Out Of Time
When crisis looms and politics and red tape conspire against effective measures, the International Intelligence Agency plays its hidden hand. Now the spymasters of Room 59–dedicated, dangerous and willing to push the limit–get the green light to eradicate the threat.Room 59 agent Alex Tempest has a secret: a degenerative illness that may end his career as a field operative. But first he accepts one final mission. And…it's personal. A research facility in China has built the ultimate biological weapon. Alex's job: infiltrate and destroy. His wife works at the biotech company's stateside lab, and Alex fears danger is poised to hit home. But when Alex is captured, his personal and professional worlds collide in a last, desperate gamble to stop ruthless masterminds from unleashing virulent, unstoppable death.
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If he moved quickly enough he might be able to assume a new disguise
As he stepped through the doorway, he heard a shout from his right. Heâd been spotted. He lunged for the door, but this time the effort proved too much. His left leg suddenly gave out and he tumbled to the side with a cry of pain. A shot rang out and something struck him hard on the shoulder, spinning him out of control.
Alex managed to get his 9 mm out of the holster. He heard cursing and shouts, but for some reason the words wouldnât register. He crashed into the wall and pain shot through his shoulder, already soaked in blood. He gritted his teeth and tried to stand, but his legs would not support him. He raised his gun, watching for movement.
Two men appeared, crouching low and moving down opposite sides of the passageway. He took aim at the man on the left and fired, saw the round strike him mid-chest and blow him off his feet. Alex tried to roll to his right, but somewhere between his brain and his legs, the signal went haywire. What was supposed to be a smooth roll turned into a flop and he landed heavily as another searing pain brushed his temple.
Everything went black.
Out of Time
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Garrett Dylan for his contribution to this work.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
1
Alex Tempest leaned on a dirt-crusted stone wall, head lowered, trying to control his breathing and ignore the pain. His legs felt like gelatin and sent sharp, stabbing jolts of agony into his hips; his head spun with a sudden wave of nausea. Every muscle was bowstring tight and his heartbeat raggedâevery sound brought a flinch and a shift of disoriented senses.
The sun had begun to set over the Mexico City skyline, but the heat continued to roll off the streets in waves. On the floor of a villa just outside of town, Vincenzo Carrera lay dead in a pool of blood. His men hadnât stopped to clear away the body, the blood or any of the evidence. They hadnât even disposed of the kilo-sized bag of cocaine, blown to bits and strewed across the inlaid mosaic of Carreraâs garden. The powder floated about like fine drifts of snow. Carrera would never spend the money heâd expected to make on that sale. He would not make his reservations at La Villa Cordoba, nor his date with his wife and young daughter the following day at the beach.
All that remained of Carrera was his well-oiled organization, designed to sell drugs and kill or destroy anything that got in its way. It wasnât supposed to have mattered. In, remove the target and out. That was the plan. That was always the plan. Alex wasnât known as âthe Chameleonâ without good reason. He had worked his way into incredibly tight spots, killed and disappeared countless times. This wasnât even one of his more difficult assignments.
But something had gone wrong. Something had been going wrong for some time, in fact, and though heâd tried to ignore it, it only grew worse as each day passed. This time it had nearly cost him both the success of his mission and his life.
As he waited for the shadows to deepen and his legs to stop shaking, he went over the mission again, trying to see if there was anything he could have done differently, trying to see where heâd gone wrong. Somewhere there was an error, a stupid error and he hated stupidity almost as much as he hated the trembling in his normally steady hand.
The earlier stages had gone exactly as heâd foreseen. It wasnât his first trip to Mexico City and his old contacts were in place. Heâd managed to infiltrate the lower levels of Carreraâs organization without incident, had marked his time and his place. It had taken two weeks of careful watching and listening to be certain he had it right.
Carrera had been too arrogant to distance himself from his business and his organization was too dangerous to be left without close control. It had only been a matter of time until a deal went down and Alex was close enough to the center of the operation to pin it down. They werenât secretive in their activities once inside the walls of Carreraâs villa. Whom did they have to fear? Enough of the local policia were on the take to ensure secure operations and no business ever took place on the streets or in an unsecured location. Again, what would be the purpose?
Alex had slipped into the deep center of the garden shortly before the deal was set to go down, his tan skin darkened with a touch of makeup and his clothing already a perfect match to what the guards of the villa were wearing. There were five posts along the villaâs wall and heâd placed himself very near one of these. The guard hadnât seen or heard himâhe was searching for threats from outside the villa, not from within.
