Page 1 of Tom Clancy Line of Sight

1

SEVEN CORNERS, VIRGINIA

Dr. Guzman rubbed her tired eyes. She became a doctor to heal the sick, not to file endless reports. But here she was, typing away after hours.

Again.

No matter. It was the price she paid to run the free clinic for the poorest of the poor in the area, mostly immigrants.

She checked her watch. The delivery was late. As soon as it arrived, she’d finish up this last budget report and head home for some needed shut-eye.

A noise in the back room startled her. She glanced up from her laptop, listening.

Nothing.

Probably just the rats again,she told herself.Gross.

She made a mental note to pick up some more traps at Lowe’s tomorrow on her way in.

She settled back down into her spreadsheet, her bleary eyesfocused on the empty columns she still needed to fill with numbers. Her fingers froze.

She smelled the acrid tang of sweat and dope before she felt the blade against her throat.

The man stood behind her. Grabbed a fistful of her hair.

“The drugs are in the safe. I can’t open it,” she said in Spanish, her first language.

The voice behind her laughed. “Don’t want the drugs, bitch,” he said in English. “We gonna party.”

Guzman whispered a prayer and cursed her stupidity. She’d left the back door unlocked for the delivery. That meant no alarm. That’s how he got in.

And with no alarm, no help was on the way.

The man grabbed her shoulder and spun the chair around. He stood over her, flashing a gold tooth in a nicotine-stained smile. His bare, ropy arms were slathered in tattoos, but it was his shaved skull that shocked her. His entire head, from the neckline up, was a tangle of blue ink, withMSsplashed across his throat and13emblazoned on his forehead.

She recognized him. He had come in last week, a wreck. Hep C and gonorrhea. He gave a name—Lopez—but no ID. She assumed it was fake. Didn’t matter. He was sick, she was a doctor. She treated him. Even if he did give her the chills.

But now?

“You don’t have to do this,” she said, steeling her voice.

“Don’t have to. Want to.” He smiled. He stepped closer, thrusting his belt buckle close to her face. He laid the blade flat against her cheek. “So do you. If you want to live.”

“Not like that.”

A soft whistle from behind.

The gangbanger whipped around, pulling a chrome Ruger .357 out from beneath his shirt. Fast. A real gunslinger.

But a larger hand was faster. It grabbed the four-inch barrel and yanked it up toward the ceiling, then outward and away.

Fast, but not fast enough.

Tendons snapped in the banger’s wrist, but his index finger smashed against the cocked trigger. A magnum round fired with a deafening roar into a ceiling tile, superheating the barrel in the big man’s right hand. He didn’t let go.

The big man’s left hand crashed into the banger’s jaw, buckling his knees. He crumbled to the floor, out cold.

It had all happened in a flash.