The Assassins Gallery
Chapter One
January 1, 1945 Newburyport, Massachusetts
Five hundred yards from the beach, a gloved hand choked the outboard motor. Six black-clad men took up silent oars. They rowed toward shore, urging the raft through whitecaps with a strong wind at their backs. Two hundred yards out, where the breakers began to build, Judith in her wetsuit slid, practiced and liquid, over the side.
She said nothing to the six and they did not speak to her. She merely sucked in breath at the bite of the icy water through her rubber sheath, then pushed off from the raft. The boat eased away. She turned to kick for shore. Behind her, slaps of water against the raft faded beneath the wind.
Judith spit saltwater. The immense cold clawed her cheeks and stung through the wetsuit. She kept her arms wrapped to her chest, letting the suit and the knapsack and her fins keep her buoyant in the surging surf.
A hundred yards from shore, Judith lowered her legs to float upright. A wave boosted her. At its crest she took a quick look at the beach under a veiled quarter moon. The coming storm flung foam off the whitecaps, a rabid water. She lifted the dive mask from her eyes to see b ... read full excerpt from The Assassins Gallery ebook
