Ghostwalker 05 - Deadly Game

and guns automatically as they cached weapons throughout the yard.
    "Keep your mind on what's going on here," Jack said. "Otherwise you're a dead man.
    She's not going anywhere."
    "How would you know?"
    "I see the way she looks at you. Any fool can see."
    "She isn't like Briony, Jack. No matter how you cut it, in the bedroom or out of it, I'm going to be rough on her. Sooner or later she's going to hightail it out of here fast. I don't know what the hell I'll do then." And he didn't. He couldn't think about her leaving him because he knew she was contemplating just that. His mind went numb – blank.
    "Ken." Jack put his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Sean is a trained killer. This isn't going to be easy. You have to keep your mind on what you're doing. Why don't you let me switch places with you? He won't know the difference."
    Ken shook his head. "I'll be fine. This is my war, Jack. You just watch yourself up there.
    If he sees you climbing and thinks you're me, he could very well go after you or try to take you out with a nice, well-placed shot."
    Jack shrugged. "Then you'd better be in position covering me."
    Ken nodded and went into the shop, emerging a few minutes later with a blond wig on his head. He hunched, trying to make himself smaller, staying to the thicker foliage so anyone watching would only catch glimpses of him. Sean needed to see Jack, to believe it was Ken climbing the rock face. It would further the illusion that Mari was hiking in the woods by herself. Ken took up a position, sitting on a boulder near the spring, lacy fern fronds covering most of his body as he waited for Sean to spot him. All the while his gaze searched the ridges to make certain the enemy wasn't lying in wait to get a shot off at Jack.
    Minutes passed. Fifteen. He could see Jack moving up the sheer face of the rock to his favorite lookout spot. To an outsider he appeared to be engaging in a little recreational rock climbing. Ken knew that once Jack was at the top, he would slide into the shadow of the cliff, right into a neat little depression where no one could spot him, and he would have a bird's-eye view of the surrounding region.
    Twenty minutes. Ken bent, picked up a few small pebbles, and idly tossed them into the spring. The back of his neck prickled. He felt an itch between his shoulder blades. There was the whisper of leaves brushing against clothing. It would all be on instinct now, and Ken had survival instincts honed from his childhood, when his father entered the house drunk, intent on inflicting as much pain and damage as he could on his sons. He knew when he was in danger. He was being stalked.
    Ken bent down again as though picking up more pebbles. He stayed low, sweeping the area with a casual glance around. He made a great show of selecting flat stones for throwing. A twig snapped off to his left on the narrow deer trail that crisscrossed the hills.
    The deer had a favorite spot to lie in the shade near the spring. Ken glanced toward the area where the grasses were perpetually trampled and saw part of a pant leg. He palmed the knife in his boot as he straightened, taking care to stay in the middle of the overgrown ferns.
    "Hello Mari," Sean greeted. "If you stay very, very quiet, I might let everyone but your lover live. If you give me trouble, the first person I kill is your whoring sister."
    Ken turned slowly, concealing the knife along his wrist. "Watch your mouth when you talk about my sister-in-law."
    "You!" Sean scowled, anger flitting across his face; then his mouth pulled tight in a snarling grin. "Just the bastard I wanted to meet."
    "You're not very smart, are you?" Ken asked, taking a step to his right to see if Sean would follow. "Did you think I wouldn't protect her?"
    Sean circled Ken, eyes restlessly searching the area around them, measuring the distance separating them. "I saw you on the mountain, climbing," he said conversationally. "How the hell could you be up here?"
    "My brother, Jack," Ken replied without emotion. All rage had disappeared, and he felt the inevitable ice flowing in his veins, slowing down time, tunneling so that all he saw was a man with targets painted on his body.
    "You can't have her. I know you took her from me."
    "She was never yours. She's her own person, Sean. You can't treat her like a possession.
    She has her own mind and her own will." Even as Ken said the words aloud, his heart sank.

    He was as bad as Sean, trying to hold her to him when he knew she needed