Zzzzip! Crack! Another bullet slammed into the post, sending bits of concrete flying. She closed her eyes and ducked behind the pillar. The sound of sirens blared somewhere off in the distance. The clamor of the dogs seemed to have grown to a crescendo. And someone a couple of blocks away was yelling something in Quechua, the native language spoken by so many in the Andes.
When she opened her eyes again and stepped back into firing position, it was in time to see the van jump the curb and fly onto the grassy area of the square. Chelsea was headed straight for the fountain without a thought to applying the brakes, plowing over a trash can and grazing a streetlight. The latter ripped the mirror off the driver’s side door.
Penni squeezed her trigger, attempting to keep the shooter occupied so Chelsea could make a kamikaze-style rescue. Thirteen…fourteen, she counted, her hand and finger now numb with the repeated shock of the Ruger’s recoil. One more round and her clip would be dry.
“Reloading!” she yelled. Just the one word to alert Dan and Zoelner that they needed to keep their heads down while—
“Penni!” Dan begged. “Please just—”
Bam! The last .45 exploded out of the Ruger’s mouth, flashing in the darkness. She ducked behind the post and ejected the used magazine before slamming in a new one. It took only two seconds but it felt like an eternity as the sound of the van coming to a jolting stop, its front bumper hitting the fountain with a crash, was followed by the echoing barrage of traded gunfire.
“Go, go, go!” Zoelner’s bellowed command blared through Penni’s earpiece as she jumped to her feet. She could see Dan and Zoelner pushing Winterfield toward the open cargo door on the passenger side of the van. Chelsea was leaning across the front seats, exchanging fire with the shooter through the open passenger window.
“Holy shit!” the little CIA agent screamed when a bullet hit the front windshield, shattering the glass around a golf-ball-sized hole and causing a series of cracks to snake across the entire expanse. “Hurry up! We’re taking heat here!”
Dan turned and put the little Bersa to good use, firing into the darkness as Zoelner tossed Winterfield inside the van and jumped in after him. Penni joined in the fray, pressing the button on the side of the Ruger that slammed the slide forward and chambered the first round. When she squeezed the trigger, the deafening roar of the weapon drowned out all the voices shouting in her earpiece.
With one eye on Dan and the other on the sight, she started counting again. Two…three…four…
Once she had the shooter pinned down, Dan jumped into the van and pulled the door shut. Chelsea laid on the gas. The vehicle’s tires spun uselessly in the wet grass before the treads finally found traction in the soil beneath. The van shot across the square in Penni’s direction, careening around trees and taking rounds in its metal skin. Penni didn’t allow herself to think about what would happen if the bullets managed to penetrate the vehicle’s body and come to rest inside Chelsea or Zoelner or…Dan! Sweet Christ!
Hot tears streamed down her face, dripping from her chin. She paid them no mind as she continued to fire, hoping to draw the shooter’s aim away from the van and back to her. Seven…eight…
It worked. The pillar in front of her sustained a volley of rounds that had her ducking to avoid the spray of concrete shards. Well, at least it worked for a couple of seconds. She barely had time to steady her shaky nerves when ping-ping-ping! The unmistakable ring of hot lead slamming into sheet metal recommenced.
She spun around, careful to keep her body behind the now chewed-up post. Aiming down the barrel, she counted off nine…ten… Son of a suck-ass bitch! She was almost out of ammo and desperately low on options. Those two things had spelled doom for many a well-trained agent.
“Penni…” Dan’s voice sounded in her ear, and she choked on the wave of relief that rushed over her like a tsunami. He was okay. He hadn’t been hit. “Hang steady for a couple more seconds, babe.” He wasn’t shouting. He was speaking slowly, steadily. Which was probably why she could hear him over the cacophony of her barking weapon. “We’re almost to you.”
“I’m almost out of…” Fourteen…Fifteen. Click! Click! Click! “I’m dry, Dan! I’m out!” She ducked behind the pillar. And to say she’d been scared from the get-go was an understatement. She’d been pee-her-pants terrified. But now she was panicked too. She could feel the emotion’s subversive effects twanging over her nerves, obliterating her thought processes, burning away her ability to reason.
She realized she was hyperventilating when bright spots danced in front of her eyes. But she couldn’t make herself calm down and breathe. So much to lose. So much to lose. There was no oxygen in the air. There was no—
Eeeeerrrrtttt! The van’s tires squealed like a dying animal as the vehicle rocked to a stop in front of the souvenir shop. Penni peeked around the pillar in time to see the cargo door slide open and Dan—beautiful, wonderful, alive Dan—beckon to her with an extended hand. “Now, Penni!” he commanded.