Femme Fatale (19 page)

“No,” Scherba said. “That won’t be necessary. I have you, Stone, and I’d rather see if I can smoke your partner or partners out of the woodwork.”

A man rose behind Mick. His instincts screamed a warning at him even as the catamaran rolled on a wave
and revealed the man’s short shadow on the deck in front of him. He turned to run, but something bit into the back of his neck. Putting a hand up, he felt the feathered dart there.

Tranquilizer,
Mick realized as the drug whirled through his head and distanced the world from him. He tried to reach the boat’s railing and dive over, but Radu was there like a stone wall. The big man lifted his fist and swung toward Mick’s face. With the drug in his system, Mick couldn’t escape the blow.

Darkness shut him down immediately.

H
alf an hour after ditching the tails she’d picked up after the conversation with Mick Stone, Kylee returned to her safe house. Losing the tails hadn’t been hard, and hadn’t even worked off the frustration she felt after talking with Mick. She’d come to the conclusion that he was insufferable, and she looked forward to breaking into Scherba’s computer files under Mick Stone’s nose.

In over her head. Ha! Well, they’d see about that.

The safe house came equipped with a satellite phone, television, a notebook computer and a fully stocked kitchen. It was a small third-floor walk-up apartment that was larger on the inside than it looked. The walls were reinforced and could take a direct hit from a tank. The safe house also had three exit routes.

Kylee raided the refrigerator and found a tin of cinnamon rolls. Once the stove was heated, she popped the rolls in and the small apartment filled with the smell of baking bread and cinnamon. Maybe it wasn’t chocolate, but sugar
would take the edge off her frustration with her situation and with the man. She just hoped it would also remove all those memories of his kiss.

As the rolls baked, she paced the small living room and watched the television coverage of the attack at the film location. No one knew why the attack had taken place or who was behind it. Everyone was aware that one of the stunt crew was missing, and the picture that was circulated to the viewing audience was several years out of date. The film company didn’t have a good photo because Kylee wasn’t featured in the movie.

The Czech police didn’t identify the two men Mick Stone had killed, but the Stony Man intelligence teams had. Both men were part of Kapoch Egorov’s terrorist regime, and they were connected to the team that had confronted Bethany Riggs in Cape Town.

There was no doubt that Egorov had sent them to Prague. He obviously knew that Bethany had gotten something important from Lyeta Denisov before the woman had been killed.

Barbara had arranged to get a message to Kylee’s parents and to the film company that she was all right. Actual phone conversation would come later when the proper cutouts were made. Scherba and Egorov had people in their employ capable of putting a phone tap on her parents’ phones and tracing the call back within a minute. One phone call would have possibly put Kylee back into the crosshairs of Egorov’s henchmen.

When the rolls were ready, Kylee slathered them generously with white icing that was nearly pure sugar. The rolls were hot and soft and sticky, and she knew the sugar would slow her system down.

She ate half of the rolls and would have finished the
other half but Barbara called. Kylee knew it was the mission controller immediately: no one else had the number.

“We’ve got a problem,” Barbara said.

“Fine,” Kylee said. “And how are you doing now that you’ve been cooped up in a safe house, cut off from the outside world for almost two hours, not allowed to call home to let your mom know that you’re okay—knowing full well that she’s going to hold it against you and that you’re going to get interminable lectures about calling home after you’re shot at, which, by the way is going to be a new lecture because your mom never had a clue you were in the spy business, and—”

“What have you eaten?”

Kylee eyed a dollop of white icing on her thumb. “Nothing,” she answered, feeling a little guilty. She licked the icing from her thumb. She wasn’t so guilty that it would ruin her appetite.

“I thought you were supposed to go to the safe house and relax till I called,” Barbara said.

“This
is
relaxed.” Kylee eyed the remaining cinnamon rolls. And she could have relaxed, too. If Mick Stone hadn’t stayed on her mind so much. “I’ve got more relaxing to do. Unless you have something else in mind.”

“Scherba evidently doesn’t trust Mick Stone anymore. When Stone got back to the boat, Scherba confronted him, then had one of his men shoot Mick with a tranquilizer dart.”

The announcement slammed into Kylee’s gut with the force of a wrecking ball. Part of the reason she had been driven crazy during the past two hours had been Mick Stone. She’d kept thinking about the kiss and the way he had held her so tight in the alley, about the way his hard, muscled body had fit so comfortably next to hers last night.

“You saw them do that?” Kylee asked, knowing Barbara had, through the sat-recon, or the mission controller wouldn’t ever have said anything.

“Yes. After this morning, Scherba probably suspects Stone helped you get away last night.”

Kylee cursed and started pacing. “I did that on my own.”

“I know. We’re pretty sure Mick is still alive.”

Kylee vented a sigh of relief. She’d take one of Barbara’s guesses over most mission controllers’ facts any time. “Mick is still aboard the boat?”

“No. He’s in a panel truck headed south out of town. The audio receiver you put on him this morning was coated with radioactive dust that we can track for seven to ten days. Even if he’d showered, the dust would have stayed in his skin for that time.”

Kylee covered the cinnamon rolls and shoved them in the refrigerator. “I need transportation.”

“Going after Stone might not be a good idea.”

Taking a deep breath, Kylee said, “He saved my life today. Twice. He took a bullet for me.”

“He was wearing a vest.”

“And still could have gotten shot in the face. That’s not just something you walk away from.”

“No, it’s not.”

“If you want more of a reason,” Kylee said, “let’s consider this. Mick was hired as Creepstof’s chief of security. Want to bet that Mick knows how to get into Creepstof’s castle? Whatever information we’re looking for that wasn’t on Creepstof’s notebook computer, it’s at the castle.”

Leaning forward to present a low wind profile, Kylee dropped her knee to within an inch or two of the highway
surface to keep the BMW R1150 GS Enduro motorcycle laid over into the tight turn.

As it turned out, in addition to the safe house, Barbara Price also kept a garage hidden away that had over a dozen vehicles. The inventory had included Skodas, the most prevalent Czech-made vehicle, as well as Mercedes, BMWs, and Russian-made Trabant sedans.

When she’d seen the motorcycle, Kylee had opted immediately for the off-road muscle and lightning-fast maneuverability. The motorcycle would have come up short in a demolition derby, but she didn’t intend for the action to get that serious. Stunt work and spy craft were all about control.

The terrain outside Prague was harsh and bleak. Snow-capped mountains towered in the distance. The Vltava River gleamed, a silver ribbon that wove through the landscape as the highway drew closer, then drew farther away.

Kylee clung to the motorcycle, becoming a piece of the powerful machinery as it hurtled in pursuit of the dark green, thirty-year-old Moskvich 2140 pickup that the Stony Man satellite recon teams had tracked Mick Stone to. The motorcycle’s engine shrilled and growled as Kylee alternately backed off and twisted the throttle.

She wore riding leathers with a thermal liner to protect against the chill, gloves, motorcycle boots and a full-face helmet for the most protection possible. Deftly, just keeping the motorcycle under control, she closed the distance between herself and the target vehicle. She tried not to think about how injured Mick Stone might be. Scherba was the kind of guy who killed and crippled with no hesitation.

The Moskvich pickup was awkward and underpowered. In another life, the vehicle might have been a small family sedan, but the passenger compartment had been truncated
to one seat to make room for the cargo area. Two men sat up front and the rear section looked like a huge metal square that had been welded behind the driver’s compartment.

All Kylee could remember was the way Mick Stone had moved when the gunman came around the corner, how he had placed himself between her and the bullet that might have killed her. The men had been after her, not him. She knew that.

He had protected her.

Yet, he’d looked so deadly, so dangerous behind the .45 the night before aboard
Guilty Pleasures.
Even then, she knew, he wouldn’t have shot her without serious provocation. The pistol had been there to scare her, and it had.

She reached inside her jacket pocket and took out the tear gas grenade she’d chosen from the cache of weapons that had also been in the garage. She pulled the pin and held the grenade in her left hand, trapping the spoon in place so the device wouldn’t go off.

The Moskvich pickup pulled to the far right side of the highway and geared down for the long ascent up the steep climb. Other, faster cars, chose their moments and sped up around the pickup, not wanting to be held up.

Using the cargo cube to shield her from the driver’s sight, Kylee accelerated, moving the bike up on the pickup’s right.

Matching speed with the vehicle, Kylee released the spoon holding the tear gas grenade’s detonator in check. She started counting down from three. When she reached two, she tossed the grenade through the open window.

The grenade bounced against the windshield, then rebounded into the seat between the two men. For a single comical second, the two men stared at the grenade in disbelief as it rolled from the seat and dropped onto the floor
board. Then both of them scrambled for the grenade as the Moskvich swerved out of control.

Kylee tapped the motorcycle’s rear brake with her foot and zipped in neatly behind the Moskvich. Inside the pickup cab, the tear gas canister detonated with a
bamf!
loud enough to be heard over the motorcycle’s engine. Bilious white smoke filled the cab and spewed from the open windows.

Swerving erratically, the driver managed to keep the pickup more or less on the shoulder of the road and brought the vehicle to a shuddering halt. Horns blared as motorists passed.

Kylee geared down and followed the pickup as closely as a fighter jet stalking prey. She dropped her right boot and waited for the two men to make their moves.

Both doors opened at the same time.

Kylee twisted the throttle and the motorcycle lunged forward. The front wheel came up off the ground and slammed into the driver as he tried to hold off a coughing and crying fit long enough to get a shotgun from the pickup cab. The man flew backward and fell in an unconscious heap.

Dropping her left foot to the ground, Kylee brought the motorcycle around in a tight turn. The spinning rear wheel spewed rock and dirt, then caught as she put weight back onto the bike. She roared back at the second man, but he dodged behind the pickup door.

Not wanting to chance losing the motorcycle, and her only means of escape, Kylee laid the BMW down on its side. Coming up from a crouch, she slipped a twenty-two-inch wooden dowel from her right boot. The hardened wood slipped smoothly through her fingers.

The gunman cursed at her and aimed his pistol. Before he could squeeze the trigger, Kylee whipped the short
stick forward and rapped the man’s exposed knuckles. She moved smoothly into an attack kata.

Well-versed in kung fu with some training in a half-dozen other disciplines, Kylee loved the fatal flute form she’d learned from her Wah Lum
sifu,
the teacher she had studied with the longest. The flute was one of the oldest musical instruments as well as being one of the oldest weapons used by the Chinese.

She flipped the stick over in her hand, rolling it back into her palm so that she grasped the weapon at the midway point. Turning her right side to the gunman, she rammed the end of the stick into the man’s solar plexus, taking his breath away. He reached for her, but she remained in motion, stepping away again and whirling the baton around again.

The man’s fingers snapped like twigs. Before he could howl in pain, Kylee slid her grip to the end of the stick again, then slapped the weapon into the man’s temple. The man’s eyes glazed and became unfocused, and he fell forward, landing on his face without even trying to stop the fall.

Kylee reached for her helmet and pushed the face shield up and out of the way. Cool air swept into the helmet and she drew in deep drafts. Then she noticed the two-way radio mounted under the dash.

“Oz,” she called over the Stony Man earpiece.

“I’m here,” Barbara said.

“They were carrying a radio.” Kylee flipped the seat forward. Some of the tear gas still hung in the air despite the open windows and the wind, burning her eyes and throat and nose.

A red toolbox, two coats, a jack and a spare tire occupied the open space behind the seat. Beneath it all, she spotted the curved length of a crowbar.

“We’re sweeping the area,” Barbara responded. “We’ve tagged two possible chase vehicles.” She hesitated. “We didn’t catch them the first time around.”

Kylee grabbed the crowbar and headed to the back of the pickup.

“Chase vehicles mean this was a setup,” Barbara said. “I should have expected that. Scherba believed your rescue was involved with you. Scherba used a hostage situation to lure you out into the open.”

“They still have to close the show.” Kylee paused at the back of the pickup. “Where’s Mick?”
Please let him be alive.
She didn’t know what she would do if he was dead.

“On the other side of the door.”

“Is he up and around?”

“Yes.” The thermographic properties of the satellites saw through the metal box.

“Mick,” Kylee called. She heard movement and tried again.
“Mick!”

“What the hell are you doing here? Sheila, don’t you know a trap when you see one?”

He’s alive!
The realization spun through Kylee, but his harsh tone and accusation brought her up a little short. Criticizing a rescue wasn’t exactly the way things should go.

“They haven’t caught me yet,” Kylee reminded him. “And if I don’t hear something more along the lines of ‘thank you’ in the next minute or so, I’m going to leave you in that box.”

“Hurry,” Mick growled. “And thank you.”

Kylee rammed the crowbar behind the lock that secured the cargo door. Metal screeched as the locking mechanism ripped away. She opened the door and stared at the bloody and battered man who stood before her. Pain wrenched
through her heart at the sight of him, and guilt spewed broken glass that cut deeply.