Ugley Business (23 page)

“Actually, what he said was ruder than that, but you get the idea. I don’t think he likes you, Sophie.”

“Well, he’s not exactly my favourite person, either.” My arms were beginning to cramp. “What does he want?”

“
Ta
Séala,” Janulevic said, and we didn’t need a translation for that.

“We don’t know where it is,” I said.

“We don’t even know what it is,” Luke added.

“What about Ireland?” Harvey translated.

My nostrils flared, and I glared at Janulevic. “You tried to kill me in Ireland.”

Janulevic sneered something else, and Harvey said, “He thought he had. But you’re persistent.”

“I’m hard to kill,” I said, feeling brave, and then the next thing I knew Janulevic had fired his gun at me and my head exploded with pain, and I thudded to the floor, stunned and bleeding.

“Sophie,” Luke yelled, and grabbed hold of me. He probed my temple, felt my neck, my wrist, then he closed my eyes and cradled me in his arms. There was blood on my face, hot and sticky and seeping into my eyes. God, I’d been shot in the head and I was dying.

And then, “She’s dead,” Luke said in disbelief. “You killed her.”

Hold on a sec. Dying, maybe, but surely someone with Luke’s combat medical training should be able to tell the difference between dead and dying?

Or at least show a little more remorse.

Bastard.

I started to open my eyes, but he pressed them shut again. “Sophie,” he said, holding me close, “God, Sophie.” And then in my ear he whispered, “Play dead,” and laid me on the ground.

Janulevic jabbered something else, and I wished I could see what was going on, but maybe I didn’t need to because I heard Harvey’s voice, properly miserable, saying, “He says get up. Luke, I’m sorry. She didn’t deserve to die.” Janulevic said something else. “He says get up or he’ll kill you too.”

Slowly, Luke moved away from me, and I realised as he did that there was no light coming in through my eyelids. He’d laid me down behind the beam of the torch, which was lying on the ground.

God, he was clever.

I opened my eyes a crack, and realised I was in total darkness. I could see Luke, standing a few feet away with his hands still raised. There was blood on them and on his face. My blood. I blinked, and it hurt. I couldn’t even tell where I’d been shot. I could be bleeding to death. I’d already had one head wound this week. Two was just ridiculous.

“Is that how you killed the professors?” Luke asked Janulevic, his voice hard, and I wondered if he’d be this calm if I actually had been killed. Would he give a damn? Or would it just bugger up the mission?

Janulevic sneered something in reply.

“He shot some of them,” Harvey said. “But only a few so the bullets wouldn’t be matched up.”

“Like we matched up the bullet that killed Petr Staszic and the bullet that shot me?” Luke said. “And the bullet that shot Greg Winter?”

Janulevic smiled a horrible smile when he heard Greg’s name, and when he’d got the full translation, laughed a little. He said something that made Harvey flinch.

“He says you’re smart. He says he’s had this gun a long time. Almost as long as he’s been searching for the seal.”

“Why Greg?” Luke asked. “He didn’t have it.”

“Not when he was killed. But he’d had the ring. He hid it somewhere. Janulevic’s spent seventeen years looking for it.”

“What if it doesn’t exist?”

Janulevic got mad when he heard this, and blabbered on for quite a while. I moved my hand up to my face, very slowly, and tried to feel where I’d been hit. Rationality was creeping back in and I knew, if I was still alive, then it couldn’t be a bad wound. Everyone knows head wounds bleed worse than they actually are, right?

Right?

Luke was looking at Harvey for a translation.

“He’s pretty sure it exists,” Harvey said.

“That’s all?”

“A lot of insults to you. He wants the ring.”

“It’s not a seal ring. You heard Sophie. Not with stones in it. It’s a family heirloom.”

Whose family?
I wondered, spotting my gun lying not far away. If I moved very quietly I might be able to stretch over and get it.

“He says it’s a magic ring,” Harvey said, and asked Janulevic something. But Janulevic shook his head. “He won’t say what it does.”

But Luke already knew, and I knew, and I wondered, if I had that ring on my finger, would I be making a wish?

Hell, yes.

But what wish? This was Luke, right, so his heart’s desire would probably be to finish the mission safely. But maybe, just maybe, he might be hoping that I was okay. After all, I must’ve looked pretty bad. I had blood all over me. He could be wishing that Maria got back here in time and took Janulevic out. He could be wishing for Angel’s safety or even Tammy’s recovery, although I didn’t think that was very likely. He could be hoping that he and I would work things out. Or he could be hoping that I’d get my hands on that gun.

The laser sight lay next to the gun, and I reached it first and used it to pull the pistol over to me. But it rattled on the ground, and I couldn’t move properly to pick it up, my head was swimming, and I lay very, very still, just in case Janulevic heard the noise and looked over.

But Luke, gorgeous darling Luke, spoke up loudly. “Why do you want it, Janulevic? What’s your heart’s desire? Total world domination’s a bit James Bond. Financial freedom? Wouldn’t it be easier to play the lottery? Or is it arms you’re after? Why not try the Middle East. I hear they’ve got some excellent stuff. American, too, so you know it’s quality.”

Harvey relayed this, in a slightly amazed tone of voice, to Janulevic, who started spitting angrily, especially when he heard the American bit, and he began ranting in reply before Harvey had finished, his little eyes fixed on Luke.

I used up all my strength to reach over and grab the pistol, snap the laser sight in place, and cover the beam with my hand. Then, reeling from the effort, I shakily aimed it.

“…taking over his ancient culture, slamming McDonalds on every street corner, turning Prague into Pittsburg and Brno into Boston,” Harvey was reciting, looking pissed off, and I nearly smiled as I sighted down the barrel, removed my hand from the laser sight, and trained the little red dot on Janulevic’s trigger hand. “His heart’s desire is to eliminate the—” Harvey ground his teeth, “—the scourge that is America, to claim back what they have taken and undo the damage they have inflicted.”

I squeezed the trigger, there was a flash and a bang, and Janulevic’s .22 clattered to the ground. Janulevic clutched at Harvey for support, but Harvey kicked him away, and when he was clear, I aimed again, the dot on Janulevic’s head this time.

“Luke?”

“What are you waiting for?”

For your assurance that killing this man is the right thing to do. That I won’t lose my soul like I thought I was going to do last time I shot someone. That Janulevic deserves to die for what he’s done. That you’re really sure I need to do this.

The red dot shook as I trembled.

Luke turned to look at me, and I saw it in his face: there wasn’t anyone else about to make my decision for me.

So I made my choice.

And fired. Janulevic was dead.

Harvey stared in amazement as Luke picked up the torch and knelt by me. “Are you okay?”

“Not bad, to say I’m dead.”

“You were faking it?” Harvey said incredulously.

I looked up at Luke. He raised an eyebrow. “Just this once,” I said, and he grinned and kissed my forehead. “What did you wish for?”

“Wish?”

“You were wearing the ring. It’s supposed to grant you your heart’s desire. What was it?”

Harvey and I both looked at Luke, who looked nonplussed.

“That you’d shoot Janulevic,” he said.

Figures.

Another trip to the emergency department, where one of the nurses waved at me and asked how I was getting on with those stitches in my calf. Janulevic’s bullet had ripped through my ear, which hurt like hell, and would probably leave a scar. Great. Another thing to lie to my parents about.

Luke took me home and told me to rest, which was never going to happen, especially as whenever I turned on my side, pain shot through me. I threw all my bloody clothes straight in the machine and managed to take a shower without getting my big fat ear bandage wet, although I wasn’t sure about how well my hair had been washed. I got dressed, looked through my mail, and picked up the phone to call the office and tell Karen I’d be in later to make a report. Luke had already called her about the body, and now he’d gone off to help her with moving it out of the crypt.

She wasn’t yet back at the office, so I called her mobile and left a message on voicemail. Then I flumped idly down on the sofa, and it was quite a while before I realised my answer phone light was flashing.

“You have one new message. Message one: Hello, this is Julie from the Stansted Vet’s Surgery. I’m calling for Sophie Green? You brought a cat in to us yesterday, by the name of Tammy. I would have called you yesterday but I’m afraid we had a computer failure and lost your number.”

Fear gripped me. My nails dug in my palms. Why didn’t she just go ahead and say it?

“I just wanted to tell you that Tammy…will be fine.”

I let out a huge long breath of relief.

“It was touch and go during the night, but she made it through to this morning, and now she’s quite bright and perky.”

I grabbed the phone and dialled so quickly I got it wrong the first time and had to try again. “Can I come and see her?”

They said I could, and I grabbed my bag and my keys and rushed out of the house. Ted sat there, looking weary and battered, a bit like me really, but solid and sure and not about to give up. He sounded happy when I started him up, and seemed to enjoy the short ride up to the vet’s.

Tammy was languishing in a little cage with a soft, furry blanket and a catnip toy. She was wrapped around with lots of bandages, her ear was split and half her lovely multicoloured fur had been shaved off to make way for rows and rows of stitches. I felt tears come to my eyes, and when she lifted her head and mewed at me I nearly broke down.

Okay, so maybe I was overreacting. But Tammy’s my baby, and I’d been neglecting her quite a bit recently, and if it wasn’t for me having such a stupid, dangerous job she’d never have been in danger.

“It’s okay, Tammy-girl,” I said, reaching through the bars to stroke her little head. “They said you’re going to be fine. Lots of TLC. Milk and cream with every meal. And the nasty man who hurt you has been—” I was about to say shot, but then I realised the staff were probably listening, and changed it to, “dealt with. And, sweetheart, I’m so sorry, because this is all my fault, me and my stupid job.”

Tammy licked my fingers and started purring.

“And,” I gulped, “if you want me to quit then maybe I will.”

“I do hope she doesn’t want you to,” came a voice from the doorway, and I nearly fell off my chair, because Luke was standing there, watching me. He’d washed the blood from his hands and face and changed his black T-shirt for a grey one, but he still had the leather jeans on and he still looked really, really hot.

“I thought you were supposed to be resting,” he said.

“I—I couldn’t. They called me and said she was okay, and I had to come and visit…”

Luke nodded, and came over and bent down to look at Tammy. She offered him a tiny squeaky miaow, and he smiled.

“I think she likes you,” I said, and he grinned.

“I think I like her, too.” He reached out and touched my face. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “But you’ll have to speak to my left side, because I can’t hear very well through this bandage thing.”

“Sophie,” Luke said, and then he stopped, looking frustrated.

“What happened to the ring?” I asked, into the silence.

“Karen has it. Sending it to the British Museum. They can argue over who it really belongs to.”

“Did you get Janulevic sorted out?”

He nodded. “Czech authorities are glad to get him back. Harvey said they sounded quite embarrassed.”

“As well they might.” I studied him. His face was tight, worried, tired. “So you’ll acknowledge that Harvey has his uses?”

“He can speak Czech. That’s about it.”

I rolled my eyes. “He’ll keep Angel off our hands.”

“Oh, yes. Anyone who gets you two kissing can’t be all that bad. Even though I think you’ve had your chance, now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, he’s just got on a plane to go down to Newquay to meet up with her.”

Aw. How romantic. “So he’ll be able to deliver the kiss in person this time.”

“Yeah.” Luke looked disappointed. “Macbeth wants a copy of the picture. And so does Docherty.”

Gulp. “You’ve spoken to him?”

Luke nodded. “He was pretty pissed off. Says you owe him an apology.” I grimaced. “And a new car.”

“Doesn’t he have insurance for that kind of thing?”

Luke looked at me like I was mad. Not that I wasn’t used to it.

“Okay, so probably not. But he’s not getting a hundred and fifty grand off me.”

“I think he was looking for a different kind of payoff.”

I met Luke’s eyes. “He’s not getting that, either.”

He was silent a bit, looking at me. Then, “Do I get it?”

My fingers started trembling. The vet’s ward smelled of disinfectant and cat food, and the faint, warm scent of Luke’s skin. “Don’t you know the answer to that?”

“No.”

Me neither. Truth was, if he asked me again I’d give in. I’m weak, okay?

Luke sighed. “So where did we go wrong?”

“I wanted a grown-up relationship and you wanted casual, filthy sex.”

Luke was silent a while longer. Then he said, “Maybe we could work on that.”

“I don’t think—”

“How about a grown-up relationship with a not-so grown-up man, and not-so casual but still reassuringly filthy sex?”

Now what am I supposed to say to that?

About the Author

To learn more about Kate Johnson, please visit
www.katejohnson.co.uk
. If you have a MySpace, please look up Sophie (Yes, she really does have her own Space.) and add her as a friend at
www.myspace.com/sophiesuperspy
. Send an email to Kate at
[email protected]
or join her Yahoo! group for news about Kate and her alter-ego Cat Marsters at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/catmarsters
.