by user
Let it never be said that Harry wasn’t a practical man. He had no idea what had happened in Isobel’s past, how she had come to know a man like Serafin. And now he never would, because they would all be gone in a cloud of smoke and shrapnel and blood. He could live with that. The Committee had lost too many good operatives, and Stolya would see that Madsen would provide no difficulties. A tragedy involving Peter and his new wife could go either way—a sad accident or a preemptive strike from an unknown enemy. In either case, they would have to turn to him, with Isobel dead in a car bomb blast.
Things were far too lax. In Harry’s day, someone like Hiromasa whatever his bloody name was wouldn’t have gotten as far as London. In his day, a woman would never be put in charge of a job only a cool, practical man could accomplish. And Thomason had every intention of getting back there, where he belonged. Back to the good old days where enemies were straightforward, where you trusted no one, and any inconveniences and anomalies were wiped out. The ends justified the means.
He leaned back and closed his eyes. He was going to be a busy man the next couple of days, once the word about the car bomb came through. His cigar had gone our. and he relit it, drawing in a deep, mellow stream of smoke. He’d be ready.
It felt like they walked for miles through the busy streets of Plymouth. The smell of the car bomb lingered in the air, mixing with the scent of diesel fuel and the distant tang of the ocean. A cold, light rain was falling, and Isobel kept her head down, huddled in Killian’s jacket.
Mahmoud seemed impervious to the cold, scampering along after them like a child on holiday as they moved through the streets. It was hard to believe he was keeping Killian in his sights because he wanted to murder him, but Isobel didn’t doubt it. She wanted to murder him as well, and she wasn’t letting him get too far ahead.
She shouldn’t be letting him take charge—there was no reason to trust him, and now that she’d gotten him into England, he could just take off. If he had any sense, he’d kill the two of them first—or, at least he’d try.
Right then she wasn’t sure she could stop him. Her back was on fire; she was cold and wet and numb. She needed to pull herself together. She needed to find out who the hell had put the hit out on them. But for the time being, all she could do was trudge after him, wishing she still had her burka.
At one point he pushed them into an alley and left them, and she and Mahmoud had no choice but to stand there, shivering, not looking at each other. She should be hoping Killian hadn’t abandoned them for good, striking out on his own, but in fact she would have welcomed his disappearance. Enough was enough. She wanted him gone, she wanted him dead, she wanted her life back. If he didn’t return she’d get back to London on her own, with or without Mahmoud dogging her heels.
For forty-five minutes she stood there shivering, though her back was on fire. Her fingers were numb, her feet soaked, but Mahmoud just kept waiting, expressionless. And then he perked up, hearing something she was too miserable to notice.
“Serafin,” he said. The first word he’d spoken directly to her since the deserted village in Morocco.
He was right. The bright blue Jaguar was gorgeous and striking, and Killian was behind the wheel, looking impatient. He pulled up at the end of the alleyway and lowered the window
“Get in the front seat, princess,” he ordered. “Mahmoud will ride in the back.”
The boy seemed to know the drill, for he’d already scrambled into the backseat and slammed the door behind him.
“Isn’t this rather a conspicuous car to steal?” Isobel said, stalling.
“I didn’t steal it, I rented it. The leak’s on your end, and they don’t know the names we’re using.”
“And if the leak’s on “your end?”
“Then we’re toast. It’ll make the day more interesting. Do you want to put some money on it? I’ll give you excellent odds.”
“I think life or death are high enough stakes,” she said. “I can sit in the back with Mahmoud.”
Killian just looked at her. “It happened,” he said flatly, and she didn’t bother pretending she didn’t know what he was talking about. “Get over it, and climb in the front seat. It’s already growing dark, and at the least they have our descriptions. We need to get the hell out of here.”
She was a practical, unemotional woman. He was right, and she was cold. She got in the front seat, closing the door behind her, and he took off into the twilight, driving fast and well.
She heard a rustling sound, and looked back to see Mahmoud already showing down on a bag of crisps. “You stopped for food?”
“I stopped for supplies. Take off my jacket and lie down.”
“Fuck you.”
“Take off the jacket. Isobel,” Killian said. He didn’t sound patient.
“I’m not...” She leaned back against the seat, then jerked erect as fire spread through her.
“You heard me. Take off the jacket and lie down.”
“There isn’t room.”
“Put your fucking head in my lap,” he snapped. “And stop playing games. I need to get you cleaned up and we can’t afford to stop. Take off my jacket before you get any more blood on it, and lie down. Unless you have a damn good reason not to.”
She had a million reasons not to, and she wouldn’t admit to any of them. She pulled the jacket off gingerly, trying to ignore the tiny shards of pain that sped through her body, and put it in her lap. Even in the dusky interior of the car she could see the blood.
“The shirt, too.” he said.
It was the T-shirt he’d bought her on the ferry, the one with Ibiza Is for Lovers emblazoned on the front. She pulled it over her head, carefully, not making a sound as her flesh screamed in pain. The back of the shirt was shredded, stained with more blood.
“I haven’t lost that much,” she said, not moving closer. ‘I’ll be fine until we reach London.”
“You have a dozen or more tiny pieces of glass sticking out of your skin, Isobel. Put your face in my lap or I’ll make you.”
He was the man who’d fucked her and hadn’t come. He was the man who’d used her, tricked her, treated her as one more weapon in his destruction of the world. He wouldn’t give a damn if her face was in his crotch, and neither would she.
“You could have gone for a bench seat,” she muttered, lying down, putting her head on his thigh beneath the steering wheel. She could feel his heat, bone and muscle. She already knew how strong he was; he carried Mahmoud’s slight weight without seeming to notice, and he could probably haul her around as well. She lay there, balancing tentatively, ignoring the fact that she was wearing jeans and a bra and nothing else. He didn’t care.
Mahmoud chose that moment to lean over the seat and make an observation, and Killian laughed, damn him. “Don’t translate,” she said between clenched teeth. “Just get the damn glass out if you think it’s so important.”
He put his hand on her head, silencing her. It was getting darker, the roads were crowded and he couldn’t afford to watch—be had to keep his eyes on the road. One hand was on the steering wheel, the other left her head to drift gently down her raw back.
“Got one,” he murmured, and one tiny spike of pain lessened as he pulled the shard free, dropping it in the space usually used for coins. “Hold still.”
“Couldn’t Mahmoud do this?” she said. The hand moving across her back, so gentle, was worse than her face in his crotch. She didn’t want gentleness from him.
But then, he’d offered her violence last night and she’d taken it. Without argument.
“Stop thinking,” he said. “If you tense your muscles, it’ll be harder to pull the glass out.” Another piece gone. She was holding her breath, and she forced herself to let it out, concentrating on calming exercises. It wasn’t the pain, it was the position that was making her tense, but in the end the effect was the same. She knew how to slow her breathing, how to make herself relax no matter what the circumstances, and she brought all her resources into play, relaxing, soft
ening her body, sinking into the seat. Sinking against his hard, hard thigh.
“That’s better.” he murmured. She could hear the steady swish of the windshield wipers, the hum of the tires, the sounds of traffic. She closed her eyes, giving herself over to the dubious ministry of his hands as he plucked shards of glass from her skin.
“Why did you save Mahmoud?” Killian’s voice was so low she almost didn’t hear him.
“Instinct,” she muttered sleepily. “I certainly wasn’t about to save you.”
His laugh vibrated through his leg, through her body. Of course not, Mahmoud’s grateful.”
She couldn’t be relaxed and hostile at the same time—that much multitasking was beyond her at the moment. “Sure he is,” she murmured. “I wouldn’t trust him not to thrust a knife in my ribs if I got between him and what he wanted.”
“True, but he’d feel bad about it.” Another piece gone. She’d lost count. She could open her eyes and look at the little pile of glass shards in front of her, but she didn’t want to. One thing she’d learned over the years was to give in when there was nothing she could do about a situation. Killian was heading to London— he’d have no reason to do otherwise, and self-preservation was his number one priority. She could let go of that responsibility for the time being. He was probably just picking the stuff out of her back because he needed her in good working order, in case someone else tried to hit him. That, and the fact that it humiliated her, were two strong motives.
And her only defense was not to feel humiliated. “Are you almost finished’?” she asked in a deliberately caustic tone.
His fingertips danced across her abraded skin, as gently as a whisper. “I think we’ve got most of them. I have a suggestion while you’re in that position.”
“I’ll bet you do.” She tried to sit up, but his hand came down on her neck, no longer gentle at all.
“Stay put,” he ordered, his voice flat.
“If you think I’m—”
“Someone’s following us,” he said. “Right now it looks as if I’m alone in the car, and we’d better keep it that way.”
She couldn’t argue with his logic. He loosened the pressure on her scalp, and she lay still, listening as he spoke to Mahmoud. The first thing she was going to do when she got back to London was take an intensive training course in Arabic. It was maddening not to know what was going on. And given the state of the world, she had no doubt she’d be needing it sooner rather than later.
Assuming she continued to go out into the field.
She’d had no choice in the last year or so. When Thomason had been in charge he’d simply delegated, probably due to the fact that he never liked to get his hands dirty. He had people to enforce his decrees, but he himself was no operative. He’d come in at an early age, a London bureaucrat with connections, and he’d never had to do anything more than give orders and exercise power.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. She wasn’t convinced that Sir Harry Thomason was, in fact, corrupt. It was a possibility, but a remote one. He cherished the life of an English gentleman a little too dearly. He was just a useless old man with nothing to do but harass Peter with petty annoyances. If that was the worst thing she had to deal with, then she could count herself lucky.
And now they’d lost another agent. Morrison had been one of the oldest and best operatives they had, and now he was gone. At least it had been quick for him. As soon as she got to London she’d have to make arrangements for his body to be collected and properly buried.
It was easier to think about Morrison than what she was doing at the moment, a fact that should have shamed her. But it didn’t. She could grieve Morrison’s loss, but her practical side forced her to consider how they were going to make do. Hiromasa was just going to have to come on board sooner than expected. She only hoped he had Taka’s ability to blend in. Killian’s hand had moved from the back of her head to her neck, underneath her loose hair. The heat was on full blast, and even wearing nothing but her bra, she felt warm, almost drowsy. If she didn’t know better she’d him, and that was one thing she wouldn’t do. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking.”
“That’s out of your control, Killian,” she said. “Sorry about your problem, but I’m not doing anything about it.”
“I don’t have a problem.”
“What’s this?” She couldn’t pull away, but she could move her fingers, and she brushed the length of him beneath the heavy denim. He didn’t react, but then, she hadn’t expected him to.
“Unfinished business. We’ll take care of it later. In the meantime, you can just lie still and be quiet. Look at it this way, you’ll be putting me through exquisite torment. Won’t you enjoy that?”
“I doubt it’s torment. I wasn’t fighting last night. You missed your chance.”
“There are always more chances, princess,” he whispered. “I had a crisis of conscience.”
“You have no conscience.”
“Not much of one, I’ll admit. But it does seem to appear when you’re around. I wasn’t going to kill you, you know. You didn’t have to shoot me.”
“You could have fooled me.”
“Oh, I did. Over and over again. You still are completely blind when it comes to me, aren’t you?”
“No. I see you far too clearly, as the sick, murderous bastard you are. It doesn’t matter how hard you try to be charming, I know you’re an ugly piece of work in pretty packaging. I won’t kill you, but I’ll dance on your grave when someone finally manages it.”
He laughed, sounding almost lighthearted. “How sweet. You still love me, don’t you? I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but you always were a stubborn woman. Lousy judge of character.”
“I can change my mind and kill you.”
“Of course you can. But you won’t. It doesn’t matter what you think I am, what you think I’ve done. You’re in love with me, and you will be until the day you die.”
She shoved at him, and he let out a small sound of pain as he released her. “Careful there, Isobel. You really wouldn’t want to damage me.”
She sat up. The highway was empty—no one was following them. Probably no one had been following them for the last hour: he’d just used a as an excuse to humiliate her.
She opened her mouth to tell him all the things she wanted to do to him—hurt him, kill him. But the words didn’t come. Because he knew her too well. Better than she knew herself. She was the Ice Queen, the Iron Maiden, and she wasn’t going there.
“Shut up, Killian.” she said, reaching for her ripped shirt. In the darkness he wouldn’t know how rattled she was. He might guess, but there was no way he could know for certain he’d managed to get to her. “Shut up and drive.”
And he did.
17
Things were not going according to plan. Then again, things seldom did, and Killian was used to adjusting at an instant’s notice. But something wasn’t feeling right about this situation, even taking into account the expected complications and snafus.
He had a simple enough job. The Committee was to extract him from North Africa, bring him to London, where he would supposedly be debriefed on his years spent in the service of some of the world’s most notorious dictators, warlords and terrorist organizations. While he was feeding them false and useless information, he’d be doing his own part to bring the Committee to total ruin. By the time he vanished, the Committee would be disbanded, leaving the way clear for his people to take over. It should be easy enough to accomplish—his cover was so impenetrable that no one even suspected there was more to him than there appeared to be. He’d always been particularly good at that. People believed what he wanted them to believe.
But someone was killing off members of the Committee, and that body count had nothing to do with his job. At least, he hoped it didn’t. If someone else was assigned to the same task and they hadn’t bothered to inform him, he’d be beyond angry.
But the attack on the Committ
ee seemed to be coming from somewhere else entirely. It was direct and bloody, and if he just stayed out of the way he might not have to do anything at all. Whoever was intent on bringing down the organization was doing a very effective, if violent, job of it, and his employers wouldn’t care just how it happened. No one in his line of work was particularly squeamish about body counts, as long as the outcome was the required one.
He could pull over and disappear into the night, leaving Isobel with Mahmoud. She wouldn’t thank him for that, and sooner or later he had no doubt that Mahmoud would track him down and kill him, if he had to wait ten years to do it. The boy was on his own mission—one from God—and Killian had to pay.
As far as his Intel went, the current roster of active Committee agents was very small. Takashi O’Brien was tied up in his late grandfather’s business in Tokyo. Peter Madsen was little more than a bureaucrat, sidelined with a bad leg. Morrison was dead, and MacGowan had disappeared, which left Jeffreys in Thailand, and perhaps one other.
And Isobel. Sitting beside him in the front seat, her bloody shirt covering her poor back, staring out into the night as he drove down the A35. If someone was targeting Committee operatives, she’d be high on the list.
“Did you ever consider that they might not be trying to kill me?” he said, breaking the thick silence.
She turned to look at him. “Everyone in the world wants you dead,” she replied after a moment. “Have you done anything to change their mind?”
Such a sweetheart. The hostility was coming off her in waves—waves of heat, nothing like the ice she’d encased herself in. “Oh. I’m sure most people want me dead,” he said. “I’m just wondering whether these current attempts are directed at me. Or whether someone’s trying to get rid of you, just as they got rid of Morrison and MacGowan. Or do you think it’s just a coincidence? Bad timing?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“Neither do I.”
She pulled out her PDA, but he took it from her hand, opened the window and threw it out onto the rain- wet highway. “Your security’s been compromised,” he said.