Outlaw

Punky paused before answering. “She’s giving her lecture right now, and I’m waiting for it to end. Unless you want me to barge into a lecture hall full of doctors and med students and wave my gun and badge around.”

“You don’t have to be such a smartass,” Camron said.

Of course, she knew he was right. Ever since she had taken down TANDY and prevented the attack on the USS Abraham Lincoln, she had become almost obsessed with dissecting the Ministry’s West Coast network. She hadn’t done it alone, but she had led the charge and identified at least three operatives in California.

Still, he didn’t deserve her attitude. “Sorry.”

Her view was momentarily blocked by an Audi that parked in front of a bus stop with its windows rolled down. She briefly considered moving to a different parking space to preserve her vantage point on the building’s entrance, but then thought better of it. The lecture would be ending soon, and she didn’t want to miss her opportunity to speak with the doctor because she was monkeying around for a better spot when the one she had was good enough.

Despite her contrition, Camron had clearly had enough. “Satisfy your curiosity, but I want you back in the office this afternoon.”

She opened her mouth to say something sarcastic but snapped it shut when movement in the Audi caught her attention. She narrowed her gaze on the driver to make out features beyond his jet-black hair but could only discern that he clearly had no intention of moving from that spot.

Great.

“Is that clear?”

The Audi’s driver lifted a cell phone to his ear but never took his eyes off the building’s entrance.

Now what’s he doing?

“Punky?”

For a moment, she had been so engrossed in the dark-haired stranger that she forgot Camron had just proclaimed an end to her investigation. “Yeah?”

“Did I make myself clear?”

Before she could answer, the doors to the biomedical research building opened and a crowd of people spilled out into the Southern California sunlight. She scanned the crowd for a face that resembled the photo she had seen of Dr. Tan Lily on the UCSD website, but with the Audi in her way, she wasn’t sure she would be able to make a positive ID from where she sat.

Then, she saw a woman, slight in stature, who could have been a match.

But it wasn’t the sudden appearance of a woman at the center of the crowd’s attention that made her stomach drop. It was the driver of the Audi who also seemed to notice her.

“I need to call you back,” she said.

“Punky…”

She ended the call and climbed out of the Challenger’s bolstered seat, her gaze alternating between the woman—that has to be Tan Lily—and the Audi’s driver, who had also exited his vehicle.

Shit!

As the dark-haired stranger crossed Gilman Drive and made a beeline for the doctor, Punky swept back the hem of her blazer and rested her hand on the butt of her service pistol. The last thing she wanted to do was draw her sidearm in the middle of a college campus, but she suddenly wondered if SUBLIME’s intercepted messages were in reference to an assassination attempt.

Her cell phone started ringing again, but she ignored it. Punky poured all her focus into the man walking several paces in front of her, searching for some sign that he was carrying a weapon and was a threat that needed to be put down.

She rested her thumb on the holster’s lever and was prepared to release the automatic locking system that held her pistol firmly in place.

Please be wrong.

As the man reached the outer ring of people leaving the auditorium, she saw him weave through the crowd as he attempted to cut off the doctor. Punky picked up her pace almost to a jog, bumping into several students and faculty who would be caught in the crossfire if her intuition proved right.

When the man stepped in front of the doctor and reached into his coat, she drew the pistol and brought the tritium front sight post up to center mass and shouted, “Federal agent! Freeze!”

* * *

The man’s head whipped around, and a look of shock registered on his face, but he didn’t appear caught off guard — almost as if he had expected somebody to be there, protecting the doctor. He locked eyes with Punky, then his gaze dropped to the pistol she had pointed at his torso.

“Show me your hands,” she yelled. “Slowly.”

His eyes twitched toward the doctor, almost as if checking to see if she had taken the momentary distraction to make her escape, then he looked back to Punky once more. “Okay,” he said. “I’m pulling my hand out of my pocket.”

Punky recognized her body’s response to the stress of the moment. The auditory exclusion. The tunnel vision. Her heart hammering in her chest. But she slowly inhaled through her nose for a count of four and held it for another count of four. Slowly, she let out her breath in a thin stream through pursed lips as she fought to regain control of her senses.