Page 5 of Witness Security Breach

Fragrant honeysuckle climbed a trellis that screened either side of the back porch.

The wooden lattice might be perfect. Provided it was sturdy enough.

A quick shake after putting his full weight on two bottom rungs showed it to be a durable frame that’d been built to last.

Aiden holstered his firearm and scaled the privacy trellis. He climbed smoothly, moving from one handhold to another. At the top, he hoisted himself up onto the patio roof and landed softly, straining not to make a sound.

The sniper was clad in all black and in a prone position only several feet away, cheek pressed against the stock, trying to put holes in Torres.

Aiden crept forward. Slipped his sidearm from the holster on his hip. “Freeze! Or I’ll blow your head off.”

The semiautomatic gunfire stopped. The shooter stilled.

“Hands up off the rifle. Now!” Aiden stepped closer, aiming for the shoulder. If he had to shoot, he’d prefer to wound him so they could question him and find out exactly who’d taken out the contract on Eugene.

Slowly, the man with a buzz cut complied, raising his gloved hands to ear level, staying down on his belly.

Aiden unhooked handcuffs from his gun belt and tossed them over to the guy. They clattered next to his left elbow. “Cuff yourself. Hands behind your back. Take it nice and slow.”

“Please, don’t shoot,” the sniper said with a heavy twang that came from somewhere below the Mason-Dixon line. “I’m just going for the handcuffs.”

Dixie reached across his body with his right hand toward the cuffs, posture tightening, muscles shifting gradually. No sudden moves. Fingers dipped out of sight in front of his chest.

Then a lot of things happened in a flash.

The killer rotated lightning quick, flipping onto his back.

In the same heartbeat, Aiden squeezed the trigger. Missed by a hair and hit a roof shingle because the assassin had been anticipating it, prepared for it.

Steel glinted in the sun. Fast, so fast, Aiden almost didn’t see the fracture of light as the hit man threw a knife.

If Aiden had blinked, he would’ve been dead.

He ducked, narrowly avoiding a tactical blade to the throat. But the gunman launched himself up to his feet while throwing a second knife in one smooth motion.

The four-inch combat knife struck Aiden in the bicep, destabilizing his firing arm.

Dixie rushed him, two hundred pounds of desperate muscle charging.

Aiden used the nanoseconds he had and lowered his own center of mass, grounding his body weight for the impact.

The blow was harder than expected. Aiden used momentum, sending his enemy up from the ground and overhead.

But Dixie grabbed hold of Aiden and ensured they both went down.

They tumbled. Pure kinetic energy propelled two conflicting forces. They rolled and rolled right over the edge, plummeted, falling.

Aiden threw a knee into the other man’s gut and twisted, positioning himself on top.

The ground rushed up to greet them.

Dixie’s head smacked against the AC unit with a nauseating crunch.

Aiden slammed down hard, his bones jarred, the breath forced from his lungs, the blade knocked from his arm, but the hit man’s body had helped cushion the fall.

He rolled off the body. The contract killer’s head lay at an unnatural angle, his neck snapped. That was when Aiden spotted it.

A wireless, flesh-colored comms device tucked in the dead man’s ear.