“Look, Billie—”
She stopped and turned toward him, slapping a hand against his mouth. Strangely, he was tempted to kiss her palm in order to get her to drop it. But as soon as John had the thought it became unnecessary, as his silence was enough to get her to do so.
“I am tired. I just worked half the night away slinging swill and lost all that money when the damn bar blew up. I just lost my bar because I had to blow it up to cover our escape. And I lost one of the best friends I’ve ever had because some random fuckhead shot him, so you’ll have to excuse me if I just don’t give a shit about your problem, Agent Courtney,” Billie said tiredly. “I’m going to go home. I’m going to take a long, hot shower. And then I am going to go to bed.”
John stifled a groan and was about to launch into another attempt to sway her when the smell of smoke got stronger. He looked over his shoulder and saw that indeed, the house they’d just exited was on fire. He looked back at Billie, and in silent agreement the two of them started walking again.
“Billie, what can I say to change your mind?” he asked after a moment.
“Right now, nothing,” she replied succinctly. “But since you’re acting like a damn dog with a bone, I’ll concede to listening to why you need me so damn bad. But not tonight,” she added quickly. “Meet me tomorrow at the Coconut Hut on the boardwalk at ten-thirty. You can buy breakfast. Then we’ll talk.”
John nodded. “Very well. I’ll take what I can get.”
When they’d left Sergei’s house, he had noticed they were walking toward the boardwalk, where all the beach bars and cafés and surf shops were all strung out to attract tourists. The Crabana was on the beach not far from it, but in the opposite direction than that in which they had headed. For the briefest moment he wondered why she’d led the way back here, and then he understood when they reached the street in front of the shops: the crowds were thinning due to the late hour, but people were still milling around. She raised a hand to her mouth and whistled sharply. A taxi cab pulled up to the curb seconds later and she opened the back door.
“This one’s mine. You get your own,” Billie said with a smirk. Then she poked a finger in his chest. “And don’t even think about following me. I’ll know if you do.”
With that, she dropped into the seat and slammed the door shut. John shook his head as he watched the car pull away, thinking she was something else.
The moment the bar exploded, he knew they’d missed at least one of the targets. Cursing even as he and his team ducked to avoid flying debris, the man knew his employer would not be pleased. The boss’s displeasure could mean one of two things: a severe punishment for his failure, up to and including the loss of a limb; or one of the very men he commanded could be ordered to kill him and take his place.
Neither was a scenario that sat well with him.
One of the men walked up to him as the projectiles settled and the flames climbed high into the Caribbean air. “This ain’t good, Andre. No way we did that. The boss ain’t gonna be happy when he hears—”
Andre reached out and struck the other man across the face with the open stock of his AN-94. He gleaned some satisfaction out of the FUBARed night when he heard the snap of the cartilage in the man’s nose. His smile widened as blood poured from his nostrils and splattered into the sand.
“Then perhaps the boss should not hear of this, don’t you think?” he asked snidely.
Another of the men stepped closer, but wisely well out of reach of Andre’s rifle. “We have to tell him something, Andre. He’ll want a progress report.”
“I am aware of that, you fucking moron!” Andre screamed. “Do you want to be the one who tells him that we may or may not have eliminated the targets? Hmm?”
He looked from one face to another, making sure to catch the eyes of each of his four men. Each one of them looked away as soon as his gaze met theirs. It was to be expected—they were each as afraid of their boss as he was.
“We need to get the hell out of here,” Andre said then. “The local police will be all over this scene in minutes.”
In unison they all turned for the rented SUV behind them. The man with the broken nose grumbled about the pain he was in as he climbed into the driver’s seat, but Andre shot him a look that put an end to his whining. As weapons were stowed and doors were closed, Yuri brought the diesel-fueled engine roaring to life. At the same time, a trilling ring sounded from Andre’s pocket and he stilled. They all did, knowing without a doubt who was calling.
With a nervousness he almost never felt, Andre gestured for Yuri to drive as he pulled the phone from his shirt pocket on the third ring, hit the Talk button, and put it to his ear. “Da?”
“What took you so long? You know I do not like to be kept waiting,” said the caller, Grigori Sardetsky, in his native Russian.
Andre answered back in the same language. “My apologies, sir. We were just getting in the car.”
“And have you completed your objective?”
The question he had been dreading. Drawing a breath that could very well be the first of his last, Andre replied slowly, “In part, Dedushka.”
“Meaning?”
“We shredded the bar where the traitor was working like a dog with that American suka. But it just blew up. I think one of them survived.”
“Obviously, you worthless cretin,” Grigori snapped. “Did you not consider that there would be an escape plan? Your dyadya always was a cunning bastard, one of the few lessons he learned well from me. And the woman is not to be underestimated—she is perhaps the most dangerous female in all the world. Don’t forget that.”
Grigori let loose a rare sigh. “Find out who survived. Kill him or her and anyone who gets in the way. The next time we speak, I suggest you have better news to impart. Is that understood?”
“Da, Dedushka,” Andre said, but his grandfather had already hung up on him.
“What did the boss say?” asked one of the men from the back seat.
“What the hell do you think he said?” Andre snapped angrily. “We have to find out who made it out of the bar and take care of them. No more mistakes.”
They were already approaching the street that ran parallel to the boardwalk. For a very brief moment, Andre was surprised Yuri could see well enough to drive, as swollen as his nose was. Looking around, he was annoyed by the amount of cars and people, and wondered what the hell they were all still doing here—it was approaching four in the morning.
“What’s the plan, Andre?” asked Yuri.
“We need to make contact with the local police, obviously,” said another of the crew. “Possibly fire department as well. We’ll need to find out if there were any bodies in the wreckage and whether they were male or female.”
Andre sent a withering stare over his shoulder. “I do not recall your name being Andre, zhopa,” he said snidely, then turned forward again.
“Yuri, stop the car!”
Immediately the driver did as asked, and Andre jumped out of the front passenger seat for a better look. Yes, that was definitely her—the woman was less than a block away from them, talking to a man who was not Piotr. How the hell did she get here? For that matter, how did she get out of the bar? Did this mean that they had killed his uncle after all?
Perhaps. To be certain, however, they would need to do as Mikhail had said and find out whether or not there was anyone in the bar when it blew.
The suka was getting into a taxi now, leaving the man on the curb. Andre hurried into the car again. “Follow that taxi!” he shouted as he slammed his door closed.
Yuri grinned and started to drive forward, then was forced to slam on the brakes when they were cut off by another taxi. The man his target had been talking to got into the back seat and it pulled away from the curb. “Go!” Andre screamed, and they lurched forward again.
The first taxi was about a car length ahead of the second. Andre kept his eye on it, praying that the traffic light ahead of them would n
ot turn red before they could catch up. His silent pleas proved to be in vain, as the woman’s car turned right just as the light was changing. The taxi in front of him slowed to a halt as it went from amber to red.
Rage boiled in his blood and he let fly a string of Russian obscenities. How the fuck were they going to catch her now?
“What do you want me to do, Andre?” Yuri asked quietly.
Andre looked ahead of them. The man in the back of the taxi was looking to his right, as if watching the other one drive away. He and the woman did seem to be having an intense conversation back there, and Andre could not help but wonder if they had been planning a rendezvous. Since there was probably little chance of their being able to successfully follow the woman now, maybe this man might lead them to her.
“Follow him,” Andre said, pointing to the taxi as the light changed once more to green. “I have a feeling he will get us what we want.”
When the taxi dropped her off, Billie had taken a good look at her surroundings. She saw nothing out of place, no odd shadows, no strange people hanging around. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched as she entered her apartment building, so she kept a closer eye on everyone and everything around her as she headed toward the elevator. Normally she took the stairs up to the fifth floor, but not tonight. Everything that had transpired had made her paranoid, and she knew she was more vulnerable to attack in a stairwell.
In the elevator she was alone, but didn’t dare let her guard down. She pulled the Sig from her waist and flicked the safety off, holding it casually down by her side. The door pinged open in just a minute or two, and when it did she held the weapon out in front of her. When she exited she swung first to the right, and then to the left, before heading in the latter direction toward her apartment. Billie dug her keys out of her pocket in a hurry, keeping the gun at the ready as she blindly felt for the right key. She found it as she reached her door and slipped it into the deadbolt, then the knob. She pushed the door open with her foot, gripping the Sig with both hands as she entered, doing another right-to-left sweep. The living room was clear.
Closing the door softly behind her, she moved further into the apartment to make a clean sweep of every room. As there were only three the work was quick, and it wasn’t until she’d determined that there was no one in the apartment that she allowed herself to relax. But of course, just because she was alone didn’t mean no one was listening. After locking the only entrance to the apartment and resetting the alarm, Billie walked to the bedroom closet and opened it, pulling a small device that looked like a handheld radio from the shelf. After switching it on, she walked through her home again.
“Clean,” she murmured to herself after determining that no bugs had been planted in her absence.
After what seemed like hours but was probably less than one, the tight set of her shoulders eased, the tension of the night draining away. With a sigh, Billie headed back into the bedroom, stripping off the jacket and harness on the way and dropping both on the floor by the bed. She kicked off her shoes and reached to pull her socks off, then headed for the bathroom. After flipping the light on she reached behind the shower curtain and turned the tap on, then turned the knob to start the shower going. As the water warmed, she braced her hands on the edge of the sink and looked at herself in the mirror. Although she looked about as tired as one should feel after a night like she’d had, Billie saw something else in her eyes, something she hadn’t seen in a long time.
Determination.
When she’d gotten into that cab and rode away from John, she’d told herself not to care. Sergei wouldn’t want her getting involved in whatever mess had led to his death. They’d both given up the past—his life of crime, her life of being the lady superspy. Both had reasons that burned in their souls, as both had lost someone they cared more deeply about than their own lives.
But as she looked at herself in the fogging mirror and for the first time allowed the emotion of losing her friend to hit her—feeling the sting of tears behind her eyes—Billie knew she couldn’t just walk away. She had no idea if the shoot-up of the bar and Sergei’s death were related to whatever reason the CIA wanted her back, but she had never been one to believe in coincidence. Someone had wanted her or Sergei—or both of them—dead. That someone had gone to a lot of trouble to track their target down to a remote coast of a little-known island. To Billie, it could only mean that they had a hand in the mess and had been taking steps to eliminate the persons capable of stopping them.
If the shooting somehow wasn’t related to John’s mission to bring her home… well, then that was a whole other can of worms she had to worry about.
THREE
The Coconut Hut was a popular boardwalk café with tables both inside and out. The outside tables boasted umbrellas with the same coconut-thatching as the awning over the door, and the tables and chairs were made of wicker. Although it was considered by the locals to be “on the boardwalk”, it was on the outer edge of the row and therefore not near the center of the tourist activity.
Which was, of course, precisely why Billie had chosen that particular place to meet John—the further they were from the majority of the crowds, the less likely the chance of innocent casualties should the shooters from the bar make an appearance. She sat in a chair at a two-person table by the counter, from which she could observe everyone who came and went.
As she waited for John to arrive, she sipped an Irish crème cappuccino and wondered what in the hell she was doing here. Wasn’t the smart thing to do to just cut her losses and run? It’s not as if anyone in this town knew who she really was. Like Sergei, she’d come here under an assumed name, one of many fallback identities she’d cultivated during her years with the CIA. She’d have thought that might be how the agency had tracked her down, but Georgia Ross wasn’t one of her known aliases; it was one she’d been advised by Travis to build on the side and off the books, in case she got burned during a mission and had to lay low for a while. Every field agent she’d ever met had at least two such backup identities.
She had four, one for each year of dedicated service.
Billie knew that all the questions running through her head she could have asked stateside, but she’d been taught not to waste resources. If someone could provide information, then the ideal thing to do was glean every ounce possible, by whatever means necessary. Last night she had used snark and brute force against John Courtney, and while the former was fun and the latter had its benefits, neither had gotten her much. All she knew was that the CIA wanted her back, and that Eddie Lamacek was dead. Even if the shooting wasn’t connected, those two things definitely were. She knew it in her gut, otherwise why the hell had John brought Eddie’s death up?
Signaling to a waitress, Billie ordered a second cup of cappuccino. She hadn’t slept much in the six or so hours since she’d left John on the sidewalk last night, and while she had endured missions where she hadn’t slept for days, this morning she was feeling exhausted and mentally disjointed. Too many questions, too few answers. Too much sorrow.
Too much guilt.
Sergei’s death haunted her, and in what little dreaming she’d done, Eddie had stood by his side, both men staring at her accusingly as if the fault for their demise was hers. Or perhaps they were asking in their ghostly way what in the hell she was waiting for. Why hadn’t she gotten off her ass and done something?
The need to know why her friends were dead and what had happened to the other men on her team was the only reason she was still in St. Thomas. She’d get at least some answers from John before even boarding a plane to the U.S. But of course, as was her habit, she’d arrived half an hour early. John still had five minutes before the 10:30 deadline, and Billie had no doubt he would be there.
In fact, he had just walked through the door, smiling and winking at a cute brunette in a bikini top and Daisy Dukes who had eyed him appreciatively. Objectively speaking, she could see why: Agent Courtney was tall, his s
houlders broad, his body toned and muscled. He had pearly-white teeth and steely blue eyes that shone when he smiled. Any woman who had a thing for men would look twice at him.
Well, except for her. She wasn’t interested in his body, only the information stored in his mind.
John nodded at the brunette and continued on his way. A blonde standing next to the first girl raked his body up and down with her eyes and whistled. Grinning, he turned around and walked backward as he waved at the two. Billie noted another thing that would make a woman look more than once…
Damn. You could crack a walnut with that ass, she thought before she realized she was staring as much as the two girls had been.
Shaking her head and scowling, she took a drink of her cappuccino, then called out to him, “If you’re done flirting with the local jailbait, maybe we can get down to why the hell you’re here, hmm?”
He sighed as he turned to her, his smile faltering. John quickened his pace and dropped into the chair at her left. “I’m glad you came. To be honest, I thought you were going to ghost on me.”
“I damn near did,” she replied as he signaled for the waitress. The girl who responded also smiled shyly at him and he smiled in return. Billie rolled her eyes over the rim of her cup.
“I really hate to ask you this, but do you have any cash? Mine mysteriously disappeared and I’d rather not use plastic here,” John said as the server walked away to fill his order.
Billie smirked as she reached into her back pocket and pulled out her own wallet. She opened it and pulled out one of the ten dollar bills she’d lifted from his and tossed it on the table. “I told you you’d be paying,” she said.
John lifted an eyebrow as he picked up the money and put it in the pocket of his leather jacket. “Where’s the rest of it?”
“I spent it on a male escort,” she replied smoothly. “Hookers are cheap around here.”
Two Evils Page 3
