Deadly Testimony (Safeguard #2)(68)







Chapter Twenty-Three

The moon was hidden beyond a low ceiling of clouds but it wasn’t unusual for the Seattle area. It wasn’t even going to be much of a problem. Live in or near a city of any decent size and there was always going to be a certain amount of ambient light no matter how late at night.

Lizzy was dropped off by the cab at the Harbor Island Marina. Theoretically, she worked there and had left her car in the parking lot. So the nice cabdriver, who’d kindly offered to wait for her, drove away with a wave once she’d jingled some keys at him and assured him she would get home just fine.

The evening had been full of smiling and waving. Her cheeks hurt.

She’d traded her cocktail dress and gorgeous shoes for a simple black T-shirt and pants with dark combat boots. Now that the cabdriver had driven away, she slid on urban fatigues over her close-fitting clothes. It’d be warm but at least the patterning on the fatigues would break up her shape, make it harder to spot her.

Leaving the rest of her gear in her duffel, she slung it over her shoulder and headed north toward the shipping container areas covering the majority of the small island.

The cranes were visible in the night, rising up over Harbor Island and looming against the immediate skyline. Given the choice, she’d have made her way to the upper parts of one of them to choose her vantage point. But she’d had a party to get to and reinforcements to round up. Chances were, her opponent was already here and tucked into his own perch.

Damn the bastard for getting out here before her.

She kept as quiet as she could approaching the outer perimeter sticking to whatever cover was available to her. The other sniper could take a shot at her at any time if he spotted her. She needed to find him first and neutralize him.

It was close to midnight and there wasn’t a lot of time for this game. The two of them could sneak around for hours trying to get the higher ground and clear shot on the other. If he knew she was here.

Hell, she’d done this before and it had taken days before she’d managed to take down her opponent in the middle of nothing but dust and rocks and sand mites. And there’d been the goddamned camel spiders too. At least here the worst she had to worry about were roaches. Maybe.

Circling, she searched the shadows for him. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. She continued to sweep her gaze systematically across the terrain as she let her training regulate the speed and rhythm of her blinking to keep her eyes fresh despite the strain of trying to see in the dark. After a short time, she began to search more efficiently as her eyes adjusted even further to the lower light.

Minutes ticked by and she worked up a sweat searching the outer rows. Finally, she waited for a facility lamp to flicker out and climbed a stack of shipping containers before the light stuttered back into brightness again. Sucking in huge lungfuls of air once she got to the top, she struggled to keep as quiet as possible. Damn, running was fine but her ability to climb quickly but quietly could use some additional training.

Lying flat on the storage container, there was no higher point in the area with the exception of the cranes. From here, she hoped she’d be able to find him or else she’d be climbing the cranes one at a time to try to sneak up on him.

But she was betting he wasn’t in the cranes. Based on his previous perch, the one she’d investigated with Kyle, he liked a sheltered nook with multiple choices for a hasty retreat. They were also susceptible to significantly greater influence by the wind coming up off the waterway. It’d make any shot more complicated. He was more likely to be on the shipping containers, tucked into a hidey-hole with a clear line of sight on the meeting place.

As her breathing normalized and her heart rate recovered, she shimmied farther along the top of her crate alligator-style to avoid unnecessary noise. At the edge, she waited until she recognized each of the night sounds. The splash of water against the edge of this industrial island out in the waterways. A random seabird or two. The dull roar of distant engines as planes left the nearby airports and flew past Seattle. She took each sound, identified it and disregarded it as she searched for the sound that didn’t belong.

It was the scent that helped her locate him first. The sweet smell of bubblegum wafted to her as a light breeze picked up. She turned her face quickly into the wind and studied the area ahead of her.

She eased her own rifle and scope out of her duffel. First she checked that the scope shade tape was still in place to be sure no random reflection of the scope would betray her location, then using the scope, she took a closer look at both the far stack and the near. Of course he wasn’t lying directly on top the way she was. But she’d hoped to see some hint to give her a target. She had to find a way to identify where he was and get her shot.

At this point, she needed to do something unconventional to flush him out.

Leaving her rifle out, she slipped it into place across her back. Tightening the three-point harness hard against her body, she made sure it wasn’t going to flail at all while she climbed. She shimmied back down off the high stack she’d been using. Reaching back into her duffel bag, she came up with a flare and a flash grenade. Neither of them was particularly quiet and both of them were about to ruin his night vision.

Hey, even ninjas require some help to go unseen.

She uncapped her glorified road flare first and closed her eyes as she lit and tossed it along the edge of the nearest container aiming for the darkest shadow in the aisle. As it flew and skittered noisily across the ground she jogged toward the first stack, keeping far enough away to keep the top edge in sight. As she put distance between her and the flare, it began to burn brighter and brighter until a hundred new shadows danced in the red light.

Piper J. Drake's Books