But Mr. Fontana was a different story.

He took aim at Fontana and pulled the trigger. The bound man reacted quickly, twisting away, but not in time. The armor piercing bullet slammed into his shoulder, just inside his body armor.Finish him? No. Battlefield tactics 101. A wounded man is tactically better than a dead man. With his escape toward the street cut off, Montez charged the sliding glass doors of a hotel room, firing as he ran.

***

“Harvey!”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Montez charge the glass doors of a hotel room, shooting as he ran. Three deafening shots cracked the air. The tempered glass shattered.

Montez burst through and disappeared into the blackness beyond.

Nathan drew his knife and spent a few precious seconds cutting the tape that bound Harv’s wrists. He saw blood flowing from a shoulder wound and ripped the tape from his friend’s mouth.

“Nathan. How did you—”

“Where’s your Sig?”

“Montez tossed it over there.” Harv angled his head to the left.

Nathan retrieved Harv’s suppressed weapon. “Are you okay?”

Harv grimaced. “Take your phone. My front pocket. Go get that son of a bitch.”

“You can count on it.” Nathan cut his own Sig free from his ankle and handed it to Harv. He wanted Harv’s dry gun. Then, crouching low, began his pursuit.

He knew broken glass awaited his feet, but he hurdled the hedge and stormed into the room anyway.

Hundreds of tiny glass shards shredded his bare flesh. The carpet helped a little, but not enough. Forget about it. It’s just pain. Not life threatening. He reached down and swept the bottom of his feet, dislodging the largest pieces.

He sensed motion in the bed to his right, but ignored it. Straight ahead, the room’s front door loomed. Wide open. For some reason it was jammed open, allowing orange light to slice across the carpet.

Nathan stopped, sensing a trap. A quick trip to the closet gained him a shirt on a hanger. He tossed it out the hall door so the shirt bloused wide, keeping its form.

Montez’s gun boomed. The sound hammered every building in the area like a mass wake-up call.

Certain the shot had come from the left, Nathan crouched down and peered around the corner at knee level.

Montez.

Nathan couldn’t risk shooting from this distance, even with the laser sight. There were too many unknowns for a stray bullet.

His feet stinging and slick with blood, he took off in pursuit.

***