LITMIR.BIZ

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flesh-colored wire trailing from his earplug to the compact transponder clipped to his gunbelt. A few smoked, one was eating an ice-cream cone, but all were razorsharp and braced for the oncoming action.

      Stopping to tie a shoelace, a man checked the digital readout of the Geiger counter strapped to his wrist as if he were comparing its time against the distant chimes of Big Ben. Satisfied for the moment that the combat zone was clear, he coughed twice into his hidden throat mike to relay the information, then moved onward to take a sip of water from a nearby fountain.

      Scattered across Archbishop’s Park, several families had spread checkered blankets on the freshly cut lawns while excited children ran along the footpaths darting in and out of the trimmed hedges and among the strolling pedestrians. Rising like a glass cathedral above the lush trees was the new Archbishop’s Hospital and past the footbridge was the old baroque-style library, the once-clean Scottish granite blocks now stained a dull uniform gray with the passage of the long centuries.

      Sitting on the steps of the library, a large man was reading a book in Portuguese, the volume positioned to hold down his loose windbreaker and to hide the gun in his shoulder holster.

      “Falcon, we have a contact,” whispered a voice from the radio in his ear. “Sector five, a Zodiac is approaching the park. Repeat, a Zodiac is near. All agents, full combat protocol at all times. Stay sharp and wait for my command.”

      Grunting in confirmation, Cirello Zalhares continued reading his novel, waiting for target identification. The voice on the radio was David Osbourne, the CIA operative who had hired his team of mercenaries for this dirty job. But then, black ops were what his group did best and the CIA always paid top dollar.

      Just then a teenage girl walked by, her yellow print dress rising high in the river breeze to expose a lot of tanned leg and a hint of lace panties. Nice. Raising his sight, Zalhares admired the fullness of her young body and finally her face, loose, golden blond hair framing elfin features. Noticing his attention, the girl paused for a moment and pursed her lips in a controlled smile at the stranger, but as he smiled back she paled slightly and hurried away, fearfully glancing backward to make sure he wasn’t following.

      Unconcerned by her reaction, Zalhares returned to his reading. Although only in his early thirties, it had been many years since Zalhares could have been called handsome, the network of scars on his face and neck from his line of work reducing his looks to merely striking. Although the black hair and dark skin proclaimed a Spanish ancestry, his sharp eyes were swirls of different subdued colors. Egyptian, the effect was called, although he knew of no such Arab relative in the family tree. Just a genetic fluke, an abstraction that caught the attention of many beautiful women, until they saw the savage mind behind the beautiful eyes and their ardor cooled just as quickly as it had flared to life.

      A small boy walked over to the man and stopped directly in front of him. Hoping the boy would go away, Zalhares did nothing for a minute, but then when it was obvious he had to respond. The big man slowly raised his eyes from the book and looked at the child without any emotion.

      “That’s a funny kind of writing, mister,” the boy said curiously. “Is it Latin?”

      “Portuguese,” Zalhares answered, closing the book on a finger to hold his place. In spite of the summer warmth, he was wearing expensive gloves on both hands. The leather was so pale that it resembled human skin.

      The boy tilted his head. “You Portugeese?” he mispronounced.

      Controlling his impatience, Zalhares started to answer but then paused as a well-dressed businessman in a Gucci suit walked into view, holding a briefcase. The killer relaxed at the sight of the alligator-leather trim. That wasn’t a Zodiac. Those were plain brown leather, as ordinary and plain as humanly possible, virtually invisible in a crowd.

      “Mister?” the boy repeated.

      “I’m from Brazil,” Zalhares said, giving an empty laugh. Stay loose, do not attract attention from the crowd. Bore the child with details. “The Archbishop library has the largest collection of books in Portuguese in all of Britain. I come here often for a taste of home.”

      “Don’t they speak Brazilian in Brazil?” the boy asked, and then added, “I know I would.”

      Now annoyed, Zalhares controlled his temper and started to open his mouth to speak.

      “Red alert,” a new voice said in his earpiece. “We have a Zodiac in the park. Repeat, we have a Zodiac coming home from sector two.”

      That wasn’t Osbourne, but a member of his Zalhares’s team, Artero Mariano, also known as Dog by his many enemies because of his tendency to bite people in the throat during fights. An expert in Kodokan judo and high explosives, he was one of the most feared assassins in the S2, the dreaded secret police of Brazil. That was, until Cirello Zalhares had recruited the man from the government and into the Scion, his mercenary unit.

      As surreptitiously as possible, Zalhares gestured behind the book toward the child standing directly in front of him.

      “Better get rid of the kid, my friend,” Mariano said urgently. “The Libyans will be here at any second and we’ll have to move.”

      Keeping his expression neutral, Zalhares leaned forward slightly so that his windbreaker fell open, exposing the silenced Imbel .22 pistol in the holster to his team hidden in the nearby trees.

      “No, just chase him away,” Mariano suggested. “There are too many people around. Killing the brat would only start a riot if somebody found the body. The English are very sentimental about their children.”

      “Well, I must be going now,” Zalhares said, rising to his full height and closing the book. The adult towered over the child like a giant from a fairy tale. When the physical intimidation didn’t frighten the boy away, Zalhares impatiently tried another tactic.

      “Would you do me a favor and return this inside?” he asked, pushing the volume into the boy’s grasp. “Thank you.”

      “Not late, is it?” the boy asked suspiciously, looking over the thick book. “Billy once asked me to return a book, and it was late and I had to pay the fine.”

      “No, it is not late,” Zalhares stated, starting to walk away. “But I am. My…daughter is having a birthday and I’m late for her party. Thank you again.”

      The boy scowled in disgust. “Yuck, girls,” he said, turning to charge up the flight of stairs into the library. “Goodbye, mister!”

      Once safely in the crowd, Zalhares walked until two more people slipped into position nearby, never coming close, but now each of them was able to cover the other with gunfire if the need arose. Dressed in slacks and a turtleneck, Minas Pedrosa was a bald giant who sported a drooping red mustache. His companion was a muscular woman who wore gray pleated slacks and a matching vest over a loose black shirt to try to mask her ample chest. In their line of work her curvaceous figure was often a source of consternation for the team, but Jorgina Mizne was one of the best knife fighters in the world, along with being a superb interrogator, which more than made up for the minor inconvenience of her beauty.

      Upon reaching a footpath, Zalhares turned into the trees and paused in a pool of shadow. The fourth member of the team, craggy-faced with a short ponytail, stepped out of the greenery. Once an escaping prisoner had foolishly grabbed that hair to try to subdue Artero Mariano, but the razor blades hidden inside had neatly sliced off his fingers. The prisoner had howled at the pain, but when Mariano got hold of him, the screaming really began.

      Making sure they were alone, the four exchanged pointed glances, then nodded in readiness and checked their weapons.

      “We’re in the clear, Eagle One.” Zalhares sub-vocalized into his throat mike, thumbing the control in the pocket of his windbreaker to change to the CIA channel. The unit automatically scrambled the broadcast, then shifted to another frequency and code so that even if MI-5 or the local police were listening in, they would never be able to decipher the transmission soon enough to stop what was happening in the peaceful London park.

      “Our

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