The barrage was followed by a second, much closer demonstration of firepower. The drug runners, fearing an attack, opened fire. Both sides were now fully engaged.

As Queen entered the upstairs hallway, a little voice came out of the darkness in the back bedroom. “Papa?”

Queen’s eyes went wide as she saw a little boy, no older then seven, standing in the bedroom doorway, rubbing his eyes and looking nervous. How she had missed him she had no idea, but she couldn’t leave him here. If he were to walk in front of the window from where she’d fired, the military would cut him down.

With two fast strides, she reached the boy, threw him over her shoulder, and leaped the banister. She landed on the stairway with a hard thump, and jumped the rest of the way down. At the base of the stairs, the boy’s papa stood ready with a shotgun.

Their eyes met for a moment and came to an agreement. He could see she was helping the boy, and given her professional gear, and perhaps the fact that she was a woman, decided to trust her. The man lowered his shotgun and took a step back. Queen put the boy in his arms and said, “Permanecer abajo hasta que la batalla ha terminado.”

She paused at the door way and added, “Gracias.”

The man tilted his head forward as he headed to the back room with the boy. “Y a usted.”

As Queen rounded the back of the house she came nose to barrel with one of her men’s submachine guns. He drew it back without pause and met the other four, whose weapons were trained on the street side of the alley. Anyone who entered would be torn apart. She tapped the men on the shoulder, getting their attention, and then led them around the building to their right. The alley on the other side emerged five feet behind the last of the drug runner’s vehicles. The men were using the car doors and rear ends as shelter when reloading.

Queen paused at the front corner of the house. “Stay low, move fast, and try not to get shot.” She finished the statement with a fiendish grin that intimidated her teammates but also brought smiles to their faces. Queen was nuts, but she was so good at it. And it gave the team a supernatural confidence.

They struck out into the road, ducking low. With the drug runners’ attention on the top of town and their bodies hidden by both darkness and the black vehicles, they moved without being seen.