Ice Storm

by user

  “I’m ready to meet him. If he can assimilate as well as the rest of you he might become the new Bastien. Things haven’t been working that well since he left. He shouldn’t have been allowed to retire.”

  “You put out a termination order on him. If that had been fulfilled he wouldn’t have been around, anyway.”

  “I was precipitous. Operatives like Bastien Toussaint don’t show up that often.” Thomason glanced down at Peter’s bad leg. “He never made mistakes.”

  Peter had wanted to kill Sir Harry for a long Lime, and the reasons just kept multiplying. But Isobel wouldn’t like him bloodying her office, and he counted it a good test of his sangfroid to see how far Thomason could push him.

  Besides, the old man was out of shape, smoked and drank—a walking heart attack. “I’ll get Reno down here,” Peter said in a dulcet tone.

  “Reno? I thought he had a Japanese name, which we ought to change. Maybe some plastic surgery to fix his eyes.”

  Peter’s mood had lightened considerably. At least this was something he was going to enjoy. He strolled back into his office, picked tip the encoded cell phone and punched in a few letters. Reno was slavishly devoted to text messaging, and able to type faster than most court stenographers, even in a foreign language. He’d appear in a moment, and Thomason could enjoy him in all his glory. In the meantime, Sir Harry could either sit alone in Isobel’s office or come out here to badger him. Either way, Peter would win.

  Thomason emerged just as Peter heard the clatter of Reno’s high-heeled, pointy-toed boots on the staircase outside. His old boss looked distressed.

  “Is that our new operative? Because he needs to learn to be a little quieter. You can’t just announce your presence—you need to blend in, become a ghost, as you did, Peter.”

  “Not everyone needs to work that way. Bastien was never invisible.”

  “No, but he knew how to immerse himself in his character. Damned pretty boy should have been an actor,” Harry grumbled. “He didn’t have the stones for the job.”

  Peter just looked at Thomason. They both knew perfectly well just how efficiently cold-blooded Bastien Toussaint could be when called upon. Reno punched in the security number in the keypad outside, pushing open the door without hesitating, and Peter leaned back in his chair, prepared to enjoy himself. For once in his life Harry Thomason was struck dumb, and if for nothing else. Peter felt suddenly in charity with his new recruit Reno was dressed in black leather, a lime-green T-shirt the only color besides his flame-red hair. He was wearing his omnipresent sunglasses, but when he saw Thomason he pushed them up, exposing his aquamarine-tinted eyes and the tattooed drops of blood on his high cheekbones.

  “Who’s the old dude?” he asked in a bored tone.

  There was a reason Thomason had never been an operative. He had a singular inability to hide his reactions, and the sight of Reno was almost enough to send him into shock. As it was, he simply sank into a chair, staring at him in horror.

  “Harry Thomason, this is our new recruit, known to all and sundry as Reno. And this is a member of the overseer board of the Committee, the man who used to be in charge of all this.”

  Reno looked him up and down with withering contempt. “I know who he is. Taka told me.” He dismissed him, turning back to Peter. “What do you want?”

  “How’s the English coming? Better, I see.”

  “Fuck that,” Reno said. “Where’s Isobel?”

  “Madame Lambert,” Peter corrected.

  “Fuck that,” Reno said again. “This old fart know where she is?”

  Thomason was looking apoplectic. “I haven’t the faintest idea where she is, young man, and I’ll have you know—”

  “Later” Reno said. And he was gone, his boots clattering up the iron stairs once more.

  Thomason had turned a satisfying red color, but it was already fading. No heart attack today, unfortunately, Peter thought. “That’s Hiromasa Shinoda, Taka’s cousin. He’s quite smart, once you get past his appearance.”

  “Get rid of him,” Sir Harry gasped. “Send him back to Japan or wherever the hell he came from. We can’t use a freak like that.”

  “Oh, I think he might be very useful indeed, sir,” Peter said, enjoying himself. “And that decision will be up to Isobel when she returns.”

  “And if she doesn’t come back?”

  What did the man know that he didn’t? Peter’s instincts were on full alert. Thomason’s sudden haunting of the Kensington offices was more than suspicious, but how could he possibly have more Intel than Peter had?

  He was being paranoid, in general a sane and healthy thing to be in his line of work. And Thomason went out of his way to needle him: the last thing Peter was going to do was jump through his hoops.

  “She’ll be back,” he said. “She’s only a couple of days overdue. We sometimes have to go dark for weeks at a time. But then, you were never an operative, were you? More of a bean counter.”

  The cigar in Harry’s hand snapped in half, the crunch audible in the soundproofed room.

  “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear from her,” Peter continued. Bui don’t expect anything soon—these missions tend to be unpredictable. If something’s happened to Serafin the entire world will know it, and we’ll know that Isobel has been compromised. In the meantime, I wouldn’t worry. She’s the Ice Queen, the coolest, most capable human being I know. She can handle anything.”

  I can ‘I handle this, Isobel thought numbly, clinging to the bouncing Jeep. Only the sliver of moon and the sand-covered headlights illuminated the desert landscape, and for the first time in more than a decade she felt out of control. Her world had turned upside down a few short days ago, with the sudden reappearance of Killian, and nothing had gone right since then. Now they were heading God knew where, a comatose child on the floor in the back, a ruthless killer at the wheel, and her only weapons were a small handgun, a Swiss Army knife and her wits. That would be more than enough in most circumstances, with most individuals. But this was Serafin the Butcher, the most dangerous man in the world, and he probably wanted her dead just as much as she wanted him gone.

  When had he recognized her? She would have thought that was impossibility. Her own father had known her for her first nineteen years, although admittedly he’d paid little attention. She’d run into him on purpose about eight years ago, just to see how well her new identity worked. He’d carried on a casual conversation with the elegant woman beside him on the plane, and not for one moment had he realized he was talking to his long-lost daughter.

  Killian had known her little more than two weeks, and he’d been lying the entire time. He was probably barely aware of her, using her as a shield while he completed his bloody job. During those long nights in the car, when they’d talked about anything and everything, his words had all been lies. And he probably hadn’t heard a thing she’d said.

  She wasn’t naive enough to think the sex had mattered. Men could have sex anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances. Screwing her had been his way of keeping her compliant—it meant nothing. She remembered the earlier part of that final night with crystal clarity, even if what came after was a blur. He’d made no more than a token protest when he’d heard a killer had been sent to finish her.

  “Don’t you want to know what happened to me?” she said abruptly. “The last time you saw me I tried to kill you. That’s not what you would have expected from the stupid girl you drove around France with.”

  He glanced at her. “All right, I’ll bite. What happened to you?”

  “I shot you, and I ran out of the warehouse.”

  “That much I remember.” He didn’t sound particularly interested, and she realized in his scheme of things it had been only a minor incident.

  “You killed Etienne Matanga, didn’t you?”

  “That was my job.”

  “And you were going to kill me if hadn’t shot you.”

  “If you say so. But apparently you got away scot-free.”
/>   “Not exactly. Your friends caught up with me.”

  “Did they?” He sounded barely curious.

  “Yes,’ she said. “They did. They were very good with knives, and they were very unhappy with me. I remember thinking I was going to die and not caring.”

  “Such a very sad story, I expect you never made the mistake of falling in love with a mysterious stranger again.”

  “I didn’t fall in love!” she snapped. “You used me.”

  “You enjoyed being used.”

  “You drugged me.”

  He shrugged. “Once we got to Marseille I wanted to hedge my bets. I couldn’t afford to have you showing up in the middle of my job. Trust me, you would have done anything I told you to by that point. I just figured drugging you would make things a little easier.”

  She had a flash of memory; his hands holding her down, hot, wicked words in the darkness, as his mouth...

  “Your friends left me for dead, lying in a pool of blood in a slum alleyway. If it hadn’t been for a Good Samaritan, that would have been the end of me.”

  “How touching. I’m glad there are still good people in this world. So who was this Good Samaritan who saved your life?”

  “I don’t know. When I woke I was in a bed, covered with bandages. I was in such pain he kept me unconscious as much as he could.”

  “Your savior?”

  “My doctor. My husband. He was a plastic surgeon with a slightly shady clientele. He kept me hidden, rebuilt my face, rebuilt my life. And married me.”

  “Charming,” Killian said, his voice cool. “Fairy tales do come true, after all. You should thank me for hooking you up with your true love.”

  “I should thank whoever knew the French underworld enough to dump me on his doorstep,” she said. “Unfortunately, Stephan had no idea who had brought me there.’

  “Quel dommage,” Killian murmured.

  “I thought you were dead.” It came out of the blue, and she would love to bite back the words.

  “Unfortunately for you, you didn’t know what you were doing. You winged me, and I decided I’d just stay down. I’m sure you’re much better at it nowadays. Killing requires experience and expertise.”

  “I have both.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Your friends died that night. A few weeks later, when I was beginning to heal, Stephan brought me newspapers, with stories about General Matanga’s assassination and the five people found dead with him in the warehouse.”

  “I was already blessed with experience and expertise.”

  “But how did the men who tried to kill me end up dead in the warehouse? And how did you escape?”

  “Trade secrets, princess.” He cut the wheel sharply as they skidded down a hill. “I figure I need every advantage I can get. You’re a formidable enemy.”

  She didn’t feel formidable. She felt crushed, aching. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror. Dust-blown, shadowed, the elegant features that never showed emotion, contact lenses that muddied her blue eyes. How could he have known her?

  That was a question she could, and should, ask. If she’d made a mistake, tipped him off somehow, she needed to be aware of it so it wouldn’t happen again. Assuming she came out of this mess alive. Death was waiting for her, sooner or later, and she accepted that with equanimity. But she wasn’t about to seek it out.

  “How did you recognize me? And when?”

  He didn’t even glance at her. Once more she was driving into the night beside this man, looking at his slender, elegant hands on the steering wheel. Bloodstained hands, figuratively if not literally.

  “I don’t think you want the answer to that.”

  “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t. When did you know it was me? Was it my voice?”

  “Your voice is very different. Deeper, and you have a British accent that’s quite believable. Charming, as a matter of fact.”

  She gritted her teeth. “How did you know me?”

  He said nothing. She could see the shadowed form of something in the distance, and as they drew closer she recognized the outlines of a plane. Maybe they were going to get out of this mess, after all.

  “When did you realize who I was?” she pressed.

  He pulled to a stop abruptly, and she put out a hand to brace herself. Mahmoud made a piteous sound from the floor of the backseat, and then Killian cut the motor. “Let’s just say I’m very good at what I do. I’m not easily surprised.”

  He climbed out of the Jeep, reached in back and tossed something at her—the dark blue burka that she thought had gone up in flames. “Better put it on. This is going to be tricky enough—we don’t need an anomaly like you getting people’s attention.” He picked up Mahmoud’s slight frame, tossing it over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She hadn’t moved, just sat there, holding the cloth. “Are you coming with us, or would you prefer to take your chances on the ground?”

  Her small duffel was long gone, as well as anything he’d brought with him. She unfastened her seat belt and pulled the enveloping cloth over her head before climbing out. “I still have unfinished business,” she said.

  And she left it up to him to decide whether she was talking about the current mission or killing him. When in fact, it was both.

  Hiromasa Shinoda was covered with sweat, dressed only in a traditional fundoshi, the strip of cloth that had served Japanese men as underwear for millennia. His was made of bright red fabric covered with tiny little Hello Kitty icons in combat gear, something that would have given his old-fashioned grandfather a heart attack. But his grandfather wasn’t speaking to him. Reno was banished to this gray, gloomy place, and while there were as many women as he wanted, he was already getting tired of it all.

  That son of a bitch Taka would approve, he thought, going through the prescribed moves.

  Reno’s English was becoming impressive, honed by Language CDs and the assiduous study of American gangster movies. He’d started watching old Yakuza and Samurai movies dubbed in English, just to amuse himself, but he was tired of being cooped up in the city, tired of not being able to drive, tired of inaction. He had Dragon Ash on the stereo, turned up loud to annoy the man downstairs, but so far Peter Madsen had failed to rise to the bait.

  Reno spun around, his long hair whipping his body, his reflexes perfectly honed. He was a weapon, waiting, and all he could do was work out in the sparsely furnished living room of the old apartment.

  Not that it had come sparsely furnished: he’d shoved the chairs and sofa into the back bedroom, leaving only the wide-screen TV and stereo equipment, the coffee table and a few mats to sit on. He’d left the bed that filled up the main bedroom—he’d gotten to like the luxury of sleeping on softness rather than a thin futon. But he’d stomach even that if he could get back to Tokyo.

  Not in the foreseeable future, his family had told him. The police were going to take awhile to forget his last escapade, and his grandfather’s second-in command had given him the choice of losing two fingers or getting out of the country.

  Reno was very fond of his fingers. He could deliver—and subsequently receive—a great deal of pleasure via them, and he wasn’t about to give them up lightly. He probably wouldn’t have true Yakuza credibility until he lost at least part of one, but he didn’t particularly care. When it came right down to it he could scare the shit out of most people, anyway.

  Not the man downstairs. Not his cousin Taka, with his American wife and her gorgeous baby sister with the beautiful mouth who...

  Not his grandfather. Reno was banished from Tokyo until they said he could come home. In the meantime he was going to raise all the hell London could handle, and more.

  He stopped, breathing deeply, pulled his long hair out of the high ponytail and then stripped off the fundoshi, heading for the shower. Yes, he was sick of English women. But he might find an American, someone tall, and he could close his eyes and listen to her voice and pretend....

  His eyes flew open. He didn’t need to
pretend anything. He needed to get laid, he needed to hit something, and he needed to get the hell out of London.

  And he wondered how long this exile was going to last.

  11

  Isobel fastened the seat belt around the voluminous cloth of her burka as Killian tucked Mahmoud’s unconscious body into the leather seat opposite her. The boy was so small he could almost curl up in it, and she watched as Killian adjusted the seat belt, then covered him with a blanket. Her nemesis knew she was studying him through the screened eyepiece of the blue garment, but he ignored her. There had been two men waiting for them, strangers. One the pilot, one the money man. Shed caught enough of Killian’s Arabic to figure out they were asking about his companions. Apparently they’d expected him to come alone, not with an Arab wife and child.

  The very thought had been nauseating on many levels. That she was in any way connected to this man, even in disguise, was hateful. She was no man’s wife. Her relationship with Stephan had been cool and efficient, and while pleasing her had been a matter of male pride to him, there’d been no emotion involved. He was thirty years older than she was, and when he’d died from cancer six years after they married, she’d felt a disconnected sort of relief. The Committee was her family. Her job was the only husband she needed.

  “Stay put” Killian said. “I’m riding in the cockpit. I’m not sure I trust our pilot. If Mahmoud wakes up and starts causing trouble, just hit him with another shot of this.” He tossed a syringe into her lap. That should keep him out of commission long enough. We’re landing in Spain—after that it’s up to you to get us to London.”

  “I already had plans to get us out of Morocco. Why the hell did you drag us over an illegal border and into this mess?”

  “Did I ever give you the impression that I wanted to confide in you, princess? We’re doing this my way, and I don’t have to give you reasons. I had an errand in Algeria. While you were sleeping I checked in with former employers of mine, one of the few who don’t want me dead. I’ve taken care of it, we’re on our way out, and now you can take over once more, as you’ve been itching to do. But Mahmoud comes with us, drugged or not.”