Aztec Gold

NINE

Alicia ducked as the bodies slammed into her, forcing them over her lowered back and away. Still more came, some dead, some dying, tangled with others that were very much alive. Alicia fought to keep her balance, to keep her head above the growing jumble of arms and legs, whilst dodging out of the way of even more heavy, tumbling bodies.

At last the flow came to an end. Russo stood to her left, a man withstanding a tide, using the considerable strength in his arms and legs to divide the waters. In the end Alicia almost expected him to start beating his chest.

She fought to pull herself free, kicking with her legs, all efforts at grace or skill put aside. She used the cargo vest of a dead man to haul herself free, balancing on top of his body. Where the hell was Healey?

Russo was also searching the mass. Bullets still flew from Crouch’s position behind them, where they used the kids’ slide for cover. Alicia knew it was only a matter of moments before their enemies brought the guy with the Steyr forward.

One man rose before her. She headbutted him back down among his brethren. Another challenged Russo and found himself launched into the air, arms and legs flapping as if trying to fly. Alicia hopped from man to man, using their backs and chests as purchase.

“Healey!” Russo’s bellow surely woke half of Mexico City.

Alicia saw hands waving as a disabled soldier managed to untangle his limbs just enough to swivel a rifle at her. With the speed of a striking viper she reached down and tore the gun from his hands, upended it and blasted a hole through his forehead. She wouldn’t indiscriminately kill these men in their helplessness even now, as they clearly fought to kill her, but if they didn’t learn their place at her feet it was game over.

Alicia bounced her way over toward Healey’s hands. The young man was caught beneath a lifeless slab of meat, someone approaching Russo’s size, but lacking the hard lines and craggy exterior in favor of scars and black tattoos.

“Looks like you were enjoying that,” she said as she pulled him free.

Healey breathed hard, unable to retort between gasps. Russo joined them. Healey took a second to dig out his cellphone and take a picture of the big soldier’s neck tattoo.

Alicia wished she had a moment to comment. The possibilities were endless. But now was most certainly not the time.

“What do you say we get the fuck outta here?”

Alicia jumped down the struggling pile, running the instant her feet hit hard ground. By the time her eyes registered the terrible scene ahead she was too far to turn back and hunt for a new weapon.

A second team had clearly ambushed Crouch’s position. Crouch himself was pinned down underneath the slide, his arm around Cruz, keeping the attackers at bay, but Lex and Caitlyn were anything but safe. The uncommon feeling of terror gripped Alicia’s chest as she saw both Lex and Caitlyn being dragged away by a group of armed men.

“No!” Not after her promise. Not after Caitlyn had trusted her. And not after she’d brought Lex all this way.

To die.

Alicia increased her pace, outdistancing Russo with ease. The enemy soldiers continued to drag Caitlyn and Lex along, struggling up the ditch’s incline at the other end of the playing field. If Alicia had a rifle she could have started to pick them off, but it was lost under the groaning mass back there. A man turned, saw her, and took a potshot. Alicia didn’t flinch as the bullet droned past her face.

She was closing the gap.

Then more men saw her. Shouts went up. Guns were snapped in her direction and aimed. The moment they fired she anticipated and rolled forward, tucking her arms and legs in, passing under the deadly flight, and hit the incline at speed. The men vented their alarm. One of them suddenly spun Lex and shoved him hard down the hill toward her. Alicia, at full speed, couldn’t dodge out of the way. She hit the biker head on, the impact causing an explosion inside her head. Falling, plummeting to the ground, she tried one last time to correct her balance.

Above them, at the top of the slope, Caitlyn’s despairing eyes were more like an accusation than a statement of hope.