Page 11 of Deadly Threat
She spoke to him and waved at Malachi, tucking herself and the dog into the backseat, as she called, “See you tomorrow.”
With the closing door, she disappeared. He waved back, plenty of ideas about who she was now whizzing through his brain. They pulled into traffic.
The lights at the bottom of the hill had gone through their cycle and were now green again, multiple cars and a bus waiting on the side streets.
She seemed familiar because she was. Plenty of actors, singers, and other well-known folks blew through San Diego on a regular basis. The city had its own fair share of the rich and famous, not to mention wealthy tourists and investors who liked the weather and the ocean. Not many of them had a limo waiting when leaving a peer support group meeting, though.
Less than two percent of the population had green eyes. Natural redheads were uncommon, too. He couldn’t identify her yet, but he would, betting money that the hair color wasn’t natural, and the green of her eyes was thanks to contacts. Dozens of faces flicked through his brain…no, she wasn’t any of those.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, he watched them cruise down the hill. Tomorrow, he’d get her name.
When two black SUVs pulled smoothly from a side street, his hackles rose again. They had to be security, he told himself, as they fell in behind the limo.That’s why they were circling the block—they were waiting for her.
Maybe she wasn’t a famous person, maybe it was her father or mother. That would make sense, and yet…
After his training, and experiences in the Marines, he had a fine-tuned danger meter. Like a hair-trigger, it often went off when least expected, and unwanted. He’d become hyperaware of everything in his environment, and overly suspicious of other people’s motives.
While Caleb tended to have a hair-trigger, too, his overreactions brought out his fists. Malachi’s made his protective instincts go Code Red.
He was running down the hill before he could second guess himself.
“It’s an overreaction,” his therapist had told him. “Feeling as though any situation is more hazardous or risky than it actually is. You don’t have to throw yourself on every bomb to save those around you, Malachi. And not every stressful or unknown situation is one.”
The words rang in his ears as he saw the light switch from yellow to red. The limo came to a stop, an SUV drawing up beside it, the other behind.
They’re just bodyguards. He chanted it with every step he took. His body refused to listen, the hair on the back of his neck standing rigid. His gut joined in, cramping hard when he saw the back passenger door of the one on the side open.
A man emerged, dressed all in black with a yellow patch on the arm of his left sleeve. He wore a knitted ski mask and was carting an MP7 submachine gun.
Malachi was closing in. He heard a sudden scream from inside the limo. His blood turned to ice. The brake lights flickered and then the driver must have floored it, sending the vehicle into the oncoming traffic.
Horns blared, the limo clipped the tail of another car. The masked man fired.
Malachi damned himself for not bringing his pistol, but it was frowned upon at meetings. “Stop!” The word burst from his lungs.
No one paid any attention, the few people on the street watching the action at the intersection. The limo rammed a compact car aside and began to accelerate. More horns blared.
Malachi shouted again, hoping to draw the gunman’s focus, but the guy was homed in on the limo.
Several other men, all dressed the same, exited the two vehicles. One marched into the intersection and shot out a back tire on the escaping limo. It careened into a parked minivan half a block farther down.
Both SUVs zoomed toward it, wheeling around the stopped traffic and edging up to the stalled vehicle, boxing it in. Malachi sprinted past two trucks, jumped over the hood of a car, and shouted again at the top of his lungs, “Stop, you fucking bastards!”
One of them actually flicked a glance at him before descending on the limo with his pals. A shot to the handle disabled the lock. He jerked the door open.
The driver bailed, blood gushing down his nose from meeting the steering wheel. He raised a handgun, but before he could fire, he was hit in the temple with the butt of his weapon. The attacker said something in another language and laughed when the big guy dropped like the two-hundred pound weight that he was to the ground.
It was three against one. There were also two still in the SUVs, driving. Malachi knew those odds sucked, but as he saw a woman being dragged from the backseat by her hair, he didn’t care.
Not Ladybug’s owner. Another woman, dressed in a red power suit and swearing her ass off as the gunman used a hunk of tresses to force her toward a waiting vehicle. She kicked and swung at the guy, managing to grab the mask of the one they were passing and yanking it up over his chin. Ladybug barked and her owner screamed from inside the interior. “Amber!”
The half-masked bastard pointed his semiautomatic into the limo at her.
“Noooo!” Malachi hit the intersection at a dead run. Several people had climbed out of their cars, befuddled, and examining the damage. Others stayed inside away from the men with the weapons. “Leave her alone!”
The dog launched herself at the man and got hit for her trouble, landing on the ground in a whimpering heap. A whistle from the leader brought the guy’s head around. He said something, again in a language Malachi didn’t understand. The accent he knew though—Asian. Half-mask locked eyes with Malachi.
The woman they were kidnapping was unceremoniously shoved into the closest ride as Malachi covered the last few steps. The lone attacker on the street watched him, a grin splitting his acne scarred face still on view. Malachi balled a fist, ready to strike, when Ladybug’s owner scrabbled from the damaged vehicle, falling out of the leather seat and screaming for the dog.
