Femme Fatale (21 page)

I’ll bet,
Kylee thought, looking at the expanse of muscled leg and thigh that were revealed. Not to mention the sculpted chest and shoulders. Then she saw that he had caught her looking. She quickly turned her attention to the simmering saucepan and realized to her chagrin that the saucepan wasn’t the only thing simmering.

“Maybe you could find your way clear to stirring the pasta while you’re there,” Mick suggested.

Kylee stirred, feeling the heat on her face and knowing it wasn’t all from the stove. She had to resist looking over her shoulder.

“Unlike you,” Mick said as he retreated down the hallway, “I don’t fancy going skulking around Scherba’s castle tonight after a hearty TV dinner, sheila. I want more substantial sustenance.” He paused. “If that meets your approval, of course. You can always whip up one of those little freeze-dried concoctions for yourself.”

“Fine.” Kylee tasted the sauce from the ladle, surprised at how good it tasted.

“I’m a good cook,” he called from the back room.

Remembering the way he had nearly captured her and the way he had stood up to Scherba’s goons, Kylee couldn’t help but be even more impressed. Then, wanting to keep her mind from thinking about him getting dressed in the next room, about the towel dropping from his waist, she crossed to the refrigerator and peered inside.

Then she knew he wasn’t as perfect as she’d imagined. The cinnamon rolls she’d saved from earlier in the day were gone.

The pipes in the safe house worked better than the ones in the hotel where Kylee had been staying earlier. She stood in the hot spray cascading over her and thought about her situation.

Getting Scherba’s notebook concerned her greatly. So did figuring out what she was going to do about talking to her mom about the spy career.
I only did it the one time
didn’t sound like a good defense.

Kylee sighed and blew water out of her face. She’d reveled in the shower, but part of her mind had been on
the fact that Mick Stone was on the other side of the door. She’d locked it, but she felt certain he could get through the lock in a heartbeat if he wanted to.

The door remained locked.

And Kylee had no clue what she’d do if he did enter the bathroom. Against her better judgment, she’d built fantasies about what would happen if Mick came through that door. Hot and delicious fantasies that were alien to her. No man had ever had that effect on her. She resented the fact that this one did now.

Giving up on relaxing, figuring that Mick would get suspicious if she continued to stay in the shower, Kylee turned off the water, got out and toweled off. She dressed in low-cut hip-hugger jeans and a bright turquoise turtleneck pullover, which she felt certain emphasized her figure.

She examined the look in the mirror.
You’re not going to be able to ignore me now, Mick Stone.

Taking a deep breath, Kylee stepped out into the apartment.

Everything was too quiet.

“Mick?” she called.

No answer.

“Mick?”

A quick search of the apartment let her know that he wasn’t there. She found the note on the table.

Be back in a short while. Got something needs taking care of. Leave the dishes. I’ll do them when I get back. Mick.

Kylee cursed and wadded the note up. She was stupid for having trusted him. Even if he didn’t run straight to Creepstof and betray her—which she truly didn’t think he would—there was every possibility that he was going to
screw up whatever chance she had of completing the mission and figuring out whatever Kapoch Egorov was up to.

And why hadn’t Barbara called her to alert her that he was on the move?

Retreating to the bathroom, she discovered that the sat-phone she’d taken in with her was turned off. Mick
had
been in the room, and he’d switched off the phone while she wasn’t looking.

Or while you were indulging in one of those little fantasies of yours,
Kylee chided, feeling mortified.

She pushed the emotion aside for the moment, knowing there was one person she could call who would know where Mick was. Smart and clever as he was, he still didn’t know about the radioactive dust that had stained his skin. Even repeated showers wouldn’t remove the dust, according to Barbara. It was time to find out how true that was.

M
ick Stone knew something was wrong even before the wide-eyed cat at the end of the narrow alley bounded from behind an overflowing trash can. He wore a Kevlar vest under the midnight-blue turtleneck Kylee had purchased for him, as well as a thigh-length leather coat, and he carried a .45 semiautomatic pistol. Both the body armor and the pistol had come from the weapons stores kept in the safe house where he’d left Kylee Swain.

He’d switched off her sat-phone, and had almost gotten caught while he’d thought of the lithe, rounded body on the other side of the bathroom door. It had taken all of his willpower not to step on into the room and go to her. The attraction he felt for her was so strong that he felt certain it had to be mutual.

But he was also equally convinced that the attraction wouldn’t be lasting. That would be the curse of finding someone like Kylee, someone who flipped every switch in every nerve that he had. Finding someone like that had
to mean that he was cursed with bad luck and that she wouldn’t care for him. He’d seen other guys go through that and he was determined it wouldn’t happen to him.

And that was a problem only if he lived that long.

The gunmen stepped from the shadows.

Two men on the right and one on the left were at ground level. A fourth slid into view on the second-story fire escape landing on the left. All of the men regarded him with flat-eyed gazes. They were also Radu Galca’s men, trained murderers and worse. Two of them were men who had helped beat him at Krystof Scherba’s orders.

Mick cursed and dodged back as he pulled the .45 from the paddle holster at his back. Turning sideways to present a smaller target, he pointed the pistol and fired two shots, aiming for the center of the nearest man thirty feet away.

The bullets caught the man in the chest and drove him backward into the man behind him. Gunfire raked the alley floor and the building walls around Mick. One of the bullets tore through the side of the jacket. His body protested the quick movements after the beating he’d taken earlier. Even though he kept himself in shape in his line of work, there was no quick bouncing back from the physical damage he had taken earlier.

The man on the second-floor fire escape landing opened fire with an assault rifle. A line of bullets tore across the building just in front of Mick, driving him back. He turned and ran, staying low.

A door opened along the wall in front of him. Industrial metal music thumped out into the alley. A young woman started to step out into the alley, obviously too deafened from the music to hear the gunfire.

Mick caught the young woman in the crook of his arm, getting a flash of the club inside filled with dancers and a long bar near the door. “Get back inside!” Mick roared,
shoving the young woman back into the club. She and two young men sprawled to the floor in shocked surprise.

Before Mick had a chance to say anything, another round of bullets hammered the door. He ducked behind the open door, feeling it shiver against his hand. Dents formed along the back of the door, mute testimony that the bullets couldn’t penetrate the thick steel.

Shifting hands with the .45, Mick peered around the side and saw the man he’d shot getting back to his feet.
Wearing a vest,
Mick realized. He brought his pistol up and aimed at the man nearest him, not letting the .45s barrel slide past the door’s edge. He mapped the targets in his mind, deciding on a course of action in a split second.

He squeezed the trigger, placing the first round into the approaching gunman’s face, knocking him down in a spray of blood. Riding the natural recoil of the .45, Mick trained his sights on the second-story man’s head in line with the assault rifle.

Mick fired two rounds and saw the man stagger back from the second-floor landing, toppling over the railing and starting the fall to the alley floor. Screams sounded behind him in the club. Knowing that many of the clubs in the area had armed security against holdup men, Mick cursed and stepped away from the door, letting it close behind him.

He ran for the other end of the alley, dumping the empty magazine and shoving a fresh one home. Shots rang out behind him, letting him know the two men who had survived the return fire hadn’t given up the chase.

Ten feet from the alley’s mouth, Mick saw the headlights of a vehicle parked in the opposing alley across the streets suddenly flare to life. Rubber shrilled and the car fishtailed from the alley, streaking straight for him.

Mick stopped, knowing he would never make it clear of the alley before the heavy Trabant sedan reached him. He raised the pistol and took aim at the windshield over the driver’s side. Light flashed from the cracks and fissure that took form as the bullets struck home.

The car was relentless, bearing down on him.

Mick kept firing. He didn’t have enough time to reach the door behind him now, and the alley didn’t offer any cover.

Then another vehicle, this one zooming in from the right, slammed into the Trabant sedan. Metal screamed as the second car hammered the first into the side of the building. Cracked brick and mortar rained from the wall, but the sound was lost in the noise of the crash.

“Mick!” Kylee Swain sat in the driver’s seat of the second car. Her blond hair hung in disarray over her beautiful face.

The man in the rear passenger seat of the Trabant got out. He snarled curses and lifted the assault rifle in his arms, aiming at Kylee.

Mick brought the .45 up. He didn’t know if he had one or two rounds left, but he knew only a heartbeat remained of Kylee’s life if he didn’t act quickly. He let out half a breath as he took aim, then squeezed the trigger.

The bullet hit the gunman squarely in the chest, knocking him down. Gunfire sprayed into the sky.

Running now, Mick changed magazines, then vaulted the Trabant’s hood and raced to the back of the sedan. The metal gave way under his steps. The gunman was trying to get up when Mick landed on him with both feet, driving him back to the ground. Mick cracked the man across the jaw with his pistol, knocking him out, then scooped up the AK-47 assault rifle.

No one in the car moved.

Shifting his sights to the two men in the alley, Mick sent them on their way with a couple of well-placed shots.

“Mick!”

He turned his attention to Kylee, feeling relieved and angry all at the same time to see that she was out of the car. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Her jaw set stubbornly. “You left.”

Across the street, a crowd started to gather.

“You’re damn right I left,” Mick growled. “I had things to do.”

“What things?” Kylee lithely leaped onto the wrecked car’s hood and walked over to join him at the back of the smashed Trabant.

“I wanted to make sure my partner got out of the line of fire. Scherba didn’t say anything about him when I got back to the boat.”

“Your partner?” Kylee looked confused.

“Yes.” Mick’s patience with her was wearing thin, but he knew it wasn’t her fault. It was his. He shouldn’t have gone off after her. He should have told Josef there might be trouble. He should have never left his friend. God, the guilt that ate at him was terrible.

Kylee glanced at the gawkers. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“In a minute.” Mick turned back to the man he’d knocked out. He shouldered the assault rifle, then fisted the man’s shirt and lifted the man from the alley. He slapped the man’s face with his open hand till he groaned and came awake.

“Mick, you can’t just—”

“Back off, sheila. This is my business, not yours.” Mick knew that had to have offended her, but at the moment he didn’t care.

The man gazed up at him fearfully, blood flowing freely from the corner of his mouth.

“Josef Szekeres,” Mick grated. “Where is he?”

The man replied, mumbling in Czech.

“Josef Szekeres,” Mick repeated, shaking the man fiercely.

The man pointed to the back of the Trabant.

Aching with fear, Mick pushed the man back against the pavement and stepped to the Trabant’s rear. The wreck had sprung the lock, but lifting the trunk was still hard work.

When Mick had the trunk open, he stared at the body of his old friend. A crimson line showed where his throat had been cut.

A choked cry tore free of Mick’s throat.

“Mick,” Kylee called gently at his side. She pulled on his arm. “Mick.”

He looked at her, not quite comprehending. “He’s dead.”

“I know,” she said softly. “I’m sorry. But we’ve got to get going.”

Sirens shrilled in the distance.

“It’s not safe for us here,” Kylee said. “We have to get back to the safe house,
now.
”

Mick nodded. She was thinking more clearly than he was. He got in the passenger side of the car and stared at the crumpled body of his friend as long as he could, until Kylee wrenched her car free of the wrecked Trabant and sped away.

Krystof Scherba was going to pay, Mick knew, and the man was going to pay in blood.

Kylee found Mick standing in the living room of the safe house, staring out at the catamaran tied up on the
Vltava River. Knowing that the object of his agony and hatred was so near and yet so far away filled Kylee with pain.

“I just got off the phone with my mission controller,” Kylee said.

Mick nodded but didn’t look at her.

“She’s talking to some people in the State Department,” Kylee said. “They’re going to make sure the…the body gets shipped back to his wife. International favors, I guess.”

“Always pays to know somebody who knows somebody,” Mick stated flatly.

Kylee crossed the room and sat on the floor with her back to the wall near the window Mick stared through. She sat with her knees against her chest, her arms around her legs.

He acted as though she wasn’t there.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Josef was a good man,” Mick said hoarsely. “He was…was a good father.” He paused. “And he was the best friend I ever had. He stuck by me even after the CIA decided to pass on my services after the Hong Kong incident.”

“What happened?”

“You mean that wasn’t in my file?”

“No.”

Mick waited a moment. “The CIA hired me to look after a special witness they had in New Jersey. Guy was going to testify against Chinese Triads that went all the way back to mainland China. If they were successful, a deal was going to be cut that would give them better Intel on Triad activities Stateside or something. I don’t know.”

Kylee understood. She didn’t always know the overall
ramifications of her own assignments. Even the Egorov mission was something of a mystery.

“Anyway, I hired Josef in,” Mick continued. “Took him away from his family again. His wife always hated me for that.” He was silent for a moment. “We were watching the family when a Triad hit team tried to kill them. The assassins nearly killed their eight-year-old son.”

Kylee listened intently, feeling even more guilt.

“The CIA wouldn’t do anything about it,” Mick said. “The boy was in the hospital. They didn’t know if he was going to live or die. I went to Hong Kong, went after the Triad leader that had sent the hit team as a message. And I sent a message of my own. I killed him, and I killed eight of his people.”

“And that’s why the CIA put you on the black list?”

“Yeah. Turns out, the only guy their witness could testify against was the man I killed.” Mick cleared his throat. “Josef stood by me, but it didn’t do any good. We both had good records with the CIA. In the end, they pushed me out. Josef followed because he chose to. We’ve been putting together jobs we normally wouldn’t have touched. Mainly just to keep his family financially afloat.”

“And that’s why you were working for Scherba?”

“Yeah. Until I got him killed.”

“You didn’t get him killed,” Kylee said. “That was my fault.”

He looked at her then. “Not your fault, Kylee.”

“You were trying to protect me.”

“Maybe. But my duty was to my principal, even though I thought he was the worst kind of slime. But even more than that, my duty was to my partner.” His voice was ghost-thin, a shadow of anything she’d heard from him.

Feeling his pain so much, Kylee got up from the floor and walked over to him. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close.

He went stiff at first, then tried to push away from her. Kylee started to step back, then his arms swept around her with crushing intensity. She held on to him, and their mutual pain and guilt at surviving, the knowledge that they were going to risk their lives again in only a matter of hours, pulled them together.

Mick reached for her, cupping the back of her head in his big broad hands. She felt the calluses along his palms against her jaw, then she looked up at him and her breath caught in her throat as he leaned down to kiss her. That kiss transformed all those mixed feelings she’d been having into something totally different, into something so strong she couldn’t ignore the pull.

She kissed him back, wrapping her arms around his neck and molding her body to his. She felt his hard chest against her breasts, felt her own reaction and desire building by the heartbeat.

His hands slid down her neck, across her shoulders and down her back. He cupped her bottom and pulled her to him, letting her feel the strength of his desire. Kylee pressed against him, feeling her body come alive with a rhythm of its own.

Mick broke the kiss and gathered her up in his arms. In three long strides, he carried her to the couch and gently placed her there.

Passion consumed Kylee’s mind, pushing away any doubts she might have had. Her hands fumbled with her clothing and his, just as his did, both of them trying to undress each other as well as themselves. They never did quite get all of their clothing removed, but they got enough of it out of the way.

Kylee lay on her back, looking up at him as he drew back. He breathed in, rasping loudly. There didn’t seem to be enough air in the room for both of them. Kylee knew she was breathing in gasps as well.

His shirt still on, but the buttons ripped away while her own turtleneck was pushed up so her naked breasts pressed against his chest, he looked down at her. “Are you sure?” he asked. His hard length lay against her tender flesh, so tantalizingly close that the sensation and the pulses of his own desire that shook him were nearly driving her crazy.