by Anne Stuart
But she was alive, she had Serafin and she was headed to Spain. He’d make arrangements for them to take the car ferry from Bilbao—giving them almost twenty-four hours of breathing space out in the Atlantic. He still wasn’t sure why there was a child to provide papers for as well, but Peter was nothing if not efficient. The papers would be awaiting her at a café just outside the city, and they’d be on their way to England by tomorrow evening.
She hadn’t asked for transport to Bilbao, so he was leaving that up to her. Nor had she said anything about the mission—he could only assume it was still on, even if she’d had to go dark for a stretch of time. He didn’t doubt Harry Thomason’s word that Isobel had known Josef Serafin in another life—Harry didn’t make those kinds of mistakes.
And Peter didn’t doubt Isobel had known exactly what she’d been walking into—she didn’t make those kinds of mistakes either. Serafin might be considered the most dangerous man on earth by certain glossy news magazines, but Peter would put his money on Isobel every time.
He flicked off the light switch, setting the alarm system. Overhead he could hear Reno—music that could only be Japanese hip-hop, for God’s sake, and thumps and bumps. Either he had half a dozen girls up there on the floor and he was doing them one by one, or he was doing some sort of exercise. Or dancing. The thought of Reno dancing was enough to send cold shivers down Peter’s spine. He preferred the notion of an orgy. In the few days Reno had been in London it was clear he was like catnip to the nubile female population. It was astonishing he was finding enough time to work on his English.
Peter headed downstairs, out into the darkened streets. Genevieve would be waiting up for him, and he intended to lose himself in her wonderful body tonight. She was already past her fertile time, she’d told him gloomily. So now they could fuck just for the sheer pleasure of it, something he was looking forward to. He didn’t mind providing stud service on call for Genevieve—there were far worse things on his plate—but he was looking forward to having the two of them in bed with no agenda. Maybe even doing a few things that didn’t make babies but provided shattering pleasure.
No, he was going to have a good night, and then sleep soundly. He’d put enough roadblocks in Thomason’s way; their former boss wouldn’t know Isobel had successfully completed the mission until she was safely back in London.
If Peter were a decent human being he’d have some pity for the old man. Thomason had been shoved out of the job and the world he’d controlled for almost two decades, replaced by a female, no less. He’d do just about anything to get back in power, and the only way he was going to do that was over Isobel’s dead body.
Not that Thomason would dare go that far. Not from any moral qualms—it was his ruthless ordering of terminations that had finally been his downfall—but because too many people were watching him. However, he was entirely capable of sabotaging Isobel’s mission so that he could step in.
Peter had made sure Thomason wouldn’t know she was in Spain, or if she was even alive, until she could present herself in person, mission complete. And then maybe Sir Harry would get the message.
In the meantime Reno had provided a distraction. Thomason had been so horrified, he’d gone rushing off, presumably to do his best to get both Reno and his cousin Taka drummed out of the Committee. It wasn’t going to happen, but it would keep Sir Harry occupied for a few days until Isobel came home.
And then life was going to get very interesting indeed. In the meantime, Peter had a woman waiting for him, and he’d stayed too long at the office already. He glanced at the shaded windows of the third floor flat and shook his head. Isobel was going to love finding out about Reno.
12
Killian might think he knew how to pilot a plane, but several hours later Isobel was far from convinced. It was still dark outside when they landed—or crashed, if she decided to be critical—and if he’d found an actual airfield she’d be surprised. They were in the middle of nowhere, hopefully in Spain, but she couldn’t even be sure of that. Mahmoud had woken up for a few moments, long enough to try to stab her with a knife she hadn’t realized he was carrying, and once she’d disarmed him he fell asleep again. Even the bumpy, jarring landing didn’t disturb him, but at least his color, beneath the layers of dirt, was better than it had been.
Killian emerged from the cockpit, stepping over the blanketed body of their erstwhile pilot. “Not bad,” he said.
“Not good,” Isobel said. “Where the hell are we?”
“Spain.”
“Thank God for small favors. Where in Spain?”
“Did you know your English accent is starting to slip, princess? You’d best be careful if you don’t want people like Peter Madsen and Harry Thomason knowing all your secrets.”
She didn’t blink. “How do you know who works for the Committee? I would have thought you’d be too busy pillaging and ruining countries and conducting ethnic cleansings. Though you have done a singularly bad job of it, haven’t you? One botched massacre after another. It’s no wonder you need to turn to your enemies to keep you alive.”
“I wasn’t aware there was anyone left in this world who wasn’t my enemy,” he said. “And I’ve survived as long as I have because I find out what I need to know. Do you want me to tell you where Bastien Toussaint and his family are living? I can even give you longitude and latitude. What about Takashi O’Brien and his American wife? I’m not sure she’s too happy with the Roppongi district of Tokyo—she’d probably be happier out in the countryside, but O’Brien has work to do. And then there’s Madsen and his wife, and their cozy little house in Wiltshire, where she plays dress-up and tries to get pregnant. I know everything.”
Isobel kept her face stony. “You must have an informant,” she said. “I’ll have to see about that when I get back.”
“Heads will roll?” he murmured. “What I’m most interested in is why you seem to have had no sex life whatsoever. Don’t tell me you’re still pining for me despite my betrayal?”
“Everyone betrays you, sooner or later,” she said with devastating calm. “You weren’t the first and you weren’t the last. I admit killing you might have been a little traumatic for the stupid girl that I was, but I’ve learned to adjust, and I can kill quite easily now.”
“I think that’s a lie,” he said. “I think you suffer the torments of the damned when you have to terminate someone. You’re not a born killer.”
“You think not? Perhaps you’re right—in general I don’t like to take lives, no matter how evil my target. But I can thank you for a major change in my attitude. For the first time in my life I’m really looking forward to killing someone.” The threat wasn’t veiled. He knew exactly what she meant.
And the son of a bitch laughed. “I give you free rein to try, princess. You should have realized by now I’m a great deal harder to kill than most people.”
“I can rise to the challenge.”
He wasn’t the slightest bit daunted. “Let’s get out of here. You can fill me in on your bloody plans once we’re in England.”
“We aren’t going to get to England unless you tell me exactly where we are.”
“Outside of Zaragoza. This little plane had more range than I realized, and I thought I’d get us as close to Bilbao as I could manage. Not the main airport—I didn’t want to have to deal with air traffic controllers and customs. Besides, the Spanish air force is stationed there and I’d like to avoid them if possible.”
“I imagine you would. What about rental cars?”
“Why rent when you can steal?”
“Because it attracts more attention?” she suggested with deceptive calm.
“Not if it’s done right. The Citroën was stolen, you know.”
She didn’t bother to ask which Citroën. “You’re just lucky you’ve gotten away with it so far.”
“I’m still alive, aren’t I? I guess that proves how lucky I am. How’s Mahmoud?”
“He woke up, tried to stab me, then fell back as
leep again.”
“That’s my boy,” he said fondly. “Did you get the knife?”
“Despite all evidence to the contrary I’m not stupid,” she snapped.
“I never thought you were. And the good news is you can ditch the burka. It would cause more attention than your own spectacular self.”
She blinked. She was so used to pulling her protective coloring about her, sinking into the background, that she hadn’t heard a compliment in years. She had spent most of her life doing her best to be unspectacular—an elegant, faceless woman of a certain age. “Hardly spectacular,” she said dryly. “I do my very best to be quite ordinary.”
“Let me give you a hint, Mary Isobel,” he said, leaning toward her. “You’re doing a piss-poor job of it right now.”
He moved past her before she could reply, opening the door to the plane and scooping up Mahmoud’s body effortlessly, expecting her to follow. She almost grabbed the burka just to defy him, but she was beyond such childish reactions. Beyond any emotion at all, wasn’t she?
The sun was rising over the flat, stubbled landscape—they seemed to have escaped one kind of desert for another, but the dawn was still and empty. There were no buildings, no shelter, no vehicles to be stolen anywhere in sight.
But Killian was already moving, Mahmoud’s little body clasped in his arms as he strode across the open field, his long legs covering the distance so quickly that Isobel had to run to catch up. He stopped near a copse of trees, laying the child down with surprising care, then turned to look at her.
“Keep an eye on him, dose him if he tries to kill you. I’ll be back shortly. This is farmland—civilization can’t be too far away.”
“You think you’re leaving me here? Think again.”
“I can’t steal a car with you and the kid in tow,” he said reasonably.
“What’s to keep you from just taking off and not coming back?”
“The fact that I need your help to get into England and start a new life. Remember, I was the one who contacted you in the first place, and so far you’ve done squat to help me. I’ll give you a chance to earn your keep before long. Until now you’ve been nothing but an added inconvenience.”
“So maybe you think you’ll have an easier time of it without me.”
“Abandon you, princess?” he said lightly. “Never.”
She turned her back on him, heading over to stand by Mahmoud, because if she spoke another word she’d hit him. There was no violence in her system, only reluctant duty. Except when it came to him, and suddenly she was six years old and enraged.
One thing for sure, if he came back with a Citroën she was going to shoot him, point-blank.
She glanced down at the sleeping child. Isobel didn’t have a maternal bone in her body. She didn’t want children, didn’t know what to do with them, and it would have been better all around if Mahmoud had simply been blown to pieces in the explosion. He’d been through too much in his short life to come back from it all and have any chance of normalcy.
She knelt down, brushing the matted hair away from his face, the gesture almost unconscious. He looked so young, so innocent. If she had a heart it would have broken for him, but she’d disposed of it years ago.
She pulled off the jacket she was wearing, bunched it up and put it beneath the child’s head. And then she hunkered down to wait.
It wasn’t a Citroën, it was a significantly ugly Opel, probably made nearby at the Spanish Opel factory, and she wondered if he’d gone out of his way to find something small and hideous. It was a bilious shade of green, two-door and tiny. Being cooped up with someone as tall as Killian was going to bring back all sorts of unpleasant memories. If she let it.
She waited until he’d put Mahmoud on the tiny backseat. He’d picked up her discarded jacket as well, and, after a brief glance at her, tucked it under the boy’s head again. She climbed in, her knees practically up to her chin, and glared at Killian. “Couldn’t you have managed to steal something a little more roomy?”
“The trick to stealing cars, my angel, is that you choose ones nobody’s looking for. Steal a Jaguar and half the country’s after you. Steal a rusted-out economy car and the police have better things to do. Stop complaining. You’ll be back to your Saab soon enough.”
She let the little shiver of ice slide down her back. “I’m no longer surprised by how much you know about me,” she said as he put the tiny car into gear and headed out into the morning light. “But I wonder why you bother to remember such mundane details.”
“Nothing about you is mundane. And I have a photographic memory. Everything is kept somewhere inside my head. Every word, every act, every touch, every taste.”
“Stop it.” Her voice was small and deadly.
“Yes, ma’am.” His was deceptively docile. “We’re heading for Bilbao, right?”
“Yes.”
“And what time does our ferry sail?”
She hadn’t told him it was the Bilbao to Portsmouth ferry, but it wasn’t that big a leap on his part, once she’d said they weren’t flying. “Late this afternoon. We have to pick up our paperwork by two.”
“Good. We should make it with time to spare. If you reach on the floor behind you there’s some food and coffee.”
“I don’t trust your coffee.”
“I wasn’t the one who drugged you last time—it was Samuel’s wife, and while I didn’t stop her, I didn’t necessarily order it. If you’d promise to stop nagging me I’d have no reason to drug you.”
She wasn’t going to bring up the other time he’d drugged her, so many years ago. Because she remembered every touch, every taste, as well. She reached in back, finding the paper sack. A thermos of coffee, fresh bread, cheese and olives. No cups—she was going to have to share. Put her mouth where his had been. Maybe she’d prefer to be drugged.
She took a deep slug of the coffee, full of cream and just a touch of sugar, just as she expected, then handed it to him. If he recognized her distaste he said nothing, simply pouring a good half of it down his throat before handing it back to her. With any willpower she’d have put the stopper back in and done without, but right now she needed coffee more than pride, so she drained it, waiting to see if she was about to pass out. Or die. She wouldn’t put poison past him.
She was rewarded with a ferocious growl from her empty stomach. “No drugs,” Killian said, his eyes on the road. “Now eat something and hand me the rest.”
She pulled apart the bread, reluctantly, for she could have devoured it all herself. Keeping a chunk in the bag for Mahmoud when he woke up, she handed the smaller of the two remaining pieces to Killian. The cheese was sharp and tangy, the olives rich, and she ate slowly, staring out at the countryside, ignoring the man beside her for as long as he’d let her.
“You have a mole in your office.”
She jerked her head around. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’d know if anyone was untrustworthy.”
“The pilot was tipped off. Whoever paid Samuel took care of the plane, as well. You led someone to me.”
“They found you on their own. What makes you think I had anything to do with it?”
“The pilot was chatty while he thought he had me trapped. Apparently he didn’t read those überwarlord rules, where you never brag about your wicked deeds to the hero because he’s likely to escape and make all hell break loose.”
“You’re not the hero.”
“No, I suppose not. Nevertheless, the pilot knew to expect you and me, though they had no idea Mahmoud would be with us. The same source paid off both the pilot and Samuel, and the arrangements were made five days ago. Just after I contacted your office.”
“Coincidence. If you’ll remember I had nothing to do with our going into Algeria. If you’d followed my plans we would have flown out of Mauritania and been back in London by now. Someone must have been watching you.”
“If we followed your plans we probably would have been dead several days ago. I still have sources, and you’ve
got someone in your operation who knows too much.”
“Don’t blame me for your screwup. I trust my associates with my life.”
“Fine,” he said, his tone cool. “But I don’t trust them with mine. Which is why we’re taking the ferry from Santander, not Bilbao. I’m afraid it takes us into Plymouth, not Portsmouth.”
She froze. “I don’t want to go to Plymouth with you,” she said coolly.
“I know you don’t. Tough.”
“And how do you expect to get the proper papers?”
“Already taken care of, princess. I’m not giving anyone else a chance to take me down until I’m safe and sound in London, where I assume you’ll provide adequate protection. Where are you planning to put me up? I was thinking the Ritz-Carlton would be nice.”
“And a little too visible, don’t you think? We have a number of safe houses around the city, as well as out in the countryside. It might not be quite up to your exacting standards, but beggars can’t be choosers.”
“I’m hardly a beggar. We’ve got a business arrangement, exchanging information for services rendered. I expected to be handsomely compensated.”
“You’ll be well compensated,” she said. Even though the words stuck in her throat. Harry Thomason would see that Serafin was well rewarded for his life of blood and death. At least her old boss wouldn’t have any moral qualms about arranging for the notorious operative’s future. He would see it as Killian did: a business arrangement, and all the blood spilled meant nothing. “Assuming the intel you provide is useful. We’ll know if you’re lying, and we won’t be happy about it.”
“And of course I want to make you happy,” he said, his voice a low purr. Familiar. Unfamiliar. He’d talked to her in that low voice when they were in bed together, when she’d been drifting in and out of a daze that was half due to drugs, half to lust. She forced herself to look at him, to remind herself that he was a different person.
But in the morning light he looked far too much like the man she’d fallen in love with. His hair was darker, a little shorter, and there were lines bracketing his mouth and fanning out from his eyes. Somehow she thought they weren’t laugh lines. His skin was burnished dark from time spent in a hundred deserts, and the stubble of his beard had gray mixed in, but all in all he looked the same. Dark, mesmerizing eyes. Sensuous mouth, full of lies. And elegant, deadly hands.