Vicky Peterwald: Survivor (Vicky Peterwald Series Book 2) by Mike Shepherd Read Free Book Online

hit the ground and bounced.
    Gerrit was thrown off Vicky and against the shattered partition.
    He groaned and seemed to lose consciousness.
    Vicky knew his back wasn’t right, and his left leg was bent all wrong.
    The Grand Duchess once again found herself struggling with a safety belt. It came free just as the car settled to the earth with a groan.
    Then the automatic weapons fire started. Lots of people were emptying their magazine at something.
    In Vicky’s personal case, bullets slammed into the armoredglass above her head. It held—for the moment, but it was bending in, and large cracks were showing.
    Very soon, someone would be firing an automatic weapon through that window.
    Vicky was unarmed. Maybe Princess Kris Longknife could hide an automatic under her simple black dress, but this Grand Duchess hadn’t.
    With one glance, she spotted Gerrit’s automatic in a shoulder holster. It was in her hand a second later.
    About then, the armored window gave up its pretenses and fell at her feet.
    Outside, in the night, a man in a black mask and black clothing struggled to pull an emptied magazine from his assault rifle and load another.
    As taught by Gunny, Vicky aimed the automatic with both hands. She leveled it at the gunner’s face and fired once. She brought the weapon down from its recoil and fired a second time.
    Both took the attacker in the face.
    It was hard to tell with the mask, but he seemed very surprised to be shot.
    That was okay. Vicky was quite surprised, too. For someone who had been shivering only a minute ago, she was holding her weapon quite steady.
    Now there was more automatic weapons fire. The reloading must have been completed.
    Vicky waited, her own automatic aimed at the empty window.
    But now the noise of the night was changing. While most of the shooting before had been on full automatic, suddenly there was another brand of shooter out there. Now a single shot, followed quickly by a second joined the fusillade. There were more of those quick, staccato shots and less of the fully automatic riffs.
    Then, for one wonderful moment, there was total silence.
    Gerrit groaned. His head lolled on his neck.
    “I need a medic,” Vicky yelled.
    “Medic needed.” “Medic” was passed up some line.
    Vicky didn’t know whether other people needed medics or if that was just her request being passed along. She was not willing to wait in line tonight.
    “This is the Grand Duchess, and my protection needs a medic. Now!”
    A woman in the dark green uniform that Vicky had seen patrolling around the estate appeared in the blasted window. Her rifle was held high and aimed at the sky.
    “The medic’s coming.” Her eyes took in the commander. “Oh shit. We need more than a medic. Sergeant. Get a medevac headed this way. Now!”

CHAPTER 14
    T HAT night would forever be a blur in Vicky’s memory.
    Medics arrived and cautiously surveyed Gerrit’s injuries. Their faces showed more concern than Vicky wanted to see.
    A helicopter beat its way into the field on one side of the ambush site. The assailants had fired the rocket from the trees on the other side. They’d launched their assault from there, too.
    Maybe they’d thought they could complete their slaughter before the gun trucks trailing a mile behind the convoy arrived.
    Or maybe they didn’t know about the reinforcements.
    Either way, all eight of the gunners died on the spot. So did way too many in the escort cars.
    Colonel Mary White braked to a halt just as the chopper arrived.
    She surveyed the wreckage of the failed attack and shook her head.
    “They should have rocketed the passenger compartments. They went for the agents and drivers instead. I think they wanted to survive this night,” she spat as it began to rain.
    The colonel turned to Vicky. “So you lived, and a lot of good men and women died.”
    “It happens that way too often around me,” Vicky bit out.
    A moment later, the medics began extracting Gerrit from the limo.