed a hard punch squarely on Tommy’s cheek and then another on the other cheek.
On the ground, Sean clambered to get on top of his opponent. He straddled the guy’s torso with both legs and squeezed. He cocked his fist to deliver a blow to the man’s face, but the guy suddenly jerked one way then the other. The move was so powerful it tossed Sean to the side with such momentum that he couldn’t balance himself fast enough before hitting the other car with the side of his head.
Dazed, Sean put out both hands to try to grab onto something to steady himself. His right hand found a rearview mirror, and he pulled himself up with it. The gunman swung a hard uppercut and landed it on Sean’s jaw. The blow was glancing but didn’t do anything to help the pain thumping on the side of his head and his blurred vision.
The guy stood up and stepped to Sean as he lay slumped against the car door. His opponent reared back, about to drive his knee into Sean’s face, when he saw a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye.
Adriana slid over the car’s hood. She reached the other side, planted her feet on the quarter panel, and used her momentum to launch at the attacker. She flew through the air with her right fist drawn and snapped it hard, driving her fist into the guy’s temple. Her knees crashed into his chest, driving him back into the door of his own vehicle, where he dropped to the ground and fell over on his side.
Tommy desperately tried to throw a punch at his opponent, but the man had him pinned and had already delivered two heavily damaging punches. It wouldn’t take many more before he lost consciousness.
A woman’s voice yelled from off to the right, and he saw June run up behind the guy. She jumped in the air from the curb and raised her right elbow next to her head. Gravity pulled her toward her target just as the man turned to see what the noise was. June’s elbow sank deep into the base of his skull with a sickening thud.
The man wobbled for a few seconds after June landed with a spin move to keep her balance. He looked about to fall on top of Tommy, but she swept her foot around and caught the back of his heels, sending him toppling backward. His upper back hit the curb, which would have hurt had he been conscious.
June stood up and reached out a hand to Tommy. A few feet away, Adriana extended her hand down to Sean. The two men stood up simultaneously, both a little woozy.
Confused, they looked at the two women, then each other, then the two women again.
Sean gently felt the side of his head and winced. “Looks like we found a couple of keepers, eh, buddy?”
Tommy worked his jaw back and forth, trying to get the pain out. “Yeah. And I vote one of them drives us back to London.”
Chapter 25
Han-Jae crouched at the back of the chapel and pressed his back to the stone wall. One of his men was on the other side of the church, holding his position against the two gunmen attacking from that flank. Another was on the opposite corner, doing his best to fend off the two coming from the right.
He’d ordered his men to fall back in an attempt to lure the attackers into an ambush. When he initially got his men safely into the cover of the chapel, he cursed himself for allowing the blond and his men to catch them by surprise. The enemy leader had been foolish in thinking he could talk his way out of a fight.
The blond had ordered Han-Jae and his men to drop their weapons and hit the ground. Han-Jae’s reaction had been immediate and deadly: he spun around and fired a shot, sending a bullet into the chest of the guy closest to the blond leader.
The mortal wound dropped the man instantly, and Han-Jae’s comrades also opened fire as they retreated toward the ancient monastery amid a hailstorm of hot metal.
Han-Jae narrowly escaped the initial gun battle, along with two of his men. One however — the youngest — took a bullet to the back of his leg. Han-Jae draped the young man over his shoulder and dragged him to the back of the chapel where he lowered him to the ground behind the rear wall.
The man insisted he was fine, that he could take care of himself. Han-Jae knew better. He knew he was going to have to cut the dead weight. The injured man would only slow them down. That was something he could not abide.
For the moment, however, he still had some usefulness.
Han-Jae leaned around an opening in the stonework and fired a shot down the aisle toward the entrance. The blond had pursued up the middle while his other men tried to take the flanks. It was a fairly standard maneuver, at least for someone who understood tactics.