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Category: Erotica/Erotic Science Fiction/Science Fiction
Description: Denise Leiter discovers her employer is a shipping front for Arab terrorists who are about to launch a devastating nationwide attack. She reports them, but two key terrorists avoid capture. Denise is forced to make a cross-country run for her life when the Arabs are led to believe that she's carrying critical evidence. Nearly broke, Denise boards a bus to Texas, unaware that a fellow passenger has orders to keep her alive as bait. (2005)
eBook Publisher: Abintra Press/Abintra Press, 2005
eBookwise Release Date: September 2005

153 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [361 KB]
Words: 85742
Reading time: 244-342 min.

That prickly feeling of being watched stood the hairs up on my neck and arms before I was a block from the house and it stayed with me all the way to the gas station.

As I filled the bike's tank, a brunette woman in a car with Maryland plates asked for directions to Beacon Street.

I gestured toward Pasco County and said, "Head south on nineteen, turn left at the Little Road stoplight, and watch for Beacon Street about another mile from there."

The woman thanked me and I used the act of watching her leave the gas station and enter traffic on US-19 to continue to scan that general direction. Nobody seemed to be paying any particular attention to me, which only meant that I couldn't conveniently spot the watcher.

I pushed the bike to a parking slot in front of the station's front doors and went inside. At the magazine rack by the doors I pretended to browse, carrying on a brief 'Nice day, isn't it?' sort of conversation with the clerk in order to have a reason to look up and around intermittently.

There were eight cars at the pumps or elsewhere in the lot, one of which had Ontario plates and one that had Minnesota plates. All others were Florida tags. Nobody within immediate view was paying any obvious attention to me or my bike.

Looking farther afield, I scanned the department store parking lot next door. A white Cadillac nosed into a parking slot near the store's garden center and a blue pickup rolled slowly down the last row of cars as if looking for an open slot.

The pickup turned at the end of the row and continued up the next row at the same snail's pace. Oddly enough, it passed one open slot, then another, then several. The driver's face repeatedly turned toward the gas station.

Hm. I looked around the gas station's lot again. A guy in jeans and a black tee-shirt got out on the passenger side of a blue Nissan sedan parked near the far end of the store. He lounged by the pay phone there as the Nissan backed out of the slot and drove away toward the department store.

I made a note of the Nissan's license number on the corner of a freebie apartment guide and continued dividing my attention between the guy by the phone and the blue pickup.

The pickup slowly reached the end of the row and equally slowly headed toward the gas station. The guy by the phone suddenly hung up and headed toward the gas pumps.

Hm, again. Definitely something going on. I studied the people and cars by the pumps to see what might be of interest to him and immediately saw two possible targets.

A woman had set her purse on the trunk of her BMW convertible as she pumped gas. The man on the other side of the pumps was holding his wallet in his left hand as he filled his SUV.

Instead of entering the station's lot, the blue pickup stopped alongside the grassy parking lot divider. I saw the reverse lights flash as the driver put the truck in park, then he leaned across the seat. The truck's dome light came on as the passenger door opened slightly.

Good 'nuff. When the driver again sat upright, I used my implant to send a hard stun at him and returned my attention to the guy on foot. He ambled past an RV, turned behind it, and reappeared on the other side at a full-speed run toward the BMW.

The woman screeched and recoiled when the guy yelled at her. He grabbed her purse, tucked it under his right arm like a football, and hauled ass for the pickup truck.

As soon as he'd yanked open the door and heaved himself inside, I sent a stun at him. He slowly toppled out of the truck to land hard on his right shoulder. That seemed to rouse him a bit, so I stunned him again.

Inside the store, the counter clerk stared out the window in amazement. I went to the counter and rapped it once to get her attention.

Tearing off the top of the freebie guide's cover, I handed it to the clerk and said, "This is the license number of the car that dropped off the runner. The cops'll want it."

She stared at the bit of paper for a moment, then asked, "Why are you giving it to me? Why not give it to them?"

Grinning, I replied, "This place just became a circus. There are lots of witnesses and you'll get paid for time you spend with the cops. I won't. See ya."

I topped up my coffee cup and went outside to my bike, slung the cup between the bungees strung from mirror to mirror across the handlebars, and swung a leg over the saddle.