A muted shot answered that. Drake kicked up his speed as the bullet took a chunk out of the wall behind him. At least the bloke didn’t seem to be a crack shot. Too close for comfort though.

Where, then, to run?

Spying an alley that would remove him from the gun’s line of sight, Drake dove down it, sprinting to the end, a prayer pounding with every footfall that he’d reach the exit before the other bloke reached the entrance. His ears strained to hear anything over his own breathing, his own pulse, his own steps.

There. Other running steps—but Drake was even then turning out of the alley onto the street running parallel to the one on which the warehouse sat. A farm wagon loaded with hay—no doubt destined for another warehouse—creaked by. A lorry sputtered along opposite. His eyes darted this way and that, his mind darting just as quickly through the options.

He could toss himself into the hay wagon, burrow down.

No.

He could run into that open door of the next building down and then search for a back exit.

No.

His gaze latched onto another alley, not quite opposite. He’d scouted out this section of town enough to know it would deliver him to the river. If he could get out of the Bilbao la Vieja—the city’s industrial left bank—and across the river, he’d be back in the Casco Viejo, the Old Quarter. And there, he’d be on his own turf, where he knew every street, every turn . . . and many of the people.

Go.

The lorry was rattling in the right direction. He dashed into the street and to the opposite side of the automobile, getting as close as he could to its side and matching its lumbering speed. His legs he kept aligned with its rear wheels, and his back he kept hunched enough that his head wouldn’t clear the top of the lorry’s frame. He grasped one of the cords holding a canvas top over the cargo to steady himself and glanced ahead to where that next alley drew slowly closer.

Ten more seconds. Five. Now. He peeled away from the lorry’s side and into the narrow street while the lorry covered the entrance.

With any luck, his opposite number was following the hay wagon, poking into that for him. Or running down the street proper.

If so, all Drake had to do was be out of sight again by the time he crossed the mouth of the alley. It was a short little thing, improving his chances. He increased them more with another muttered prayer in Spanish.