Deep Black

75

Lia ran full steam to the door, then stopped abruptly. She reached not to the knob or lock but to the glass, pushing the side of her head against it. Then quickly she took her knife out, started to pick at the lock.

“Back!” she hissed at Dean, sliding down the wall. He threw himself to the floor as she whipped her knife at the glass.

The doorway exploded. Dean jumped up and ran, following her inside, shooting blindly, knowing that the sniper would be somewhere near the window in the front of the room.

But he wasn’t — this room connected to another, just beyond.

The sniper loomed at the side, an MP-5 in his hand. As Lia fell to Dean’s left, a bullet spun Dean so fiercely he slammed against the wall.

God, Lia.

Dean saw the sniper retreat — not from the apartment but back to his post, starting to sight his weapon. He wedged his left arm beneath him and fired his pistol with his right, knowing that the bullet would miss.

It did, but the second caught the sniper in the side. As he fell against his gun he fired, and the room reverberated with the report of the massive gun.

Dean’s third bullet struck just at the lambda where the rear sections of the bone came together. Fragments flew through the sniper’s brain; by the time Dean’s next bullet caught the assassin in the spinal cord he was already dead.

Dean’s first instinct was to look through the man’s scope to see what was going on. Something grabbed him as he bent toward it.

Lia.

Lia?

“No prints,” she said.

“You’re OK?”

“He just got my vest. Come on. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“Did he hit or miss?”

“Just go — we can’t do anything about it now.” She pulled him toward the outside room.

“Wait,” he said. He nodded back at the sniper, who had crumpled sideways to the floor, one hand still up on his gun. “There are people waiting for him.”

“How do you know that?”

“He chose this room because he could escape from it without being stopped. The question is, how?”