For a moment, she simply looked at the thing in her hand.
It was a detonator.
A part of her almost wished it had been real.
Both Victor and Evan approached from across the square, Victor looking as satisfied as he ever had.
When she awoke the next time, it was after the first full night’s sleep she’d had in nearly two years.
Clothes were laid out. Evan waited to give her her first assignment.
Everything inside her went still, emotionless. She looked at him.
For her first assignment, they gave her a certifiably very bad man. One who was nearly universally considered to be more than worth stopping, worth killing.
A slave trader, the man sold women and children to the sex markets and used the money he made from them to act as a money launderer and to finance various terrorist groups.
It wasn’t that the man supported the terrorists so much, but the chaos they created played into both parts of his operations, providing him with plenty of orphaned children of both sexes, and desperate, often widowed, women who needed some way to support themselves and their children in a society that gave them no other options.
He drugged them and ‘educated’ them in their duties, sometimes brutally, selling the virgin girls to the highest bidder, often over the internet.
A different memory whispered through Nike, of a gentler introduction to loving, of gentle hands, of the kind of pleasure these women would never know. Deep inside her, down in the darkness, a part of her wept for the women and children.
Victor Torrance knew what Santiago had done to her.
This man they wanted her to kill was a thoroughly bad man and heavily guarded. It wouldn’t be an easy kill, but it was a kill she would want to make, Torrance knew.
They provided her with money, a place to stay, maps and blueprints, and weapons - once she was on site.
It was a special kind of hell they sent her into and Victor Torrance knew it. That compound was filled with women and children being ‘educated’ as she’d once been.
An entirely different set of buttons to push.
This first kill was key. She’d already killed once, the man Jorge, they knew. Now she was set to kill this one. Once she saw his encampment and what it was they did in that place there would be little doubt she would complete her mission.
Victor knew it would make killing the next that much easier. And the next after that.
Nike Tallent celebrated her twenty-first birthday somewhere in Africa with her first professional kill.
Chapter Nine
The off-hours tavern was busy on a Friday night. Smoke hung low despite the laws against smoking. Not all the smoke was from cigarettes. A little upscale like the neighborhood in which it was situated, the bar was the kind of place frequented by locals, the kind of locals who noticed things like the woman who walked in the door.
Certainly the bartender did.
She was the kind of woman it was hard not to notice.
First, there was something in the way she walked, as if she were six inches taller, with a kick ass, take-no-prisoners stride that drew the attention.
Her hair was long, sepia-toned, as rich and lustrous as polished wood. It tumbled in waves around a piquant face of high cheekbones, a firm, sweetly-shaped mouth, and a slightly square jaw. Behind yellow, high-contrast sunglasses her eyes were long-lashed, dark-rimmed, and beautiful, the color indeterminate.
Not too many of the men looked at her face, and few did for very long.
All she wore was a simple leather halter top, a pair of low-riding leather pants, and boots. The halter was little more than a thin square of supple brown leather held in place by ties around her throat, chest and waist, just barely covering and enclosing firm, full breasts that strained lightly against the leather. A short expanse of taut abs was left exposed between the halter and the leather pants that clung to shapely hips and a tight bottom. Her belly button was pierced by a tiny hoop. A small diamond hung from it. The diamond winked in the thin light.
As she strode past a number of people pointed at her back and the pair of enormous wings tattooed there. The level of detail was simply astonishing. Those wings were magnificent, beautiful, a testament to the tattooist’s art. It was as if they hadn’t simply been inked there, but had grown there, organic, each feather delineated in shades of sepia, chestnut and brown, to match her hair. The upper arch of the wings began on her shoulders while the tips disappeared beneath the waistband of the leather pants. One had the notion that if it weren’t for the confining waistband those wings would spread at any moment.
She looked like a fashion model gone bad and walked like sex in thigh-high boots, her hips swinging as if she strode down the runway.
Even in Prague, she was noticeable.
She walked to the bar, smiled.
That brilliant smile would have melted steel, much less a cynical bartender. He leaned close to hear her over the noise of the band, caught a breath of a scent that was oddly fresh, yet seductive.
“Hello,” she said, her voice a soft, husky contralto as she gave him a sideways, seductive, yet still oddly shy, look. “Beer, please.”
Nikolai nearly swallowed his tongue, but he smiled at the attractive foreigner who spoke pretty good Czech.
“Sure,” he said.
Crossing her arms on the bar, she leaned forward a little. She wore no rings on her fingers. The edge of the thin leather halter shifted enough to give him a glimpse of the upper curves of her breasts beneath it. Nikolai suddenly found it difficult to concentrate.
As he poured her beer, the woman said, “I was wondering if someone could help me? I’m looking for someone.”
“Who isn’t?” the bartender asked, giving her a long look. He wouldn’t have minded being the one for whom she looked, though, given the view.
“True,” she said wryly, with a sigh and a twist of her pretty mouth. “My husband, soon to be my ex-husband, the cheating bastard…”
Nikolai shook his head. The man had this at home, and he’d wanted something else? He was clearly thinking. He had to be insane.
“A foreigner here,” she continued. “He talks as if he’s from the U.S., but he’s really from Mexico. He’s a man of about average height, kind of secretive, and handsome, almost pretty - the cheating son of a bitch - with dark hair, dark eyes and a deep, very distinctive voice?”
Those were the only things they could be certain of, the only description Nike had of her quarry. Although the physical description wasn’t that unusual, the voice most definitely was. There couldn’t be that many men who matched that description in this part of the city…
A dozen men looked at each other.
“Who would be mad enough to cheat on a woman like this?’ one of the men whispered. “He’s mad. She’s gorgeous, incredible. As the Americans say, she’s hot.”
She slid a picture onto the bar.
It had been carefully enhanced and cropped from the original long-lens photo. Even from a distance the man in it was striking, his features fine, distinctive, almost effeminately attractive. His hair was perfectly coiffed. He might have been a reporter on television.
One of the men at the bar frowned. “I think I’ve seen him.”
“Did you?” she said, breathlessly. “Because if you did and I can catch him, I can get a divorce and be free of the cheating bastard. I’d be so grateful. There’s money in it. I’ll pay…”
The promise of money refreshed his memory even more.
He nodded, smiling, straightening. “I do, but for a lady in distress…? There’s no need…”
She smiled in return, leaned a little forward.
Her hair swung over her shoulder, brushed the tops of her breasts. His breath locked in his chest and his pants grew tight.
“Where?” she asked, looking at him from beneath her lashes.
He quickly rattled off the name and address of the hotel where he’d thought he’d seen the man in question. “That’s whe
re I saw him, I’m pretty sure.”
Nike smiled. It was the last piece of the puzzle. She’d found him. She was almost certain of it. By the end of the night, she would be.
As those in the small tavern cheered, she took the speaker by the face in both her hands and planted a kiss on him that would have his head spinning.
She slapped down two hundred Euro shouting, “Drinks for the house.”
Smiling, Nike left the bar satisfied.
According to the intelligence they had, a man by the name of Daniel Garcia, a major player whose ambition was to become the next Jackal – the legendary assassin – was going to take out the President of the Czech Republic, and soon.
No one knew precisely why although there was speculation.
The Czechs negotiating the current U.S. administration’s missile defense plan had pissed off the Russians big-time. Ostensibly, the move had been made to deter Iran’s nuclear threat. To the Russians it had been as Cuba had been for the U.S. in the 1960s, except the shoe was on the other foot. Missiles planted on their doorstep.
They hadn’t liked it.
Some speculated the Iranians might have arranged it, to have someone more to their liking make the decision on the missile plan.
Whether it had been the Russians or the Iranians who’d called in the hit - or some unknown third party - Nike’s job was to find and take out the assassin, quickly and quietly. It was a major improvement on her usual assignments.
The hotel he’d chosen was known, but clearly not particularly popular, located on a side street away from any main thoroughfares, allowing Garcia to come and go relatively unnoticed.
To the rest of the world Garcia was a ghost. Few had ever seen him. He was contacted through mail drops and third parties, paid through bankers and wired funds. Save for the one picture she had, taken at a distance and digitally enhanced, there were no photographs of him. Stories abounded, and his kills recounted until he was nearly as legendary as the Jackal he emulated. Except that Garcia was known to stand beside his targets as they died and then walk away in the chaos that followed.
Time was running out. Unless there were new negotiations the missile accords were due to be signed soon. She had to stop Garcia before then.
Still, there was little she could do tonight except watch and verify, but at least she might have narrowed it down to a single hotel.
It was the closest anyone had gotten to him.
With a sigh, she resigned herself to a long night as she walked through the darkness.
Little frightened her. She could kill most men and the worst - save death - had already been done, so what more did she have to fear? What could anyone do to her save what had already been done?
She found a place where she could watch the hotel’s entrance and settled in for a long wait.
There were more than one or two men who answered Daniel Garcia’s description - medium height, black and black - who went in or came out of the hotel that morning.
Only one, though, matched the picture closely.
He was handsome, oddly boyish-looking, but he had a strange grace, a sense of focus, the others didn’t. The Czechs didn’t have as much of a culture of dancing as the Spanish did.
It wasn’t proof, though.
Nike frowned. Going in there would draw attention; but there was no choice, she had to be sure. She drew her hair up into a tight French twist and replaced her usual yellow-tinted glasses with large, dark-colored sunglasses. The advantage to large handbags.
The desk clerk was a woman. Nike smiled. She might be sympathetic to the spurned spouse story.
Waiting until no other guests lingered around the front desk, Nike made her way to it.
In a creditable Spanish accent, Nike laid out her story to the credulous desk clerk. The woman nodded, and then glanced down at the computer monitor surreptitiously. Following her gaze as the woman clearly intended, Nike could see a Daniel Hernandez in Room 343. She slipped a large Euro note across the desk. With a smile and a duck of her head in gratitude, Nike nodded and walked away, disappearing behind a pillar until she was sure the woman wasn’t looking.
Quickly and quietly, she made her way up the stairs, to Daniel ‘Hernandez’s’ room. Using her lock picks, she jimmied the locks then stepped inside the room.
It was exactly as she expected it to be…nearly empty, featureless. Much like her own. Nothing identifying him was to be found in it.
Again like her own.
She found nothing in his suitcase, but she hadn’t expected to find anything there.
Frowning, she surveyed the room. If he was Garcia, either he had his weapons with him or they were here.
She eyed all the possible hiding places, some obvious, like beneath the bed. There was no head or foot board to the bed. Folding back the bed-coverings carefully, she ran her fingers lightly over the bottom edge of the box spring. And found a hole carefully cut through the ticking.
He would be scoping out his prospects, checking sightlines and opportunities, no doubt.
Nike had already done so, eliminating a number of possibilities, factoring in Garcia’s preferences based on his prior hits. Security was tight.
He liked new and different approaches sometimes, they knew. Liked to experiment. As she did, which was why she’d been sent after him.
But not this time.
Carefully she drew out the gun case, opened it. A soft sigh escaped her. It was a masterwork of weaponry. He would have had it designed to shoot certain distances, then practiced with it to be sure he’d hit his target. So, given the choice of venues she was now looking for someplace high, with good line of sight. That eliminated a number of possibilities.
Wiping down the case to remove her fingerprints, she returned it to its original location, running the chamois over anything she might have touched. Quickly exiting the room, she moved through the old hotel.
She was discovering she loved foreign cities with their close roof-tops.
Her dream had been to learn Parkour - l’art du deplacement - from the master. And she had, courtesy of the U.S. government - although she’d never spoken about how she would use it, had only demonstrated her skill and asked to be shown more.
She was now a certified traceuse, as much as such things were certified.
It was enough for her.
She waited on the rooftop, and followed the man she now suspected was Daniel Garcia from above, rather than below, as he left again that evening. He was carrying the case. Time was growing very short.
The President of the Czech Republic was speaking that night, a rare public engagement.
It was the perfect opportunity for Garcia. The target would be out in the open, such as it was, and vulnerable. An auditorium, surrounded by windows, as she’d expected.
Nike was fairly certain she had him, had Garcia, but she couldn’t be sure without catching him in the act. There was no chance he would get as close as he had to some of his other victims. The security around the target was simply too tight. The President was a man of fragile health, so they kept the public at bay for fear a simple cold might kill him.
So she waited, silently, in the shadows, as she’d waited at Santiago’s bidding, motionless, emotionless, still, watching as Daniel Garcia came out of the shadows to play.
While he preferred to work close to his victims, it wasn’t always possible. They had ample evidence he was an expert marksman.
He was a handsome man. He wasn’t particularly tall, but he was slender and surprisingly young-looking for his age. Their records put him at nearly fifty years, but he could have passed for thirty-five. There wasn’t a thread of gray in his dark hair - she would have bet it was natural - and only the suggestion of a crease at his eyes and mouth.
He moved with precision, as quick and careful as she.
If nothing else would have convinced her, it was that. He was a predator, too.
When she was certain she knew where he was going, she moved ahead of him, silently, to take her pla
ce on the tower…and wait.
High on the ancient tower, hidden by the shadows, she watched him set up, taking pictures all the time. Mentally, she counted down the minutes, recording all of it. She waited until he sighted down the rifle and then said only one thing, softly.
His name.
Startled he jerked and the shot went wild.
The glass of the skylights of the distant building at which he’d aimed shattered.
In all honesty, perched on a dome in the midst of Prague, it was an unexpected place to find another human being, but the surprise was worth it.
Undoubtedly the Czech security forces were even now bundling their President out of the vicinity and getting him out of the building. The target was flown and would be virtually impregnable between now and when the agreements were signed.
Part of her job was done.
“Whoops,” she said as Garcia spun around.
She was already vaulting away from her original position, rolling on her shoulders to bring the dart gun to bear.
Garcia saw it and launched himself backward, into the void, into the space between the buildings.
Stunned, Nike leaped forward and then turned away as he opened fire, both hands around his backup weapon…just before his parachute opened.
He might not have gotten the President, but he’d escaped.
Nike swore softly, vehemently.
At least they knew what he looked like now.
If her photographs hadn’t caught good shots, her memories might be enough for a sketch artist to build on. It was more than they’d had.
Still…
It was impossible to spot where Garcia landed among the cluster of buildings, and she’d never reach it before he was gone.
Nike sighed. Evan wouldn’t be happy.
At least Evan was still in the States, though, not here in Prague, so his displeasure would be distant, muted.
She looked around.
Garcia had left his toys – the rifle, the stand. He’d be unhappy about that.
It was likely he’d worn gloves and wiped it all down, but the equipment was expensive and difficult to replace. If the rifle was custom as hers was, it could be traced.
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