Get ready!
Rory, In the Company of Snipers, Book 6
is coming in February 2015
A tear?
Junior Agent Rory Dennison’s sixth sense jolted to life as
the tear fell in slow motion, an iridescent crystal drop he couldn’t stop
watching—or keep from falling. It tracked over Nima Dawa’s pudgy cheek,
reddened from the chill of late October. The liquid pearl bounced when it hit
the black velvet gathers on the four-year-old’s dress, then twice more until it
cleared the tucks and folds and dropped to the concrete at her feet.
Even then, he watched its impact, a soundless splash of
saline that should not have caught his eye the way it did and meant absolutely nothing. Or did it?
Nima offered one short little sniff and a nod to her father,
Mr. Sonam Lobsang, a Tibetan dignitary with no particular political clout or
power. All he wanted was to place a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown in Arlington National Cemetery.
In an
unusual request, he’d asked the FBI to provide protection for himself on this
visit to the States. But for Nima, he’d gone straight to his friend, Alex
Stewart, owner of the elite covert surveillance company, The TEAM, and Rory’s
boss. It seemed the Tibetan dignitary did not trust the Bureau with his most dear treasure. Only with him.
Nima’s lower lip puckered. Quivered. Sadness shifted over her face. For an incredible instant, all innocence was gone. She
was not just a little girl dressed up for her father’s special day. She
appeared older. Infinitely wiser. Frighteningly un-child-like. She
was—something else.
Rory’s heart jumped to his throat, choking him. He shook his
head, blinking hard to chase the apparition away. In that short half-second it
took to do that, she transformed again. The person or entity—or whatever he’d seen, was gone. The somber child was back.
Like heck. His heart wasn’t thundering
for no reason at all. He’d seen something. But what?
The proper answer failed to materialize, but hyper-vigilance
sure did. Fear constricted the calm right out of him. It hadn’t been that long since he’d come home from the Middle East battle
theater, less since he’d nearly died during a horrendously tough operation in
Sonora, Mexico. His fingers turned to ice. The sickening sensation of impending doom crept up his throat, suffocating him.
Suddenly the world was not a safe place to be any longer. Danger was
too near. Death, too imminent. But from where? A quick scan of the docile crowd
gathered around the Arlington Amphitheater revealed no reason for the spike of adrenaline pouring into his gut. No
abnormally nervous twitch amongst the onlookers disguised a hidden agenda. No
darting eyes. No hands in pockets holding concealed weapons, either. No suspicious predator lurked
in the midst of that flock of sheep. He would know. He’d hunted predators
before.
The National Cemetery had never looked so—normal.
Or felt so—not.
