The Killing Game

by Anderson, Toni

  “You sonofabitch, you don’t even care, do you?” Her eyes narrowed into glinting slits of rage. Not good. “You think it’s all right for you to murder and kill, but as soon as someone turns the tables—”

  “Not true.” He edged closer. “I care very much.”

  Her accent was definitely Yankee but held a hint of European. French, maybe. He moved another inch, saw her chest rapidly pump oxygen. He worked on calming her down, talking quietly so she had to lean forward to hear. “I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about, but I’d hate for somebody to get hurt because of a case of mistaken identity.” Did she have some anti-western affiliation? Anti-war agenda?

  “There’s no mistake.” Her lips quivered. “How much money were you offered? I’d have paid you double to leave them alone.”

  He frowned. He didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, but she was within reach now. She blinked against the sun so he lunged, grabbing the gun, aiming it away from their bodies and snatching it out of her hands before tossing it out of reach. She struggled and kicked and punched at him, landing one solid blow to his nose, driving white-hot agony through his brain.

  Suck it up, Buttercup.

  She fought like a rabid wolf, and he could barely keep hold of the seething, whirling mass of fury without hurting her. He finally captured both her hands in one of his, forcing her onto her knees and down onto the ground, face first in the dirt. He used his weight to pin her while he searched for the flexicuffs he kept in his pockets. They took a moment to locate as he was distracted by all that wriggling.

  She froze, perhaps realizing that hard thing in his pocket wasn’t another gun. She twisted around to stare at him with hate-filled eyes. He pressed his lips together and tugged the cuffs around a pair of wrists so slim he could circle both with one hand. Then he ran his hands over her body, searching for hidden weapons, making it quick, impersonal but thorough. She flinched when he reached between her legs.

  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Sure you’re not.” The sarcasm dripped from her words and set his teeth on edge. He wasn’t the bad guy. He wasn’t the one who’d pulled a gun on someone. He finished the search and sat back on his heels. Jesus. This slip of a female had done something no one had in years. Gotten the drop on him. He was thankful none of the lads were here to witness his humiliation.

  Underestimating the enemy. Stupid.

  He frowned at her as she lay muttering and fighting her bonds. She tried to roll away but he grabbed her and hauled her back. He had questions. Lots of questions, but the high color burning across her cheeks warned him he needed to cool things down a bit. Change direction.

  Right now he was an adversary. The chance of winning hearts and minds had never been more unlikely.

  He slipped off his pack, went and retrieved her pistol, stuffed it in his pocket, grabbed both their water canteens. The horse stood with one foot cocked. Dozing in the afternoon sun, despite all the excitement.

  Dempsey towered over her. She glared up at him and he had to suppress a grin because she wasn’t in the least cowed by the difference in size or weaponry. She had courage but—despite the Glock—little training in the art of close-quarter combat. Crouching, he offered her a drink. To his surprise she rolled onto her side and parted her lips. He cupped her head as he poured a little water inside her mouth. Her hair felt soft against his calloused palms.

  She swallowed before jerking free of his touch.

  He sat on the cold hard earth and drank his own water, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “What?” She glared.

  He said nothing. Just looked off toward where the sun was starting its slow descent in the sky.

  “Are you just going to leave me tied up?” She started fighting her bonds again.

  He grunted. I wish. “You’re going to hurt yourself if you don’t stop that.” He didn’t shift his gaze from the horizon. Why should he care?

  A slight flicker of movement in the distance caught his eye. A subtle shift of shadows high above him on the slope. He brought his scope to his eye to check it out. It took forever to make out the cunning camouflage of a snow leopard against the tawny browns and moss green of the hillside. A smile tugged his lips. They were rare, and he’d never seen one in the wild before. It wore a collar, which was what he figured was going on with these people in their little camp on the edge of nowhere. Although he hadn’t figured on being held at gunpoint by someone he assumed was a wildlife biologist.

  The leopard stepped delicately across the rocks, beautifully balanced with strong back legs and that humungous tail, but something looked off with its gait.

  The woman crashed into his thigh and knocked him sideways. Her face was distorted and there was a ferocity in her eyes that made her look feral.

  He rubbed a hand over his dust-covered face. “You’ve got to be the craziest woman I’ve ever met.”

  “Says the man who has shot three of the world’s most endangered species—”

  He opened his mouth to correct her but she bulldozered right over him.

  “Please don’t kill any more, I have money. I’ll pay whatever you want not to kill him.” She sobbed and it sounded awful in the peacefulness of the mountains. “I’ll do anything you want.” She froze, and then steeled herself as she realized what she’d offered.

  Whoa. What the hell? There was a beat of tense silence.

  “Really? You’ll do anything I want?” He let his eyes scrape down her body. “As long as I don’t shoot that leopard?”

  She nodded although she looked like she’d rather puke. He was torn between humiliation, irritation, and amusement. What the hell was she thinking? He pushed her onto her front and straddled her thighs from behind. Because he was angry he paused for a moment and let his weight sink against her. She felt as rigid and sexy as a tank but he had seen her naked.

  “Tempting.” He pulled out his knife and cut the cuffs. “Thankfully I don’t have to tie up women for sex. Well,” he amended, “only if they want me to.” He climbed off her and brushed the dust off his trousers. Gazed at the leopard who turned briefly to look at them before disappearing over the hill’s crest. His anger had burned down to a low simmer and he savored the peace and quiet for a moment before he spoke. “For your information, lady, I was never going to shoot that leopard, so your generous…sacrifice…was unnecessary. Although if you get the urge again just let me know.” He let his eyes drift over her. “I’ll think about it.”

  She sat up, looking dazed. There was a smudge of dirt across her cheek and a graze on the end of her stubborn chin. He refused to feel bad about it. She’d pulled a gun on him. She was lucky she wasn’t dead.

  She rubbed her wrists, ringed red from her struggles against the cuffs, shaking her hands to get the blood back into her fingers. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m not desperate for female companionship.”

  Her lips twisted. “That bit I understood.”

  He held out his hand. This was a peace offering and if she wasn’t smart enough to take it that was her problem. “Sergeant Dempsey, British Army.”

  “British Army?” She swept her gaze over him suspiciously. “You don’t look like Army and you don’t sound British. You sound Irish.”

  “Some parts of Ireland are British and wars’ve been fought to prove it.” Anyone who thought the Northern Ireland he’d grown up in wasn’t a war zone hadn’t set foot in Ulster in the seventies or eighties.

  Hesitantly, she placed cool fingers in his and allowed him to pull her to her feet. Her skin was soft and smooth. “Dr. Axelle Dehn.”

  She retrieved her fingers immediately, which was fine by him, although he was a little chagrined when she wiped her hands up and down her thighs.

  He went over to collect his kit, shouldering the rifle.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Following you,” he told her. “Seeing what you’re up to.”

  She was trying to get the bl
ood flowing in her fingers. “I’m just doing my job.”

  “And I’m doing mine.”

  “British Army.” Her brows lowered, lips pressed tight. “So you’re not going to shoot G-man?”

  “G-man?” He raised one brow. “As in an FBI agent?”

  “The snow leopard.” She spoke as if he were dull-witted.

  “Snow leopards are a CITES listed endangered species.” He threw her a hard look. “It’s against international law to kill them.” His prey walked on two legs.

  She grabbed his elbow. “You’re not the person shooting my cats?”

  That got his attention. “You have a poacher?”

  Her fingers drifted down his arm to his wrist and her eyes softened. Up close they were a deep rich brown edged with ebony, so dark her reactions were hard to read. She’d make a talented operator—assuming she wasn’t one already.

  Her throat convulsed as she choked up. “Someone’s shooting them.”

  “Tell me what’s going on.” He disengaged her hand, even though he liked it on him, maybe because he did like it, and urged her to sit on the bare rock.

  “I don’t have time for this, I have to…” She looked at his widened stance and huffed out a frustrated breath when she realized he was serious. “Look, I get it. British soldier, national security and all that, but this is the Wakhan Corridor and there’s no conflict here.”

  “This,” he corrected with considerable patience, “is the Hindu Kush and a regular hangout for Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.” He shot her a look that told her to shut up and start talking.

  Her jaw worked as she lowered herself to the ground. “Last fall we collared ten snow leopards, and we have been tracking them remotely from our home base at Montana State University—that’s in the US.”

  He resisted rolling his eyes because she obviously considered him a total moron.

  “A few days ago we started seeing signals that were stationary.” The line of her throat rippled. “We figured out someone’s using the collars to track the cats before shooting them.” There was a strain to her voice, a fine pitch of anxiety even though she was trying to control it. “We flew in to try and deal with the problem as quickly as we could.”

  Dempsey raised his brows. The country was under strict lockdown, so getting here that fast showed a hell of a lot of initiative and some solid contacts.

  Bits of intel began to fall into place. The man his squad was hunting was a former communications specialist for Vympel—an elite Spetsnaz unit. Not only that, he’d mapped these mountains for the Russians prior to the Soviet invasion. And though MI6 though him dead—caught in one of his own explosions while trying to destroy the British embassy in Yemen—ten days ago he’d been spotted buying a hunting rifle in Pakistan.

  “The pelts are worth a lot of money, right?”

  “That’s no reason to kill them.” Her eyes flashed.

  “It’s reason enough for someone.” Because, unless Dmitri Volkov had developed an irrational hatred of snow leopards during his years in exile, nothing else made sense. The man needed money. Why? Or rather, why now?

  “We’re trying to trap the cats and release them before this sonofabitch shoots them all. What are you doing here? This is way out of the war zone.”

  The whole fecking planet was a war zone.

  When it was clear he wasn’t going to answer because name rank and number were the only information he was allowed to divulge, Axelle Dehn, rose to her feet.

  “Anyway, I’m sorry about the gun thing.” She stared at his pocket as if she expected him to hand it back—I don’t think so—before marching off to untie her horse. “I don’t have time to sit around chatting.” Something about her demeanor suggested she never sat around chatting. It was ironic because as a Special Forces soldier he spent much of his time sitting around, waiting, and chatting.

  But she was a woman of action. Seemingly fearless.

  What was she scared of? What was her weakness?

  The sun had started to dip in the sky but if they headed back now they might make camp before dark. He pulled his pack on his back and watched Axelle retrieve her receiver and antenna from where she’d stashed it before she’d ambushed him.

  That’s right, Dr. Dehn. Mount up. Move out. Let’s go home.

  She didn’t even look around as she led the horse up the hill after the leopard.

  He sighed, scanned the ridgelines and exhaled a resigned breath. He had his first real clue in the hunt for one of the world’s most notorious terrorists. The only obstacle was hiking along the path ahead of him, hips swaying with a grace no man could feign. He didn’t kid himself it was for his benefit. Axelle Dehn looked like she’d rather be staked out naked in sub-zero temperatures than touch a flesh-and-blood soldier like him. He stuffed down his impatience and trudged after her. Thank God she wasn’t his type. She was arrogant, quick-tempered and rash.

  A pain in the arse.

  He caught himself watching those long legs in those baggy gray pants and remembering how she’d looked in the shower. He settled his breathing and pulse rate and put his wandering thoughts down to the affects of altitude. He needed this woman’s cooperation because he didn’t have time to chase his target all over the Hindu Kush, but it wasn’t going to be easy.

  The SAS believed that winning hearts and minds was the key to winning any conflict. Axelle Dehn’s heart, mind, and entire existence appeared ruled by her obsession with these cats. They were her Achilles’ heel and his biggest asset in hoping to track down a killer. He’d already figured a way to set a trap for the world’s most elusive Russian terrorist, but no matter the justification, he had a feeling Dr. Axelle Dehn wasn’t going to like it.

  ***

  St. James’s Park, London.

  Jonathon Boyle sat on a bench near the bandstand enjoying a copy of The Times in the sunshine. The theft of a laptop belonging to a high-ranking RAF officer had been reported—along with that of an encryption key needed to unlock its secrets. A real coup for him and lesson to those complacent pricks in the MOD, not to be lax with Top Secret information. He was doing them a favor although they were such total asses they never learned.

  He folded the newspaper and placed it neatly to one side. In this world of electronic communication he often went the old-fashioned route to transfer information. He did, however, have a burst transmitter he could flash a signal from if he was ever in any real danger, but he generally mailed packages of relevant information to PO boxes, then emailed coded PO information to his handler. His codes and ciphers were almost unbreakable, and he never reused the exact same method. He applied the same diligence as a serial killer to not leave forensic evidence, and only a handful of people very high up in The Centre even knew his real identity. Over the years, his spy name had changed numerous times from Vera to Valentina, Nero to Milo. He’d never revealed his communist sympathies or Russian affiliation to anyone and kept his nose clean during the spy scandals of the sixties when he was just getting started. Working for the Foreign Office rather than MI6 had been a bonus. Now, after all these years, he was the highest-placed, longest-serving agent left. That he knew of, anyway. Secrecy was the name of this game and that was the way he liked it.

  There were always new spies being sown and cultivated but he’d been at this his entire life and it wasn’t over yet. A swell of pride filled his chest that he’d gone undetected for so long, and yet his greatest victory might still be ahead of him.

  The preliminary meeting with the people from Aldermaston had confirmed something Jonathon had long suspected. Britain’s scientists were developing many new weapon technologies. Everything from military stun guns to grenades that also delivered precision bursts of electromagnetic energy that disabled enemy communication systems but left their own intact, bullets made from recycled material—was that really considered green?—and a radar-cloaking device they’d whispered about for years. There was a new division that had made him sit up and salivate. A division so secret that they’d refused
to reveal anything about it, not even the name. But they had hinted it was part of the new Anglo-French venture—or timeshare as the GRU officials had laughingly put it.

  The mystery had his spidey senses tingling.

  The committee, comprising himself, two MPs, a peer of the realm, an army general and rear admirals from both the Navy and RAF, plus a high-ranking official from the Home Office—total wanker—were under the supposed authority of some spotty youth from the MOD. The kid, who looked like he knew more about videogames than warfare, had told them they had to wait for additional security clearance before any of them would be allowed inside the restricted access areas of Aldermaston. The others had been pissed off. Jonathon had been grudgingly impressed.

  What could it be? Something nuclear? That was France’s strength and Aldermaston’s primary business. Or something chemical or biological? Both strictly prohibited under international law, but everyone did it anyway. How else were you going to keep ahead of the terrorists and crazy-ass dictators?

  The clods in the MOD understood little except furthering their own careers and making sure budget cuts didn’t touch their desks, but the scientists at Aldermaston—despite their spotty countenances—were the real deal. It was the home of Britain’s Atomic Weapons Establishment, a place where Spitfires had been manufactured during World War II and where the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament had protested most loudly during the Eighties. His palms were damp from heat and excitement. This was one of the most thrilling opportunities of his life and he’d thought his glory days were over. Now he had the inside track on Britain’s future defenses and budding military strengths—all because a ghost from his past had resurrected himself from the dead.

  The irony.

  The bench creaked as a man sat beside him. The sight of the pockmarked face brought a shiver of repulsion over Jonathon’s skin. With a gusty sigh the gentleman set another copy of The Times on the bench between them.

  The Russian Ambassador’s Chief of Security smiled, showing off straight new teeth. His eyes narrowed with enough enjoyment to stir the embers of unease inside Jonathon’s chest. It had been a long time since Valisky had played errand boy.