4

Setting up the nest had required mechanical precision, patience, time, and tolerance for extreme boredom. It had been well over an hour since the targets had started arriving. And still, she waited.

She peered through the Leopold 3x9 rifle scope and set it to minimum magnification. The scope made the targets appear to be only thirty feet away instead of three hundred yards, making long-distance kills almost as easy as close-ups. Jamie Cooper. Bobby Taggart. Mike Brown and his bitch of a wife. Their tightly knit group would soon be gone.

Calculating the wind speed with the help of a flag fluttering on a nearby building, she adjusted the scope. The Kestrel weather meter provided temperature and humidity, since both would affect the bullet’s flight. As would the range and the thickness of the restaurant’s plate-glass window. She consulted the range card again, then made another slight alteration so that the bullets would hit straight and true.

Satisfied that everything was properly set, she made a final check of the defenses she’d put in place. If any of Brown’s team attempted to enter this room, a little surprise awaited them. They thought they were cagey, alternating their meeting days and times and locations, but they weren’t cagey enough. Her contact had told her they’d be at this restaurant this morning.

Predictability, thy name is victim.

Adrenaline shot through her veins, and she quelled the rapid beat of her heart with long, steadying breaths. Then she settled deeper behind the scope and savored the moment.

After two years of planning, another few minutes were nothing. Now wasn’t the time to get jumpy and rush the shot. There could be no possibility that this job went wrong.

When they’d killed her mentor, they’d killed part of her, too. He would approve of her ensuring that those who mourned her targets would know exactly who’d pulled the trigger and why. They would know that this was about revenge.

•    •    •

“I still don’t know what you see in this chump.” Coop hugged Mike’s wife, not only because it would get Mike all riled up but also because he had a special affection for her.

Eva, an attorney for the CIA, had hunted Mike down in Peru and forced him to fight the false charges that had ended all of their military careers in disgrace ten years ago. If not for her, Coop, Taggart, and Mike wouldn’t have been reunited, exonerated, and working together today.

“Hey,” Mike groused good-naturedly, as predicted. “Get your hands off my girl. And for your information, I have some very special qualities. Right, chica?”

Coop laughed when the unflappable Eva blushed, making it clear that Mike might have recently worked on perfecting those “special” qualities with her.

“Who’s organizing next month’s breakfast?” Eva asked, dodging the question.

“I think that would be me,” Stephanie said. “I hope more members of Nate’s unit can make the next gathering. In the meantime, I assume you’ll be picking up Coop and Taggart’s tab again?” she asked Mike with a grin.

“Har-har.” Grumbling, Mike tossed his credit card onto the table with the bill, then scowled at the tattered jack of hearts he’d pulled out of his wallet with the credit card; a bullet hole pierced the playing card clean through the middle. “That used to be my lucky card,” he said, tucking it away again.

“Better luck next time, boss.” Taggart kissed his own one-eyed jack of spades, which had been sliced half through with a KA-Bar knife.

“Not a word out of you, Cooper.” Mike gave him the evil eye.

“Wasn’t going to say a thing,” Coop said. “Certainly wasn’t going to point out that your card has let you down the last nine out of ten times.”

“Nope. Because you’re not that kind of guy.” Mike grunted.

“I’d never gloat.” Coop grinned. “Sure did enjoy those pancakes, boss.”

He glanced down at his own card, a faded jack of hearts that was burned around the edges. Every time he looked at it, or saw Mike pull his out of a pocket, or watched Taggart flip his over and over between his fingers, he was transported back ten years to Afghanistan, where all the men in their unit had carried one-eyed jacks as a symbol of solidarity, of brotherhood.

Mike, Bobby, and Coop were the only ones left, and they carried their cards in honor of their fallen brothers.

And because none of the three of them could resist a gamble, they always drew cards to see who paid for breakfast.

“I hate to be the one to break up this friendly sparring,” Eva said as she shrugged into her coat, “but I’ve got a nine o’clock meeting I need to—”

A huge, booming crack cut off her words as the front window exploded, and flying shards of plate glass flew through the room like Hellfire missiles.

“Shooter! Contact front!” Coop yelled. He dived across the table and tackled Rhonda to the floor.

The rest of the team members scrambled for cover, reaching into concealed shoulder or waist holsters for their handguns.

“You okay?” he asked Rhonda.

She squirmed beneath him. “I’m fine. Get off of me!”

He rolled, scrambled up onto all fours, and, heart slamming, appraised the situation.

Stunned civilians, frozen in shock, sat with mouths agape. Then the restaurant erupted in terrified screams.

“Get down! Get the hell down!” Coop yelled. His 9mm in hand, he crab-crawled across the floor, sweeping glass aside with the heels of his hands. Mike was right beside him.

“Get down!” Mike dragged two screaming women to the floor. “Everyone hug the floor! Get as low as you can, and stay there!”

When people finally realized that they were the good guys, they scrambled to make themselves as small as possible. Behind Coop, tables slammed to the floor as the team flipped them over to use as shields. He crawled low over broken glass to get a fix on the shooter’s position.

The eerie silence was broken only by soft, terrified sobs and the sounds of 911 calls flying out from cell phones. A cutting wind scuttled in through the shattered window.

“Did it stop?” a woman’s voice sobbed.

“Just stay down,” Coop repeated loudly, so everyone knew to stay cautious. “Is anyone hit? Anyone hurt?”

Silence among the sharp breaths and muffled sobs.

“Check your neighbor. Make sure everyone’s okay!” Mike said from under the open window.

Taggart and Waldrop belly-crawled across the floor toward them, and the four of them made a quick check on the civilians.

Joe Green made a break to cover the back of the restaurant. Santos, hunched low, ran to support him.

Another shot rang out.

Santos spun in a circle and went down. “I’m okay,” he assured everyone quickly as he scooted behind a downed table. “Just nicked my arm. I’m okay.” To prove it, he scrambled toward the back door and got into position with Green, his gun trained outside.

“Mike,” Rhonda said tremulously.

Coop looked over his shoulder. Her face was white.

“Eva’s been hit.”

“Oh, Jesus, please,” Coop prayed under his breath as Mike tore across the room to get to his wife.

Another shot sang through the air right behind him, missing its mark.

Coop left Taggart with the jumpy civilians and rushed after Mike.

Stephanie knelt beside Eva, who’d been lowered to the floor. She’d tucked her coat under Eva’s head, and Rhonda covered her with her jacket.

“We need to stop the bleeding.” Rhonda scrambled off in search of something to use.

Oh, God, Coop thought. Eva was so pale and still.

Mike carefully peeled back the jacket to see where his wife had been hit, and a horrible, gut-wrenching sound welled from deep in his chest. Coop made himself look and bit back a gasp. Eva’s pale, delicate hand lay low across her ribs. A steady trickle of blood spilled between her fingers. Her eyes fluttered open, unfocused, then drifted shut again.

Mike folded her into his arms. “Call 911!” he yelled, knowing full well that several calls had already gone out. “Call 911!” he roared again desperately as Stephanie placed another call requesting an ambulance.

“How bad?” Coop whispered, glancing up at Stephanie, but he already knew the answer.

Grim-faced, Stephanie shook her head.

Eva was bleeding out. No one had their gear with them. No medic’s kit, no QuikClot. No IVs. Nothing.

Rhonda crawled back to Eva’s side with a thick stack of linen napkins that Mike pressed against the wound and applied pressure on the bleed.

“Get her flat, Mike,” Steph said when he tried to hold Eva tighter in his arms. “She needs to be flat.”

She needs a doctor, Coop thought, sick with helplessness and fear. Eva was semiconscious and fading fast. Her skin was so pale. He reached for one of her hands. Cold and clammy. Then he checked her radial pulse. Weak and thready.

He knew just enough medicine to treat field wounds and understood that her body was trying to shunt blood to her central organs. Not good. Not good at all. It meant things were shutting down.

“We need to locate the shooter,” Taggart said, meeting Coop’s eyes from across the room.

He was right. They were pinned down like ducks on a pond, with no flight options in sight. Too many lives were on the line to sit here. Someone was going to have to play cowboy.

He glanced at his friends. There was nothing he could do for Eva. Mike, Stephanie, and Rhonda were doing what they could. Taggart and Waldrop guarded the shattered window. Green and Santos covered the back.

He crawled up to join Taggart on the floor at the window and searched outside. The shots could have come from anywhere. The bank of office buildings to the east of the restaurant. An apartment building to the west. An abandoned building in the middle of it all. They had to find out.

“Toss me a coat. Any coat!” Coop yelled at Rhonda. “Taggart, Waldrop—keep your eyes peeled outside for a rifle flash.”

Rhonda grabbed Taggart’s jacket and, at Coop’s nod, let it fly.

The shot was almost instantaneous.

“Muzzle flash. Vacant building, six floors up. One, two . . . wait, I’ve gotta count . . . thirteen windows in!” Taggart shouted after a brief, intense moment.

They had him—and he wasn’t as smart as he thought, if he allowed anyone on the ground to see his muzzle flash.

“Taggart. You’re with me.” Coop headed toward the rear of the restaurant and shot out the back door.