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She nodded under his hand.

“Very quietly, spread it over us. We’ve got company.”

5

Ian rolled onto his back, taking Piper with him so she lay on top of him, now. An instant’s awareness of how good she felt registered, but then his ind snapped back to the crisis at hand.

He looked around in the lime green gloom of what used to be some sort of clothing warehouse. Abandoned clothing racks littered the space, along with chunks of plaster and concrete fallen from the ceiling. But of much more interest and alarm was the red beam of infrared light that had slashed through the space a moment ago.

Invisible to the naked eye, infrared lasers were often attached to weapons as sights. The shooter then wore a special pair of goggles that allowed him to see the red dot land on his target. The trick was to be wearing the right goggles. It just so happened his French Thales goggles had an IR mode, and it just so happened he’d had it activated when that line of infrared energy sliced across the room.

As Piper wiggled and squirmed, trying to get her cloth shawl thing spread across them, he eased out from under her. They had to be plastered together side-by-side for the cloth to cover them both, but he made sure they ended up side-by-side on their bellies in prone shooting positions. Of course, without NOD’s,Piper was blind as a bat. And a blind sniper was about as useful as a virgin in a whorehouse.

Something warm and moist touched his ear. He jumped, then settled when he realized it was Piper’s mouth. Jeez, it was weird working with a woman!

She breathed, “Who’s out there?”

He answered as quietly, “Infrared targeting beam. I think it came from the side window. Dunno if the shooter saw our heat signatures or not.”

“Room layout?”

“Twenty feet wide, sixty feet front to back. Door we came in is at seven o’clock, range: forty feet. Clothing racks and shelving are scattered behind us. Exit eleven o’clock. Desk to the left of it. One window, two feet wide by three feet tall, chest high, your eight thirty position. No glass in the window. Plywood covering. One more window your one o’clock. Partially covered with wood. Lotta debris on the floor.”

“In other words, we’re fish in a barrel.”

He opened his mouth to answer, but the infrared beam sliced across the room again, zooming toward them like a jackal scenting fresh meat. He grabbed the back of Piper’s neck and shoved her head to the floor. His cheek pressing into cold concrete, he watched tensely as the red beam skimmed inches above them and passed by.

Piper whispered, “Do you have a shot?”

“No visual on the shooter.”

“I’m useless in these conditions, and we’ve got to draw this guy out. I’ll make a run for the back door. When he pops up to shoot, you take him out.”

He hissed, “Are you nuts?”

“You got a better idea?”

“I might not get my shot off before he kills you.”

He felt her slender shoulder shrug upward beside him. And then her lush mouth settled disconcertingly against his ear again. “It’s your reflexes against his. I’ll take my chances that you’re faster. It’s better than laying here until he spots us and waxes us both. He obviously saw us come in here or he wouldn’t be looking so hard.”

Unfortunately, her assessment was correct. But he hated like hell to use a civilian—a woman—as bait. It went against every protective instinct ingrained in his gut.

“Ready?” she murmured. Her hands came up under her chest preparatory to pushing up. “You call it.”

He lowered his eye to his rifle sight and trained it on the window ahead of him. “Go on three.”

“Good shooting.”

He waited until the infrared beam started another sweep, this time toward the front of the warehouse. “On my mark.” He sighted in of the source of the beam. “One.” Utter relaxation flowed through his entire body. “Two.” He began a long slow exhalation. A final sigh of breath, “Three.”

Piper jumped up and took off running. She bumped into a stack of packing crates, which she pushed to the floor. She swore loudly and kicked some debris around with her foot. On cue, the infrared beam swung toward her.

C’mon. Show yourself. The sniper wasn’t moving into sight in the window! Piper was going to die for nothing!

“Dive!” Ian shouted at her. He jumped up and charged the window. Piper took a running fall, rolling into a shelf unit with a grunt. The beam was still on her. Dammit!

With a wordless shout, he rushed the window, shooting randomly through the glass. Finally, the beam of death swung toward him. The shooter came into view, a white blob of heat. Ian didn’t think. Didn’t stop to aim. He just took a flying leap and, laid out in mid-air, weapon still plastered to his eye andshoulder, took the shot. He double tapped the trigger, but the first shot vaporized the shooter’s head.