Cold as Ice (Ice 2)

Except her fist. She’d seen it done in movies and on television, and it was simple enough. Just wrap your hand in a towel and punch it through the glass. She picked up one of her discarded towels, wrapped it around her fist and slammed it against the glass.

Unfortunately even the thin terry cloth absorbed the blow, and the windowpane didn’t even shake. She cursed beneath her breath, dropped the towel on the floor and stripped one of the pillowcases off, wrapping that around her hand. She made a fist, and tried to channel Jet Li or Sonny Chiba, punching straight into the center of the glass.

There was no way she could silence her screech of pain as the force of the blow jarred her entire body. Her hand and fingers were numb, her wrist aching, and the window remained solid.

The glass had to be reinforced, which only made sense, given the neighborhood and the obvious clientele. Her entire hand was throbbing, and shaking it only made it worse, so she cradled it against her stomach with a quiet little moan. But she wasn’t giving up.

She loved martial arts movies, even though she knew just how far-fetched most of them were from her training with Master Tenchi. She’d never been terribly good at kicks, and she was out of practice, but if Jet could take out a car window with his foot then she could certainly manage a reinforced household window.

She stuck her foot in the pillowcase, using her one good hand, but she couldn’t figure out how to keep it on. She certainly didn’t need her ankle going through shards of glass.

She finally gave up, dropping down on the bed in defeat. What if Peter wasn’t coming back? What if he’d dumped her there, locking her in so she’d starve to death? She looked around for a telephone to call for help, something she should have thought of sooner, but of course there wasn’t one. She had no idea whether the rooms were soundproofed or not, but she suspected that was one area where the owners might have put some money. This was clearly a motel designed for an hourly rate—hence the lack of phones and chairs. People would also want to be able to make as much noise as they wanted without being heard.

Maybe he’d just left her for a little while, long enough to make sure they’d gotten away, and he’d be back. Or maybe he was simply calling in reinforcements, handing her off to someone who didn’t want to strangle her every other minute.

That would be the best possible scenario, she told herself. That Peter Whoever-He-Was had gone, and some sober bureaucrat was about to show up to take her to a nice cozy safe house until someone figured out how to stop Harry. A place with high thread-count sheets and lovely food and…

She was out of her mind. Harry’s sheets had been the best money could buy—she was better off with the scratchy white crap she’d wrapped herself in.

She wanted to go home. Back to her beautiful, sterile apartment, back to her designer clothes and her Chanel makeup and shoes that cost too much and hurt her feet. She may not have been happy there, but she’d been safe.

She lay back on the bed, wrapping her sheeted body in the quilted bedspread as well, curling up into a pathetic little ball of misery. She was tired, she was frightened, and yes, damn it, she was hungry again.

And she was alone.

She closed her eyes so she wouldn’t cry. Crying only made it worse, and it served no earthly purpose. There was nothing to cry for—she was away from Harry Van Dorn, who’d casually ordered her torture and death, and she was abandoned by Peter…Madsen, that was the name! Abandoned when he probably would have rather killed her as well.

Sooner or later someone would come and get her, someone safe and solid. All she had to do was wait. And not feel so bereft.

It would have been better if she hadn’t fallen asleep. It lowered her defenses, made her emotional and vulnerable. The sound of a key turning jarred her into wakefulness, and the moment Peter walked in the door she flung herself at him in relief.

Unfortunately, he didn’t know relief when it hit him upside the head, and he slammed her face down on the carpet, her arm twisted behind her back, his hand like a manacle on her twisted wrist.

Hong Kong was quarantined. Harry’s ship, filled with infected pigeons, had been detained twenty miles out at sea, with a Hazmat team covering every inch of it. His captain had just time enough to warn him before they burst into the engine room. But not time enough to free the pigeons.

Harry threw the phone across the room so that it crashed into a glass-fronted cabinet, and there was broken glass all around. He began to pick up and throw anything he could reach—a lamp, a pile of books, a heavy bronze award attesting to his humanitarian efforts in the third world, a cat.

The cat managed to land on four feet and scamper away to safety. Harry liked cats. He liked their “fuck you” attitude, their haughty style. The only drawback was they ran too fast when he wanted to get his frustration out on something. He hadn’t yet been able to kill a cat, and he’d been trying for years.

Everything else crashed with what should have been a satisfying violence. But Harry was beyond satisfaction.

The phone rang. Unfortunately the handset lay smashed against the marble floor, but he knew the number by heart. He pushed the speakerphone, barking his name.

It was his second in command in London. Some- how hearing the words spoken out loud instead of in the privacy of his ear made it even worse. He pulled the base of the telephone from the wall and threw it, and it shattered in a pile of plastic and wiring, with a disembodied voice still apologizing for fucking him over.

Harry walked across the room and kicked the phone into silence. It was all falling apart, everything he’d planned and dreamed and worked so hard for. The Rule of Seven lay shattered—there was still a faint hope he could carry off the nuclear accident in Russia but he suspected that had been aborted as well—the place was just too remote for him to have heard as yet. Or maybe Vlad had been terminated as well.

And there was no name, no face he could put on his deadly rage. All his resources could track down only the vaguest of information about the Committee, a

nd it wasn’t enough. Peter Jensen aka Madsen was dead—there’d be no satisfaction from gutting him. And Takashi had already taken care of the girl, her body long gone, in so many pieces no one would ever be able to put Humpty back together again. He giggled softly, and then his rage returned.

There had to be some way to get to the Committee, to exact his revenge. The Rule of Seven was smashed, but there was always another day. As long as he found a way to show his enemies just how dangerous he could be. As long as the so-called Committee existed, they would try to stop him. Therefore the Committee must be dealt with.

He needed to do something, anything, to show he wasn’t the patsy they took him for. Something bloody and brutal and undetectable enough that they wouldn’t be able to stop it. Something that would make them think twice before they tried to get in his way again.

He needed a sign. He firmly believed in divine guidance. After all, wasn’t he one of the chosen ones, to whom all things are given? He could do any number of things to find a clue—but that would require having someone come and read the signs. And he couldn’t afford to waste the time.

He closed his eyes and focused his entire body, tight and angry, like a child desperate for a toy train at Christmastime. “Give me a sign,” he said out loud. “Show me what to do.”