Page 5

I hold perfectly still, calculating how I’m going to disarm the bastard.
He’s thin and wiry. His hold on the pistol is confident. The blackness of the man’s eyes would be striking if you liked pit vipers.
I happen to hate snakes.
A vile laugh peels out of the fucker’s sneered lips. “Well, well. I never would have thought you would be here. It’s been a long time, ghost.”
Then he fires.
One shot.
A nine-millimeter round.
And Simona falls.
Blood sprays across my face.
The coppery tang fills my nose as I draw a shocked breath.
He steps backward, holding his gun on me now. “Follow me and I’ll do the same to the girl.”
Simona groans, but I don’t look.
Through the comm gear in my ear, Marshall’s voice sounds distant. “Get Sprite the fuck out of there. I’ve got the bastard.”
Without lowering my gun, or taking my eyes off the man that I’m going to hunt and kill, slowly, with a scalpel, I grab Simona by the strap of her bulletproof vest.
She weighs nothing as I jerk her up and loop her in the bend of my arm.
Slippery blood, warm and ominous, runs down my wrist as I retreat. And a thousand memories of wounded soldiers stir to life in the back of my mind.
They’re always there, just below the surface. Waiting to remind me of the vulnerability and cruelty of humankind.
As I run, I’m yelling in my mic, “Extract us, now!”
“SUV on standby location 2,” says Andre.
The warehouse fills with gunshots and stampeding feet, shouting voices in Spanish, but my only focus is on the woman I’m carrying.
Using the planned escape route, I burst into the alley.
Everything is a blur for the next ten seconds.
I shove Simona’s shaking body into the back floorboard of the car on her back. I push her knees up which will help her blood pressure and make room so I can fit in the space with her.
The driver screams, “We’ve got trouble!”
As I slam the door, I’m praying we can get away. The last thing we need is more destruction. “Go! Go! Go!”
Andre hits the gas. We bolt away from the curb as I press my body over Simona’s. Shots splinter the rear window.
CHAPTER TWO
Mother of insanity! I’ve been in a firefight or two before, but never with so little support. Never in a civilian vehicle on the run from an unknown, unseen enemy.
When the volley of fire stops, Simona’s eyes are wide, flying around the windows and back to me. The vehicle skids around another turn. We barely move because we’re wedged into the tight as hell space on the back floorboard.
“We’re clear. They didn’t give much of a chase,” Andre yells over the roaring engine.