Kill Zone: A Sniper Novel by Jack Coughlin, Donald A. Davis Page B

“Maybe we should reconsider, Kyle. I’ve had the strangest feeling that something bad is going to happen. And that I won’t see you again.”
    Sixth sense, witchery, hunches, woman’s intuition, or whatever, she had it in spades. Her ability to not only connect the dots, but the spaces between the dots, was what made her such a great intelligence analyst. Shari’s brain dwelled in a place where one and one did not necessary always equal two, and Kyle always paid attention when she got one of her feelings. This time, he downplayed it. “Fat chance. I’m like a boomerang. I always come back to you.”
    “Yes. But after that last mission, the cross-border incident, you caught a lot of flack and they tried to make you the scapegoat. A lot of people would just like for you to go away, Kyle. Who know what they may hand you next time? Maybe something where you’re not supposed to come back.”
    “Never gonna happen, Shari. I know how to play their game too well.”
    She kissed him, pulled away, and looked around. The deck was empty. “Then maybe I should give you even more reason to come home.” She slipped the straps of her black dress from her shoulders. “So look at me, I’m Sandra Dee!”
    “Who the hell is Sandra Dee?”
    “You know. Gidget?”
    “What’s a Gidget?”
    “Shut up before you ruin the moment,” she said, and slid the loose folds of her dress down to her waist. Her breasts gleamed gold in the volcano firelight. Kyle brought her close and lowered his lips to her nipples. Shari moaned softly, and he ran his hands over her soft skin. Then her hand moved along his leg.
    “Unless you want to be screwed right here on this expensive teakwood deck, young lady, I suggest we retire in great haste to our suite,” he whispered. Kyle saw a familiar impish look come into those dark eyes.
    “In a minute, Marine. In a minute.” Shari pushed him against the chill steel of the bulkhead and dropped to her knees, reaching for his zipper while Stromboli painted the night. In a few moments, Kyle thought that the volcano was not the only thing erupting that night. When he finished panting, they rushed off to wrestle between white silk sheets.
    There was a loud pounding on the door, and Kyle heard Tim Gladden calling loudly from the passageway. “Kyle! Shari! Geoffrey wants you in the main cabin right away to see this incredible news report on television! A Marine general has been kidnapped!”
     

CHAPTER 10
    UNITED STATES SENATOR RUTH Hazel Reed of California—called Ruth Hazel by her friends and Rambo by her enemies—would replace her very dear colleague, the late Senator Graham Thomas Miller of Kentucky, as chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. She was an attractive woman with blond-going-gray hair that was as stylish as her tailored wardrobe. The slender body was kept under strict control through rigorous exercise three times a week and a delicious diet provided by her private chef.
    “Congratulations, Madame Chairwoman,” said National Security Advisor Gerald Buchanan, lifting a glass of seventy-five-year-old scotch in a toast. They were standing before a warm fireplace at the mansion of Gordon Gates, deep in the fox country outside Culpeper, Virginia. The huge room had thick wooden ceiling beams. Old furniture, old staircases, old books, old money. Lots of it.
    “A bit premature, Gerald, but thank you.” She clicked her glass against his. “The Senate president will make his decision in a few days.”
    “Oh, that’s just a technicality. I’ve already told him that the White House will be pleased to work with you.” Buchanan had reviewed her file again before coming out here tonight for the meeting. So much depended on this woman! Was she really up to it?
    She had graduated from Stanford and married a helicopter pilot who was killed in Vietnam. Ruth Hazel buried her grief along with her pilot, obtained her real estate license, and opened an agency in Del Mar just as the sunny coast of San