Fire Point Read Online Free PDF Page B

on the coffee-table, next to a laptop computer. Lock motioned for Ty to follow him out onto the balcony. Together they scanned the apartments opposite for any sign of a sniper. Nothing. The only person they could see was a middle-aged man on an exercise bike. He appeared not to have registered that a shot had been fired. Then Lock picked out the white earbuds of his iPod.
    To the left was the road that led down to the other blocks in the complex. Beyond the road, gangways led down to the boats. There was no sign of movement on the road or the boats, not that Lock had much of a view of either. Ty was on his cell to the security office. They hadn’t seen anyone. Nor had anyone left.
    It could be that the shooter was on one of the boats. Either that or they were holed up somewhere else in the complex. In one of the underground parking structures or an apartment.
    Finding them would be next to impossible without a lot of boots on the ground. A single shot fired with no one injured and the only damage being a broken door was hardly going to get a huge response from law enforcement. Even in somewhere as usually quiet as th e Marina.
    More importantly, there was no sign of Marcus Griffiths. There was no blood, no indication that anyone had been injured. Given that his mother had spoken to him not long before, when he had seemed fine, Marcus Griffiths couldn’t even be considered a missing person.
    The two men looked at the drop from the balcony to the ground. ‘What you think?’ Lock asked his partner. ‘He hears the shot and jumps?’
    ‘It’s grass, so it’s doable. He hears the shot, followed by someone yelling outside in the corridor and decides to split by the fastest route available,’ said Ty.
    Lock’s eyes narrowed. ‘But if he does that he’s running toward the shooter.’ Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw Tarian walk into the apartment.
    ‘Where is he?’
    She kept walking toward them.‘He’s not here, but that’s not a bad thing. Look, you’d be better waiting in the corridor. We still have someone out there with a gun, and they’ve already taken one shot at this place.’
    Tarian took in the broken glass. ‘I need to find my son.’
    She started to move again, heading for Lock and Ty. Side on to her, out of the corner of his eye, Lock caught the speck of movement down below. He turned to see someone move behind a metal ventilation grate at the very bottom of the apartment block opposite.

15
     
    ‘Threat!’
    As Lock shouted, he made a dive for Tarian, throwing himself toward her, pushing her back through the open door. He tackled her at the knees, like a rugby player. His shoulder caught the back of her legs – the fastest way he knew to collapse someone and get them on the ground. She yelped with surprise, and shrieked with pain as her knee banged against the floor. Lock was on top of her, his body covering hers. If a shot came through the doors, he would take it first.
    His reaction and the speed with which he moved were the result of years of training, and endless repetition. It took hour upon boring hour of walking drills and debus/embus procedures, as well as more static security drills, to shave tenths of a second from your reaction time – to go from being the quiet man to a raging bull.
    Less than five seconds after he had spotted the threat, Lock glanced back across to the balcony. Crouched low, Ty had drawn his SIG Sauer 226 from his holster and was taking aim.
    There was the crack of a shot from down below. Another round whistled through the open glass door, and embedded itself in the wall.
    ‘Ty!’ Lock said. ‘You see the shooter?’
    ‘I see them.’ Ty’s answer came by way of a squeeze of the trigger as he fired at the metal grate. There was a clang as his shot hit metal followed by a moment of silence. Then he growled, ‘Missed the motherfucker. He’s on the move.’
    Lock could feel Tarian’s breathing, smell her perfume, feel the heat coming off her body. He eased