Chapter 10
Rizzi returned to a warehouse roof opposite the one held by Vargas. The city lights weren't quite enough to dispel the darkness of the night, so she looked through a night vision scope to make a final reconnaissance of the warehouse in question. The cartel building had nothing to distinguish it from the half-dozen other warehouses it sat alongside. It made sense, really, that they wouldn't want to draw attention – especially considering the amount of product they were moving throughout the city.
Bringing the scope up to her eye again, Rizzi peered through it and took another look for any security measures. The typical cameras covering the typical angles. No surprise – and no problem. At least two guards on the perimeter, walking a circuit that kept each other in line of sight – for the most part. They weren't wearing uniforms; rather they had fairly simple suits formal enough to look professional but unremarkable enough to not stand out. One side door stood at the extreme range of both paths. No, too obvious. She swept the surrounding walls. There, high up in the shadows, hid another camera aimed at the entrance.
Still watching, she waited for the guards to make another round – and found the flaw she'd been searching for. One of the guard's paths just coincided with the metronome swivel of the camera he patrolled past. The door he covered looked like a solid slab of metal with a keycard reader by its side. Good thing the guard idly fidgeted with the keycard hanging from his belt, twirling it in circles as he paced. Well, good for her.
Not so much for him.
Tucking the scope away, Rizzi moved for the ladder leading off the rooftop. She slid down quietly and in the shadow of the dark warehouse drew her VP9 and performed a quick press-check, drawing the pistol slide back just far enough to insert the tip of her index finger into the chamber to feel the presence of a chambered round through her gloves. Letting the slide return to its closed position, she withdrew a suppressor from a thigh pocket and screwed it onto the threaded muzzle before returning it to her holster.
Rizzi unslung her rifle. A B&T APC-556 with a short barrel for extra concealability and close-quarters use; it had been a gift from a grateful executive of the manufacturer after she'd done them a certain favor. A rather bloody favor, at that. She checked the red dot sight mounted on the top rail; the rifle already had a round chambered. A larger suppressor went over the birdcage flash hider at the muzzle; Rizzi locked the quick-detach system in place so it fit on snugly. She re-slung it, making sure it held tight against her body, and adjusted the fit of her ballistic vest beneath her dark coat, making sure nothing rattled.
She tied her hair back and looked across the way, judging the pockets of light and shadow and plotting her movement. Blood. There would be more of it shed tonight.
The camera turned away as the guard moved past the door – and the dark patch of shadow cast by the nearby buttressing pillar. An arm snaked out, wrapped around his throat, and tugged the guard into the darkness. Rizzi held onto him as she plunged her blade into his kidney and twisted; the guard stiffened in her grip, went rigid, and finally slack. She kept an eye on the camera all the while as it started panning back, and then hauled the corpse up against the door as it turned away again.
Holding the guard's body upright with one hand, Rizzi snagged the keycard at his waist with her other and swiped it against the reader. The metal door unlocked with a thunk and she tugged it open. Levering the body in before her, Rizzi slipped into the warehouse before the camera could see her.
The inside was surprisingly dim; she'd come in through a side door into a corridor of bare metal walls. The overhead lamps cast weak yellow light and still left plentiful shadows.
Perfect.
Rizzi shoved the body aside into the closest dark corner and drew her pistol. First, the security room. She'd seen basic plans for these warehouses; the offices should be-
"Paolo! Come on, man!"
Ah, that way. Pistol at the ready, she prowled up the corridor silently, taking in the drab, utilitarian design. A warehouse was a far cry from an art gallery, after all. She slowed as she moved past an empty restroom and came up on a corner.
"Paolo!" She closed in on the doorway where the voice came from. "I told you, man. You can't just wander off to take a piss when you feel like it." Whoever it was sounded more bored than anything else; that was also good.
Rizzi slipped into the office; it had been converted into a security room, one wall covered by a table laden with security monitors. A dark-haired man sat before the screens, slouched in his seat but turning towards the door as she entered. He was fast, she gave him that much; the guard was already reaching for the inside of his suit jacket.
But that was all Rizzi gave him. She double-tapped the guard in the head and swept her gun past, checking the rest of the room by habit. She needn't have bothered; he'd been the only one in the security room. The wall opposite the screens held a circuit breaker box but nothing else of immediate consequence.
Shouts came from deeper within the warehouse. No surprise there – even with a suppressor the shots weren't exactly silent. She heard shouted questions, alarm, calls to arms – at least three – no, four voices. Rizzi holstered her pistol and unlimbered her rifle, flipping the safety off as she tucked it into her shoulder and charged from the room.
Heading towards the voices, Rizzi slid up along one side of the corridor. Footsteps ahead. She settled her cheek against the rifle, got her sight picture in through the optic mounted atop its rail, and shifted her stance down. Another two steps brought her to another corner. She leaned around just enough to clear her rifle – and sight in on two men hurrying down the corridor.
The red dot settled over the chest of the man on the right; she pressed the trigger twice. He went down in a tumble, blood splattering the wall beside him, and Rizzi shifted her aim left as the other man drew to a halt, eyes wide. She put a round through his center mass, then another through his head. The sharp cracks of the rifle through its suppressor echoed in the enclosed space, making her glad she had her earpieces in. Rizzi put one more bullet through the head of the first man she'd downed for good measure, stepped over the mess, and moved on.
If the Vargas men in the warehouse hadn't been sure of what was happening before, they certainly were now. The shouts ahead grew more frantic as she approached. The corridor led to a sitting room of some kind with a set of double doors, open to some space beyond. Rizzi stopped, shot out the lights overhead, and snatched a cylinder from her chest harness. Hurling the flashbang through the doors, she pressed herself up against the wall and covered her eyes with an elbow.
The concussion from the blast rattled her chest; Rizzi was already rushing through the doors, taking a long step to the side as soon as she cleared them. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears like a drum. She had little conscious awareness of the environment details; all her focus went towards locating targets. Rifle in place against her shoulder, she spotted the first man flailing in the open. She stroked the trigger twice, dropped him, and kept moving. As the concussive ringing started fading away she heard more shouting. One to the left – another suited man with a drawn pistol. He fired blindly towards the door; Rizzi put four rounds into his chest in the span of a second, working the trigger rapidly.
A quick look around showed three more men in the large room. These had been smart or trained enough to go for cover when the flashbang went off, diving behind stacked crates, pallets, and shelves that crowded the space. One man leaned around one of the pillars running to the roof and triggered a burst from his machine pistol. He just missed; Rizzi slid behind a bunch of wrapped packages stacked waist-high. White powder burst into the air as bullets shredded across the top. She raised herself up from her crouch just enough to clear the top of her cover and returned fire. Movement from the left caught her eye and she swung the rifle over, firing another trio of rounds as she pushed off and kept moving. Getting pinned down now would be fatal. Somebody else started shooting blindly around the corner of a stack of product across the way.
Screw conserving ammo. Rizzi flipped the selector lever to automatic and swung her sights over. She pressed the trigger; the rifle rocked against her shoulder as she sent a stream of rounds chewing through the corner of the stack. Blood arced through the air, mingling with white powder cast adrift from the force of the impacts. The target crumpled and Rizzi swung behind one of the thick steel pillars in the room. She jerked her head back as a bullet ricocheted off the other side, nearly striking her ear. Bringing the rifle up before her, she grabbed a fresh magazine and dumped the depleted one. Several more shots slammed into the pillar, rattling off with harsh metallic impacts.
Rizzi racked the charging handle of her rifle and peeked out ever so slightly. Two more in the room with her; one behind a pillar halfway across, the other crouched low behind a pile of stacked pallets. Not low enough: she lined the rifle up and took off the top half of his head with a burst. Another burst towards the last Vargas man standing kept him behind the pillar as she moved. Keeping low, she sidestepped towards another stack of pallets. A blind shot went over her shoulder and Rizzi threw herself the rest of the way down, sliding behind the layers of wood. She rolled to the other side and saw his leg just sticking out from the pillar. Sloppy. A shot to the knee drew an agonized scream that she cut short with another burst to the head as the Vargas man doubled over.
She took a deep breath, and-
The door behind her burst open. Rolling frantically aside, she just avoided the trio of rounds the man charging through the portal sent at her. From the floor Rizzi returned fire. The first burst just missed him; she walked the rounds laterally across his chest, making a bloody mess of the doorway and beyond. Right. The other guard outside. So that was where he'd gone.
Breathing hard, Rizzi pushed herself up to the feet. The immediate rush of combat began receding as she scanned the room again, then checked the surrounding corridors before returning to the big chamber. It always felt like… surfacing from beneath a cold pool. Her face and hands tingled like a current ran through it; her legs twitched like they were on the verge of spasms. Breathe.
The warehouse's main chamber came back into focus as she started taking in details again. That was – wow – that was a lot of product. The room was a large space, about two stories tall, broken up by hefty metal pillars. The lighting here was sparse as well: a pair of dim industrial lights overhead that cast pools of shadows around the edges of the room. Most of the chamber was crowded by pallets of stacked drugs: wrapped bundles ready to go. If Vargas had this much on hand, they'd either been planning to make a move in Manhattan for a while or their smuggling network was far better than anybody had given them credit for. Not that it mattered at this point. Space had been cleared by the main doors for several vehicles; stockpiled supplies lay heaped against the wall. She saw spare tires, jacks, boxes of tools, and a pile of red gasoline canisters.
Rizzi moved over to the gas canisters and hefted one: mostly full. Perfect. Vargas didn't seem to hold lives of individual members in much regard, but their goods – now that would hit them where it hurt. She carried it over to the closest batch of drugs, laid out on a table for loading, and splashed the gasoline over them, then grabbed more canisters and started dousing pallets around the place. The smell of blood and gasoline mingled in the air with wood and gunpowder. Returning to the vehicle supplies, she rooted through a trio of roadside kits that looked like they'd been dumped from car trunks – probably to make room for product. She snatched a flare sitting at the bottom of a duffel bag. Too easy. She could have sacrificed a lighter to do it, but why bother when Vargas left the tools to destroy this operation at her disposal?
Igniting the flare with a flick of her wrist, Rizzi swiped the sputtering, hissing cylinder across the table with the piled drugs. The gas caught with a low whoosh and flames engulfed the table as she stepped back, a savage grin splitting her face. She tossed the burning flare onto the nearest pallet; with all the gas and wood laying around it wouldn't be long before the warehouse turned into a flaming ruin. Rizzi stepped back, tightened her hood around her head. Time to-
The main warehouse doors opened with a rapid clacking, headlights shining in from outside. She spun to see Cuhuillo jumping out from the lead car. His face twisted from surprise to rage as he caught sight of her standing amidst the wreckage of the place.
Not good.
Bringing her rifle up, Rizzi opened fire at the cars as she sprinted for cover. Gunfire chased her heels as the two SUVs disgorged Vargas men. Rizzi ran for the shadows, hoping the flickering of the flames would help hide her movements. She tried to take count as she wove between the objects around the room. Five? Six. A trio of rounds rattled off a pillar inches from her head. Very not good.
Wu climbed out of the car a block away from the warehouse. Sure enough, it was in the rundown industrial sector where the Silver Mountain had placed a great deal of Vargas activity. "What are you doing?" Xiao Ma said.
Staying low, he stepped away from the car, keeping one eye on the light coming from the open doors of the warehouse and the two SUVs ajar before it. He brought his rifle up, not quite sighting in but holding it at the ready. He'd cut the car lights two blocks back and kept the speed low, weaving for any pockets of darkness at the edges of the streetlights. They didn't seem to have been noticed following Cuhuillo and the Vargas cars back to this place.
They did, however, seem to have come across somebody else attacking the Vargas location already. Gunfire echoed down the street, staccato cracks ringing off the buildings around them. The dancing, flickering shadows cast by the glowing doorway meant a fire inside; whatever was going on, they'd arrived late to the show.
"What are you doing?" Xiao Ma asked again, this time in Mandarin.
"Just getting ready," Wu replied, watching as the figures who'd poured out from the vehicles moved into the building. All except one, who lingered outside, at the edges of the pool of light spilling from the warehouse doors. More gunfire came from inside. Meanwhile the outside man – a sentry, he realized – actually stepped away from the building, turning to cover the street instead. It made sense; this way he could watch out for interlopers approaching from outside and be in a position to ambush anybody emerging from the raging firefight within.
The raging firefight inside a Vargas building after Rizzi had come to him looking for any clues about where they might be.
"This isn't our affair," Xiao Ma said quietly in his ear; she'd climbed out of the car as well, coming around beside him.
Her voice broke through the haze of icy lethality that had come out of nowhere. Wu realized that he'd taken a step towards the warehouse. He'd settled the red dot of his rifle optic over the chest of the Vargas sentry; he grew aware of his breath coming in slow, measured waves and his finger tightening on the trigger.
And he hadn't even realized he'd done any of it.
"This is not the Silver Mountain's doing," Xiao Ma continued. "The force attacking Vargas is not of our men – it's nothing to do with us. We should not make our presence known here."
No, it's probably the one person in there, he thought. But Xiao Ma had a point. This wasn't his fight. He owed Rizzi nothing.
So why was his finger still tightening on the trigger?
"Wu-cike. Is it not wiser to let things play out as they will?"
He lowered the rifle slightly. "Maybe it is." Wu snapped the rifle back into position and pressed the trigger. The suppressed rifle gave a crack as the bullet broke the sound barrier. The Vargas man in his sight staggered and slumped down. He adjusted his sights and fired again, putting a bullet through the squirming man's skull.
A slender hand grabbed the foregrip of his rifle. He pulled away from the sight to see Xiao Ma staring at him, her expression of irritation barely visible in the darkness. "Whoever's in there is doing us a favor. It wouldn't hurt to balance the scales slightly."
"That is yet to be determined," she said. "Do not disobey me."
"Fine." Wu lowered his rifle. "We'll see what happens."
Rizzi threw herself over a burning pallet, not even noticing the heat of the flames. She squeezed off four shots, just trying to keep the Vargas men back, staggered as something slapped her side hard, and hit the ground behind cover. Need to even the odds.
She rolled over to her back, bringing the ceiling into- Aha. Rizzi shifted her rifle and shot the overhead lights out, leaving the flames expanding through the room the only illumination. Rising to a crouch she shifted towards the back of the room where the shadows and darkness were deepest. She fired single shots as she went, aiming for the silhouettes beyond.
One of them found its target; a muffled groan and spray of blood marked one of the Vargas men going down. Rizzi slipped into the shadows, searching frantically for any of the others. She just caught sight of Cuhuillo ducking behind one of the pillars, an MP5K in each hand. Another Vargas man came rushing up past his left side; she put a trio of rounds through his chest and felt the bolt lock open; the gun was empty. She kept moving. In the darkness she reached for her last rifle magazine and-
Almost snarled a curse.
In place of a fresh mag hung a warped, twisted bundle of metal and polymer. So that's what the impact against her side had been: some bullet deflecting off. No penetration – it had just busted the mag up. She supposed it should have been a damn miracle it hadn't set off the rounds inside, but it still meant her rifle out of action. Shit.
A crunch of wood alerted Rizzi to one of the Vargas men nearly on top of her, stepping over a pallet as he swept the darkness with his weapon. His eyes, pale orbs in the flickering light, widened as he caught sight of her and he swung the pistol around. She parried the arc of the gun with her own rifle, catching his wrist with its frame. The Vargas man's gun roared and sent a bullet past her, the flare from its muzzle lighting them up for a split second. Rizzi threw herself into a rear roll just as a storm of gunfire pounded the space they'd been, shredding the hapless Vargas man before he could react.
Rizzi kept scrambling backwards, dropping the empty rifle as she went. Sidearm it is. She tugged her pistol out as the gunfire continued. Another burst of automatic fire, then the rhythmic clicking of magazines being swapped out.
"Nowhere to go," Cuhuillo called. "Gonna eat your heart now, puta."
Knowing Cuhuillo, he might actually be serious. Rizzi didn't respond to his baiting; she moved for the doorway leading deeper into the warehouse. With the Vargas cars before the main doors her original exit plan was now a bust. The side door – the one she'd come in through. There was a way out. She needed more darkness. Stepping as quietly as she could, Rizzi kept heading for that hallway – and threw herself down as a spray of shots came in again.
Bullets punched ragged holes through the flimsy internal walls at chest height while she rolled aside. The long, chattering burst ended abruptly after what felt like an eternity but couldn't have been more than a couple of seconds. Cuhuillo had emptied both magazines simultaneously, dumping sixty rounds through the cartel building. Holy- Wait. She took a long, slow breath to calm her racing heartbeat. He can't keep that up. How many magazines could he possibly have on him? Cuhuillo would burn through all his ammo at this rate. Draw him out.
Rizzi snatched one of the loose bags of product nearby and hurled it towards the wall off to her side. A burst of rounds shredded through there a second later. From a different direction, too. Cuhuillo was also on the move. Not terribly surprising. She scanned the room as she backpedaled, looking for any sign of-
There. A Vargas hitter, crossing before one of the SUVs, submachine gun at his shoulder. She lined her sights up and pressed the trigger twice, riding the recoil to keep the pistol on target. The cartel man jerked as the rounds thudded into his chest; she saw the surprise on his face by the glare of the flames. Rizzi adjusted her aim and pressed the trigger again. Messy pink mist spattered the tinted windows of the car behind the target. He dropped, missing a part of his face and the back half of his skull.
Abandoning all pretense of stealth Rizzi sprinted for the double doors. She dove through the opening, rolling to one side as bursts of fire came from the main chamber. Rounds thudded into the couches scattered around the sitting room, punching holes in the water cooler along one wall to spout gushing leaks. Another burst drilled a series of ragged holes in the walls around her at chest height. Cuhuillo yelled something at the others, presumably an order to hunt her down. Well then, no reason to stick around and make it easy for them.
Rizzi sprinted up the hall and threw herself into the security room, barely managing to avoid tripping over the corpse already in there. She flung the circuit breaker cover open and ran her hand down the switches, slamming them all to the off position. The warehouse plunged into darkness and more shouts came through the halls. They knew where she was now. Moving quietly but swiftly, Rizzi made her way to the side entrance – and shoved against the door fruitlessly several times.
The door that needed an electronic keycard. Good going, Rizzi. Slowing her breathing with a deep breath, Rizzi stepped away from the door and followed the hallway away from the main chamber. The outside halls formed a perimeter of sorts around the big room like an incomplete rectangle; she'd rather head the long way round, try to get the flank on the others. The only light now came from the fire going in the main chamber shining through the bullet holes riddling the walls. It cast flickering orange shades that danced and distorted in the dark hallways like some mythical underworld – and those bullet holes promised exactly that if she got sloppy again.
Rizzi listened as she moved; if these guys were smart they'd have sent people along both directions. Cutting the power should have made them more cautious. She kept checking behind her as she moved – and sure enough, from behind came quiet muttered curses and the tread of slow footsteps. One of the moving shadows behind her wasn't the same flickering random dance of the others. It moved in a straight line, blocking orange patches shining through bullet holes as it did so. Rizzi raised her pistol. The tritium night sights she'd had installed registered as three pale green dots in the darkness.
Another moment as she kept still… He was close enough now that she heard the other person's ragged, panicked breathing and the soft crunch underfoot-
A ray of light suddenly revealed a splash of skin, stark against the dimness as the cartel man passed before one of the bullet holes and revealed himself. Snapping her sights over, Rizzi put one round into his chest, adjusted her aim, and put a second through his skull. She moved as he collapsed and calls came from elsewhere in the warehouse.
The burning warehouse.
That thought nagged at her as she kept moving. Time was running out. She'd meant to be gone by now, leaving behind a pile of burning product. But flames had a way of burning on. Well then. Time to wrap things up.
Another long burst of gunfire from elsewhere tore more holes through the wall, letting light trickle in. Cuhuillo must still be in the main chamber, just hosing down the rest of the warehouse. Not exactly safe for his men, but then this was the man who'd burned most of a village trying to get to her the last time they'd exchanged gunfire. Collateral damage seemed to be something he reveled in.
Circling through the halls, she stayed low and kept mindful of whatever patches of light shone through bullet holes and doorways. The crackle and whoosh of the flames covered her footsteps, but also masked sounds her hunters might have made. Hunters. Time to make it the other way around, she decided.
The hallway ahead ended in a bend, one of the corners of the building. Perfect place for an ambush. Fortunately, the restroom bordered this particular hall. Ducking inside and wrinkling her nose at the smell, Rizzi felt around for the little bottle of liquid soap sitting on the sink. The plastic jug felt mostly full – good. She leaned out, hurled it down the hall to bounce off the wall midway, and ducked back into the stinking room as a wild spray of automatic gunfire roared out.
The clack of a bolt locking empty sounded both shocking loud and quiet in the aftermath of the long burst. A snarled curse came down the hall. Rizzi was already moving, sprinting down as soon as the other shooter had run out. She threw herself down around the corner, tackling the shooter at the knees just as she heard a magazine slam home.
Both of them went down in a tumble in the darkness. Rizzi threw an elbow up blindly and caught the other's gun, jarring it aside before he could release the bolt. He grunted and punched out, hitting her vest like a rubber mallet.
She brought her other hand up, pressed the muzzle of her suppressed pistol into the man's chest, and pressed the trigger three times. As his arm went weak she pushed herself up and off, located the outline of his head on the ground, and put a final round through it. She blew a breath out, pushed herself up, and moved on, continuing the circuit back towards the main room. Two down in the hallways, three in the big room. That left Cuhuillo.
Rizzi crept up on the door leading out of the hallway, staying low as another burst of automatic fire drilled through the walls. How much ammo did he have? The glow of the blaze beyond the door filled the last half of the hallway with a hellish red light and threw everything into stark relief. The stench of the smoke filled her nostrils; the flames had grown. And while that was partly the plan, it hadn't included getting trapped in here with Cuhuillo while the building burned down around them. Keeping as far back as she could, she scanned the flickering, distorted room ahead for any sign of the cartel killer. Where would be a good place to cover the-
She threw herself down at the shadow of movement, just barely dodging the two short bursts of gunfire that punched through where she'd been standing. Rizzi rolled aside frantically; another two bursts of rounds kicked dust and debris up from the ground beside her and a hot sting pricked her left calf. "Gonna fill you with holes!" he called, voice guttural and scratchy. "Rape you through each of them!"
Well, that was pleasant.
Finishing the roll, Rizzi planted her feet, went up to her knees, and returned fire blindly. The trio of suppressed nine-mil rounds felt like a sad response to the automatic gunfire coming her way but at least it was something. She rolled to her feet and took another step to the side. Glancing through one of the many holes perforating the wall she looked again for Cuhuillo's location.
Movement gave him away. His tall, brawny silhouette charged from one of the shadowed corners to cover behind one of the pillars in the space. Peeking around the doorframe, Rizzi squeezed off two more shots and sprinted into the room as Cuhuillo tucked himself further behind the thick steel column. She went for the closest pillar herself, slamming into the surface and breathing hard. The big burning stockpiles spread around the warehouse room threw off waves of heat as they roared and crackled. Licking flames hid and distorted everything with shimmering mirages, which suited her just fine as Cuhuillo cut loose with another burst that rattled off the pillar like hideous musical chimes.
Wait for it…
Another burst of rounds followed a second later and she leaned out tracking with her pistol. Cuhuillo had gotten too much of a routine going and that made him predictable. Rizzi pressed the trigger repeatedly as she swept her gun across the path of the form darting for the next pillar. A sharp, strangled grunt of pain greeted her, but Cuhuillo threw himself behind cover before she could really get sighted in.
The pistol locked empty in her hand. Rizzi reached to her waist for a reload-
And grimaced as her hand fell onto empty magazine holders. Not good. She hadn't realized she'd burned through so much ammo. Another burst slammed her pillar, loud even through her hearing protection, and stopped short abruptly. She heard a wet, muffled snarl of frustration and seized the opportunity.
Charging out, Rizzi rushed through some flames towards Cuhuillo's location just as he swung out. The glow of the flames highlighted a ghastly wound on his face. The right half of his visage had been rendered into a bloody mess, a ruin of flesh and bone that looked particularly hellish in the orange glow of the fires. Her shot much have punched through his cheek at an angle. Strips of skin hung off his jaw and blood ran down his neck. She leapt over an empty pallet towards him to meet his own charge halfway.
Cuhuillo must have run out of ammo himself; he tossed one pearl-plated submachine gun aside and swung out at her with the other like a metal club. Rizzi ducked the blow and lashed out. She threw a jab towards his knee that he deflected by turning his thigh to meet the blow, taking the force on the meat of his leg. He hammered an elbow down on her shoulder, thudding into the strap of her vest. Rizzi rolled with the impact, avoiding the worst of it by tucking down and to the side. She barely pulled her own leg back before he stomped down hard on it. The stomp thudded into the floor, its impact audible even over the blaze. Rizzi lashed out with the pistol in her hand, slamming the butt into Cuhuillo. He dropped his other gun and swung at her.
The fight devolved into a blur of blows and counters. Rizzi hit him twice, dodged a blow that would have crushed her skull, and kept moving circling around frantically. Her breath came in ragged gasps; the smoke building up in the warehouse rasped the back of her throat. She tried to keep her distance – Cuhuillo's size and reach tilted the odds in his favor when it came to brawl. And what the hell was wrong with this guy? The wound to his face should have messed him up something fierce, but it only seemed to further enrage Cuhuillo. He hammered in like a machine, throwing blow after blow in a storm of fists, elbows, and knees that she barely kept up with.
And then she missed one.
A blow slipped past her guard and slammed into her torso. It knocked the breath from her lungs in an explosive huff, doubling her over even through the vest. He kicked out at her leg and off-balance as she was Rizzi only just managed to roll aside, gasping for breath as-
Cuhuillo's hand clamped around her neck and hauled her up to look into his ruined face. Exposed bone glared stark white in the glow of the flames. His eyes shone with a crazed light of their own as he slugged her in the torso again with his other hand. Swinging her around, Cuhuillo slammed her into a pillar. The impact jolted through her body like a train crash and she saw stars for an instant.
Rizzi slammed the pistol butt into Cuhuillo's wrist – with as much effect as trying to hold a dam together with her hands. She brought her knee up between his legs, which got her a strangled gasp and another punch to the ribs. His grip felt like a vice around her throat clamping tighter. She grasped at his hand, clutching at the web in an attempt to weaken his grip.
Cuhuillo slammed her against the pillar again, and then hauled her towards the burning mound that had once been the table of piled drugs. That really wasn't good. The heat grew more intense as she kicked her legs, trying to find purchase against the floor to no avail; Cuhuillo's height and reach let him carry her clear off the ground if he wanted. The searing sensation at her back told her she was running out of time.
Desperately Rizzi drew her legs up, scrunching herself into a ball. That threw him off balance. As the arm hauling her dipped towards the ground trying to hold her unsupported weight she threw her ankles around his shoulder. Locking them together, Rizzi rode out the fall. She hit the ground with a painful thud but dragged the cartel triggerman down with her. Keeping her grip on his hand she twisted her hips, wrenching arm in its socket. Cuhuillo snarled a curse, kicked up and over to alleviate the pressure, and pushed himself up. Rizzi dropped the empty pistol and let his efforts give her a boost towards getting to her own feet while she reached for her waist. She bounded up – the knife in her hand lancing open with a click.
She jabbed upwards, plunging the blade into the underside of Cuhuillo's left arm. He bellowed and lashed out with his other fist. She dodged to the side, reducing the blow to a stinging graze against the top of her ear. As she tugged the blade out a spurt of blood followed. She'd hit something important, she recognized immediately. That kind of blood spray almost certainly meant an artery. The kind of thing that ended a fight.
Except Cuhuillo seemed to have missed that particular memo. He kicked out, driving her back, and pulled a large chisel-pointed knife from his belt. Rizzi ducked a short swing, feinted left, and leapt back from another diagonal slash. What the hell was he on, that he could keep going like this? He launched another flurry of blows: stabs, slashes, and kicks that made her dance back out of range as she coughed in the smoke. It stung her eyes and throat while the heat from the blaze felt like she was inside a furnace. Can't keep this up much longer.
Cuhuillo finally began to slow. Panting hard, he glared at Rizzi with a manic hatred in his eyes. She'd killed him – they both knew it – and he intended to drag her to hell with him. And that meant he'd be desperate, sloppy. His swings grew wilder, leaving more openings in his guard. She could play it safe, stay on the defensive until he bled out.
But the burning warehouse made time an issue. And, truth be told, she'd had enough of this psychopath. Flipping her knife to a reverse grip, Rizzi dropped her guard for an instance to invite an attack. He took it: of course he had to. Cuhuillo came straight in, throwing a series of jabs with his uninjured arm. Rizzi leaned aside from the first one-
And launched herself forward into him. She threw a palm strike at his face, obscuring his vision for the instant she needed to plunge down with her other hand in a hammer blow from her centerline out towards the side. The arc met the inside of his thigh; her blade punched through fabric and flesh with casual ease, cutting through his femoral artery. She ripped the knife free and stepped back, ducking another swing as she did so.
That seemed to get through to Cuhuillo at last. Blood pumping from two ruptured arteries, the cartel man staggered backwards. His arms dropped, the wounded one slick and crimson in the fire's light. Still glaring at Rizzi, he collapsed forward facedown. She stepped back out of reach as he made one last grasp for her ankle. The pool of blood spreading beneath him grew with a lethal swiftness.
She watched through the thickening smoke as he grew still. She picked her pistol up, then moved through the growing blaze to retrieve the rifle she'd dropped earlier, and finally fled the burning warehouse for the cold night outside. The damp and chill hit her like a stun gun, but it came as a welcome shock after the events within. Susan paused several meters outside, breathing hard.
He watched her, the soft red dot of the rifle optic steady over her panting chest. "And who is this, then?" Xiao Ma said at Wu's side. "One person to assault a Vargas holding? How bold."
Wu said nothing. Rizzi looked remarkably intact for having taken on Cuhuillo; that was damned impressive.
"An independent?" Xiao Ma continued, "Or a competitor? What say you, Wu-cike?"
"I'd say she just did our work for us," he said. "That was Vargas' top hitter she just took out in there."
"Which makes her dangerous. It may be prudent to remove this individual from the equation while she is vulnerable."
Vulnerable. He couldn't deny that was what Rizzi looked like at the moment: coughing and shuddering in the night sky, magazine-less rifle held loosely. It would be easy – just press the trigger.
Wu lowered his rifle. "She's not a threat to us right now. And she's just crippled Vargas' immediate operations in this city. We should leave before the authorities respond."
"And so lies Vargas' endeavor. Ashes and dust." He looked over to see Xiao Ma staring at him, an expression he couldn't read on her face. "Interesting. Where comes this sentimentality from? Are you acquainted with this lone gunwoman?"
"I recognize another professional when I see one." Wu flipped the rifle's safety and started unthreading its suppressor as he walked back to the car. "This is a professional courtesy."
"Really." Xiao Ma climbed into the passenger seat. Her gaze roamed over Wu, then turned back to Rizzi in the distance. "Interesting."
Once she'd caught her breath Rizzi hurried back to her car a block away, avoiding the pools of illumination cast by streetlights to the best of her ability. She climbed in and took a deep breath. As the adrenaline receded and the aches and pains from the night flooded her senses, Rizzi checked herself over for any pressing injuries. The sting in her calf was the worst; it didn't look like a direct hit in the admittedly paltry light of the car cabin. A chunk of spalling or a ricochet from the looks of the gash. No immediate danger of bleeding out. She rummaged through the little trauma kit in her pack for a field dressing, slapped it on, and started the car.
The evening hadn't quite gone according to plan. She snorted gently to herself as she pulled away from the curb. That's putting it mildly. Behind her the orange light of the inferno billowed smoke into the night sky. Not neat, not clean, but she was still alive.