Page 3

Grabbing the rifle, tripod and all, and slinging it over a shoulder, she leaped for the back of the roof.

Crouched low. Dodged around a rusty rain cistern and slammed the rappelling clip, pre-tied to an escape rope, which was pre-tied to a leg of the cistern, onto a belt loop.

A running jump off the roof, one-hundred-eighty-degree twist in mid-air to catch herself against the wall with her feet, jarring herself from foot to hip.

She absorbed the blow, pushing up and away from the wall in a giant, leap-frogging descent.

Her feet hit the ground. Thank God. A stumble, and she ripped the clip free. The rope . No time to retrieve it. No biggie. This observation post was blown anyway. Who was that guy?

Time for the rest of her emergency egress plan. Down to the end of the alley. A quick look out into the street, a block over from the action. Fortunately, the boulevard was deserted, compliments of the shots fired a few minutes ago. She took off running.

At the next corner, she slowed, breathing heavily, and peered around the bullet chipped corner of a building into the crossing street. A flash of movement disappeared behind a building, moving away from the scene of the beating. Could be a local fleeing for cover. Could be the other sniper.

Paralleling the guy’s path, she eased around the corner, hugging the dusty slivers of shadow for what scant cover they could provide.

She glided forward slowly now. The sun was oppressive, blistering the street cruelly.

All was as still as an old western town, moments before a shootout between gunslingers.

Not even a puff of air passed through to stir a bit of dust. Hopefully, this game of cat-and-mouse wouldn’t come to that.

No help for it. What safety there was lay on the other side of the street.

She started across the broad boulevard, sauntering without an apparent care in the world.

People in this place smelled fear like they smelled supper cooking and responded to both like ravenous dogs.

She was dressed as a man and needed to move like one.

If her cover were blown and she was found out for a woman—she didn’t even want to think about what would happen to her.

She made the far curb and let out the breath she’d been holding. A narrow alley loomed between an occupied building and the shot up shell of what used to be a grocery store. She took off in a short sprint to the other end.

Another street. Another slow saunter across its Grand Canyon width, and another mad dash down a fetid alley—this one an informal trash dump for the area. Up and over a pile of foul refuse—plastic bags, chunks of concrete, and the contents of chamber pots.

The third crossing street yielded a glimpse of a running figure.

Angling toward her. Dammit . She broke into yet another sprint and spurted several blocks forward.

Paused. Looked left. Right. No alleys nearby.

Just a shelled out apartment building, five stories high.

It was a maze of partial walls and sudden openings.

Not great, but better than nothing. She ducked inside the ruin.

Ian stopped in the middle of the street, looking around urgently. Where in hell had the other sniper gone? He’d completely evaporated. The guy had been standing right here, hesitating, and then he’d just disappeared.

He had to find the other sniper. It was his job to know everyone who walked these streets.

Not to mention his life might depend on knowing all the players.

Who else had a man in the area, and why had he been sent?

Another government? A private operator? Was the other sniper only here to observe?

Or was his purpose more direct? More sinister?

Some of the baddest motherfuckers on the planet scrapped and fought—and sold their services—on these streets.

Men who made Carlos and Osama look like Girl Scouts.

Nobody came to Khartoum for the weather.

The hull of a dead apartment building loomed before him.

He picked his way over the ground floor of the building’s crumbling concrete remains, its steel bones exposed and twisted.

No self-respecting sniper would trap himself on the top floors of a layout like this.

He frowned. Unless there another way down from the upper floors besides the wrecked central staircase he’d just spotted…

Too many questions rattling around his head.

Not enough answers. He eased up the pocked concrete stairs, poked his head up cautiously, and glanced around the hollow shell of the second floor.

It was too quiet up here. Too still. On a hunch, he descended the stairs he’d just climbed, as quiet as a panther.

He raced across the littered, grafittied ground floor toward the back of the building.

He was taking a gamble by giving up the front exit.

It left an escape route for the other sniper.

He emerged behind the building and spied the remains of an iron fire escape dangling precariously from a few rusty bolts in the back wall.

He sure as hell wouldn’t want to try it.

He estimated the thing wouldn’t take more than a couple hundred pounds max.

And with the other sniper toting around a heavy rifle and gear, that didn’t leave a hell of a lot of body weight to spare.

On fast, silent feet, he moved away from the building, far enough to have an unobstructed view of the fire escape.

He crouched behind a rubble pile, carefully shifting a couple basketball-sized chunks of concrete to make a hole to peer through.

Deep silence settled over the place. If the other sniper decided to head for the front exit, maybe he’d get lucky and hear the guy.

Ian waited.

And waited.

He thought he heard a noise near the top of the fire escape, but he saw nothing. This mouse was patient. But not nearly patient enough. Ian had been known to wait a week in the same exact spot for the perfect shot to materialize.

The mouse got antsy after twenty more minutes. Amateur .

He watched in minor disbelief as his quarry swung lightly out onto the fire escape, half-crawling, half-shimmying down its ruined iron length.

The guy was a hellatious climber, lithe and smooth, swinging from rung to rung like a gymnast. The rifle across the sniper’s back clanged into a handrail and the guy froze.

Weighing options, no doubt. The sniper opted for speed over stealth.

Ian watched, impressed, as he flung himself downward, taking three and four steps at a time.

The stair trembled under the onslaught, its bolts squealing as it threatened to break free, but the sniper raced on grimly.

Ian chose his moment and pounced just before the guy hit the dirt.

The other sniper’s shirt slipped through his hands as the guy lurched and vaulted the stair rail, sailing through the air, landing lightly on deeply bent knees.

He was unlucky and his feet shot out from under him on the loose debris, but the sniper rolled and sprang back to his feet in one athletic motion.

Ian dived for the guy’s legs and was stunned to miss as his quarry’s jungle boots slipped through his grasp.

Man, that guy was fast . He grunted as he hit the ground and was forced to roll to his feet himself.

The other sniper was getting away! He shoved upright, ignoring his stinging palms, and gave chase.

Although the mouse was quick, Ian was stronger.

As the sniper scurried through the streets of the Khartoum neighborhood, Ian gradually gained on him until he was so close he heard the mouse’s labored breathing, rasping fearfully.

The guy rounded a corner and slipped, almost losing his feet.

Ian put on an extra burst of speed and launched himself forward.

His arms wrapped around the other sniper’s waist, his momentum carrying them both crashing to the ground in a tangle of limbs and rifles and nylon straps.

He knew the second he landed on top of his quarry.

The other guy was not a guy.

What the hell?

The sniper, a woman for Christ’s sake, thrashed beneath him, jabbing for his eyes and throat, her knee wrenching up toward his groin.

“Let…me…go,” she ground out in American-accented English between gritted teeth as she struggled.

“Not on your life,” he grunted back, straining to force her wrists away from his face.

They grappled in fierce silence. Inch by hard earned inch, he won the day, his superior strength overtaking this woman’s steely determination.

Vivid blue eyes glared up at him from a tanned strip of face covered in dirt.

She yielded all of a sudden, the fight draining out of her so fast he accidentally slammed the back of her hand to the ground.

“Watch it. That’s my shooting hand,” she snapped.

“Who the hell are you, lady? And who do you work for?”

Piper glared up at the other sniper, furious at herself for letting him catch her.

She should’ve been faster. Smarter. Should’ve known the city better before she went up on a roof to observe the action below.

Much more coolly than she felt, she replied, “Perhaps we should get out of sight before we have this conversation?”

He shrugged. He was garbed like a native and had a dark enough tan to pass for one.

She, on the other hand, was not the deep bronze of the man in front of her, and only thinly veiled as a man in her pants, boots, and hat to hide her long, feminine hair.

She had a hell of a lot more at stake out here than he did.

She added, “With El Noor breaking the truce, death squads from both camps will be roaming the streets shortly.”

Another shrug from the guy sprawled all too suggestively on top of her. Bastard .

As the silence stretched out, she finally snapped, “Get off me.”

“Give me your word you won’t try to run.”

“Not from you, I won’t,” she retorted scornfully.