"Time to drop the gun, asshole."

Nick blinked. He'd forgotten he still had the pistol, clutched in the hand hanging by his right side.

"What are you, deaf?" Standing on the lip of the broken window, Higgs glared down at him along the stubby barrel of his vicious little weapon. "Drop it. Now."

Furthermore, although Nick now remembered he was armed, he wasn't sure he had any bullets left. He had a strong suspicion he'd emptied the entire magazine into the window, prior to his little dumpster-dive. A suspicion but not a certainty. He hadn't been in the most lucid state of mind at the time and was a little fuzzy on the numbers—the accountant in him hung its head in shame. Not that he even knew how many bullets the weapon held.

"I'm not gonna ask you again, shit-for-brains. Drop the fucking piece."

"Or what?" Nick was tempted to say. Some twenty or thirty yards away, through the entry to the alleyway in which he now stood, a sparse stream of Friday night traffic could be seen. Even at this late hour, the city still lived and breathed. Was this guy really going to blow him away with a machine gun, with who knew how many potential witnesses so near by? For that matter, he was a little surprised his own somewhat noisy shenanigans hadn't already drawn a crowd. But then again, Friday night—more likely early Saturday morning, he realised—in San Diego could be pretty rowdy, even sans gunfights. At least, so he'd heard.

"Come down and make me," also crossed his mind as a potential conversational gambit, but given the outcome of his most recent close encounter with a Syndicate heavy, he was a little concerned this guy might take him up on the offer—and his nightly quota of beatings was already maxed out. Plus, he wasn't twelve.

Instead, he swallowed—and somewhat to his own surprise—raised the gun, and pointed it right back. It seemed not all the screw-the-Syndicate-ness had been knocked out of him. And not much in the way of logic or reason had been knocked in.

Eyes widening, the goon stiffened—but held his fire. "Think about it, my friend. This is an Uzi and that's a pea-shooter. I suggest you drop it, before I paint that alley a nice shade of red. Don't think I won't."

And Nick hadn't thought he wouldn't—until that moment. Something about the tone of that last sentence, the almost-but-not-quite hidden trace of entreaty buried in the bluster, gave the lie to the words. This guy didn't want to shoot him, Nick realised. And not just because he'd draw a crowd—he doubted the grunts of the operation gave much thought to the potential wider ramifications of their actions.

At any rate, if this guy didn't want to shoot him—and Nick was so nearly certain of it that he managed to keep the shaking of his arm to the merest tremble—that meant the Syndicate higher-ups (maybe even Jaime Salazar himself) wanted him alive.

Why? Maybe because they were curious to know what the deal was with the weirdo pool-jumper who'd crashed their human-trafficking party and kidnapped the main attraction, before kneecapping their head grunt.

And while Nick himself would be hard-pressed to explain said deal, he was quite happy to milk the hell out of being the mystery man if it gave him even the slightest advantage.

Pleased with this conclusion, and not a little proud of his deductive logic under pressure, he realised he should perhaps return his wandering attention to the machine-gun wielding guy at the centre of these considerations.

Which he did. Just in time to see the him leaping from the window.

Loath to waste even a second, Zima didn't wait for the lifts to be reactivated, instead taking the stairs up from basement at a steady run. Breathing even, she burst into the atrium area of the second floor, to see Torres dragging a kicking and struggling Mica towards her while Diaz hovered to their rear.

"Settle down, bitch," the bigger man grunted, reinforcing the command with a savage backhand across the girl's face.

"Torres, that's enough!" snapped Zima. "That is Mr Salazar's property. Damage it at your peril."

"She bit me!"

The Russian woman's stare was glacial. "I would have thought a person of your size and abilities could subdue a mere slip of a girl without resorting to violence. Am I mistaken?"

Scowling, Torres held her stare—but only for a moment. "No."

"Then prove it. Take her to the holding area—unharmed—and keep watch until Mr Salazar summons her."

The writhing Mica turned imploring eyes on this woman she had never seen before. "Please," she gasped. "Please help me."

Zima looked her up and down. There was a time when perhaps she may have felt a trace of sympathy. Perhaps even empathy—after all, her own younger years had not lacked for bad men and worse experiences. But, no. Her past had taught her the world was divided into the survivors and the soft, and it was clear on which side of this divide each of them lay.

"Help? My dear, I am afraid you are far beyond that point. Pray, if you choose. Perhaps it might provide a degree of solace. I suspect you will need it." She returned her attention to Torres. "Go. Let me know when she is secure."

Diaz made to follow them, until she restrained him with a hand on his shoulder. "What of the others?"

He fidgeted under her steady gaze. "I g-guess you know the silent prick went out the window. Higgs went after the bastard. I figured he had it covered, so I thought I'd—you know—help out with the girl." He swallowed. "She can be a handful."

Zima didn't bother to hide her disdain. "Yes. It seems she is more than a match for the likes of you. Very well, go with them. You and I will speak further once this situation is resolved."

Eyes widening, Diaz opened his mouth to reply—and then, evidently thinking better of it, dropped his gaze and hurried away.

"Idiot," she muttered, reaching for the transmitter in her ear as she set off across the wide, open floorspace of the atrium. "Higgs? Higgs, do you copy?" Receiving no reply, she redoubled her pace, arriving at the broken window to find the area deserted.

Of both the intruder and the Syndicate man, there was no sign—either in the building or in the alleyway below. Cursing under her breath, she stood balanced on the precipice as she considered her options.

Every fibre of her being, every instinct, clamoured at her to leap from her vantage point, to plunge into that alley and to set off in pursuit of her quarry—to personally put an end to this problem, to this enigmatic man, this stranger who may have provided her the opportunity to seize the position for which she hungered, but now threatened to jeopardise that very same position.

But she did not. With a conscious effort she suppressed the urge—the hunger. The very same hunger that had dragged her here, away from her control room, away from her rightful place at the heart of the security network she now conducted. Those instincts belonged to a former Zima—a younger Zima, the one who had fought her way up through the brutal and misogynistic ranks of the FSB, a whip-smart and ruthless Zima, hellbent on developing the skills, the discipline and the strength required to leave those ranks and to make her way in the far more lucrative private sector.

With more than a hint of regret, the older and wiser Zima, the one who now gave commands rather than enforcing them, turned away. Even had she known the direction of the chase, the chase itself was no longer her domain.

At least, not personally. Strategically? That was another matter. Once again, she reached for her transmitter.

"Attention, all assets."

Wide-eyed, Nick gaped at the spectacle of Higgs plunging directly towards him. Or so it seemed, at first. In an improved—and better targeted—version of Nick's own leap, the arc of Higgs fall carried him straight into the dumpster, with its cushioning layers of cardboard and paper.

Stunned by the sudden and shocking proximity of the Syndicate man, the last shreds of Nick's bravado fell away. Transformed in an instant to nothing more than prey confronted with a predator—logic forgotten, reason discarded—he broke and ran. Heedless of direction or destination, without conscious thought beyond the desperate urge to put distance between himself and his machine-gun wielding hunter, he took off down the alley—away from the city end, with its potential haven of welcoming streetlights and its traffic flowing in an oblivious stream along the gleaming frontage of the innocent-looking building in which so much evil dwelt.

Sooner than he could believe possible, he heard the sounds of pursuit, the unmistakable cadence of pounding footsteps closing from behind.

"Get back here, you fucker."

The grunted command only served to spur him on. Nick had always been a decent runner, and with the considerable motivation of an Uzi-wielding gangster to his rear, his feet flew across the asphalt.

And yet the footsteps were relentless, drawing closer and ever closer. Fear rising, heart in his mouth, Nick absorbed the unavoidable truth that he was losing this race—he was going to be caught. His very best, his sinew-straining, adrenaline-fuelled fastest was not fast enough.

Yet again, Nick Devine was going to fail.

And with that thought, in a single laboured heartbeat, his defiance returned. As fast as it had materialised, his fear melted away. He wasn't so deluded as to think any of that would make the slightest difference to the outcome—he was still going to fail. But it sure as hell made him determined to be the biggest possible pain-in-the-ass along the way.

To that end, he slowed his pace, just a little. And as the footsteps loomed ever closer, more and more urgent, as the panting of his pursuer became audible, as Nick imagined he felt the first faint waft of hot breath on the back of his neck, without any warning, he stopped.

Or at least, he did the closest to stopping his momentum allowed, dropping into a ball and rolling onto the unforgiving surface of the alleyway. Still barrelling along at full tilt, Higgs had no time to do anything other than cannon into Nick's prone form.

The effect was both gratifying and spectacular. Limbs flailing, the Syndicate man flew into the air, turning a full somersault before crashing back to Earth with a breath-expelling thud, the impact jarring the Uzi from his grasp and sending it skittering off into the shadows.

For just a moment, predator and prey lay as they fell, motionless and stunned. And then, as one, both heads rose. Both pairs of eyes scanned the area. And both minds realised several things at once.

Nick was now closer to the city end of the alley.

Higgs was closer to the Uzi.

Finally—and, he hoped, conclusively—Nick still had his gun, clutched in his sweaty and now quite grazed hand.

What neither of them knew was how many—if any—bullets said gun contained.

Breathing ragged, they regarded each across the several yards that lay between them.

"Nice move." Higgs grinned, revealing two rows of bloodstained teeth. "Now, is this the part where you ask me if I feel lucky?"

Nick stared at him.

"You know, Dirty Harry? The whole 'This is a 44 Magnum, did I fire five shots or six, do ya feel lucky, punk?' thing. It's a classic."

His only reply was a blank look.

Higgs rolled his eyes. "I dunno, fuckin' kids today. Get off the Instagram and watch an old movie every now and then, for shit's sake. My point is, asshole, you fired a shitload of shots before your little stunt-dive trick, and you know what? I'm not so sure you've got any left. How about you?"

Nick cursed internally. Why did he have to get the thug with the triple-digit IQ? He considered his options—or at least he tried. Multiple concussions combined with multiple variables to make the calculations a challenge for his bruised mind. But basically, as best his jangled synapses could figure, he had two choices—bluff, or pull the trigger.

And he was a lousy bluffer.