Rachel Caine: Line Of Sight

From: Delphi@oracle.org

To: C_Evans@athena.edu

Re: FBI, Katie Rush

Christine,

Thank you for the update on the recent kidnappings at Athena Academy. I know you and your Athena Force won’t rest until you’ve safely returned the girls to their families. I have just the person for quickly finding your missing students: FBI agent Katie Rush.

Failure is not an option for Agent Rush, and she’s got the experience to bring down the abductors discreetly, with few—if any—casualties. She’s the woman you want for the job.

You most likely have her contact info, since she’s a friend of your local police lieutenant, Kayla Ryan. Knowing you, you’ve probably already put her on the case. If you need her cell number, or if there is anything else I can do to assist in this tragedy, let me know.

D.

Dear Reader,

Being asked to write for the exciting universe of Athena Force has been a great honor, as well as a great opportunity. This wonderful, popular series has a rich and colorful landscape of international settings, diverse characters and amazing stories. It has been challenging and rewarding to be a part of the Athena Force team.

I hope you enjoy Line of Sight—book one in the new Athena Force adventure—as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Best wishes,

Rachel Caine

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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is the author of two previous novels for Silhouette Bombshell: Devil’s Bargain and Devil’s Due. She also currently has six novels in her popular Weather Warden series: Ill Wind, Heat Stroke, Chill Factor, Windfall, Firestorm and the soon-to-be-released Thin Air. In addition she has a bestselling young adult series, The Morganville Vampires, with two novels currently available: Glass Houses and The Dead Girls’ Dance. The third book, Midnight Alley, will be released in August 2007.

Visit her Web site at www.rachelcaine.com.

To the fierce, fabulous authors, editors and readers

of the Bombshell line, and especially to

Natashya Wilson, for her faith and support.

What an honor to be part of the family!

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Until she chose to die, Katie Rush wasn’t completely sure she had the guts. Sure, she’d considered it, she’d trained for it, but in the end there was always a doubt: Did she have what it took to trade her life for someone else’s?

In that chaotic, oddly crystalline moment, it was very simple. She saw the gunman, she was out of rounds and there was a civilian being targeted. The calculations rose effortlessly in her brain: Given the angle of incidence, there was a seventy-five percent chance that the shooter would go for center mass, the safe shot. His ammunition wasn’t armor-piercing. Of course, there were still decent odds that he’d choose the head shot instead, which was an almost certain kill at this distance.

It didn’t even require a conscious decision. Her body just moved. She took a stunning blow to her chest, an impact that knocked her off balance and drove the breath from her lungs. She used the force in her favor, letting her weight fall against the boy who’d been in the line of fire and pushing him behind a parked car to safety.

“Agent down!” she heard someone yell, probably Special Agent in Charge Craig Evangelista; he was the one with the best vantage point of her position. She tried to take a breath but it was driven out of her by a second impact right over her solar plexus. Panic tried to smother her, but she grimly held on to her training, rolling on her side toward cover and ejecting the spent magazine of her Beretta as she did. Her right hand fumbled for the spares clipped to her belt and yanked one free, slapped it home with a precision built of hours of dry-fire drills, and completed her roll into a shooter’s prone position, elbows braced. She acquired the target in a matter of a microsecond—which was good, because he had already acquired her again—and got off the first shot.

One was all she needed. She ignored the odds and went for the head shot.

The boy lying next to her was wailing and shaking. Katie felt calm, which she expected was the inevitable adrenaline shock as much as any real self-possession. She scanned the landscape for additional threats as the rest of the team swarmed in to apprehend any kidnappers who’d survived the firefight. There had been four of them—a large crew, unusually so for such a risky crime—and they’d been more than willing to go out in a blaze of glory. Katie could only see one man alive and responding to the agents’ shouts and commands. It wasn’t the one she’d shot. He wouldn’t be moving on his own again.

She slowly got to her knees. The pain hadn’t yet registered, but she had no doubt that later tonight her body was going to hurt like hell. She’d never taken a round before, but she’d seen the deeply colored bruises on other agents who had. Bulletproof vests saved lives. There was no promise that they’d do it painlessly.

At least she could breathe again, though not deeply enough to speak. She put her arm around the boy— Samuel Kaltoff, thirteen-year-old son of a prominent Russian politician—and tried to smile reassuringly. The kid was a mess, but then, he’d been through a hellish ordeal. Three days in the hands of captors who’d shown no signs of humanity or compassion. We could have gotten him back faster, Katie thought miserably. Samuel’s dirty-pale skin showed so much bruising it looked as if he’d been tie-dyed, and that was only a hint of what had been done to him. We should have had him yesterday. Katie knew that logically they’d pushed the investigation as fast and as far as it was possible to do, but at moments like this, looking at the human wreckage left behind when law and chaos crashed, she never felt that it was enough.

The paramedics, who’d had to wait for the all-clear signal, suddenly dashed in. One peeled off toward her, but she waved him toward Samuel. Nothing they could do for bruises, and if that hot, glassy feeling in her side was a cracked rib, well, it wasn’t going anywhere.

“Katie,” said SAC Evangelista. He holstered his weapon as he approached and wiped sweat from his forehead—it was a hot day, and the vests and FBI jackets weren’t exactly summer-weight. He crouched down beside her, examining her with clinical thoroughness. He was middle-aged, on the heavy side of fit, with a bullet-bald head and big brown eyes that could look warm and sympathetic when he chose. It wasn’t necessary with her. “You trying to give me a heart attack?”

“Sorry, sir, but I didn’t see any alternative.”

He waved that away. “Not how I would have handled it, but you got the right result. Understand, the only reason we’re having this conversation now, and I’m not going to be writing the condolence letter to your folks tonight, is that you were lucky. The government has invested a hell of a lot in your training, Agent Rush. Letting some Russian mob moron shoot you ain’t exactly the return on investment they’re looking for.”