Kill Switch (9780062135285) Read Online Free Page B

tongue lolling, his eyes bright.
    They were now near the eastern edge of the dockyard. Directly ahead, across a gravel lot, lay a set of train tracks, lined with abandoned and rusted freight cars. Their quarry had vanished among them.
    Beyond the train yard, a perimeter barbed-­wire fence rose high—­and beyond that, a dense pine forest.
    Aside from the muffled dock sounds in the distance, all was quiet.
    Suddenly Kane’s head snapped to the left. A section of the barbed-­wire fence shook violently for a few moments, then went still. In his mind’s eye, Tucker envisioned a second target wriggling through a gap in the fencing to enter the dockyards from that direction, using the cover of the forest.
    Why?
    Searching farther to their left, he spotted a tall crane tower, once used to load the freight cars. The tower was one of the six potential sniper perches he had marked in his head.
    Tucker checked his watch. Fedoseev would arrive in six minutes. Hurrying, he pulled out a pair of small binoculars from his jacket’s pocket and focused on the top of the crane. At first he saw nothing but indistinct scaffolding in the swirling snow. Then a shadowy figure appeared, slowly scaling the ladder toward the high platform.
    That’s who came through the fence just now—­but where’s the guy I was following?
    He considered calling Yuri with the abort code, but even if his message got past that gatekeeper, his boss’s careless bravado would win out. Fedoseev would not back down from a threat. Bullets would have to be flying before the industrialist would consider a retreat.
    It was the Russian way.
    Tucker dropped to his belly and scanned beneath the freight cars. He spotted a pair of legs moving to the right, disappearing and reappearing as the figure passed the steel wheels. Whether this was in fact his guy, he didn’t know, but it seemed likely.
    He reached back and drew the Makarov PMM pistol from the paddle holster attached to his waistband. A decent weapon, but not his preference.
    But when in Rome . . .
    He looked over to Kane, who was crouched on his belly beside him. His partner’s eyes had already locked on to the target jogging down the rail line, heading away from the man climbing the crane.
    Tucker gave a one-­word command, knowing it would be enough. He pointed to the target moving on the ground.
    â€œT RACK .”
    Kane took off, silently sprinting after the man on foot.
    Tucker angled toward the left, toward the crane tower.
    Hunched over, he swept across the gravel lot, reached the train yard, and belly-­crawled beneath a freight car and down the sloped ballast into a drainage ditch beyond. From the meager cover, he spotted the gap in the perimeter fencing; the cut was clean, recent.
    To his left, a hundred yards away, rose the crane tower. Rolling to his side, he zoomed his binoculars and panned upward until he spotted his target. The assassin was perched on a ladder a few feet below the crane’s glassed-­in control cab. A gloved hand reached for the entry hatch.
    Tucker quickly considered taking a shot at him but immediately decided against it. With a rifle, perhaps, but not with the Makarov. The distance and the scaffolding made a successful hit improbable. Plus the snow fell heavier now, slowly obscuring the view.
    He checked his watch. Three minutes before Fedoseev’s limousine entered the main gate. Fleetingly, he wondered about Kane, then brought his mind back to the task at hand.
    One thing at a time, Ranger. Work the problem.
    Let Kane be Kane.
    Kane runs low to the ground , his ears high , picking out the crunch of boot through ice-­crusted snow. The command given to him is etched behind his eyes.
    TRACK .
    He sticks to the shadows of the rusted cars , following the dark shape through the whiteness , which grows thicker. But his world is not one of sight alone. That is the dullest of what he perceives , a shadow of a larger truth.
    He