Page 133 of Lone Wolf

From the base of the tree, he could hear her gurgling.

Lengths of two-by-fours had been hammered into the venerable trunk, forming a crooked ladder up to the tree house.

He climbed.

Her breathing grew louder as he pulled himself up toward the hatch cut into the platform. Then he was through.

Through his SOCOM-spec BNVD-31 unfilmed white-phosphor night-vision goggles, her blood pool reflected bright, almost white. He clicked the goggles off and locked them up against his forehead.

Karissa Lopatina was still on her back, and the blood slick had spread around her, and in the moonlight it shined up a dark reflection of the wind-played branches bobbing above.

He stood over her.

Her teeth were chattering, but she focused her voice. “Nice … shot.”

“Sorry I didn’t get you clean.”

“It’s done.”

“Yes.”

“You … got me … let’s … skip … small talk…”

“Okay.”

“Might as well”—her lungs seized up, her head tipping upright and then thunking back down—“pleasant … as possible…”

“Okay.”

“Can you just…” She rolled her head toward him and her eyes pulled up to white and then came back online. “… just … shut up … and … hold me?”

Evan stepped across the puddle of blood to her intact side, lowered onto his knees, and eased down beside her. She was shuddering.

She turned slightly, groaning with pain, and seated her back against him, two spoons nested together.

She clutched his forearm and shuddered some more, all her muscles trembling.

“Just want … warm…”

They lay there together. It didn’t take long.

Her breaths grew quick and shallow, and then came a terrible rasp. Her left knee bent, her boot scraping, and then the leg kicked long.

She wasn’t shuddering anymore.

He extricated himself and stood over her for a moment. Those pronounced cheekbones, the cool-blond hair, that plain even-featured face. It was hard to imagine the manner of brutality she’d been capable of.

He climbed down the tree and started for Allman’s estate.

61

Shhh Shhh Shhh

Scaling a fifteen-foot-high powder-coated steel fence topped with anti-climb razor spikes presented a trying but not insurmountable challenge.

Adhesion-based climbing devices for sheer walls were generally insufficient outside of science fiction. Fortunately, a Silicon Valley biomimeticist with whom Evan had violently collided on a past mission had started several relevant projects with DARPA which Evan had kept tabs on. One such enterprise produced suction paddles that replicated the feet of geckos, which have millions of tiny hairs around each toe. All those fine hairs create van der Waals forces, where atoms in close contact create an attraction. At the moment, Evan was interested in neither geckos nor Dutch physicists, but he needed to get over the wall and would take any help beast or man saw fit to offer.

The paddles he was currently clinging to were lined with nanoridged silicone skin. They were connected to foot stirrups that, when engaged, evacuated extra air from the suction cups above, enabling stronger adherence. Tommy Stojack, purveyor of rare and distinctive tactical gear, had sold Evan a beta version of the contraption that had been liberated from an Arlington lab by a disgruntled engineer.