Cold as Ice (11 page)

Genevieve was still standing in the middle of the room, staring at him. "Aren't you hungry?" she asked.

He gave her his most charming smile, the one that his ex-wife had told him made her want to kill him. "Just a beer and a sandwich," he said.

She threw a vase at him. He'd known it was coming, of course, because he'd been goading her to it. She had no idea of the cost of the particular vase, which was probably a good thing. He ducked, of course, and it smashed into a thousand pieces on the tile floor, seventy-three hundred dollars' worth of antique French ceramic ware.

"You need more work on stealth," he observed, opening the sliding doors to the cool tropical breezes. Harry had always kept the place air-conditioned, but the house had been well designed, and the trade winds cooled the place perfectly without the artificial air.

She didn't throw anything else at him, though he was prepared. "You know what you can do with your beer and sandwich," she said in a conversational tone. "Are you going to just let me wander around this place, unwatched? Aren't you going to tie me up?"

"Only if you really want me to. You didn't strike me as that kinky, but I'm game if you are."

There were no more vases within her reach. "What's to keep me from escaping?"

He dropped down on the couch, kicked off his shoes and put his feet up on the coffee table, stretching. "Number one, Renaud and Hans are wandering about, and while I told them to keep their hands off you they're not very good at following orders. Number two, there's nowhere to go—the yacht has gone, we're hundreds of miles from the nearest island. And number three, there are sharks in the water surrounding the island. I think mines as well, though I'm not sure."

"You're kidding! " But she knew he wasn't. "So what am I supposed to do, wait until you're ready to kill me?"

"Or try to think of some way to escape," he suggested.

"You could help me."

"I could," he said, "but I won't." He wondered whether that was true. He'd never had to kill someone who just happened to get in the way. An argument could be made that Genevieve Spenser was far from guiltless, but since he didn't know specifically why the word had come down about Harry, he could hardly know if Genevieve was equally culpable.

Was she part of the Rule of Seven, whatever the hell that was? She'd brought the papers signing over the lucrative oil fields to an untraceable dummy corporation, and the Committee had already ascertained that those very oil fields were the target of a carefully planned attack in the upcoming weeks, though the actual date was unclear.

Harry's disappearance was going to put a stop to that, or at least he hoped so. Van Dorn was a control freak—if anyone was negotiating with terrorists he'd be the man, and he'd be the one holding the purse strings. Maybe the men he'd chosen for the job of destroying the oil fields were ready to die for the glory of Allah. Van Dorn knew how to exploit weakness or fanaticism. They could still need money to cover expenses and they'd want their wives and families taken care of. Without Harry's financial security there was a good chance the attack would be aborted.

But that wasn't the only thing Harry had planned. They knew that there were seven targets. They'd only identified two. They were taking it on faith that disposing of Harry would stop the other five attempts before they could come to fruition.

It all depended on how carefully Harry planned and whether he was willing to delegate, and since he and others had been in Harry's employ, watching him, there'd been little chance for him to use anyone else to implement his Rule of Seven. They'd already agreed it was useless trying to get information out of him—Harry liked pain too much to respond to torture and he kept clear of technology. No cell phone, PDA, or computer to hack into—he kept his own secrets.

Ms. Genevieve Spenser was a different matter. If she knew anything at all she'd break quite easily, and if he were thinking with his usual icy detachment he wouldn't hesitate.

But he wasn't going to touch her. He'd kill her if he had to, but he hadn't given up hoping he'd find a way out, despite the recent orders that had been handed down by Madame Lambert. Easy enough for her to decide, when she wasn't on the scene, he thought.

His priorities may have gotten a little skewed, but his instincts were still solid, and he knew Genevieve had been nothing more than an innocent courier, someone who happened to get in the way of something a lot bigger and badder than she could even begin to realize.

She was still looking at him hopefully. He considered lying to her, telling her he'd get her out safely. He'd never disobeyed a direct order in all the time he'd been with the Committee, and he wasn't about to start, but she didn't need to spend the last two days of her life being terrified.

But he didn't want to lie to her. "I can't help you," he said. "Don't waste your time on me—it won't get you anywhere. I've been playing this game a lot longer than you have, and I've seen every angle. It's going to be up to you. Just don't make stupid mistakes."

If it were up to her she'd die. There was only so much he could teach her, tell her, to give her a fighting chance. In the end it wouldn't be enough, and he knew it. But he didn't have to like it.

He would have preferred it if she'd gone looking for another priceless vase to throw. Instead, she stood very still, looking at him out of her warm brown eyes. She could probably see him clearly enough—he'd checked her glasses before he'd tossed them, and her prescription wasn't that strong. She could see him well enough to know what a worthless piece of shit he actually was, and for the first time he could see defeat in the narrow shoulders beneath his white T-shirt.

But only for a moment. She shrugged, clearly dismissing him. "Where did you say the kitchen was?" she asked in a calm voice.

He wondered whether she was going to try to take some of the kitchen knives. It wouldn't do her any more good than that tiny pocketknife—she was up against professionals. "Down the hallway to the left." He had enough sense not to renew his request for lunch. It had been mainly to goad her, keep her off balance. He was hungry; once Harry was subdued Hans hadn't felt obliged to exercise his culinary talents, and Peter hadn't eaten much at all. He tended to prefer it that way before a job—it kept him sharp. But it was going to be two more days until the job was finished, and he could hardly fast until then.

Genevieve had disappeared without a word, and he leaned back and closed his eyes. He wondered whether he needed to warn the men to keep away from her. He'd already made that abundantly clear, but he hadn't worked much with either Renaud or Hans and he wasn't entirely sure how good they were at following directions. They were only one step up from hired thugs—they weren't hobbled by any illusions that they were working for the greater good. Even he was beginning to doubt it.

Genevieve wouldn't be fool enough to try to leave the house and stray into their path. Not yet. She'd build up to it, and in the meantime he'd do everything he could to make sure she'd get through the last two days of her life unmolested.

He heard her coming back a few moments later, but he didn't bother to open his eyes. He expected her to stalk down the hallway to the room he'd assigned her, but instead he could feel her approaching him, and the trade wind brought the scent of her with it, something soft and flowery and female. He opened his eyes when she drew close, half expecting to see her brandishing a heavy knife. But no, the knife was hidden beneath the loose white T-shirt, and she was carrying a tray with a sandwich and a beer.

She set it down beside him. "You're kidding," he said, blinking.

"Any good terrorist needs to keep his strength up," she said. "Besides, I haven't given up hope of negotiating Harry's freedom."

"And your own besides?"

"Of course. In the meantime you just have to worry about whether I poisoned you."

And with that she disappeared down the hallway with her long, gorgeous legs and the lethal knife hidden underneath her clothes, and if she were ten years younger he was certain she would have stuck out her tongue at him.

Genevieve did a thorough canvass of the room, ignoring the pale, muted colors, the exquisite Renoir on the wall that might have been real, the bronze figure of a ballet dancer that might have been Degas, the sliding doors with the soft Caribbean breeze blowing through, and concentrated on what was important.

The sliding doors led to a small balcony overlooking a rocky part of the coast; if she managed to make it safely down from the balcony she'd likely break her neck on the rocks. If she survived that, there were sharks, currents and a couple of roving psychopaths. No wonder he hadn't bothered to lock her in.

She pulled the knife from beneath her shirt and tucked it between the mattress and box spring of the king-size bed that would have dwarfed any normal-size room. In this Texas-scale mansion it fit right in. At least Jensen had no idea she'd taken it—he might think she was harmless with a Swiss Army knife but he'd think twice about a lethal carving knife like this one. It was very sharp—she'd cut her finger on it when she went rummaging through the kitchen. It was as if her blood had chosen that one. She'd tucked it underneath the shirt and then went rummaging through the obscenely well-stocked refrigerator. If she was going to die, at least she was going to die well fed, she thought. And she'd never have to worry about those fifteen extra pounds again.

It was midafternoon—she could tell that much by the position of the sun—and she wondered what in hell she was going to do. The huge sandwich she'd wolfed down in the kitchen wasn't sitting very well, and in the tropical paradise everything suddenly felt rank and rotting.

She wasn't going to let her discomfort get to her—she was getting out of here in one piece, and she was taking Harry Van Dorn with her. She hadn't had much of a chance to do anything worthwhile since she'd abandoned her principles and sold her soul to Roper, Hyde, Camui and Fredericks. Maybe it was time to give something back. Harry Van Dorn wasn't going to be exterminated like some oversize tropical cockroach, on the say-so of some mysterious vigilante group. He was getting out of this alive. They both were. She just had to figure out how.

It was getting close to midnight in London, but Isobel Lambert's day was far from over. She stared at the transmission in disbelief. Peter Jensen, the perfect operative, the Iceman in so many ways, was balking at an order. Questioning a decree from London. It was unheard of. Unimaginable.

It was healthy.

She'd been worried about him. He'd been instrumental in Bastien's desertion of their ranks, and he had to have wondered whether that was the answer for him. Bastien had been weak enough to fall in love—she sincerely doubted that Peter Jensen was even capable of such a liability.

Which worked in her favor—she couldn't afford to lose him right now, when so many lives were hanging in the balance.

But even well-oiled machines could break down, and robots could go haywire, and whether Peter wanted to believe it or not, he had a conscience, albeit one buried so deep it would be hard to find.

It seemed to be surfacing at an unfortunate moment, but Madame Lambert held the firm belief that there were no mistakes. If Peter was having doubts about his orders then he was probably right to question them.

And there was nothing she could do from five thousand miles away but trust him.

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T
o her amazement Genevieve had fallen asleep. When she woke, the sun was lower on the horizon and she couldn't remember where she was.

Until she heard that infuriating voice from the doorway. "I thought you'd be busy planning your escape, not taking a nap."

She'd locked her door. She should have known it would be a futile gesture—she could barely summon up a trace of outrage. She'd fallen asleep in one of the chairs, and now she kept her gaze trained on the shimmering blue waters ahead of her, refusing to give him any attention. The house had been built on a knoll, and the view was gorgeous. Including the tactfully camouflaged stone wall and the shark-infested waters just beyond.

"I don't suppose you'd consider knocking," she said in a deceptively mild voice. "I realize it's too much to ask you to let me lock the door, but a moment of warning would be considerate."

He came into the room. He'd showered and changed and she could have kicked herself. For a short period of time he'd been relatively inattentive, and she could have made a run for it. Instead, she'd fallen asleep.

"It's a good thing you didn't try," he said. He'd read her mind again. Was she really that transparent? No, she was a decent enough poker player when called upon. Any lawyer had to be able to bluff.

Peter Jensen was just particularly good at sensing people's reactions, or he knew her better than she knew herself. She was much happier believing it was an innate talent, and not something personal.

"Why not? " She turned to give him her full attention. "Do you expect me to just roll over and play dead?"

A shame the mind reading didn't go both ways. His face was completely impassive—the notion of death hung in the air with neither of them wanting to claim it.

"The house has an experimental security system," he said after a moment. "If you try to open one of the doors or windows you'll get an electric shock. Quite a severe one, I'm afraid, and I don't think there's anyone left on the island trained in CPR."

"What about you?" Her voice was caustic. "I thought you could do anything."

"Not my area of expertise," he said. "I take lives, not save them."

There was nothing she could say to that flat statement. "So we just sit here and wait for you to demonstrate your area of expertise?" she asked.

"The security system keeps the others out as well. Count your blessings."

"Oh, I'm absolutely showered with them."

There was a faint light of amusement in his eyes. "I do like you better when you fight back," he said.

"My purpose in life is not to make you like me," she said. "Unless it means you'll let me leave. And take Harry with me."