Eve felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. “But you have the antidote that will neutralize the poison?”
“Of course I do.”
“Prove it.”
“I don’t have to prove it, do I? You’re at a disadvantage. You must feel very desperate to know I have the antidote in my hands. You do what I wish, I give you the antidote.”
“You do have to prove it. I won’t give you anything until I know we have a chance. And I also want you to give me the name of the Iranian agent who sold you the pill and where I can reach him.”
“Why, Eve, you don’t trust that I’ll keep my bargain?”
“I want his name.”
“You might get it. After I get what I want.”
“And what exactly do you want?”
“I told you, the treasure.”
“And Cara?”
“Well, naturally, but that’s not as important.”
“I regard it as very important. I won’t give you Cara. You tried to kill her in Moscow. You killed her sister, Jenny.”
“They were in my way. And Cara might be able to testify against me at some point.” She shrugged. “But she might live for a while. My father is being very stubborn about her. He’s always been foolish about that stupid music. I managed to deal with it when my brother was taking his attention. But it may take me a while to work around him to get my own way this time.”
“I’m sure that’s no problem for you,” Eve said bitterly.
“None at all.” She smiled serenely. “I know exactly what makes him tick. I’ve always been able to control him.” Her smile disappeared. “And in the end, you’ll give me what I want. You barely know Cara. Why should you give up a chance to let your own child live to save her? It’s a matter of choice, Eve. Your life, your child’s life, or Cara, who has been on borrowed time for years anyway.” Her voice became ice-cold. “And make no mistake, I will go through with this. I won’t lose twice to you. You’ll give me everything I want, or you’ll never see that antidote.”
Eve was silent. She bit down on her lower lip. “Change your mind. She’s your daughter. Let her stay with me and live.”
“You’re begging me.” Natalie was almost purring with satisfaction. “That’s what I was hoping you’d do. Do you know how much pleasure that gives me?”
“I can imagine. Let her live.”
“Choose.” Natalie was shaking her head. “Your life and that baby you’re carrying or Cara.”
Eve looked down and was silent again. Then she raised her head, and said shakily, “You seem to have me over a barrel. You’re right, I barely know your daughter. I can’t sacrifice my own family.” She paused. “Give me your instructions.”
“You come here tomorrow night at midnight with the gold. I’ll call and give you an address in downtown Moscow when you arrive in the city. You bring no one with you except Cara.” Her voice was mocking. “No Joe Quinn. No Jock Gavin, who caused me so much trouble. This time you face me alone.”
“I can’t trust you.”
“Too bad.”
“I’ll come alone, and I’ll bring Cira’s gold to Moscow, but I won’t give you its location until you hand over the antidote and the name and address of the man who created this particular poison. MI-6 has already given me a list of the Iranian projects’ doctors. If I don’t recognize the name, you don’t get the location of the gold.” She grimaced. “Just in case you decide to give me a placebo. Of course, that would never happen.”
Natalie smiled sweetly. “I’m glad you realize that it’s only a precaution.”
“And is this address in the city one of your father’s compounds, where I’ll be surrounded by his men?”
“No, but I’ll have my own men to make sure that you don’t slip through my fingers. I prefer not to share the gold with my father, so it’s just as well that I only let him know what I need him to know.”
“You’re being very open about this. Not like you at all. I remember how cautious you were about incriminating yourself when I first talked to you.”
“Ivan helped me protect myself. You’ll see after I hang up. It’s very amusing. Sort of like that old vintage spy series. I couldn’t bear not being able to talk freely to you. I deserve it.”
“I’m certain that you think you deserve everything. Get back to me with that address. I can’t wait to get this … thing out of my body.” Eve hung up.
She sat there, tense, watching the screen.
One minute passed.
Two minutes.
The screen blinked and clicked, and then went dead.
She turned to Joe. “She thinks my hard drive is wiped clean of this call?”
Joe nodded. “That’s what her computer will read. What I set up in your computer to tell her.”
“And everything is still intact? All we have to do is retrieve it?” She drew a shaky breath. “I realized tonight she wouldn’t be able to resist a little malicious bragging when she said she was going to set up Skype. And when I thought back, she’d said things on the other phone call that she wouldn’t ordinarily have said. She’d always carefully protected herself before. That meant this time she had to have it stream on protective software. I was only worried that you wouldn’t have time to get the right software installed tonight to block it.”
“We got it.” He sat down and held her close. “Now stop shaking, or Michael will start giving you hell.”
“In a minute.” She slipped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. “Just talking to her makes me want to go take a shower. She was at her most venomous tonight, wasn’t she? I felt like I was watching a cobra weave back and forth.”
“Shh.” He was rocking her. “You did a good job. Forget her for now.”
“I can’t forget her. She’s there waiting for me. My mind is zinging around trying to find a way to make this work.” She lifted her head. “But we have a chance now. If we can get that computer to Kaskov, there’s enough on it to disillusion him with Natalie and maybe get him to bargain about the antidote.”
“You led her to boast about everything from child murder to personal insults at Kaskov himself. Yes, we have a chance.” His lips tightened. “But I’m not letting you go anywhere near her alone.”
“Yes, you are. If it comes down to it. She’s setting the rules. She’d love to kill you in front of me. I won’t lose you, Joe. We’ll just hope to reach Kaskov and win him over before we have to face Natalie.” She sat up straight. “And now we have to call Jock and see what we can do to run that gauntlet. He knows more than anyone else about Kaskov’s setup.”
CHAPTER
15
“It may work,” Jock said slowly. “But it’s a big risk, Eve.”
“Everything’s a big risk now,” Eve said. “But Natalie is the biggest risk of all. Can you get me into Kaskov’s house or at least the grounds?”
“Probably. I’ve never made the run, but I memorized the floor plan when I was going after Cara. But I’d have to clear the way for you. Losing a couple men might piss him off.”
“We’ll worry about that when it happens. I have to try to get to him. Natalie was arrogant as hell on the phone. She’s not going to let me get out of Moscow alive.” She paused. “She’s demanding that I turn over Cara to her. Cara might live for a little while, but I doubt it. Natalie’s more likely to forget about what her father wants and kill her immediately.”
“You weren’t thinking of taking her with you?”
“No, I just have to work out a way that Natalie will think I am.” She didn’t know what on earth that would be, she thought wearily. “She’s got to believe that I’m doing as she orders, so we can stall until we can get to Kaskov. But I had to make sure that you could get me to him before I did anything else.”
“I’ll get you to him. And I’ll set up a way to get you out if things go wrong.” He added, “What about Quinn? He’s going with you?”
“Not if I can help it. I’ve asked him to go to check out Feroz, t
hat Iranian doctor you thought might have created the poison and could have the antidote. The chances are that Natalie won’t give me the antidote and will lie about the doctor who created it.”
“I was going to check that out for you.”
“But I need you to get me to Kaskov. You can’t be everywhere, Jock.”
“And you want Joe as far away as possible from the action.”
“He’ll see plenty of action. It’s his nature. But I want my baby to have a chance of having a father if he makes it through this, and I don’t. God, that sounds terrible. It’s not as if I want to put you in danger, Jock. It’s just that Michael has to be—”
“Protected,” Jock finished for her. “I understand.” He added wryly, “I’ve been telling Cara this is what I do. Now I guess it’s time I proved it. When do you leave?”
“No later than tomorrow morning. I have to meet Natalie tomorrow night. It seems I don’t have as much time as I thought according to her. Three days.”
Silence. “She could be lying.’
“She was taking a little too much pleasure in it. I believe she was telling the truth this time.”
“Tomorrow night.” He was thinking, calculating, setting up the kills to come. “That’s not going to give me enough time if we leave tomorrow. I’m heading for Moscow right now. Tell Joe to get Caleb to fly you in tomorrow, and I’ll meet you at Skovski Airport.”
“I could go now. Just wait until—”
“I don’t need you. There are things I have to do. I’ll see you in Moscow.” He hung up.
Three days, and Eve could be dead.
Jock could feel the anger start to burn within him. Strange that he had never felt anything but icy coldness before at the thought of a kill. But then he had never cared about anything during that period. Certainly not danger to a person he cared about.
Eve …
He turned and headed up the slope to his car, which was parked on the road.
“Jock.”
He turned to see Cara, outlined by the leaping flames of the campfire, walking toward him.
Dammit. He’d hoped to get away from camp without seeing her. He instinctively tensed, but he stopped and waited for her to reach him.
“Where are you going?” She was gazing up at him. “I saw you talking on the phone for a long time. Is Eve okay?”
“Eve is fine. No change in her condition.”
“Then where are you—”
“Cara, stay out of it.”
She shook her head. “Where are you going?”
She wouldn’t give up.
“Moscow. I’m heading for Edinburgh to catch a flight.”
She went rigid. “Natalie?”
“She called Eve, and we’re moving. But we have a chance of getting that antidote now.”
“Eve’s leaving now, too?”
“No, Caleb will take her in the morning. I have some preparations to make.”
Her eyes were wide with fear. “What preparations?”
“I’m not going to go into it with you, Cara.” He took a step closer to her and grasped her thin shoulders. “You’re going to stay here with Jane and MacDuff and let them take care of you.” He smiled. “Or you take care of them, whichever way you decide. But it’s got to be here and out of the line of fire.”
“No!”
“That’s how it’s going to be.” He let her go and stepped back. “But you should be glad to know that you’re going to get what you wanted. We’ve found a way to go after Kaskov. We’re going to try that route before Natalie.”
“Then I should be going with you,” she said eagerly. “I know him. I can talk to him. I can help.”
“And you can get yourself caught in the same trap you were in before.”
“Then you can do something to get me out of it if I do. But I’d be so careful that it wouldn’t happen. Eve needs me.” She gazed up at him, her eyes pleading. “Michael needs me. Please, Jock.”
Damn, he wished he’d gotten away before he’d seen her. She was tearing him apart. He wanted to give her the world.
“Not possible,” he said hoarsely. “Trust me to take care of it for you.”
“It has to be me. This is why I was meant to come to Eve. It was because I could help her and Michael.”
He couldn’t take any more of this. He turned and headed up the slope. “Trust me.”
“They need me,” she called after him. Her voice was agonized. “Take me with you, Jock.”
He didn’t answer, his pace increased.
When he reached the road, he looked back, and she was still standing there, her hands clenched into fists at her sides, looking up at him.
He turned his head away and strode down the road to his car.
* * *
Jane’s cell rang at 5:10 the next morning. Her heart jumped when she realized it was Eve. “Are you all right? You’re not—”
“Dying?” Eve chuckled. “No, though I can’t blame you for thinking that considering what a downer of a conversation we had when you were at the hospital. No, I only called to tell you Joe and I are on our way to the airport to meet Caleb. We should be there in a few minutes. We’re heading for Moscow.”
“I know. Jock called me last night after he got on the road and told me that Cara was upset and to keep an eye on her. He was right. She stayed by the fire for hours, and all she’d say was that you needed her. She didn’t go to her tent until nearly midnight.”
“I was afraid of that. Maybe she’ll be better today.”
“Or maybe she won’t,” Jane said. “I’m feeling a bit abandoned myself. I much preferred the scenario where I was to come and break you out of the hospital. I want to be with you, too.”
“We need protection for Cara and MacDuff. There’s no one I trust more.”
“Sorry. I’ll stop complaining and do my job. But you do your job and take care of yourself.”
“That’s what I intend to do.” Eve was silent an instant. “You know when we came back from Moscow, I was so happy. I thought that it might be almost over. But Natalie had other ideas. So here I am on my way back to face her again. It seems as if it goes on and on.”
“Maybe it will be the last time.” Jane paused. “This could really work? Kaskov is a dangerous criminal. Even if you convince him his daughter isn’t what he thinks she is, he might still prefer her to you. He might not give a damn what happens to you.”
“That’s true. But there’s a chance, and I have to take every possible chance for Michael.” She paused. “And for all the rest of my family. I love you, Jane. Watch over Cara and MacDuff.” She hung up.
Jane blinked away tears as she hung up. These good-byes were beginning to have a frightening finality about them. She wanted it over, Eve healthy and safe, the baby normal and on his way to a happy life. It was going to seem like a long time until Eve called her to tell her whether Kaskov had given her what she needed to stay alive.
She envied Caleb that he was going to be with her, helping them, bringing them home.
Caleb hadn’t even told her that he was taking them to Moscow. She’d had to hear it from Jock. Not that it should have surprised her. Caleb hadn’t been very communicative since that morning in the mist. She had been grateful that she hadn’t had to deal with him and the tumult of her emotions when he was around. But he could have let her know that he was going away.
And she was being completely unreasonable, she thought impatiently. She couldn’t have it all ways. He had gone too far. Or not far enough. Whenever she let her guard down enough to think of him, her body still readied, burned. Her heart would start to pound, and she still remembered him lying there naked in the mist. Because he had been different during those last moments, his attitude, not threatening, but darkly decisive. It was better that she had a chance to get over that memory before she let herself think of Caleb again.
So stop thinking about him.
Her body was becoming flushed, her breathing rapid. All of this nonsense because she had envi
ed that he had been able to go with Eve and Joe and she’d had to stay at the camp.
Well, she was here, and she’d make the best of it. She’d help MacDuff all she could. Spend as much time with Cara as the girl would let her. Last night by the fire, she’d been completely despondent. Okay, let her sleep a couple more hours, then go cook breakfast, wake her, and try to get her to talk.
But Jane knew she wouldn’t go back to sleep now. She was too on edge.
Be safe, Eve.
I’m praying for you.
And, dammit, you bring her back to me, Seth Caleb.
* * *
“Coffee?” Caleb came out of the cockpit. “You look as if you could use it.” His gaze raked Eve’s face. “A little tense.”
“Maybe she’d be less tense if you were back in the cockpit flying the plane,” Joe said dryly. “I think I can handle anything else.”
“It’s on autopilot. Just thought I’d pop back to make sure that you were comfortable.” He smiled mockingly. “I always like to be a good host.”
“We’re fine, Caleb,” Eve said quickly. “When will we arrive in Moscow?”
“Another couple hours. We’re making good time though.” He turned back to the cockpit. “But Quinn is right, I’d better get back. Autopilots are a wonderful invention, but mountains can be so troublesome…”
Eve shook her head as she saw Joe about to say something. “He’s just being Caleb. And I’m grateful he was there for us when we needed him.”
“So am I.” He grimaced. “But if I didn’t know he was such a good pilot, and if this Gulfstream 650 plane wasn’t the fastest aircraft around and required special checking out, I’d be in that cockpit flying the damn plane myself.” He laced his fingers through hers on the leather arm of the seat. “Do you want that coffee? I’ll go get you some from the dispenser in the back.”
She shook her head. “I’m trying to cut down on caffeine. It’s not good for Michael.” Then she smiled ruefully. “And that’s totally bizarre. I have this megadose of poison inside me, and I’m worried about caffeine.”
“I believe Michael would forgive you.” He lifted her hand to his lips. “And we’ll take care of that poison soon,” he said thickly. “I promise you that I’ll get that antidote from that Iranian son of a bitch. It will be in your hands long before you have to meet with Natalie. You’ll be able to tell her to go to hell.”
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