The clarity, the narrowing of focus, her pulse in her neck, a slight dissociation, as if she were watching what was unfolding rather than actively participating in it. The woman in the hallway felt the familiar slowing of time she often experienced at the initiation of conflict.

“Double-check for me?” “Seriously?” In her earpiece, an annoyed whisper: “Shit, man, did you fucking forget it?” She didn’t answer him but felt her cheeks flush hot because yeah, she had. “Suite number,” she murmured, with a calm she didn’t feel. She shook her head, forgetting that the voice couldn’t see her she glanced across the hallway at the next doorway, momentarily paralyzed with doubt. A voice in her earpiece hissed, “What’s wrong?” But then she hesitated, stared uncertainly at the brass digits fixed to the door- six two seven-and was momentarily unable to make sense of them. She approached a doorway with a curious surfeit of caution, stepping to one side of it while preparing to knock. Black slacks, T-shirt and unstructured blazer, wireless earpiece, and Zero Halliburton briefcase. Here on business, you might think, not worth a second look. A milky Mediterranean twilight bled faint from hidden recesses along the ceiling, enough to cast a glow but not overly expose the shadow gliding through the shadows toward its target.Ī woman, unremarkable, if a little boxy, hip to shoulder. The fifth-floor hallway was darker than reported, and there was an awkward dogleg near the stairwell that their local recon hadn’t bothered to map it smelled of garlic, mold, and dry rot even though the hotel was billed as a Byzantine five-star.

Struggling with blackouts and memory trouble, she has experienced too much head trauma already to make it out of this conflict unscathed, but she knows she must risk everything to try to save the ship. Black ops special agent Aubrey Sentro is grabbing a ride on a cargo ship when it's overtaken by pirates. The following is an exclusive excerpt from Water Memory, by Daniel Pyne.

Water memory daniel pyne