Page 51 of Sniper's Pride

“Preacher’s coming in hot,” Isaac clipped at him when he shoved his comm unit into his ear, maybe forty-five seconds after his alert had sounded. “Blue picked him up three miles out and gaining. We need you in position.”

Griffin swore, stepping into his boots in the hall outside Mariah’s room. Then he took the stairs two at atime, as silently as if he’d walked down them in his bare feet. “Where do you want me?”

He was already in the inn’s lobby, retrieving his rifle from its place behind the stuffed grizzly, where it would have been in arm’s reach if he’d been keeping watch the way he should have been. He gritted his teeth at his own weakness, swung his rifle over his shoulder, and pushed his way outside.

Isaac was belting out orders in his ear, and Griffin grunted his assent to each one.

He waited for his eyes to adjust to the night air, scanning the quiet little town as he did. He was looking for potential plants. If a so-called holy man bent on revenge could hide in the sounds and inlets that made up so much of Southeast Alaska, it stood to reason he could also have friends stashed in strategic places in Grizzly Harbor, waiting for his signal. Like a boat loaded high with potential explosives. But he didn’t see anything that looked out of place.

He could pick up the faint sound of footsteps and braced himself, but in the next instant, the new guy melted out from between two buildings.

Griffin nodded his greeting. Rory Lockwood, former Green Beret, nodded back.

“Reporting for watch,” he said, and Griffin was impressed, despite himself, that the other man didn’t look or sound the least bit pissed that he was being relegated to what was basically a tame stakeout when there was real action going down. He wasn’t sure he’d manage it if the positions were reversed.

But then he was moving again, sharpening as he went. Focusing.

Forgetting.

Following Isaac’s commands, he ran along the street and then, instead of following it down the hill, jumped onto the slanted roof of the Fairweather, which was nearly scraping higher ground on its back side. He scaled it easily, and quietly, concentrating on nothing but achieving his vantage point.

He got to the highest part of the old roof and set up there, assembling his rifle in moments.

“Ready,” he said into the comm unit.

“Hold position,” Isaac replied.

And Griffin sank into the quiet, the cold. His steady grip.

He was Plan B. Plan A was Templeton out there on the water with Blue, moving the chase boat into position.

“It’s an army of one,” Templeton confirmed when they had eyes on the preacher. “We’re going in.”

When the wind changed, Griffin could hear the faint sounds of engines in the distance, out on the open water, but the bay directly in front of him stayed smooth. Empty.

The very second that changed, he would fire. That was the backup plan.

He was ready.

He was always ready. The whole point of his life was this, here.

He trained to be ready. To be still.

And he needed his life—and his head—to be clean and neat and empty of everything but his skill. His aim. His willingness to take the necessary shot.

His willingness to do what needed to be done so that others might live.

If he wore a mask, if he hid himself, that was for other—normal—people’s protection.

He’d worked himself up into a righteous fury when there was an explosion in his ear and a flare of light on the horizon.

Then nothing but silence on the comm.

“Report,” Isaac snapped out.

And Griffin waited. Tense, and bright with shame that while his brothers were out there doing their jobs—and possibly paying for it—he was up on this roof thinking about a woman.

He hardly recognized himself.

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