Ice Storm

by Anne Stuart

  “Hell, he put out termination orders on half the people working under him!” Isobel snapped.

  “I don’t think he’s planning to give you a chance to argue. These attacks on Serafin—Killian—have been just as dangerous for you. I think you were the real target.”

  “I already told her that.” She hadn’t even heard Killian come into the room. He was dressed, his hair still wet from the shower, his eyes hooded. She could see the mark her mouth had made on the side of his neck, and she turned her face away, shivering. “Isobel didn’t want to believe it.”

  Peter looked at Killian for a long moment, sizing him up. “You haven’t given us much reason to believe you in the past. I’m Peter Madsen, by the way. I’m one of the people who carried you up here. If you’ve got a few bruises you can thank me for them.”

  “Oh, I think Isobel contributed her share,” he said, casting an oblique glance in her direction. She ignored him, keeping her expression stony.

  “How long have you been listening?” Peter said, his voice cold.

  “Since you got here. They have Mahmoud and they want me in exchange. Simple enough.”

  “Not so simple. They really want Isobel.”

  His smile was slow and cool. “It’s still simple. He’s the bad guy. We don’t give him what he wants. I go get Mahmoud and you keep her here.”

  “You think you can just waltz in there and pluck Mahmoud out?” she asked, her calm cracking. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d be fool enough to underestimate an enemy.”

  “Sounds like he’s more your enemy than mine,” Killian said. “And I never underestimate anyone. Except you, perhaps.” The enigmatic words hung in the air. “I’m quite good at ingratiating myself with bad people, Isobel. Like to like. I’ll tell him that I’ll set you up if he gives me Mahmoud.”

  “Would you? Give up Isobel for Mahmoud? Why?” Peter didn’t bother to disguise his hostility.

  “I didn’t say I would. I’m not very trustworthy,” he said with a wry smile. “Once Mahmoud is safe, you and whatever operatives you have left can go in and clean up the mess.”

  “I’ve got an old friend of yours downstairs,” Peter said. “Bastien Toussaint.”

  Killian didn’t even blink. “It’s been a long time.”

  “But Bastien has a long memory.”

  “As do I.”

  “What the hell is going on here?” Isobel demanded. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  Peter glanced at Killian. “You want to enlighten her? Or shall I?”

  “I think this isn’t a very good moment to complicate things. We need to get Mahmoud out of there, though if the boy is still armed I’d back him against whatever thugs Thomason has managed to hire.”

  Isobel felt Killian’s eyes on her, but she wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t meet his quizzical gaze. She’d betrayed everything she’d believed in, by falling into bed with him, and now the worst kind of disaster had happened. There were a hundred different ways she could have handled this, each of them an improvement over what had happened. She had to become who she was, make the hard decisions, do what needed to be done.

  “You’re staying here,” she said. “No arguments. You’re much too valuable a commodity to risk for one small child. I’ve told you he’s too much of a liability—you should have gotten rid of him long ago.”

  “Is that why your back got shredded when you protected him from the car bomb?” he said, his voice silky.

  “Mistaken impulse. We’ll get him out if we can. But this is internal business—they’re just using you, and I’m not going to let that happen. You’re staying put.”

  “And if I choose not to?”

  “No choice. This place is as hard to get out of as it is to get into.”

  She was prepared for anger, for arguments, but he simply shrugged. “All right. If I’m out, then I’m out. I’m going to make myself something to eat. For some reason I’ve worked up quite an appetite.”

  No color flooded her face, no expression flitted through her eyes. She was back in control, and the crazy, endless hours might never have happened. “Just give me a minute, Peter,” she said.

  She’d left her elegant leather purse in the bedroom, next to the rumpled bed. It was custom made; the inner pockets held two handguns, a syringe, a Tazer that could be set to kill levels, and an emergency tracking device. She moved into the bedroom and switched on the overhead light.

  And froze for the briefest of moments. It still smelled of sex. The mattress had slid halfway off the bed, the sheets were a tangled mess, the pillows gone. She could see her purse under one corner of the bed, and made herself kneel down on the floor to get it. When she felt the presence of someone in the doorway, watching her, she froze.

  It was only Peter. Peter, who took in the room with his cold blue eyes and didn’t miss a thing. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She started to put her hand on the bed to push herself up again, but didn’t want to touch it. With anyone else she could have held up, but this was Peter, the only family she had, so she smiled crookedly. “I screwed up. I guess everyone gets fucked by a monster at least once in their lives.”

  “There’s something I should tell you….”

  “What’s Killian doing?” She sat back on her heels. “How did you know his name is Killian, by the way? Is that even his name?”

  “It’s his name. Bastien told me.”

  “What else did he tell you?”

  There was a faint, creaking noise deep within the walls, inexplicable. “What’s that?”

  “Rats?”

  “I don’t think so. There’s no way out of here, is there? He can’t open the windows?”

  “You know as well as I do how secure it is. They’re nailed shut.” The squeaking noise got fainter, and a look of horror crossed Isobel’s face. She surged off the floor, running past Peter into the empty living room. The deserted kitchen. There was no sign of Killian anywhere.

  “How the hell did he get out?” Peter demanded, coming up behind her.

  “The dumbwaiter,” she said. She yanked open the aging kitchen cabinet to expose the empty shaft. “How did he even know it was there? We left it in place in case someone needed it for an emergency escape, remember?”

  “I guess it came in useful, after all,” Peter said.

  Isobel whirled around. “Don’t you care? He’s going to screw everything up. And I know damn well he’s going to disappear, getting away with appalling crimes against humanity, and we’ll get nothing in return, though I always thought the deal was revolting—”

  “Calm down, Isobel. Forget Killian. We need to concentrate on bringing Thomason down, and Reno’s in a pretty violent mood. He said he killed at least one of their people before they took him down, and I believe it. It wasn’t just his blood all over the floor upstairs.”

  “Killian hasn’t simply taken off, Peter,” she said. “He’s gone for Mahmoud.”

  “Shit.” Peter limped into the living room. “He took the GPS.”

  “Of course he did. He’s going after him.”

  “Bastien will stop him.”

  “He’ll get past Bastien. Maybe he couldn’t have three years ago, but Bastien’s been out of the game. We need to go. Maybe we can get to Thomason’s place before he does. He’s going to need to steal a car, and he’s not familiar with this area, so we’re bound to have a head start on him. If we’re lucky. Unless he’s even more of a monster than I think he is, and he puts a bullet in Bastien’s head on his way out.”

  “He’d have Reno to contend with. And as far as I know he doesn’t have a gun.”

  Isobel opened the purse she’d collected. Both firearms were gone. “Yes, he does. Two.”

  “All right. But he’s still not going to kill Bastien.”

  “Why not?”

  Peter hesitated for only a moment. “Because Killian’s CIA. This is just one more undercover sting, trying to take down the Committee, but this time Harry Thomason is getting to
it first.”

  “What?” Isobel felt as if she were falling, twisting and turning, and she grabbed on to the kitchen counter, her knuckles white. “He’s what?”

  “One of the good guys. Or let’s say one of the not so bad guys. We should have figured it out, since each time he fucked up, disasters were averted and lives were saved. He’s good at what he does, he’s very good. But he and Bastien came to an understanding years ago. He’s not after us.”

  “I’m going to kill him,” she said in a tight, determined voice.

  “I would have thought he’d told you,” Peter said. “Considering…”

  She knew he was referring to the wrecked state of the bedroom. “I would have thought so, too,” she said grimly. “Let’s get out of here. We need to get to Thomason before he does.”

  “Why? Thomason will keep him alive until he gets his hands on you.”

  “Because I want to be waiting there to kill him myself,” Isobel said.

  “Thomason or Killian?”

  “Both,” she snapped. “Both.”

  22

  Killian had a solid head start. By now Bastien or Peter would have told Isobel what he couldn’t tell her. She’d know just how deep his lies had been. In a dream world she’d be relieved that he wasn’t the international war criminal he’d pretended to be.

  But it wasn’t a dream world, and even when he could have, should have, he hadn’t told her the truth.

  It wasn’t his truth to tell. He couldn’t compromise his mission, couldn’t walk away without telling his superiors first. He’d spent too many years doing what had to be done, and that was a part of him he couldn’t change. His moral code would never be recognized as such by most people, but it existed.

  The Committee was imploding, eating itself alive from within. It didn’t need his help to bring itself down. He wasn’t even sure the Committee needed to be brought down. He tried to keep things simple, follow orders, never question the how or why. Though in truth he always had. Blind obedience had never been his thing; if he’d always followed orders he’d be dead.

  He couldn’t afford to be thinking about her right now. She’d put a bullet in his brain if she had the chance—and right now she’d be sorely tempted. Fortunately, Harry Thomason was higher up on her shit list.

  Killian actually didn’t give a damn what happened to himself. Happy endings weren’t made for the kind of man he was, the kind of life he’d lived. But he was damned if Mahmoud was going down, too. He’d saved the murderous little brat’s life time and time again. Right now the kid had one thing to live for—Killian’s eventual, torturous death. It didn’t matter that Mahmoud would have died along with his foster sister—he didn’t see it that way. Killian was responsible; Killian must pay.

  And Killian didn’t have much of an argument with that.

  If he didn’t get out of this alive, and there was a very good chance he wouldn’t, then Mahmoud would be cheated of his eventual revenge. But maybe Isobel would see he had something else to live for.

  Killian could count on her for that. He could see through the lies she told him, the lies she told herself. She’d protect the child with her life, instinctively, without question. He’d be leaving Mahmoud in good hands.

  If he made it through…well, he wasn’t going to think about that. One thing at a time.

  He could feel the ice-laden fog in his bones as he slipped down the quiet streets of Kensington. He’d already figured out they were somewhere near the Committee’s phony office front, which made orientation easier. In an expensive part of town it wasn’t that hard to find a late model SUV with killer tires, and no alarm system known to man could slow him down. He had to get the hell out of town, following the instructions on the tiny little GPS to the letter.

  But he had one important stop to make first.

  “Good to see you, too, Isobel,” Bastien murmured as she pushed past him, climbing into the backseat of the car and slamming the door behind her. Reno was sitting in one corner, looking like hell. He had a bandage across his forehead, his arm wrapped, his clothes bloodstained, and there was death in his eyes. No cat’s-eye contact lenses. Just black, implacable rage.

  She said nothing, settling into the opposite corner, frozen with fury and disbelief. Her whole world had been turned upside down, and worst of all was how damn stupid she’d been. Why hadn’t she seen the signs? Now that she knew the truth it was painfully obvious. The botched missions that had saved so many lives. The unprecedented access to intel he would have had over the years.

  She knew what deep cover was like, but that was nothing compared to what Killian must have lived through. Two decades of lies and betrayal, of dealing death while he was ostensibly on the side of the bad guys. Of killing people who didn’t deserve to be killed, just to keep up his cover. Yes, she knew what that was like.

  In their life there was no such thing as good guys and bad guys. He was still a monster. He was simply the same kind of monster she was.

  “There was no sign of him,” Peter said from the front seat as Bastien pulled out into the rainy street. “It’s going to take him some time to get there—first he has to steal a car, then he was to figure out the roads, and there’s been some bad weather out there. Freezing fog. It’ll coat everything with ice, and he’s not likely to steal a car that can handle it.”

  “Don’t underestimate him,” Bastien said. “He hasn’t stayed alive this long without paying attention to details. He’ll find an SUV, maybe with studded tires.”

  “Studded tires are illegal over here,” Peter said.

  “He’ll find one anyway.”

  “I’m not talking to you,” Isobel told Bastien in a sharp voice.

  “Don’t be petty. Killian and I had an arrangement. He was out of the picture at the time I retired.”

  “And you didn’t think I needed to know a piece of information that crucial?”

  Bastien shrugged. “I wasn’t particularly interested in anything the Committee needed.”

  “I think Peter should drive. You’ve been driving on the wrong side of the road for the last three years.”

  “Don’t worry, Isobel. I’ve lived on top of a mountain—I know how to deal with ice and snow.”

  She sank back, resisting the impulse to snarl. There was no place for emotions right now, no time for anger. There was simply the job ahead of them and no room for anything else.

  She glanced over at the silent Reno. He had something in his hand, a string of beads he was running through his bloodstained fingers. They looked familiar.

  “Are those Mahmoud’s?”

  He jerked his head, startled. “Yes,” he said finally. “He gave them to me. They belonged to his foster sister.”

  “The one Killian shot?”

  “Yes.”

  Isobel had been hoping that was a lie. “Why did he give you the beads? They were his most valued possession.”

  “We exchanged gifts. He was ready to give these up, he said. Along with his oath to kill the man responsible.”

  “Why did he kill her?” She ignored the men in the front seat.

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “Killian told me nothing but lies.”

  “Mahmoud’s foster sister was a suicide bomber. She was in the middle of a crowded marketplace, holding on to Mahmoud with one hand, the detonator with the other. Killian shot her before she could detonate it.”

  Isobel closed her eyes for a moment. In the darkness no one could see her reaction. She swallowed. “He took a big chance,” she said. “The girl could have hit the button in reflex even as she died.”

  “She could. Either way there would have been scores, maybe hundreds of people dead. He took Mahmoud and got out of there.”

  “And the girl? She was pregnant. The baby…?”

  “From what Mahmoud said it sounded as if the people in the marketplace pulled her body apart. Too many suicide bombings, too many deaths.”

  There was nothing Isobel could say. At another time she�
��d wonder about the kind of life she lived, that someone could tell her something so horrific and she couldn’t even respond. But not now.

  She concentrated on the present. “You should be in a hospital,” she said.

  Reno’s dark eyes met hers. “No,” he said simply.

  She didn’t bother to argue. She leaned back, trying to will her body to relax, to get ready for the upcoming battle. She could still feel Killian inside her, still feel his hands on her. Like a tape, playing over and over again in her head.

  “How long will it take us to get there?”

  “We’re not even sure where we’re going,” Peter said. “The coordinates we lifted off the GPS get us within a mile or so of where we want to be, but it’s not exact.”

  “So we head straight for Thomason’s country house and kill him,” Bastien suggested in the calmest of voices.

  “I doubt Sir Harry is doing this on his own,” she murmured. “His skills were always organizational, not field-ready. If we kill him, we leave Mahmoud at risk.”

  Reno made a protesting noise, but Peter overrode him. “I thought you didn’t care about the boy? Isn’t he just collateral damage?”

  “I really hate you all,” she said irritably. “You know as well as I do that I draw the line at children. Sometimes innocent people have to die. Mahmoud isn’t innocent, but he’s still a child, and we’re not having his death on our hands. That’s the difference between us and Thomason.”

  “I know,” Peter said gently. “I just wanted to make sure you did.”

  Isobel counted to ten. It was a very good thing that she was, temporarily, without a gun. “Does anyone in this goddamn car have a cigarette?”

  “You gave them up.”

  “I need one.” She turned to Reno. “You must have cigarettes on you.”

  Reno shook his head. “And no weed, either. I gave that up, too.”

  Isobel leaned back against the seat, muttering. She could still feel the dozens of tiny cuts from the shards of glass that Killian had carefully, even lovingly picked from her skin. She hadn’t even noticed them during the endless night.