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“Nicholas, the driver looks like one of the thugs in the piazza outside the hospital last night. Whoa, watch out!”
Nicholas almost didn’t make the sharp right curve, barely managed to get the Škoda back into the rutted path. The sedan behind wasn’t so lucky. It hit one of the olive trees but slipped around the edge of the grove and caught up to them.
A bullet struck the back window, splintering the glass. Kitsune, a Walther in each hand, shouted, “That’s it, that’s enough!” She sent a barrage of bullets into the sedan. The windshield splintered, both headlights exploded, and the car swerved sharply left before straightening. She shouted, “Nicholas, the road will intersect with a two-lane paved road. It winds back down the hill. Be careful, it’s a popular tourist drive, and there are some hairy turns.”
Nicholas pulled onto the road, tires squealing, right into the path of three cars. All three managed to swerve around him, horns honking, shouts, curses flying. He saw the sedan sideswipe a red Alfa, then start gaining again. He gunned it, nearly hit a motorcycle as he rounded a curve, then slammed the brakes before crashing into a small knot of oncoming traffic. Mike and Kitsune slammed against the seat.
Mike grabbed Kitsune’s arm to hold her steady. “Hey, Nichola
s, don’t get us killed.”
He shot her a grin in the rearview.
They screamed down the mountain road, bullets flying as the Škoda juked and jived.
Kitsune was firing both Walthers smoothly, rhythmically, the way Grant had taught her. She hit the windshield three times in succession. The third shot shattered the glass completely, and the sedan swerved drunkenly as its windshield collapsed inside the car and onto the driver.
“That will slow them down.”
“Good shot, but they’re still coming,” Mike said. “Take out the front tires. We’ve got to stop them dead in their tracks.”
Nicholas heard Kitsune slam in a new magazine into each PPK. He saw Mike’s face in the rearview, focused, getting ready to fire again.
He yelled, “Are you running low on ammo?”
“Yes, so keep the car straight so I can hit them. Nicholas, they’re gaining on us. Kitsune, aim for the tires, the engine block, whatever will stop them.”
His heart nearly stopped to see another black sedan coming down a narrow rutted mountain road to their left. They were going to crash. “Hang on!”
The second sedan came straight at them, not hesitating as it hurtled down the mountain. At the last second, Nicholas rammed the accelerator to the floor and they shot past the sedan by a nose. It hit the Škoda’s back quarter panel and they spun out, wheels screaming. Nicholas went into the zone, as his driving instructor had taught him so many years before in Special Forces. He gently rotated the wheel, slowly, slowly, pressing the brake for a fraction of time, easing off, bringing the fishtailing car back under control.
The two cars ran side by side for a moment. Nicholas shouted, “Hold on!” and wrenched the wheel to the left, plowing the Škoda into the sedan. There was the horrendous sound of shearing metal and they watched the sedan slide off the edge of the road, straighten once again, and jerk back behind them.
It was a good try. But there were now two sedans chasing them, at least four men. Both Kitsune and Mike took turns, shooting hard and fast out the windows, ducking shots that came toward the car.
Mike shouted, “I got one of them, didn’t kill him, but he’s not going to be that good a shot now. Come on, Kitsune, show me what you can do.”
“The driver,” Kitsune said. “I want the driver.”
She got him on the third bullet, watched him fall against the steering wheel, and the sedan did a spectacular pirouette off the side of the rode, nose first into a ditch, then spun twice more and landed upside down in a mess of olive trees.
A bullet came through the back windshield, shattered it, barely missed Kitsune.
Both women dove down.
He heard Kitsune say, “That one nearly parted my hair.”
“Hang on. Curve.” Nicholas downshifted hard, hugging the side of the road. He saw a vineyard ahead, and a line of cars waiting to make the turn.
“Take out the second car now or we’re going to be in bad trouble!”
This time Mike was the one to hit the driver. His foot must have hit the accelerator because the sedan sped up, and the shooter was so desperate to get him off the steering wheel he didn’t even see the shot Mike took at him. The bullet got him in the neck. Kitsune and Mike watched the sedan weave off the road and down a steep embankment, and disappeared from sight, one hundred yards before it would have slammed into the line of wine-tasting tourists.
Nicholas slowed both the Škoda and his heart. He called out, “Thank you. Now keep an eye out for any more thugs.”
They drove the rest of the way down the mountain, then Nicholas pulled over, cut the engine. His heart was still kettle-drumming in his chest. Close, way too close. He turned in the seat. “Well done, ladies, well done.”
Kitsune laughed. “Not bad driving, mate. Nearly as good as Grant.”
