Russell Blake: Jet

In no time at all she was back at the bar, thanking Chloe again.

“See? I told you it wouldn’t take long.”

“I managed to get hold of my friend. He agreed to see you in ten minutes at his office. It’s next to the little cafe that serves those great croissants. Do you remember?”

“How can I forget? Thanks again, Chloe. I didn’t mean to disrupt your exciting evening with the boys,” Maya quipped, eyeing the inebriated Germans.

“As long as they pay, I’m happy. Do you need his address? His name’s Roberto. Not bad looking, either.”

“No, I can find it.”

Maya reached out her good arm and hugged Chloe, kissing her on the cheek.

“ Ciao , sweetie. Good luck with the stitches, and call me if you need anything. I’ll be here till two,” Chloe said, still concerned.

“I will. Be good.”

The streets became more crowded as she wound her way back to the waterfront. The doctor’s office was five blocks from the shore — far enough for the rents to be drastically lower, but close enough to receive sick or hurt tourists. She found it with ease, and he was waiting at the door, holding it open.

“Doctor Roberto?”

“That’s me. And you must be Carla…” Carla was the name Maya used in Trinidad — her third alias, which was now blown.

She nodded.

“Come in. Let’s see what we have here.” He led her to the little examination room, which was already illuminated.

Maya repeated her story for him as he examined the wound. She winced as he probed it and flushed it out with antiseptic rinse.

“You’re very lucky. You missed the artery by a few millimeters. No tendons severed, so you should recover with no problems. You won’t be playing the piano this week, but apart from the pain, it’s not the end of the world.”

“That’s a relief.”

“I’ll give you something for the discomfort — you’ll need a few stitches.”

“No, I’m good. I have a high pain threshold. Just do your worst.”

He regarded her. “You sure?”

“No problem. Just sew me up, and let’s get it over with.”

Five minutes later, he was finished and had applied a proper dressing with a bandage and gauze wrap. She held it up and inspected it, nodding.

“Thanks so much for this. I’m sorry to disturb you at this hour. Really.”

“Any friend of Chloe’s is a friend of mine. Besides, you’re lucky you got me before I headed out. Which is my plan now.” He gave her another look and smiled. “Can I interest you in a cocktail on the water?”

After a little back and forth, she was able to extract herself graciously, begging off due to a headache — Roberto refused to accept any payment but insisted she take his cell number. If she hadn’t been running for her life, she might have even been interested in having a beer or two with him, but tonight wasn’t meant to be. She had to figure out how she was going to get off the island while she still could. It was only a matter of time before the police locked it down.

Maya paused a hundred yards from her apartment building, wary of surveillance. Further down the block, a dog barked — a pit bull that she knew from experience was mostly attitude. But the tone of the barking, strident and agitated, gave her pause — there was an unusual urgency to it.

The few cars in the neighborhood were dilapidated, beaten by time, their exteriors corroded by the salt air and decades of neglect. She didn’t see any unfamiliar vehicles, so if her pursuers knew where she lived, they weren’t mounting a watch from the road.

A few porch lamps provided scant illumination, the street lights long ago having burned out, the city’s promises of replacement as hollow as most of the other assurances of change. She moved cautiously in the shadows, senses on alert. There was still at least the one man from the bar out there somewhere, and quite possibly more, although the number sent to terminate one target would likely be low, and her adversaries might continue to underestimate her.

Circling the block, she didn’t see anything suspicious. Maya always paid for the apartment in cash every month, no lease, so there was no way to track her to it short of following her, which she almost surely would have detected. Even if she was a little rusty, she still had the sixth sense for being watched that she’d honed. Many of the better field operatives developed it over time, and she had been the best.

On second approach, she came in from the back of the complex, having climbed over a wall separating the garbage area from the neighbor. Her second floor apartment was dark, and there was no sign that anyone had been there. No watchers in the trees, no suspicious loitering figures.

A black and white cat tore across her path with a hiss. Startled, she whipped out the pistol before registering what it was. Seeing its furry form scurry away, she took several deep breaths to slow the pulse pounding in her ears back to normal.

Maybe she was more than a little rusty.

In the old days, none of this would have raised her heart rate above eighty.

As she took another few silent steps, she caught movement on the periphery of her vision. The glint of something by the parking area. Maybe a watch. She peered into the gloom, eyes searching, but she didn’t see anything more.

It didn’t matter.

It was enough.

Someone was there.

The gunfire came with no warning. She rolled behind a low cinderblock wall, listening to the rapid-fire cracking of the silenced pistol some forty yards away.

The slugs slammed harmlessly against the concrete. The dark had helped her. Just enough. She’d caught a break at last. Now the question was whether to fight or run.

Her instinct was to fight, but she had no information about her attackers, which placed her at a distinct disadvantage.

She emptied seven shots at what she guessed was the shooter’s position and sprinted for the back of the building, weaving as she ran. It was dark enough and with sufficient cover, so she wasn’t worried. The gunman had probably been waiting for her to go into the apartment, having planned to take her there — if he hadn’t wired it with explosives already. Or there was someone inside waiting patiently for her to make the last mistake of her life.

Moments later, Maya was over the wall and zigzagging across the property. She didn’t hear any more shots, so her pursuer was probably wasting a few precious seconds debating what to do — seconds that would be the difference between escape and death.

She ran efficiently, effortlessly, with an economy that spoke to endurance. If necessary, she could keep up a good pace for an hour. Every morning she did so, part of her routine.

A bullet grazed her shoulder, burning as it seared a groove across her deltoid muscle — she abruptly cut between two small houses. As Maya regained her breath, she heard the rev of a car motor and the squeal of poorly maintained brakes, followed by the distinctive sound of two doors slamming. Another car revved, and tires squealed.

She vaulted over a fence, barely slowing for it, and cut back, returning the way she’d come, but three houses down from where she’d heard the car. That would be the last thing they’d expect — her doubling back.

Three slugs struck the wall behind her.

She saw the flash from a car sixty yards away — a black sedan, all of its windows down. Ducking, she emptied the silenced pistol at it as she scrambled for cover. A round whistled by her head, so she threw herself behind a brick garbage enclosure.

Enough of this shit .

She slipped off the backpack, unzipped it, then gripped the handle of the MP7 and pulled it free. Another round thumped into the brick as she methodically screwed the sound suppressor into place, and then she slipped the extra magazines into her back pockets before dropping the pistol into the backpack and pulling it back on.