Which meant there was a sniper positioned in some high, hidden elevated shooting position. He’d tried to shoot me—which meant he knew who I was—but something had caused him to miss with that first shot. He hadn’t taken another. Snipers are fast, so maybe his angle was obscured, or maybe I was lucky enough to have been getting into the car already when he fired.

But luck was a funny thing. I don’t have that much of it, and I don’t trust it worth a hollow damn. So, why had the shooter missed?

I sat tense as fuck, crouched as low as I could—pretending to adjust Ghost’s harness—expecting the rear or side window to implode with the next shot as the sniper corrected the angle.

However, there was no next shot. He’d missed his shot and hadn’t tried again. Why not? He could have extrapolated where I was once I was in the car. Three spaced shots in a line, twenty or so inches apart and at that angle, would have hit some part of me, no matter how I hid in the back.

“Hurry, please,” I snarled, and the car pulled out into the street.

I crouched, breathless, terrified, trying to block Ghost. The dog whimpered softly in fear and frustration. He was always in tune with me. He knew we were in trouble. Very bad trouble.

We sped through the rain-swept darkness.

The cab headed to the airport, and I don’t think I started breathing for three full blocks. At the airport, I went into the terminal and straight to the closest men’s room. I changed my clothes, then went to a coin locker to retrieve a different set of travel documents and ID and headed to security, and—as an Austrian music historian traveling with his emotional support dog—boarded a jet for Innsbruck Airport. Below us, the land fell away, and we rose above the clouds and vanished into the night.

CHAPTER 141

ROOF OF THE BELVEDERE RESTAURANT

TIMIȘOARA, ROMANIA

The woman knelt there, a figure wrapped in darkness, lost in shadows. Invisible.

She studied the rooftop across the street through a Nightforce Optics 5.5–22×56 NXS Riflescope mounted on her Accuracy International’s L115A3—the best .338 rifle on the market. Finding the other sniper had taken time and patience, but she knew he had to be there. Somewhere.

All her intel and all her instincts said he must be there. In the dark. A ghost, like she was.

He was good, though. No rookie errors of allowing the metal or glass of his weapon to reach into the path of any stray light. Finding an expert is one of the most challenging and frustrating parts of the game. Snipers know how not to be found.