by Anne Stuart
“Who would have thought what?” Peter demanded, incensed.
But Takashi had already vanished the way he’d come, leaving him alone with the extremely angry Ms. Genevieve Spenser.
He wasn’t feeling any too happy about the situation either. “Are you going to shut up and come with me, or am I going to have to leave you down here for Harry’s goons to find you?”
“I’m not sure who I’d prefer.”
“Lady, if you haven’t figured that out by now then you aren’t even as marginally intelligent as I thought you were,” he said. “I’m leaving. Follow me or not.”
She did, of course. He’d never doubted it for one moment, but her damn pride insisted that she put up at least a token resistance. The descent down the rock-carved stairs had been bad enough for him—after days of forced inactivity she’d be having a miserable time getting her body to climb back up. But he couldn’t afford to adjust his pace. The only way he was going to get her out of there alive was to move fast, and for some idiotic reason he’d decided to rescue her. He must be out of his mind.
At least it was all she could do to keep up—she had no energy left to harangue him. She hadn’t lost her fighting spirit, even if exhaustion was silencing it. He’d found her anger, her refusal to be cowed, one of the most appealing things about her.
Scratch that. One of the least annoying things about her. If she’d been a docile dishrag he probably would have left her to her own devices. After all, she’d gotten herself into this mess by ignoring the escape plan he’d practically delivered to her on a silver platter.
This was a favor for a friend. Takashi O’Brien could do what needed to be done, but no one deserved to be saddled with the fate of Ms. Genevieve Spenser except the idiot who’d fucked up the mission in the first place.
Yes, he deserved her all right, he thought, slowing his steps imperceptibly as he felt her compromised strength fail her. Just a simple case of paying the price for his screwup. After twenty years he knew you couldn’t afford to let your mind wander for even a moment, not until the mission was accomplished.
But then, years of experience and training had never included dealing with someone like Genevieve, clearly the most dangerous female he’d ever met, even without automatic weapons. At least as far as he was concerned. Takashi took pity on her, Bastien would have ignored her. In his case he was royally screwed.
She faltered on the slippery stairs, and his hand shot out to catch her before she could tumble back ward down the long, treacherous stairway. In the murky darkness he could only see her eyes, staring up at him, full of pain and confusion. And anger.
It was the last that reassured him. As long as she could fight, she’d survive. With or without him.
They were at the top of the stairs, and he pulled her up to the tiny landing beside him.
“You’ll need to keep your face down, your voice low, and pay attention to my signal if you aren’t going to kill us both. The place is pretty well camouflaged, but too damn many people live around here to make it completely safe.”
“Don’t you want to put me in a burka and veil? Maybe gag me again just for good measure?” Even in a whisper her acid tones were familiar.
“I trust you.”
That took the wind out of her sails, at least for a moment. And then she was fighting back. “Well, I don’t trust you and your vigilante friends. I want you to put me on a plane for New York and then get out of my life.”
There was nothing funny about it, but he laughed anyway. “I’d like nothing better than to get out of your life, but you keep screwing things up. And you’re not going back to your apartment right now. Takashi’s one of the best, but by now Harry won’t be trusting anyone, and if Taka doesn’t produce your head on a pike he’ll always wonder if Takashi followed through. Your return to New York would be impossible to cover up.”
“I’d stay in my apartment and hide,” she said, and there was a pleading note in her voice that she must have hated. “I can order in food and no one will know I’m there.”
“No one but the doorman and the delivery service and anyone watching the building, which trust me, they will be until Harry’s certain you’re no longer alive. I’m taking you somewhere safe, and the less you argue the easier it’s going to be.”
“Easier on whom?”
“Whom?” he echoed, biting back a laugh. Trust Ms. Spenser the lawyer to keep her language precise even in the most dire of situations. “Easier on you,” he answered. “If you shut up then I won’t be forced to smother you.”
“You’ve been threatening to kill me since the moment you met me,” she said. “It’s getting tiresome.”
“When I met you I was the discreet gray ghost, as you called me. I didn’t threaten to kill you, I just wanted to.”
“Just get me out of here. As long as you take me someplace safe and then leave me the hell alone I won’t say a word.”
“That’ll be the day,” he said under his breath. “Keep your mouth shut and follow me, understand?”
“Yes, my lord and master.”
She really was a pain in the ass, he thought, opening the heavy, reinforced door carefully. The cavern beyond was dark and still, and he didn’t think anyone had come in while he was down picking up his albatross. But he needed to be certain before they moved for the car.
“Get down and stay down while I scout the place and make sure no one’s left any nasty surprises.”
She didn’t argue, sliding and leaning against the wall. He squatted beside her, his face close to hers, and she averted her head so as not to look at him. He simply took her chin in his hand and forced her to face him. “I’m leaving the door propped open. If anything goes wrong, if there’s shooting, you need to dive back behind the door and slam it shut. No one will be able to get past security for a good long time, and you’ll stand a fighting chance. Go back the way you came, carefully. If I know Takashi he’ll do a final check to make sure everything went as planned. He’ll come up with an alternative if I’m out of commission.”
She stared at him. “Out of commission?” she echoed in a whisper. “What the hell does that mean?”
“You know what it means. Your fondest wish. Now stay down and keep quiet.” He released her chin and moved away. She probably thought he’d wanted to kiss her. Foolish Ms. Genevieve Spenser. Of course he wanted to kiss her. And that was the last thing he was going to do, ever again.
Harry had always had a weakness for theatrics, and he liked to think of his secret escape route as the Batcave, and Peter couldn’t argue. Takashi had given him the code that opened the hidden garage door, and he’d pulled his car into the cavern, parking it beside Harry’s Porsche. There’d been a guard, of course, but he’d taken care of him, and his body was resting in the backseat of Harry’s car, just to keep things tidy. He hadn’t needed Takashi’s help to bypass the security system and find his way down to the bottom and the annoying Ms. Spenser. Now he simply had to make sure the coast was clear before he got her into the nondescript Ford he’d brought and took her the hell out of there.
Those black pajamas had been a good choice—she blended well into the shadows except for her pale hair, and that had been pulled back. He supposed some men might find her appealing, but he wasn’t one of them. No, the sight of Genny Spenser in black silk pajamas was leaving him absolutely cold…
The gun spat fire in the darkness, and he felt something sting his shoulder. He dropped instantly, his gun in his hand, and rolled between the parked cars. The first guard had definitely been dead—this must be a new one. Or more.
He touched his shoulder and swore silently. He was bleeding, which would make him easier to track in the darkened cavern. His assailant wouldn’t know whether he’d winged him or killed him, but he wasn’t saying a word, just moving through the huge room with a pitiful attempt at stealth.
Clearly the man was outmatched by Peter’s training. He rolled to one side, half under the Ford, and held his breath. He heard the door to the
stairs slam shut and breathed a sigh of relief. At least she’d gotten out of harm’s way. With luck the shooter would think he was the one who’d gone back down the stairs, and Peter would be able to take him by surprise.
He could see the door from his vantage point, even better when the guard switched on his high-powered flashlight and shone it around the cave. Peter moved under the car a bit more, but he’d left a smear of blood on the concrete floor, and not even the worst amateur would miss something like that. The gun felt cool and deadly in his hand, and the familiar iciness spread through him. He’d have to rise and take his best shot, and know that was good enough. He’d never missed, but then, he’d never fucked up the way he’d been fucking up. If it was his time, so be it. At least Genevieve was out of there, and Takashi would see to her.
The flashlight was switched off, and Peter could hear movement in the cavern, movement designed to be stealthy and failing completely. There were two of them, he realized belatedly. Why hadn’t he realized that in the first place? Two of them circling the area, looking for him.
He rolled out from under the car, pulling himself to a sitting position without making a sound. He had excellent night vision and didn’t doubt for a moment he could take at least one of them out. A second one was more problematic, but he was still one of the best shots in the world, and the odds were in his favor.
He drew his knees up, waiting in his calm, icy zone, waiting, waiting.
It all happened at once, in the kind of disjointed slow motion that always seemed to take over. The flashlight flashed onto him, full brightness, and beyond it he could see the barrel of a gun, just as someone came hurtling toward him, throwing themself in front of him. “No!” she screamed, and in a millisecond he realized who the second person was. Genevieve hadn’t ducked for cover—she thought she was saving him. If he weren’t so annoyed he would have been touched by her naiveté, but at that point he simply swept her aside and put a bullet into the head of the man behind the flashlight a split second before he fired.
The man fell, the flashlight crashing to the floor and rolling to one side. Peter moved toward him and rose, but he already knew the unknown guard was dead. Even blinded by the flashlight Peter’s shot had been perfectly centered between his eyes.
He felt her come up behind him, and he could barely keep his temper in check. He moved away, picking up the flashlight and shining it into the dead man’s face. He wasn’t sure why he did it—maybe to punish her— but her reaction was no more than a choke of horror. It would have served him right if she’d thrown up on him.
“Good shot,” she said in a rusty voice, trying to sound casual. “Why do you people always shoot people between the eyes?”
He turned to look at her. She was far from as calm as she sounded—her color was ashen, and he wondered if she was going to pass out. “Because a smaller gun has a smaller bullet and it’s neater. If I was carrying something bigger I would have blown his head off, and it would have made a huge mess. Are you going to faint at my feet again?”
That put some color back into her face. “I don’t faint.”
“You also don’t obey orders. What the fuck did you think you were doing back there?”
She didn’t answer, but then, he didn’t really expect her to. “Get in the car,” he said wearily. The ice had drained from his veins, leaving him empty and tired.
“Which one?”
He managed a laugh. “Not the Porsche, babe. That’s Harry’s and it would attract too much attention. Besides, there’s a dead body in the back.”
She was about at the end of her limit, as was he. But she said nothing, moving around to the passenger side of the nondescript sedan and climbing inside. By the time he joined her she’d already fastened her seat belt, and for some reason it made him want to laugh.
“You ever disobey my orders again and I’ll kill you myself,” he said, starting the car.
She didn’t say a word. She simply turned her face away from him, staring out the window, as he made his way out of the subterranean garage that now held a Porsche and two corpses.
You ever disobey my orders again and I’ll kill you myself, he’d said, and Genevieve hadn’t said a word. Too many threats, too many deaths had left her numb and tired and unwilling to fight. The headlights speared through the dark cavern as the car climbed higher, and Genevieve had the stupid fancy that he was taking her out of hell. Except that he was the devil himself, and wherever he took her would be full of death as well.
“I want to go back to America,” she said, finding her voice. She didn’t, wouldn’t look at him. At the hands that had touched her. At the hands that had killed for her.
His derisive laughter wasn’t going to improve her shaken mood. “Oh, yeah?”
“I don’t care if this third-world bog is safer, I want to go home. If not New York, then at least somewhere in the States.”
She glanced over to see him pull something that looked like an upscale BlackBerry out of his pocket and punch in a few buttons. A moment later the rock wall opened in front of them. “How about California?” he said as the door closed behind them.
She was momentarily silent, feeling disoriented and stupid. “Where are we?”
“Near Santa Barbara. Where did you think we were? What was that…some third-world bog? But isn’t that exactly where you’d originally planned to go? In another week I can ship you off there and you can wallow to your heart’s content.”
“What difference will a week make?” she asked.
“It’ll be the end of April, Harry Van Dorn will be dead and you won’t ever have to see my face again.”
“Promises, promises,” she whispered, leaning her head back against the seat. She turned to look at him for the first time, and she almost laughed. He looked like a normal, middle-class American male, driving his conservative sedan on the crowded California freeways. Except that he’d just killed two men. And his left shoulder was soaked with blood.
Isobel Lambert was going to have to call in help from unexpected places, and she wasn’t happy about it. She was someone who believed in keeping promises, and once someone left the Committee they were free, as long as they showed their usual discretion.
But these weren’t ordinary times. Everyone she had was working on breaking the Rule of Seven, and the clock was running out for them. Two more parts were coming together through painstaking hard work— Harry Van Dorn had neo-Nazis working on some kind of mess at the memorial at Auschwitz, and he actually thought he might get away with blowing up the British Houses of Parliament despite the watchfulness of English security. He’d overstepped his capabilities on that one—even though foolproof security was practically impossible, he hadn’t realized that the Committee specialized in the impossible. They’d picked up Harry’s chosen suicide bombers in a random sweep, and the transit workers had very kindly decided to call a strike on the nineteenth and twentieth of April meaning no one could get to work. Problem solved.
But that still left Peter Jensen stuck in the middle of America with what sounded like a pain-in-the-ass companion, and no way to use agency resources to get him out.
There was only one person she could turn to. He might not do it for her, but he’d do it for Peter. He’d probably put up a fight, refuse to help her, but in the end she knew he’d do the right thing, as he always did. They’d saved each other’s lives countless times. It was time for Bastien Toussaint to do it again.
17
“I’m hungry,” Genevieve said.
“I’m happy to hear violence doesn’t impair your appetite.”
She wanted to slap the snarky son of a bitch, but she was too worn out. Her stomach was twisting, she felt weak and shaky, and she was so hungry she was tempted to sink her teeth into Peter’s leg. She wasn’t going to say a thing about his shoulder. He could bleed to death for all she cared, and they could go careening off the freeway head-on into a semi and then she wouldn’t have to worry about being hungry ever again.
“He shot
you,” she said grudgingly.
“Kind of you to notice. Don’t worry, it’s just a graze. Stings like crazy but it’s already stopped bleeding. I just need a little first aid.”
“Don’t expect it from me. And I’m not worried. I just want to make sure you can still drive.”
He smiled, the rat bastard, and she remembered his mouth all too vividly. She jerked her head away again and closed her eyes. It was the middle of the night and there were people everywhere. The bright lights of a thousand cars all around her, the noise and color of the freeway were an assault on her deprived senses, and part of her wanted to crawl back into a dark, safe hole and hide.
“What do you want to eat?”
“A cheeseburger,” she said dreamily. “The biggest, greasiest cheeseburger in the world, with French fries and Diet Coke.”
“No Tab?”
“I think that’s beyond you at the moment,” she said. “Diet Coke will do in a pinch.”
Before she realized what he was doing he’d crossed four lanes and taken the exit, amid screeching tires and honking horns. By the time they’d made it safely off the freeway and she’d caught her breath, she glared at him. “Do you have a death wish?” she demanded.
“I thought we’d already established that.”
“Well, don’t include me. I’m not ready to die.”
Again that small smile. “Glad to hear it. Otherwise it would be a waste of time and money to feed you.”
He was pulling into a drive-through hamburger place, one of the West Coast chains, and she looked at him suspiciously. “What about McDonald’s?”
“This is better. Trust me.”
“Trust you? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
He said nothing, merely pulled up to the window and gave her order. He got the food, put it in her lap and drove away, into the night.
She was too busy wolfing down her food to pay much attention to where he was going. He hadn’t gotten back on the freeway, and the streets were darker, less busy, with only the occasional car passing in the other direction. She shoved the last French fry in her mouth and lifted her head to look around her. He’d managed to find a dirt road somewhere, and even in the midst of such a densely populated area there was no one around.
