Ripping Time by Robert Asprin & Linda Evans

Caddrick swore explosively again. Dammit! After everything he’d worked to achieve, with the timetable counting down to the final few days, along comes that goddamned, nosy bastard Armstrong. . . . He paused in his pacing. Armstrong knew that timetable, knew enough of it, anyway, to calculate their next major move. And the rat-assed little detective was a Templar, too, same as the senator’s worthless daughter and now-deceased sister-in-law. If Armstrong and Jenna Nicole didn’t try to rescue the next target slated to die, John Caddrick didn’t know Templars.

“They’ll go to TT-86,” Caddrick muttered under his breath. “Get your butt onto that station with a hand-picked team. I want Armstrong dead.”

“And your daughter?” the lackey quavered.

John Paul Caddrick shut his eyes, hating Cassie Tyrol for turning his daughter against him, for bringing her into this mess, for showing her the evidence. . . . And John Caddrick’s employers would demand blood. At this stage, security leaks had to be plugged. Fast. Regardless of whose family got in the way. So he snarled out, “I won’t by God let anybody screw this up. Not as close as we’ve come!”

Speaking through a handful of blood, the messenger asked, “Same M.O. as Luigi’s?”

“Hell, yes!” He ran a distracted hand through his hair. “We’ve already got Ansar Majlis on station, thank God. Infiltrated ‘em into that construction crew weeks ago. The second your team sets foot on that station, I want them activated. Major blowup. Whatever it takes to make it look good.”