At the roof’s edge, she put down her bag and set up her perch, the rifle a cool, familiar weight in her grip as she quickly assembled the weapon and slid a loaded magazine into place. When she finished, she inspected the surrounding scenery through the lens of the high-powered scope.
Nobody on the roof of the building to her right, the other likely location for a sniper to set up shop, though that could change at any moment. In all probability, the Russian assassins were working with the same intel as her and Vaughn, and they’d know Antonina Petrov ate lunch at the Thai restaurant across the street every Monday, Wednesday, and sometimes on Friday between the hours of eleven and two. The only variation in the routine was who accompanied her. Often, it was her husband, but sometimes a coworker assumed the role if he wasn’t available.
Essie had read the woman’s dossier so many times she could practically recite it from memory. Though, to be fair, there wasn’t all that much information for her to recall. A large chunk of it covered the period from Petrov’s childhood to when she bolted from the family’s California compound because they’d planned to marry her off like chattel to some dirtbag from another crime family. After that, she’d done an exceptional job at dropping out of sight. No credit cards or social media accounts. No work history outside of her current employment. Hell, according to Google, this particular Petrov didn’t even exist.
It must have taken considerable effort—or perhaps a stroke of dumb luck—for anyone to uncover her whereabouts after more than a decade of obscurity.
To ensure nobody paid her an unexpected visit on the roof, Essie had set up a pair of motion sensors in the stairwell that would send an alert to her phone if they were triggered. That would give her enough time to get out of sight and determine whether the intruder was a maintenance worker, an employee sneaking off for a smoke break, or somebody with darker intentions.
After trading the rifle’s scope for a pair of binoculars, Essie adjusted the fit of her wireless headset and settled into a prone position at the roof’s edge.
“Ready,” she said into the mic, and a second or two later Vaughn responded with a clipped, “Copy.” He was somewhere street level, tucked out of sight but ready to neutralize any threats against Petrov as soon as they were identified.
In the world of surveillance, patience was more than just a virtue; it was a critical key to success. It wasn’t exciting. It certainly wasn’t glamorous. But she watched and waited and stayed on high alert, because things could go from ho-hum to holy crap in no time at all.
Minutes ticked into hours. No sign of Petrov or the Russian team, but every so often she caught a glimpse of Vaughn, though he didn’t stay visible for long.
Thankfully, the weather forecasters had been correct about clouds moving in and taking the edge off the Florida heat, or she would have been a sunburned puddle on the rooftop by now. Still, the humidity continued to build, and it hadn’t taken long for her jeans and T-shirt to become shellacked to her skin.
A low-pitched ping carried over her earpiece, a notification from her phone that she’d received yet another text message from Jackson, and a warm, fuzzy feeling spread through her that had nothing to do with the outdoor temperature. He’d been sending at least one a day since that night at the country bar.
It would be easier to ignore them if they were angry, or threatening, or just plain annoying. But they weren’t. Most of the time they were simple greetings, him hoping that she was having a good day, or a short and sweet “Thinking of you.”
She’d read his message later, and then, even though she should really delete it, she’d archive it with all of the others.
Looking back, she still couldn’t explain why she’d accepted Jackson’s marriage proposal. She’d pondered it a lot over the years. She’d loved him—still did; there was no point in denying it—but spontaneous decisions of that magnitude had never been her thing. Perhaps she could chalk it up to a raging case of hormones—or temporary insanity.
Or perhaps it had been the raw emotions in his eyes when he’d gone down on one knee. His promise to love, honor, and cherish her forever. It had taken her breath away. She’d never felt that kind of connection, so fierce and strong and all-consuming, and she supposed a part of her had yearned for someone to treat her as though she were actually special, like a princess in one of those ridiculous fairy tales.
Unfortunately, love wasn’t enough to hold a marriage together. It required open lines of communication, and neither of them had been any good at that. How could they? At the time, they’d both had careers that demanded a high degree of secrecy, so it wasn’t like they could talk shop over dinner at the end of the day. She couldn’t share how she got that bruise on her back, or why she struggled to sleep at night, just as he couldn’t explain the scar on his arm that he’d tried to conceal with yet another tattoo.
Then there were the times apart—sometimes months at a stretch without much notice and often without an explanation. Each separation and secret kept only added to the growing chasm between them. Eventually, it grew so wide and deep that no bridge could possibly span the gap.
In the end, she’d done them both a favor by filing for divorce. If anything, she should have done it sooner. Experience had taught her a long time ago that happy ever after was nothing more than a myth perpetuated by fairy tales, greeting cards, and sappy romantic movies. Inevitably, something always came along to destroy the happiness.
The trill of an alarm in Essie’s earpiece brought an abrupt end to her marriage postmortem. Her pulse jumped because the alarm meant the motion sensor in the stairwell had been tripped and she was about to have company. She grabbed her things and ducked for cover behind one of the large air conditioning units.
Seconds later, the door swung open and a man walked onto the rooftop. He was tall and burly, well over six feet, wearing jeans, white T-shirt, and a blue baseball cap, the camouflage of an urban hunter. Early forties, if she had to guess. A pair of wraparound sunglasses shielded his eyes, while a sorry excuse for a beard failed to hide his weak chin. He carried a plain black duffel bag similar to hers, which he placed a few feet from the roof’s edge, eerily close to where she’d set up her perch.
She didn’t know the man personally. No surprise there. Covert operatives didn’t make a habit of fraternizing with enemy agents. But she was familiar with Artem Pashkevich’s reputation within the intelligence community. The Russian national was a seasoned contract killer with at least two dozen corpses to his credit, and that number was probably a lot higher. If given the choice, he preferred to work with his hands but was also highly proficient with a wide variety of weapons. Last she’d heard, he’d set up shop in South America, helping a tin-pot dictator cling to power by any means necessary.
If life were a James Bond movie, this would be the part where she crept up behind Pashkevich, knocked him unconscious with a well-placed blow to the back of his head, and turned him in to the proper authorities.
Too bad life wasn’t a movie. There was fifteen feet of gravel between them, and that pretty much ruined any chance of a stealthy approach. Not to mention, she’d rather not get that close to him. The guy was built like a freaking bulldozer and knew how to handle himself. And though she was highly proficient in hand-to-hand combat, the odds of taking him out with her bare hands were not in her favor.
While he unzipped the duffel bag and assembled his weapon, Essie slipped into position and flipped the safety off her rifle. The dumbass must have assumed there were no enemy operatives in the area, or maybe he was just plain reckless, because he never bothered to check his surroundings for possible threats.
That mistake would cost him his life.
Essie never took pleasure in delivering death, but during her time as a spy she’d learned how to compartmentalize it, because sometimes you had no choice but to do bad things for the greater good. Pashkevich murdered people for a living. He didn’t care who his victims were or what they’d done to bring him to their door. All that mattered to him was the money. And if she didn’t stop him right now, he’d murder an innocent woman.
Not making a sound, Essie raised her weapon and lined him up in her sight. On a slow exhale, she eased the trigger back, the silencer muffling the sound from a bang to a crack. Pashkevich jerked when the bullet ripped through his skull, his rifle falling from his callused hands as he collapsed into a heap on the rooftop.
Quickly, she crossed to where the man lay and kicked his weapon out of reach. For the sake of being thorough, she checked for a pulse, and when she found none, she removed his earpiece, wiped it clean, and placed it in her left ear.
A barrage of rapid-fire Russian came over the tiny speaker, and although Essie was fluent, it had been a few years since she’d last heard the language spoken. It took a few moments for the words to coalesce in her mind, but she immediately recognized one of the voices as belonging to Rudolph Bazarov. The sound evoked a visceral response, though she managed to tamp it down.
“Artem, answer me. Where the hell are you?”
