Page 42 of Deadly Target
Valiant’s attorney dropped first, tumbling down the last four steps, papers flying from his unzipped briefcase. Across the street, Olivia saw six men dressed in baggy jeans and matching black hoodies. All were armed.
Danny jumped on their prisoner, knocking him to the ground, and yelling, “Get down!”
Bang, bang, bang. As the crack of gunfire continued and bullets smacked into the concrete pillars, sending chunks flying, Olivia ducked behind one. She dropped her phone and reached for her side arm.
On autopilot, she returned fire, wondering in the back of her mind where the uniformed guard inside was. Why wasn’t he backing her up? Danny was lying on top of Valiant. They were going to be pincushions, chock-full of bullets if they didn’t move.
She nailed one of the men in the firing squad, a direct hit to the chest, knocking him off his feet. The two on either side stopped and reached down to grab him. The others closed rank, protecting their own, but also making it easier for Olivia to take out another.
In the distance, she heard sirens and squealing tires. A black and white must have been close to be there already. No looking a gift horse in the mouth—she would take all the help she could get.
With two men down and the other four helping their injured cohorts, the rain of bullets eased up. They were only a few yards from an alleyway and as Olivia peeked out from behind her cover, she realized they must have a getaway car there.
She wanted to follow them and keep shooting until she had every last one down on the ground, but as her gaze dropped to Danny and Valiant, she saw a dark pool of blood running down the steps.
Shit!
Keeping one eye on the retreating shooters, she stayed low and ran to the spot where Danny lay draped over their prisoner. “Danny!” Olivia shook him, but he was dead weight. She shifted his body and saw his shirt covered in blood.
Under him, Valiant curled into a ball, hands over his head. “Are they gone?”
Olivia checked Danny’s pulse, found it to be slow but strong. “Don’t you move or I’ll shoot you,” she said to Valiant. She threw a look over her shoulder at that disappearing firing squad, then placed her hands under Danny’s armpits and began to tug him behind the cover of the pillar. He outweighed her by a good thirty pounds or more and she huffed, digging in her heels to slide him across the concrete landing.
She heard Victor’s voice and thought it was coming from her phone, but then suddenly he was there, like an apparition bursting out the back door. “Get down!” he yelled, and the next thing Olivia knew, he tackled her, sending her backward as a fresh round of bullets peppered the steps, columns, and exit. Glass from the door shattered, raining down on them, but Victor was on top of her, protecting her.
Her ears rang, her head buzzed from the impact of hitting it on the concrete, and her mind spun. Who was shooting now? She’d seen the firing squad all run off.
Would Danny live?
What about Valiant, still exposed on the top step?
Without warning, Victor jumped up and fired back.
* * *
Olivia lookedlike hell on wheels. Victor knew that look—like someone with PTSD who was pissed at their own fear as well as the people who’d scared them.
It had been an hour since the shooting, and she was strung out but trying to be tough. Her partner was in intensive care, the prisoner she’d been transporting was dead, and the shooters were long gone. The lone gunmen who’d come back to finish Henry Valiant was already around the corner before Victor could fire.
Olivia swore she’d nailed two of them. All local hospitals had been put on alert for gunshot-wound victims showing up at the ER, but Victor doubted the two Olivia had nailed would be that easy to snatch.
“It was a fucking hit squad,” she said. “We were sitting ducks. Maybe if that damn guard hadn’t stayed inside hiding like a scared rabbit…”
She pushed out of the kitchen chair, ignoring Victor’s protests. He was trying to clean the scrapes on her face caused by flying debris. She’d refused to see a doctor, and by the way she kept holding her head, he was concerned she might have a concussion.
The deputy marshal was on a tear though. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—sit still.
He sank back into his own chair, tossing the washcloth on the table. They’d already been over this when they’d given their statements at the scene. “Danny will be okay. It’s not your fault he was shot.”
She rubbed the back of her head again, pacing his kitchen and making Taz nervous, the dog’s dark eyes watching her wear a path in the tile floor. “It had to be Frankie, but those guys…”
Her gut was telling her something. She kept circling back to the six gunmen. “What about them? You said they wore bandanas around their necks, gloves on their hands, and sunglasses to cover their eyes. No identifying features were exposed, and they were all dressed alike, except the bandanas were different colors.”
“That’s just it. They hid every single distinguishing mark. Like they knew I could identify them if I so much as saw an inch of skin.” She whirled and looked at him. “Like gang members with tattoos.”
He stood and took her hand, guiding her back to the chair and forcing her to sit. “That’s a strong possibility.”
“But Henry Valiant was tattling on Frankie. Why would a gang try to take him out?”
