part0119

"Anja, truly, I’m so happy you're awake," Savage snarked. "If you're not too busy, I don't suppose you could help us get the fuck out of here? And please tell me you guys have a plane waiting for us somewhere?"

"What?" she grumbled and sounded like she had just woken up herself. "Who? Goddammit, Savage, are you in trouble again?"

"You bet your ass I am," he replied and beckoned for Jenna to follow him when he heard them attempt to break into the bathroom, obviously still trying to find them. "Someone found us at the motel and they are not the friendly types who want us to talk to them about their lord and savior. Well, maybe they do, but it seems more likely that they want to introduce us to him. So, if you don't mind, could you find us a way out of here?"

"Ugh, fine," she snapped. "You two will make my hair go grey."

He didn't bother to reply to that and guided the girl toward the edge of the building, away from where their attackers would be able to see them from the window. From there, they would have a decent view of the parking lot without being overly visible themselves.

"I've turned the car on for you guys," the hacker said. "It seems like you should be able to make a clean getaway. I've intercepted communications in the area, but they're hard to break through. Someone encrypted it for them, how adorable..." The silence was broken by what sounded like an attack on her keyboard for a few seconds. "Okay, they know you're not in the room, and they're trying to establish where the hell you are. You have a few seconds before they swarm the motel grounds."

"Thanks for the warning," he said and gestured for Jenna to follow him and not make a sound.

"What?" she whispered.

"For fuck's sake." He immediately regretted it when he remembered that she would have no clue how to read the motions he’d made. "Follow me. Be quiet." He punctuated the words with the hand signals that were meant to represent them, and she nodded.

She didn't look happy about it, but now was not the time for petty annoyances to be aired. They needed to get out of there first. Once they were free and clear, she could tell him he would have saved more time if he had simply told her what he wanted instead of making hand gestures.

They moved toward the car, which was thankfully parked a good way away from the van, although they would have to drive past it to reach the exit of the parking lot. That wouldn’t happen without incident, but he didn't mind that as much since it meant they would already be on the move.

Anja hadn't been kidding about them knowing already that they were gone and would want to search the motel. The two men waiting in the van apparently had orders to make sure they had been given the right room, and they exited hurriedly and ran a quick weapon's check.

They were barely ten yards away from where he stood with Jenna directly behind him. He did not intend to wait for them to see him or even hope they wouldn't. These guys were pros, and if they didn't see them immediately...well, they would have a little help to do so.

Savage already had his weapon in hand and he raised it. There was no thought to simply injure them in this situation. They were there to stop and hurt him and Jenna, which meant they wouldn’t receive any preferential treatment.

The first one fell and clutched his throat when a pair of needles drilled through it. His comrade gaped, confused and shocked as his partner succumbed to what almost seemed like a non-existent assault.

He was sharp enough to realize that they were under attack, however, and reached quickly for the weapon he had stowed in his jacket. The layers were his undoing, and Savage pivoted in place, grasped his pistol with both hands, and opened fire. The soft whoosh of the magnets in the pistol was all that could be heard before the second man dropped with three holes in his chest.

The other team members responded immediately and raced from inside the room. They knew their prey had turned hunter, and he pushed the girl down between a couple of cars for cover when they reached the vehicle they had used earlier.

Barely in time too as their assumption that their adversaries had come armed and ready for a fight was confirmed when suppressed weapons opened fire behind them.

The clerk would regret his decision to tell these guys where Savage and Jenna were spending the night. Some nosy guest might have noticed the activity and possibly already reported it to the local police. When it became known that the motel would be shut down due to it being a fucking crime scene, it was unlikely that it would be reopened. People tended to avoid sleazy motels as a rule, and those that didn't mind the sleazy appearance of the place would most definitely object to the police presence.

Then again, he had no time to waste on considering that or the future of the clerk. He wasn't sure how much money had been spent to get the man to talk, but it hadn't been much. Certainly not enough to sell out the lives of two people, including one nineteen-year-old.

Maybe it had been enough for only Savage, but that wasn't the point.

Jenna slid into the back seat of the car and he stepped in behind the wheel. As Anja had said, the car was already on and waiting for them. He reminded himself that they were lucky the owners hadn't reported it stolen yet. Or maybe the hacker had stepped in to help them there too and had blocked any attempts to find the vehicle while they still needed it.

He put the car into gear and stamped on the accelerator. The electric motor was silent except for a low whir, but the tires squealed loudly as they suddenly reacted with the cold pavement.

"Stay down!" Savage roared, turned the vehicle, and located the men who continued to fire at them, still attempting to reach their quarry despite the distance between.

A couple of rounds did strike and impacted with the body of the car, but it appeared that the suppressors on the sub-machine guns they used compromised any degree of accuracy they might have hoped for.

"Why didn't you give me a hand signal to stay down this time?" Jenna asked, even though she did as she was told and kept her head down in the back seat.

"This is not the fucking time," he responded roughly, his gaze focused intently on the way ahead as the car hurtled toward the exit of the parking lot and onto the road.

They would have time to talk about it later, but for the moment, he needed to concentrate on getting them out of danger.

"Fuck," he said when he glanced over his shoulder and realized that the four men who had broken into their room now sprinted toward their van. "I should have disabled that. I don't suppose you have anything that could help with that, Anja?"

"Sorry. That might as well be from the stone ages for all the electronics it has," she said. "It doesn't even have a GPS. Who the hell doesn't have a GPS in a working van?"

"The kinds of guys who don't want people like you to peek in on what they're doing, I guess," he replied, his tone edged with frustration.

They were already in pursuit, and the sound of police sirens in the distance could now be heard. The cops wouldn't follow the cars, not for a while at least, which meant the only problem he would have to deal with was the team behind him.

Logic told him they wouldn’t start a firefight, not this close into the city. The traffic was hellish, even this early, with enough people heading in and out of town for work. The mercs who had arrived would try to avoid the sheer number of variables involved in a high-speed shootout on a busy street.

For now, they would simply bide their time and follow as he headed farther and farther from the city.

"Jessica's up, and she has a plane ready for the two of you," Anja said. "It’s at the same airstrip you came in on, Savage. Do you know the way back there?"

"Sure, but I won't be able to head that way without bringing unwanted company," Savage said and tried to increase speed. Unfortunately, the electric motor wasn't able to gain any significant lead on the diesel-powered van.

"Can't you lose them?" the hacker asked.

"It doesn't look like it." He dragged in a deep breath and fought to regain his calm. He needed it to ensure he wouldn’t yell at anyone again. "I suppose it would be too much to hope that Monroe sent Terry and Sam to help us, right?"

"Sorry, she was serious about not having Pegasus involved in any way," the hacker confirmed.

They were on their own out there. He had managed to eliminate two men, but they would still have to defend themselves against four more. All would be trained and possibly as well-armed as he was himself.

There was a limited number of needles he could launch manually, and it wasn't anywhere near the nine hundred RPM of the sub machine-guns their attackers carried.

He needed to come up with creative ways to shake them off of his back. When they began to move away from the suburbs and deeper into the mountains around the city toward the airstrip, their pursuers opened fire again. This time, they didn’t bother with the suppressors.

There did seem to be one small advantage in the situation, however. Either they were merely terrible, terrible shots, or they tried not to accidentally shoot Jenna.

The latter scenario would probably be the one to go with. It was the most likely of the two, after all. Besides, making assumptions one way or the other wouldn’t make that much difference to their predicament.

The important thing was that he had to get clear of them. That was all he needed to focus on.

Savage grasped the wheel a little tighter when he saw them attempt to overtake him. Thankfully, their engine was no more powerful than his own and appeared to pull a heavier load. As they began to climb higher, they apparently had a harder and harder time keeping up.

That, he realized, would increase their desperation. They would overreact and he had to be ready for it. A man edged out of the passenger side window and attempted to hold himself in place while he eased his weapon out and attempted to fire.

The attempt wouldn’t be that accurate, to begin with, and if he attempted to avoid shooting anyone inside the car and aiming for the tires instead, he had even less chance to achieve his purpose.

With that said, he raised an eyebrow when one of the sensors told him that their right back tire had begun to lose air fairly rapidly. It would last until they reached the airstrip, hopefully, but it would also make the car a little more difficult to manage.

"Try to strap yourself into something," he called to Jenna.

He couldn't see how bad a time she endured back there but given that she stretched and retrieved one of the seat belts to strap herself in while she also tried to hunker down safely, he could at least confirm that she was still alive.

Sometimes, that was all you could really ask for.

The airstrip came into view and the barrage grew more and more erratic. Two tires leaked air now and the vehicle had become even more difficult to control. It seemed that their pursuers still hadn't come to terms with the fact that they might have to shoot to kill, though. Hopefully, that little fact would enable the fugitives to make it out alive.

They careened onto the tarmac, where the plane already waited for them—although there was no sign of any of the crew who normally waited outside for the arrival of the guests. The steps were down, however, and ready for them to board, but there was no sign of anyone around them.

Those questions were answered quickly when Jessica stepped onto the first step from the top and brandished what looked like an assault rifle in both hands.

It was an impressive sight, he had to admit, but a terrifying realization touched him. He had no idea how well she could shoot, and she intended to fire at a van that was almost two hundred yards from where she stood.

Not only that, the two of them were directly in the firing line.

"Fuck." He jerked the car to the side as she opened fire.

The crack of the assault rifle was easy to hear and it launched bullets in an interestingly collected pattern toward the van. Maybe she had practiced since he had seen her last, but there was still no way he would allow Jenna to stay in the line of fire.

The same could not be said for the men in the van, who appeared to not realize that they now faced a retaliatory barrage. Tires screeched behind him, a clear confirmation of the exact moment when they did.

Jessica had been training, and the rear-view mirror showed him the holes punched in the windshield of the van, although he couldn't see if any of the occupants were down. Either way, this was the opening they needed.

Savage yanked the handbrake to bring the electric car to a sudden halt. That had actually been the intention, but while the stop was sudden, it wasn’t nearly as sudden as he’d hoped it would be. They finally came to a standstill a couple of paces away from the stairway leading into the plane.

"Get out and get up there," he instructed as he stepped out and opened her door.

Their rescuer needed to reload, which would give their attackers the opening they needed. It was now up to him to close that opening as the van had already resumed its approach. He drew his pistol, pulled the trigger as quickly as he could, and rocketed needles at the enemy vehicle as rapidly as he could while Jenna sprinted up the steps.

She had reached the top when the van halted and three men stepped out to both try to reach her and shoot her protector.

He caught one of them three times in the chest and another in the neck and head before he was forced back behind the car. The world around him exploded in pieces of glass and he hastily covered his head to avoid injury.

"Tell them to take off," he said into his earpiece and tried not to yell over the ringing in his ears.

"Yeah, that won’t happen," Anja said. "You don't think I'll leave you behind, do you?"

"I can take care of myself. There's only one of them left," he shouted.

Savage looked up from where he hunkered and immediately focused on the man who had led the team of mercs during the attack. He was the only one left but he was armed and he looked pissed.

"Oh, fuck." He reacted as quickly as he could and attempted a shot, but his adversary closed the gap between them too quickly, locked his arm against the car, and pounded his elbow into his head. The assault hurled him back and thrust the weapon from his hands.

He fell and tried to push to his feet but was stopped by a boot that thumped into his chest.

"I think it's time we learn a little about you," the man stated coldly and aimed the barrel of his weapon at his head.

Well, the plane would take off now, right?

Rather than look at the gun, he closed his eyes and flinched instinctively at the loud clatter of the sub-machine gun. His ears rang as he looked up to see that he hadn't had his head blasted open. The man had missed.

Jenna stood over the merc, her fists clenched and a furious look in her eyes.

"Look, kid," the man said and chuckled as he straightened from the car he had been shoved into. "I have orders to leave you alive, but that doesn’t mean I'm above shooting you in the leg to get you to come quietly."

"Walk away," she all but growled with a threat Savage wasn't sure she meant. "Walk away, and you'll live."

"Not to be insulting or anything, kid, but you're really not at all intimidating." He punctuated that with a laugh and began to raise his weapon.

She stepped in, moved faster than Savage had ever seen someone move before, and caught the barrel before it had lifted more than an inch.

"I warned you.” She hammered her fist into his gut and the breath exploded out of his lungs.

When he bent forward to recover, she tapped him with a perfectly executed uppercut to the head and hurled him with impossible power into the car behind him.