Chapter 3 - Alleyway Ambush and Tactical Descent
The freezing Manhattan wind whipped discarded napkins across the damp pavement of the narrow alleyway behind Leander, but the bitter cold barely registered in Evelyn’s hyper-focused awareness.
Twenty yards ahead, Victoria Sutton stumbled blindly toward the brightly lit avenue, entirely oblivious to the armed shadow detaching itself from the brick wall behind her.
The Spetsnaz assassin moved with terrifying efficiency. His boots made almost no sound on the wet concrete, and his right hand emerged from his jacket clasping a matte-black pistol fitted with a heavy sound suppressor.
He raised the weapon, aligning the iron sights directly with the center of Victoria’s defenseless back.
Evelyn didn't hesitate. Closing the distance with explosive speed, she launched herself across the intervening space, her combat training overriding every instinct of self-preservation.
She hit the assassin from the side like a freight train, driving her shoulder directly into his ribs with bone-crushing impact.
The heavy man grunted in shock, his pistol discharging wildly into the brick wall above them with a dull thwack that vanished beneath the ambient roar of city traffic.
They tumbled violently across the wet pavement, rolling over a pile of cardboard delivery boxes before slamming hard against the side of a parked commercial delivery truck.
The Spetsnaz operative, recovering faster than an ordinary man due to years of brutal military conditioning, lashed out with a vicious backhand strike aimed directly at Evelyn’s jaw.
Ducking beneath the blow at the last fraction of a second, Evelyn drove her knee upward with devastating force, connecting squarely with his solar plexus.
The assassin gasped, the wind rushing violently from his lungs as he collapsed onto his knees, choking for air.
But before Evelyn could secure him with a tactical chokehold, heavy footsteps echoed from the back service door of the restaurant. The second Spetsnaz guard, alerted by the muffled gunshot, had rushed out into the alleyway with his weapon drawn.
“Stoy!” the second guard roared in harsh Russian, raising his sidearm toward Evelyn’s chest.
Evelyn dropped flat onto the wet asphalt just as a second suppressed bullet chewed through the empty space where her head had been a microsecond before.
Adrenaline roared in her ears. She kicked out hard with her heel, catching the first recovering assassin directly behind his knee and sending him crashing face-first into the bumper of the delivery truck.
Scrambling backward behind a row of large green industrial dumpsters, Evelyn drew a heavy steel chef’s knife she had swiped from the restaurant kitchen prep station before exiting.
It wasn't firearms, but in close quarters, a blade wielded by an expert was infinitely more lethal than a gun in the hands of a panicked thug.
The second Spetsnaz guard advanced cautiously, sweeping his weapon back and forth as he cleared the blind spots between the dumpsters.
“Come out, American bitch,” he hissed in accented English, his boots crunching loudly over broken glass. “You cannot run from this.”
Evelyn pressed her back against the freezing metal of the dumpster, regulating her breathing so completely that her chest barely rose and fell. She closed her eyes, listening entirely to the acoustic feedback of his footsteps.
One step... two steps... clearing the corner.
As the guard’s polished leather shoe swung past the edge of the industrial bin, Evelyn struck with terrifying velocity. She lunged outward, grabbing his gun wrist with her left hand and jerking it violently upward while driving the heel of her right palm upward into his chin.
The pistol flew from his grasp, clattering loudly across the concrete pavement. With a fluid, spinning motion, Evelyn hooked her leg behind his ankles and swept his legs out from under him, slamming him hard onto the ground.
Before he could recover, she drove the hilt of the heavy chef’s knife down with crushing force against the side of his temple, rendering him unconscious instantly.
Panting heavily, she spun around to check on the first operative, only to find him stumbling dizzily toward the street, desperately trying to draw a secondary backup weapon from his ankle holster.
Before he could clear the weapon, the blinding headlights of a sleek, matte-black Mercedes SUV tore around the corner of the alleyway with squealing tires.
The passenger door flew open, and a burly man wearing tactical gear reached out, grabbed the staggering assassin by the collar of his suit, and hauled him bodily into the moving vehicle like a sack of potatoes.
The Mercedes slammed on its brakes, and Marcus Vance leaned out the driver’s side window, flashing a wicked, knowing grin at Evelyn through the pouring rain.
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“Need a lift, Agent Hayes?” Marcus called out over the engine roar.
Evelyn didn't hesitate. She grabbed Victoria Sutton—who was frozen in absolute, terrified shock against the brick wall—and shoved her into the back seat of the SUV before diving in right behind her as the vehicle surged forward into the Manhattan night, leaving the downed assassin behind in the desolate alley.
