READ MORE PROLOGUE CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO READER REVIEWS REVIEWS "The Coil is a terrific read, exactly the kind of fast-paced espionage thriller that I love. Great characters, a turbo-charged narrative full of surprises, dark and fabulous settings — what more could you want?" — Douglas J. Preston   "In this thrill-a-minute tale of secret operatives and hired assassins, Gayle Lynds proves once again why she's the leading lady of international intrigue. Her dead-on research and breakneck pacing leave you -- like former CIA agent Liz Sansborough -- navigating a maze of deadly agendas. Beware the Coil!" — Gregg Hurwitz BUY THE COIL

Santa Barbara, California

Liz stopped on the lawn outside the psychology building to stretch. As she pulled one ankle and then the other behind and balanced freestanding, she admired the July sky and savored the soft ocean air against her skin. The temperature had been hovering in the low seventies, perfect, while the weather channel reported an oxygen-sucking heat wave blanketing New York and Washington. Moving to the West Coast had been one of her smarter decisions.

Her life was far different from those dark times when she discovered her parents were assassins. She figured she was as happy now as she would ever be, and she had Grey Mellencamp to thank, because he had been right all those years ago. It was a pity he had died so soon after delivering his fatherly advice. She would have liked to tell him how much he had helped her.

As soon as she ended her stretches, she speed-walked toward the university’s Marine Sciences Institute, feeling light and powerful, as if she were about to begin a match. Her other sport was karate-dÇ, one of the few leftovers from her previous life in intelligence. She gazed around, passing the usual sports cars with their tops down, the trash cans topped off with Styrofoam cups from the Mesa Coffee Company, and the students in their eyepatch-sized swimsuits, sitting out on dormitory patios, enthusiastically risking melanoma. Few palm trees decorated the campus. Instead, sycamores, magnolias, and exotic eucalypti stood here and there, country-club elegant.

When she spotted the squat marine lab building, she broke into a trot, running downhill past it onto a spit of sand that edged the university’s big lagoon. She saw no one on the rocky cliff that towered ahead, which was just the way she liked it. Beginning to sweat, she loped up a sandy ridge to the dirt path that cut along the cliff’s narrow top. The breeze whispered through her hair. Her quad muscles rippled.

Savoring the clean, salty air, she looked right, where wild grasses and scrub trees and bushes welded the soil to the rolling slope that spread down to the blue lagoon so protected from the elements that hardly a ripple showed. On the far side lay the campus, where a few students were visible. They disappeared into buildings, late for classes. Abruptly, the university was deserted — a perfect still-life of simple, modern buildings and manicured trees from some architectural photographer’s prized album.

As she settled into her usual slow, steady gait, she gazed left at the ocean, which extended in a blaze of turquoise out to the Channel Islands some twenty miles away. Here on the ocean side, the vegetation was far different, not thick and upright and hardy as it was on the lagoon’s slope, but sparse and gnarled from fighting to grow out of rock crevices where it was exposed to harsh seawinds. She could hear the roar of the surf far below — at least fifty feet — but she could not see it from the trail.

The cliff continued along the campus for miles. Every year a handful of people died from falling off it during drunken parties or while bicycling, hiking, or running. The media would cover the tragedy, and people would be careful for a while. But as time passed, the sense of danger faded. They resumed old habits. Became careless. Until someone else was killed.

She tried to shake off a sudden feeling of uneasiness. There were still occasional moments when she felt as if her past were catching up with her, and she was overcome with despair. But that seldom happened out here where the peaceful lagoon spread on one side, and the timeless ocean on the other. Where the clear sky and the warm sun and the joyful calls of seagulls reminded her how good life was. She usually ran this high trail between the two bodies of water as if she were invincible.

But not today. She was nervy, wary. She did not understand it. Ahead, the path was empty, but she heard people behind. She glanced back, mindful of the rutted trail. There was another runner, tall and muscular, dressed in sunglasses, baseball cap, and jogging clothes. Ordinary looking. Behind him was a bicyclist, crouching low over his handlebars as he sped toward them, adjusting gears.

She listened to the rhythm of her feet, felt the measured beat of her heart, tested all her senses while she reminded herself to stay composed.

Soon the bicyclist whizzed past on her right, through the wild grasses on the lagoon side, off-trail. Relieved, she slowed to avoid breathing the billows of dust from his tires as he hurtled back onto the dirt track and roared onward. Next she felt the movement of air that told her the runner was about to pass, too. She moved politely left, to give him room. He did not move to the right.

Instead, he stayed directly behind, his speed increasing, his footsteps closing in. A chill shot up her spine, followed by anger. What in hell was he thinking! And then she knew. From the back of her mind, from a time and place she had worked hard to forget, she understood that she had been monitoring him all along, because he had been pacing her. He did not pass because he wanted something else.

She burst ahead. Her feet were light, her speed explosive, escaping. Her muscles sang. Vegetation passed in a blur, but his pounding gait told her he was fast, too. She dared not look back. She might trip, fall off the cliff.

She leaped off the beaten trail, risking tangled grass and loose rocks, aiming toward the gentle slope above the lagoon. But with a suddenness that sent fear rushing through her, she felt his hard, hot exhalations on the back of her neck. Desperately she tried to accelerate again, but there was nothing left. This was it, her top speed. She would have to fight.

As she started to turn, he slammed his arms around her waist, wrenched her off her feet, and swung her around toward the cliff’s ocean side.

Above her, the sky tilted. Panting, she rammed her right elbow back. He grunted in pain. She had connected with his pectorals, muscular and resilient, but she had not hit him hard enough to really hurt. He was taller and far stronger. She twisted from side to side and briefly saw his face with her peripheral vision. Heavy jaw, hollow cheekbones, thick, short nose. Rayban sunglasses. His lips were a thin, neutral line.

Frantic, she slashed her other elbow into his shoulder and punched a fist back over her shoulder at his throat. Too little, too late. Like a big, bored child, he flung her from his arms and staggered back to safety.

Her balance utterly gone, she sailed helplessly through the air. Her mouth opened, her arms windmilled, and a primordial scream erupted from somewhere deep in her belly. She did not recognize the sound, and then it was gone, lost in the roar of the surf pounding far below....