Blue Smoke and Murder

89

SEPTEMBER 17

6:41 P.M.

Zach turned and raced for the front door of the cabin, blowing through the St. Kilda ops that had followed him inside.

“Stay here,” ordered a male op. “You don’t have body armor.”

“Neither does she,” Zach snarled, shouldering the op aside.

An op in the bathroom yelled, “Two people, running east. Client is first. Target is second. Too far for pistols. Bad light getting worse. Pass that rifle up here!”

Zach kept going, increasing his stride. In the dusk-to-darkness, a rifle wasn’t going to do much good. Jill was doing the smart thing and running for cover.

So was the killer behind her.

From beyond the cabin, the sound of man-made thunder rolled through the twilight. Someone was shooting.

It wasn’t a Colt Woodsman.

The op behind Zach began shouting orders to the others.

He ran hard, away from the back of the cabin, careful to stay just off the path of the target in case the op with the rifle got lucky. In his mind he replayed the few seconds he’d had the shooter in range.

I hit him, but he didn’t go down.

Son of a bitch is wearing body armor.

A head shot would be the only fast way of killing him. And a head shot was a tough target when the man was running.

No problem. I’ll just get close enough to shove the barrel up his ass.

But that would take time.

Time Jill didn’t have.