“Please, Ms. Gracelyn, let’s go.”
She kept her bicep loose as she said to the man facing her, “Unless you’re FBI, and you have a warrant, you have no jurisdiction here.” She glared at the bald man. “And I can have you arrested for battery.”
“We only want to talk to you,” the dark-skinned man repeated.
The hand on her shoulder dug in then. Her mind raced through possible moves to take all three of them out as quickly and efficiently as possible. If they were field agents, they had some martial arts training. Given the shape they were in, she probably had more. But her karate master had warned her to never, ever underestimate her opponent.
Then the bald man surprised her. He circled behind her, and the hard pressure of a weapon indented her back.
“This is a Magnum .357,” he said. “You know what it can do.”
“Christ, Wilcox.” It was the third man, the husky one, who had been silent until now. “What the hell are you doing?”
“She has to come in. She’s in some deep shit,” the bald gunman—Wilcox—informed him.
“Hey, I don’t know anything about that. Beck just said to pick her up,” the husky man argued. She could hear the anger in his tone. “This isn’t what we were told to do.”
She noticed that the dark-skinned man wasn’t talking. Was he in on it, then?
“It wasn’t what you two were told to do,” Wilcox declared. “I have orders to bring her in or shoot to kill.”
“From Beck? No way,” the dark-skinned man insisted, siding with the husky man. So he wasn’t in on it. “You must be doing this for someone else.”
She tried to remember whom she was supposed to be blackmailing at CIA. Wrobleski? She ran through the implications of dropping his name to see what happened.
The dark-skinned man reached inside his coat pocket.
“Raise your hands above your head,” Wilcox growled, “or I’ll bust your ass for obstructing justice.”
Infuriated but impotent, the man did as Wilcox ordered.
“Wilcox is going to kill me,” Allison said, as calmly as she could. “He used you to track me, and he can’t let you survive.”
“Shut up,” Wilcox said, grabbing her and pressing the barrel against the back of her skull.
“I’ve drawn my weapon,” the husky man announced.
“It’s not loaded,” Wilcox said derisively. “Check it.”
The millisecond of distraction was the best she was going to get. If she died, she died two seconds sooner, that was all. She rammed sideways into Wilcox with an elbow strike hard to his chest, then immediately whirled around with her right hand around the gun. With a grunt she pushed back hard on his wrist. At the same time, she executed a very high jump-front kick, her toes leveraging beneath Wilcox’s chin and snapping back his head.
Incredibly the weapon hadn’t discharged. As Wilcox tumbled backward, his head smacked the cement in the alley with a loud crunch.
Not completely to her surprise, the dark-skinned man charged her from behind. She executed a backhand chop into his face with the gun as he began to wrap his arms around her torso. Then she whipped back around to face him, pushing forward with a knife hand strike between his ribs as she kneed him hard enough to drop him. With a grunt, she slammed her foot against his windpipe. Three times in the last two seconds, she could have killed him. But she didn’t. He was only unconscious as his eyes rolled back in his head.
Aware that the husky man still presented a potential threat, she aimed the gun at him, left hand under the palm of her right as she distributed the weight of the weapon in a tripod formation. As he raised his hands over his head, she took a few steps away from both the supine men, in case they tried to sweep out an arm or a leg and take her down.
“Tell me who sent you,” she said.
“I swear, I don’t know what’s going on,” he insisted, staring down the barrel. “We were told to bring you in for questioning.”
“By running me off the road?” she demanded.
He shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Her lips parted at his genuine confusion. She was in bigger trouble than she realized. “You aren’t driving a white van?”
“No.”
Damn it. “Who is Beck?”
“Our boss, CIA. I have to tell you, we’re wired,” he added.
“I’m betting your buddy had you disconnected,” she observed. “So he could have a little more privacy when he killed you. Someone forced me here,” she continued.
“Not us,” he insisted.
“Then how did you know where to find me?”
“We were sent,” he replied. “That’s all I know.”
Then something swooped off the roof and drove her to the ground, slamming her facedown in a puddle. She heard a snap as excruciating pain roared through her head to the backs of her eyes, and she tasted blood.
It was a fourth man, landing so hard on her back that she expected her spine to crack in two. A haze of gray dotted with red swam in front of her eyes. She forced herself to stay conscious.
“Who the hell are you?” Husky shouted.
The .357. Allison realized she had landed on top of it. Then she heard footfalls as the husky man charged the jumper.
Her attacker’s weight shifted and she took immediate advantage, contracting her torso, quickly snaking her hand into the space and gripping the gun. She rocked, attempting to leverage herself onto her side so she could get a knee under herself and lift her body off the ground.
She heard a snick snick snick: Husky, still trying to make lemons out of lemonade with his unloaded gun. She wondered if he really was CIA. He didn’t seem smart enough.
The weight on top of her shifted again. She scooted out and got to her feet, to discover Husky using standard martial arts techniques against the jumper, a skinny Caucasian in a catsuit, who was employing a variant of Krav Maga, favored by Israel’s Special Forces.
Allison leaped to her feet, charging forward at the two grappling men, and brought the .357 down on top of the jumper’s head. He went slack and collapsed against the cement. His face was gaunt. By his cheekbones and haircut, she judged him to be Eastern European—possibly Kestonian.
Husky stared at her. She stared at him. Blood and rain gunneled down his face.
She showed him the gun, aiming straight at him. He looked scared as he panted and kept his hands where she could see them.
“Start over,” she said.
“Our manager is Jack Beck,” he replied. “Swear to God, I didn’t know it was a setup. I don’t think Jack does, either.” He stared at the gun through a curtain of rain. “But you’re right,” he said. “They should have heard this. They should be coming for us.” He grimaced. “Wilcox played us.”
“I think he’s working for someone in CIA,” she said. “I think you’ve got someone real dirty close to you.” She was willing to bet Wrobleski outranked Beck, probably was his superior, and he was doing bad deeds on company time, with company equipment, funds and personnel.
“Come in and talk to us about it,” he ventured.
She shook her head. “Another time, maybe. What does your vehicle look like?”
“Black Town Car,” he replied.
Then she spied her briefcase,