To Annie Mara and Kolla: Thanks a bunch darlings!

Chapter 11

Bill cursed and quickly knocked the woman out with the gunstock so she went limp. And quiet. But the harm was already done.

The crew members and competitors, who heard the yells, turned around and froze in shock at the sight.

Frank watched helplessly from the stage. Miguel observed the circumstances, then tugged at Frank's sleeve and motioned for him to follow. They crept backstage.

"If nobody moves, no one has to get hurt," Bill said to his audience. He began to move slowly, still carrying Alezjandra's limp body, backwards to the entrance. No one moved.

The singer started to come around, she was too dazed to resist but Bill forced her to walk with him. He could hardly believe his luck when he saw that the front hall was supervised by one guard, a very pale and breathless Ramón Richardo.

"I-I knocked out the cop that was here," he said nervously.

"Good boy," Bill complimented, "I'm leaving."

-"I know."

"Where's the cop?"

Ramón pointed. "There, in the corner."

"Go get his gun," Bill commanded. Once he had another weapon he sighed deeply. Then he looked back at the young man.

"Are you going to turn yourself in?"

Ramón nodded miserably.

-"Well then...Wish me luck."

-"I hope you get caught."

Bill didn't even bother to say goodbye to his lover. He pressed the Defender between Alezjandra's shoulderblades and held the cop's gun behind his back and headed outside. "Walk faster," he hissed into the woman's ear.

She bit her lip to keep from crying and obeyed.

The press-tent was full so a few reporters were outside it, trying to hear something or catch a photo. Bill was half-way to the parking lot when he was spotted and people began shouting.

Dozen of police officers, including their chief, immediately came running out of the concert hall with guns drawn.

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Frank and Miguel got outside through the backdoor. They took a decent detour to get behind Bill, who they knew was headed for the parking lot.

Miguel tried to get an eyecontact with chief Civera. When he succeeded, he hoped the chief had gotten the signal.

And Serafin Civera started speaking. He read Bill his rights, first in spanish, then in english. "You cannot go anywhere, Mr. West. Make this easier on yourself and surrender!"

By now everyone had left the press-tent, the lawn was once again over-crowded with mass-media flashing cameras and video cameras, and waving microdisk recorders. Everything was being showed live on the spanish national TV and most probably BBC as well.

Steven stood in the tent's 'doorway' and painfully watched the incident.

"Put the speech on hold until you have caught me," Bill answered chief Civera. Just then he caught a movement from the corner of his eye.

Frank and Miguel had both lunged at him trying to knock away the guns. Miguel was able to bend Bill's arm until he let go of the gun in his right hand but he ducked his arm from Frank's blow and lashed out at him with the gunstock, hitting Alezjandra in the process and she and Frank hit the ground, rolling a little bit.

"Are you ok?" he asked her.

She nodded, tears streaming down her face. Then she suddenly threw her arms around Frank and hugged him, "благодарность, thank you, thank you!" she sobbed into his neck.

Frank couldn't help but blush when he noticed at least one of the cameras had zoomed in on them, hugging on the ground.

Bill was strong and he seemed to be getting the upper-hand in the fight. The police aimed their guns but didn't fire because they were afraid of shooting officer Queirra, or Frank or the woman.

At last Bill got both of his guns from the ground while he had hit the cop in the arm causing him to drop his. Panthing heavily he aimed the gun at Miguel, he yanked him up by the hair.

"You like it rough, don't you?" he said sinisterly to the Spaniard who held his hands up in defeat. For now.

Bill put a gun to Miguel's head while backing to the nearest car. He smashed the window on the driver's side with the other gun and opened the car. He got in without loosing Miguel from the barrel's sight, put the car in gear and, with screeching tires, he sped off.

"Dispara! Dispara en los neumáticos! " the chief commanded. The police officers aimed for the tires but didn't get much chance to shoot before the car was in the traffic and they didn't risk shooting innocent people's cars. The chief gave more orders to have the fugitive followed.

Alezjandra's crew was all over her, smoothing her in russian and with hugs. She smiled at Frank who felt butterflies wave their wings in his stomach. Then he turned to Miguel. "Are you ok?"

"Yeah, fine. I will be black and blue tomorrow though. Carajo, he's strong, almost ripped the head off my torso. But I'm good," he added manly.

-"What now?"

-"Chief will have the train stations and airports monitored."

The chief came over to them. "The best thing for him is to try to catch a train to France. I'm going back to the station now to make sure he can't get anywhere. I should alarm the french and portugeese police to watch the country borders," he said to himself.

"Oh yeah, I bet the french aren't too fond of him, he kidnapped their representative in the contest," Frank said.

Steven joined them, "Will you catch him?" he asked Civera.

-"We will."

Steven swallowed.

"Are you gonna be all right?" Frank asked him.

"No but I've got to get back to the rehearsals...Alezjandra, are you hurt?" he turned to the russian woman.

She shook her head. "нет, I'm fine."

-"Good, can you continue with the rehearsal?"

-"Can you?"

Steven smiled a little.

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Fenton and José had been wandering around the enormorous basement for sometime when the sergeant's CB buzzed and he had to leave.

Both curiosity and a gut feeling told Fenton that he should continue to investigate the basement. So he did just that by himself...

Suddenly he heard a sound coming from one of the doors in the hallway. He put his ear against the door. It was music. Pop music in english. The door was locked but Fenton saw a key hanging on a nail in the wall beside it. He slowly opened the door when suddenly someone grabbed him from inside and slammed him to the floor.