Page 3 of Radar

The “stop” was shouted loudly enough that Anna should have heard it at the bar. He was only a block and a half away from the golden glow of what might be safety.

But the shout didn’t produce any help.

No window flashed a light on. No one poked a head out the door and called out that the police were on their way.

A couple of dogs were barking, but they displayed their ferocity from the safety of a locked apartment.

Xander knew this mission was FUBAR because his brain had switched to adrenaline timing. When muscle memory andtraining weren’t enough, the lizard part of his brain—the part that wanted him to survive—slowed everything down. It seemed like Xander had all the time in the world to process the scene as the bad guys moved in slow motion like they were running underwater.

Reality was the inverse; things hadn’t slowed at all. His brain had revved to warp speed in order to save his life.

Yup, slo-mo was the tell. This was going to be the shit.

These two guys weren’t big men. Yeah, yeah, two against one was problematic. In a hand-to-hand, his height and the length of Xander’s limbs gave him an advantage. His years of combat experience would help. If this were a fisticuff mugging, he should come out okay.

If these two followed him because of his job with the DIA, that was a very different story.

Did someone send these men after him?

Shit, Anna! Did you set me up?

Most special forces men looked innocuous. Typically short and wiry, they were made of indefatigable steel. It was too dim out, and the men had on too many layers of clothes for Xander to decide if these guys were special forces types.

Xander hadn’t seen the thugs reaching into their clothes to drag out weapons. But as he took a sidestep closer to the bar, he snatched up a trash can lid, holding it like a medieval shield to protect his throat and organs should the attackers pull knives.

It wouldn’t do shit for him if they had a gun.

The men laughed and moved forward. Xander took another sidestep to maintain reaction space.

And another.

They were herding him, Xander reminded himself.

He stopped under an archway. He’d have to take his stand before he got to whatever surprise made them grin like that. As his back foot moved to fighting position, he thought that the menshould focus on his shield—both protection and weapon—but instead, their heads tipped back, and smiles of delight spread wider across their faces.

Slowly, Xander tipped his chin.

Straight above him, in the archway, was a third man who pressed his hands against one wall and his feet against the other to make a human lintel over Xander’s head.

It was so unexpected to see a man hovering above him that, even with an adrenaline brain, it took Xander a moment to understand what he was seeing.

By the time he processed the situation, the man had bent his knees. Without the tension holding him in place, his body—all hundred and eighty-ish pounds of him—dropped down onto Xander.

Knocked to the ground by three to one? Xander knew that, no matter his training, he’d be at their mercy.

Without a plan, Xander lifted his garbage shield to stave off the third thug, using both hands, thrusting outward to stay on his feet.

And to his surprise, it worked.

His adrenaline must be flowing at a higher velocity than theirs.

Xander tried to scramble backward, but the thugs quickly encircled him.

Now, only a block from the bar door, Xander yelled, “Stop!” This time, there was enough emotion in his voice that anyone who heard him would know that something bad was going down.

Fire, he thought. He should yell “fire.” As a child, that was the word his parents taught him to yell if he needed help. Few came to answer the call for “help,” but almost everyone came to the call of “fire.”

I don’t know how to say fire in Slovak. Xander lifted the garbage lid and stepped into horse stance, thinking that if hemade it through tonight, “fire” would go on his short list of words he should know in every country he visited.