Ultimate Weapon

by Shannon McKenna

  Besides, his clothing fit the car. The ragged wool sweater with the cigarette burns and the brownish-yellow underarm sweat stains, the pilled, threadbare pants that did not succeed in covering his ankles though they did threaten to slide off his ass. All that could be said for them was they were dry.

  The signora must have laughed up her sleeve when she picked them out of her rag bag. He would have been amused at her little joke, if he hadn’t been so angry and miserable.

  And in pain. Everything hurt. Most of all his shoulder, but there wasn’t a centimeter of the rest of him, inside or out, that did not sting, ache or burn in sympathy. His head throbbed like a rotten tooth. Hung over from whatever drug Tamar had zapped him with, no doubt.

  He felt humiliated. Betrayed into confessing his love, and she’d fucked him over to reward him for his idiocy. Served him right for being such a fatuous dickhead.

  So why was he following her? He could turn his back and go.

  He could not answer that question. He couldn’t stop himself, either. Burning stubborness, that was all it was. He hated being bested.

  He stared at the ring on his finger. Tamar’s ring. What the hell she had meant by leaving it with him, he did not dare to imagine.

  But he had not taken it off.

  Tamar’s cell phone beeped from his pocket, as he finally came into an area of coverage. Val pulled it out and glanced at it.

  He glanced again. Twenty chiamate non risposte. Twenty unanswered calls. He ran his eye over the numbers visible in the display. All the same number, all with a Seattle area code. Someone in the Seattle area had been desperately trying to call her all night long.

  That could not be good news. He thought suddenly of Rachel. The bars of the prison Imre had tried to free him from closed in on him again, along with the chill of fear.

  No, please. Not that. Not her baby girl.

  He’d just poised his thumb over the callback option when the phone rang. The phone registered an unknown number, and in a moment of wild, irrational hope, he thought it might be Tamar.

  He stabbed the button to answer. “Sì?”

  There was a suspicious pause, and Connor McCloud’s voice rasped through the line. “Who the hell is this?”

  “It’s Val Janos,” he said. “What happened?”

  “Rachel,” Connor said. “They got Rachel.”

  The creeping dread solidified instantly into horror. He flash froze it and put it aside. No time for it. No time for anything now but action.

  “Who?” he asked. “When?”

  “How the fuck do we know who? She was playing with Sveti in the park right outside the house. A black sedan with three men in it pulled up. They roughed up Sveti, took Rachel, and took off. It was six PM.”

  “Cazzo,” Val whispered.

  “Yeah,” Connor agreed. “Where the fuck is Tam? And why doesn’t she have her fucking phone?”

  Val let out the tension with a sharp, gusty breath. “She’s off to assassinate someone,” he said grimly. “We disagreed about it. She handcuffed me to a bed and drugged me. I just got free. I’m hoping to catch up with her before she gets arrested. Or killed.”

  “Ah.” There was an uncomfortable pause. “Well, there you go. That’s our Tam for you. Are you having fun yet?”

  “Fuck you,” Val said.

  “Sure. Whatever. Moving on. I was hoping you two might know—”

  “Novak,” he said flatly. “Check the RF tags for Rachel’s position.”

  Connor sucked in a sharp breath. “Holy shit. I can’t believe this. You tagged Rachel? With what?”

  “SafeGuard beacons,” Val said. “One in her bear, one in her stroller, one in her blanket, one in her coat. That red puffy one.”

  “She might still have the coat with her.” Connor’s voice vibrated with excitement. “Frequencies?”

  “I don’t have them on me,” Val said. “The paperwork was lost when we had to run from our hotel two days ago, but you can get the frequencies from your own database. I ordered them online two weeks ago under the name Robert Perkins. They were shipped to a Tacoma address. I used the second smallest ones for her. Four of the burr beacons.”

  “You’re a man after my own heart, Janos. I’m calling from the airport. We’re booked through to Paris, since it was the first flight we could get to anyplace in Europe, but we didn’t know where we needed to go from there.”

  “Almost certainly Hungary. Call me again if you find a signal for Rachel,” Val said. “I’ll get Tamar, if I can, and meet you in Budapest.”

  He hung up, pressed down hard on the accelerator, ignoring the car’s freaky whines, shudders and shimmies of protest.

  For Rachel’s sake, the fucking car could make one last effort.

  Her timing was spot on. Ana’s eyelids fluttered as Tam parked the Opel in front of the clinic. She circled to the passenger’s side, jerked the door open, unbuckled Ana, and swatted her sticky cheeks.

  “Wake up,” she said crisply. “Showtime.”

  Ana groaned, her eyes dim and foggy. “What?”

  Tam handed her a handful of makeup removal pads and a compact mirror from her purse. “Fix your face.”

  Ana glanced at herself in the mirror, gasped in horror, and woke right up. She spent the next couple of minutes repairing her mask. When Tam sensed that she was starting to stall, she yanked Ana’s elbow and dragged her up and out of the car.

  Ana twisted away. “What are you going to—ow!”

  The needle pierced the underside of Ana’s coat sleeve, digging into her forearm so that Tam could stroll alongside her and hold her arm, oh-so-friendly and companionable. Ana squeaked and flinched.

  “Move carefully,” Tam told her. “Now listen. I am the Dottoressa Tiziana Gadaleta. A specialist in . . . what disease is he suffering from?”

  “N-n-no one is quite s-sure,” Ana quavered. “Some kind of tropical parasite, they think. It attacks the nerves. He’s immobilized, but he still feels awful pain. It’s . . . it’s terrible. Please. Don’t make it worse. He’s already suffering so much.”

  “All right, I’m a specialist in tropical parasites.” How appropriate, she reflected. The worst of both worlds. Paralyzed, but still in pain.

  Funny. She’d felt that way herself for sixteen years.

  Ana dragged her feet. “Wh-what are you going to do to him?”

  “Shut up and move,” Tam snapped as they approached the door.

  The woman started to whimper. Tam leaned in to her ear. “One wrong move, and the needle goes in,” she murmured. “Don’t doubt it. I have nothing to lose.” For the first time in her life, Tam realized that statement was a lie. The realization did not feel good. In fact, it made her feel horribly vulnerable.

  Oh, how she missed Robot Bitch.

  Ana staggered beside her like a zombie. The man at the guard booth slid open a glass panel and leaned down. “Buona sera, Signora Santarini,” he said. “What’s the name of your visitor?”

  “D-dottoressa Tiziana Gadaleta,” Ana quavered.

  The man didn’t look up as he scribbled the name on his register. Perhaps out of carelessness. Or maybe the clinic’s posh visitors were habitually in this emotional state. Ana peered into the retina scan, presented her hand for the palm lock. A mechanical door sighed open.

  The clinic was chilly and modern inside. It seemed designed to make one feel both important and vaguely sedated. White-clad doctors hustled officiously to and fro on their important business. No one seemed to notice them. Excellent.

  Ana hesitated. Tam smiled pleasantly and prompted her with the needle’s point. “Take me to him. Now.”

  Ana sniffed back her tears with violent effort and led her obediently down a series of corridors and stairways. She stopped outside a room, tears streaming down her face.

  “Papa,” she said brokenly. “Oh, please. Don’t do this. Please.”

  Christ, this was torture. Damn Robot Bitch, to leave her in the lurch right now, in her hour of need. “Open the door,”
Tam urged through gritted teeth.

  Ana pushed open the door. Tam shoved her inside, glanced at the man on the bed to make sure it was the right person.

  It was. She stared at the long form lying on the bed, the dark, sunken eyes that fastened on hers. They widened ever so slightly.

  She shoved the needle in. Ana’s jaw dropped in horror as Tam pressed the plunger.

  “Don’t worry, I switched the earrings. It’s just a sedative,” Tam assured her in Ana’s last second of lucidity. She gently broke Ana’s tumble to the floor. Left her in a heap of wool and fur by the door.

  She walked to the bed. Stengl stared up at her. His breath was labored. He wore an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.

  Odd. She’d pictured this crucial, life-changing moment so many times. She felt nothing. Blank and cool, as if he were a stranger.

  He looked insubstantial. He was a tall man, but skeletally thin now. She remembered a giant. Sweaty, malodorous, crushingly heavy.

  His pale skin was like parchment, his lips peeling and colorless.

  There was no need to speak. At least he recognized her, unlike Ana. She had that much satisfaction. There was no surprise in his eyes. If anything, she sensed a look of relief. He knew she’d come to kill him. The end of his suffering was at hand.

  She came closer, bent over him. Stared into his bloodshot, watery eyes, wondering who was in there. How he could have done it. Rifle fire crackled in her head. Screams from the basement cells. Dirt scattering down into Mamma and Irina’s eyes. Her nails dug into her palms.

  His eyes were avid with eagerness for her to free him.

  Images superimposed themselves over the man’s face in her mind. Her father, smiling over the jewelry bench as he taught her the craft they both loved. Playing with little Irina. Mamma, fussing over Tam’s pronunciation of French, Russian, Italian, Ukrainian. Lecturing her about politics, philosophy, and manners. Telling her daughter how she was going to love studying at the Sorbonne someday, as she herself had so longed to do.

  The life she would have had, the life her little sister Irina would have had. Bones and dust.

  She looked at him, and the anger didn’t rise up and choke her as it always had before. The place where it had been had changed. She’d broken her heart wide open, made space inside it for Rachel, and then still more space, for Val. She was transformed, transfigured.

  She felt as big as the sky in there.

  There was no monster here to vanquish. All power to hurt had been drained out of the creature on that bed. He was a burned-out battery. She would obtain nothing by killing him—and she could lose everything. She was no longer a woman with nothing to lose. She had everything that was precious. Everything to protect and cherish.

  He was not worth it.

  The strangest sensation opened up inside her at that realization, thrumming in the newly open space inside her chest. Like light, like heat, like music. Sweet, high-pitched sound, far-off children singing.

  If she killed him, she would be linked to him. She would carry him forever. All the strength that she needed for the people she loved, she would have to give to Drago Stengl until the day that she died.

  She’d carried him long enough. Let his own pain crush him out of existence with its own stately, majestic pace. Why rush it?

  She could turn away. Leave him behind. She really could.

  He sensed his precious deliverance drifting inexorably away from him, and opened his bloodshot eyes wide in alarm. He tried to speak.

  She shook her head. “No,” she said softly, in Croatian. “Today is not your lucky day.” The long unused language felt strange in her mouth.

  She turned her back and walked away. She stopped at the door and looked down at Ana. Leaned over, felt the other woman’s pulse.

  Strong and steady. She’d wake up in a few minutes and be fine.

  Tam walked out of the room and down the corridor. Her feet started going faster, ’til she was running. Then practically sprinting.

  She forced herself to slow down. Self-control, please. Get a grip.

  It was hard to keep her pace steady. She wanted to run headlong toward her new life. The chance she would give herself, if it wasn’t too late. She wanted to run toward this new self with her arms outstretched. This woman who was not so toxic, so desperate.

  This new Tam might even make a wild stab at happiness. Maybe even love, if pigs flew, if the sky fell, if she was insanely lucky.

  Or at the very least, peace. If nothing else.

  Peace. Something she’d never dared to hope for. Never thought she deserved. She asked the ghosts in her heart to forgive her for not avenging them. Her soul lightened as they granted it.

  Children sang in her head. She was euphoric. She’d gone nuts.

  Get a grip, Steele, she reminded herself. Look sharp. You’re not in the clear yet. Don’t float off into la-la land. You’re being irresponsible.

  No one challenged her at the exit. She walked out into the brilliant clarity of the winter evening. The setting sun made the sea glow, the wind blew through the pines, whipping and bending them.

  She was astonished by how beautiful it was. Tears blurred her eyes. Her mind was blown by its grandeur. It hurt. She liked the pain.

  Bring it on. She was bigger now. She could take it in.

  First order of business: take those damned tongue studs out of her mouth. She didn’t need them now. Then she would run to the nearest place that sold prepaid cell phones, buy one, call to check on Rachel, and then call Val. Tell him that he’d been right, she’d been wrong, and she was sorry. That she loved him. That she’d pursue him until he gave in out of sheer exhaustion. His anger was huge, but so was her love.

  And she was tough. Let him yell and scream and be pissed at her. She’d wait him out. Let Stengl rot. Let Novak and Georg kill each other.

  Fuck them all. In the face of all the bastards who wished her ill, she was going to live. With her kid—and her man. She really was. Oh, God.

  The urgency she felt to get away from there was building up to a frantic level. She yanked open the door of the Opel—and heard the muted pop of another car door opening behind her. No.

  She spun, flinging up her arm to block the blow that she instinctively knew was aimed at the back of her head. It connected with her forearm. White hot, fiery pain shot up her arm.

  Broken. Shit, a useless right arm.

  She scrambled back, hit the car, bounced. Dragged in air, tried to block the sickening pain. She’d deserved that one, floating around in a fucking cloud, drunk on beauty and hopes of love.

  She would pay for it now. András loomed, his face wild and grinning. Wet-lipped and sharp-toothed, like an evil hobgoblin from one of her grandmother’s scarier stories.

  Her knee jerked up toward his groin, and hit hard. Yes. Air escaped from him in a grunting whoosh. She scooted away, but he scooped her right off her feet with a swipe of his leg at knee level. She lost her center, teetering on those fucking spike-heeled Manolos, goddamnit, betrayed by vanity and fashion—

  She fell against the Opel again, jarring the broken arm, and almost screamed. It cost her the split second she needed to wind up for another blow or block. The entire weight of András’s body slammed into her, squashing her against the car, dragging her down, down, first to her knees, and then thudding heavily, flat onto her face.

  He sat on her back, squashing out air, light, everything. Her face was ground against the asphalt. Pebbles scratched her cheek.

  “Bitch,” he panted. “You’ll pay for that. Screaming.” His hoarse, grating voice rasped in her ears. “You can start paying right now.” He stuck his wet, meaty tongue into her ear, wiggled it. “Guess what pretty little toddler is on her way to visit benevolent old Daddy Novak right now, as we speak?”

  “No!” Horror exploded inside her. She convulsed in instinctive denial, but his weight made the movement barely a wiggle.

  András laughed nastily. “Ah, yes. We’ll get there about the same time sh
e does. A touching family reunion. I can hardly wait.” His hand clamped around her mouth and nose, pressing over both with a damp gauze pad that had a sharp, acrid smell. “Little ones never last long. . . .”

  Her blood pressure plummeted, pulling her into a sucking hole of despair. An express elevator to hell and the lightless oblivion beyond it.

  Chapter 26

  The Opel’s driver’s side door hung open as Val pulled the Fiat up next to it. The car subsided into ominous silence after a rattling death cough.

  Val’s heart stuck in his throat as he shoved the stiff, creaking door of the Fiat open and stared at the scene. The ignition key peeked out from behind the left wheel tire. A single shoe lay on the asphalt between the two cars. A black, spike-heeled pump. One of the Manolos.

  He got out, crouched to pick up the shoe. He hated to think of her barefoot. So vulnerable.

  He thudded down onto his knees. Trying to breathe, trying to think. What next. What now. Ah, God.

  Get up, Janos. You’ve got a job to do. Don’t just crash like a melodramatic asshole. It sounded like Tam’s crisp, merciless voice in his head.

  It comforted him. Gave him the impetus he needed to fish up the keys from behind the tire, drag his leaden body off the ground, and slide into the Opel. The laptop and Hegel’s cell phone still lay on the passenger side floor, forgotten since that morning.

  He reached for the cell phone. It still had some life in the battery. He stared at it for a long, hostile moment, and shook himself to break the paralysis. He pulled up the stored text messages.

  348. The room number. Georg’s last message to Hegel.

  Three steps back. His usual mantra struck him as ludicrous, almost cruel. He could not take three steps anywhere. He was too muddled, too exhausted. He was terrified.

  You will have to do somewhat better than your best to get out of this. Imre’s dry voice echoed through his head.

  Val’s chest twisted, to think of Imre. Better than his best might not be enough. It had not been so far, or this would not have happened. Imre, dead. Tamar and Rachel, taken.