Her original pursuers were coming down the stairs, shoving people out of the way when they didn’t move fast enough. As she watched, a young college student angrily tried to push back and ended up being tossed down the stairs for his trouble.

That got people’s attention and they cleared a path, allowing her pursuers to descend that much faster.

A glance to her right to the northbound platform showed that her other two pursuers were already amid the crowd over there, searching for her.

Where the heck was the train?

She looked down the tracks, hoping to see the telltale glow of the oncoming light, but only the darkness stared back at her.

For a second she thought about jumping off the platform and disappearing into the tunnels, but she wasn’t desperate enough yet to take a chance of getting caught on the tracks with an inbound train.

When she turned back toward the crowd, she saw that her pursuers had reached the bottom of the steps and were on the platform itself. They stopped for a moment, talking it over, and then one headed her way while one went the other.

If she was going to reach the stairs, she was going to have to confront at least one of them.

Annja knew she couldn’t count on the crowd to keep her hidden forever. Sooner or later one of them was going to catch a glimpse of her and then she’d have to deal with all four of them together. Going on the offensive, while they were still separated from each other, seemed like a smart move and it didn’t take her long to decide to do just that.

She began to work her way through the crowd back in the direction that she’d come from, keeping her face averted as much as possible. As she drew closer to where the bald man stood searching for her, she gradually drifted in his direction. When she was only a few feet away she stopped and waited for him to close the distance.

He was trying to see over the heads of the people around them when Annja stepped up beside him.

“Looking for me?” she asked.

As he spun to face her, Annja delivered a massive punch to his right temple, stunning him. She followed it with a left cross that started somewhere around her waist and ended up catching him right beneath the chin, slamming his head back.

He dropped to the ground like a felled tree.

The crowd around them suddenly backed away, the typical New York response to trouble—stay out of it. Annja was ready to deliver another blow but realized she didn’t need to; he was out cold, at least for the time being.

Her frontal assault had an unintended consequence, however. From the platform across the way she could see a number of commuters gesticulating in her direction. Aware of the movement of the crowd, her pursuers glanced in the direction the commuters were pointing.

They saw Annja at the same time she saw them.

Time to go, she thought to herself.

She turned, ready to make a dash for the stairs and the freedom they represented, only to find herself looking down the barrel of a very ugly handgun.

“I don’t think so, Ms. Creed,” the man with the goatee said, shoving the gun closer to her. “You’re coming with me.”

No way, she thought. The minute she gave in to them she was signing her own death warrant. Better to go down fighting than to be led like a lamb to the slaughter.

Besides, the gunman had already made a fatal mistake.

He’d underestimated her.

Annja was already in motion by the time the “No!” came rolling off her lips. She used her shout to distract him; all she needed was a few seconds. Her left hand came up in an arc, the outer edge crashing into the gunman’s arm just above the wrist, sending the gun away from her face. In the same motion her hand locked on to his wrist, pulling him forward and down.

The gun went off, the sound deafening so close to her ear, but she was already out of the line of fire thanks to her deflection strike. The bullet bounced off the concrete beneath her feet, disappearing somewhere into the crowd. Annja was still in motion, pivoting on the balls of her feet and using the swing of her hips to bring her right arm around vicious arc that ended against the side of his head.

No sooner had she connected with that blow than she delivered another, a hammer strike to the face with her left hand as she completed the circle she’d started with the first blow.

Her assailant staggered, but did not go down.

The crowd around her was screaming, a result of the gunfire and the violence that had suddenly broken out in their midst, but even that was drowned out as a northbound train roared into the station on the tracks next to her.

About time! she thought.

If she could get on that train before they did, she had a chance of getting away.

The gunman was shaking his head, trying to clear it, as he brought his arm back up, searching for a target.

Annja didn’t give him any time to find one.

Her right foot came up in a scissor kick, delivering a thunderous blow to the exact same place she’d already struck him twice.

Apparently the third time was the charm, for he dropped to the ground, the gun spinning out of his hand across the platform.

Annja turned, intent on going after it, but was prevented from doing so when several bullets cracked off the floor near her feet.

As she dove to the side, desperately trying to get out of the line of fire, she saw the other two gunmen standing at the top of the stairs, firing down at her.

She hit the ground and rolled for cover behind a nearby column. Several other people were already huddled there and Annja knew that if she didn’t get out soon it wouldn’t be long before some innocent bystander was caught in the cross fire and seriously injured or killed. For all she knew, it could have happened already. Those bullets had to end up somewhere and she could just imagine them finding a home in some commuters’ unprotected flesh.

The train across the platform had discharged its passengers out the opposite side and now the doors on her side swished open. She could hear the conductor’s voice indicating what the next stop would be and giving the all-clear announcement, but a fresh barrage of gunfire designed to keep everyone in place and under cover, trembling with fear, prevented anyone from heading for the open doors.

Annja knew she didn’t have the same choice. She had to get on that train, had to take the battle out of the station to keep any more innocents from getting hurt.

Another volley of gunfire echoed around the station. Expecting a hail of bullets, Annja was shocked when none came her way.

She chanced a look around the pillar she was using as cover and was astounded to see a second group of men shooting at the first set from the cover of the magazine stand at the other end of the platform.

Who the heck are they? she wondered.

It didn’t matter. While they kept the first group distracted, Annja saw her chance.

She surged to her feet and raced for the doors of the subway car even as the bell sounded and they began to close.

A fresh volley of gunfire, from both grounds, filled the air with lead but Annja was committed. There was no turning back.

She was halfway across the platform when she realized it was going to be tight. The doors were closing and even if she got her hand in the door it wouldn’t do her any good; they wouldn’t just pop back open like an elevator’s doors did. It would take some time and she’d be stuck there with one arm in the door and the rest of her standing exposed against the unyielding surface of the train car outside, for too long.

It would be like shooting ducks in a barrel for anyone with an ounce of experience with a firearm. And from what she had seen so far, they probably had a better than even chance of hitting a nonmoving target.

All this went through Annja’s mind in a split second, and in that time she realized she really only had one course of action left available to her if she wanted to get out of this alive.