Free Rogue Angel 52: Death Mask by Alex Archer Page B

was the joy of private jets, small private airports and lax security. He’d revised his opinion on the team he was facing—they weren’t professionals. They were fanatics. They were still dangerous, obviously, but the fact that they hadn’t patted him down was a dead giveaway that their history of violence was short, if it existed at all.
    “All right, Mateo, you are going to tell me what this is about, or I am going to put a bullet in your brain. It’ll be quick, it’ll be painless—you’ll be dead before your body realizes it. Then I’ll go after your friends. I am not a man to give second chances. This is a one-shot deal. I highly encourage you to take it.”
    The man tried to turn his head, but Roux pressed the gun harder, making sure he knew exactly what would happen if he continued to try to turn around. “Don’t.” He saw the fear in the man’s eyes through the rearview mirror. “All you need to do is tell me what this is all about.”
    “I can’t,” Mateo said.
    Roux drew in a sharp breath. “Can’t or won’t?” It didn’t really matter which it was. Even if the driver was afraid of him, he was more afraid of the men out there. Mateo didn’t say anything. “Okay, get us out of here.”
    “Where to?”
    “It doesn’t matter. Just turn the car around and get out. I’ll decide where we’re going when I know myself.”
    Mateo didn’t need telling twice. He started the engine and pulled the car away from the curb. There were three other cars and a delivery van parked inside the dead-end alleyway. He swung the car into the parking space for an apartment block. As he did, he leaned forward and reached for something under his seat. “Idiot,” Roux grumbled and hit him hard on the back of the head with the butt of his pistol. “I said no second chances.” He shook his head as the driver slumped forward on the wheel, his foot still pressed down on the gas.
    The car lurched forward, hitting the back of the delivery van hard enough to deploy the air bag as the horn blared.
    Moving fast, Roux slid out of the far side of the car and hit the ground hard as gunfire strafed the Mercedes’s bodywork. The sound of bullets punching into metal was torturous. The fact he was still alive to hear it was wonderful.
    He rolled across the asphalt.
    Four against one.
    Twenty percent improvement in less than a minute. He intended to improve on that substantially in the next sixty seconds.
    Bullets rained down, ripping into the passenger door, shredding the metal as if it were cardboard. Glass shattered. A million tiny fragments rained down across the backseat and the street around the car. Roux had made it out by the skin of his teeth. In that moment, coming up on his elbows and knees, the years peeled away and he felt
young
.
    He felt
alive
.
    And he was going to stay that way.
    Unseen by the other gunmen—all of whom were out of their car again, looking for him—Roux scrambled behind the van, taking full advantage of the cover it offered. He watched as the leader barked out orders in Spanish, sending one man around the two cars to try to flank him while the others laid down covering fire. It was a basic maneuver. They had no idea where he was. That uncertainty bought him a few precious seconds. He used them to release a single shot of his own. The bullet caught the scout in the knee, taking him out. He went down screaming. Three against one. He had to admit, things were looking brighter all the time.
    Until a woman appeared at an upstairs window overlooking the scene. She let out a scream and hastily backed away. He didn’t need any superpowers to know what was going to happen now. She was going to call the police. It would only be a matter of minutes, and not very many of them at that, before the sirens would signal that the authorities were on their way.
    He needed to work fast. He needed a way out of this. He couldn’t be caught here.
    He heard sirens in the distance.
    It had taken less than twenty