Free Arch Enemy by Leo J. Maloney Page B

drop.
    He heard a final shove of the couch and then footsteps in the apartment.
    No more time to hesitate. Morgan reached for the drainpipe with his right hand, getting a firm grip through his glove, and pushed off the window. The drainpipe whined as his body swung, but it held. He grabbed it with both hands, feet against the wall.
    He let his hands slide down the pipe like it was a rappel rope. He made it one floor down before one of the attackers stuck his head out the living room window.
    â€œOver here!”
    The next time Morgan looked up at him, he was staring down the barrel of a Glock 19.
    Oh, hell.
    Morgan released his grip on the pipe. He felt the gust of the passing bullet in his hair. And then he fell.
    He landed on the bushes, wind knocked out of him.
    Another crack of the gun. The slug burrowed into the frozen ground between his legs.
    But this time, his hands were free.
    He drew his PPK and fired twice up at the window. One bullet found a pane of glass and the other only brick, but it was enough to force the shooter to retreat inside.
    Morgan extricated himself from the branches and drew himself to his feet. With an eye on the window above, he squeezed past the bushes to get at the laptop carrying case, a few feet away.
    Morgan fired another shot and scaled the fence, leaping over it in under three seconds to land on the snowy sidewalk on the other side.
    A bullet hit the iron with a resounding clang .
    Morgan ran under a hail of gunfire. These guys might be coordinated, but they were piss-poor shots. He covered the distance to the end of the block and turned the corner, safe out of the line of fire, and ran the two blocks to his car.
    He drove away to the sound of the first approaching police siren.

Chapter 11
    S pent amid damp rumpled sheets of Egyptian cotton, Lily Randall watched Roger Baxter as he walked, naked, to the bathroom. He switched on the light and stepped onto the black marble floor, pulling the handle on the shower. Water sputtered and gushed. The sound was then muffled when Baxter closed the stall door.
    Lily ran still-tingling fingers over where his savage caresses had left her raw. She’d played these rough games before. She didn’t care for mincing or unconfident men. But it wasn’t that Baxter was self-assured, or even that he liked to perform the dominant role. He wasn’t playing at using her. He was using her, full stop. She felt like nine holes at the links. Like wine at a tasting, to be spit out in a communal silver bucket.
    But then again, she was also using him.
    Lily drew from her clutch the device Shepard had supplied—tiny, squarish, about the size of a dime and with a protuberance that connected to the data slot on a cell phone. This would, upon insertion, install a piece of spyware that would relay all incoming and outgoing communications back to Zeta. As Vice President of Operations, Baxter would be their link to the entire smuggling operation.
    She leapt off the bed, walking catlike on the cold hardwood floor, shivering. Baxter liked his room icy.
    She found his pants, rumpled on the floor, the belt still threaded through the loops. No phone and no wallet. She tried the jacket next with no luck. Safe was next. She found it in the closet, open and empty. She cast a nervous glance at the bathroom. His phone. Where was the damn phone?
    She pulled open drawers in the bedside tables and desk and ran her hands under the pillows. Nothing.
    Her gaze returned to the bathroom door. Steam was billowing out, the shower still going strong. She walked to the door and peered in. There it was, on the sink by the shower, on top of a thick leather wallet.
    No, you didn’t rise to the position of Chief Financial Officer of Acevedo International by being trusting. Even—especially—of the women you sleep with.
    She went inside, barefoot, taking light steps. She reached out for the phone and looked back at the shower stall. Baxter had swiped the condensation off