Calvin’s brow knit inquisitively. “You do?”

     Hiromi’s head tilted aside and she spoke in a low, hushed almost-whisper. “You’re ICE, right? Immigration and customs, sizing this place up for a raid?”

     “Uhhhh….”

      “The signs are all here. Choosing this place out of the blue, constantly looking around, asking about the waiter’s family, waiting for other patrons to leave. Trying to keep an eye on the staff, little codewords. It all fits.”

      “No, that’s not it,” Calvin started, even as he reached out to take her hand. “Let’s go outside, I can explain-“

     “Don’t.” Hiromi raised both of her hands, pulling away and closing her eyes. When they reopened, frustration clouded her bright visage.

      “I’ll call you later, we can talk about it then.” She said. “Right now, whatever’s going on here, I don’t want to know about it, okay?” She rolled her next words around in her cheek before letting them out. “I just hope you know Fahran’s wearing an 82nd Airborne cufflink. I doubt he’s here under the radar.”

      Again the shrill whine of the siren filled Calvin with anxious despair. Not enough time to set things straight anyway.

     “Okay.” He said with a resigned sigh. “We’ll talk later.”

      Calvin felt his panic settle, the weight of social expectation stepping back along with Hiromi. He nodded. Tried to center himself, refocus on the task at hand. Hiromi picked up her jacket and was folding it over her arm when a loud voice intruded.

      “Aaand strikeout! Looks like Lover-boy’s out, huh? Too bad!” Anderson Lewis stood facing Calvin, the little tiger out of view for the first time all evening. His arrogant grin sat between arms outstretched in the posture of a man used to getting his way. Hiromi clenched a fist, eyes closed as she tried to contain herself. Lewis wasn’t done.

      “The boys and I were just about to head out for Karaoke. Want to come with? Seems like your kind of fun”

      “Excuse me?” Hiromi whipped way from Calvin to face the heckler. Her eyes locked, but not with his.

      Hiromi stood frozen, staring at the arms dealer. The man’s cocksure expression distorted into disbelief as Calvin looked on in bewilderment.

      He knows her face.

      Calvin saw the pistols first, four of them drawn from pockets and waistbands as Lewis’ eyes narrowed. Hiromi’s fingertips reached the clasp of her purse. Calvin’s foot left the floor. Hiromi’s voice rang out, pained tremors of emotion replaced with fierce, commanding power. His foot set down again. Pivoted sharply.

      “FE-“ Hiromi’s syllable cut short as Calvin’s shoulder hit hers. His arms clamped tight around her. Bullets drummed a staccato beat on his back, followed by the cracking sound of the gunfire and the subdued thudding of missed shots punching through the far wall. The couple hit the floor sideways. Calvin’s head bounced an inch off the tile; his arms released. His world turned red from the searing pain in his left shoulder before fading out to black.

      Hiromi felt him go limp and heavy, rolling almost on top of her. Her head span and the distant siren became piercing. Her face was buried in Calvin’s shoulder; she could feel the stiff kevlar of body armor through his thin suitcoat. Questions raced through her mind as she wiggled her body under Calvin’s limp arm, checking herself for injuries. She couldn’t tell if he was breathing, but the butt of a handgun was sitting on her rib, slung from the holster peeking out of his jacket. She drew the weapon, slipped her hips away from Calvin and created a little space by pulling her core back level to her hips.

      “Fed’s must’ve gotten a look at my plates. Time to go.”

      Hiromi could hear the heckler’s voice again. That was Anderson ‘Little Tiger' Lewis, the arms dealer. How was he here? Why? Didn’t matter: Stop the threat, get help. That took priority. Raising her head a couple inches, she could see the two bodyguards stepped toward the door as the buyer hurried to gather their documents.

      Lewis grabbed his ledger and had just begun to tuck it into his pocket. Hiromi bit her lip. He’d be the best disruption. She stood up and flicked the safety off of the firearm in her hand in a fluid motion. Training finally started to kick in: level barrel square to the body. Bring the sight lines up to eye level and put the target between the rear posts, the front sight covering center mass. Extend to firing position from the shoulder, not the elbow.

      Exhale. Squeeze; don’t pull.

      Lewis wasn’t looking when fire tore through his right hip. He keeled over sideways, catching himself on the table and turning back toward the gunshot’s sound. Hiromi kept her finger on the trigger, Lewis framed in the sights of what Hiromi could now recognize as a smoking Jericho 941. Nothing was making sense, and all semblance of normalcy had vanished.

      Hiromi roared.

     “FEDERAL MARSHAL! Anderson Lewis, I’m serving a warrant for your arrest!”

      Hiromi’s face was drawn in an authoritative scowl, fire raging in her eyes. Lewis didn’t speak. Didn’t have to, bullet impacts from three other pistols chased the woman as she dove behind the cover of a low wall next to the door. A large wooden pillar at the end of the wall nearest the room’s center made a frame on which were perched a few plants and an elephant statue. Decorative tile exploded as the bodyguards poured fire into Hiromi’s cover. Lewis yanked his pistol from his belt and thrust it out toward the battered wall as he struggled to stand.

      Hiromi slid into the corner, kipping from her elbows and stomach up onto one knee behind the low wall. Behind her shattered glass and wooden splinters rained down on Calvin. He didn’t move. A heavy thud of wood on tile clued her in to Lewis’ men overturning their table, an impromptu barricade. The sharp tattoo of bullets hitting the other side of the wall subsided, Lewis and his goons scrambling and grunting incoherently. Two more thuds marked the creation of a little fort. She stole a glance at Calvin and regretted it.

      Blood streamed out of the crumpled man from high on his left shoulder, a darkness spreading through his suit coat and glossing a small patch of the floor a bright crimson. She hoped that meant a heartbeat, but an overwhelming nausea whipped the question out of her mind. It wouldn’t matter if another stray round caught him in the wrong place.

      She released the magazine catch, counted the rounds. Fourteen, plus one in the chamber. She rammed the magazine home. The Jericho’s heft felt was a hair lighter than her service Glock, but the balance point sat further forward and there’d been a longer trigger draw. No wonder she’d hit low.

      Hiromi raised the pistol over her head and fired twice over the short wall, blindly aiming for the uninhabited corner nearest the door. Another volley of fire soared overhead as Hiromi shouted

      “Throw down your weapons! You’re all under arrest!”

      She pushed forward to the end of the short wall and looked out at the two musclemen looming over their upturned tables. Neither Lewis nor his Goateed accomplice were visible. Of course they’d be hidden away as hired guns did the dirty work.

     Hiromi took aim and put a hole through one of the thugs’ shoulder. Still a little off, she’d hit the wrong arm. Still, the man howled. Hiromi pulled turtlelike back into safety as a few more shots ricocheted off the floor just past where her head had been.

     A moment of quiet, the sirens drew nearer. How far out? Assuming someone nearby reported the sound of shots, two, three minutes? Hiromi wiped her forehead. An eternity. A footstep grabbed her ear. She raised her head, just between the walls end pillar and a miraculously unharmed potted fern. She saw the injured thug standing beside the table, gun outstretched and tracing a line back and forth across the corner of her cover wall and the exit.

      “I think we got her.” He grumbled. Muffled shrieks emanated from the kitchen, a woman’s voice shouting. From the table, more shuffling and a grunt of pain. Hiromi sprang up and zeroed in on the standing figures. Lewis was held by his shoulders between the goateed man and the uninjured thug.

      “STAND DOWN OR I WILL SHOOT!” Hiromi yelled. The injured man whipped his pistol back to her. She squeezed the trigger rapidly, spent casings arcing through the air as the injured goon took three more rounds to his lower abdomen and dropped out of sight. The next two rounds sailed high of their mark. The three men vanished behind the table before the next peppering of munitions sailed blindly into the far wall.

      A pounding sound to the right; Hiromi snapped her head toward the sound to catch the second door to the kitchen bursting open to reveal a waitress armed with some sort of submachine gun. The two women leveled their barrels and opened fire. Hiromi flattened on the ground and emptied her magazine. The air filled with gunshots and plaster. The waitress keeled back, bullets riddling the ceiling as she cried out and fell against the wall.

      Hiromi retook her knee, glancing down at the Jericho in her trembling hands. It had jammed, a spent casing held the slide open. She coughed, sucked air in desperately to fight back the blackness creeping into the edges of her vision. Pulled back the slide, allowing one last live round to pop the spent casing loose and slip into the firing chamber. Hiromi cursed under her breath and looked over at the waitress across the room, whose weapon was discarded, out of reach, and presumably empty. The woman’s pained whimpers couldn’t make it through the ringing in Hiromi’s ears, but the heaves in the woman’s chest got the point across. Hiromi squinted at the waitress’s hands; they were pressed on heavily bleeding leg wound. Their eyes met. Hiromi waggled her gun toward the wall beside her. The woman looked over and snatched a towel hanging from the service station. Voices started to mumble from behind the overturned table. Hiromi pantomimed tying the towel as a bandage as the waitress followed along, their conversation held between frantic nods, waving hands and blinking eyes.

      On the floor between, Calvin coughed.

     The universe swirled into existence around him, slowed to a manageable pace by the smell of gunpowder, stewed chicken and the cool tile under his shoulder. Through his own deafening heartbeat, voices rose behind him.

      “She’s gotta be out. Jericho holds what, 15? 16 shots?”

     “I don’t know, I never touch that Isreali shit!”

     “Siren’s getting closer. We gotta get out of here.”

      “Rick, go on, finish her off so we can move. If Lucy’s still alive, grab her and get to the van!” 

      Calvin blinked. A lot had happened since he’d hit the ground. Hiromi wasn’t next to him. He hoped that was a good sign. A smooth, sturdy object was supporting his left knee. He glanced down to see Hiromi’s leather purse unclasped and peeking out from under his leg. His left arm wouldn’t move, there was a dull aching in his left shoulder and the entire limb felt very, very cold. His right side seemed fine except for a little burning above his hip.

     Hostiles are still in play. Calvin went for his holster and found it empty. Spare magazine was still in place. He tugged it out and swept his eyes over the floor, hunting for the fallen pistol. Up? Sideways? Hiromi knelt, not ten feet away, in whatever direction was in line with his eyebrows, clutching his Jericho. The shattered tile and littered casings beside her clued him in.

      Gutsy! He blinked disbelief from his eyes and found a smile in his wince as he took in the complete focus on her face. The familiarity of a name clicked into place. H. Nakamura. There was shuffling behind him now, the sound of people getting ready to stand. The scrape of a magazine dropping. No time to enjoy the unraveled mysteries of the evening; that was the clack of fresh ammo being rammed home. He tossed the full magazine from his hand past his head, careful to flick it from the wrist. The unseen enemy’s slide pushed forward with a click.

     Hiromi’s breathing had just started to steady when the magazine skittered across the tile to bump her foot. Quizzically she looked over at the waitress now pressing a wine cooler to her bandaged leg. Movement caught Hiromi’s eye below her line of focus. Calvin’s hand was snaking down toward her open purse, caught under his leg. Her heart leapt, only to settle back as heavy footfalls reminded her they weren’t out of the woods. She dropped the empty magazine into her palm and silently laid it on her skirt before loading in Calvin’s little gift.

      The tromp of boots drew closer. She tracked it in her mind. Ten meters… nine… eight…

     From his position on the floor Calvin likewise ticked away distance in his head.

      Seven yards. His fingers fished in the purse till they wrapped around the handle of a compact semiautomatic pistol. Very Compact. Smooth construction. He wasn’t quite sure, but it felt like the safety was above his thumb.

     Six yards. He flicked the lever he assumed was the safety down to what he hoped was the firing position.

     Five. An imperceptible click as he cocked the hammer.

     Four. The man paused. Calvin held his breath. The footsteps resumed.

     Three. Hiromi inhaled deep and slow, standing up beside the pillar and angling her weapon down from her shoulder to tuck it next to her ribs.

     Two. The couple’s fingers dropped from slides to triggers.

     One yard. The unseen foe stepped wide round the pillar, bringing his weapon out to readiness. A grunting blur of motion at his feet accompanied rustle of fabric and a prod in a very sensitive area.

     Zero. Calvin victoriously smirked up at the shocked and shaven man from beneath the Sig Saur P232 he held to the man’s groin.

      “Hey.” Calvin said through gritted teeth as the pain of moving his left shoulder began to set in.

     The man’s lip curled in fury. His finger remained on the trigger and he lowered his weapon to bear directly down on Calvin’s head.

     “Not a fatal shot, pal.” The thug snarled. Calvin raised an eyebrow.