Dark Summer

CHAPTER 3

KNIFE OR gun?

Knife, Marrok decided as he knelt to examine the lay of the grass. A knife was quiet, and besides, it was more personal. He wanted to slice that bastard's heart out.

The grass was crushed beside the palm tree. This was where the shooter had stopped and climbed the tree to get the vantage point for his shot.

The shot that had taken Ned down.

Keep cool. Smother the anger. He was on the hunt, and every sense should be keen and unimpaired until he found the prey.

The phone in his pocket vibrated.

'Did I interrupt anything?' Walt Franks asked when he picked up. 'Mayhem? Any removal of body parts?'

'Not yet. I haven't found him. And I haven't let him find me. I've been dodging the local military for most of the day. But it's getting dark now, and we'll be getting together soon. I'd bet he's in the foothills waiting to pounce. Why are you calling?'

'Dr. Devon Brady. You wanted a report to make sure that it wasn't a mistake entrusting your canine friend to her.'

'Talk.'

'Thirty-two. Parents dead. She was an army brat and traveled all over the world from post to post. Married when she was seventeen to a Lester Enright. Divorced four years later. No children. Her ex-husband is a detective with the Denver Police Department. She worked her way through school and managed to save enough by the time she was twenty-seven to buy a veterinary practice from a Dr. Nicholas Gilroy, who was supposedly retiring. But he's still working with her. Frankly, I don't know how she pays him. Most of her income seems to be going to local kill- free animal shelters and paying her way on volunteer Search and Rescue disaster missions. This is the third one she's been on in the last eighteen months.' He paused. 'Guardian material?'

Hell, yes. 'That's not why I needed the info. I just wanted to make sure that Ned would be okay with her.'

'But you're thinking,' Walt murmured.

He was silent a moment. 'I may have to find a place for her.'

'Why?'

'Even after I clean up here, Danner will send someone else, and they'll find out she took Ned.'

Walt gave a low whistle. 'My God, you made her a target.'

'I had no choice. I had to have Ned cared for by someone I could trust.'

'They'll try to kill her?'

'Only after they spend a good deal of time trying to find out what she knows.'

'And you didn't warn her?'

'Ned had to be cared for.'

'And that justifies the possible torture and murder of an innocent woman?'

He didn't answer the question. 'I'll try to find a way to keep her safe. Danner won't make a move until he knows whether Ned and I are dead. If I move fast, I may be able to-'

'Keep her from getting killed but completely disrupt her life? If I were her, I'd go after you with a hatchet.'

And Marrok wouldn't blame her, he thought wearily. But that didn't change anything. He'd done what he thought necessary, and he'd do it again. Devon Brady had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and there wasn't anything he could do about it. She had to go with the cards dealt her.

The cards he'd dealt her.

'Be ready. I'll call you as soon as I make the kill.' He hung up.

The kill. He didn't even know the name of the man whose life he was going to end tonight. It didn't matter. It wasn't as if he'd never killed a stranger before. When he was a sniper in the SEALs, he'd learned it was better if you didn't know the target or think of him with any degree of emotion at all. But tonight he was full of emotion that he couldn't control. He was going to enjoy the hell out of killing the son of a bitch who had shot Ned.

He glanced at the west where the setting sun was splintering the sky with scarlet.

It was the end of the day. Devon had said that the team would be gone by evening. Soon she would be boarding a helicopter that would take her to the airport in Caracas where the canine rescue team would change to a jet to take them home. Ned would be with her. Even without the necessary dossier he'd had to get on her, he'd had no doubt that she'd find a way to keep Ned by her side. She had been wary with him, but she was all heart where Ned was concerned. He'd be safe with her.

He wished he could say the same about Devon Brady. There was no way she'd be safe. If he'd just had her treat Ned and taken him away, she might have had a chance. But he'd robbed her of all safety when he'd left Ned with her.

Stop standing here staring, he thought impatiently. What was done was done. Get on with the job at hand. Find the shooter. Make him talk before he killed him. He needed to know how he'd been found so that he could close the crack in the dam. Then he'd go get Ned and disappear again.

And try to convince Devon Brady to disappear, too.

'BE CAREFUL WITH HIM.' DEVON watched Nick and one of the orderlies lift Ned's stretcher onto the helicopter. 'He may get ner vous if we-'

'Shut up, Devon.' Nick gave her a long-suffering look. 'You're the one who's ner vous. The dog is fine.' He glanced at Devon's dog, Gracie, who'd jumped into the helicopter and settled down beside Ned. 'And it seems that Gracie is going to keep him company.'

'So I see.' Devon should have known Gracie would bond with Ned. The greyhound was one of the most empathetic dogs Devon had ever known. Loving, serious, always the mother of any new arrival in Devon's bevy of animals. She had been that way from the day Devon had taken her from a greyhound rescue unit. She'd had a broken leg, was half-starved and scared to death, but she'd immediately bounced back and became the loving Gracie she was now. 'Okay, Gracie, but keep an eye on him. Nick called him a con artist.'

She would swear that Ned gave her a glance of indignation as if he knew what she'd said.

But Gracie was contentedly laying her long elegant head on the stretcher and closing her eyes.

Devon shook her head. 'Remember, I warned you.' She jumped into the helicopter. The large aircraft was filled with dogs and their handlers, but there was a free seat beside Hilda Golding and her retriever, Socks.

Hilda was staring at Ned. 'That's the Lab that found the little girl?'

Devon nodded. 'I don't know how. Gracie went over that area a dozen times.'

'So did Socks.' Hilda scratched behind her retriever's ears. 'He must have a great nose. How is the little girl doing?'

'Good. I got a call from Caracas an hour ago. Her name is Mercedes. Broken arm, concussion, but she's awake now. They've located her grandparents, who live on an island a short distance from here.'

'That's wonderful.' Hilda leaned her head back against the wall of the aircraft and closed her eyes. 'Lord, this was a bad one. So many dead… Politicians trying to grab the relief supplies and sell them on the black market. That dog getting shot. I keep telling myself that I'm not bringing Socks on another mission, and then I get the call, and here I am.'

Devon knew how she felt. 'I always think about letting someone else do it. What would it hurt to skip one? But maybe it would be Gracie who'd find a little girl or an old man buried on a mountain or in a village. Maybe she'd be the only one to know.' Her gaze shifted to Ned. 'Like it was Ned this time.'

The helicopter was beginning to lift off. Ned didn't move a muscle, and Gracie lifted her head to glance at him. Then, satisfied, settled down again. Ned was being amazingly docile, Devon thought. Nick had told her he'd had no problem with him all day.

He won't give you any trouble. I had a talk with him.

Bull. Marrok's dog had already caused her a world of trouble. She'd had to threaten and bribe, and now owed a staggering number of favors to bureaucrats and immigration officials.

'I guess you're right,' Hilda said. 'It's not as if someone else couldn't do the job. It's all about maybe me and