Strong As Steel by Jon Land

Author:Jon Land
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

51

CHIHUAHUA, MEXICO

Delgado had shed her elegant shoes and was barefoot when she slammed the armored vehicle’s passenger door behind her, as Caitlin slid across the slippery fabric to claim the driver’s seat. She still had the guard’s Heckler and Koch pistol but had shed the nearly empty M16 to help the Red Widow and to climb into the vehicle herself.

Behind the cab was a flat space with jump-style seating for commandos. Slots for a variety of weapons, too, all of which were regrettably empty. But it had a push-button starter that required no key and an engine that sounded like a 737’s when she got it revving.

The sound must have drawn the focus of the attacking commando force, because small arms fire began to rain down on the vehicle. Thanks to its armored skin, each hit resulted in no more than a ping, while more rounds carved tiny divots out of the windshield’s bulletproof glass.

“Get down!” Caitlin ordered Delgado.

“Give me the gun!”

Caitlin handed over the pistol. She had no reason to really trust this woman, beyond the fact that they were under fire together, but there was no way she could drive this thing and shoot, anyway.

As the vehicle barreled for the blown gate, currently blocked by a pair of the attacking force’s own heavy vehicles parked nose to nose, Delgado slid the passenger side window down just enough to allow her to poke the Heckler and Koch’s barrel outside. She fired with the calm and dexterity of a truly practiced hand, holding off the enemy just enough to keep them from launching an attack from that side.

The bulletproof windshield burst into a dozen separate spiderweb patterns as fire was directed at Caitlin’s vehicle from unidentified origins, leaving barely any of it clear and whole. But she could see well enough to aim the heavy thing straight toward the blocked gates.

Impact against the trucks in her path shook Caitlin wildly and sent her teeth crashing together. But she moved the trucks just enough to surge between them onto the street near central Chihuahua, where pedestrians and drivers alike were racing to flee. Stalled traffic forced many to abandon their vehicles and join the flight on foot, the armored vehicle plowing through everything in its path.

Caitlin worked the gas pedal and transmission, trying to gather the momentum needed to forge an opening, a chasm through the clutter. The scent of scorched rubber added to the chaos, which was further fed by those desperately fleeing and a chorus of blaring horns that gave no signs of stopping.

She wasn’t getting anywhere. Sitting ducks right here, and even more so if she risked trying to flee with Delgado in tow, here and now, on foot.

A familiar whop-whop-whop touched the edge of her hearing, the sound rising above all others as a helicopter gunship soared overhead. Caitlin clung to the hope that it was Mexican Army or Policia Federal, but it had no markings of any kind, which made it more likely that it belonged to the commandos who’d attacked the federal police station.

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