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Back The Neighborhood Save as PDF
Chapters (59)
  1. Part I Reconnaissance
  2. Chapter One
  3. Chapter Two
  4. Chapter Three
  5. Part II Incursion
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Part III Under Siege
  14. Chapter Eleven
  15. Chapter Twelve
  16. Chapter Thirteen
  17. Part IV Course Correction
  18. Chapter Fourteen
  19. Part V Balance of Power
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. Chapter Eighteen
  24. Chapter Nineteen
  25. Chapter Twenty
  26. Chapter Twenty-One
  27. Chapter Twenty-Two
  28. Chapter Twenty-Three
  29. Chapter Twenty-Four
  30. Chapter Twenty-Five
  31. Chapter Twenty-Six
  32. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  33. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  34. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  35. Part VI Spy versus Spy
  36. Chapter Thirty
  37. Chapter Thirty-One
  38. Chapter Thirty-Two
  39. Chapter Thirty-Three
  40. Part VII Winds of War and Flame
  41. Chapter Thirty-Four
  42. Chapter Thirty-Five
  43. Chapter Thirty-Six
  44. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  45. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  46. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  47. Chapter Forty
  48. Chapter Forty-One
  49. Part VIII Strong to the Finish
  50. Chapter Forty-Two
  51. Chapter Forty-Three
  52. Part IX Spy Games
  53. Chapter Forty-Four
  54. Chapter Forty-Five
  55. Chapter Forty-Six
  56. Part X What Goes Around
  57. Chapter Forty-Seven
  58. Chapter Forty-Eight
  59. About the Author

Zack crept down the slope, the front sight resting on the side of Griffin’s head. There would be no second chances, no quarter given. Even wounded, he was dangerous, and Zack suspected the slumped head was just a ruse, like everything else with Griffin had been.

As he inched forward, a feeling of dread fell over him, as if he were stalking his own destiny, one that had been determined years ago, one that was welcoming him home. He’d known, deep in those dark spaces of his former life, it would always go back to Malta. The reckoning was upon him.

Part VIII Strong to the Finish

Part VIII
Strong to the Finish

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter
FORTY-TWO

malta

six years ago

The Mercedes’s driver had regained control faster than Zack, and the SUV pulled away from him at more than seventy miles per hour. With each moment lost, the possibility that Zack might lose Moretti was becoming a reality. Don’t think Griffin’s going to like that too much.

The Mercedes was about to reach the blind bend in the road, when it suddenly swerved to the left, off the shoulder and onto the dirt and rocky ground interspersed with shrubs and faded patches of grass. The SUV bounced across the landscape like a mechanical bull, bucking back and forth but barely slowing down. And then it dropped behind the backside of a hill and out of sight, leaving Zack to stare at the spot the SUV had been a moment before.

“Better follow the man. We’re in for a wild ride!” Noah shouted with more enthusiasm than Zack Felt.

“Always the cowboy. I’m not looking for my eight seconds,” Zack shot back.

Noah just laughed and grabbed the handle above the window.

As Zack raced to catch up to the vanished SUV, he saw what had forced the Mercedes to veer off the road—a white, double-decker tour bus, heading straight for Zack on the right side of the road, where the Mercedes had remained after the explosions. Zack fought the natural urge as an American to remain in the right lane and swerved to the left, removing the Range Rover from the path of the charging bus.

He spotted a dirt road that turned off and sloped downward, toward Anchor Bay and Popeye Village. From his reconnaissance, he knew the road had a few turns before it sloped down through the rocky wall of the cliffs that lined Anchor Bay across the water from the film set. But he also knew that the Mercedes had taken a straight path down the slope, and Zack floored it off the main road and along the dirt road, following in the Mercedes’s path. There’s nowhere to go, he thought, as the Range Rover bounced across the ground for twenty yards before plummeting down the back of the hill toward the opening in the cliff wall.