The fact that our task is
exactly as large as our life makes it infinite.
--Franz Kafka
Chapter One
The wind shifted to blow from the north but no sound emerged from the surrounding woods. The silence was unnatural. Nightshade tensed, every sense on hyper-alert.
Nothing was hidden from her view. In the clearing near the dark chopper was a puddle of darkness. It could just be shadows from the clouds covering the moon, but she sensed a human presence there.
Tremaine. As smart as he was lethal, Elias Tremaine had once been a master spy for Her Majesty's Intelligence Agency. Frustrated with agency bureaucracy--he'd crossed over to the life of a criminal and never looked back. A tall thin man with a wiry build, Tremaine was a challenging adversary.
Her father had taught
her to respect the enemy. Because when you got cocky you
got dead. Nightshade didn’t want to die--she was still
young and had too much to live for. Her old man had learned
that security was an illusion and had raised Nightshade to
protect both herself and those weaker than she was.
Except she'd done a piss-poor job of saving her childhood pal, Senator Ellingham's son, Perry. But had evened the score by killing Tremaine's right-hand man.
She shut out everything, narrowing her focus to that dark shadow. She waited. The Glock 9MM automatic felt like a natural extension of her arm. And he moved, quickly and jerkily. She'd hit him earlier with their exchange of gunfire. She sprang to her feet a lethal machine one with the darkness, sprinting to intercept Tremaine.
He pivoted as she approached, leveling his gun at her. Still in motion, she leapt in the air using a forward kick to hit him solidly in the shoulder. A gunshot exploded and she felt the bullet graze her thigh. She catalogued the surface wound to worry about it later. Bringing all of her weight down on him. His head bounced against the concrete of the landing pad.
Nightshade twisted her heel in his shoulder until he cried out and his fingers opened. Keeping her gun trained on Tremaine, she stooped and picked up his weapon, tucking it into the back of her waistband.
Leveling the Glock at him, she watched him squirm. Killing had never really been a part of the job she liked. In fact, it was the one thing she genuinely hated. But sometimes, the mission called for it.
She
wanted justice for Perry's death. She wanted to exact the
kind of eye-for-an-eye retribution that her father had always
advocated. There wasn't any sense in paying for criminals
to live out their worthless destructive lives on our dime,
he liked to say. And today she agreed with him.
She knelt beside Tremaine and pressed the barrel of her Glock against his temple. A killing rage swam through her body blinding her to everything except the desire to kill this man. Every instinct she had screamed for her to pull the trigger. Her finger trembled and she started to squeeze.
Sweat beaded Tremaine's brow and he shivered under her foot. She pressed the barrel harder against his skin. It would be so easy--and so hard.
"Kill me
if you're going to."
She almost did, but at the last moment eased her finger from the trigger before her emotions could get the better of her. Killing Tremaine now--like this would make her little better than he was.
He rolled toward her, knocking her on her ass. And the tables were turned. He towered over her, a six-inch switchblade in his hand.
She fired at his shoulder, blood spurted and ran down his hand, but he didn't drop his weapon. She scrambled to her feet as he advanced on her. Never taking her gaze from his menacing figure.
Tremaine watched her with cold eyes and she knew she'd made a stupid, rookie mistake in not cuffing him when she'd had the chance. Her orders were to bring him in alive. She didn't need her gun to take Tremaine. She holstered her gun.
He feinted to the left and then attacked her with a swipe of his knife. She dodged the blow easily and countered with a front jab that connected solidly with his jaw. His head snapped back and he growled at her. And then he surprised her with a roundhouse kick to the chest. She was stunned momentarily but quickly recovered as he sprinted for the chopper.
She concentrated all of her energy on ignoring the throbbing pain in her thigh. She ran after him, landing him with a sidekick. He fell in a broken heap. His head impacting with the solid ground again. He moaned with pain. Nightshade landed with one foot on his wrist, pinning him to the ground. She stooped, grabbed his wrist and twisted it behind his back, bringing his other hand with it. She cuffed his hands together with a zip cord and stood.
She keyed the small radio mike attached to her collar and asked for a pick up. She watched Tremaine carefully; he was much too quiet to be trusted. She heard the far off sound of a crying baby.
She pivoted to scan the landing pad. A child? The cries grew louder and louder. What the hell?
