Retribution: An Alpha Billionaire Romance (Secrets & Lies Book 3) by Lauren Landish Page B

again. “Time to strike back.”
    We make our way through the streets of Kirkuk, approaching the headquarters of the Army base that's on the edge of town. Things are going well for Saddam's troops recently, Clinton's letting him bring in new 'humanitarian supplies,' while up in Russia the politicos are in Gazprom's pocket so much that they're letting him smuggle out even more oil on a regular basis. Who knows how much they're paying him for it, but it gives Saddam enough money that his oil fields are working pretty much all the time.
    We find our spot, the fifth floor of an office building that overlooks the base. It's a long shot, over eight hundred meters, but after being with Isis as her mercenary partner and lover for the past six months, I know she's also a very, very good sniper.
    Reaching the room we've picked out, she strips off her robe, revealing her lithe body in a tight olive colored cotton t-shirt and British desert camo military pants. Her ass looks amazing in them, but it's time to work, and I keep my attention on the door while she assembles her rifle. “Sure you don't need my help with a spotter's scope?”
    “No way. Colonel Masri always follows the same pattern. After morning formations, he tours the motor pool for an hour before heading indoors. And with that garish fucking uniform of his, he's easy to see.”
    I nod and take out my binoculars anyway, scanning the base. The motor pool is one of the most open areas on the base, although I know it's mostly for show. Of the forty vehicles on the line, only ten of them are currently operational. The relaxed rules on humanitarian aid and black market parts might be getting Saddam lots of caviar and a Mercedes back in Baghdad, but in Kirkuk it's not doing too damn much to help his troops.
    I see the battalion of the Republican Guard lined up, and I have to give them credit, they at least look like professional soldiers. Some of the other units look raggedy, and not in the relaxed way I was in the Green Berets, but in the 'I don't want to fucking be here, fuck this, fuck that, fuck you and fuck this place,' sort of way.
    “You ready to take the shot?” I ask, listening as Isis tightens the stock on her rifle. It's the only piece of American equipment she uses.
    “Two minutes,” Isis says, clicking in her scope and checking her attachments. She slides a magazine into the receiver and chambers a round. “Ready.”
    The morning sun gives us plenty of shade to hide what we're doing, and she sets the rifle's bipod on the top of the table we've positioned under the window, giving us even more security. There's not going to be any muzzle flash or wink of light off the scope for the Iraqis to see.
    I put all my attention on the door to the room while Isis settles in, her right leg stretched out to give her body as stable a position as she can get with the space we're in. The seconds tick by, and I hear her flick off the safety on her rifle. Four seconds later, two shots ring out, one right after another, and she's up, clearing her rifle and breaking it down. Ten seconds after that, it's all on her back again, and I'm helping her with her robe. Thirty seconds after the shots, we're slipping out the back door of the building, where the streets are busy, but very few people are reacting. We're far enough from the base, people don't quite recognize yet that the sounds weren't just a car backfiring.
    As we make our way back to our hotel, she slips her hand into mine, a move possible only because the Iraqi government is not as strict in their interpretation of Islamic law as their neighbors to the south. “Good job, lover,” she says in French, one of a half-dozen languages she speaks, and one we're sure nobody around Kirkuk speaks. “Let's go fuck. Then we can collect our money.”
    Katrina sits back, giving me an evaluating look. I sigh and look down. “For eight months, it was like that on nearly a daily basis. We would wake up, fuck like rabbits, train, eat,