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The shopkeeper screamed and rushed back into her shop. John shoved Niema into a recessed doorway and dove in the opposite direction, pulling out his pistol and rolling as he hit the ground. The first shot clanged into a metal trash can. The second shot was John’s, but the man jerked back into the shop.
“Run!” John said, and fired another shot at the doorway of the shop. “I’ll keep him pinned.”
She was reaching in the tote for her pistol, but at his command she took off at a dead run, knowing any delay could hinder him. Ahead of her, people were scattering away from the mouth of the alley, screaming and rushing for cover.
She reached the end and whirled around the wall, flattening herself against it and peeking around. John was working his way back, firing carefully timed shots that chipped large chunks of brick off the building. When he was near he wheeled and grabbed her wrist and they ran down the street, dodging through confused and alarmed pedestrians.
“Do we head for the dinghy?” she gasped, setting into stride.
“Not until we shake them. I don’t want that boat identified.”
Meaning the boat wasn’t just a place for them to crash. It had classified stuff on board; maybe the boat itself was classified.
As they ran she pulled the tote bag off her shoulder and dug in the bottom of it for her pistol.
“What are you doing?” he asked, taking a look behind
them. “Right!”
She wheeled right. “Putting the pistol where I can get to it without having to dig,” she growled, jamming the weapon under her waistband in back as he had done and pulling her T-shirt out to cover it.
A shout followed them. Unfortunately, the streets were still crowded with tourists, and heads turned to follow them as they ran and dodged. All anyone chasing had to do was follow the ripple of disturbance.
“Left,” John said, and they turned left as smoothly as if they were joined at the hip. “Right.” They took the next right. If they could get people looking in different directions it might create enough momentary confusion for them to gain some ground and slip away.
They dodged onto a small side street, bright with flowers growing in boxes and in pots set on narrow stoops; the doors were gaily painted, and children wrung the last moments of sunshine from the day. John increased his speed; they had to get off that street fast, before any kids got hurt.
They turned right, down an alley so narrow sunlight never penetrated it; they had to run single file. The street ahead of them was purple with shadows, alive with people. Lights were winking on.
Someone barreled into John as soon as he emerged from the alley and they went crashing to the ground. For a split second Niema thought it was an accident, then arms grabbed her from behind and she reacted automatically, driving her elbow back into a gut that wasn’t as hard as it could have been. The guy whooshed out his breath in a violent explosion. She ducked out of his hold, whirled, and poked him in the little notch beside his eye. She didn’t have the proper angle, back to front, but he went down anyway, writhing on the ground and vomiting.
John grabbed her wrist and yanked her into a run. She looked back and saw her assailant lying unmoving on the ground. The man who had tackled John was kind of half sitting, half lying against the wall. He wasn’t moving either.
“Don’t look,” John still towed her by the wrist, so fast her feet barely touched ground. “Just run.”
Her stomach turned over. “I didn’t mean—”
“He did,” he said briefly.
They dodged down yet another street and found themselves in a part of town where the streets seemed to branch off each other like tangled spaghetti. Ahead of them a trio of men cut across an intersection, weapons drawn. One of the men spotted them and pointed. John pulled her down the nearest bisecting street.
“How many of them are there?” she panted.
“A lot.” He sounded grim. He angled back toward where they had seen the three men, hoping to come out behind them. They ran up a narrow, picturesque street, with flower boxes in the windows and old women selling a few wares on their doorsteps, from tatted lace shawls to homemade potpourri. One woman shrieked at the gun in John’s hand as he and Niema ran by. A sharp angle took them to the left, and a dead end. Niema whirled and started back, but John caught her arm and pulled her toward him.
She heard what he heard. The street behind them slowly fell silent as the old women grabbed up their wares and vanished into their houses. The sounds of traffic came from a distance, but here there was nothing.
Louis Ronsard strolled into view, a slight smile on his sculpted lips and a Glock-17 in his hand. The big pistol was leveled at Niema’s head.
John immediately moved at a right angle away from her. The gun didn’t waver from her head. “Stop right there,” Ronsard said, and John obeyed.
“My friends,” he said lightly, “you left without saying good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” John said, without expression. He made no move with the weapon in his hand, not with that big 9mm locked dead center on Niema’s forehead.
“Drop your weapon,” Ronsard said to John. His dark blue eyes were arctic. John obeyed, letting the pistol drop to the street. “You abused my hospitality. If the guard hadn’t surprised you, you would have gotten away with it. I never would have known you got into my computer. You did, didn’t you? Otherwise you wouldn’t have been leaving my office at that time, you would still have been in there working.”
John shrugged. There was no point denying it. “I got what I went after. I copied everything; I know what you know.”
