Ultimate Weapon (40 page)

She absorbed that. Everything it meant, everything she had to do. A knife turned slowly inside her chest. “Easy for you to say, Janos,” she whispered. “You’ve been cut loose. I haven’t.”

His face went tight. He lifted his head off the pillow. “I just watched the one person on earth that I could claim as family bleed to death for me. Do not talk to me of what is easy.”

She slid off his body and onto the floor, turning her back and gathered the force to do what she had to do next. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to imply that it was an easy morning for you.”

He reached for her, stroking her arm. “Tamar. My love. Please.”

She turned and looked down at the hand that held her. The one attached to his good shoulder. So strong and beautiful despite the scabbed, ragged knuckles. As skillful and tender as it was lethal.

She grabbed it, pulled it up, kissed it. Silently saying good-bye.

And swiftly snapped the handcuff that hung open from the wrought iron headboard around his wrist. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

He stared at her, openmouthed, and then exploded upward, erupting in a stream of profanity that sounded like Romanian. He rattled the thing violently, twisted it, jerked. Red bloomed afresh on the white gauze of his shoulder, spotting and spreading. The surgical bandage underneath peeled half off.

“Oh, God, stop that. Don’t flail around like that,” she begged. “You’ll hurt yourself worse.”

“What the
fuck
do you think you’re doing, you treacherous bitch?”

She flinched. His anger hurt more than she’d ever dreamed, with all her defenses down. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, fogging up again, and stumbled clumsily back out of range of his lunging, grasping hand.

“Get back here,” he snarled. “Open this fucking thing. Now!”

She shook her head. “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.” She darted in to snatch up her clothes and scrambled out of range again to yank them onto her body. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Ah,
sì
?” he said viciously. “And this is why you shackle me naked to a bed? Staked out like a fucking goat for András when he comes? Oh, yes, Tamar. I can see how much you care.”

“When I come back—”

“When you come back, my balls will have been sliced off and shoved down my throat,” he snarled. “Is that what you wanted all along? Did you not have the courage to do the deed yourself?”

She realized that tears were rolling down her face as she shook her head. “No. I have no intention of leaving you like this for long—”

“Then just open it!” he bellowed. “Give me the pick kit!”

“Please just shut up for a second and listen to me,” she begged. “There’s a piece of shit Fiat 500 out in the
ulivetto
that belongs to me.” She dug the key out of her pocket. “I bought it from Pantaleo, the signora’s son. Here are the keys, so you’re not grounded—”

“Fuck the car!” he roared. “The cuffs, you crazy
puttana
—”

“I said to shut up and listen!” she flared. She crouched down and plucked the keys to the Opel out of the sodden pants crumpled on the floor.

He made a derisive sound. “Ah. So. You take my car as well?”

“You have the Fiat, so don’t bitch.” She tossed the key Pantaleo had given her onto the bed. “You have dry clothes right here, and I will leave you my cell phone, too, so you’re not—”

“Fuck the cell phone! Let me loose!” The bedframe rattled, thudded, scraped against the floor. He jerked at it, maddened.

She jittered uneasily backward. Time to beat hell out of there. “I will leave your pick set right by your hand,” she went on desperately. “And Georg’s gun. I don’t wish you any harm. On the contrary. Please believe me.”

He held out his hand. “Give me the gun.”

“Right,” she muttered. She let out a long breath and let her arm fly up, darting like a lash to spray the soporific from her barrette into his face. “After for the gun, big boy. I’m not quite that stupid.”

It was a tiny blast, the shortest her finger could coordinate. “This won’t last long,” she told him hastily. “A quarter of an hour at most. Probably less, because you’re so big. And then…you can get free.”

He stared at her, stunned into silence, and the air escaped all at once from his lungs. He sat down heavily on the bed, blinking.

His eyes were bleak. He looked utterly betrayed.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again, her voice breaking oddly. “Just a little head start. That’s all I need.”

He opened his mouth, tried to speak, seemed puzzled when he could not.

“I’ll buy a cell phone when I finish,” she told him. “I’ll call you after this just to see if you still want to have anything to do with me. If not, just tell me to fuck off then. You have that to look forward to.”

He swayed, wavered. She pushed him gently down onto the bed, hating the painfully hyperextended angle of his trapped arm.

She scooped up his legs again, heaving them onto the bed, and tugged at his feet to ease the pull. Then she covered him with the wool blanket, laid the gun by his hand, the cell phone, the tiny lock pick kit.

She kissed his forehead, his cheekbone, his jaw. His lips. Her last chance to touch him without getting killed, probably. He hated her now.

He tasted like the sea. Salty. Like life. It was crushing her heart.

His eyes, amazingly, were still open. Still giving her that fierce, accusing look. Fighting it like crazy. He was so damn strong.

God, how she loved that. How she loved him.

She cupped his face, kissed him hungrily once again. “I love you, too,” she said. Amazing how much easier it was to say that when she knew that he could not respond. What a hopelessly twisted, sicko wench she was. “I love you, Val Janos,” she repeated more forcefully. “I really do. I hope you can forgive me for this someday.”

On impulse, she pried the multiblade ring off her thumb, and slid it onto his ring finger.

She grabbed her stuff, hot tears streaming, and bolted.

A
ndrás pulled off the dirt track. His sedan bumped over the rough ground, crunching through heaps of dried brush and cut olive branches. That clump of pines looked just right for hiding his vehicle from the road, before hiking in quietly closer to the archived location he had on file for Janos’s icon. The one where the man had spent the night. He regretted not having backup, but Janos was wounded and exhausted, and Steele was, after all, a woman. A capable one, by all accounts, but he could handle any woman.

In fact, he was looking forward to it, ever since he saw that first clip of vid footage that Janos had sent. Watching her stunning body move against Janos had fired up his blood. He wanted some of that.

And once he had Steele, he could finally destroy Janos, which would be most satisfying. The man was annoying the shit out of him.

If they were here, of course. But he was sure that they were. He could feel them, from the way his heart revved, his senses sharpened, his dick tingled. He licked his lips.

He heard the car the minute his own car door thudded shut, and crouched, peering from behind the thick, gnarled trunks of the ancient olives.

The Opel that Janos had rented. Only one person inside. Not until the car was almost past did he make out Steele’s delicate, feminine profile. So. He’d gotten here just in time. He watched the car bounce down the rutted track and turn onto the narrow paved road that led back toward the coastal highway.

He hurried back to his car. It would be tricky, to stay far enough back not to be noticed and close enough to see which way she turned once she got to the highway. But he was nothing if not tricky.

Fuck Janos. He would stick to Steele, take her down, and get her back to Novak this very day. And he bet that Novak wouldn’t mind if he took a measure of his reward directly out of the woman’s hide.

As long as the old man got to watch it. All part of the fun.

“The effect of Amplix 15 is instantaneous, particularly at such a concentrated dose.” Tam loaded the miniature hypodermic with ten drops of the solution she had just showed Ana how to weigh and mix. “And very intense. The person administering the poison actually risks injury herself from the target’s convulsions. They are violent enough to snap bones. If the target’s still alive at that point, hemorrhaging begins. If the heart doesn’t stop first. Be prepared for a mess.”

“And the antidote?” Ana’s eyes were glowing. Impressed, in spite of herself.

Tam gazed at her. “No antidote,” she said. “No time. We’re talking certain death in forty seconds or less.” She situated the needle tip onto the reservoir, clicked it into place, and slid the apparatus into the jewel-studded gold cylinder that formed the body of the earring, then screwed the threading of the weighted jeweled bead into place over the needle.

She passed it to Ana, observing the tiny flinch before the woman accepted it. Pah. Gutless weenie. Not a worthy wearer of Deadly Beauty.

“I believe in arming both earrings,” she said. “One never knows which hand will be free. Or even what the rest of the evening will bring.”

“How about the dipped blades? Do they kill in the same amount of time?” Ana gingerly picked up a hairclip, pushed the button, and slid out the wickedly sharp two-inch blade. She swooped it around, fantasizing homicide, like a child with a toy sword.

Tam kept her eyes from rolling as she scribbled down the mixing proportions for the Amplix 15. “A bit more slowly,” she told the woman. “It’s a different compound. TR-8321 takes more like a minute and twenty seconds.”

“And the antidote?”

Tam gazed at her for a long moment, then gave her a mysterious smile. “No antidote,” she repeated. “It’s against my philosophy. No one should have armed Deadly Beauty pieces on her person unless she is absolutely sure of what she is doing. If she feels the need for the antidote because she’s afraid she might change her mind at the last moment, then perhaps she should pay someone more professional to do her dirty work for her. And wear something a bit more classic and safe. Like, say, Cartier.”

Ana’s eyes tightened, showing the tiny dry lines around them, caked with heavy makeup. “I know what I am doing,” she snapped.

Tam nodded. “Excellent,” she said. “I love to see a confident woman. Here are instructions for arming the grenade pendants. I regret that I was not able to get the materials for you. I know it’s not an easy matter to discreetly obtain that kind of item.”

“Not a problem for me,” Ana preened. “I have my sources.”

“Good. Including the materials for arming each piece usually adds an extra fifteen percent onto the total price, but I’m waiving this fee in your case,” Tam said, gathering up the sheaf of instructions. “Here are online sources for each ingredient in these recipes, as well as possible pretexts for ordering them, should you find it necessary to rearm any of the pieces. And remember, Mrs. Santarini. No shortcuts, no omissions, no substitutions. The recipes are precise and specific.”

“I understand,” Ana said impatiently. “And now I’m afraid I have to cut this short, Ms. Steele. I have an appointment this afternoon that I cannot miss, and you arrived so much later than we had agreed yesterday, it’s thrown my entire day out of alignment!”

The self-pitying whine in the woman’s voice grated on Tam’s nerves. She tried to look contrite. “I’m sorry. It was a complicated morning.”

“Normally I would offer you coffee, but since I dismissed the domestic staff this morning at your suggestion, there is no one to prepare it,” the woman complained. “I didn’t even have lunch today.”

Awww
. Poor hungry, desperate Ana. Maybe her big fluffy ass would diminish slightly as a result. Tam tried to look appropriately horrified. “That’s terrible,” she murmured. “I’m so sorry that I inconvenienced you.”

“Here’s your money.” Ana opened a drawer, and pulled out several paper-wrapped packs of bills. “One hundred and ten thousand euro, as agreed yesterday. Nonsequential banknotes of fifty and one hundred.”

Tam tucked the cash into her purse. A girl couldn’t have too much of it. After all, whether she succeeded with this plan or not, she’d still provided a genuine service to the woman, so it was not stealing. And nice thick stacks of money were always handy in a desperate fugitive flight.

With or without Val.

She pushed away a stab of pain. Forced herself to focus.

Ana shrugged into her coat. “Thank goodness I asked GianCarlo to bring the car around before he left,” she muttered. “I really am pressed for time, Ms. Steele. Are you ready to leave? Please?”

“Just one last detail.” She picked up the golden earring she’d just shown Ana how to arm with Amplix 15, and switched it with the duplicate that she had hidden in her pocket. “Let me show you something. A little caveat.”

Ana adjusted the fluffy fur collar of her jacket and made an impatient sound. Her heels clicked across the tiles. “What is it now?”

“Just a moment. This is important.” Tam unscrewed the bead, pressed the lever that released the spring that held the needle inside. She pressed until a single drop of fluid trembled on the tip. It shone like a diamond in the afternoon light that slanted through the windows of the
salone.
“A demonstration of how these weapons can be applied.”

Ana snorted. “That’s not necessary. And I don’t appreciate—ay!”

Tam had seized her elbow and pressed the needle to Ana’s wrist.

Ana froze in place. “Ah…take that needle away from my arm,” she said in a strangled voice. “Immediately.”

“I’m afraid not,” Tam said. “Walk, please. Toward the door. Right foot, then left foot. That’s the way. We’re taking my car to Nocera.”

Ana’s eyes dilated. Her face went gray under the mask of cosmetics. “How do you know where I…oh, my God. Who are you?”

“If you have to ask, I’m too bored with your self-absorbed stupidity to bother explaining.” Tam towed the woman along, letting her feel a faint sting of the needle tip against her skin. “Guess. Dredge through your memory. It will give you something to do as we drive.”

Ana began to cry noisily as Tam dragged her toward the Opel. “I don’t understand,” she whimpered. “Please don’t hurt me.”

Tam clenched her jaw. The noisy sobbing and wet snuffling sounds were intensely unpleasant to listen to. Robot Bitch, she reminded herself. Get the job done. “Open the car door, and get in.”

Ana slid into the car with a thump, her eyes already dripping gothic black streaks down her cheeks.

“Do you have a remote opener for the electronic gate in your purse?” Tam demanded. “I hope for your sake that you do.”

Ana nodded, hiccuping pitifully.

“Get it out and toss it onto the driver’s seat.”

Ana did so. Tam sucked in a sigh of relief, grabbed her hairclip, and squirted the soporific into Ana’s face.

Ana’s head flopped to the side almost instantly. Snot cascaded from her nose down over her mouth. Tam averted her eyes, grateful for the silence. This would keep her quiet for the twenty or so minutes it would take to get to the clinic. So far, so good.

She slid into the driver’s seat. Ana was sagging sideways, which put her body unpleasantly close to Tam’s. She shoved the other woman upright on the seat and strapped her slack body in.

The remote really did open the gate, to her relief. Would have been a fine joke on her if it hadn’t.

She felt better once she was speeding around the curves on the mountain highway. Driving very fast gave her something to concentrate on other than how monumentally shitty all this was making her feel.

Robot Bitch was not supposed to feel shitty. She wasn’t supposed to have feelings, period. She just got the job done, boom boom boom.

Tam reminded herself grimly of what Ana had tried to do to her. Her ugliness, her spite. She thought of driving that pin into Ana’s boyfriend’s scrotum. Her first real strike for freedom, for payback.

She’d come a long way since then, but she felt like she was crawling back into a prison and pulling the door shut after herself.

She’d thought this experience would be cleansing. Cathartic. It wasn’t. Looking at the unconscious woman’s slack, drooling mouth, she didn’t feel cleansed. She felt, paradoxically, soiled. And cuffing Val to the bed made her feel that way, too. Only much, much worse.

A vague, formless fear stirred inside her, that she had drifted too far. She was going down a road that had no escape. She was doomed.

She stomped it. None of this doom shit. She did not have the luxury of doubt. It wasn’t part of her personal philosophy.

The problem was, that was feeling a little tight lately. Like a pair of outgrown shoes.

The decrepit Fiat shuddered and threatened to fall apart at any speed above forty-five kilometers an hour. Amazingly, the Vespino with its buzzing fifty-cubic-centimeter miniature motor had been quicker. No wonder Tamar had considered the ten minutes or so that he’d been unconscious to be a sufficient head start. The real head start was the velocity of the fucking toy car.

He drove with grim purpose, leaning forward to squint through the cracked, filthy windshield in a desperate attempt to see the road well enough not to kill himself. He pondered how much time he might gain or lose by procuring another car, either by stealing or renting, but came up with no useful ideas. San Vito was the closest place, but he could hardly go back there to rent, and going anywhere else would cost him still more time. And as groggy and addled as he was, he was in no shape to steal a car. He’d probably get caught and get himself beaten to death by an eighty-year-old man. Something ignominious like that.

Besides, his clothing fit the car. The ragged wool sweater with the cigarette burns and the brownish-yellow underarm sweat stains, the pilled, threadbare pants that did not succeed in covering his ankles though they did threaten to slide off his ass. All that could be said for them was they were dry.

The signora must have laughed up her sleeve when she picked them out of her rag bag. He would have been amused at her little joke, if he hadn’t been so angry and miserable.

And in pain. Everything hurt. Most of all his shoulder, but there wasn’t a centimeter of the rest of him, inside or out, that did not sting, ache or burn in sympathy. His head throbbed like a rotten tooth. Hung over from whatever drug Tamar had zapped him with, no doubt.

He felt humiliated. Betrayed into confessing his love, and she’d fucked him over to reward him for his idiocy. Served him right for being such a fatuous dickhead.

So why was he following her? He could turn his back and go.

He could not answer that question. He couldn’t stop himself, either. Burning stubborness, that was all it was. He hated being bested.

He stared at the ring on his finger. Tamar’s ring. What the hell she had meant by leaving it with him, he did not dare to imagine.

But he had not taken it off.

Tamar’s cell phone beeped from his pocket, as he finally came into an area of coverage. Val pulled it out and glanced at it.

He glanced again. Twenty
chiamate non risposte.
Twenty unanswered calls. He ran his eye over the numbers visible in the display. All the same number, all with a Seattle area code. Someone in the Seattle area had been desperately trying to call her all night long.

That could not be good news. He thought suddenly of Rachel. The bars of the prison Imre had tried to free him from closed in on him again, along with the chill of fear.

No, please. Not that. Not her baby girl.

He’d just poised his thumb over the callback option when the phone rang. The phone registered an unknown number, and in a moment of wild, irrational hope, he thought it might be Tamar.

He stabbed the button to answer. “
Sì?
”

There was a suspicious pause, and Connor McCloud’s voice rasped through the line. “Who the hell is this?”

“It’s Val Janos,” he said. “What happened?”

“Rachel,” Connor said. “They got Rachel.”

The creeping dread solidified instantly into horror. He flash froze it and put it aside. No time for it. No time for anything now but action.