But no, he didn’t need to worry—he had enough on his own plate tonight, far more pleasant tasks. Picking up one of Takashi’s cousins, Hiromasa Shinoda, at Heathrow, a new recruit for the Committee. And making a baby with Genevieve Spenser Madsen.
At least he could be certain of one incontrovertible fact. Isobel would be in control no matter what she faced. She was totally incapable of feeling weakness, or emotion.
She was made of ice, the way they all needed to be.
Isobel Lambert wasn’t sure whether she wanted to throw up, burst into tears or laugh. Killian had been the epitome of her romantic dreams, tall and gorgeous. Despite her French husband’s inventive talents, despite the intervening years, she still thought of Killian as the one man who’d ever been able to move her. Now he was simply a paunchy, balding mercenary with bad teeth. And the memory of that night in Marseille, the blood on her soul, had been washed clean.
He was drivin
g through the cold dark night, much too fast for the mountain roads. His mascot was curled up in the rear of the Jeep, sound asleep, still cradling the gun that was almost bigger than he was. She could reach back and get the weapon away from his grubby little hands, but then, she probably could have done that at any point. She just didn’t want to kill him.
“I wouldn’t try it if I were you,” the man beside her said. She noted again how his accent was different than Killian’s—an amalgam of continents and cultures, since he’d sold his services all over the world, killed in every time zone. It was no wonder there was no tracing his background.
“I think I could manage to disarm a six-year-old with no problem,” she said, turning to look at him. In the darkness, the differences weren’t as noticeable—he still had that strong nose, the same wide mouth. His face was rounder, puffier than it had been, but in the dim light it was far too easy to remember another time, another car, another man and woman, both of whom were long gone. Killian and Mary were dead. Only their bloody ghosts remained.
“He’s twelve,” the man said in a flat tone. Roughened with age and probably cigarettes, his voice had the same timbre as Killian’s. She’d be happier when she could see him more clearly, but his state of decay was at least a partial comfort. “And you shouldn’t underestimate the power of a zealot. He has a task to accomplish before he meets Allah, and he’s not going to let anyone or anything get in the way of it.”
“And that task involves keeping you alive?”
“For the time being.”
She was tired. She was usually impervious to such things—she’d learned to ignore the lack of food, sleep and shelter, and it had only been thirty-six hours since she’d slept. The night was cold, and the Jeep was open, providing no protection from the elements or snipers. She needed to be on high alert, and yet she could feel her thoughts drifting.
“And what is his divine task?” Isobel roused herself. She really needed to be pumping him for more important information, in case she didn’t manage to get them out in one piece. With at least a partial debriefing the mission wouldn’t be a total failure.
But the immediate safety of the mission was affected by the lethal bundle of rags in the backseat, a wild card she hadn’t anticipated.
The man beside her shot her a glance. She could still only think of him as Serafin—it was better that way.
“To kill me.”
The night had grown colder. “All right,” she said. “That can hardly come as a surprise—anyone who’s ever met you, even heard of you, probably wants to kill you. So why doesn’t he? And why are you indulging him? I can’t imagine you’d be squeamish about breaking the neck of a twelve-year-old who’s as small as he is.”
“Maybe I’ve gotten soft in my old age,” he said.
She kept herself from glancing pointedly at the bulk around his middle. “The child wants to kill you and you’re so sentimental you’re going to let him?”
“Hardly. He has very clear plans, which he was kind enough to confide to me. He wants to wait until he’s older, so that he can torture me slowly and I’ll die in exquisite agony. He’s too small to accomplish that as yet.”
“Again, I understand and fully sympathize with his plans, and I’m sure most of the world would applaud him. The question is, why are you going along with this?”
“Otherwise he’ll kill me now, and I prefer to chance waiting a few years.”
“People have been trying to kill you for decades—my own organization tried twice. Even Bastien Toussaint failed, and he never missed. Why don’t you just terminate the child and get it over with?”
“All right,” Serafin said, putting his foot on the brake. “It shouldn’t slow us down too much.”
Isobel didn’t play poker; real life was too full of bluffing, lies and high stakes. She silently drew a breath as he pulled over to the side of the deserted road, leaving the engine running. “This won’t take long.” He pulled out a knife from inside his shirt.
The moonlight glittered off the steel blade. German steel, the best in the world, and for a moment memories sliced into her brain, just as a knife like that one had slashed into her face and body. The face she’d once had.
“I don’t think we have time for this,” she said in a perfectly steady voice. “The sooner we’re out of Morocco, the safer we’ll be.”
In the moonlight she could barely see his shadowed face, the ghost of his old smile. “Good point. We’re meeting my contact at an appointed time, and it wouldn’t serve to be late. Mahmoud can wait.”
The sleeping child stirred at the sound of his name, or maybe he hadn’t been sleeping at all. It didn’t matter.
Serafin pulled back onto the narrow mountain road, and Isobel closed her eyes for a brief moment. It was going to be a long night. And there was no way she could keep from doing what she most wanted to avoid.