Femme Fatale

by Doranna Durgin

  “Going after Stone might not be a good idea.”

  Taking a deep breath, Kylee said, “He saved my life today. Twice. He took a bullet for me.”

  “He was wearing a vest.”

  “And still could have gotten shot in the face. That’s not just something you walk away from.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “If you want more of a reason,” Kylee said, “let’s consider this. Mick was hired as Creepstof’s chief of security. Want to bet that Mick knows how to get into Creepstof’s castle? Whatever information we’re looking for that wasn’t on Creepstof’s notebook computer, it’s at the castle.”

  Leaning forward to present a low wind profile, Kylee dropped her knee to within an inch or two of the highway surface to keep the BMW R1150 GS Enduro motorcycle laid over into the tight turn.

  As it turned out, in addition to the safe house, Barbara Price also kept a garage hidden away that had over a dozen vehicles. The inventory had included Skodas, the most prevalent Czech-made vehicle, as well as Mercedes, BMWs, and Russian-made Trabant sedans.

  When she’d seen the motorcycle, Kylee had opted immediately for the off-road muscle and lightning-fast maneuverability. The motorcycle would have come up short in a demolition derby, but she didn’t intend for the action to get that serious. Stunt work and spy craft were all about control.

  The terrain outside Prague was harsh and bleak. Snow-capped mountains towered in the distance. The Vltava River gleamed, a silver ribbon that wove through the landscape as the highway drew closer, then drew farther away.

  Kylee clung to the motorcycle, becoming a piece of the powerful machinery as it hurtled in pursuit of the dark green, thirty-year-old Moskvich 2140 pickup that the Stony Man satellite recon teams had tracked Mick Stone to. The motorcycle’s engine shrilled and growled as Kylee alternately backed off and twisted the throttle.

  She wore riding leathers with a thermal liner to protect against the chill, gloves, motorcycle boots and a full-face helmet for the most protection possible. Deftly, just keeping the motorcycle under control, she closed the distance between herself and the target vehicle. She tried not to think about how injured Mick Stone might be. Scherba was the kind of guy who killed and crippled with no hesitation.

  The Moskvich pickup was awkward and underpowered. In another life, the vehicle might have been a small family sedan, but the passenger compartment had been truncated to one seat to make room for the cargo area. Two men sat up front and the rear section looked like a huge metal square that had been welded behind the driver’s compartment.

  All Kylee could remember was the way Mick Stone had moved when the gunman came around the corner, how he had placed himself between her and the bullet that might have killed her. The men had been after her, not him. She knew that.

  He had protected her.

  Yet, he’d looked so deadly, so dangerous behind the .45 the night before aboard Guilty Pleasures. Even then, she knew, he wouldn’t have shot her without serious provocation. The pistol had been there to scare her, and it had.

  She reached inside her jacket pocket and took out the tear gas grenade she’d chosen from the cache of weapons that had also been in the garage. She pulled the pin and held the grenade in her left hand, trapping the spoon in place so the device wouldn’t go off.

  The Moskvich pickup pulled to the far right side of the highway and geared down for the long ascent up the steep climb. Other, faster cars, chose their moments and sped up around the pickup, not wanting to be held up.

  Using the cargo cube to shield her from the driver’s sight, Kylee accelerated, moving the bike up on the pickup’s right.

  Matching speed with the vehicle, Kylee released the spoon holding the tear gas grenade’s detonator in check. She started counting down from three. When she reached two, she tossed the grenade through the open window.

  The grenade bounced against the windshield, then rebounded into the seat between the two men. For a single comical second, the two men stared at the grenade in disbelief as it rolled from the seat and dropped onto the floorboard. Then both of them scrambled for the grenade as the Moskvich swerved out of control.

  Kylee tapped the motorcycle’s rear brake with her foot and zipped in neatly behind the Moskvich. Inside the pickup cab, the tear gas canister detonated with a bamf! loud enough to be heard over the motorcycle’s engine. Bilious white smoke filled the cab and spewed from the open windows.

  Swerving erratically, the driver managed to keep the pickup more or less on the shoulder of the road and brought the vehicle to a shuddering halt. Horns blared as motorists passed.

  Kylee geared down and followed the pickup as closely as a fighter jet stalking prey. She dropped her right boot and waited for the two men to make their moves.

  Both doors opened at the same time.

  Kylee twisted the throttle and the motorcycle lunged forward. The front wheel came up off the ground and slammed into the driver as he tried to hold off a coughing and crying fit long enough to get a shotgun from the pickup cab. The man flew backward and fell in an unconscious heap.

  Dropping her left foot to the ground, Kylee brought the motorcycle around in a tight turn. The spinning rear wheel spewed rock and dirt, then caught as she put weight back onto the bike. She roared back at the second man, but he dodged behind the pickup door.

  Not wanting to chance losing the motorcycle, and her only means of escape, Kylee laid the BMW down on its side. Coming up from a crouch, she slipped a twenty-two-inch wooden dowel from her right boot. The hardened wood slipped smoothly through her fingers.

  The gunman cursed at her and aimed his pistol. Before he could squeeze the trigger, Kylee whipped the short stick forward and rapped the man’s exposed knuckles. She moved smoothly into an attack kata.

  Well-versed in kung fu with some training in a half-dozen other disciplines, Kylee loved the fatal flute form she’d learned from her Wah Lum sifu, the teacher she had studied with the longest. The flute was one of the oldest musical instruments as well as being one of the oldest weapons used by the Chinese.

  She flipped the stick over in her hand, rolling it back into her palm so that she grasped the weapon at the midway point. Turning her right side to the gunman, she rammed the end of the stick into the man’s solar plexus, taking his breath away. He reached for her, but she remained in motion, stepping away again and whirling the baton around again.

  The man’s fingers snapped like twigs. Before he could howl in pain, Kylee slid her grip to the end of the stick again, then slapped the weapon into the man’s temple. The man’s eyes glazed and became unfocused, and he fell forward, landing on his face without even trying to stop the fall.

  Kylee reached for her helmet and pushed the face shield up and out of the way. Cool air swept into the helmet and she drew in deep drafts. Then she noticed the two-way radio mounted under the dash.

  “Oz,” she called over the Stony Man earpiece.

  “I’m here,” Barbara said.

  “They were carrying a radio.” Kylee flipped the seat forward. Some of the tear gas still hung in the air despite the open windows and the wind, burning her eyes and throat and nose.

  A red toolbox, two coats, a jack and a spare tire occupied the open space behind the seat. Beneath it all, she spotted the curved length of a crowbar.

  “We’re sweeping the area,” Barbara responded. “We’ve tagged two possible chase vehicles.” She hesitated. “We didn’t catch them the first time around.”

  Kylee grabbed the crowbar and headed to the back of the pickup.

  “Chase vehicles mean this was a setup,” Barbara said. “I should have expected that. Scherba believed your rescue was involved with you. Scherba used a hostage situation to lure you out into the open.”

  “They still have to close the show.” Kylee paused at the back of the pickup. “Where’s Mick?” Please let him be alive. She didn’t know what she would do if he was dead.

  “On the other side of the door.”

  “I
s he up and around?”

  “Yes.” The thermographic properties of the satellites saw through the metal box.

  “Mick,” Kylee called. She heard movement and tried again. “Mick!”

  “What the hell are you doing here? Sheila, don’t you know a trap when you see one?”

  He’s alive! The realization spun through Kylee, but his harsh tone and accusation brought her up a little short. Criticizing a rescue wasn’t exactly the way things should go.

  “They haven’t caught me yet,” Kylee reminded him. “And if I don’t hear something more along the lines of ‘thank you’ in the next minute or so, I’m going to leave you in that box.”

  “Hurry,” Mick growled. “And thank you.”

  Kylee rammed the crowbar behind the lock that secured the cargo door. Metal screeched as the locking mechanism ripped away. She opened the door and stared at the bloody and battered man who stood before her. Pain wrenched through her heart at the sight of him, and guilt spewed broken glass that cut deeply.

  He wouldn’t be in this situation if it hadn’t been for me.

  Mick raised his hands to protect his eyes from the sun. A short chain glinted between his wrists, revealing handcuffs. Another set of cuffs secured his ankles.

  Kylee groaned at the sight of all the damage he’d endured.

  Mick showed her a lopsided grin. “I figured I wasn’t exactly a sight for sore eyes, sheila, but I have to admit, I’ve never gotten that kind of reaction before.”

  “Creepstof had you beaten because he thought you were with me.” Guilt filled Kylee. She viewed her job as rescuing people, manufacturing get-aways.

  “Aye, darlin’.”

  “And if you hang around there, the target is going to get the chance to kill you both,” Barbara said.

  “Can you walk?” Kylee asked. “Because I don’t think I can carry you.”

  “I can walk.”

  “Step out and stand with your feet apart.”

  Mick did, but he swayed slightly as he moved. When he had his feet apart, leaving the chain between his ankle cuffs lying on the street’s edge, Kylee held the crowbar in both hands and brought the sharp end down on the chain. The links parted with a snap.

  “Give me your hands.” Kylee repeated the process on the handcuff chain just as a car screeched into position behind the Moskvich.

  “Down!” Mick shouted, shoving a shoulder into her and knocking her away from the rear of the pickup.

  Instead of being bowled from her feet, Kylee rolled, the motorcycle helmet grinding across the small rocks for an instant, and automatically came up in a crouching position. She raced for the motorcycle.

  Bullets slammed into the pickup’s rear as Mick took cover on the vehicle’s passenger side. He spotted the pistol lying on the ground and grabbed the weapon. Remaining in a crouch, he wheeled around with the pistol in his right hand, his left hand open and supporting his right wrist as he fired.

  Four men occupied the black Trabant fifty feet behind the pickup. The man on the passenger side pirouetted and went down. The windshield broke across the driver’s face in a spray of crimson. Evidently he’d had his foot on the brake, and when he died his foot slipped away. The Russian-made sedan rolled forward. A third man bolted from the car’s rear, but he didn’t go far before the pistol in Mick’s hands blasted him down.

  Kylee righted the motorcycle, threw a leg over and used the electric starter to fire up the engine. She slapped the face shield down into place, then dropped the gearshift lever into first with her foot.

  “Car Two is in front of the pickup,” Barbara said over the ear bud.

  Kylee glanced toward the highway and saw the second Trabant skid to a stop seventy or eighty feet in front of the pickup. Three men boiled out of the vehicle as the reverse lights came on and the driver floored the accelerator.

  “Mick!” Kylee yelled.

  He rose, blood-covered with a new layer of dust over him. Despite his wounds and his battered condition, he looked inexorable, a man held together by his own strength of will. Bending down over the man Kylee had knocked out, he took two extra magazines from the man’s coat. Still in motion, eyes narrowed against the afternoon sun, Mick ejected the spent clip and shoved a new one home.

  He raised the pistol as he walked, focused on the targets in the other car. The pistol jumped in his hands.

  Kylee’s heart thudded inside her chest as she watched Mick coolly shoot one of the men, then turn his sights on a second. No emotion showed in those blue eyes: no anger, no remorse, no fear. He fired at the approaching car, but the driver ducked down and came on.

  Watching him was horrible. She felt certain bullets were going to beat him down at any second and she could do nothing to prevent it.

  “Mick!” Kylee yelled again.

  Then he was at her side, throwing a leg painfully over the back of the motorcycle.

  “Can you drive one of these, sheila?” he growled as he wrapped an arm around her midsection.

  She felt the heated strength of his arm around her and was surprised at the sense of security that came with it. Despite the danger of the situation, she felt safe and protected. She’d seen him stand up to bullets twice now and never falter. Releasing the clutch and twisting the throttle, she guided the motorcycle forward, front wheel coming up as the Trabant collided with the Moskvich pickup.

  “You’ve got a spotter in the air,” Barbara warned over the headset.

  Speeding out onto the highway, Kylee glanced up and saw a small transport helicopter in the air above them.

  “We tracked the helicopter from the airport only minutes ago,” Barbara said. “It came straight here. The hangar it came from is registered to one of Scherba’s shell companies.”

  The helicopter closed the distance rapidly. A man leaned out onto the landing skid with a machine pistol. Nine-millimeter bullets cracked against the worn tarmac of the highway only a few feet from Kylee and Mick.

  Mick fired at the helicopter, missing nearly every time but scoring enough hits on the Plexiglas bubble to make the pilot back off. He swapped magazines, putting his last full one in.

  “I don’t think this was the ideal transportation for a rescue,” he growled.

  “Not if we were going to stick with the highway,” Kylee agreed. She geared down, watching as the cars approaching her pulled into the ditch to avoid the yammering fire of the guy with the machine pistol.

  Then she cut the wheel, powering the motorcycle off-road. She had to muscle the BMW across the rugged terrain, but in seconds she found a game trail that threaded through the trees over the mountainous country. The thick foliage protected them from the helicopter’s spying eyes.

  “Not bad, sheila,” Mick said approvingly. “Not bad at all.”

  A glow of pride filled Kylee. She felt him lean more heavily into her, instinctively letting his body meld with hers until they almost felt like one. If it hadn’t been for the possibility of bad guys popping out at any moment, Kylee thought she could have enjoyed riding like that for hours.

  “So you’re not a thief. You’re a spy.”

  Burdened by the packages she carried, Kylee stood in the doorway and gazed across the darkened interior of the safe house. The hideout contained some amenities, but lacked clothing they both needed.

  After getting Mick Stone cleaned up and bandaged, which had included far too much exposure to handsome naked male flesh, which had more of an effect on her than she would have liked, Kylee had gone shopping. That hadn’t truly helped take her mind off the man and his body, though, because she’d thought constantly of the naked male the clothes would soon be covering.

  Kylee felt irritated with herself. She’d never thought about a man so much in her life. And the circumstances couldn’t have been any worse. And to top matters off, not only was she off her game, but Mick Stone was definitely not the kind of guy that should have put her there. He was way too serious.

  “Maybe you want to speak up a little,” Kylee said. “I think a c
ouple of the neighbors didn’t hear you.” She closed the door with a bang. Wasn’t he used to doing covert work? Didn’t he have a clue what secrecy was all about? She felt irritated at him for that, too. Maybe her thinking about him all the time wasn’t his fault, but possibly blowing their cover and exposing the safe house was definitely his fault.

  Mick Stone sat in a chair by the window overlooking the Vltava River. Since his clothing had been ruined, he’d been forced to wear a towel to make some attempt at modesty.

  Modesty, however, seemed to be something Mick Stone wasn’t overly enamored of. He’d only put up token resistance to her offer of examining and treating his wounds, and he’d seemed comfortable with his nudity.

  Two of the wounds, one at the back of his head and another along his left jaw had required stitches. Versed in medical care from working with her father and her brothers and taking care of herself, Kylee had used the safe house’s ER-grade medkit to stitch the wounds closed.

  “My voice didn’t carry that far,” Mick argued.

  Kylee dropped the clothing on the couch near the door.

  Mick eyed the packages doubtfully. “You bought all that for me?”

  “Not all,” Kylee said defensively. “Some. Some of that is for you.” She hadn’t been able to bring any clothes from the hotel with her. “There’s outerwear down in the car. I just couldn’t bring it all up.”

  A frown creased Mick’s face. “The clothes I usually buy, sheila, they don’t come in ribboned boxes and packages. I hope you have something in there fit for a man to wear.”

  “They were all out of leather and lizard hide,” Kylee replied. “But there was a nice Roman toga I found that will upgrade your Tarzan attire.”

  Levering himself up from the chair, Mick grinned. “Oh, and you’re a cold one, aren’t you?” He crossed the room and trailed a forefinger along the line of her jaw. “I love it when a woman puts on that holier-than-thou attitude.”

  Kylee whipped her head to the side and tried to bite his finger.

  Mick laughed and pulled his finger back. “A croc that moved that slowly back where I came from would starve to death.”