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The Breach - Ghost Country - Deep Sky

The Breach - Ghost Country - Deep Sky

Titel: The Breach - Ghost Country - Deep Sky Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Patrick Lee
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bore of a Beretta, not two feet away in the hiker’s hand. He flinched and, recovering just enough to keep from taking a hard step, moved a foot to the side, out of the weapon’s line of fire.
    Where the fuck had it come from? The guy had made no mention of it earlier, when he asked the fat-ass in the tractor hat about guns.
    Calming, Karl stared at the hiker. The pistol was steady in the guy’s hand, all things considered. In the eyes there was fear but not panic. Had anyone visible stepped into the doorway, this guy wouldn’t have hesitated to kill. That wasn’t quite what Karl had expected from a random civilian. Well, some people had more of the devil in them than others.
    He took a step toward the man. By providence the floor directly at the threshold kept its silence. His next step—also quiet—put him where he needed to be. His left hand went to the Beretta’s barrel, not touching it yet, but encircling it. His right he drew back, tensed.
    Travis waited. Whoever was out there could only be feet away. He considered opening fire through the wall. He could put a shot every six inches until the clip ran dry. But if he used every bullet and missed anyway—if the killer dropped too low or was farther down the hall than he sounded—then it would all be over.
    Silence now. Ten seconds at least. It was worse than the creaking.
    Then he felt the gun in his hand jerk impossibly downward, as if drawn by a supermagnet in the floor—but before he could even process the sensation, pain exploded below his ear, his vision flaring white. Then black.
    What had happened? Awareness came back slowly. He was lying on his chest, face to the floor, ankles bound together. His hands too, behind him—the bind felt like duct tape. Another loop surrounded his head, covering his eyes.
    He was still in the room with Paige. Her breathing was worse; how much time had gone by?
    Now he remembered the baffling movement of his gun, and the blow to his head from nowhere. Had it really happened that way, or was he remembering it wrong because he’d been knocked out?
    A man spoke, the voice deep and without emotion. “Tell me where she hid it.”
    Travis considered the options, each so bleak he almost didn’t care to choose. If he said he didn’t know, and if the guy believed him, he’d turn his attention on Paige instead. Could she even be woken at this point? Maybe, with enough pain. This guy would have no qualms about administering it. On the other hand, if Travis said he knew where the thing was buried, the guy might decide Paige was of no use and kill her immediately. Really, almost every outcome he could imagine ended with both of them dead inside of an hour.
    Except one—the worst one, and probably the most likely. Without a doubt, this guy had the means to contact the team in the valley. They could be here with the helicopter in twenty minutes, grab him and Paige and be far away before help arrived.
    When would help arrive? How long had he been unconscious? If he could stall for time, maybe it would only be a little longer. He and Paige wouldn’t survive, of course—the guy would kill them before fleeing, no question of that—but at least they’d only be dead. The lesser evil by a wide margin. Holding up the show by even ten minutes might make that possible.
    “It was fun killing your friends,” Travis said.
    The man didn’t respond.
    “The little guy with the cattle prod, especially,” he continued. “Then again, technically, I didn’t kill him. He managed to survive. Briefly. Should’ve seen what happened to him then.”
    “I hear it was fitting,” the voice said.
    “No, it would have been fitting if he could have smoldered alive for three days.”
    “Where’s the Whisper hidden? Did she bury it? She couldn’t have carried it far without heavy containment, which she didn’t have.”
    “We played catch with it for a while, then we got bored, decided to head back to town. It’s probably just lying wherever we left it.”
    The floor strained. When the man spoke again, he was closer. “Sarcasm doesn’t come naturally to a man in your predicament. It sounds like a contrivance to me, which means it has a purpose—and for now, that tells me all I need to know.”
    Then he lifted something—it was heavy and plastic, from the sound it made against the wall—and left the room. He was only a few steps into the hall when Travis heard the digital tones of a phone number being punched into a keypad.
    “He

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