by Anne Stuart
“Lucky you,” she murmured.
He laughed. “Hey, what about lucky her?”
He was right about that. Now that Mary Isobel could see him in the light of day she realized he was good-looking. Maybe beyond that. He was well over six feet tall, with long legs clad in faded jeans. He had a narrow, clever face and green eyes. And he was taken.
“Lucky her,” she agreed with a smile. “You’ll make very pretty children.”
“If I can ever talk her into ruining her figure,” he grumbled. “Got your passport? They’ll be checking them.”
“Of course.”
“Hand it to me. It’ll go faster if they know we’re traveling together.”
The nonchalant request bothered her. There was no reason for it, but it bothered her anyway, even as she put the dark navy passport in his outstretched hand. But he smiled at her, a warm, dazzling smile in the sunlit morning, and she knew she was being ridiculous. He was a fellow American, looking for company and someone to share the gas expenses, and she had nothing else to do for the next few weeks.
So she smiled back at him. “Very practical,” she said, as he pocketed her passport. And she took another sip of the hot, dark coffee and ignored her misgivings. The worst mistake of her life.
3
Now
The Moroccan sun was blazingly bright, a shock to the system after the dark rain of a London winter. Isobel Lambert drove very fast over the rutted roads. She was blessed with an unerring sense of direction, something that had saved her life on numerous occasions, and she knew she’d make her destination by nightfall. She ignored the fact that she didn’t want to; she wasn’t ready to face who and what was waiting for her in a tiny North African village at the edge of the desert.
At least he wouldn’t have the faintest idea who Isobel Lambert was. She didn’t know how he’d survived that night, but since he clearly had, he’d know that she, too, should have died. He would have forgotten all about the gullible young woman he’d used and tried to kill, even though she’d turned the tables and shot him. And he’d never connect cool, pale Isobel Lambert with the wild child he’d spent two short weeks with a lifetime ago.
And thank God that was who she was. An elegant, ageless automaton, with no desires, needs or emotions. Those had been scrubbed out of her over the long years, and after the initial shock of recognition, she could view her current mission with equanimity. Josef Serafin would be out of commission, and the world would be a marginally safer place.
The winter sun was blazing down on her open-topped vehicle. But the Jeep was the fastest, most rugged conveyance she could find, and if someone managed to track her, or Serafin, even an armored tank wouldn’t keep them safe.
The tires were kicking up too much dust, but during the seven-hour drive from Agadir she’d seen only a handful of sheepherders and a few nomadic encampments. There was a good chance she was being tracked by satellite, but there wasn’t much help for it. Killian…Serafin…was hidden in a deserted village near the Algerian border, and there was enough trouble in the neighboring areas that she had every confidence they’d manage to get away. But then, she never went into a mission without being convinced of its viability.
She could get Josef Serafin out of Morocco, back to London, without someone blowing his head off, no matter how many people wanted to do just that. Including his unwilling savior.
The sun was starting to set by the time she reached the outskirts of the deserted village of Nazir, and a shiver danced across her skin. It was getting colder, as it did in the desert, the blistering daytime heat turning to a bone-numbing chill.
It looked as if no one had lived in the town of Nazir for years, perhaps decades. The doors with their faded blue paint were shut, the dusty streets empty, and for a moment she wondered if she’d come to the wrong place. Had her intel been faulty? Or was she walking into a trap?
No trap—her instincts, on high alert, told her nothing worse than Killian would be waiting for her in the abandoned rubble. Though she wasn’t sure there was anything worse.
She pulled the Jeep behind the ruins of an old mosque, climbing out and stretching. She was a tourist who’d gotten lost—if she ran into anyone asking uncomfortable questions she could fend him off quite easily.
If she had any sense, she would have come in disguise. Someone younger, ditzier, so that her tale of getting lost on the road to Mauritania would seem plausible. But young and foolish was just a little too close to the woman Killian had known long ago. Even so, he would never recognize her. But she’d know. It would make her vulnerable.
Leaving the Jeep, she moved aimlessly down the deserted street. She had a knife at her ankle, a handgun at the small of her back, and the ability to kill swiftly and silently with her bare hands. No one would touch her, no one would get the upper hand….
“Hey, lady.” The young voice came out of nowhere, and she jumped like a startled kitten, too unnerved by the child’s unheralded appearance to even draw her gun. Which was just as well—to any hidden observer she was simply a foolish tourist who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Lady,” the child said. She looked down at the collection of rags and dirt in front of her. He was the size of a six-year-old, with the eyes of an ancient. “Lady, you come.”
“Come where?” She hadn’t missed the gun he was holding. An AK-47. An early model from Russian surplus, she guessed. She’d seen child soldiers before, but she’d never been able to get over the shock of heavy machinery held so easily in such small hands.
“You come, lady,” he said again, seemingly the sum total of his English.
She touched the gun at the small of her back, to remind herself it was there, and followed the pitifully thin figure down the deserted streets. Killian ought to pay his stooges better, she thought, deliberately distancing herself. The child was skin and bones, held together by dirt. It was a wonder he could even lug that machine gun around with him.
They walked past crumbling buildings, some without roofs, the ubiquitous blue paint on the few remaining doors faded by the bright desert sun. She’d heard somewhere that blue deterred mosquitoes. Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be any around. She hated bugs of any sort. Just one of the many reasons she lived in England.
The sun was a shrinking orange glow on the horizon, and already, in the east, a few stars were visible. She’d left her flashlight in the car—probably not a smart idea, but she’d wanted her hands free. She still wasn’t quite sure for what.
The child came to a stop outside one of the larger houses. No windows looked onto the street, so there must be a courtyard within. The door was hanging on one hinge, and everything was silent.
The boy pointed with his gun, an unnerving gesture. “You go, lady.”
Isobel looked at him for a long, contemplative moment, then did the only thing she could do. She went.
A man stood at the far end of the courtyard, a silhouette against the darkening sky. Isobel moved forward, keeping to the shadows, letting the cold settle within her. Since her first moment of shocked recognition she’d felt nothing, nothing at all. Now she was ice.
“Where’s Bastien Toussaint?” His voice was that of a stranger—a mixture of ethnicities, a bit of Australian and South African, a touch of Spanish. Nothing like Killian’s smooth, deep voice.
“He’s retired,” she said, skirting the open courtyard. “I’m here in his place.”
“And who sent you?”
“I sent myself. I’m Isobel Lambert, head of the Committee.”
“Madame Lambert herself? You must really want me.” His tone was mocking, and her certainty was wavering. Had she been wrong? Even cleaned up, the grainy footage had been unreliable. Maybe it was a wild hallucination on her part; Peter had told her she was working too hard, burning out as everyone did, eventually. They burned out or were killed.
What she truly looking at a dead man? Or had the stress of her life finally caught up with her, making her see things that weren
’t real?
Her voice gave nothing away. “You have valuable information, Mr. Serafin, and you know it. You’re bartering that information for your life. If it was worthless I wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of you.”
“How ruthless.” The comment was light, mocking. Nothing like Killian. “I thought the days of Harry Thomason were long gone. No more random terminations.”
“Most death sentences are the result of careful deliberation and examining all the options. You, Mr. Serafin, are a no-brainer. Blink, and I’ll shoot you.”
“I promise not to blink. Are you pointing a gun at me, Madame Lambert? You’re skulking in the shadows. Maybe you’ve already made up your mind that what I have to offer isn’t worth the price of letting me live.”
“I’m keeping an open mind. Why don’t you show yourself first?”
“Certainly.” He stepped out, away from the wall, but it had grown too dark to see clearly. And suddenly the uncertainty was cracking the icy shell surrounding her.
“Do you have a light?” she asked.
“Why? Do you want a cigarette?”
She would have killed for a cigarette. Quite literally. “I’d like to take a good look at you before I come any closer.”
“A wise precaution,” he said. “After all, I’m considered to be the most dangerous man in the world. Didn’t Time call me that?”
“You shouldn’t believe your own press clippings.”
“Mahmoud!” He raised his voice, and the small child appeared, carrying a lantern. The man took it, raising it with one hand and holding out his other. “Satisfied, Madame? I’m unarmed. Harmless.”
She stared at his illuminated face, and the relief was so powerful she almost felt dizzy. How could she have made such a mistake? He was nothing at all like Killian. Killian was dead, and had been for eighteen years. The only thing this man had in common with him was his height. And the fact that he was a terrorist.
His eyes were dark, almost black, and Killian’s eyes had been green. His thinning black hair was liberally streaked with gray. Half his face was covered with a salt-and-pepper beard, framing a mouthful of blackened teeth. He had a paunch, a generous ring of flesh around his belly that suggested years of good living.
“Do I look harmless enough?” he asked when she’d completed her long, shocked perusal.
“I’m not a fool, Mr. Serafin,” she said. She couldn’t afford to let her relief lower her guard. “Looks can be deceiving.”
“Indeed,” he said. “Are you going to show yourself?”
She stepped into the light, the 9 mm semiautomatic held tightly, trained at his chest. If she had to shoot she’d go lower or higher—the throat was efficient, the groin almost as painful. Both caused much more suffering than a bullet to the heart or the head, and if anyone deserved to suffer it was this man.
There was no expression in his flat black eyes as he looked at her and the gun. “Are you going to kill me?”
If this man had really been Killian, she would have been tempted. But she’d been wrong…plus tired and emotional and deluded. “Not until you give me reason to.”
“You mean I haven’t already? Given my activities during the last twenty years?” He was goading her, amused by her.
She hated killing, hated it with a sick, deep passion. But when they learned everything they needed to from this miserable excuse for a human being, she was going to enjoy putting a bullet in his head.
“Right now, you’ve got a free pass,” she said, keeping her voice light. “Are you ready to go? My Jeep is waiting, and we’d do better to travel in the dark. We’re heading down the coast highway to Mauritania and catching transport there.”
“I don’t think so. They’ll be looking for me in Western Sahara, and I don’t trust women drivers on these roads. We’ll head east and go through Algeria.”
“The border’s closed.”
“And that creates a problem?”
She controlled her temper. “You asked us to get you out of here and safely back to England. If you already made plans, then why did you bother with us?”
“I need cover. I need someone at my back, dubious as you now appear to be. And I need the resources of the Committee to get resettled in a new life. You’ve agreed to do that, much as it galls you, because of the intel I can bring to the table. We go through the mountains into Algeria. I drive. And I take Mahmoud with me.”
“The arrangement was for you alone, not your plaything. You’re not molesting children on my watch.”
“What a cynic you are, Madame Lambert. I don’t like young boys. I hate to deny you one more example of my infamy, but I’m not interested in raping children.”
“What do you rape? Or is it only the soldiers you control who get to torture and murder?”
There was a long silence. “You knew who I was when you made the deal. It’s a little late to change your mind.”
“The most dangerous man in the world,” she said, her tone mocking.
“But not, perhaps, the most evil man in the world. There’s a difference.”
“I don’t really care. I don’t have to like you, I just have to get you back to England. Alone.”
She felt it—the sight of a weapon trained on the back of her head. She trusted her instincts implicitly. Someone was pointing a gun at her, someone who wouldn’t hesitate to shoot.
Serafin must have read her expression even as she tried to keep it blank. “That would be Mahmoud aiming his AK-47 at you. And don’t think for a moment he wouldn’t use it. He has a vested interest in keeping me alive and within reach, and he won’t hesitate to kill you if you get in his way.”
“Wouldn’t that interfere with your plans?” Her voice was level.
“It would,” he said. “Unfortunately, Mahmoud is the one with the gun.”
She held out both hands, her own gun visible. “The Jeep’s big enough for three,” she said. “As long as he doesn’t get in my way.”
Even without looking she knew the machine gun was no longer trained on her back, and she tucked her own weapon away, turning to look at the child behind her, an empty-eyed casualty of war and poverty. He was probably no more than ten and yet he was ageless, and already dead.
“You surprise me, Madame Lambert,” Serafin said. “I thought a woman would be more tenderhearted. Surely you wouldn’t want to leave a child alone and unprotected out here?”
“Considering that he’s more than ready to kill me, I wouldn’t hesitate. And don’t assume anything because of my gender, Serafin. It’s simply an accident of birth. I’m older and wiser and just as ruthless as you are.”
“Are you really? Somehow I doubt that.”
She said nothing. She could pass for a perfectly preserved woman in her fifties, and there was absolutely no way he could prove otherwise.
“So, we’re agreed? We’ll take the mountain route into Algeria, heading toward Bechar. I drive, Mahmoud comes along, and we’re a happy little family.”
“You don’t give me much choice.”
Somehow he must have seen behind her cultivated blankness. “You’d like to tell me to fuck off, wouldn’t you? But you don’t have that luxury. War makes strange bedfellows, Madame Lambert. You ought to have learned that by now, given your great age and experience.”
There wasn’t even a hint of mockery in his voice, but she still felt uneasy. “Hardly bedfellows, Mr. Serafin,” she said. “Partners in crime, perhaps.”
His smile exposed those darkened teeth behind the graying beard. “We’ll have to agree to disagree.” He looked past her. “Mahmoud?”
Her language training had included only the most basic Arabic, and she barely understood his orders, but the meaning was clear. Mahmoud darted past her, machine gun swung over his back, and picked up Serafin’s battered duffel bag.
She could’ve reached out, snatched the gun from his shoulder as he went, neutralizing him long enough that they could get out of there without an albatross. The mission was going to be difficult enough wi
th Serafin’s meddling, and in the end a child soldier was still only a child.
But she didn’t. The day she couldn’t handle an over-the-hill mercenary and a young boy was the day she’d retire. And that day wasn’t in sight, no matter how worried Peter seemed when he looked at her.
“I take it you’re ready to leave?” she said.
“Whenever you are, princess.”
It was too dark for him to see the fleeting reaction that managed to crack her perfect reserve. And the fact that she tripped was understandable—there was rubble underfoot. Unless he’d done it on purpose, he wouldn’t know his casual word had been like a knife to the belly.
But it had been casual, automatic. She’d heard Killian call any number of women “princess”—from a toothless crone in Marseille to a White Russian countess in Nice, and they all preened just as she had, when he was inside her and whispered the word against her sweat-damp skin.
“After you,” she said now, no catch in her voice, as she followed the first man she’d ever killed out into the twilight shadows of Morocco.
4
Peter Madsen looked at the man across from him, knowing that his own icy blue eyes gave away absolutely nothing. Sir Harry Thomason had never been able to read him, and he never would. It was part of what had led to Thomason’s downfall—his inability to realize what his operatives, including Bastien Toussaint and Peter Madsen, were capable of. That, plus his ruthless destruction of anything that got in his way. Peter had been a star pupil, and even Isobel Lambert could issue termination orders without blinking.
There was one crucial difference between Thomason and the rest of the Committee. Thomason sacrificed everyone, operatives and enemies alike, with a total disregard for loyalty, and that could only carry him so far. It had carried him into forced early retirement and a seat on the Committee, the shadowy group of men who did their best to control the fate of the world.