The slide banged down. The weapon discharged and recoiled out of his hand.
It shouldn’t have happened, but a worn sear—or one a gunsmith had stoned to a knife-edge—could slip. I should’ve checked the goddam thing when I had time!
The bullet ricocheted harmlessly from the floor and off into a corner. The pistol itself skidded across the floor. Right toward the Frenchmen.
How Sanchez knew what had happened Billy would never understand. The Catalan must have had eyes in the back of his head. He stamped a boot, lunged once—twice—skipped aside . . . caught the sliding pistol with the toe of a boot and send it neatly sliding back across the floor.
Okay, it wasn’t done perfectly—the pistol was heading toward the far corner instead of the one where Billy and Sharon were standing. Still. Any sarcastic thoughts Billy had ever had about Ruy Sanchez and his flamboyant ways died a sudden death. Jesus, that crazy old man is good.
But the horror wasn’t over. Sharon pushed past him and practically tackled the pistol.
“Sharon—it’s armed!” Billy shrieked. The hammer was back, anyway, and the recoil might’ve been enough to cycle the weapon completely, jacking another round into the chamber. If so, that thing was as deadly as a rattlesnake itself. Some part of Billy’s mind made a solemn vow—piss on the admiral and his goddam rules—that he’d never use anything but a revolver in the future.
Sharon hit the floor on her belly and scooped up the pistol. Billy held his breath . . .
Thank God, again. Apparently she knew enough about firearms to realize that the pistol was armed. She had the butt in both hands and was coming up to her knees. Billy started to step toward her, reaching out his hand.
But Sharon didn’t even glance at him. “Ruy, look out!” she screamed, leveling the gun.
Billy twisted his head. Another one of Ducos’ agents was down. Somehow Sanchez had slashed the man’s throat. Damn near cut his head off, in fact. He was obviously deader than a mackerel.
Sanchez had picked up a wound himself along the way. Billy could see a red stain spreading across the doublet on the left side above the waist. It couldn’t be too bad a one, he guessed, since the Catalan was still in fine fighting form. The wound didn’t seem to be bleeding that much. Nothing like that horrible gushing spray of blood that had happened after Sanchez stabbed the first man in the leg.
The wound on Sanchez wasn’t why Sharon had screamed, though. Billy felt himself grow more light-headed still. He wondered if he had any blood at all left in his brain.
One of Ducos’ agents had a pistol. Where the hell that had come from, Billy had no idea. The Frenchman had backed up a few steps so he could get a clear shot at Sanchez. Unfortunately—even if Sharon was a good enough shot in the first place—Sanchez was between her and his opponents.
The pistol was some kind of smallish wheel-lock, not the big cavalry variety. An assassin’s weapon, and probably no more accurate than—
Billy felt his head clear instantly, as well-trained reflexes took over. There was a small table just next to the door, not more than a step away. Atop sat a bowl of fruit. Those small Italian apples that Billy didn’t like because they were too sour.
Right now, he could care less about their taste. They were also very hard—and, if not quite a big as a baseball, close enough.
The apple came into his hand as easily and comfortably as the pistol had not. A quick pitcher’s stride—Billy had never dawdled on the mound—and the apple went flying.
Billy could hit the plate, three times out of four, from the sixty-foot range of a pitcher’s mound. At considerably less than half the range, the apple hit the man right between the eyes.
His coach had clocked his fastball once at ninety-seven miles per hour. Billy was pretty sure he’d just broken that.
The apple splattered. It was just soft enough that the man didn’t die. But he was hurled against the wall, the pistol flying out of his hand.