Free Rogue Angel 46: Treasure of Lima by Alex Archer Page B

and yelling for her blood. She’d taken out three of their number and they weren’t the type to forget.
    “Two.”
    She bent down, facing Reyes, still not certain what she was going to do. What if he couldn’t shoot worth a damn?
    “Three!”
    Her body decided for her, pushing off and charging forward before she’d realized she’d made up her mind, her powerful thighs driving her on as she raced for the safety of the door behind her.
    Michael began firing, and at the sound, Annja’s indecision about his ability vanished. He was shooting rapidly but with complete control, and she had no doubt that his shots were hitting precisely where he wanted them to go. Almost every step she took was punctuated by the crack of the rifle and the little bit of sporadic fire that came in her direction was off the mark and ineffectual.
    Reyes stood in the doorway, firing past her head, and for a moment their eyes met.
    Time seemed to stop as Annja registered the utter coldness in the man’s gaze. In the space of that heartbeat he could just as easily shift that rifle barrel a half inch to the left and drill her right through the skull with his next shot as easily as he could stand there and fire on the pirates trying to take over the Pride. Reyes didn’t care; it was all the same to him.
    His final shot whipped over her shoulder, bringing forth a choked scream of pain from somewhere behind her, and then she was racing past him and into the safety of the steel-lined corridor in which he stood.
    The minute she passed, he stepped away from the doorway, pulled his rifle back inside the corridor and threw the bulkhead door shut in front of him.
    “What are you doing?” Annja cried, her usual steadiness rocked a bit by what she’d seen in his gaze seconds before. “We need to see what they’re up to!”
    “Not here,” Reyes replied. “We’ll have a better view, and a better chance to disrupt their activities, if we go down one level. That will put us near the waterline. We can take out their boats rather than get in a pissing contest with rifles.”
    It sounded good to her. If they could take out the patrol boats, the pirates would have no means of following them.
    But as she opened her mouth to say so, the deck beneath her feet lurched abruptly, throwing both her and Reyes to the floor. As she pushed herself back up on hands and knees, it occurred to her that she didn’t hear the thrum of the Pride ’s engines anymore.
    Either the pirates had crippled them or someone up above had shut them down; either way it didn’t matter. One thing was certain.
    They couldn’t outrun the pirates now.

10
    Aboard the Neptune’s Pride
    International waters
    Reyes led the way, moving quickly through the narrow corridors, trying to get to the far side of the vessel before the pirates could spread out and cut them off. Annja raced along in his wake, ready at any moment to call her sword to hand should she need it.
    Her companion had either spent time memorizing the layout of the ship or had an excellent sense of direction, for he didn’t hesitate at any of the junctions they came to, his decisions swift and sure. They cut across a couple of passageways, slipped through a supply room that turned out to be a shortcut to the other side of the boat and headed down a ladder to the deck below where they’d started.
    They were hurrying along the last corridor that led to the dive station at the back of the boat when a door ahead of them suddenly opened and a man stepped out. He was dressed in a torn T-shirt and blue jeans and, at the sound of their footfalls, spun to face them.
    In his hand was a large-bladed knife.
    Reyes skidded to a halt, bringing the rifle up as he did so.
    The two men stared at each other. Annja waited for the sound of the shot, knowing it would echo in the narrow corridor and give away their position to anyone else who might be nearby, but thankful that at this distance Reyes couldn’t miss.
    The shot never came.
    Instead,