He’d been here before, not here in Prague, but here fist to fist in a fight for life. He knew what she was capable of, how quickly she could gain the upper hand, and what would happen if she did. He couldn’t take that risk.

She broke free, rose up, recognized him, and in recognition hesitated.

He swung the rifle stock, caught her fast upside the head.

She went down hard.

He stood over her, lungs aching, heart pounding, fully alive and intoxicated by the fear of having accomplished the most stupidly anti-self-preserving thing he’d ever done.

This, perhaps, was what it meant to fall in love.

On the cobblestones below, the van was gone.

Pedestrians had fled.

The firefight continued in sporadic bursts, Americans and Russians fighting each other in another man’s battle, as Jack had planned.

In the distance sirens wailed.

Holden knelt, got an arm beneath Jill, lifted her over his shoulder and, laden by deadweight, moved cautiously for the nearest ladder. She’d wake eventually, and when she did, she’d break his fucking heart.

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 20

Námstí Republiky
Prague, Czech Republic

KARA

ONE SECOND TO THE NEXT, A BLINK, A HEARTBEAT, AND THE MORNING had gone from mission accomplished to complete and utter shit. From her perch at the square’s highest point, camouflaged in drab gray-green and sheltered beneath stone wings, she’d watched, trepidation turning to horror as each new second took bad to massacre.

She’d wanted a scoped rifle instead of a spotting scope.

Had requested a position that gave her a shot at target instead of a distant eye on him, but Nick had wanted her where she’d have a bird’s-eye view of the entire arena, had wanted her where she could watch and analyze, and hell if that wasn’t exactly what he’d gotten.

She had watched commuters, oblivious in the daily routine, exit the underground and hurry on for the sidewalks, and had watched pigeons flock and settle, and she’d called in each movement.

Banter had run thick with gallows humor.

She’d especially watched the delivery van, blatantly out of place and the first obvious sign there was more to this morning than met the eye. And she’d watched target step out onto the patio, accomplice beside him, blond hair straying from beneath a hat and most definitely a woman. It’d been vindication seeing the two of them there like that, knowing she’d been right, that they were hunting a pair: male and female, brother and sister.

Target and accomplice had continued toward a man who sat at a table alone, and she’d watched that, too, holding her breath, willing them just another few feet forward.

They’d been that close.

But the delivery van had started forward, picking up speed in a straight line for the patio, shutting the window of opportunity at fifty miles an hour.