Page 21 of Mastermind

“Keep pressure on it,” I tell Willets. “Make sure they X-ray it before they seal you up. The bullet may have hit bone, which could leave fragments.”

“Uh, okay,” he says faintly.

“You want to leave him a meal plan and set a follow-up appointment?” asks Blackwood as she pulls me to the opposite wall.

“I just—”

“I know. I get it. But we’ve got to get past Captain Trigger Finger ahead. Focus on that. Got it?”

“Yes.”

We keep tight to the wall until we come to a spot opposite of where we were shot at before. The shadow of the local cop shows through the linen as the sun sets behind him.

“How do you say ‘I surrender’?” whispers Blackwood.

“I don’t think we want to do that. They don’t treat women very—”

“No kidding. How do I say it?”

“I think it’s komainnko laatnaathkya maal,” I say in rough Burmese.

“Oh jeez. Screw that. I surrender!” she calls out in a voice that sounds more feminine than the commanding one she used to bark orders at me.

The cops yell back in Burmese.

“What are they saying?” she asks.

“Come out.”

“Wait here.”

Blackwood puts her hands up and steps forward through the linens. I watch her shadow as she approaches the two men.

“There’s a man with a gun back there,” she tells them.

One cop starts moving toward me while the other one fires his gun straight down the middle of the alley. Which is dumb for a multitude of reasons, but I don’t think it’s the time to point that out.

I duck and catch out of the corner of my eye a flurry of shadows as Jessica Blackwood’s knee connects with the jaw of the man kneeling to pat her down. As he falls, she spins around and kicks the second man so hard in the back of the head he tumbles forward into the linens, pulling them all down and exposing me.

“Help me grab him,” says Blackwood as she pulls the unconscious man at her feet away from the police car, then moves to the driver’s side door. I start to climb into the other side.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Uh, going with you?”

“Then stay put.” She reaches down and puts the car into neutral. “Help me push.”

I join her at the back as we give the car a shove and send it down the hill, where it coasts along for a half-mile journey to the bottom before crashing into a field.

She looks over her shoulder at the hotel. “The others are here. We gotta run.”

Blackwood takes a path between two adjacent buildings and through a narrow gap barely wide enough for our bodies as rats scurry away beneath our feet. As we hustle along, I hear the sound of boots and men whispering commands to one another in American English.

“Viper’s down!” someone shouts.

Blackwood motions for me to freeze, which is no problem, because I’m already frozen.

She tilts her ear up so she can listen. I do the same.