by Desiree Holt
Marissa touched his arm, and then her ear.
“Voices,” she mouthed, and pointed toward the hallway to the restaurant.
Justin listened, then nodded and peered over the counter at Registration.
“Shit.” He growled the word in a low, tight voice. “Double shit.”
“What?” Marissa stood on tiptoe to see what he was looking at. “Shit is right,” she echoed in a soft voice. “God, Justin.”
Whoever had been handling guests wouldn’t be doing it any more. She lay on the floor at an awkward angle, her hair falling loose from its braid, a large circle of blood staining her pink uniform shirt and pooling beneath her.
Justin grabbed Marissa’s arm and pushed her back the way they’d come. They stopped outside the building, out of sight of anyone on the other side. Still, he moved them into a tight, thick grouping of tall shrubbery where they’d be impossible for anyone to spot.
“Whoever this Henri Joubert is,” he said in a low voice, “he’s not here for relaxation. I can’t believe Avery is missing something about him. This can’t be the first time he’s done this.”
“We don’t even know what he’s done yet,” Marissa reminded him. “Or even if it’s him.”
“Only one helicopter landed today,” he pointed out. “So, either he’s here on monkey business, or…” He let his words trail off.
“Or something is way out of whack.”
“We have to get a look in that restaurant,” Marissa told him. “Something’s going down in there.”
“Not we, sweetheart. Me. I am not going to put you at risk in what is obviously a dangerous situation.” He gave her a tight grin. “If I thought I could get away with it, I’d lock you in Orchid House until this was all over.”
She glared at him. “Fat chance.”
“I figured you’d say that.”
She curled her hands into tight fists to gather in her control.
“Listen to me. I’ll only say this once. I spent three years undercover to get the goods on one of the world’s most dangerous men. I know stealth, I score ninety-eight percent on the target range, and I can understand enough of five different languages to know what people are saying. I’m aware you’ve been hired to protect me, but I am not hiding in the closet. And I can be of help to you. So do not think you are tucking the little lady in a corner for this.”
Despite the seriousness of their situation, he managed to crack a smile.
“Duly noted. And by the way, I’m more than the bodyguard hired to protect you. I thought we settled that before.”
She wasn’t sure whether to smack him or hug him. “You are. Much more. And we did.” She swallowed. “Now. Where’s that map you’ve been marking up? I saw you shove it in your pocket back at the villa.”
He pulled it out and unfolded it. “Okay. Here’s Sunset.” He pointed. “Right here where the windows begin is a place we can get a peek without being seen. At least we can assess the situation. We need to go back outside and around the building.”
“Okay. Let’s do it.”
They moved around behind the building, past the loading area where supplies were received, past the employee entrance, to the other side of the building. Two walls were all windows, so they moved until they could just see inside Sunset at an angle. What she saw made Marissa’s entire body turn cold and nausea rumble up into her throat. A tall man dressed in an expensively tailored suit stood addressing everyone in the room. Behind him was another man holding what she knew was an assault rifle, and deployed around the restaurant itself were several more, all dressed in black, all holding the same type of weapons. Some had handguns stuck in the waistband of their slacks.
The guests in the restaurant, at least the ones they could see, were gaping at the men with a mixture of horror, anger, and fear.
Marissa sucked in a breath and stared at the man, fear invading every part of her. These people had good reason to be afraid.
“Oh, my God.” She whispered the words, nausea gripping her at the shock of what she was seeing. “Justin? T-That’s Stefan Maes. And the man at the doorway is Valentin Desmet. Oh, my God.” She grabbed Justin’s arm, digging her fingers into the hard muscles, trying to stabilize herself. She was trembling and had to reach for every bit of self-control. How was he here? Why was he here? If he had found her, was her absence from the crowd what was setting him off? Dear Lord.
“Jesus.” Justin let out a breath. Then he turned and took a moment to pull her hard against his body.
She swallowed, pushing down the fear that wouldn’t let go. “God, I hope he’s here for something else. He has to be. If he had discovered I was here, Avery would have called. Right?”
“Yes,” he assured her. “Besides, we know she covered our tracks very well, and our names aren’t in the registration program. It has to be something else. A coincidence. A very nasty one.”
“One arranged by the devil.” How had this happened?
He cupped her cheek. “But whatever it is, we’ll get Avery to find out.”
“I just can’t imagine what it could it be.” She drew in a shuddering breath, then dug for every bit of control she had. “I feel sorry for whoever his target is. That man’s cruelty knows no boundaries.”
He stopped and took both her hands in his. “Listen to me. You’re tough. You can do this. We can do this together. And I am not going to let Maes get his hands on you. That’s a promise.”
She blew out a breath. “Okay.”
With a supreme effort, she pulled herself together, swallowing back the nausea that threatened to erupt as she imagined herself the man’s prisoner. She had heard too many stories about Maes’s cruelty not to be afraid. She needed Lauren Masters the CIA operative now, not Marissa Hayes, target in hiding. Justin did not need her to fall apart on him.
“You know Henri Joubert’s late arrival is part of this.” Justin rubbed his neck. “Maybe he and Maes are friends and he’s doing him a favor.”
“Then the CIA should take lessons in secrecy from him,” Marissa said, “because there’s no trace of a connection between them anywhere.”
“Whatever it is, though, this doesn’t look much like a fun dinner party. Wonder which one of the men in there is him?”
“I can’t tell you because I’ve never seen him. Can you bring up the link Avery sent you earlier? Oh, wait a sec. I can find it.”
She pulled her cell phone from her purse. Thanks to Princessa Key’s satellite setup she could access the internet with no problem. She typed in Henri Joubert’s name and when the picture loaded, she showed it to Justin.
“I don’t see him in the room,” she said. “But some of the men have their backs to us.”
He shook his head. “I have a feeling good old Henri isn’t here. I don’t know where he is, but I’d say it’s not good. Maes probably used him to gain access to Princessa Key.”
“But for what purpose?”
“If we can get inside and listen, we can find out.”
“Look.” One of the men was standing not too far from Maes in an open area, holding a garbage bag. “What do you—”
“Cell phones and any other electronics,” he interrupted. “And watches. One of the others is wanding each one after they dump their stuff. Checking for watches that can be used as cells. Anything that they could use to get a signal out. And crap. They’ve got the waitstaff in there, too. If anything happens they’ll get caught in the crossfire.”
“You’re right,” she agreed. “Maes would not hesitate to execute anyone, no matter how helpless or uninvolved.”
“Let’s check the path from here to the hangar. It won’t take long, and I’d like to know where the guards are. And I need to call Avery.”
“We need to remember to stay away from the security cameras you marked the other day,” Marissa reminded him. The last thing she wanted was for either o
f them, her especially, to show up on the cameras in case Maes had someone monitoring them.
“There are only a few,” he reminded her.
“I know. I just want to fix them in my mind.”
Justin opened the map again to see where he’d put the little checkmarks, just as a last-minute review. He’d already gone over it several times.
“Got it?” he asked her.
Marissa studied it, then nodded. “I’m good.”
“I’m calling Avery before we do anything else.”
They moved to the rear of the building, out of line of anyone’s sight and far enough away that he couldn’t be heard. Then Justin hit speed dial for Avery.
“Trouble,” he said the moment she answered, and gave her a terse summary.
“I’ll call Mike,” she told him. “The team will be wheels up in thirty.”
“I’ll text you the best place for them to land. There are only a few security cameras, but they’ll want to avoid them. I’m sure Maes has someone tapping into them.”
Avery was silent for a moment.
“You’re right. I’ll have them do a HAHO jump. That way the chopper will be high enough that little if any sound will be heard in the restaurant. Nothing to alert them.”
Justin had done high-altitude, high-opening jumps before. The team would be virtually undetectable at night on regular cameras, and he doubted Maes had brought anything infrared with him.
“Tell them to deploy on the two sides of the building that are all glass. I’ll see about killing the outside lights. Can you find out why Maes is here?”
“I’ll call Brian. Listen. Flight time from here is a little over an hour, so you’re probably looking at close to ninety minutes before reinforcements get there. Can you handle the situation until then?”
Justin barked a humorless laugh. “It’s not like I have a choice, Avery.”
“Take care of yourself,” Avery ordered. “And your precious cargo.”
Precious Cargo was a term adopted by many elite groups to signify the person for whose safety they were responsible. For Justin the phrase now had a double meaning.
“Will do. Back atcha soon.” He disconnected the call and shoved the phone in his pocket. “Okay. Let’s find the guards.”
The first bodies they discovered in their search weren’t the guards but those of the grounds crew. Someone had executed them and just kicked them to the side.
“Holy mother,” Marissa whispered, icy fear creeping up her spine again. She’d heard many stories about Maes’s careless disregard for human life, but this was the first time she’d seen it up close and personal.
“No shit,” Justin said.
A few steps farther they discovered two of the guards, shot and pushed aside the same way. Marissa liked to think her three years as a CIA covert operative had toughened her, but the one thing she’d not had to deal with during that time was dead bodies. Now she was doing her best not to fall apart at the sight of the carnage.
“My God.” Marissa stared at them, sadness washing over her. “I’ll bet the bellman that showed up with the cart is history, too.”
“And probably the rest of the guards. So. Time to see if there’s a way in there so we can find out what the hell is going on. And figure out how to stop it.”
She gripped his arm, nails digging into his skin. “We have to be very careful.”
He nodded. “Careful is my middle name.”
* * * *
When Maes and his men entered the rotunda, the registration clerk stared at them with wide, frightened eyes. She picked up the phone to call someone, but he shook his head.
“You don’t want to do that, do you?”
She looked at Raca standing beside him, gun at the ready, and shook her head.”
“Which way is the restaurant?”
She pointed to a short hallway on the left. “T-That way.”
“Excellent. Thank you.” He turned to Raca. “Shoot her.”
Her mouth was still open to scream when the bullet hit her.
Entering the restaurant, he assessed the situation at once. People were busy enjoying their dinner, not paying attention to who walked in.
“Get their attention,” he told Raca.
The man obediently fired his assault rifle into the ceiling. Maes always thought that was an outstanding way to get everyone’s attention. People screamed, some just sat open-mouthed. But it caught everyone’s attention. One moment they were eating and drinking and talking. The next moment the peace of their evening had been shattered.
He looked around the room. “Good evening, everyone. Forgive me for disturbing your dinner this way, but I have a little business to conduct with some of you. Once that’s finished, I’ll be on my way. Some of you may be a little poorer, but if you all behave, at least you will be alive.”
“I see several waitstaff here in the main room. All of you, sit on the floor over there.” He pointed to one wall. “Raca, get out the flex cuffs and have someone secure their hands behind their back.”
“Done.”
He nudged Goren and pointed toward the entrance to the kitchen.
“There will be more staff in the kitchen. The chef. His assistants. Maybe a dishwasher. Bring them out and secure them, also.”
Goren nodded, took one of the men with him and headed toward the double doors. Maes knew they would not hesitate to shoot anyone who objected. The rest of the men automatically deployed around the restaurant.
Then Maes walked to the corner opposite the entrance, a place where he could see everything, and no one could get behind him. True, the walls were all windows but there was no one out there to do him any damage. Not the dead guards. Not anyone. He looked around the elegant restaurant, at the people dressed in evening regalia. They all stared at him, stunned, their expressions a mixture of disbelief and fear.
“Some of you may not know who I am,” he began. “So let me introduce myself. I am Stefan Maes, head of the Grupa Industrijska, formerly a multibillion-dollar business until men I made rich conspired to sweep my empire out from under me. These men are the reason I am here tonight. It is unfortunate for the rest of you that you are caught up in a situation created by those men.”
His gaze swept the room again. He saw them, all of them except of course for Joubert. With eyes full of rage, they watched him, but none of them made a move. Were they stupid enough to think he wouldn’t recognize them? That they could blend into this crowd? Why did they not show any fear? Apparently, they were willing to sacrifice everyone here just as they had sacrificed him.
A man seated at a table to his left rose. “Excuse me. I’m Walter Morganstern. My wife and I own Rosewood. If there is something we can help you with, please, just ask us.”
Maes smiled at the man. Such a foolish person. He was in no position to satisfy him. And he would not be cheated out of his revenge.
“Can you give me back all the money eleven men in this room cheated me out of? If not, you would do well to sit down and be quiet.” He paused. “There was one other man but unfortunately he met with an accident on the trip here.”
For a moment the man looked as if he had something else to say. Then a woman, probably his wife, tugged on his sleeve and he sat back down. Maes looked around the room again. “You would all do well to sit quietly until I have gotten what I came for. If you all behave, perhaps I will let you live.”
A woman at the table closest to him smothered a scream and looked as if she was about to faint.
“Madam, compose yourself,” he ordered. “You do not want to make me upset.”
Maes nodded to one of Raca’s men, Franjo Pavic, who promptly slapped her across the face so hard her head jerked. Her husband started to protest, but the same gunman rested the barrel of his gun against the man’s temple.
“I wouldn’t upset him,” Maes said in
a mild voice. “He has an itchy trigger finger on that gun. An M60 can blow quite a hole in your head.”
He was gratified to see the man turn pale, while his wife almost passed out. Her husband handed her a glass of water then just sat quietly, holding her hand.
“Anyone else?” Maes looked around the room. “Good. Very good. If you all listen to my instructions and follow them, we will be gone before you know it and you can proceed with your dinner.”
Not fucking likely, he thought.
He spotted one of the waitresses, frozen in place, holding two glasses of water.
“Put those down,” he ordered. “Now. And go stand against that wall. Over there. The rest of you, also. Valentin, you know what to do now.”
Desmet walked over to a table near where Maes stood.
“I need your chair,” he told the man sitting closest to him. “And your wife’s.”
“But—”
Desmet took out his small handgun and smacked the man’s face. The woman next to him emitted a small scream, while the man pressed his napkin to his wound. But the two of them got up.
“Sit on the floor with the staff,” Val said. “And don’t make a sound.”
He took a laptop out of the messenger bag he’d brought with him and opened it, booting it up. The computer was loaded with every kind of hacking program they could get on it. In seconds he looked up at Maes and nodded.
“I’m in.”
He had pulled up the few security cameras scattered around the resort, and would monitor outside activity while Maes’s men maintained control inside. Just in case.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” Maes’s gaze swept the room. “I am not playing a game here. It is important for you to understand that. I will not hesitate to kill anyone who tries to get in my way. Keep that in mind.”
He paused, waiting for someone to say something, but for the moment they all seemed struck dumb. Assault rifles stuck in their faces had a tendency to do that.
All right, then.
“Now to the business at hand. The men who caused my fortunes to drop, who turned banks and businesses against me, who caused me to lose most of my money, are now going to reimburse me. You will know who they are once we are ready to begin the real business of the evening.”
