Beautiful Sacrifice

punched through the driver’s-side window of the SUV, making a snapping, crackling sound. The driver flinched and the SUV bucked.
    Bullets started ripping into Jase’s white van, an endless roll of deadly thunder. Bullets whined and caromed off the concrete floor and pillars. Car alarms shrieked. Human screams echoed.
    Submachine pistols, Hunter thought. Bastards must have learned touse them watching TV, because they’re blasting everything from the oil stains to the ceiling lights.
    The bitter smell of powdered concrete rose from the spray of bullets.
    Jase yelled, “I’m hit!”
    “That one is a cop, you stupid goats!” yelled the driver in Spanish. “We have to get out of here!”
    More shouts in the language Hunter didn’t understand but that sounded like the Yucatec Mayan he’d heard. The attackers turned and scrambled back into their dark SUV. Someone pushed the SUV’s bleeding driver over the console into the passenger seat. The rest piled in the back, dragging anyone who couldn’t walk. The SUV roared down the aisle as its doors started slamming shut. The stink of burning tires mingled with gun smoke. The SUV pulled into traffic amid a blare of horns and squealing tires as people braked frantically to avoid an accident.
    Slowly Jase slumped over the wheel of the van. Red bloomed along his upper body.
    “Stay down and call 911,” Hunter shouted at Lina as he ran to Jase’s van.
    The smell of blood rolled over Hunter. Bracing Jase with one hand, he opened the door with the other. No sign of an exit wound on his back. He eased Jase against the seat to check his front. He was breathing, but not easily. Same for consciousness, barely there.
    “She…okay?” Jase managed.
    “Yes, thanks to you, boy wonder. Now shut up and let me see how bad it is.”
    Jase smile slightly at the old nickname. Then his eyes rolled white and he passed out.
    Hunter ripped open his friend’s ruined shirt. Bloodflowed heavily from the wound on Jase’s left side, but didn’t pulse.
    Not an artery.
    The lack of bloody froth on Jase’s lips or around the bullet hole told Hunter that if the lungs were involved, it wasn’t critical.
    Yet.
    But the blood. God, the blood.
    Quickly Hunter balled up the ripped shirt and applied pressure to Jase’s chest wound, trying to slow the bleeding.
    Too much blood. Way too much.
    “Don’t you die on me, Jase,” Hunter growled. “Don’t you damn die!”
    As the car alarms slowly gave up, Hunter heard the yelp and wail of approaching sirens. Slowly he became aware that Lina was standing next to him, had been talking to him.
    “…on the way,” Lina said. “What can I do?”
    “Hold this while I check for other injuries.”
    She didn’t hesitate. She simply pressed her hand over the bloody rag and watched sweat run down Hunter’s face. And tears. She doubted he even knew it, any more than he knew he was cursing and praying nonstop under his breath as his hands went gently, quickly over his friend.
    “He took another one, more a burn than anything else,” Hunter said. “A third wound is clean, just muscle. Is he still breathing?”
    “Slow, but there.”
    Something dripped off Lina’s chin. Vaguely she realized she was crying, too. It was better than the screams that wanted to rip through her throat.
    Hunter’s hand covered her bloody one. Together they kept pressure on the wound and listened to electronic wailsthat suddenly stopped on the street outside. Emergency lights flashed in the gloom. The sound of vehicle doors and powerful engines idling, running feet. Spotlights glared, casting stark, conflicting shadows.
    Lina flinched.
    “It’s okay,” Hunter said. “These are the good guys.”
    “Yes.” But that didn’t stop her from shuddering at the sound of shoes slapping concrete, rushing toward them.
    “When they question you, you don’t know anything except that Jase wanted a tour of a high-end pre-Columbian artifact gallery, so I brought him to you.” Hunter’s voice was low, cold. “I’ll talk to ICE myself. Got that?”
    She glanced at his drawn, grim face. “Yes. Gallery. That’s all I know.”
    He turned to the men rushing up. Some had weapons drawn, but they were pointed at the floor.
    “Man down,” Hunter said. “Bleeding bad. Let those med-techs through now!”
    Being talked to in their own language reassured the cops. The guns disappeared.
    “Any unsecured weapons?” asked one of the cops.
    “One on the floor of the van,” Hunter said.