Hubbard’s men were highly trained—probably the cream of all SWAT teams in the country—but they weren’t the right men for this job. They were specialists in hostage rescue, not standing guard against a determined assassin. I’d counted half a dozen storm troopers up until now, intimidating in their black Kevlar armor and helmets but no deterrent to someone like Luke Rickard. Maybe Hubbard thought he could frighten off the killer with this show of force, when instead all he was doing was showing his hand and allowing the planning of countermeasures. He should have brought only a small handpicked team of undercover agents, men and women who could blend with the hospital staff. That way Rickard wouldn’t find it so easy to determine the strength of his enemy. That would give him more pause, make him worry that everyone inside the hospital was a potential threat and that this was neither the correct time nor place for a hit. That would slow him down more than any skirmish line of heavy artillery would. To stop an assassin you had to think like one.

It had been a long day.

Rink can sit for days without moving, but I felt the need for action like a case of hives all over my body. There was the possibility that Rickard had seen sense and had made off to some remote corner of the world where he could concentrate on rebuilding his reputation as a contract killer. Lying here watching the grounds of the hospital over the top of the fence could be a supreme waste of my time, but I didn’t think so. I’d told the others as much: Rickard was coming, and I still stood by my words. More than anything, he had to be stopped. Everything about him was exactly what I hated—especially the face he’d stolen from me: it reminded me too much of the dark things I’d had to do in the past.

As I’ve said, Rapid Intuitive Experience is the designated military term for that sixth sense you get when you feel you are being watched. I’ve felt the cold prod between my shoulder blades on too many occasions to ignore it. Going very still, I listened, used my peripheral vision to pick out any subtle movement a direct stare would miss. But I found nothing out of the ordinary.

Not until my mobile phone vibrated against my chest.

The old spider sense had picked up on the urgency of the incoming call.

“You got your face on, Hunter?”

Rink says that I have some sort of stone-cold expression that I wear on missions. I’ve tried to catch my reflection to see what he sees, but I’ve just looked the same to me. Nonetheless, Rink is adamant and he calls it my face. Maybe that’s what I’d recognized in Rickard’s features and was why I hated him so much.