Ultimate Weapon (41 page)

“Who?” he asked. “When?”

“How the fuck do we know who? She was playing with Sveti in the park right outside the house. A black sedan with three men in it pulled up. They roughed up Sveti, took Rachel, and took off. It was six
PM
.”

“Cazzo,”
Val whispered.

“Yeah,” Connor agreed. “Where the fuck is Tam? And why doesn’t she have her fucking phone?”

Val let out the tension with a sharp, gusty breath. “She’s off to assassinate someone,” he said grimly. “We disagreed about it. She handcuffed me to a bed and drugged me. I just got free. I’m hoping to catch up with her before she gets arrested. Or killed.”

“Ah.” There was an uncomfortable pause. “Well, there you go. That’s our Tam for you. Are you having fun yet?”

“Fuck you,” Val said.

“Sure. Whatever. Moving on. I was hoping you two might know—”

“Novak,” he said flatly. “Check the RF tags for Rachel’s position.”

Connor sucked in a sharp breath. “Holy shit. I can’t believe this. You tagged Rachel? With what?”

“SafeGuard beacons,” Val said. “One in her bear, one in her stroller, one in her blanket, one in her coat. That red puffy one.”

“She might still have the coat with her.” Connor’s voice vibrated with excitement. “Frequencies?”

“I don’t have them on me,” Val said. “The paperwork was lost when we had to run from our hotel two days ago, but you can get the frequencies from your own database. I ordered them online two weeks ago under the name Robert Perkins. They were shipped to a Tacoma address. I used the second smallest ones for her. Four of the burr beacons.”

“You’re a man after my own heart, Janos. I’m calling from the airport. We’re booked through to Paris, since it was the first flight we could get to anyplace in Europe, but we didn’t know where we needed to go from there.”

“Almost certainly Hungary. Call me again if you find a signal for Rachel,” Val said. “I’ll get Tamar, if I can, and meet you in Budapest.”

He hung up, pressed down hard on the accelerator, ignoring the car’s freaky whines, shudders and shimmies of protest.

For Rachel’s sake, the fucking car could make one last effort.

Her timing was spot on. Ana’s eyelids fluttered as Tam parked the Opel in front of the clinic. She circled to the passenger’s side, jerked the door open, unbuckled Ana, and swatted her sticky cheeks.

“Wake up,” she said crisply. “Showtime.”

Ana groaned, her eyes dim and foggy. “What?”

Tam handed her a handful of makeup removal pads and a compact mirror from her purse. “Fix your face.”

Ana glanced at herself in the mirror, gasped in horror, and woke right up. She spent the next couple of minutes repairing her mask. When Tam sensed that she was starting to stall, she yanked Ana’s elbow and dragged her up and out of the car.

Ana twisted away. “What are you going to—ow!”

The needle pierced the underside of Ana’s coat sleeve, digging into her forearm so that Tam could stroll alongside her and hold her arm, oh-so-friendly and companionable. Ana squeaked and flinched.

“Move carefully,” Tam told her. “Now listen. I am the Dottoressa Tiziana Gadaleta. A specialist in…what disease is he suffering from?”

“N-n-no one is quite s-sure,” Ana quavered. “Some kind of tropical parasite, they think. It attacks the nerves. He’s immobilized, but he still feels awful pain. It’s…it’s terrible. Please. Don’t make it worse. He’s already suffering so much.”

“All right, I’m a specialist in tropical parasites.” How appropriate, she reflected. The worst of both worlds. Paralyzed, but still in pain.

Funny. She’d felt that way herself for sixteen years.

Ana dragged her feet. “Wh-what are you going to do to him?”

“Shut up and move,” Tam snapped as they approached the door.

The woman started to whimper. Tam leaned in to her ear. “One wrong move, and the needle goes in,” she murmured. “Don’t doubt it. I have nothing to lose.” For the first time in her life, Tam realized that statement was a lie. The realization did not feel good. In fact, it made her feel horribly vulnerable.

Oh, how she missed Robot Bitch.

Ana staggered beside her like a zombie. The man at the guard booth slid open a glass panel and leaned down. “
Buona sera
, Signora Santarini,” he said. “What’s the name of your visitor?”

“D-dottoressa Tiziana Gadaleta,” Ana quavered.

The man didn’t look up as he scribbled the name on his register. Perhaps out of carelessness. Or maybe the clinic’s posh visitors were habitually in this emotional state. Ana peered into the retina scan, presented her hand for the palm lock. A mechanical door sighed open.

The clinic was chilly and modern inside. It seemed designed to make one feel both important and vaguely sedated. White-clad doctors hustled officiously to and fro on their important business. No one seemed to notice them. Excellent.

Ana hesitated. Tam smiled pleasantly and prompted her with the needle’s point. “Take me to him. Now.”

Ana sniffed back her tears with violent effort and led her obediently down a series of corridors and stairways. She stopped outside a room, tears streaming down her face.

“Papa,” she said brokenly. “Oh, please. Don’t do this. Please.”

Christ, this was torture.
Damn
Robot Bitch, to leave her in the lurch right now, in her hour of need. “Open the door,” Tam urged through gritted teeth.

Ana pushed open the door. Tam shoved her inside, glanced at the man on the bed to make sure it was the right person.

It was. She stared at the long form lying on the bed, the dark, sunken eyes that fastened on hers. They widened ever so slightly.

She shoved the needle in. Ana’s jaw dropped in horror as Tam pressed the plunger.

“Don’t worry, I switched the earrings. It’s just a sedative,” Tam assured her in Ana’s last second of lucidity. She gently broke Ana’s tumble to the floor. Left her in a heap of wool and fur by the door.

She walked to the bed. Stengl stared up at her. His breath was labored. He wore an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.

Odd. She’d pictured this crucial, life-changing moment so many times. She felt nothing. Blank and cool, as if he were a stranger.

He looked insubstantial. He was a tall man, but skeletally thin now. She remembered a giant. Sweaty, malodorous, crushingly heavy.

His pale skin was like parchment, his lips peeling and colorless.

There was no need to speak. At least he recognized her, unlike Ana. She had that much satisfaction. There was no surprise in his eyes. If anything, she sensed a look of relief. He knew she’d come to kill him. The end of his suffering was at hand.

She came closer, bent over him. Stared into his bloodshot, watery eyes, wondering who was in there. How he could have done it. Rifle fire crackled in her head. Screams from the basement cells. Dirt scattering down into Mama and Irina’s eyes. Her nails dug into her palms.

His eyes were avid with eagerness for her to free him.

Images superimposed themselves over the man’s face in her mind. Her father, smiling over the jewelry bench as he taught her the craft they both loved. Playing with little Irina. Mamma, fussing over Tam’s pronunciation of French, Russian, Italian, Ukrainian. Lecturing her about politics, philosophy, and manners. Telling her daughter how she was going to love studying at the Sorbonne someday, as she herself had so longed to do.

The life she would have had, the life her little sister Irina would have had. Bones and dust.

She looked at him, and the anger didn’t rise up and choke her as it always had before. The place where it had been had changed. She’d broken her heart wide open, made space inside it for Rachel, and then still more space, for Val. She was transformed, transfigured.

She felt as big as the sky in there.

There was no monster here to vanquish. All power to hurt had been drained out of the creature on that bed. He was a burned-out battery. She would obtain nothing by killing him—and she could lose everything. She was no longer a woman with nothing to lose. She had everything that was precious. Everything to protect and cherish.

He was not worth it.

The strangest sensation opened up inside her at that realization, thrumming in the newly open space inside her chest. Like light, like heat, like music. Sweet, high-pitched sound, far-off children singing.

If she killed him, she would be linked to him. She would carry him forever. All the strength that she needed for the people she loved, she would have to give to Drago Stengl until the day that she died.

She’d carried him long enough. Let his own pain crush him out of existence with its own stately, majestic pace. Why rush it?

She could turn away. Leave him behind. She really could.

He sensed his precious deliverance drifting inexorably away from him, and opened his bloodshot eyes wide in alarm. He tried to speak.

She shook her head. “No,” she said softly, in Croatian. “Today is not your lucky day.” The long unused language felt strange in her mouth.

She turned her back and walked away. She stopped at the door and looked down at Ana. Leaned over, felt the other woman’s pulse.

Strong and steady. She’d wake up in a few minutes and be fine.

Tam walked out of the room and down the corridor. Her feet started going faster, ’til she was running. Then practically sprinting.

She forced herself to slow down.
Self-control, please. Get a grip.

It was hard to keep her pace steady. She wanted to run headlong toward her new life. The chance she would give herself, if it wasn’t too late. She wanted to run toward this new self with her arms outstretched. This woman who was not so toxic, so desperate.

This new Tam might even make a wild stab at happiness. Maybe even love, if pigs flew, if the sky fell, if she was insanely lucky.

Or at the very least, peace. If nothing else.

Peace.
Something she’d never dared to hope for. Never thought she deserved. She asked the ghosts in her heart to forgive her for not avenging them. Her soul lightened as they granted it.

Children sang in her head. She was euphoric. She’d gone nuts.

Get a grip, Steele,
she reminded herself.
Look sharp. You’re not in the clear yet. Don’t float off into la-la land. You’re being irresponsible.

No one challenged her at the exit. She walked out into the brilliant clarity of the winter evening. The setting sun made the sea glow, the wind blew through the pines, whipping and bending them.

She was astonished by how beautiful it was. Tears blurred her eyes. Her mind was blown by its grandeur. It hurt. She liked the pain.

Bring it on. She was bigger now. She could take it in.

First order of business: take those damned tongue studs out of her mouth. She didn’t need them now. Then she would run to the nearest place that sold prepaid cell phones, buy one, call to check on Rachel, and then call Val. Tell him that he’d been right, she’d been wrong, and she was sorry. That she loved him. That she’d pursue him until he gave in out of sheer exhaustion. His anger was huge, but so was her love.

And she was tough. Let him yell and scream and be pissed at her. She’d wait him out. Let Stengl rot. Let Novak and Georg kill each other.

Fuck them all. In the face of all the bastards who wished her ill, she was going to live. With her kid—and her man. She really was. Oh, God.

The urgency she felt to get away from there was building up to a frantic level. She yanked open the door of the Opel—and heard the muted pop of another car door opening behind her.
No.

She spun, flinging up her arm to block the blow that she instinctively knew was aimed at the back of her head. It connected with her forearm. White hot, fiery pain shot up her arm.

Broken.
Shit,
a useless right arm.

She scrambled back, hit the car, bounced. Dragged in air, tried to block the sickening pain. She’d deserved that one, floating around in a fucking cloud, drunk on beauty and hopes of love.

She would pay for it now. András loomed, his face wild and grinning. Wet-lipped and sharp-toothed, like an evil hobgoblin from one of her grandmother’s scarier stories.

Her knee jerked up toward his groin, and hit hard.
Yes.
Air escaped from him in a grunting whoosh. She scooted away, but he scooped her right off her feet with a swipe of his leg at knee level. She lost her center, teetering on those fucking spike-heeled Manolos, goddamnit, betrayed by vanity and fashion—She fell against the Opel again, jarring the broken arm, and almost screamed. It cost her the split second she needed to wind up for another blow or block. The entire weight of András’s body slammed into her, squashing her against the car, dragging her down, down, first to her knees, and then thudding heavily, flat onto her face.

He sat on her back, squashing out air, light, everything. Her face was ground against the asphalt. Pebbles scratched her cheek.

“Bitch,” he panted. “You’ll pay for that. Screaming.” His hoarse, grating voice rasped in her ears. “You can start paying right now.” He stuck his wet, meaty tongue into her ear, wiggled it. “Guess what pretty little toddler is on her way to visit benevolent old Daddy Novak right now, as we speak?”

“No!”
Horror exploded inside her. She convulsed in instinctive denial, but his weight made the movement barely a wiggle.

András laughed nastily. “Ah, yes. We’ll get there about the same time she does. A touching family reunion. I can hardly wait.” His hand clamped around her mouth and nose, pressing over both with a damp gauze pad that had a sharp, acrid smell. “Little ones never last long….”

Her blood pressure plummeted, pulling her into a sucking hole of despair. An express elevator to hell and the lightless oblivion beyond it.

T
he Opel’s driver’s side door hung open as Val pulled the Fiat up next to it. The car subsided into ominous silence after a rattling death cough.

Val’s heart stuck in his throat as he shoved the stiff, creaking door of the Fiat open and stared at the scene. The ignition key peeked out from behind the left wheel tire. A single shoe lay on the asphalt between the two cars. A black, spike-heeled pump. One of the Manolos.

He got out, crouched to pick up the shoe. He hated to think of her barefoot. So vulnerable.

He thudded down onto his knees. Trying to breathe, trying to think. What next. What now. Ah, God.

Get up, Janos. You’ve got a job to do. Don’t just crash like a melodramatic asshole.
It sounded like Tam’s crisp, merciless voice in his head.

It comforted him. Gave him the impetus he needed to fish up the keys from behind the tire, drag his leaden body off the ground, and slide into the Opel. The laptop and Hegel’s cell phone still lay on the passenger side floor, forgotten since that morning.

He reached for the cell phone. It still had some life in the battery. He stared at it for a long, hostile moment, and shook himself to break the paralysis. He pulled up the stored text messages.

348. The room number. Georg’s last message to Hegel.

Three steps back.
His usual mantra struck him as ludicrous, almost cruel. He could not take three steps anywhere. He was too muddled, too exhausted. He was terrified.

You will have to do somewhat better than your best to get out of this
. Imre’s dry voice echoed through his head.

Val’s chest twisted, to think of Imre. Better than his best might not be enough. It had not been so far, or this would not have happened. Imre, dead. Tamar and Rachel, taken.

Even Georg might do better now. Any variable that could give her another fighting chance, Val had to throw into the mix right now while he still could. While she was alive. He punched “call.”

It rang eight times. Someone picked up, and there was a waiting silence on the other end, though he could tell the line was open.

Val tried to speak, but doubt had seized his voice.

Georg got tired of the waiting game. “My curiosity cannot resist a telephone call from a dead man,” he said in English. “Do I speak with the spirits from beyond?”

Val cleared his throat with a cough. “No,” he said. “Janos here.”

“Oh. You.” Georg switched to Hungarian. “I am going to kill you when I see you. You know that, eh?”

“Fine. Whenever you like,” Val said dully. “I just want to give you some information first. About Tamara Steele.”

“Ah. Yes?”

One last moment of frantic wondering, if he was giving her another chance or condemning her to a living death.

No. His Tamar would never languish in a cage for long. Not his man-eating tigress. Not her.

“I am waiting, Janos,” Georg prompted. “I am not a patient man. What about her? Let me speak with her.”

Val shut his eyes and threw the dice. “I can’t,” he said. “Novak has her now. András abducted her. Less than an hour ago.”

Georg sucked in an audible breath. “You fucking idiot,” he hissed. “How could you have allowed this to happen?”

“She exposed herself when she ran from me,” he said dully. “She was trying to get back to you. She…she wanted you.”

Georg was silent.

“She will be in Novak’s hands within eight hours,” Val added after another minute ticked by. “Dead within twenty-four hours of that, almost certainly. If not sooner.”

“If this happens, you do know what will happen to you, Janos?”

Val stared bleakly at the horizon. “Yes,” he whispered. God help him. He did.

“Pain,” Georg said softly. “For as long as I can inflict it. Pain you cannot imagine. Think about it.”

Val broke the connection. There was no point in thinking about it. The threat barely touched him.

If Novak killed Tamar and Rachel, anything Georg did to him afterward would be supremely redundant. He doubted he would even notice.

In fact, he would make a point of being already dead.

Georg clicked the phone closed with a hand that tingled with excitement. His heart thudded with lust and fury.

She wanted him. She had always wanted him. He had known in his deepest heart that they were destined to be together. He was the only one who could accept or understand her dark side, her secret, shameful desires, and she was the only one who could comprehend his.

He would reward her for her loyalty and save her from that blood-drinking monster, Novak. And she would owe him her life. He liked that.

But he had to be quick and lucid. And ruthless.

He walked down the small spiral staircase into the common room of the luxury apartment he had rented in San Vito. His eyes slid over the five men who were there. Someone had betrayed him. Sold him out to Novak, telling the old man about Tamara’s continued existence and Georg’s search for her. It was one of the men in this room.

It galled him to harbor a traitor, but that same man could be used to feed false information back to Novak.

The traitor would subsequently die a slow and horrible death, once he was identified.

“We’re going back to Budapest at once,” he announced. “Novak has openly challenged me. Tomorrow at midnight, we mount our attack.” He turned to Ferenc. “Call the others. We will conduct a strategy meeting. We must videoconference. Hurry. There is a great deal of planning to do.”

Ferenc pulled out his phone and got to work.

Georg strolled out to the terrace of the luxury villa, which was perched right over the roiling sea. He turned up the volume on his telephone. The crashing of the sea served nicely as white noise to cover his voice. He punched in the code to scramble the call, and dialed the PSS man he dealt with now. The defunct Hegel’s second in command.

“Yes?” the man asked.

“It happens tomorrow,” Georg said without preamble.

There was a startled pause. “Tomorrow? So soon?”

“My men cannot know,” Georg said. “They’re baiting the trap. Your team will mount the attack. I will call you in two hours and explain the details. You will need an eight-man team in Budapest by tomorrow.”

Georg hung up the phone and stared at the heaving waves. There was a great deal of planning to do. Most of his men would probably be dead by tomorrow. He would have to sacrifice them to unmask the traitor, and he would be hard put to replace them. This was going to be expensive.

But his mind was too occupied for planning. Filled with filthy, sweating fantasies that made his crotch ache with eagerness.

Fantasies of fucking Tamara, over and over. While the whole world watched.

Andrea first noticed the curly-headed toddler curled up, thumb in her mouth and sleeping like an angel next to her dad, while passing out the ear phones in the first class cabin. She was the same size as Andrea’s two-year-old Liliana back home, currently being spoiled rotten by Grandma. These long runs out and back to Frankfurt were hard. By the time Andrea got back, she was longing for her Lili.

Funny, that the little cutie was already sacked out even before they took off. Usually, the noise and bustle of boarding revved kids up. If they calmed down at all, it was during that high altitude drone of midflight over the Pole. Portland-Frankfurt was a long flight for a toddler, but Andrea had tricks for the kids, over and beyond the usual crayons the airline provided. She’d be ready when this one woke up.

She beamed at the little girl and smiled at her father, a big, bearded dark man. “What a doll,” she enthused. “How old?”

The guy blinked a few times before answering. “Two,” he said.

“I have a two-year-old at home, too,” Andrea confided. “It’s a beautiful age. No matter what anybody says.”

The man smiled briefly and accepted the beer she’d just poured for him, and looking away as he sipped. Not the chatty type.

Andrea glanced at the kid every time she walked past 10A and 10B. She slept like a rock, in the exact same position, skinny legs curled up, thumb in mouth, arm flung over her head.

Hours later, the little girl had not moved. Her father gazed into space or read a newspaper. Andrea served him his meal. He ate it, folded his hands, dozed without ever touching or looking at the child.

Seven hours into the flight, Andrea served the man a drink and nodded at the little girl. “My, she certainly is a sound sleeper,” she commented. “You’re lucky, on such a long flight.”

The man’s eyes flicked up to hers and away. “Guess so,” he said.

“Let me know when she wakes up and I’ll get her some yogurt and juice,” she offered.

He mumbled something and looked back down into his paper.

After ten hours had gone by, Andrea began feeling nervous. She checked the passenger manifest, not even sure exactly why. John and Melissa Esposito. Well, of course, he was her father. What else?

Maybe the little girl had been dosed with antihistamines so that she’d sleep. Some parents did that when they wanted a hassle-free flight, but she was awfully small for that. Maybe she was a heavy sleeper, and this was her full night stretch. Maybe she was jetlagged from a previous leg of their trip. Or maybe Andrea should just mind her own beeswax.

Even so, an hour later when the man got up to stretch his legs and stroll to the bathroom, she slipped over to 10B, and took a peek.

Same position. The kid did not look good. In fact, Andrea was unpleasantly reminded of that bout of rotavirus that had landed Lili in the children’s hospital last Thanksgiving, an IV in her tiny arm. That pinched, pale look, the pale, wrinkled skin, sunken eyes, the dry, colorless lips. Dehydration. Her cheek was cold. Her hand felt like ice. Andrea smelled pee. She slid her hand down under the child’s body.

Yep. Wet, as was the seat beneath her. No wonder she was cold. At least that meant the dehydration couldn’t have gotten to a critical point yet. Still, Andrea was tempted to check her pulse. Just to see if she had one.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

The man’s low voice made her jump. Andrea spun around and faced him. “Ah. Sorry. I was just, ah, checking on your little girl—”

“That’s not necessary,” the man said.

“But she’s wet,” Andrea protested. “She’ll get chilled. And she—”

“Her mother will change her when we get to Frankfurt.”

To
Frankfurt?
Andrea stared at him. That was three hours from now. Four, by the time he disembarked, got through the lines and slogged through that enormous airport.

She glanced down at that poor little girl and flagrantly broke airline regulations with her next words. “If you give me a diaper and fresh clothes, I’ll change her for you,” she offered.

“No, thank you. Don’t worry about it,” the man growled.

“It’s no trouble. She really should wake up anyway, just so she can take in some fluids,” Andrea said earnestly. “The air in here can really dry out a little—”

“Miss?” The man leaned right up to her ear and murmured, “Why don’t you fuck off and leave us alone? That way, I won’t have to make a formal complaint to the airline about your inappropriate questions, and the fact that I found you touching my daughter’s private parts when I got back from the rest room. Hmm?”

Andrea jerked away. Her heart thudded, her face reddened. She scurried away, tears of shock and hurt indignation clogging her throat.

She conferred with her colleagues, but it was almost time to serve breakfast, it was a very full flight, everyone was waking up and stretching their legs, and none of the rest of the flight crew wanted to tangle with a crazy guy. Certainly not when they were all so close to landing the plane and letting the problem just walk away.

The next two and a half hours crawled by. Andrea ignored him, but she felt his eyes on her. Hot, nasty little pinpricks, burning into her neck. The little girl did not move, even during the shudder and roar of landing. When the doors opened, John Esposito tossed the child over his shoulder so that her head and arms dangled limply down his back, and waited in line to exit, impassive. He held only a briefcase.

A briefcase? He didn’t even have a baby bag. What kind of father took a two-year-old on a fifteen-hour flight with no bag? Not a book, not a toy, not a snack. No wet wipes, bottle, sippy cup, nose tissues. To say nothing of diapers, a change of clothing. Like, what the hell?

Something was off. Something was really wrong with this picture.

Her stomach fluttered. She stood with her colleagues as the passengers filed out, chirping “Buh-bye! Buh-bye!” like a trained parrot. She didn’t look at John Esposito as he walked by with his limp burden, but she peeked as he unfolded the stroller in the icy cold jetway and dropped the child in it. He did not fasten the little girl in. Or tuck any sort of cover over her.

He turned, looked. He’d known she’d look. He was ready with a triumphant smile that said,
I won, you cowardly, ineffectual bitch.

“Buh-bye,” he taunted softly, with a waggle of his fingers.

He disappeared down the jetway. Andrea wrenched her faltering smile back into alignment and longed for Lili so hard it hurt.

She needed to grab her little girl. Hug her and snuggle her. Right now. But Lili was on the wrong side of the world. It was night back in Portland. She couldn’t even call. It would be hours before Lili woke up.

Until then, Andrea was going to stare at the airport hotel room ceiling and wait. Feeling scared.

She could already be dead.

Val wrestled his mind back to blankness as he moored the small, inflatable motorboat to a huge vine that clung to the side of the ancient stonework bridge. The road that ran over it led to Novak’s crumbling eighteenth-century palace on the river. The McClouds had texted Rachel’s radio frequency to him, and her icon had come to rest here some hours before. Val had been unsurprised that the revenge orgy would take place at Novak’s favorite residence. The old man felt like an aristocrat here. It pumped up his vanity.

He knew the place well. He’d spent lonely years here, in the old days, once it was discovered that he had a knack for computers and technological devices. He’d made it his business back then to learn every detail about the ancient palace, having nothing better to do in his leisure time. The grounds were honeycombed with dungeons, wells, cisterns and drains, and he’d spent long hours studying antique floor plans he’d found in the library, hand-drafted in elegant cursive script. He’d wriggled through miles of culverts, tunnels and various other lightless, dripping holes, just out of curiosity. And since knowledge was power, his policy was to share what he learned only when his colleagues or employer had a pressing need to know it.