Page 19 of Tom Clancy Line of Sight

She swore in her mind. Romanian, her native tongue. “I’m not finished here. I was told what I was doing here was a priority.”

“This assignment is Code Red.”

Elena’s heart sank. She swallowed her fear.

“How long do I have?”

“Ten days, maximum. Preferably sooner.”

“That isn’t enough time for me to scout and plan the op.”

“It has to be. Details to follow.”

“At least tell me where I’m going.”

“Ljubljana.”

Not her favorite city. Quaint but boring. At least it was a short drive. A little over an hour by car without traffic. She checked her watch. It was just after midnight.

“I’ll leave first thing in the morning. Photo and genetic sample, as usual?”

“No. You need to bring me his head, his face fully intact. That’s straight from the top.”

What the hell?

“Elena, you understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes.”

“Ten days.”

“I’ll call you when I check in to my hotel in Ljubljana.”

The Czech rang off.

Elena swore again, but this time audibly. She pocketed the phone and marched back into the other room in the dank cellar, lit by a dim bulb hanging from a frayed cord.

The naked man duct-taped to the chair was semiconscious and still whimpering beneath the gag. He shuddered when she entered, sensing her presence rather than seeing her through his blackened eyes, swollen and bloodshot. Brand-new jumper cables snaked from a car battery on the floor to the foot of his chair. Her plan was to attach the sharp teeth of the copper battery clamps to his ruined genitals, and then the fun could really begin.

Too bad.

Elena swept past a table, on top of which was a neatly ordered collection of specialized knives, forged in fire by her own hand. She snatched up the smallest one, her sharpest by far.

“It’s your lucky day, Sanchez.”

She drew a thin line across his throat. His neck opened up, spitting blood. He bled out quickly in a spasm of terror and pain, dead before she hit the stairs a few minutes later.

Lucky, indeed.

The ancient farmhouse flamed like a druid’s torch in the cool night air, fueled by its three-hundred-year-old timbers. Elena caught a last, smiling glimpse of the towering fire in her rearview mirror as she made a turn.

Time for a hot shower and a stiff drink back at her hotel. She wasn’t tired; in fact, every nerve in her body was on fire. Her work had a rhythm, and it had been interrupted. It had been an unsatisfying kill. That left an itch inside her that still hadn’t been scratched. She needed to clear her head.

She checked the speed dial on her phone for the name of a man she knew in Trieste, a hard and angular Florentine. A few hours in the embrace of the violent, insatiablesignorewould be the best thing she could hope for before starting her next assignment.

11

NEAR CITLUK, BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA