“LOOK!” JESSI SHOUTED AND as one the group turned to follow her pointed finger. Above their heads, between the buildings, they could see someone hanging off the edge of the roof.

Marco radioed Dave. “Can you tell who it is?” he asked.

“No. They’re out of my sight now, behind the next building over.”

Terrified that Creed was going to die on his watch and he’d have to explain how it had all gone wrong to Henshaw, Marco rushed for the entrance to the building, praying he’d be in time.

SLOWLY, EVER SO SLOWLY, Annja reached up with her other hand, being careful not to twist and pull herself off the roof. Gradually, inch by inch, she managed to get her other hand over the edge of the rooftop.

She rested there a minute, then began to pull herself upward, as if doing a chin-up, intending to get herself high enough to throw an elbow over the edge and secure some leverage to pull the rest of her body back to safety.

Unfortunately, the roof had other ideas.

The low wall that lined the outer edge of the roof had seen more than its share of harsh winters, acid rain and time’s steady but corroding hand. The section Annja was clinging to chose that moment to voice its displeasure at the conditions it was forced to endure by crumbling beneath her weight.

One minute she was pulling herself upward, the next she was twisting in the wind again, barely hanging on with one hand, while chunks of masonry plummeted to shatter on the street far below.

She wanted to kick her legs and flail about with her arms, but she fought the instinctual motion that her body cried out for and willed herself to hold still. Any extraneous motion at this point could pull her right off the roof.

To make matters worse, her left hand was starting to slip, as well. She could feel her fingers slowly sliding backward, one millimeter at a time.

She guessed she had less than a minute before her hand would slide totally free.

After that, it was all over.

MARCO DASHED UP THE STAIRS three at a time, muttering under his breath all the while.

“Hold on,” he was saying. “Hold on, hold on.”

He kept a sharp eye out for whoever it had been that Annja had been chasing, but he didn’t meet anyone on the stairs, and by the time he burst onto the rooftop his attention was solely on rescuing the woman whose life he was supposed to be protecting.

He couldn’t see her from where he stood and he didn’t have time to search every side.

He keyed the radio.

“Which way?” he asked, nearly frantic with worry.

Dave was immediately on the line with an answer. “Left. In the middle.”

Marco rushed over to the edge.

ANNJA TRIED TO SWING her right arm up and over the edge, but the motion only served to make her other hand slip faster. She wrapped her thumb over the tops of her fingers, bearing down, but it was too late—she’d slid too far and couldn’t find any traction to keep from slipping farther.

“I am not going to die like this!” she said through gritted teeth, and was about to call her sword, thinking she could jam it into the masonry or something as a last-ditch effort, when she heard footsteps charging in her direction.

The Dragon.

Apparently letting her fall to her death wasn’t good enough; he had to help her along the way.

Well, two could play at the game.

As her fingers began to slip faster, Annja brought forth her sword. If she was going to die, she would do what she could to take the Dragon with her.

MARCO RUSHED OVER TO the edge. As he drew closer he saw her hand, and watched in dismay as her fingers slid backward.

“No!” he shouted, and dove forward, arms outstretched.

The fingers of his left hand touched something soft, something alive, and he seized it with all the desperation he could muster.

He felt her fingers wrap around his wrist in return, locking them into a mountain climber’s grasp.

Then her weight asserted itself and he felt himself being dragged forward.

His head popped over the edge the roof and he found himself staring into those amber eyes he’d first noted in that photograph back in Paris.

The sword that was suddenly thrust upward at his face was a shock.

He closed his eyes and instinctively jerked his head back, while simultaneously trying to brace himself against the pressure that was pulling him forward.

“Hold on, lady!” he shouted, trying to preserve his cover without even thinking about it, so ingrained was the instinct to keep from revealing who he was or what he was truly doing there.

He got his knees braced against the wall and planted his feet, stopping their forward slide. Now all he had to do was pull her up.

ANNJA HAD NO IDEA WHO the guy was or where he had come from, but she was suddenly glad she hadn’t skewered him when he’d poked his head over the edge. Jabbing her sword into his chest might have ended his rescue attempt a bit prematurely.

As it was she was starting to doubt that he had the strength to pull her up, but she’d let him worry about that because she could barely feel her arm.

The minute she’d realized he wasn’t the Dragon she’d released her sword back into the otherwhere, and now she used her right hand to reach up and grab on to his wrist from the opposite side, trapping his arm between both of her hands.

Well, if you’re going to fall, at least you won’t be going alone, she thought grimly.

Her Good Samaritan was stronger than he looked and with a few heaves backward he managed to pull her up and over the ledge and back onto the rooftop.

Then he collapsed onto the ground and tried to catch his breath.

Annja didn’t blame him; her heart was racing a bit wildly at that moment, as well.

“Are you all right?” he gasped out eventually.

“Yeah. Thanks to you,” she said.

He shrugged it off, apparently not the prideful type.

But something wasn’t feeling quite right to Annja and she wanted to know more. “How did you know I was in trouble?” she asked, and despite nearly falling off the roof she watched him closely.

He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the stairwell. “I was on the stairs, headed for my apartment, when I saw you through the window. I knew there was no way you were going to make that jump,” he sucked in another lungful of air. “So I ran up the stairs.”

“And here you are.”

He nodded, and then turned to look at her for the first time since he’d pulled her to safety. “Yep. Here I am.”

Good enough, she thought. So far he hadn’t said anything about the sword, so maybe she should get out of there while the going was still good.

She climbed shakily to her feet, thanked him again for saving her life and quickly left the roof, and his protests, behind.

It was only when she was halfway down the stairs that it occurred to her to wonder what he was doing up and about at that hour of the day.

Just be thankful he was, she thought, and left it at that.

MARCO MADE SEVERAL HALFHEARTED protests to keep Annja from leaving, but he was relieved when she did. If she had started asking any more questions he would have been hard-pressed to answer them. This way, he at least had a shot at keeping the surveillance team from being compromised.

He waited a good half hour before making his own way back down to street level. Annja Creed was nowhere in sight, so he kept his head down and headed for the preplanned rendezvous point.

Marco wanted to have a long talk with Dave. If he found out he’d been sleeping on watch again…

EXHAUSTED FROM THE FIGHT and from the release of all that adrenaline, Annja returned to her loft just long enough to pack a change of clothes, grab a first-aid kit and throw on a pair of shoes. The Dragon had been in her apartment once, possibly more than that, so it wasn’t safe for her to stay there anymore. She knew a decent hotel a few blocks away and she decided to hole up there for the time being until she could figure out just what to do.