Someone entered the living room.

Rutskoi had been in a constant state of alert, but now adrenaline rushed through his body, heightening his senses even more. He loved this. He was born for this.

It was time. He felt it in every cell of his body. It was happening now.

The fiery red, gold and green figure walking into the room was slender, narrow-shouldered, with shoulder length hair. The woman.

His trigger finger loosened slightly.

Rutskoi breathed evenly, in and out, letting the adrenaline settle throughout his body. Enough to sharpen him, not enough to make his hands tremble.

Perfect.

The woman walked to the center of the room and picked something up…it was hard to tell what she was doing as her back was turned. Ah. It looked like she had opened a bottle of wine and was pouring. Knowing Drake, the bottle was undoubtedly excellent, rare and expensive.

He’d never live to drink it.

The woman’s head turned and she walked to the door. Rutskoi tracked her through his thermal scope. A man walked into the room. Not overly tall but with immensely broad shoulders. Drake.

The woman was kissing him.

It made for a bad shot. A doable shot, of course. A.50 caliber bullet could go through the woman, through Drake and through the door behind them and the wall beyond that.

But he didn’t like the angle and the odds. He waited, patiently, observing them kissing, detached and cold.

Okay. The woman was backing away, holding Drake’s hand, leading him toward the center of the room, toward the large hearth. The intense heat from the fire distorted the picture. Drake’s body heat would be lost in the greater heat of the fire. Rutskoi had to shoot before Drake walked in front of it.

The woman’s heat signature disappeared as she moved in front of the fire, her hand outstretched, holding on to Drake’s. He was walking toward the fire, in profile.

Shit. The best shot would be frontal. Rutskoi had to make a split-second decision. To aim for a profile requiring millimeter precision, dealing with the distorting effect of the thermal signature through a dense glass that could deflect the bullet, or to wait for Drake to turn and present a full-frontal target.

Every ounce of training and experience said wait.

Rutskoi lay, alert but not tense, focused but not overwhelmed, right leg slightly bent for stability as was the Russian sniping style, and waited.

Drake had one hand on the mantelpiece. Rutskoi remembered that mantel—a huge monolith of white and gray marble—just as he remembered everything about the room. He remembered the luxurious sofas covered with cashmere throw rugs, the deep carpets, the antiques. Drake lived like a prince. Goddammit, Rutskoi wanted to live like a prince, too.

Ah! Drake was turning, the woman was walking back toward him carrying something. A glass. He was reaching out for it with one hand, the other still perched on the mantelpiece.

Turning, turning…

Yes!

Rutskoi took a breath, breathed half of it out, waited until he was between heartbeats, and pulled the trigger.

Fourteen

Drake was smiling at Grace, reaching for the glass of wine she held out to him, when she tripped on a rug. Instinctively, he moved fast to catch her before she fell.

And the world exploded.

He went down on his hands and knees, head hanging low, watching a slow dripping of something thick and red, not understanding what. Nothing moved, his vision dimmed, sound had deserted the world.

And then vision, hearing and understanding came back in a sick rush and he realized they were under attack.

Shards of marble were flying off the mantelpiece as bullets gouged enormous holes. One, two, three.

Someone was firing at where he’d been a second ago, firing.50 caliber bullets, judging from the size of the holes and the fact that they penetrated his bullet-resistant windows. If Grace hadn’t tripped, three.50 cals would have turned him into human hamburger in an instant.

Grace!

The shots kept coming, at a steady pace, set to single-shot fire, shot by a man who knew what he was doing but who couldn’t see what was happening.

Drake fast crawled to where Grace was crouching in front of the sofa and threw himself on top of her.

“Stay down!” he shouted, wishing he could somehow crush her down below the ground so she wouldn’t in any way be a target.

His movements were clumsy, slow. He wasn’t clumsy and he wasn’t slow. His slow reflexes told him he was concussed, and he swore. He needed all his wits about him to get them out of here, but he could barely think.

“—invisible?” Grace said. She was still under him, head turned to take instructions from him, eyes wide with fear.

Another bullet smashed a large Ming vase. Drake curved over Grace, trying to shield her as much as he could, sharp shards piercing his back.

Drake shook his head, trying to say he didn’t understand her, but no words came out. He scanned the room, trying to figure a way to the door, but his vision was blurred and he saw double.

Another thunderous shot exploded above them, and another.

Whoever the sniper was, he’d have plenty of ammo. This was a planned hit.

Drake had to get them out of the room fast, because sooner or later, one of the bullets would strike its target. Even a shoulder-or thigh-shot from a.50 caliber bullet would prove fatal in seconds. There would be no way to staunch the blood—they’d simply bleed out fast.

Grace was shouting something over the noise. Something about—

The clouds in his head parted for a second and meaning rushed in.

He put his mouth close to her ear. “He’s using a thermal imager. It doesn’t matter that he can’t see through the windows. He’s seeing our heat signature.”

Another bullet crashed into the floor two feet from them, gouging a hole inches deep, then another a foot away.

The shooter was laying down withering fire, getting off a round every five seconds.

Though his muscles had lost most of their strength and coordination, Drake gritted his teeth and rolled off Grace. “Crawl!” he shouted. “Crawl to the edge of the fire!”

He thought he was shouting but his voice came out frighteningly weak. He coughed and wiped his mouth. His hand came away red.

Oh God, no. Jesus no. Had he been lung shot? If he had, he had only minutes to live, and he was leaving Grace to die alone. He refused even the idea of it.

Drake tried desperately to take in a deep breath, while trying to stop the room from spinning. He breathed in hard. There was no sucking sound. He hadn’t been shot through the lung, thank God, but he was badly concussed.

“Drake!” Grace put her face right next to his and he realized she’d been shouting at him and he hadn’t responded. She looked terrified. Another shot went straight through the sofa and into the wall, inches from them. “Drake, answer me!”

Drake coughed again and tried to lift his head. It felt as if he had lead weights in it. “Get—” He coughed again, desperately trying to pull in air. “Get close to the fire. Heat…distorts.”

A series of shots in quick succession, but off the mark, burying themselves into the wall over the fireplace.

The room filled with the deafening sound of a fusillade of bullets.

Grace looked confused, glancing back at the window. Drake narrowed his eyes, trying to focus. The shooter was concentrating fire to punch a hole through the window.

Drake reached out and took Grace’s face in his hand. He turned her to face him, desperately trying to make her understand. “Thermal…imager,” he gasped. “He sees our heat.” He wheezed heavily, trying to gulp in air. “You need to stay close to the fire…”

They needed to blend their image with the fire’s image. The shooter wouldn’t see human shapes then, only a wall of fire. Somehow Grace understood. She nodded and started pulling him toward the fire.