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stairs ended in a hallway, gas starting to leak up through the slats in the wooden floor. Hammett held her breath and sprinted, seeing another door, shouldering through it, and finding an empty office. There was a window on the far wall, and she ran over, jerking it open. It let out onto the roof, overlooking the street. Hammett opened the eye she’d closed earlier, her pupil dilated to speed up her night vision, but she almost needn’t have bothered because the stars and moon were out and the sky clear.
    She took in her surroundings. Drunk, vomiting partiers were spilling out of Jack’s and three sedans were parked in front. At least ten of Guterez’s men stood watch, guns out, scanning the escaping crowd for Hammett.
    But that didn’t interest her as much as something she saw two hundred meters to the west, next to the curb. A black Cadillac Eldorado with tinted windows, bull horns perched on the hood above the grille.
    Assuming there weren’t many Caddies with horns in Tijuana, that car belonged to her target, Fernando Guterez. Watching his orders being carried out from what he thought was a safe distance.
    He thought wrong.
    “You are going for Guterez, aren’t you?” Heath, behind her, breath hot on her neck.
    Hammett tucked away her weapons, opened the window, and slid through, blending into the night. The roof was tarred, flat, radiating heat beneath her footfalls as she sprinted for the edge of the building. The building next to Jack’s was a meter higher, and had a stone lip along the roof. Hammett judged the gap between them to be the width of a small alley. She lowered her head, accelerating—
    —and then dove off the edge, hands outstretched for the lip, feet coming up under her to take the impact of the wall.
    She judged it right, hitting with her fingers and toes at the same time, then scrambled up the side, fell onto the roof in a shoulder roll, and continued to sprint while eyeing her next obstacle.
    Heath, apparently as quick on his feet as he was while flirting, had caught up with Hammett and matched his pace to hers. As their feet beat out a steady rhythm on the tar paper, he turned for a moment, appraising her.
    “You are indeed a most capable woman,
chica
.” His words came easily. Even though he’d just leapt over an alley, he wasn’t winded.
    Neither was Hammett.
    “You know parkour?” she asked.
    Also known as free running, it had been invented in France as a way to best traverse military obstacle courses. The goal was to conserve movement and use the terrain to your advantage, letting momentum guide you. It had been explained to Hammett as taking the path of least resistance, like water in a stream. But rather than appear passive, practitioners of parkour (
traceurs
for men,
traceuses
for women) often looked like extreme skateboard riders—flying and flipping through the air—except they weren’t riding anything.
    “I know many—”
    Heath’s words were cut off as he confronted an air conditioner. But like any good traceur, he vaulted it leapfrog style, and landed right in step with Hammett.
    “—different things,” he finished.
    Hammett sighted ahead of her. The next building was two meters shorter, and the jump longer than the last one. Putting on a burst of speed, Hammett launched herself into the open air, headfirst with her hands outstretched, seeing the alley blur past beneath her, and then she tucked and flipped in the air. She timed it correctly, landing on the roof, on her feet, then continued the momentum with a somersault and came up running.
    Heath had also opted for flashy, doing a side flip, landing fast but dissipating the higher force of his landing with a shoulder roll. Hammett hadn’t met many people, women or men, who could keep up with her. But before she could be impressed they were coming up to another jump, this one to fire escape scaffolding, at least two meters higher than their current level.
    “It’s too far,
bonita
.”
    Heath was right. Had she