Today’s excerpt is from The
Zimo Hunt, Book #2 of the nine-book Asps Series. The Asps and friends have him in their
sights, but Zimo eludes capture. Enjoy
and have a fantastic day.
m.j.
With Harry and Jack behind them and following
at a safe distance—and the other three Asp and SIS vehicles closing in on
them—the two bodyguards finally remembered a thing or two about tradecraft and
started checking to see if they were being followed. They didn’t detect anyone who seemed to be
following them, but one of the bodyguards decided to break normal procedure and
called Zimo.
Zimo saw who was
calling, broke the same procedure, and answered. When told his two lieutenants were dead, he
immediately asked if the two bodyguards were being followed. After they assured him they weren’t, he ended
the phone call but wasn’t sure if he could trust the capability of his
bodyguards to detect. He pondered for
only a few minutes before he told his other two bodyguards to hurry and come
with him as he picked up his laptop.
They were soon rushing to a Land Rover they had, and were just getting
in when the two bodyguards who had been to the safe house and discovered the
dead men were driving up. At the same
time, Drew was turning a corner…in the wrong direction…in front of the car
being followed by Harry and Jack. Drew
looked in his rear view mirror, saw the three men getting into the Land Rover,
and swore. He was sure one of the men
was Zimo. “Damn. Boris, they’re behind us. Let everyone else know.” Next, he slammed on his brakes and fishtailed
the SUV around, nearly tipping it over in the process.
When the two
bodyguards who had discovered the dead men saw that, the driver sped up and
headed straight for the SUV rental that Drew drove. Drew swerved to the right, then the left, so
the bodyguard’s car only glanced off the side of his vehicle. He bore down on the Land Rover. The bodyguard driving that vehicle—with the
other bodyguard sitting next to him and Zimo in the rear—swung hard left, and
headed for an alleyway straight across the street from the safe house. Harry saw the maneuver and tried his best to
close on the Land Rover, but had to slow, because Drew was doing the same
thing. The two vehicles nearly collided,
and had to stop to avoid hitting each other.
Jim was right behind Harry when Harry made his move and saw his best
chance was to head down the sidewalk to the alleyway. He would have made it, except a lady stepped
out of the building next to the alleyway and right into the path of Jim’s
car. He managed to slam on his brakes,
swerve, and stop without hitting her.
Holly meanwhile had lowered her window and taken out her Asp. She fired two shots at the Land Rover
carrying Zimo.
One of the shots
went through the front passenger side window, killing the bodyguard sitting
there. Her second shot went in the back
window, sent a shower of glass onto Zimo, and thudded into the side of the car,
between the two doors on the far side of the vehicle. She jumped out, ran to the alleyway opening,
and fired off the rest of her clip at the speeding vehicle. Her first two shots went through the rear
window, shattering it. She aimed at the
head of the driver, but he hit a bump just as she fired, and the bullet lodged
in the back of his seat. Even as she
fired that shot, she was lowering her Asp to fire at the lower rear of the Land
Rover, in the hope that she would hit the gas tank…but she was out of
ammunition.
As she started
to reload, she saw lights behind her and jumped out of the way, as Harry
started down the alleyway, with Drew close behind him. Holly jumped back in alongside Jim, who drove
straight ahead, following the original car they had been following. By that time, Jim had attached his hands-free
cell phone apparatus. “Tony, where are
you?”
Tony told him he
was about to turn onto the very street both the terrorist car and Jim were
on. Jim was two blocks behind the car,
but saw Tony turn into its path. He
closed quickly, as the two bodyguards—now effectively blocked jumped out and
aimed at the windshield of Tony’s Land Rover.
But Jim had closed to less than a block and saw what was going to
happen. He slammed on his brakes, jumped
out of the car, and fired in time to stop the driver from firing. His shot ran true, as he fired at the man’s
shoulder. The explosive round fired from
that distance nearly tore the man’s arm off.
Even as Jim was getting out of the car, Holly was already out her side,
and fired at the back of the other bodyguard as he raised his weapon to shoot
at Tony’s Land Rover. The man fell dead
where he stood.
Dusty and Bear,
having seen Jim shoot, knew full well if he wanted the driver he’d fired at
dead, the man would be dead, so they jumped out of Tony’s vehicle and raced
forward to the man, to give him emergency work to stop the profuse
bleeding. Jim’s shot had ruptured a
major blood vessel in the shoulder, and Dusty grabbed it while Bear used a
quickly torn piece of the man’s jacket lining to tie it off. By then, Jim was back in his car and had
pulled up to the scene. Dusty and Bear
hurried the man to the rear of Jim’s car and Dusty growled, “Better get him to
our safe house, so we can do a better job of temporary repairs.”
·
Meanwhile Harry
was right behind Zimo’s Land Rover, as it reached the next street over. The driver shot halfway across the street and
swung hard left. As he exited the
alleyway, a truck was headed right for him, and the driver had to slam on his
brakes to avoid a collision. The truck
screeched to a stop without hitting the Land Rover but had the alley
effectively blocked. Harry had to slam
on his breaks to avoid hitting the protruding front of the truck, with Drew
doing the same thing to keep from hitting the rear of Harry’s car. When the truck driver slammed on his brakes,
he stalled his truck and was having trouble getting it started. Drew swore, and Boris sighed. “That did not go too well.”
By the time the
truck was started and moved out of the way, Zimo was long gone. Boris said into his phone, “Harry, you can
look for him if you choose, but Drew and I are headed back to the safe house,
to see if we can extract some information from the prisoner Jim and Tony are
taking back there.”
Harry just
grunted and followed Drew back to the safe house. When they all arrived, Jack took over the
care of the wounded terrorist. When he
had done what he could for the man, he walked over to Drew and Boris. He tilted his head to one side. “He’s not long for this world, unless we get
him to a hospital…and soon.”
Drew and Boris
nodded and went to the terrorist. It
took them half an hour to get the main piece of information they wanted. Fortunately for them, the man had decided he
wanted to live soon after the questioning began, which made it a good deal
easier. When they were finished with
him, they returned to the others and Drew grumbled, “Okay, Zimo’s headed to a
plane he has stashed.”
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