Blood and Bullets

Blood and Bullets


Agent Sarah Kim's POV

"All units, take cover!" I screamed into my radio as gunfire exploded from three directions at once. Marcus's hired killers were shooting at the FBI agents, the locals were shooting at Marcus's men, and everyone was trying not to shoot Elena in the crossfire.
Agent Martinez dropped beside me behind a wrecked fishing boat, blood streaming from his shoulder. "Sarah, we've got twelve hostiles with military weapons and at least twenty civilians in the line of fire!"
"Where's Elena?"
"Still in the clearing, trying to reach Marcus's position!"
I looked around the boat and saw Elena diving between rocks while bullets shattered the lighthouse windows above her. She was trapped in the middle of a war zone, and I was meant to keep her alive.
"Control, this is Agent Kim. We need medical helicopters and backup units urgently. Multiple agents down, people in danger, and we're outnumbered!"
"Sarah, backup is ten minutes out. Can you hold your position?"
Ten minutes. In ten minutes, Elena Santos could be dead, and Marcus Daniels could leave with evidence that would destroy our entire investigation.
Agent Rodriguez crawled over to our position, pulling Agent Thompson, who was unconscious and bleeding from a head wound. "Sarah, Thompson took a sniper shot. We need to get him out of here."
"How many agents are still fighting?"
"Six, including us. The rest are hurt or pinned down."
This was a disaster. We'd walked into Marcus's trap with too few agents and too little knowledge about his hired killers. Now good people were dying because I'd been overconfident.
"Agent Kim!" Elena's voice came through my earpiece. "Marcus is going toward the boats! He's trying to escape!"
I looked through my binoculars and saw Marcus running in a crouch toward the harbor, holding what looked like a briefcase. That briefcase probably held the evidence we needed to destroy the entire trafficking network.
"Elena, let him go! It's too dangerous!"
"Sarah, if he gets away with that briefcase, we'll never catch the people who've been buying these girls!"
She was right, but I couldn't let her chase Marcus alone. "Elena, wait for backup!"
"There's no time!"
That's when I made a choice that went against every rule in the FBI handbook. I left my wounded spies and ran after Elena.
The shootout was chaos. Marcus's hired killers were professionals, but they hadn't expected to fight both federal agents and angry locals at the same time. Deputy Morrison had brought at least fifteen locals armed with hunting weapons and shotguns.
I caught up with Elena behind the lighthouse, where she was reloading her gun with shaking hands.
"Sarah, what are you doing here? Your workers need you!"
"My spies need me to catch Marcus more than they need me to hold their hands. Where is he?"
"Heading for the speedboat dock. But Sarah, three of his killers are moving to cut us off."
I checked my ammo. Twelve bullets left in my service weapon, plus one extra clip. Not much for a fight against trained assassins.
"Elena, I need to tell you something."
"What?"
"If we don't make it out of this alive, the trafficking case doesn't end. We've been making this case for two years, not eight months. There are agents in Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver working on related operations."
Elena stared at me. "You've been lying to me again."
"I've been guarding classified information. But Elena, Marcus isn't just a small-town cop who went bad. He's part of an international network that moves over five hundred girls per year."
"Five hundred?"
"The Moonfall Bay operation was tiny compared to what's going in other ports. If Marcus escapes with that briefcase, he takes proof that could save hundreds of lives."
That's when we heard the speedboat engine start up in the water. Marcus was getting away.
"Sarah, we have to move now!"
We ran toward the docks, staying low to avoid the gunshots behind us. But we weren't alone. Three of Marcus's killers had circled around to block our way.
The first killer stepped out from behind a fishing shack with an automatic weapon. I shot him twice in the chest before he could fire, but the sound drew his partners.
"Elena, go left! I'll go right!"
We split up, using the boats and dock tools as cover. Elena was a good shot for an ex-cop, but these weren't street crooks. These were trained killers who killed people for money.
The second killer almost got Elena with a shot that split the wooden post next to her head. I put him down with three quick shots, but I was running low on ammo.
"Sarah!" Elena screamed. "Behind you!"
I spun around to see the third killer shooting at my back. Elena's shot took him down, but not before his bullet touched my leg and sent me falling onto the dock.
"Sarah, are you okay?"
"I'll live. Where's Marcus?"
We could hear his speedboat pulling away from the dock, going out into the dark ocean. But something was wrong. The engine sounded like it was suffering.
"Elena, look at the water around his boat."
There was a dark trail growing behind Marcus's speedboat. "Is that blood?"
"I don't think so. I think Deputy Morrison shot a hole in his fuel tank."
Marcus's boat was losing speed, but it was still going away from shore. In a few minutes, he'd be in foreign waters where we couldn't follow him.
That's when I heard the most beautiful sound in the world - FBI chopper rotors approaching fast from inland.
"Control, this is Agent Kim. We have the suspect in a damaged speedboat going southwest from the harbor. He's carrying vital evidence and must not be allowed to escape."
"Copy, Agent Kim. Helicopter unit is going to intercept."
But as I watched through my glasses, something unexpected happened. A second boat emerged from behind the rocks on the north side of the harbor. It was bigger and faster than Marcus's broken speedboat.
"Elena, do you see that other boat?"
"Yeah. Who is it?"
"I don't know, but they're heading straight for Marcus."
The two boats met about half a mile away. We could see people moving between the boats, but we were too far away to tell what was happening.
"Sarah, do you think it's more of Marcus's people?"
"Or maybe the buyers he was supposed to deliver the girls to."
That's when Marcus's speedboat burst in a ball of orange fire that lit up the entire harbor.
Elena and I stared in shock as burning debris rained down into the dark water. The second boat was already speeding away toward the open ocean.
"Control, this is Agent Kim. The suspect's boat just burst. We need search and rescue immediately."
"Agent Kim, what's the status of the evidence?"
I watched the last pieces of Marcus's speedboat sink beneath the waves, taking the suitcase and all its secrets with them.
"Control, the evidence is gone. Either Marcus died with it, or whoever was in that second boat took it and removed Marcus to keep him quiet."
Elena grabbed my arm. "Sarah, if Marcus is dead, who's going to tell us about the international buyers?"
"I don't know. But Elena, I'm starting to think we just watched something much bigger than a sheriff trying to escape justice."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean someone wanted Marcus dead more than they wanted him caught. And they were willing to kill him in front of federal agents to make sure he never talked."
That's when my radio crackled with a message that made my blood run cold.
"Agent Kim, this is Control. We just received intelligence that suggests Marcus Daniels was planning to testify against his foreign contacts in exchange for a plea deal. Someone may have eliminated him to avoid that testimony."
Elena looked at the burning wrecks floating in the harbor. "Sarah, if Marcus was going to testify, then whoever killed him knows about our investigation."
"Which means they know about us. And they know about all the people we're trying to protect."
As FBI helicopters circled the crash site and agents secured the lighthouse area, I realized our win might actually be a defeat. We'd stopped Marcus from escaping, but we'd also lost our best source of knowledge about the international trafficking network.
And somewhere out there, the people who'd just murdered Marcus Daniels were planning their next move against everyone who'd helped destroy his business.
Elena and I were no longer hunting crooks.
We were being hunted.