Femme Fatale

by Doranna Durgin

  One of them got bold anyway, stepping directly in front of him. Jason barely had the wherewithal to stop in time, a fact that only further emboldened the man. He had reason to be confident—he was the biggest of them, brawnier than Jason himself and marked with the scars of a dozen bar brawls.

  Jason dragged his hands down his face and considered the Browning Hi-Power. Not yet. Especially not with the nasal Cape Town police sirens battering through the sounds of the early-morning waterfront. Damn it, how had he let that woman reach Lyeta before he did, killing her only moments before Jason could snag her? How had he let his subsequent confrontation with her drag on so long? And most of all, how had he let her blindside him?

  He knew the answer to that last, and he didn’t like it.

  Any moment now the sun would break over the mountains circling behind Cape Town, and he had the unpleasant feeling that the instant its sharp rays hit his eyes, he was going to heave whatever remained in his stomach. He gave the tough guy a bleary look and said, “Leaving now, mate.”

  The man opened his mouth to offer up some threat, some demand that Jason stay here, but Jason turned on him, pulling himself together long enough for one of his coldest, hardest looks. The kind his former fiancée had claimed sent small children shrieking for their mums and small dogs yipping to hide under the couch.

  Jason had never had much use for small dogs. But children…

  That, he had discovered the hard way, was another thing altogether.

  The thought put him over the top, adding enough ferocity to his expression that the man glanced at his colleagues and fell back uncertainly.

  “Good,” Jason growled, easing his hand toward the automatic on his hip. “Because if I have to use my pistol, I’m going to get really cranky.”

  “Don’t know as you could hit your own foot, with that babbelas,” the man pointed out “For all that you killed her.”

  Babbelas, babbelas…slang for hangover. Close enough. “You already let the killer get away,” Jason said. Impatience colored his voice, seeding doubt in some of the bravado surrounding him. “And my sorries, fellas, but you’re in my way.”

  “Ag, let ’im go—not worth the bliksem,” someone said, sneering to cover his uncertainty. “We’ve all seen him. The cops’ll have his picture plastered around the city before we go on lunch break.”

  “Do your best,” Jason muttered, knowing his section would clean up after him. They’d give him grief for it, but they’d do it like the champs they were. And…

  He’d deserve whatever grief they heaped upon him, anyway.

  He left the uncertain mob behind him, grateful to the dock foreman as the man bellowed, “Back to work, boykies!” and in retrospect grateful to the boykies themselves, who’d tromped the scene so thoroughly that even without intervention from MI6, the locals would have a hard go of solving this one. But as the sirens closed in, he felt the dockworkers take heart, their reluctance to let him leave beginning to overcome both their wariness and their boss’s bellowing. Jason picked up his pace to an uncoordinated jog, making it around the end of the building to the little nook where he’d stashed his rented BMW motorbike. The helmet matched the yellow paint on the bike; between the two he felt like a large banana. Sad bastard, I am. On the other hand, as he puttered a sedate pace down South Arm Road, politely pulling to the side for the two police cars rushing toward the end of the jetty, he thought perhaps it was the best secret spy outfit he’d ever had. The Sad Bastard outfit.

  Once the cars were past, Jason throttled up the bike and left at a good clip, but he didn’t go far. Circling around on Dock Road to the parking area at the far corner of the waterfront area, he pulled into the vast lot and found himself virtually alone. Chilly it might be—making the sun a welcome sight to most people—but Jason found a tree-shaded spot and pulled in, toeing the kickstand out and dragging his helmet off.

  As he hung the helmet on the handlebar, he took a deep breath, flexing his shoulders, straightening his back, and hunting for the reserves that would help him overcome the hangover from whatever nasty little drug the woman had used on him. The deep breath turned out to be a bad idea; the movement turned into a dash for the landscaping, where he lost the rest of his already much-regretted snack.

  He returned to the bike and resolutely snagged a water bottle from the pannier, rinsing his mouth and spitting the results on the pavement. Then he found a tree in the landscaping and put his back to it, sliding down to sit with his elbows on his knees and his head tipped back.

  Think. Think!

  This assignment had gone pear-shaped so fast as to deny comprehension. One hour, he had been following Lyeta Denisov, waiting for the right moment, the right place, to bring her in for questioning by MI6. Not a friendly questioning—no one in MI6 truly believed Denisov had turned on her lover Egorov so completely—but not a fatal one, either. The next hour, after taking a taxi to an inexplicable encounter at the dock, Denisov was dead. Jason groaned. What a total cock-up. With so few vehicles on the road he’d had to hang back a considerable distance, and he’d lost the taxi as it neared the waterfront. Only an educated guess had gotten him to the right place…just in time to see the woman bending over Denisov’s body.

  Just like that. A few moments of fumbling on his part, and Denisov and her information—possibly the real reason for her flight from Egorov’s influence—were gone. And his only clue had departed with that woman. She knew something. She had to. She’d killed Denisov for a reason.

  Odd, though, the way the two of them had been in conversation even as Denisov died. Denisov had no reason to talk at that point…unless she wanted to.

  Whatever the woman’s motive, whoever she worked for, she was Jason’s only chance to turn this assignment around. With a deep breath—a deep, careful breath—he returned to the bike long enough to retrieve his only booty from the encounter: the parka. It turned out to be a good one, ripped pocket notwithstanding—he recognized the Land’s End brand as an upscale American product. It didn’t mean she was American, but given her accent he thought it likely. He sat back down to search the garment, coming up with an impressive array of toys. A Phantom nightscope, a collapsible baton, several small knives balanced for throwing…but not one scrap of paper. Not one easy clue. The parka told him what he already knew—that the woman was accomplished. She was good.

  Jason smothered a spark of anger at how she’d taken him down…how she’d exploited the sudden flare of connection between them. He supposed he was lucky she hadn’t killed him.

  He didn’t feel lucky.

  He felt just the same as he had on the dock, no less intense for the passage of time. The moment when she’d turned in his arms, when she’d looked up at him—and he could have sworn she’d been taken aback at the way he’d physically overpowered her, but the next moment proved him as wrong as a man could get. That moment when they’d looked at each other with the surprised awareness of man and woman, when she’d all but invited him to move that fraction of an inch closer…

  And then she’d taken him down. Neat as you please.

  He cursed his stupid body. It still wanted that kiss. It wanted more.

  Think, he reminded himself. Assess her, don’t obsess about her. He had a report to give, should be giving it right now. Think.

  Short hair, pulled back and barely long enough to stay that way—dark in the predawn light, looking abrupt enough in its short little ponytail to translate to a blunt cut. Her eyes were dark, hard to assess in existing light. Her build slender but strong, beyond toned and into serious workouts. Her movement…he closed his eyes, trying to analyze that movement. A lithe, balanced movement, as though every step put her exactly where she wanted to be…as though at any given moment, she knew just where her body was in space.

  Not everyone had that sense, that ability. Most people didn’t know where their own two feet were at any given time. But this woman…she knew. She knew and she used it like a tool.

  Dancer.

  As the
notion struck him, he thought immediately of the other clues: the slight toe-out posture, as natural as breathing to a professional dancer with ballet in her background. The strange, flexible sneakers. The skintight leotard, a comfortable second skin that had made her hard to get a grip on once she shed her parka. The leg warmers that only accented her length of leg.

  And maybe even the theater in her background to make that look of want in her eyes believable enough to put him off guard. A split second of off guard…

  Remember what happened next, bloke. Don’t let it happen again.

  Besides, he’d had enough of the fiery creative types in his life. The impulsive types and their impulsive decisions, living so far outside the rules that they forgot rules were made for a reason. They took their own paths…and they’d rip a bloke’s heart out along the way.

  Jason’s eyes snapped open, his priorities in line, his goals reassessed. Find this woman and get whatever information had come from Lyeta Denisov. Then Egorov would go down, and Jason would put this encounter behind.

  “You look knackered, Stellar.” Bear, Jason’s home contact and technical wizard, made the observation with annoying good cheer.

  Jason gave his laptop—currently in video-phone mode—a wry look. “A gentleman wouldn’t mention it,” he said in his starchiest tone, and only got a grin for his troubles. He’d made several unplanned stops on the way back to his hotel in Cape Town proper, a fact that had not improved his mood a whit even though he’d taken the chance to wash up and brew himself a quick cuppa before sitting down at the hotel room desk. “Just let me know if you have an ID on her.”

  “She’s a big zed,” Bear offered, in the least technical of terms. He poked the pointed end of a pencil into his bushy head of grizzled hair—the reason, beyond his given name of Theodore, that his call-name was Bear. Within the view screen behind him, the wall was absolutely blank, although personal observation told Jason that the other three walls were entirely covered with notes and printouts. Bear stuck the pencil behind his ear. “Care to explain exactly what happened down there? Aside from the fact that you went arse over elbow?”

  From Bear’s point of view, down there was a literal term. He’d snagged satellite access of Cape Town, and although it had its limits, at times it could be a godsend.

  “Figure it out for yourself,” Jason said shortly. He’d already reported the crucial bits, merely confirming and elucidating upon what Bear had witnessed for himself. He leaned against the straight wooden back of the hotel desk chair, angling the laptop to suit. “What have you heard on your end?”

  “Our Mystery Lady left a goody behind, up in a little nest.”

  The crane. He’d seen the woman glance up at the crane as she bent over Denisov’s dying form. He’d even meant to check it out once he had the situation contained.

  So much for intentions.

  “A nice M24 SWS,” Bear said. He groped to his right without looking and his hand returned laden with a cup of tea. “A tad close in for that weapon, but I guess if you want to be sure you get the job done…”

  “It had to be close,” Jason mused. “It wasn’t just a takedown, it was a retrieval.” Or else the woman would simply have disappeared without risking exposure next to the body. Jason never would have seen her at all. “The locals have that?”

  Bear glanced at another computer screen and shook his head. “Doubt it even occurred to them to look,” he said. “All of their witnesses saw you and our Mystery Lady tussling and little else. Looks like you’re the victim of reverse discrimination, mate. They’re assuming it was you, and that the women were together. Soon enough they’ll realize that bullet in Denisov didn’t come from a handgun, but that’s only if we don’t manage to make her body disappear in time.”

  Jason waved a vague hand of dismissal. They’d take care of the body, just as they’d managed to get a cleanup team in behind him to find the sniper rifle—normally a job he’d have handled, if he hadn’t already been compromised.

  Though he couldn’t help but wonder why she’d left the weapon in the first place.

  He scrubbed his hands over his face and looked up in time to see Bear watching him with sympathy that instantly vanished. “Right, then,” Bear said brusquely. “Here’s some good news. Your Mystery Lady didn’t run far. Don’t know how she got there, but she left the docks on foot and headed for the quaint cultural experiences of the waterfront. As far as we know, she’s still noodling about the shops, though we don’t currently have an exact location on her. It strikes me, Stellar, that the gentleman’s thing to do would be to return her coat.”

  “You must have a mind-reading program installed into that OS of yours,” Jason said, pulling the parka from the end of the bed. This room was not so large that he couldn’t sit at its desk and reach just about anything he needed. He’d give the parka another examination before returning it to its owner, just in case it held any other little hidden thing to make his day miserable. With the cool fall nights, she might well be glad to see the thing again—though no doubt she’d have little welcome for him.

  “Look after yourself on this one,” Bear said, and frowned. “And keep in touch. I’ve got dead air coming up for a while. That’s the hell of stealing sat feeds…can’t control the maintenance.”

  Jason bunched the parka in his hand. The movement released a clean, crisp scent…something citrusy. He had to stop himself from bringing it closer to his face. “I always look after myself.”

  “Yeah?” Bear said dryly. “Then quit grinning like a fool.”

  “Get off.” Jason kept his voice mild. “I’ll be in touch.” He stabbed the quit key for the communications program and flipped the laptop closed.

  He looked at the parka another long moment. It was a deep teal thing, or perhaps dark turquoise. The tan lining looked like it probably held secrets, things he needed to find before he returned it to her. He’d give it a good search, change his own clothes, and head right back to the waterfront. But for starters…

  For starters he lifted the coat closer to his face and inhaled the scent of it.

  Blue Crane. As Beth fled for the refuge of the commercial waterfront, she considered Lyeta’s last words…and her own options. Follow up on finding that computer keycard. Okay, that was a given. Check in with Barbara Price. Also a given. Barbara might have some insight on Lyeta’s words…or she might know more about the MI6 agent now involved.

  For Beth had no reason to consider him out of the game. He’d lick his wounds—not for very long, either—and then he’d be back after her. He thought she’d killed Lyeta; he suspected, rightly, that she had information of value. And he had a grudge.

  She needed to stay ahead of him.

  Returning to her hotel didn’t appeal to her. If Mr. MI6 had gotten a good look at her face, they might well have an ID on her by now, at least enough to know she was CIA-trained. They might well have broken her cover…they might be at her hotel. She could handle it if they were, but she didn’t want the delay the encounter would cause.

  Best bet…get lost in a crowd. Find a corner to contact Barbara, courtesy of the highly enhanced PDA she had stashed in her sling pack, which she’d hidden near the warehouse and nabbed again on the way out. She couldn’t do much to disguise her basic look, but as she hesitated in the quiet shadows of the drawbridge on West Quay Road she pulled the band from her hair and bent over to give it a quick upside-down brushing. When she stood, flipping the blunt cut to fall into place around her shoulders, she had a different upper silhouette…and she could obscure her face simply by tipping her head.

  The sling pack also held a sheer silk-knit gray twinset sweater; she pulled it on over her leotard, hiding her lean curves. Her backup pistol went in an ankle holster, and Wyatt into his discreet custom fanny pack. A light application of lipstick—just a shade more intense than her natural color—a little foundation to conceal her faint smatter of freckles and give her that fresh-faced morning tourist look, and she was ready to venture into the waterfront
proper, an area with such intensity of charming character that it almost hurt. Shopping opportunities, African crafts and handmade items—all imported, since Cape Town itself had no booming cultural arts community—food for the hungry, quaint benches with a perfect view of Table Mountain and its end caps of Devil’s Peak and Lion’s Head—3563 feet high, she recited to herself—boat rentals, an IMAX theater and, out by the road to Cape Town proper, an aquarium.

  Caffeine, Beth decided. Caffeine was the way to start this day, and by then the Victoria Wharf Shopping Center would be open. If she could find a tourist-oriented bookstore or even a computer store with demo systems hooked up to the Internet, she might be able to make something of Blue Crane, at least as it related to South Africa. With luck, under the table would make more sense in the context of that information. Or Barbara would be able to help, and contacting her from a computer store was not likely to gather any attention at all. Testing a toy, that’s all.

  She found a coffee shop and ordered herself something with foamy chocolate, choosing a powdered sugar doughnut. She considered contacting Barbara here and now, but it was too quiet here. Too obvious. She pulled the PDA from her sling pack, but powered it up only to consider Lyeta Denisov and her former lover, Kapoch Egorov.

  There was Lyeta, a stunning digital image that could well have been used as a cover photo for any upscale women’s magazine—if it hadn’t been for the cold, cold stare of her light blue eyes. Not a warm, inviting presence…very much a beware of me lady. In person, Beth had only seen her in blue Phantom night light or in the gloom of predawn; the photo jumped with the vivid color of Lyeta’s long red hair, the gentle waves of which did nothing to soften the sternness of her classic beauty. The photo proclaimed what she was: a woman of power, with intensity of life and ultimate self-confidence.

  Beth found herself scowling and pressed her lips together, a fleeting self-admonishment. She took a deliberate sip of her cooling coffee. Lyeta was dead, and she’d chosen the path that ended her own life so prematurely. Now it was up to Beth to make sure Lyeta’s death—and her life—counted for something.