Ultimate Weapon

by Shannon McKenna

  “Maybe her instincts are better than yours,” he offered.

  Tam made a derisive sound. “No, she just has a lot to learn. Learning to watch out for men with handsome faces and big guns comes after basic language skills, how to use a fork, and potty training. Come on, baby, come play with your dolls with Mommy.”

  Rachel ignored her and held up another small doll to be admired. “Sveti give dollies,” she informed Val with great gravity.

  “Oh, sì?” he responded politely. “Who is Sveti?”

  “We see Sveti wedding!” She jumped. “Red dress! For me! Pretty!”

  “Wedding?” He glanced at Steele. “You’re going to a wedding?”

  “Today wedding! Today wedding! See Sveti! Mommy promise,” Rachel said, glancing fiercely at Steele for corroboration. “Promise!”

  A frown marred Steele’s pale brow. “Honey, don’t babble,” she said tightly.

  “Want red dress! Want Sveti! Promise!”

  Steele massaged her forehead with her fingertips. “I don’t have your red dress now, baby,” she said wearily. “I left it at home. And Sveti’s not here. I’m sorry.”

  Rachel’s face crumpled. Val braced himself for her ambulance siren imitation. Today wedding. He didn’t place much weight in a three-year-old’s sense of time, but Steele’s discomfort with Rachel’s revelation suggested that there had been plans to go to some event today, before he maneuvered her into running away.

  “Is one of your McCloud friends getting married?” he asked.

  “None of your damn business, and how did you know about the McClouds anyhow?”

  “Want Sveti!” Rachel wailed. “Want wedding!”

  “Is there someone at this wedding who you could trust to keep Rachel safe for you for a while?”

  “That’s none of your damn business either.” She got up. “And it’s time for us to go. Thanks again for the—”

  “Sit down.” He put all his force behind the words. “I am trying to save your child’s life.”

  His tone made even Rachel’s wails trail off in uncertain whimpers. Steele sat slowly on the edge of the bed again, her full mouth pinched.

  “The wedding is today?” he asked. “In Seattle?”

  A sullen shrug was her response.

  “You were planning to go?” he persisted.

  “Before I tried to flee the country, yes,” she said bitterly. “Last night’s events put a crimp in my social calendar. This morning’s adventure didn’t help much either.”

  “We should go,” he informed her. “It’s the perfect timing.”

  Her eyes widened. “What’s this ‘we’ crap? We’re not going anywhere with you, Janos. I’m not exposing my friends to you and your weirdo homicidal pals. And besides, we have nothing to wear.”

  “So order something online,” he said. “Have it delivered.”

  She shook her head. “Listen to me, Val Janos, or whoever the hell you are. You haven’t even told me yet what the hell is going on. Until you explain to my satisfaction—”

  “I can’t.” He shot a significant look at Rachel.

  Rachel’s doll was hugging his doll once again. She tilted her head, and peeked up with a flirtatious smile.

  “Honey baby, it’s time for you to have a bath,” Steele said briskly. “I’ll go run it for you.” She squinted at him. “And you will talk. Quietly, outside the bathroom door, while she bathes.”

  A few minutes of preparation got Rachel paddling happily in a shallow bath with an assortment of floating rubber toys, produced from the miraculous black bag. Steele sat in the bathroom doorway where she could keep an eye on the child, and gestured for Val to sit opposite her on the floor.

  “Talk,” she ordered. “Who were those guys?”

  “I had no chance to interrogate them, so I cannot be sure,” he said. “But I assume they were a local team put in place by PSS.”

  “PSS?” She looked perplexed. “Aren’t you PSS?”

  “I was,” he said. “I had a disagreement with the organization. I suspect that after that, my boss no longer trusted me to carry out the mission, so he mobilized another team. They will consider me rogue after what happened this morning.”

  “A disagreement? Over what?” she demanded.

  “You,” he said baldly. “My boss insisted that I take Rachel and manipulate you with her.”

  Her face was a pale, impenetrable mask. “And why didn’t you?”

  He thought of several answers. Dangerous, inappropriate answers. But he was not yet ready to voice them. And she was definitely not yet ready to hear them.

  “I don’t like hurting children,” he said finally. “It was often a problem for me in this work. When the issue came up again, I said enough, vaffanculo a tutti. I did not like the job in any case. Coercing a woman into going with a depraved pig like Luksch by threatening her child, che schifo. It is squalid.” He shrugged. “My boss said that a man in my position cannot afford such scruples. He was right. So I decided to change my position.”

  “I see.” She examined her fingernails. “So, ah, let me get this straight. You followed me and helped me and Rachel in the shuttle just because you’re noble and heroic?”

  “Ah . . .” He floundered, taken aback.

  “I take it this is the part in the story where I’m supposed to be deeply impressed by how honorable you are? And melt like chocolate?”

  He took the three steps back in his mind and waited until his anger at her sarcasm faded. “It is not a story,” he replied. “It is the truth.”

  “Hmm.” She gazed at her daughter, splashing and humming in the tub. “So they took over all the data on me that you gathered for them and had this B team act on it?”

  “No,” he said. “This is the part that troubles me. They knew the location of your home because I could not hide it from the satellite. But I do not know how they found you at the airport this morning. I did not share the frequencies that I tagged you with.”

  She looked thoughtful. “They found me, but you don’t know how. Hmmph. I smell a ramped-up version of Good Cop, Bad Cop.”

  His teeth began to grind. “The good cop does not usually kill the bad cops when that game is played,” he said.

  “It depends on the stakes,” she said. “How hard the game is being played, how ruthless the players, how big the payoff. The psychological effects would be intense with murder thrown in.”

  He stared at her. “I did not do that,” he said.

  Her eyes slid away. “Hmm,” she murmured. “How noble. And very moving, Janos, but it doesn’t explain what you’re doing here with us. You should be lying on a beach on another continent, sipping an umbrella drink, putting all the unpleasantness behind you. If what you say is true, nobody is paying you a salary to cramp our style any longer. So why are we here?”

  The woman was mercilessly focused. He had hoped to ease around the danger zone for a while, to warm her up, gain her trust. But no. She shoved him straight toward the perilous moment of truth.

  “There is . . . something else,” he forced out.

  She leaned back with a sigh. “Finally, we’re getting somewhere.”

  He had scripted several persuasive ways of approaching the dangerous bargain he meant to offer her, but all of them evaporated out of his head, leaving him with the blunt, unlovely truth.

  “I grew up in Budapest,” he said, his voice halting.

  She tilted an eyebrow. “And this is relevant exactly why, Janos?”

  “My mother . . .” He stopped and swallowed. “She was a prostitute, from Romania. She worked in a brothel there, run by a mafiya boss from Ukraina.”

  Steele’s eyes dilated. “Daddy Novak,” she said.

  He nodded. “I was very young when she died,” he said. “I got swept up into his organization as a child. I worked for him for years.”

  “I see.” Her voice was as hard as glass. “And what does your mafiya past have to do with me?”

  He closed his eyes, tried to organize his though
ts. This was not going well. He was not making sense, even to himself. “I am trying to explain the connection,” he said wearily. “There was a man . . . who helped me years ago. He was kind to me. Educated me, tried to get me out. He failed with the second, through no fault of his own. I care about this man. Novak knows this. He abducted my friend, and now he threatens to torture him to death if I do not . . . deliver you to him.”

  He did not dare to look at her. The heavy silence was underscored by the child’s burbling and splashing from the bathtub.

  Steele’s face was ashen. She was so startled, she had no sarcasm to counter him. “Does he know about Rachel?” she whispered.

  “From what I could tell, no. He did not mention her.”

  “He must not find out,” she said with hushed intensity. “He would never rest until he got her.”

  He nodded.

  She looked down at her hands. They were trembling visibly. She clenched them into fists. “Why are you telling me this, Janos?” she asked. “It’s not an efficient tactic if you want to save your friend. Why not just knock me on the head and do the deal?”

  Val shook his head. “I was hoping to find a better solution to the problem,” he confessed. “One that would not damn me to hell.”

  She looked dubious. “You think that a solution exists?”

  “I hope so,” he said. “I do not want to hurt you. And Imre would not thank me for saving him from death and torture at your expense.”

  “Hmmph,” she snorted. “This Imre must have very high standards if he can reason like that in Novak’s clutches.”

  “Oh, God, yes. That he does,” Val agreed fervently. “His high standards have been a pain in my ass for most of my life.”

  Tam waited for more, and threw up her arms. “So?” she prompted him. “The suspense is killing me. Tell me about this better solution.”

  “I have not formulated it completely,” he admitted. “But I want to offer a trade. You help me with my problem, and I help you with yours.”

  Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Go on.”

  “By helping eliminate Novak, you help both yourself and your daughter,” he said. “I hire a team, and we will set a trap for Novak. You are the bait, pretending to be fooled into being delivered to him. You will be covered on all sides by manpower and electronic backup.”

  “Ah.” Her bright eyes were unreadable. “And what do you offer me in return?”

  “I will take care of Georg for you. He will never bother you again.”

  “Do you mean kill him?” Her eyebrows shot up. “Ambitious.”

  He shrugged. “I will manage it.”

  She shook her head, and his heart sank. “It’s a bad bargain,” she said. “Not a fair trade.”

  “Why not?” He could not control the jagged edge of frustration in his voice. “We will solve all your problems at once.”

  “No. Your problem, Janos,” she pointed out. “Which is much bigger than mine.”

  “Is it?” he demanded. “What happened in that shuttle bus did not look like much of a problem to you? Georg Luksch is not a fucking problem for you?”

  She dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “If those guys were PSS and working for Georg, then they wouldn’t have killed us,” she said with irrefutable logic. “And I am perfectly capable of taking care of the Georg problem myself, if it comes to that.”

  “Oh, yes? With Rachel to protect?” he snarled. “And even if you should succeed at killing Georg, what kind of mother would you be if you are on the run night and day from Daddy Novak for the rest of your short life? He will not rest now that he knows you are alive. You will never sleep again.”

  She shook her head. “I never slept much anyhow.”

  Val clenched his fists. “Very well. Would you consider doing it for payment?”

  She blinked a few times. “How much payment?”

  “At least three million euro, perhaps closer to four,” he said rashly. “Everything I own, minus whatever it will cost me to mount this operation. And it will take a little while to pull it all together, transfer the stock options, sell the apartment in Rome, et cetera.”

  Her eyes widened. She looked toward Rachel, splashing and singing in the bathtub. “A generous offer, but no,” she said quietly.

  He wanted to scream, pound the walls, smash the lamps. “But if Novak and Georg both are—”

  “My chances of surviving what you propose are too small,” she cut in. “I appreciate your honesty, and I’m sorry for your friend, but my first responsibility is to Rachel.”

  “Which is why you should reconsider,” he said desperately. “The quality of both your lives will improve if—”

  “I know what’s at stake,” she snapped. “The answer is still no. There is nothing more for us to talk about. Rachel and I will be on our way as soon as I get her dressed. Unless you intend to abduct or murder us, of course. In any case, excuse me while I go shampoo Rachel’s hair.”

  Val sat on his ass outside the bathroom door, limp and bleak and defeated. He stared at Steele where she kneeled by the bathtub, her back straight, her husky voice murmuring nonsense to the child as Rachel sputtered and shrieked at the insult of shampoo. He stared at her black diaper bag, his hand fiddling with the tiny SafeGuard X-Ray Specs burr beacons he had hidden there, in case he got lucky enough to manage to mark her things again. Her murmuring voice floated out of the bathroom. He was out of her line of vision.

  He pulled the smallest beacon out, and slid it into the seam at the bottom of her bag. Done. He would know her location, at least for another twenty-four hours. He was not yet ready to admit defeat. And the end of the world.

  He got up and logged on to his computer. A few minutes later, Steele carried the wriggling Rachel out wrapped in a big bath towel and dressed her with some difficulty. When Rachel was on the floor again playing with her dolls, Val slid the laptop across the bed and spun the screen around to face her. “Here.”

  She frowned down at the screen. “What’s this?”

  “The online catalog for the department store at the mall,” he said.

  She looked blank. “And? So? What about it?”

  “Clothes for the wedding,” he said. “We’ll have them delivered to the hotel.”

  Her mouth tightened. “Have you not been listening to a word I said? You’re not going to the wedding, Janos. No is no. Capisci?”

  He gritted his teeth. “Do you need clothes for this event, or do you not?”

  She gave him a thunderous glare, and then, out of nowhere, her face miraculously cleared. “Whatever I need, did you say?”

  “Whatever,” he stubbornly repeated.

  Too late, he registered the catlike satisfaction on her face as she tugged the keyboard closer and began to clickity-click with the deft ease of a seasoned online shopper. Oh, cazzo. He was in for it.

  She was going to make him pay and pay and pay.

  Thank God for cosmetics. Tam dabbed still another layer of coverup under her eyes with the makeup sponge. The bruise-colored shadows down there were gruesome to behold without foundation to camouflage them. She studied the effect, and put on the finishing touches: a final brush of mascara to make already thick lashes thicker, a slick of clear gloss to make the bronze-toned lipstick glisten, color on her cheeks to brighten her shocking pallor.

  Not bad. Even on a day from hell.

  Janos was in the other room, sunk in silence as he perused the details of her Internet order. Yes, she had been bad, very bad. But he deserved to be punished for his mischief-making. He deserved worse for what he’d done to Rosalia alone, let alone the passports, the adoption agency, the cops. She didn’t even want to total up how much money he’d cost her.

  Therefore, she was authorized to fully enjoy the horrified look on his face when he saw the totals. Hah. Take that, testa di cazzo.

  She went out into the hotel room and rummaged through the shopping bags, gathering the elements of her ensemble together. Janos watched her take the new shoes ou
t of their box, and then glanced at the receipt for the reference.

  “Manolos,” he said, his tone aggrieved. “Eight hundred dollars?”

  “A bargain,” she purred. “Excellent value.”

  “And the Tigger potty seat? The Cadillac of strollers? Five hundred and eighty-seven dollars for cosmetics alone? One thousand, four hundred for a cocktail dress that looks smaller than a hand towel?”

  “Looking good is an investment.” She unfolded the iridescent bronze-tinted silk stockings with the retro seams up the back and stroked them with an admiring hand. “You did say whatever we needed, didn’t you?” She slanted him a look of mock dismay. “Does it exceed your budget? Oh, no! I’ll write you a check! Oh, dear . . . whoops, afraid I can’t after all. I’m a murder suspect now, you see. My assets will be frozen any time now, if they aren’t already. So sorry!”

  He made a disgusted sound and she left him to stew, gathering up stockings, shoes, jewelry case, and the dress before she went into the bathroom to pour herself into her outfit.

  The stockings and garter belt were delicious, and the dress nicer even than it had looked in the online catalog. Crumpled, stretchy bronze fabric clung lovingly to every curve and hollow. It was almost off the shoulders with builtin support for her bosom that she barely needed. The skirt came down half the length of her thigh. Boldly short for a woman who scorned panties, but she liked living dangerously.

  To a point, she mused, thinking of the morning’s events. To a point. She was backing way off on living dangerously.

  She braided her hair up into a high, tight coronet and fastened it with a bristling array of Deadly Beauty ornaments, all of them fully armed just in case. Her pendant topaz earrings looked great with the dress, also serving in a pinch as a hypodermic loaded with a quick-acting knock-out drug. She pulled out the necklace, the pièce de resistance.

  Her eyes looked back from the mirror, bleak and miserable. She had to be ruthless now. Quick, decisive. To act without hesitation.

  She had to stop dawdling and procrastinating, goddamnit.