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“¡Compañeros, ya basta de rumba! Pueden jugar con ella más tarde.”
    She understood Spanish much better than she spoke it, and knowing there’d be a later was good news. Good news she had to get across to her seemingly disinterested lover before—
    Without warning, Zak exploded, taking advantage ofthe soldier’s inattention. He grabbed the barrel of the Uzi, ramming the stock hard against the man’s chest and driving him against the wall beside the bed. The mattress went one way, the metal frame the other, as the man was slammed against the cement wall with a bone-jarring thud.
    â€œGet down! Get down!”
    Acadia didn’t need to be told twice. Her two captors let go of her to reposition their weapons, and she dropped to the floor and rolled against the wall, trying to make herself as small as possible.
    Still grasping the barrel in his bare hand—was the man insane ?—Zak ripped it out of the guerrilla’s hand. The following explosion was deafening, and the bad guy’s shirt erupted in a surreal blossom of red.
    The retort of the discharged bullet must’ve been loud enough to wake people in far-off Caracas. Half the plaster crashed from the ceiling to the filthy floor in a shower of masonry and choking dust. More shots echoed in the chaos as the men swung their weapons around looking for something, someone, to shoot.
    Acadia stared uncomprehendingly at the gaping, bloody hole in the middle of the soldier’s chest and curled her arms over her head. Like that would stop a bullet. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to take cover, and the door leading out into the hallway was still blocked by two men who looked as though they were rooted in position, guns pointing into the center of the room.
    Not waiting for the debris to settle, her newly mintedhero swung the gun around and pulled the trigger as another man lunged. The Uzi clicked uselessly, and Zak dropped it in one smooth motion as he went in fast and low from the cloud of plaster dust while the soldiers tried to regroup. Using his shoulder, he rammed the closest man in the belly, driving him across the room. They crashed into the wall, so close to her that Acadia heard the soldier’s breath escape in a strangled whoosh as his spine made contact with the unyielding wall. She winced. Zak didn’t let up for a second, lashing out with a swift undercut to the man’s unshaven jaw. Unconscious, the soldier slid to the floor beside her.
    â€œTwo down, four to go,” she said, unaware that she was speaking out loud. Where the hell were her clothes? They’d been on the chair … She found one boot and clutched it to her chest as she looked for something a little more concealing.
    She glanced at the men blocking the only exit. If they’d go and help their pals … but no. They were still there, weapons fixed on the moving target of the naked guy without shooting. Considering the size of the small room, maybe they realized that a stray bullet could hit any one of them.
    With a metallic jangle and the scream of metal grating on the wall, the bedsprings flipped end over end, coming to rest against the wall. Zak, bare-assed and suddenly proactive, grabbing anything he could get his hands on, now wielded it as a weapon. One of the soldiers came up behind him, locking his arm across Zak’s throat in a wicked choke hold. Acadia lurched to her feet.
    Without consciously making the decision, she drew back her arm and let her boot fly. It missed her intended target, but hit another man smack in the nose. Blood spurted; he made a garbled shriek-y kind of yell, then dropped like a rock and lay still.
    â€œThree left,” she yelled, looking for another weapon. The man she’d beaned still had his Uzi in his slack hand. She crouched down and started across the room.
    The soldier she’d aimed at and missed tightened the bend of his elbow against Zak’s throat as he fought to get free.