Page 116 of Dead Fall

Flushed and breathing heavily, he began to fall behind.

When Fields looked over her shoulder to see what was the matter, Carolan was bent over wheezing. “Go!” he yelled.

Refocusing on Nistal, she kicked in the afterburners. There was no way she was going to let this guy escape.

Thundering up the hill, she was almost at the top when she heard a gunshot and a bullet went whizzing by her face. Instinctively, she dropped to the ground.

There were two more shots. One hit just to her right and another landed only a couple of feet in front of her. Steadying her Glock, she fired off several shots of her own and scrambled to find cover.

Seconds passed. There was no additional gunfire. She risked a quick peek out from behind her position and when no one engaged her, she got back on her feet and moved carefully but quickly to the top of the hill.

Nistal started shooting at her again and once more she was forced to dive for cover. This guy was pissing her off.

“Joseph Nistal,” she shouted. “You’re under arrest. Anything you say can and will—”

Before she could finish, she was drowned out by another barrage of gunfire. None of these rounds, however, struck anywhere near her. Either this guy didn’t know where she was, or there was too much distance for him to effectively strike his target. Fields feared it was the latter.

Leaping to her feet, she charged back after him, zigzagging through the trees so as not to give him a clean shot.

When she finally caught sight of him again, he was already far downhill from her position. Taking a deep breath, she steadied her pistol, exhaled, and pressed the trigger.

The weapon bucked in her hands and, just like she had learned training with her friends on the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, she followed up, pressing her trigger four more times until she saw him fall.

Conducting a tactical reload, she drove a fresh magazine into her pistol and closed in on Nistal, who was lying facedown at the bottom of the hill. “Suspect down,” she said over her radio.

“Hands out where I can see them!” she ordered.

Nistal didn’t respond.

“Stretch your hands out in front of you where I can see them!” she ordered him again.

Nothing.

“Subject has been shot,” she transmitted over the radio. “Dispatch EMS.”

Addressing Nistal once more, she warned him, “If you move, Iwillshoot you!”

He wasn’t moving. It looked like he wasn’t even breathing.

As she got closer, she saw a 9mm Beretta lying on the ground, likely having been dropped when he tumbled the rest of the way down the hill. Mentally marking where it was so she could come back and get it, she kept going.

When she reached him, she gave him a final warning: “You so much as twitch and you’re a dead man.”

She then kicked both of his legs but received no response.

Nothing would have made her happier than to let this scumbag bleed out, but there was untold intel they might be able to extract from him. If he needed immediate medical assistance, she was going to have to be the one to deliver it.

With pressure on her trigger and her pistol pointed right at him, she bent down to roll him over. That’s when he sprang his trap.

Swinging his legs like a couple of bullwhips, he took her legs out from under her and twisted his body to avoid being shot.

As Fields fell to the ground, Nistal pulled a snubnose .357 and shot her four times in the chest.

He would have shot her a fifth time, probably in the face, had not another shot rung out and knocked him over backward.

Carolan, pistol in hand, had come charging through the woods just in time.

He wanted to help Fields, but first he needed to make sure Nistal was no longer a threat.