Smoke and Mirrors (22 page)

If he were the ‘Russian’, his plan from the very beginning would have been to get others to do his work until he ended up with everyone’s money and the uranium. He’d given them the idea to resell it. He’d lied about where and what the poison would be. Now he would have it all.

So he was someone who had had access to SIS information all along. And someone who liked me enough not to have killed me yet.

I took a deep breath and pulled a hidden gun from its place just inside my low-rise waist. “Drop the weapon, Jack. Game’s over.”

I don’t know what I thought would happen, but it wasn’t this. He whipped around, white-lipped. “How did you know?”

My finger was locked on the trigger, tears beginning to roll down my cheeks. “How
could
you? You were friends!”

With his free hand, he pulled off the ski mask, blue eyes bright. “It wasn’t supposed to be that way. You know I never would have poisoned him, I lo…”

“You what?” I wanted it on record, every last word before I blew off his elegant head.

The gun wavered slightly. “It was meant for Jones. I figured it would get him out of the way and distract you two. I never would have harmed either of you. You know that.”

“Cyanide is a goddamn poison, Jack! Anyone of us could have put some on our fucking dinner!”

His face twitched violently, as if he’d finally made up his mind about something. “I’m sorry, Parker.” He ran a free hand through his hair, fingers shaking badly. “See…”

He never finished though, because at that moment, his shaking trigger finger moved a fraction of an inch too much, and his gun fired. I flinched, sure I’d be hit. Sure I’d die before hearing what turned a friend into a terrorist.

But my eyes reopened several ageless seconds later to the grotesquely disfigured form of what was once Jack Kingston. My stomach lurched, but I managed to reel across the room and pick up Raul’s mobile. There was absolutely no hope for Jack. There never is when a gun blows up before it fires.

I dialed Alasdair’s number and steadied myself; I could have explained it over the transmitter, but then I wouldn’t have been able to ear Alasdair’s voice, and I
needed
to hear Alasdair’s voice.

“Alasdair.” A tremor ran through my flesh. “I know that sounded bad. It almost was.” My voice broke and I heard him shouting for the other agents to get out to me.

“We’ll be there as quickly as we can. Got a helicopter standing by. Talk to me.”

“Is Brad okay?” I loathed my cracking voice.

“He’ll be fine. Focus. We heard what you heard, but it doesn’t make sense. Were you talking to Jack Kingston?”

I nodded foolishly before agreeing verbally. “He wasn’t planning on killing me, Alasdair. His gun must have been under too much pressure, or maybe it was metal fatigue. Either way, it went KB.”

I started laughing then, mostly because the language associated with the explosion of a handgun is so juvenile. Alasdair cleared his throat. He’d heard me like this at Nigel and Sammy’s wedding. He’d seen me like this in Colombia and had the doctor drug me.

I guessed they wouldn’t be promoting another doctor into Spy World.

Calm down or they’ll fire your ass altogether
.

But I was already wondering if that wasn’t exactly what I wanted. And if Brad, safe from this himself, was all I would ever need.

“I’m all right. It’s just a bloody ridiculous expression.”

“You’ve a morbid sense of humor, Parker.”

We laughed together then, on the mobile that connected me to a room which held Brad’s breathing form. That connected Alasdair to the end of an op which had finished off his head of gray hair. Laughed until the helicopter picked me up and brought me to the hospital anyway.

•   •   •

C shut the door to his office and sat on his shaking hands. Not dead then, but close to it. Damn. Alasdair had been blunt.

Now, there was another kind of mess to deal with. Six bodies: terrorists, traitors and fools. Save one.

Somehow, SIS still had the suitcase, the money and Brad.

The phone rang, and C pulled his now-stilled hand from under his leg. “Yes?”

Ms. Ganapathy said, “Sir, it’s Jared Mahoney, Case Officer of the Moscow branch.”

“Put him through.” C shoved his thoughts away from what might have happened. Because it had already come too close to affecting his job. And, in his line of work, C couldn’t allow his worries to cloud his actions.

Not even if it meant sending them all in again.

B
rad could hear voices, but he couldn’t move. More than once, he’d tried to push away a needle. Then things drifted away from him for a long while, until thirst came again, and with it voices. Words echoed in his mind. Words like ‘
Cyanocabalamic
’ and ‘
intramuscularly
’. Wishing to hell he knew what they meant, he opened his mouth. Maybe someone would give him a drink. Bloody hell, he was parched.

“I will not give you false hope. De Torres is still a very ill man. There are many possible side effects of cyanide poisoning, not the least of which are corrosion of the gastro-intestinal tract, injuries to organs that have high oxygen content; such as the heart, liver and brain, and a form of blindness called leber optic atrophy. Signor De Torres is going to be fighting an uphill battle regardless of his improving vital signs.”

Someone was talking about him. They knew he was there. Now, if they’d only put an ice cube to his lips. He tried to clear his throat, to make some semblance of sound.

“Giovanni?”

He’d gotten someone’s attention.
Water.

A second raspy cough felt like it ripped the stuffing from him.

“Giovanni, if you can hear me, squeeze my hand.”

Alasdair.
He tried to respond, only nothing worked.
Fuck
! He could feel his DIF’s firm grasp. But, he simply couldn’t squeeze back. His hand, had it fallen off?

“De Torres,” Alasdair’s voice boomed, “Get your sorry ass out of bed.”

Where’s Parker?
Why wasn’t she the one squeezing his hand? Fear gripped him. Which was good. It sped up his heart. Blood pumped through his listless limbs. He felt something. A hand.
Twitch, twitch
, he commanded. Instead, he was rewarded by the touch of his eyelashes against his cheeks. Eyes. That was it.
Open your eyes, you fool.

A few tries and he succeeded. The room was pitch black. Damn. Where the hell had his DIF brought them?

“That’s right, wake up. Come on, open your eyes, you lazy mother-fucker.”

A chortle of sorts bubbled up inside Brad’s throat. The man was a thief as well as an idiot. “That’s…my…line.”

Alasdair gripped his slack hand. There was a second’s pause, and then, “I don’t see you jumping at the chance to use it, you sorry sack of shit.”

Brad’s second attempt at laughter ended in a hacking cough that racked every square inch of his body. He felt Alasdair yank him upright. There was a good degree of swearing going on, and Brad decided if he didn’t die of asphyxiation, he’d die of embarrassment.
What the fuck?
He couldn’t even put his hand over his mouth.

After what seemed like hours, the coughing fit subsided, and Alasdair propped him against some pillows. Hell, if there were pillows, shouldn’t there be light?

Deciding whispering might be easier, Brad took a gulp of air and said, “It feels like I swallowed a goddamn blow torch.”

A squeal of movable wheels, like the wheels on a doctor’s stool, told him Alasdair had sat down.
Lights, Alasdair
, Brad thought.
Lights??

Oh, shit.

“Your doctor said a sore throat might be a side-effect.”

Oh, Jesus. No lights. No vision. No
…Brad felt his heart rate race.
Control, control, control, Brad.
“Like the morning after the mother of all drinking binges.”

Alasdair’s laugh managed to quell a bit of Brad’s panic. “You brought up enough shit to fill the Thames; you’re bound to feel like hell.”

Brad took a deep breath.
Now or never. Wait! Parker!
“Christ! They were shooting at us. Where’s Alexandra?”

Wheels scooted and a hand landed unexpectedly on Brad’s chest. “She’s right beside you. Sleeping like a baby. Caught herself the Russian, she did. Now lie back before you get sick on my new suit.”

Feeling strung out, Brad leaned back and let his eyelids drop. No point in keeping them open. He might not have eyes, but he had her. That’s what mattered. That’s all that mattered; he’d finally realized the truth of it. “What the hell happened?”

When Alasdair finished, the room went silent. It was done. All done. The op. His life as an agent.

He clenched his teeth.
Tell him. Tell Alasdair your news
. He lowered his jaw. The words came fast. “If I tell you something, do you promise not to panic? I don’t want to wake her.”

“I never panic.”

Brad swallowed hard. “I can’t see a bloody thing.” Now that it was out, he felt sick. Really sick. Dizzy too.
Fucking hell, I don’t want to be blind.

•   •   •

I awoke startled, and turned to the bed adjacent mine, expecting to see Brad, expecting to see Alasdair. But the bed was empty. The chair too.

I scrambled for the nurse’s station with an abyss the size of the Mariana Trench in my stomach. The nurse on duty spotted me and smiled.

“Where’s Giovanni De Torres?”

She gave me an odd smile.
Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.

“He’s been brought to the lab for some tests. He’s awake and talking.”

Thank you, God.

Then I caught site of Alasdair coming down the hall, and I raced for him. “What tests? What’s happened?”

He linked an arm through mine and steered me back to the room, closing the door behind us.
Not good at all.

“Tell me what’s going on, Alasdair, or I’m going to raise bloody hell finding out.”

I hated the panic-stricken tenor of my voice. It was unprofessional. No, it was fucking terrified.
Brad is everything to me. Absolutely everything
.

Unlike me, Alasdair didn’t seem the least bit surprised by my reaction. He sat down and motioned for me to do the same. My knees gave out as I readied myself for the worst.

The nurse lied to me and Brad died during the night
. I leaned into my hands hoping to keep the dizziness I felt at bay.

Alasdair’s palm brushed the top of my head. “Giovanni woke up a few hours ago. He was making sense and relieved you were safe. However, he wasn’t able to speak for long due to the corrosive nature of the cyanide. It damaged parts of his throat and gastro-intestinal system. They took him to the lab to see what they could do. C’s been notified. He’s got cyanide poisoning specialists working with IT to help the staff here.”

I lifted my head guardedly. “That’s what this is all about? Nothing else? Nothing worse?”

He shook his head, but it started a fraction of a second too late.

There was something
. And suddenly I knew. The very same medical reference page that had sprung to mind in the ambulance filled my mental screen with a different page.

Cyanide Poisoning: Recovery and Possible Side Effects

‘…may include corrosion of gastro-intestinal tract, burning in mouth and esophagus, injury to oxygen carrying organs, and possible leber optic atrophy…

The room spun.

“He’s blind, isn’t he?”

Alasdair didn’t move.

I forced myself to speak. To recite what I hoped to be true. “It’s a temporary side effect, in some cases, of cyanide poisoning.”

“That’s not what his doctor thinks.”

Anger was all I had left. “We’re in a hole-in-the-wall hospital at the tip of Italy. Just what caliber of doctors and specialists do you think make it this far?”

Which was when the object of my tirade walked into the room.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Dottoressa Hermanas. We are doing our best to treat Signor De Torres in accordance with the London specialist.”

I glared at her mostly because I couldn’t glare at myself. “I apologize if I’ve offended you, but being a physician myself, I’m well aware that new treatments often fail to make their way to less urban areas.”

She smiled glacially. “We do try to keep ourselves up to date. However –” Her hands turned palm up. “As we rarely see cyanide poisoning, I am in agreement regarding Signor De Torres’s transfer to a larger hospital. Where – how did you put it –there is a more qualified staff.”

My skin prickled with a hot blush. At least she had the decency to admit when she was in over her head. I wasn’t always that savvy. “It’s been a rather taxing two days.”

“Your feelings are understandable given your emotional state.”

Touché. No doctor is immune to the insult of being called emotional, so I let it slide, figuring we were even.

“I’ve made arrangements for De Torres to be transported via med flight to Rome. They have dealt with this kind of …”

“He’ll be transported to our facility in London,” Alasdair said, his statement incontrovertible as sunshine.

“Whatever you wish. Just let the head nurse know, and she’ll have his paperwork ready for your departure.”

The helicopter landed on the helipad thirty minutes later; and I left our room – Brad’s belongings and paperwork in my hands – sick with apprehension.

The pavement was radiating heat from the morning sunlight, leaving a cold sweat clinging to the edges of my clenched frame. A doorway on the far side of the main entrance opened, and I watched as two orderlies wheeled Brad’s gurney out. He was sitting up: hands resting on the sides of his blanket-covered body, eyes bandaged with a swath of white gauze.

Alasdair ambled over. “Nice shades.”

“Too right. I can’t see your ugly face.” He paused then and turned directly toward me. “Feeling shy, Alexandra?”

Shouldering my terror and my tears, I crossed the tarmac. “I’m just trying to figure out how you managed this latest medical mess. It’s getting to be a bad habit.” I leaned down and planted a kiss on his lips, conscious of the tears I was spilling across his face.