With the cool of a seasoned G-man putting in time at the shooting range, McCaskey swung his Parabellum around, leveled it at the captain's left leg, and fired two rounds. The leg folded inward, blood spitting from two wounds just above the knee. Ducking low, McCaskey jumped from the cabin and ran forward. Behind him, he heard the distinctive phut, phut of the silenced sniper rifle. He didn't hear any return fire and imagined that the soldiers of the firing squad, as well as the other soldiers in the rear of the courtyard, were doing just as Luis had predicted. They were scattering for cover.

The soldiers holding María released her and ran toward the nearest arch. She dropped to her knees and then onto her hands.

"Stay down!" McCaskey yelled as she tried to rise.

She looked at him defiantly as she turned a shoulder toward the pedestal. Leaning against it, she got her legs beneath her and stood slowly.

Of course she did, he thought. Not because he told her she shouldn't but because she was María.

The gun had fallen from the captain's hand. He was attempting to get it back as McCaskey raced past him. He snatched it up and continued ahead. The officer's cries of rage and pain were quickly drowned by Luis's voice coming over the megaphone.

"Evacúen la área," Luis warned them. "Más helicópteros están de tránsito!"

McCaskey had had four years of Spanish in high school but he got the gist of what Luis was saying. He was telling the soldiers to get out, that more helicopters were on the way. It was an inspired maneuver that could buy them the little extra time they needed. McCaskey didn't doubt that the soldiers would resist. If they were ready to execute Spanish prisoners, they wouldn't hesitate to attack Interpol operatives. But at least they wouldn't charge recklessly back into the courtyard.

Occasional bursts of fire were met by Luis's rifle fire. McCaskey didn't look back but he hoped the chopper wasn't damaged.

As he came closer to María, he saw that her side was thick with blood and that her face was bloody as well. The bastards had beaten her. Reaching her side, he ducked a shoulder under her arm.

"Can you make it back with me?" he asked. He took a moment to look at her. Her left eye was bloody and swollen shut. There were deep cuts on both cheeks and along the hairline. He felt like shooting the bastard captain.

"We can't go," she said.

"We can," he insisted. "A team's inside hunting for-"

She shook her head. "There's another prisoner in there." She pointed toward a doorway some thirty feet away. "Juan. They'll kill him. I won't leave without him."

That too was María, McCaskey thought.