“What the hell was that?”
Kate watched in helpless horror as the train station erupted in gunfire and what looked like small explosions. She dialed in. “M-One, this is Primary. What’s your sitrep?”
“Upon entry, the team ran into a pair of hostiles on the way out with the target. The standoff distracted them long enough so that a backup pair was able to ambush, terminating M-Four. We have recovered the target, and she is on her way up now with M-Two. M-Three and M-Five are also withdrawing, and I expect them to arrive shortly.”
“Okay, listen up.” This was the part she hated. “When the target is aboard, you give your people ninety seconds to arrive and if they’re not there, you withdraw.”
“Say again, Primary?”
“The rest of your team has ninety seconds from when the target arrives to get to the evacuation vehicle. If they don’t make it, you leave them behind. Acknowledge.”
There was silence, then the team leader replied, “Affirmative.”
The Finish Line
Room 59
Cliff Ryder
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Jonathan Morgan for his contribution to this work.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
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
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
As he watched the nude, writhing, sable-haired woman rock back and forth above him, Harry Vaughn could scarcely believe his luck. Ah, the fringe benefits of being a radical environmentalist, he thought, trying to hold out as long as possible, to prolong their lovemaking until the very last second.
Her long locks falling over her face in a black curtain, Marlene leaned over and kissed him hard, nipping his lip in the process and making an animalistic growl rise in Harry’s throat. Pulling back, she laid a slender finger against his lips. In the dark hours of the fog-shrouded London evening, they had to be quiet, lest they wake any of the other half-dozen mates of his cell crammed into the flat they had rented at Edgar House.
He felt the familiar pressure in his loins, and clenched his pelvic muscles, gritting his teeth as his hands cupped her breasts. While Marlene wasn’t quite as well endowed as Harry would have liked, she had a coiled intensity that more than made up for what she may have been lacking. He’d certainly seen it before. It was the certainty that they might be arrested or even killed at any moment while preparing for and carrying out their mission. With that knowledge came the belief that every moment of freedom was precious, and should be enjoyed to the fullest before they went out to spread a plague through London’s city streets. Harry himself had likened them to modern-day samurai, exhorting his comrades to fear neither the police nor death itself, as long as the mission was completed. That Japan’s medieval warriors were often totally subservient to the state was a fact he was careful to omit during his carefully honed speeches.
Although his rhetoric was sometimes greeted with amused scorn, Marlene hadn’t scoffed or sneered, just regarded him with those smoldering, dark brown eyes that had made his groin tighten as he had returned her steady gaze on the first day they had met. As the elder statesman of the group, which had formed under the loose auspices of the leaderless Earth Liberation Front, he had sat back and watched as the younger men, filled with their self-important nattering, had tried to gain her affections ever since she and her brother had joined their cell about two months ago. The lucky ones had escaped with only their egos bruised. One young man had been so embarrassed after his failure that he had quit the group entirely.
Harry had simply bided his time, waiting for the right moment. It had come three weeks earlier, when she had visited the room where he stayed alone, by virtue of being the leader, in the early hours of the morning. She had come by every few days since, and they had kept their relationship private by mutual consent, not wanting the others to labor under the dividing sting of jealousy. The mission was all that mattered.
He heard Marlene’s ragged breath quicken as she leaned back again, her slim body settling on his thighs, and he increased the tempo of his thrusts, exulting in the small stabs of her nails on his skin as she rode him toward climax. Their coupling grew more rhythmic and frenzied as Harry, unable to contain himself any longer, bucked and arched beneath her, wanting her to come, as well. Even with the condom she’d insisted on, she made him climax faster than any other woman ever had.
Throwing her head back, Marlene’s breath hissed out between her teeth as her body shook in a long, shuddering spasm, completely lost in her own pleasure. At the same time, Harry felt that familiar white light explode behind his eyes as he also trembled in release. With one final jerk, Marlene leaned forward to collapse on him, her chest heaving.
“Goddamn, that was amazing.” Harry kept his voice to a whisper as he stroked her hair. He had been with many women in his thirty-eight years. The eco terrorist gig had always been a magnet for women—whether they were somewhat naive university students newly committed to the cause, or older women slumming while providing funds to fuel their low self-image. There was just something about the outsider, the rebel, that drew them like cats to clotted cream. Fortunately, both of us usually end up purring afterward, he thought.
She rolled off him with practiced economy and burrowed under the sheets, one hand snaking out to the cluttered nightstand to grab a crumpled cigarette packet. “Bloody hell,” she said.
She tossed the empty pack on the floor, eliciting a frown from Harry. Unlike the more radical members of their group, he knew the value of a shower, and liked to keep his quarters neat, one of