“He’s the one who put this little shakedown together. Didn’t you know?”
“I wondered,” Hudson said with cool satisfaction. “Now I know.”
He picked up a crystal tumbler from the tray on the table. A matching crystal carafe held mineral water. He filled the glass and picked it up.
“The only side effect of the drugs is thirst,” he said absently. “They make you dry as hell for a day or two.”
When he finished drinking, he set the heavy tumbler down and turned to his beautiful enemy. She was still holding the medicine bottle as if unable to make herself put it down.
“It’s remarkable material,” he said. “It works on anyone, at any age. You’d remain as youthful and alluring as you are right now, suffering none of the indignity of advancing age and ill health.”
Again she tried to read the label of the bottle in her hand. It was still gibberish.
“All that from one elixir?” she said cynically. “Who are you trying to con, babe? If doctors had managed to pull that off, I’d have heard about it by now. So would everyone else in the world over thirty.”
Hudson poured himself another glass of water and held it to the sunlight, admiring its clarity.
“The people who created that concoction weren’t interested in money or notoriety,” he said. “They had more substantial plans, more far-reaching ideas, more meaningful desires. Sadly, history caught up with them before they could implement their vision.”
“What happened?”
“The usual. Execution at the hands of their inferiors.”
“Shit happens,” she said. “Does that mean your supply of youth juice dried up?”
“One of Hudson International’s newest labs is being built to synthesize the material.”
“How long until you get something?”
“I haven’t found the right person to run the program. When I do, the development will be fast. In the meantime, I have more than enough for myself.”
“Lucky you.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it.”
He drank a second glass of water before he turned to Toth again.
“I have enough material to grant the gift of extended life to at least one other person,” he said, “should I choose to do so.”
She wanted to look away from his cold, level gaze but found herself fascinated. There was something strangely compelling about seeing ancient eyes set in the face of a man who had the prick of a teenage athlete.
“How long has it been since a man made love to you for an entire night?” he asked.
“Since the last time somebody rubbed cocaine on his dick.”
“I don’t need cocaine. And you don’t need to worry about any of the diseases that come from sexual contact with drug users or common street studs.”
She laughed curtly. “That’s what they all say, babe.”
“Each of my contacts submits to regular and exhaustive blood screenings. My sperm count is high, with good motility and viability.”
“Great, old man. Next time I feel the urge for an all-nighter, I’ll give you a call.”
“What I had in mind couldn’t be accomplished in one night,” he said calmly. “It would require much more of your time.”
She wanted to say something flippant, but looking at his eyes froze the words in her throat.
“I find you sexually stimulating,” he said, “but that’s true of a great many women. Unlike them, you have more to offer me than your undoubtedly gifted snatch.”
Again Toth tried to look away. Again she couldn’t. Fear and excitement were coiling inside her, pushing her toward Hudson.
“You’ve used your position, and your Russian contacts, to build a solid power base,” he continued matter-of-factly. “Considering where you came from, your achievement is remarkable.”
“I worked my ass off for it.”
“Many people work their asses off. Very few manage anything more than getting drunk and paying taxes.”
A tremor of fear went through her. She’d said the same thing herself, many times, but never to Hudson. He must have researched her very thoroughly.
“Much of what you’ve done seems instinctive rather than intellectual,” he said, “but I sense in your makeup and turn of mind a great natural talent for manipulating people. You’re utterly cold.”
“That’s not the kind of thing a girl likes to hear,” she said, baring her teeth in a hard smile. “Not sexy and feminine at all.”
“I hope you don’t believe that crap. The most powerful women in history have been the ones who used all their talents, not just the ones their society allowed good little girls to have.”
Silently Hudson walked toward Toth with a peculiarly flowing grace that made her wonder what it would be like to have sex with a snake. When he took her by both shoulders, the heat and strength in his hands surprised her.
“What you need is a mentor,” he said, “someone who can show you how to rise to the next level of power—the power to change events at the global level. When you have that, you’ll finally be safe. And not until then.”
For a long, electric moment, she watched him watching her.
“What do you want from me?” she asked finally.
“I want you to marry me, subject to certain stipulated but generous terms. Then I want a child by you. A son, to be precise.”
Her mouth opened. No words came out.
“If you flunk your blood tests,” he continued, “conception will be via artificial means. If the fetus is infected or of the wrong sex, it will be aborted and we’ll begin again.”
“You’re serious.”
“Of course. At the first possible moment, our son will be put on the medical regimen that has so greatly benefited me,” Hudson said. “He’ll be the most intelligent and vigorous man of his generation. With my careful tutelage, with my financial empire as a base, with your primal allure and native cunning, our son stands an excellent chance of becoming one of the most powerful men in history.”
“You’re nuts.”
He laughed. “Too easy, darling. You can do better.”
“How about this, darling? I’m black.”
“Delightfully so. You’re also Asian and Caucasian. Slightly more the last than either of the others, if my researchers are to be believed.”
“Mixed bloods aren’t welcome at the top,” she said. “Trust me on that one.”
“I do. Now you trust me. The coming decades will see an amalgamation of races, of cultures, of languages, and of nationalities. It’s happening as we speak, an unstoppable social, political, and sexual juggernaut.” He smiled. “Anything that inevitable will rather quickly come to be seen as a positive good.”
“Not in my lifetime.”
“Not in your present lifetime,” he agreed. “But if you marry me, my wedding gift to you will be a much longer life span than the one you can expect now. Our son will live a great deal longer. He’ll be able to benefit from mixed parentage in ways that you and I can’t even imagine.”
Toth wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered. She licked her lips, but not in sexual enticement. Her lips were dry with fear and a kind of queasy anticipation she’d never felt before.
She thought she knew it all, had done it all, had nothing left to look forward to but greater and greater risks for less and less kick until the day she miscalculated and died.
Hudson’s offer changed everything.
“You’re one hell of a salesman,” she said huskily. “You’re smart enough not to paw me or start sniveling about love.”
His laugh was like his eyes, ancient and cold. “Those of us with intelligence discard such emotional baggage shortly after we outgrow diapers. Let the fools have their love. We’ll control them, just as we’ll control the rest of the world.”
Toth felt herself respond to his searing candor in a way she’d never done with any man. He was utterly, beautifully, incredibly ruthless. He would use her. She knew it.
But he wouldn�
��t break her.
Instead, he would teach her—father, mentor, and lover in one.
If she stayed with him, she would always be on the bubble, never quite certain that she was in control. She would be frightened and excited by turns. In short, she would be fully alive in the only way that mattered to her.
“I don’t suppose the egg has anything to do with this sudden interest in getting me pregnant?” she asked.
“Of course the egg has something to do with it. Without the egg, you’d be of considerably less interest to me.”
“How much less?”
“The egg is crucial to the future that the two of us can build. It’s the critical component in an international network of agents and useful fools.”
Watching Toth’s eyes, Hudson dug his fingers into the soft flesh of her upper arms. He gauged her threshold with unerring precision, stopping just short of true pain. Then his little finger moved, gently caressing the inside of one arm.
Her breath caught as desire flooded her. He understood her body as well as she did. Better. Pain and pleasure in exquisite coupling, each feeding the other.
“Think of the egg as the dowry you bring me,” he said.
“I—I may need help.”
“Physical or intellectual?”
“Physical. Very physical.”
“Use Bill Cahill.”
“Is he discreet?”
“Of course,” Hudson said.
“Enough that you would trust him to bury a body?”
“It wouldn’t be his first. Who are you going to kill—Novikov?”
“No. Just a street stud I picked up a while ago. Nobody important at all.”
46
Los Angeles
Wednesday evening
All around the rental car, Los Angeles spread out in a sea of light lapping against the shore of night. Laurel drove as well in the tricky twilight as she did in full sun. If Cruz hadn’t been so furious with her, he’d have complimented her on her skill.
When he finally spoke, his voice was rough with barely leashed emotions. “How much longer?”
A quick glance at him was all Laurel needed. In the odd light, his eyes gleamed coldly. He was still angry. Furious, actually.
She looked away, concentrating on the traffic around her. “Just a few more minutes.”
“Then tell me where we’re going.”
She hesitated.
“There’s no time for us to set up an ambush now,” Cruz said coldly. “Too bleeding bad I can’t say the same for the other side, but that’s the way you wanted it, right? Your father’s safety and to hell with everyone else.”
Silence was Laurel’s only answer. She was tired of trying to explain what she didn’t fully understand herself. All she knew was that she couldn’t live with herself if she set up a trap for her father.
Deep inside, she believed that what her father had done, he’d done from desperation rather than greed and calculation.
Cruz didn’t believe it.
Arguing with him again wouldn’t change how either one of them felt. They’d been arguing since Karroo. It wouldn’t end until they reached their destination.
If then.
He was furious that she wouldn’t help Risk Ltd. set up a nice, sanitary ambush for her father. Gillespie had been like black ice on the subject, cold enough to burn. Only Redpath had understood. She hadn’t agreed with Laurel, but she’d understood.
As Cruz shifted impatiently, light glinted off the pocket cell phone in his hands. The line was open. It would stay that way until he gave Risk Ltd. a destination.
The car’s turn signal blinked. After she completed the turn, he spoke into the phone. “Up Doheny, heading directly toward the Hollywood Hills.”
“Has she told you where you’re going yet?” Gillespie asked curtly.
“You’ve heard everything I’ve heard.”
“Balls. Laddie boy, you did a piss-poor job of getting her trust.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Let me talk to her.”
Cruz turned to Laurel and said sardonically, “The sergeant-major would like to whisper sweet nothings in your ear.”
“No thanks.”
He put the phone to his mouth. “She said—”
“I heard,” Gillespie interrupted.
After that it was silent in the car except for Cruz’s terse recital of streets and directions. The car turned again, heading up Benedict Canyon Road.
Finally Laurel turned off into a cool little coastal glen. The street was lined with new custom homes in the modernist style, all hard white stucco and smoked glass and self-conscious angles. Each house perched on a recently scalped building site that was as tiny as it was overpriced.
At the top of the street there was a house from another era, a different way of life. The floodlights that came on at dusk were for aesthetic pleasure rather than for security, although they served the second purpose very well. The house itself had a distinctive understated style. Landscaping enhanced the lines of the home and of the land itself. The house made the rest of the neighborhood look tacky and transient.
She started to turn into the driveway.
“Park on the street,” Cruz ordered.
“But—”
“Just do it.”
Tight-lipped, she brought the car to a stop along the curb. She reached for the key to shut off the engine.
“Leave it running.”
She dropped her hand to her lap.
Quickly he read off the address and passed it on to the waiting sergeant-major.
“Got it,” Gillespie said.
“Don’t forget,” Laurel said clearly. “No one but Cruz around, or else I won’t call Dad.”
Gillespie’s answer was the sound of the connection breaking.
“What makes you think he isn’t here already,” Cruz asked, “waiting for you to call his pager?”
“He always parks right there, under the sycamore,” she said, pointing to the driveway.
“Always? How long has he been coming here?”
“This was Mother’s house before it was mine.”
“I thought your parents were divorced.”
“They were. It didn’t really take, any more than the marriage did. Even though Mom didn’t buy the house until after they were divorced, Dad always had a set of keys.”
Cruz scanned the immediate area for any movement. Nothing caught his eye. The house was cantilevered into a shelf of bedrock at the head of the little canyon. Sycamores with giant leaves and smooth, weathered bark shaded a side deck.
“Your ‘special place,’ huh?” he asked, remembering Swann’s message to his daughter.
“Yes, very special. In my memories.”
“But you don’t live here.”
“I can’t. The city is too close.”
Cruz felt the same way about cities, but all he said was, “Turn the car around so that you’re heading out. Leave the engine on.”
While she maneuvered the car, he reached into the backseat and grabbed a black aluminum briefcase. He opened it, pulled out his pistol, checked its load with a few swift, expert motions, and put the weapon in a holster at the small of his back. He clipped extra magazines to a holder on his belt.
From the corner of her eye, Laurel watched him. Black shoes, black jeans, charcoal shirt, slate windbreaker, black gun, black body armor underneath it all. He was a study in shades of darkness, a dangerous man hunting dangerous prey.
Wear black. He’s expecting you.
She suppressed an instinctive shiver. She’d done all she could to avoid this moment, but it had come just the same.
Her father and her lover hunting each other.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Cruz said curtly. “I won’t shoot the son of a bitch on sight. That’s a better guarantee than you can give me about my chances with him. But that doesn’t bother you all that much, does it? You think I used you to get to him. You’d probably pull the trigger on me yo
urself.”
“Don’t,” she said, her voice raw. “Oh, God, don’t. Do you think this is easy for me, waiting for one of you to be hurt or killed, knowing that whatever happens is my fault?”
“Like bloody hell it’s your fault. You didn’t make your daddy’s choices for him. Neither did I.”
“That’s no reason for me to betray him.”
“You’re not betraying anyone but us. We have something damned rare. You’re throwing it away for a man who never cared about you enough to stick around.”
“No! That’s not it at all!”
Cruz didn’t answer.
“My God, Cruz. Can’t you see? You’re incredibly quick, you’re powerful, you’re damned deadly. I saw you in action in Cambria. My father won’t have a chance against you.”
“Bullshit. He’s—”
“In Cambria, you didn’t kill when you could have,” she said, talking over his words. “I trust you not to kill my father on sight. That’s the only reason I agreed to help. What Dad did is wrong, but he doesn’t deserve to die for it.”
Unable to believe what he was hearing, Cruz stared at Laurel. What he saw told him she believed every word she’d just said to him.
“You’re the one who’s blind,” he said flatly. “Your father isn’t some fumbling thug who couldn’t find his ass with both hands. He’s a highly trained sniper, a man-hunter, an assassin, a predator in ways I’ve never been and never could be. He won’t shoot to injure. He’ll shoot to kill.”
“You’re so quick,” she said hoarsely. “I’ve seen you. Quick.”
“Too bad you haven’t seen your sweet daddy in action. A lot of men died wondering what the hell hit them.”
With a savage jerk of his hand, Cruz unhooked his seat belt and reached for the door handle.
“Cruz!” she whispered, her throat aching, her hands reaching blindly for him. “Not like this. If anything goes wrong, I won’t be able to live with it. I love you.”
He turned back, saw the flash of tears and her trembling lips.
“You don’t have to lie to me, honey. I promised I wouldn’t kill your father on sight. I meant it. That’s why I’m here instead of Gillespie.”
Abruptly Cruz did what he’d told himself he wouldn’t do. He leaned over and kissed Laurel until she tasted of desire as well as tears. Then he kissed her like she was a fragile dream shimmering on the brink of becoming real.
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