Ice Storm (Ice 4)

It’s what he ought to do, anyway. She was just standing there, unmoving, and he could hear her choked breathing, as if she’d been running for a very long time. He waited for her, as he felt the blood pool beneath him.

A step. Two. She was coming to check on him. He should roll over now, shoot her between the eyes. It would be so fast she wouldn’t have time to realize what was happening.

But he didn’t move.

Then, a moment later, she was gone. She’d vanished into the rain-swept Marseille night. And he pushed himself up off the cement floor and started after her.

9

Now

The room was dark when Isobel opened her eyes. She’d somehow managed to fall asleep sitting on the floor in Samuel’s back bedroom, and she scrambled to her feet, reaching behind her for her gun.

There was no sign of Serafin. The bathroom door was open, but he’d finished his shower long ago—there was no scent of water and soap in the air. His discarded clothes were piled on a chair, along with what looked like bandages and other trash. She checked the bathroom, but the surfaces were already dry. She checked the door to the main section of the house. Locked, of course.

If she wasn’t so annoyed she would have laughed. Who did he think he was dealing with? Granted, she’d fallen asleep at an inappropriate time, and slept heavily. She could thank Shiraz’s doctored coffee for that. She’d been a fool to drink it, but she’d needed the caffeine so badly she’d risked it, and now she was paying the price. Serafin must have been careful not to drink enough to affect him.

Unless his coffee had been drugged as well, and he’d been taken while she slept. Possible, but unlikely. If his enemies had found him they wouldn’t have left her alive; they’d both be dead by now. She could only assume he’d watched her sleep and gone off on his own, for God knew what reason.

She wasn’t happy. She’d come all this way to rescue a man who was, in every possible way, reprehensible. A mercenary, a warlord, a terrorist, a man responsible for thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of deaths. A man who’d used her, betrayed her and planned to kill her. The first man she’d ever killed—or thought she’d killed. For all those years. She’d be entirely happy to have him be the last man she ever killed.

She had no choice. She never let emotions get in the way of her work, and she wasn’t about to start. When she was finished she could let go. For now she had a job to do, a monster to find and protect.

It took her less than a minute to open the lock, only to find the door had been chained shut, as well, so she could only open it a few scant inches. She considered banging it until someone came, then rejected the thought. That would be childish, and, even if she felt like a thwarted child, she wasn’t going to give in to it.

There was a large window looking onto the inner courtyard. She pushed the curtain aside, but the window was grilled and barred—probably to keep the women inside, she thought grimly. For now there was no way out. She had no choice but to wait until someone, presumably Serafin, returned.

She put her hands on the grille, yanking at it in frustration, only to find it moved. She looked up. The house was new, the grillwork fastened in with Phillips screws. And two of them were missing.

God bless MacGyver, she thought wistfully, and headed for the small duffel she’d brought with her. The Swiss Army knife was still there. In a matter of minutes she had the heavy ironwork unscrewed and out of its frame.

The courtyard was silent in the darkness. How long had she slept? She was still feeling slightly dazed from the drug, a fact that annoyed her enough to chase the last sleepiness out of her brain. She didn’t like it when someone made a fool of her. Someone was going to be very sorry.

She climbed out the window, dropping to the ground below. The house was built Arab-style, with all the windows and doors opening onto a central, tiled courtyard. The only sound she could hear was the quiet splash of the fountain.

The rooms she and Serafin had been put in were at the bottom of the square courtyard, and from outside looked like storage space and nothing more. Maybe Samuel had a habit of hiding people. A safe haven would be a valuable commodity in any part of North Africa.

She ducked into the shadows, moving down the covered walkway that lined the courtyard and separated it from the house. She still had the gun tucked at the small of her back, and she was more than ready to use it. Preferably on Serafin.

There wasn’t a sound in the entire place. It was getting close to dinnertime, and yet there were no lights, no murmur of voices. Just the steady splash of the fountain, strangely ominous. Something was very wrong.

She sensed someone there. The sound was so small another person might have missed it—just a faint breath of wind, a slight shuffle of clothing.

Then she heard voices, in a language she didn’t recognize. Not Arabic—something European, maybe Slavic. Hadn’t Serafin done some of his dirty work in Bosnia? Was there any trouble spot in the world that he hadn’t contributed to?

And now they’d found him. Or at least they’d found where he was hiding—she could tell from the tone of the voices that they were frustrated, tense, still searching. So Samuel had managed to get him away, leaving her like a sitting duck. No matter. She could handle herself. Now she was going to have to incapacitate the men who were looking for Serafin, and there were at least three, from the sound of things. Once she got rid of them, she’d find the son of a bitch, her nemesis, and drag him back to England. She hadn’t come this far to fail.

She’d started forward silently, heading toward the intruders, when she heard the sound again, the almost-not-there breath, and a moment later she was slammed against the wall by a large body.

He didn’t bother slapping a hand over her mouth—he knew she wouldn’t scream and alert the Serbs. She let him push her back into a corner of the walkway, knowing who it was, hating him.

“Samuel sold us out,” he whispered against her ear. In the darkness it was Killian, and eighteen years ago…and she wanted to weep.

“Who can blame him?” Her answering whisper was ice-cold. “I’d do the same.”

“I’m sure you would. I happen to know a way out. Just be glad I decided to take you with me.”

The lights in the courtyard came on suddenly, and the eerie sound of music filled the air. Either the stereo was wired with the light switches, or someone wanted some noise to cover his movements.