Hard Target Read Online Free PDF Page A

Tonight he appeared tired and careworn.
    “I suppose technically you could call it burned if you mean laid waste to my life. She gave evidence against me in court…” Bitterness laced Simon’s tone. “Evidence she likely planted.”
    Alex gaped at Simon. Opening and closing her mouth several times, she only managed an incensed, “I did not.”
    “I heard your testimony, or had you forgotten my existence so thoroughly by then you didn’t notice me in the courtroom?”
    “Oh, I noticed.” Alex decided not to dignify the rest of his accusation with a response. “How could I not? Considering the way orange clashes with your hair?”
    Chair screeching across the linoleum, Simon stood. He moved so quickly Alex barely managed to remember she owned a gun much less draw it from her holster. He loomed over her. Nostrils flared, color high, he was the personification of fury.
    “What a pity.” Simon’s jaw barely moved as he spoke. “I wore it for you.”
    “Sit down.” Alex pointed a finger to Simon’s chair.
    “Coward,” he said.
    “Traitor,” she replied.
    The light in the room altered as Ryan changed the displayed photo on the projector. The gesture spoke volumes. Sit down. Behave. Let’s get this done. Alex withdrew. With one last glare at her, Simon sat.
    “Gibbons is going to approach you in the next few days about a job for John Downing.” Ryan reiterated their objective and directed Simon’s attention to the screen.
    The billionaire businessman in question stared coldly out at them. Günter sat forward and exchanged a look with Simon. With that one glance he asked myriad questions. Did he know the man? What did he think of the job the FBI was asking him to do? Would he agree? She remembered sharing that same silent rapport with Simon once upon a time, and found herself envying Günter’s place.
    “Will you do it?” Ryan interrupted the silent conversation. “We’re getting nowhere by traditional means.”
    “What do you mean nowhere?” Simon toyed with his paper cup. “What’s really going on here, because I’m not flying blind. Are you trying to pin something on him?”
    “Besides the international arms trades you’ve been washing the money for?” Alex’s words came out a little more acerbically than she’d intended, but really how could Simon work for a man like him?
    Simon’s mouth opened and closed, painting him truly shocked. Had he not known where the money he was laundering went? Or had he convinced himself he didn’t care?
    “Well, first we have to figure out why he’s interested in this painting, but yes,” Ryan said. “We’re trying to nail him for a number of crimes.”
    Simon folded one of the empty sugar packets into progressively tinier squares. “What are you trying to find exactly?”
    “That’s classified, but I think you’ll recognize the information when you come across it.” Ryan adjusted the focus on the picture and Downing’s glossy visage sharpened. “Just do as he asks and we’ll take it from there.”
    “Oh that’s brilliant.” Günter crossed one ankle over his opposite knee. “Send an operative without backup into a viper pit and expect him to make it out alive? Or would Simon’s death be a convenient bonus for you all?”
    Recalling a rumor she’d heard about Günter and a job he’d botched, some said deliberately, for his former employers, Alex said, “I’ve heard you know all about coloring outside the lines.”
    Simon answered for his partner, “Things aren’t always what they seem.”
    “Thanks to you, Dr. Jakes?” Alex gave him her best saccharine smile. “I learned that lesson a long time ago.”
    Simon went still, his fingers ceasing their torment of the sugar packet. “I never lied to you. I never stole anything from you. Or the FBI. Or the CIA.”
    How she wanted to believe that. Everything in her being strained toward the idea, attempted to catch and hold on to it with the innocence of a child on Christmas morning. But