Free For King & Country by Robert Asprin, Linda Evans, James Baen

knew the man who climbed out into the raw night, who glanced toward her abruptly darkened window before turning and heading toward the lab, crossing the road at an easy jog.
Damn, damn, damn!
He was making his move and she was out of position, wasn't ready... And there was no time to call in the Provos team that was supposed to make this hit...
    She stuck the gun into her coat pocket, hands shaking, made sure of her own ID card to get through the security door, headed into the wind and the downpour at a run, slithering through puddles and mud and filth. She had a longer way to run than he'd had, her cottage being farther than his. She fumbled the card at the reader, had to grope through muck to find it, wiped it against her skirt and got it, shaking, through the reader. The door clicked and released and she yanked it open, jerking the gun from her pocket and slipping inside. She slid the Makarov's safety downward with her thumb, ready to fire with a simple double-action, first pull of the trigger. He had a good five-minute lead on her...
    She caught the sharp, coppery smell of death instants before his fist caught the side of her head. Brenna crumpled into blackness, knowing only the terror of defeat.
    * * *
    The telephone shrilled somewhere close to Stirling's ear, shattering sleep and jangling his nerves. He groped in the unfamiliar darkness, fumbling the receiver onto the floor with his wrist cast. He tried to read the time on the bedside clock as he searched along the cord to find the handset again. Bloody murder!
Two-thirty a.m.?
    "H'lo?"
    "Captain Stirling!" He didn't recognize the voice.
    "Who is this?" he demanded, coming slightly more awake as the panic in that voice hit home.
    "It's Marc Blundell. Dear God, you have to come at once! We're sending a car for you, there's been a disaster at the lab."
    That woke him up. "What kind of disaster?"
    Blundell gulped, voice shaking. "It's... it's Dr. Beckett. Someone's killed him."
    Oh, sweet Jesus... "Get that bloody car here yesterday!" Stirling was already out of bed and moving. "And for God's sake,
no one
leaves the building! No one in or out, except me."
    "But—"
    "But
what
?" He already had his uniform buttoned and was slinging on his gunbelt with the ease of long familiarity.
    "The constables..." Blundell quavered. "We'll have to contact the police—"
    "Like bloody hell you will!
Nobody!
Got that? Not even the local bobby, not until I've seen
everything
firsthand!"
    The project liaison gulped audibly over the line. "Yes, sir. Oh, God,
please
get here quickly! There's more—I daren't say what over an unsecured phone line."
    Stirling snarled under his breath.
Worse
he did not need. "The car's just pulled up," he muttered as headlamps stabbed past the curtains in his cottage window, sending shadows swinging wildly. "I'll be there in five minutes."
    He grabbed up his field kit, carefully prepared before leaving London, and ran, lurching on his bad knee. He snatched open the driver's side door. "Move. I'll drive."
    Bad knee or not, he could outdrive any graduate student on the planet, and Miss Dearborne was shaking violently behind the wheel. She slid frantically into the other seat. Stirling gunned the engine and squealed out onto asphalt. He didn't even take time to fasten his safety belt. The road roared past in the wake of their passage, tearing great holes in the drizzle and mist. Water sheeted down across the roadbed. Ghostly trees skittered and jumped as he skidded the Land Rover through the turns.
    He tried to recall who'd left the pub and in what order—and when. Significantly, Brenna McEgan had left first, pleading weariness. Cedric Banning had followed shortly thereafter, leading Stirling to wonder who might be sleeping with whom. A couple of computer techs had left early, as well, and Zenon Mylonas had called it quits a quarter of an hour after that. A whole laundry list of potential suspects.
    He took the turning onto the access road on two wheels, drawing a