Hot Ice (9 page)

The sound of ceramic on skull made her sick to her stomach, and she jumped off his limp body as if jet-propelled. She hoped to hell he'd been completely knocked out, because if he wasn't, she feared for her life.

He wasn't moving, and the blow to his temple had already formed a darkening knot, and bled sluggishly.

Heart in her throat, and feeling the urgency to get the hell out of there before he opened those pitiless eyes and looked at her, Taylor felt for a pulse under his jaw. Still steady. Still vibrant. He'd live.

Taylor swiftly handcuffed Mr. Huntington St. John to the bed, yanked the phone cord from the wall, and carried the lamp across the room to the table. She paused on her way out, then returned to the bed to look down at him.

He appeared no less menacing unconscious.

She brushed a finger across his straight lower lip. "Bastard," she said softly.

Chapter Eight

August 11

London

José Morales ensconced himself in his ornate London office. It was less than a day after the burglary, and his wife, Maria, was not happy she'd been left alone to deal with the
polícia
.

She reported they'd claimed to have captured a woman they believed to be part of the gang who had robbed him. But when José had demanded to interrogate the woman himself, they'd informed him that she had escaped.
Tontos estúpidos
! The bumbling idiots hadn't caught
anyone
. They'd made the claim to save face.

José opened the bottom drawer of his desk, took out a bottle of prescription antacids, and shook four into his palm. He tossed them into his mouth all at the same time and swallowed them down with vitamin-enriched springwater. He twisted the crystal glass between his fingers, watching the light play on the precise leaded cuts.

When he'd discovered the empty, open safe in the upstairs den the night of the party, he'd excused himself and gone into his bathroom to vomit.

He'd been guaranteed, unequivocally, by both the safe's inventor and the manufacturer, that the new safe was impossible to crack. It was
everything
-proof. Fire. Chemicals. Mechanical devices. The only way to open the thing was with an intricate combination of both numerals and letters.

He'd never have trusted something as invaluable as the codes to the safe in San Cristóbal if he'd had a second's thought about the veracity of the men who had designed and built it.

They had sworn on their lives—and those of their families—that what they said was true. Only he had the combination, and he hadn't opened the safe.

Somebody had helped the thief get into the safe.

Worse, somebody he trusted implicitly must have told the thief to take the disks, which had the codes on them. And there were only a handful of people who knew of the codes' existence.

This thief had not only eluded his top security people patrolling the walled grounds of his estate, but that same thief had breached the inside security and violated his home. Then, with a house full of party guests, had opened an impenetrable safe and absconded with the contents, undetected. Impossible. But fact.

" 'But know this,' "José quoted out loud," 'that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.' "

He hadn't stopped begging God for answers since the theft. He was doing His work. Surely God wouldn't allow some criminal, no matter how clever, to steal his life's work?

God had come to him in a vision when he was twelve years old. He had told him of a rise in religious belief. Prophets and saints would appear and lead the faithful to safety. God had decreed that his debt was to cleanse the Earth of the unworthy and wicked. In this way he could avoid Purgatory.

God had chosen Friday, October 13th, as the day. His day. Throat dry, José picked up the glass and drained the last few inches of water. If not punishment, a test, then. God was asking him to prove himself.

José knew. In fifty-nine days, five years of careful, meticulous planning would change the world for the better.

"Matthew 24:35-36." José quoted by rote: " '
Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone
." But God had shared the day and hour with José. José was to act as God's hands.

On Friday, October 13th, he was going to rip the evil out of this world. The antichrist was alive and living in Las Vegas. And God had instructed him to kill the antichrist and all his followers.

The plan was assiduously thought out to the last minute detail. But to perform this mission, he had to have what was buried impossibly deep in the earth. And to access it, he needed the codes.

The codes on the disks that had been stolen.

The elaborate codes, on five tiny minidisks, held the means to fulfill his promise to God.

And God helped those who helped themselves.

Waiting for José on the other side of the ten-foot-high carved mahogany doors were his top six lieutenants, called in from their posts all over the world. It was dangerous to have them all here together in London. Dangerous, but the most expedient way to handle the situation.

He stabbed the intercom button with a well-manicured finger. "Send them in."

His people trooped in. Men who, to a causal observer, would appear to be nothing more than prosperous businessmen in their expensive hand-tailored suits and custom shirts and shoes.

They didn't know why they were here, and they all looked slightly discomforted, but hid it well. He trusted these six men as much as he trusted anyone. But nobody was
completely
trustworthy. Everyone had a price.

He nodded to each man as they seated themselves in the waiting semicircle of chairs before his desk. "The safe in my San Cristóbal home was robbed last night," he told them baldly. "In it were the codes to gain access to the… items housed in South Africa. Without the proper codes, the multilevel security system will prevent us from retrieving the merchandise. Any attempts to circumvent the system without the codes will result in immediate detonation of the facility and the contents."

He waited a beat for the ramifications of this information to sink in. He was the only one with knowledge and access to the complex codes. He'd been to the location many, many times. But even with his brilliant mind, he couldn't remember all those numbers and formulas. And his darling Maria, the love of his life, and one of his greatest rewards, could not be expected to memorize such things.

All his lieutenants knew was that the location was somewhere in southern Africa. Anyone and everyone who had ever worked on the ten-year construction project was dead. It was enough.

None of the men before him had been with him to the secret location. All they knew was that within the next two months all members of
Mano del Dios
must be ready for their largest display of God's powers. Faith. They knew and lived it.

His hard gaze paused on each face. "I want this man found, my codes retrieved, and him killed.
Slowly
, and
publicly
. As a warning to any other would-be thieves."

"The theft took place while you slept, or during the party?" Harold Sark asked, his eyes black and intent on Morales's face.

"During the party. And before you ask," José said flatly, "it was
not
one of our guests. It was a small, intimate affair, and we had only our closest friends and family in attendance. People I have done extensive background checks on."

"The same friends and family who attended your wife's birthday event on the yacht two years ago?" Sark asked in a calm, flat tone.

He'd had a similar robbery on board his yacht then. "A member of the catering staff was caught red-handed. A simple theft." He'd claimed. To save face. But it had been no member of the wait staff who had robbed him. Someone had broken into the safe. But it had been a relatively simple safe. One any common thief could crack. The thief had gotten away with the czar's Imperial Fabergé egg José had given his wife for her birthday. The same egg had mysteriously reappeared a month later, back on its stand in a private collection in England. The original theft had not been reported, and its return had gone unremarked upon.

Nobody but himself and Maria knew it was on board and how it had come to be there.

"Yet immediately thereafter," Jacques Montrose said quietly, tenacious as a dog with a bone, "you ordered the elimination of the entire staff of two security firms, fifty-four members of various catering companies, and replaced your ship's captain. Twice, I believe."

"One can never be too cautious." José had lost track of the number of household staff eliminated, in all of their homes around the world, over the years. Perhaps Maria might know, but he doubted she cared either.

"Open channels and find this thief," he told them flatly. "Do deeper background checks on every single member of my family, every staff member, every friend and associate, everyone who has attended any event I might have been present at over the past year. I want every available resource utilized until we find this man."

"Do you think that it was directed at you specifically, or was this a regular run-of-the-mill thief who could just as easily have robbed any one of us in this room?" Sark asked after a moment.

"There was nothing
simple
about it." Again he looked at each man in turn. "The San Cristóbal safe was
invincible
. And the only people who knew the portions of the combination are sitting here with me in this room," Morales told him coldly. "The thieves, or thief, were clever and resourceful. Or…" His pause was enough to make the men shift uncomfortably in the seats."… or the thief sits here among us."

The men glanced at one another, then back to Morales. If in fact it was true, he didn't know which of them it was, and he couldn't afford to kill them all. Not now.

"Do you think this is personal, José?" Andreas Constantine, his oldest and most trusted lieutenant, asked.

José raised a brow. Of course it was personal. Wasn't everything?

"I mean," the Greek said quickly, "do you believe the thief was specifically targeting the codes? It
is
possible that the theft was random. Wealthy families suffer such things frequently."

It felt personal. But then, everything did. Personal or random act.

The codes were gone. That was all that mattered. "Find out," he instructed.

"I will," Constantine assured him. "It's possible that he was not aware of exactly what it was he stole. It's likely that he was after Maria's well-publicized jewelry collection, nothing more."

José steepled his fingers. "It is possible." The thought had occurred to him.
Afterward
. He'd forgotten that Maria's diamonds had already been in the upstairs library safe, instead of in the bedroom, as they normally were. It was possible the thief had come for her jewelry.

It was, of course, impossible to memorize all the information contained on the disks. That was the point. Making access to the mine complex, and perhaps impossible, without them.