Page 3 of Edge of Danger

Ian’s gut clenched. He knew this drill. And it wasn’t pretty. But he’d seen it often enough to have become numb to it. This place had that effect on a soul. It sucked the humanity out of a man and left only a hollow husk behind. No surprise that Khartoum was touted as the birthplace of practically all the world’s most violent and vicious terrorists, Carlos the Jackal and Osama bin Laden heading up the hit parade of Khartoum’s infamous scions.

Another Jeep pulled up. That alley behind him was starting to look distinctly better. Where were Dharwani’s men? Surely, they would respond to this aggression. This was an outright declaration of turf war. For a moment, he got the sensation of watching swarms of insects fighting over the crumbs of a picnic. They didn’t even look like human beings to him down there, with hopes and dreams and mothers somewhere who loved them. Damn, he was getting jaded. Next time Uncle Sam offered him a long rotation stateside, maybe he ought to consider taking the offer.

The remaining women’sabeyasbillowed in a gust of hot breeze as they retreated to the illusory safety of the building. The guy in the street was on his own. A spark of compassion poked at Ian’s callous shell. It wasn’t that they were cold-hearted bitches. It was just that they, too, knew the score. The man could die, or theyandthe man could die. He didn’t blame them for choosing to live to see another day.

If he ever had kids, this kind of crap shouldn’t exist in their world. And at the end of the day, that was why he was out here, hot and miserable, and watching this shit fest unfold through a rifle sight.

El Noor’s thugs commenced beating the man, kicking and rifle whipping him. The victim fought back, but the thugs were quick, strong, and surprisingly efficient. The guy went down fast, staggering into one of his attackers and grabbing the El Noorman’s shirt as he fell. A flash of white showed at the neck of the olive camouflage fabric, but then the attacker swung the butt of his rifle, landing a vicious blow to the side of the local man’s skull.

Ian was startled. These dudes really knew their way around beating a guy to death. He’d never seen any of El Noor’s thugs demonstrate this sort of cruel efficiency before. Had the warlord upgraded his cadre? Maybe invested in some freelance mercenaries to train his guys? The powers that be in Washington would be interested to hear about this little development.

Dull thuds of steel on flesh and the victim’s screams drifted upward, pleas to a merciful God who clearly did not exist. The guy was probably dead by the fifth or sixth blow the way El Noor’s super-thugs were going at him. But they continued swinging their rifles, beating the victim’s dead body into hamburger to make their point to the locals peering out from behind their curtains at the extravaganza.

It was a demonstration of raw brutality Ian could do without. Faintly nauseous, he forced himself to sink into the cold detachment this line of work so often required of him. It was just a job. Someone had to do it, and as chance would have it, this moment had fallen to him. It wasn’t personal. Just work. He never failed to be surprised, though, when no one intervened in one of these scenarios.Welcome to hell.

Rather than watch any more arcs of blood sail through the air and land in modern art splats on the dusty street, he ranged his scope up and down the city block, then across the opposite rooflines. A glint of…something…caught his eye. He zeroed in on the metallic flash where no such thing should be, positioned on a rooftop near the left end of the street. His right thumb depressed the gun sight’s zoom button and the pinpoint flash of light raced toward his eye, growing exponentially in size. It came into focus.

Shit.

Two round black circles pointed at him, large over small, scope over barrel.

Another sniper!

And the weapon—a Sig 550 modified sniper rig with what looked like a Kahles telescopic sight—was pointed directly back at him. For a shocked instant, Ian’s one-eyed gaze locked with that of the other sniper, scope to scope.

Piper Roth dived for the flat roof below the raised lip of the storefront serving as a shield.Holy crap!Breathing heavily, she lay there, rough asphalt shingles burning her cheek.Who was that?Why hadn’t the other sniper shot her? Cautiously easing upward, she pressed an eye against her scope once more. The other shooter was gone.

Damn, damn, damn.

Grabbing the rifle, tripod and all, and slinging it over a shoulder, she leaped for the back of the roof. Crouched low. Dodged around a rusty rain cistern and slammed the rappelling clip, pre-tied to an escape rope, which was pre-tied to a leg of the cistern, onto a belt loop. A running jump off the roof, one-hundred-eighty-degree twist in mid-air to catch herself against the wall with her feet, jarring herself from foot to hip. She absorbed the blow, pushing up and away from the wall in a giant, leap-frogging descent.

Her feet hit the ground. Thank God. A stumble, and she ripped the clip free.The rope. No time to retrieve it. No biggie. This observation post was blown anyway. Whowasthat guy?

Time for the rest of her emergency egress plan. Down to the end of the alley. A quick look out into the street, a block over from the action. Fortunately, the boulevard was deserted,compliments of the shots fired a few minutes ago. She took off running.

At the next corner, she slowed, breathing heavily, and peered around the bullet chipped corner of a building into the crossing street. A flash of movement disappeared behind a building, moving away from the scene of the beating. Could be a local fleeing for cover.Could be the other sniper.

Paralleling the guy’s path, she eased around the corner, hugging the dusty slivers of shadow for what scant cover they could provide. She glided forward slowly now. The sun was oppressive, blistering the street cruelly. All was as still as an old western town, moments before a shootout between gunslingers. Not even a puff of air passed through to stir a bit of dust. Hopefully, this game of cat-and-mouse wouldn’t come to that.

No help for it. What safety there was lay on the other side of the street. She started across the broad boulevard, sauntering without an apparent care in the world. People in this place smelled fear like they smelled supper cooking and responded to both like ravenous dogs. She was dressed as a man and needed to move like one. If her cover were blown and she was found out for a woman—she didn’t even want to think about what would happen to her.

She made the far curb and let out the breath she’d been holding. A narrow alley loomed between an occupied building and the shot up shell of what used to be a grocery store. She took off in a short sprint to the other end.

Another street. Another slow saunter across its Grand Canyon width, and another mad dash down a fetid alley—this one an informal trash dump for the area. Up and over a pile of foul refuse—plastic bags, chunks of concrete, and the contents of chamber pots.

The third crossing street yielded a glimpse of a running figure. Angling toward her.Dammit. She broke into yet anothersprint and spurted several blocks forward. Paused. Looked left. Right. No alleys nearby. Just a shelled out apartment building, five stories high. It was a maze of partial walls and sudden openings. Not great, but better than nothing. She ducked inside the ruin.

Ian stopped in the middle of the street, looking around urgently. Where in hell had the other sniper gone? He’d completely evaporated. The guy had been standing right here, hesitating, and then he’d just disappeared.

Hehadto find the other sniper. It was his job to knoweveryonewho walked these streets. Not to mention his life might depend on knowing all the players. Who else had a man in the area, and why had he been sent? Another government? A private operator? Was the other sniper only here to observe? Or was his purpose more direct? More sinister? Some of the baddest motherfuckers on the planet scrapped and fought—and sold their services—on these streets. Men who made Carlos and Osama look like Girl Scouts.

Nobody came to Khartoum for the weather.

The hull of a dead apartment building loomed before him. He picked his way over the ground floor of the building’s crumbling concrete remains, its steel bones exposed and twisted. No self-respecting sniper would trap himself on the top floors of a layout like this. He frowned. Unless there another way down from the upper floors besides the wrecked central staircase he’d just spotted…

Too many questions rattling around his head. Not enough answers. He eased up the pocked concrete stairs, poked his head up cautiously, and glanced around the hollow shell of thesecond floor. It was too quiet up here. Too still. On a hunch, he descended the stairs he’d just climbed, as quiet as a panther. He raced across the littered, grafittied ground floor toward the back of the building. He was taking a gamble by giving up the front exit. It left an escape route for the other sniper.

He emerged behind the building and spied the remains of an iron fire escape dangling precariously from a few rusty bolts in the back wall. He sure as hell wouldn’t want to try it. He estimated the thing wouldn’t take more than a couple hundred pounds max. And with the other sniper toting around a heavy rifle and gear, that didn’t leave a hell of a lot of body weight to spare.

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