Thin Line Read Online Free PDF Page A

reduced visibility made it impossible to verify the safety of our surroundings. It'd be nice if it worked both
    ways, and to an extent it did. But all the shooter had to do was verify that the door opened.
    Remove any threat regardless of the danger the actions presented to the public.
    The first hundred feet were the worst. My heart pounded against my chest like a pent-up bull ready to explode through the gate. I searched through the
    white veil, but the exercise was pointless. To make it worse, Bear had crossed the street and was walking opposite me.
    Recalling maps I studied earlier, I knew that none of the alleys running between the buildings would offer us an escape route. So we hurried toward 6th
    Avenue, and turned north. After traveling another block, I crossed the street and met up with Bear.
    Few cars were out, but the sidewalks grew thick with people eager to beat the brunt of the storm home. While the snow accumulated quickly on the sides of
    the road, the sidewalk was a pile of slush.
    We were far enough removed from the brownstone that I started to feel confident we would not be followed. As an added measure of security, I pulled the
    battery from my cell phone, broke the device in two, then tossed the three components into three different trash cans. We wouldn't return to the café
    to pick up Bear's cell either. That wasn't an option. And it didn't matter. These were throw-away phones, good for no more than a day or two.
    Bear pointed at a diner fifty feet ahead. "Hungry?"
    I wasn't, but recalling the scene at the brownstone and the condition of most of the building left me with a desire to wash my hands.
    And I could always go for a cup of coffee.
    We entered the empty diner and took a seat at a table that had a wrap-around booth in the corner of the dining room. It offered a view of the diner and the
    street, and we both could take advantage of it without having to sit side by side. They didn't make seats big enough for that. I left Bear with
    instructions to order me a coffee and then slipped into the bathroom to clean up. Not long after I returned to the table, a dark-haired waitress dropped
    off a water and a steaming mug of java.
    Bear soaked in the scene. His gaze traveled from empty table to empty table, lingered on the members of the waitstaff that were visible, then finally
    passed me over and settled on the street. "Thoughts or theories?"
    I shrugged. "Just a matter of how he knew. Was he tipped off by the sight of you, or did someone tell him?"
    "Who would've done that?"
    "Your guess is as good as mine."
    "Problem is we don't know who all knows about the job. Your guy got it from someone who might've got it from someone else. They could've offered it to
    another group, who turned it down for whatever reason, one of those reasons possibly being a working relationship with the target. In which case, they told
    him, so he knew it was coming. All it took was one 6'6" guy to look out of place."
    "Then a homeless guy is dead. But why? If he could disappear, why not just disappear? I mean, what would you do?"
    Bear leaned back, one arm over the top of the booth, hand dangling behind it, out of sight. He considered the question for a moment. "Guess it depends on
    what I thought of that bum. Maybe the guy was a royal pain. Kill two birds with one stone. You get rid of the guy, and you tell your newly acquired enemies
    that you don't play games."
    "By playing the ultimate game."
    That was the issue with our work. We had a single contact within each of the agencies, at the Pentagon, Langley, so on. That's who reached out to us with
    contract work. I knew each of them either by name or alias, but none like Frank Skinner. At one time, he and I had been partners. Agents in the SIS. But
    even when the job came from him, we never knew the identities of the players behind the contracts, or how high up the command came from. And it never
    mattered. Bear and I continued to play the part of the good soldiers. We did as