Killing Time Read Online Free PDF

seduces him—he’s already drunk so it’s no big trick—lures him outside into the alley, drugs him, and hauls him to this dive of a hotel. Last time I checked, she had him cuffed to the bed.” Before setting up her audio surveillance, she’d made a foray out onto the terrace with a mirror on an extendable shaft. It hadn’t taken much to size up the situation. “She’s keeping a bead on him with his own gun. The drunken fool fell for her honeypot trap like an amateur.”
    “Who’s the guy?”
    “I’m supposed to know that? You sent me to watch her, not introduce myself to her playthings.”
    And as with all of her jobs, even for him, she made a point to limit her information to absolute need to know. She didn’t want to know motive, she didn’t want to know their history; she only needed to know what he wanted done.
    “Describe him to me. No. Wait. I have a feeling I can tell you exactly what he looks like. Big guy? Tall? Diamond stud, left ear? Silver screen material?”
    He was spot-on right. “So you know him.”
    A heavy silence passed. “Yes. I know him.”
    Despite the pulsating heat of the city sifting in through the open doors, the dangerous undercurrents in his voice shot a chill down her spine. The hair on the back of her arm stood at attention as the adrenaline rush she always craved mainlined through her bloodstream.
    “Have you been able to eavesdrop on their conversation?”
    “If you mean, did I install a bug, the answer is no. They got here before I did, so there was no opportunity to plant one. I did get a room next to theirs, however. Lucky for you I never leave home without my Stealth Gear.”
    The little black box amplified sound; the supersensitive ceramic contact microphone fed into a pair of earphones for audio monitoring and allowed her to listen through walls several inches thick. The device was reliable to a fault, unless there was an air gap in the wall that could garble the transmission and provided the batteries didn’t die. Unfortunately, there was an air gap so her intel gathering was limited.
    “I’ve only been able to pick up bits and pieces of their conversation. One thing keeps coming up. Something about Operation Slam Duck?”
    A long silence, then a correction. “Slam Dunk.”
    “Yes. That could work. Whatever it is, they’re pretty angry at each other. She’s accused him of gettinga bunch of people killed in Afghanistan. For the most part, he’s telling her to go take a flying leap.”
    “Sounds like Brown.”
    Whether she liked it or not, now she knew the man’s name. “Friend of yours?”
    “I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” he said, ignoring her question, which in itself was telling. He definitely knew Brown. Interestingly, the steel in his voice was heavy with regret.
    Her pulse rate kicked up again because she knew where this was heading. Most of her contracts started out as surveillance and ended up as something different entirely. Which was why she never traveled without the MP5K.
    “Change of plans,” he said abruptly. “Take them both out. Tonight.”
    Anticipation kicked up her heart rate. Now things got dicey. And lucrative. “It’s going to cost you.”
    “Triple the agreed-upon amount.” No hesitation. “Deposit to the same account?”
    All righty then. “That will work, yes.”
    “The money will be there within the hour.”
    She smiled. “And may I say that I not only like the way you do me, I like the way you do business.”
    “I don’t want either one of them leaving Lima alive.” The lethal edge in his voice said that friendly conversation was over. “Make it look like a lovers’ spat. A drug deal gone sideways. I don’t care. Just get it done and get out of there.”
    Abruptly, the line went dead.
    Thoughtful, she tugged off the earbud and tossed it into her duffel. She stared a little longer at the ceiling, thinking about the two occupants of the room next door. She had already been running kill scenarios through