There’s no denying it’s taking a little longer to get the new Charlie Fox book out there than I envisaged. It’s literally days away from publication in most territories. But, just to thank everyone for being so patient―and in response to a certain number of both pleas and threats―here’s a sneak preview: the opening chapter, just to keep you going …
DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten
“Zoë Sharp is one of the sharpest, coolest, and most intriguing writers
I know. She delivers dramatic, action-packed novels with characters we
really care about. And once again, in DIE EASY, Zoë Sharp is at the top of her
game.”—Harlan Coben
In
the sweating heat of Louisiana, former Special
Forces soldier turned bodyguard, Charlie Fox, faces her toughest challenge yet.
Professionally,
she’s at the top of her game, but her personal life is in ruins. Her lover,
bodyguard Sean Meyer, has woken from a gunshot-induced coma with his memory in
tatters. It seems that piecing back together the relationship they shared is
proving harder for him than relearning the intricacies of the close-protection
business.
Working
with Sean again was never going to be easy for Charlie, either, but a celebrity
fundraising event in aid of still-ravaged areas of New Orleans should have been
the ideal opportunity for them both to take things nice and slow.
Until,
that is, they find themselves thrust into the middle of a war zone.
When
an ambitious robbery explodes into a deadly hostage situation, the motive may
be far more complex than simple greed. Somebody has a major score to settle and
Sean is part of the reason. Only trouble is, he doesn’t remember why.
And
when Charlie finds herself facing a nightmare from her own past, she realises
she can’t rely on Sean to watch her back. This time, she’s got to fight it out
on her own.
One
thing’s for sure—no matter how overwhelming the odds stacked against her,
Charlie Fox is never going to die easy …
Chapter One
Even on a good day I don’t
enjoy being shot at. Been there, done that, and it bloody hurts.
I wasn’t kidding myself this
was going to be a good day.
Maybe that had something to do
with the fact that my gun hand—my right—was securely handcuffed to a reinforced
briefcase weighing probably twenty-five pounds.
That in itself wouldn’t have
been so bad. I’d put in enough time on the range to be proficient with either
hand. My left wrist, however, was just as firmly handcuffed to Sean Meyer’s
right. Neither of us was exactly overjoyed by this state of affairs.
Especially when everything was
about to go to shit around us.
We were on a quiet street of
generic storefronts, parked cars dotted along either side. There were people
nearby but nobody gave us a second glance.
And then, just when the
tension began to give me heartburn, a dozen rapid shots cracked out further
down the street. I was half expecting them, but still they startled me. I
forced out a strangled yelp, even though I knew they were scare shots, fired
from a single weapon rather than part of an exchange, designed purely to start
a stampede.
They got the job done.
Sean wheeled and I had to
swing fast to stay with him. His eyes were everywhere. He’d already drawn the
Glock 17 semiautomatic, hefted it in his left hand, but he stayed on his feet,
upright, alert.
Next to him, useless as a
stuffed lemon chained to that damn case, I felt helplessly exposed. I willed
myself calm, knowing I had to rely on
Sean to protect me—to protect both of us.
People started to stream past
us. Some screaming, some shouting—unintelligible words filled with a contagious
panic. I tugged deliberately at his arm.
“Sean! We need to get out of
here—”
“Shut up.”
It was the vicious tone more
than the words that shocked me into silence. As we turned, I caught a glimpse
of figures crossing between the buildings. They were dressed in jeans and loose
shirts like the rest of the crowd. Unlike everybody else, though, they moved
with direction and purpose, and they were armed.
I didn’t speak, didn’t
distract Sean, but by the way he tensed I knew he’d seen them, too.
His brows were drawn down flat
in concentration, making his harsh face seem colder than usual. Cold enough to
make me shiver.
He muscled me sideways
effortlessly, snatching roughly at the cuffs so that it jarred my whole arm. I
should have been protesting at this point, but I said nothing. It took
willpower to remain passive.
Sean went down on one knee,
pulled me into a crouch alongside him, using an old parked Chevy for cover. We
stayed up by the front wheel where the engine block provided more of a shield.
More people sprinted by. A man
tripped and went sprawling right behind us. Sean ignored him. He had the gun up
in front of him, head tilted to best utilise his dominant eye.
A target broke cover, dodging
through the remnants of the fleeing people. Sean fired on him without
hesitation, four fast shots that somehow threaded through the crowd, tracked
and hit. He went down.
Before the first man finished
falling another had appeared, jinking between parked cars on the opposite side
of the street. He had a machine pistol held at waist-level, and he strafed us
as he ran. Sean held his nerve, his position and his aim, taking only two
rounds to drop him.
The third and fourth
assailants came in together from oblique angles, taking advantage of any
tunnelling in Sean’s focus. Sean twisted, forgetting about my dead weight on
the end of his right arm. He growled in frustration as his first shots went
wide, taking an extra fraction of a second he barely had time for.
His breath hissed out as he
swung his arm over the top of me and fired again, so close I felt the gases
blast past my cheek, heard the brutal snap of the report clatter in my ears.
The hot dead brass spun out and scattered around me. One casing hit the side of
my neck, burning the skin. Instinct told me to stay on my feet. Instead I
dropped flat, trying to get my hands over my head. Not easy with unwieldy
objects attached to both arms.
Then I heard the Glock’s
action lock back empty.
I hadn’t been counting the
rounds, but I couldn’t believe Sean let the gun run dry in these circumstances.
I raised my head, my
locked-together fingers hampering his reload. Sean hit the release to drop the
magazine and shoved the Glock, butt upwards, into the vee at the back of his
bent leg. He snatched the spare mag out of his belt and slapped it home with
the palm of his hand, then pulled the gun free and flicked the slide release
awkwardly to snap the first round up into the chamber.
The whole operation had taken
maybe a couple of seconds, left-handed, smooth and without a slip, but he was
staring at me as if I’d just tried to get him killed.
As
if I wanted him dead
…
“Come on—up!” he commanded,
almost wrenching my arm out of its socket as he dragged me upright. The
briefcase dangled painfully from the short cuff chain, gouging at my right
wrist. I groped for the case’s handle, stumbling as we fell back into the mouth
of an alley.
The expanding slap of a long
gun rebounded between the brick buildings, and then they came at us thick and
fast, half a dozen armed men, experienced pros, motivated, confident.
It was always going to be a
no-win situation.
Sean went to the wall that
allowed him to keep his left hand free, facing outwards, elbowing me round
behind him. He fired at anything that showed itself past the edge of the
scarred brickwork, dialled in now, emotions buttoned down tight.
And this time he dropped the
magazine out before the last round was fired, keeping the Glock’s working parts
in play. He shoved the gun into his belt to reach for a reload.
I stayed close up behind him—I
had no other choice. But I had my face slightly turned towards the back of the
alley, and for this reason I saw a door open halfway back, a man emerge with a
gun in his right fist. He was tall, rangy, his arms already raised to firing
position, and he was smiling.
I sucked in an audible breath.
Sean heard it, head snapping round. For the merest fraction of a second he
hesitated, then tried to hurry the magazine into the pistol grip and fumbled
it.
The man’s smile became
broader. He fired.
Not at Sean, but at me.
I felt the punch of the impact
in my chest, high on the right, where he knew the round would drill diagonally
through ribs, lungs and heart. Where he knew it would do the most harm.
Bastard.
I gasped but couldn’t get my
breath, started to slide down the rough wall as my legs folded under me. Sean
turned into my body as if to stop me falling. His face was an inch from mine. I
stared into eyes dark as mourning and saw nothing reflected back at me.
That hurt worse than the shot.
His left hand was empty. It
snaked under the tails of my shirt. I felt his fingers close around the .40 cal
SIG Sauer P229 I wore just behind my right hip, pulling it free.
He knew I carried the gun
ready, with a round jacked up into the chamber. There was no safety.
He fired as soon as the weapon
cleared my torso, four rounds straight into the centre of the smiling man’s
body mass.
As the guy went down I just
had time to note that he wasn’t smiling any more.
‘To sum up DIE EASY, I would
have to say that I have waited a year for a great book, only for a brilliant
one to be delivered with all the style and panache you would expect from Sharp
and Fox. An exceptional novel.’ Graham Smith, CrimeSquad.com five-star review
This week’s Words of the Week are the Latin phrases cui bono, meaning for whose advantage or
benefit is it?; who is the gainer? And cui
malo, whom will it harm?
