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CHAPTER 35

PERCHED IN A mesh sling high in the jungle canopy, Kira Sunlight watched it all through her powerful spotting scope. She was in head-to-toe camo, blending in perfectly with the dappled foliage. Her brightly colored curls were tucked under a mottled-green hood. Her cheeks and forehead were daubed with green and yellow face paint.

She watched as the woman and her baby disappeared beneath the rim of the mine, then she swung the scope back to Gurney. He was tall and muscular, with a long nose and an imperious look. Kira could read the body language of the two men in front of him. Their postures telegraphed submission, maybe fear. Maybe they knew what she knew.

Rupert Gurney, she had learned, was a very dangerous and unpredictable man. Kicked out of the British Special Forces for dealing drugs. Convicted of kidnapping, grand larceny, and assault in the years after. Escaped from England’s supermax Belmarsh prison and turned up six months later as a freelancer in Yemen, teaming up with a militia later accused of grisly war crimes.

And now he was in charge here, running a stolen copper mine for persons unknown. Wherever there was nasty work to be done, Gurney was apparently the man to do it. As long as the price was right.

Kira made another of her cold calculations. Cal Savage was evil. She had no doubt about that. Evil ran in his blood. But on paper, Rupert Gurney seemed almost as bad. Besides, Kira had always been adept at compartmentalizing. Her plan was to complete this mission, suck up to Cal, get him to lead her to Doc—assuming he hadn’t already been executed. For now, she put that grim possibility in another compartment.

Kira dialed the scope in tight on Gurney’s head and put the crosshairs on his temple. One hundred yards. Easy shot.

If she’d brought a gun.

Savage had offered her an SSG, or any weapon she wanted. But Kira told him she wanted to travel light, and she preferred her own methods. Assassination was easy. Bang. Over in a second. But if Savage really wanted to discourage future interlopers, there were more effective techniques. Kira knew them all. She had learned them as a teenager.

She slipped the spotting scope into a pouch and tucked the hood tight around her neck. She grabbed the climbing rope and rappelled down to a lower branch, one wide enough to nap on.

She settled against the smooth curve of the trunk and settled in to wait for dark.

That’s when she did her best work.