“Don’t slow down!”
Twenty yards from the intersection, he felt another surge of acceleration as her foot dropped to the floor. His head whipped left and right, using his experience in judging closure to assess the crossing traffic.
“It’s going to be close!” he yelled.
They reached the intersection just as a white pickup truck crossed in front of them from left to right. They cleared its rear bumper by inches, and Colt thought he could almost reach out and touch it as they blazed across the eastbound lanes. When the truck cleared from his field of view, he looked up in time to see two midsize SUVs occupying both westbound lanes barreling down on them.
“Faster!”
There was nothing he could do but brace himself, but she seemed to coax just a little more power from the Corvette, and they reached the other side with less than a foot of clearance from the second SUV. His heart pounded in his chest, but he again craned his neck to look over his shoulder at the Tahoe, relieved to see it only nosing into the intersection.
“Holy shit!” she yelled, relaxing the throttle only a little.
“Right here,” Colt said, slinking back into his seat and closing his eyes with relief.
She made the turn, still faster than normal, but he could feel the Stingray slowing back to a comfortable speed. They had bought seconds at most, but they at least had options. They could run. They could hide. Or they could fight.
His eyes snapped open when she slammed on the brakes, horrified to see a car darting out from a parking garage in front of them. The overheated brakes locked up and the radial tires skidded across the ground, but still she tried turning to avoid the collision, and he felt the back end let loose.
Colt barely had time to brace himself before the Corvette slammed sideways into the Japanese import. His shoulder hit the door hard, and his head snapped to the side, connecting with something solid. The sound of squealing tires and roaring engine was replaced with splintering fiberglass and an anguished cry from the woman sitting next to him.
Like he had been trained to do during water survival, he waited until all motion had stopped before trying to move. The earsplitting clatter ended in an instant, and he tried making sense of the sudden silence. He shook his head, feeling woozy, and tried blinking away the stars twinkling at the edge of his vision. He looked to his right and saw a shattered window with deflated air bag curtains, and he had enough presence of mind to recognize they weren’t his.
“You okay?” he asked.
Silence.
He looked left and saw the NCIS agent hunched over with the right side of her face pressed against the steering wheel. Ignoring his own aches and pains, he reached out and shook her. “Hey! Wake up!”
Colt’s skull throbbed and his ears rang, but his only thought was on the unconscious woman sitting next to him.
At least until he saw the Tahoe turn the corner.
Colt shook her hard, ignoring the prevailing wisdom not to move a car crash victim. There was a good chance she had suffered at least a concussion — hell, he was pretty sure he had one himself — but if she didn’t come to soon, the car full of angry Chinese barreling down on them would be the bigger worry.
“You need to wake up!” he yelled.
He felt her stir but couldn’t take his eyes off the Tahoe. It had stopped in the road, twenty yards short of the mangled Corvette, as its occupants assessed the situation. He remained hunched over, his face hidden behind her long, dark hair, trying his best to appear as motionless as possible. Though he didn’t think they would simply drive off if he played dead, he needed the time to think.
“Unh…” The NCIS agent started to move, and he kept his hand pressed against her back to keep her still.
“Shhh. Don’t move.”
“Wha… happen?” Her words were slurred, her voice weak, but Colt knew it wouldn’t last long.
The Tahoe’s rear doors opened, and two men stepped out onto the street, looking around to check for witnesses. Colt felt an ice-cold fear grip his insides when he saw that the men each cradled a submachine gun. They were too far away for him to make out what kind, but it didn’t really matter.
Rubbing his hand lightly on her back, he kept repeating the hushed plea of “Shhh… don’t move,” while searching frantically around his lap for the pistol he had been holding before they wrecked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the man to his left — the one who had exited from the Tahoe’s passenger side — spin toward what used to be the Corvette’s trunk and raise his gun.
Colt pinched his eyes shut, fearing that the time had finally come.
Then he heard a woman’s weak voice call out from behind him. “Please, help me…”
“You sit down,” the man said. “Help is on the way.”
“Ma… gun,” the agent muttered.
He hushed her again, but then thought he understood. He slowly brought his right hand around his waist and reached across the center console to feel for the service pistol she had holstered on her right hip. His fingers probed the Kydex holster, looking for some form of retention, a lever or button that needed to be actuated, but it appeared to be held in place by friction.
“Help me,” the woman said, her voice having drifted further to Colt’s left and closer to the man pointing a gun at her.
Colt wrapped his fingers around the pistol grip and braced himself, looking through squinted eyes at the two gunmen as they chattered back and forth in what he assumed was Mandarin. The words sounded harsh and clipped, but the tone was universal. The man on the right was losing patience with the woman and wanted his partner to end it.
“Now,” the agent whispered.
Colt didn’t hesitate. He drew the pistol and brought it up over the top of the agent’s back, leaning away from her as he brought the muzzle to bear on his first target. His hand trembled and his vision wavered, but he focused on the front sight post and pulled the trigger the instant it settled on the man’s torso.
Crack!
The man staggered, and Colt squeezed the trigger a second time before shifting his aim to the other gunman, who was already raising his submachine gun.
Crack! Crack!
Colt rushed both shots, only clipping the man in the upper arm and spinning him enough to throw off his aim. The return gunfire also went wide, shattering the Corvette’s windshield and plinking into the wrecked import sedan. Colt shook his head to clear his vision, readjusted his aim, and fired again.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The man dropped hard to the pavement, the air behind him a cloud of pink mist, but Colt had been taught to keep shooting until the threat had been eliminated. He glanced over to the first man, saw him writhing in agony, and made the split-second decision to engage the Tahoe.
He couldn’t see its occupants but knew both gunmen had exited the rear seats. There was one, maybe two more men inside, and he still had over half a magazine left. He approximated head height on the driver’s side and settled his front sight post there before squeezing the trigger.
Crack! Crack!
The Tahoe’s windshield spiderwebbed and its rear tires squealed as the driver frantically reversed to escape the gunfire. Colt immediately recognized it as a tactical mistake and shifted aim to the passenger side and continued firing at the fleeing SUV.
Crack! Crack! CLICK.
The Tahoe careened around the corner in reverse, but Colt had heard the loudest sound in a gunfight, and his blood ran cold. Acting on instinct, he thumbed the magazine release and felt the empty magazine fall away and clatter to the Corvette’s floorboards. He reached around the agent’s waist and probed along her left hip, relieved to find two spare magazines. He removed one and quickly indexed it to the magazine well while keeping his eyes on the street. When it snapped into place, he sent the slide forward and chambered another round.