CRACK—
The sound of the high-velocity round tearing through the air was the only warning.
Adelaide de Molay, mid-stride toward the black Cadillac, didn't hesitate. Her body moved with a violent, practiced fluidity born of years in the field. She dropped into a tactical roll across the gravel, her hand already wrapped around the checkered grip of the Walther PPK tucked into her waistband. She came up on one knee, eyes narrowed, scanning the skyline.
"Three o'clock! The clock tower!" she screamed.
She caught the glint of the setting sun on a lens—a sniper’s eye. She raised her pistol to return fire, but a second shot echoed, followed by a sickening thwack of lead meeting flesh.
Adelaide spun her head. Jean-Pierre, the butcher, was stumbling backward, a jagged hole blooming in the center
