Cherry Adair - T-flac 03 (24 page)

Kyle set his glass down on the side table with a click and fixed Montero in place with his stare. "Since I'm stuck with her, I'll avail myself of her not inconsiderable charms for a couple more days."

Kyle's eyes narrowed as Montero averted his gaze. Crap'nshit, here it comes. "Why? Is there something about her I should know?"

The other man squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. "Kensington thinks she might be DEA."

Kyle couldn't help it, he laughed. "Wouldn't she have to have a brain for that?" he asked dryly, glad the lady in question wasn't in the room to hear him. She had a mean right hook.

Montero swallowed his drink. "She's asking too many questions, talking to my men, to the servants.

She's been poking around the compound while she's supposed to be out jogging…" He shrugged.

"You shouldn't have brought her here." Like the tip of an iceberg, Kyle allowed a portion of his fury to show. "Your damned vanity might blow this whole thing apart. What the hell were you thinking? There's not a goddamned soul here who gives a shit who you screw. Christ, Ramon. Luckily for you she's too stupid to have caught onto anything."

"You're sure?"

"Look, she's creative as hell in the sack, but she's real light in the brain department. The only things she's interested in are money and whatever the hell else she can get her avaricious little hands on."

"I'm concerned that our partners are suspicious of a mere
puta."

Kyle fixed him with a hard look. "I'll take care of her, don't worry."

"I admit, bringing the woman to Izquierdo at this time was not a good idea." Montero got up to refill his glass. "Yes. Take care of her
amigo, de una vez
." Once and for all. "Then none of us need worry."

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Kyle gave Montero his present the next morning over breakfast. The prototype of the new Z-769

handgun could fire forty-five rounds in almost as many seconds. It had so many features for its size, they supplied it with a manual.

A guard had hand-carried the ultrasecret weapon all the way from the States to San Cristobal. Kyle had had to do one helluva lot of talking to get the Government boys to release it at all. They'd only acquiesced after making several minor but strategic adjustments to the weapon before he could give it to Montero. Right now Kyle could've kissed the collective booted feet of Uncle Sam.

All the players were present. Sugano, Kensington, Danzigger, and Dr. Montgomery, who'd arrived early that morning. They'd gone to the lab before breakfast. The pox-virus vials had been inspected by the doctor and deemed acceptable. Kyle had stated he'd be back later that morning to infect the chicken eggs. In point of fact he was going to dispose of the virus before the shit hit in a couple of days.

Montero's merry little band, happy as pigs in shit at the prospect of all the money they were about to make, trooped into the dining room with ravenous appetites.

Everyone was in a damn fine mood.

Montero recouped the weapon from Sugano's scrutiny and stroked the bronzed nose like a lover, all beaming smiles and oily goodwill.

"Perfectly balanced." Montero seesawed it across two fingertips. Not once had he checked to see if his new toy was loaded. "After breakfast you must share more of my present's capabilities with us, Kyle."

Kyle casually plucked the Z out of his host's fingers on the downswing as he heard footsteps approaching along the slate corridor outside the dining room. There was an imperceptible pause before Delanie appeared in the doorway.

Like a good actress, she was right on cue. All smiles, she sauntered into the long formal dining room.

Conversation stopped. Even wearing black slacks and an oversized plain white shirt, she looked good.

She had her canvas bag slung like a bandoleer across her body.

Kyle felt his cotton shirt stick to the small of his back as the already harsh sunlight poured through the open shutters behind him. His pulse pounded a little faster than usual as he fixed his attention on the woman drifting beneath the arched doorway to the room.

"Good morning, gentlemen. Isabella." Her voice was a little thick. Sleepy-eyed, and sexy as hell, her hair brushed back and tamed in some kind of braid, gold gleaming at her throat. She glanced around the table with a smile. Taking in the already filled breakfast plates and chafing dishes on the sideboard, she moved to pull out an empty chair.

Her knees dipped imperceptibly, and she steadied herself on the chair back. She hadn't even glanced at him, but he saw her pupils, large and dark, eyelids heavy, skin pale under heavy-handed makeup.

He had to work fast.

Steady as a rock, Kyle rose slowly from his place at the table, the Z-769 steady in his hand. In his peripheral vision, he saw Montero and the others turn as if in slow motion. The weapon had no safety.

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Someone gasped.

Delanie's head jerked up. She blanched, eyes wide.

Kyle fired.

A hair off, the bullet missed her by a fraction of an inch, shattering the priceless Ming vase on the credenza, then splintering the wall-size mirror behind it to smithereens. A shower of glass tinkled to the Tabriz carpet. Flowers and water cascaded over the sideboard.

For a moment she stood, transfixed, eyes unbelieving. Dark with shock. Before she could even scream, Kyle took aim again. The second shot hit her in the center of her chest between her breasts. A flower of blood bloomed. She staggered. Blood welled obscenely against the white fabric of her shirt. Beside her, the chair fell over with a soft thud.

She gasped, skin gray.

She was still standing. Beside him Kyle heard Kensington's murmur. Montero inhaled sharply.

He calmly readjusted the sight on the Z and pulled the trigger a third time.

The impact made her stagger back, then teeter forward. Utter stupefaction crossed her face. The force of the hit had knocked the air out of her lungs. Her eyes rolled as she fell hard against the table before crumbling to the floor in a cacophony of silverware, china, and glass.

Pandemonium reigned as everyone suddenly found themselves with a lapful of breakfast. Scrambled eggs and grilled tomatoes followed the roses in a liquid mess to the floor.

Dr. Montgomery, the closest to her by Kyle's design, pushed away from the table to kneel at Delanie's side, two fingers at her throat. Impressed, he turned, and said quietly to Montero, "She is quite dead."

Danzigger knelt beside the doctor and slid a hand into the front pocket of Delanie's pants. Kyle grabbed the back of his shirt. He swore and reeled back, shocked, as he was hauled to his feet.

"Her body isn't even fucking cold yet." Kyle shook him loose to go down on one knee beside Delanie's sprawled body.

Danzigger readjusted the collar of his shirt. "Search her." He gave Kyle a defiant look, but stepped out of his way. "She's sure to have had some kind of communication device." He sounded both pissed and afraid. "She would have been making cont—"

"She wasn't a DEA agent. She wasn't
any
kind of agent, just a foolish, not-very-bright woman in the wrong place.at the wrong time." Kyle glanced down dispassionately.

Delanie looked very small lying there.

And extremely dead.

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«^»

"That was really too bad of you, Dr. Wright," Isabella said, annoyed. She held the front of her egg-splattered green silk dress away from her body with two fingers. "I do wish you had waited to see if other plans had been made for Miss Eastman."

"I don't hang around waiting for someone else to make a decision. She was damn inconvenient. None of us trusted her. If you don't like the way we conduct ourselves here, Isabella, I suggest you take the next sky cab home. This is men's business."

"How dare—"

"Mama,
no importa
, it is done." Ramon calmly rang for a servant. "Jose will take care of the mess." He looked sadly at the shattered Ming and shook his head at the loss. His eyes didn't stray to the body on the floor for even a second. "Come gentlemen, we can continue our discussion in the library."

Kyle handed the Z back to his host. "I'll take care of my own garbage. Go ahead. I'll join you shortly."

He knelt beside Delanie's body, feeling for a pulse. Not a flutter. Things had progressed much faster than he'd anticipated. Surreptitiously picking up the shell casings beside her, he stuffed them in his pocket, then swiftly deactivated the necklace before wrapping her body in the blood-soaked carpet. Ignoring the onlookers, Kyle slung it over his shoulder, almost putting out Sugano's eye as he passed. He strode through the French doors and out into the blazing tropical heat.

Delanie and the damn carpet weighed a ton. By the time Kyle crossed the compound, he was drenched in sweat. He came to the deep shade of the jungle and checked behind him. No movement. Montero was so damn sure of him now, he wasn't being followed.

The thick, dripping foliage camouflaged him almost immediately, and he moved faster, shifting the rolled carpet as his eyes adjusted to the dimness. Insects clung to the sweat on his face as he pushed his way deeper, in a hurry now. The wet, enervating heat threatened to suck out his very breath, and he wasn't the one mummified in a thick wool carpet. He shifted to an easy jog.

As soon as the jungle closed in behind him, he paused, every sense tuned and alert for humans. A parrot screeched. The bass tone of the insect population counterpointed the high notes of monkeys and birds.

There wasn't a breath of a breeze.

The path, cleared the other day for the nature walk, was relatively easy to follow, and eventually he came to the small pool. Forcing himself to ignore the godawful smell coming from a tree to the right of the shimmering water, he carefully lifted Delanie off his shoulder and laid her on the thick ground cover beside the water.

Rapidly he uncovered her. Her clothing was drenched, as if she'd taken a shower in them. The blood spread obscenely across her shirt. Her face was crimson and shiny; rivulets of moisture ran down her temples into the stringy wetness of her hair. She still had her canvas bag slung over her body. Obstinate little witch. He'd told her to bring nothing. She'd insisted on a change of clothes and her peashooter.

Kyle felt her pulse. Barely there, but at last detectable. He checked his watch. Probably another half hour at least before she regained consciousness.

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By the time she'd walked into the room, she'd already had the capsule under her tongue. The pill had been formulated for a man his size. Two milligrams, less than a quarter dose had worked faster than he'd estimated. God only knew what risk they'd taken to pull this off. No doubt her body still retained some of the crap Montero had given her two days ago. He had no idea how the hell the two drugs interacted, and would never have taken the chance if there'd been any other way.

He'd figured out the secret catch to Delanie's necklace last night while she'd slept, totally unaware of what he'd been doing. He slid it off her neck now, dropping it into his pocket.

Holding his breath, he dragged the decimated carcass of the boar from behind the tree where he'd hidden it. He'd managed to kill the thing late last night, on the way back from the lab, when it had come to the pond to drink. In the past few hours various life-forms had consumed chunks of the rapidly decomposing pig as a smorgasbord. The visual wasn't much better than the stench. Ignoring the gore, he hauled the pungent carrion to the edge of the pond. Digging in his breast pocket, he took out the twenty-four-carat gold necklace, complete with clever little tracking device, and attached it to a half-chewed hind leg.

He tossed the carcass into the center of the pool.

In seconds the calm water became a pink froth as the piranha dined on boar du jour. Butterflies rose like coral smoke as the water came alive. Kneeling at the water's edge, he quickly rinsed his hands before dipping his handkerchief into the tepid water and going back to Delanie.

She hadn't moved, but her color was slowly returning. He stroked the back of a finger across her smooth, hot cheek, then ran the damp cloth over her skin before applying the insect repellent he'd taken from her purse to her face and hands. That done, he picked up the carpet and tossed it high, to land to one side of the pond. It settled half in the water and half on the thick vegetation growing on the far bank.

Scene set, Kyle strode back and picked Delanie up in a fireman's lift. She felt light and far too still as he shouldered a looping vine out of his way. He had to push the concern he felt for her out of his mind with the same dispatch. He didn't have time to stay with her while she came out of it. He sped up, stepped on something that hissed underfoot, and forged ahead without looking back.

Thick and putrid, the stifling blanket of muggy air made him remember how much he hated jungles.

Hated the cloying heat, hated the brightly colored insects whose bites could be agony, hated the red ants that swarmed over everything. And the damn snakes. Small as a hair, or fat as his leg, he hated the damn snakes the most.

Streams of golden-dappled sunlight came through the tree canopy high above him. He detoured around the edge of the compound to get to the far side of the clearing. Beyond the perimeter of the main hacienda was an innocuous little hut, no bigger than six by four, and almost covered by vines and thick undergrowth.

Kyle pushed through the vegetation until he found the door. He'd discovered the structure with infrared surveillance months ago. At the time he hadn't known how handy Montero's one-man bomb shelter would be. Last night he'd parted the vines and other vegetation, clearing the doorway.

With the key he'd swiped off Montero's key ring last night, he unlocked the door. The titanium, bulletproof door creaked open. Two dozen cement steps led sharply down to a small dark room. Kyle pulled the door closed behind him, then flicked on a small penlight.