Hot Ice (34 page)

He felt a clench of fear in his gut. The mission was always more important than the players. This one even more so. But, oh God—he did
not
want Taylor within a thousand miles of Morales and his madness.

If he hadn't been positive,
without a doubt
, abso-bloody-fucking-lutely—
positive
, that they couldn't make it all the way through Morales's seven levels without her extraordinary skills, she'd be on that plane to Paradise Island right now.

No ands, ifs, or buts.

God, he didn't want her with them.

Their job once they reached the mine would be phenomenally dangerous, even before they managed to get to the lower level and Morales's
pike de resistance
: the missile.

As of yet, they had no idea whether they'd find the bloody thing loaded with a nuke, or some sort of toxic biochemical. Hard target or soft target? They had no freaking idea! Jesus.

He knew he had to be wholly focused every second of every minute of every hour, until the job was done. He raked his fingers through his hair, then brought his hand down and held it out level. Jesus. His hands were shaking.

Chapter Thirty-five

Blikiesfontein

The only good thing about fellatio was that it gave a woman ultimate power over a man. When a man had his dick in a woman's mouth, he was defenseless. But in some instances, Lisa Maki thought, resting her palms on the table behind her, that control had to be seasoned with necessity. A man with his head buried between your legs was almost as defenseless.

She had Morales's man exactly where she wanted him. She let him do his thing while she stared out of the dusty window. Waiting.

She wasn't good at waiting.

The Black Rose had given her a second chance. A nod to her sterling reputation. But a second chance was all she'd get. How Black Rose had so much inside information, Lisa had no idea. Maybe when she completed this mission, the Black Rose would take her into her confidence. And maybe not.

Lisa squeezed her thighs closed, trapping the man's head close and holding him there. He made a muffled protest and used his palms to try to pry her knees apart so he could draw a breath. It didn't work.

"I repeat. When will your boss be here in Blikiesfontein?" she asked, checking her manicure, bored out of her mind.

He made another muffled protest, tried to lift his head, or at least get up off his knees. She contracted her strong thigh muscles even harder. He subsided. Like a monkey with its hand in the jar, the idiot wouldn't just close his mouth and release his prize to free himself. Jesus, men were like children.

"Let's try something else," she told him, giving him a moment to lift his mouth off his target to gasp for air as she pulled her tote bag closer and started looking for an emery board.

Like a starving man at a banquet, he forgot the momentary danger and went back down for more. Paradise was right under his greedy mouth, and he was too busy satisfying his greed to concentrate fully.

"Members of the Black Rose," she told him in a sultry voice, as she filed the rough edge off her thumbnail, "have killed your five friends." They had, of course, killed considerably more than Morales's five incompetents. There'd been a dozen people in the small burg who hadn't wanted to give up their chicken-scrabble homes to her or her people.

Honest to God. Sometimes it was so much easier to kill than to argue endlessly. No challenge, of course. No creativity needed. It'd been like shooting fish in a bowl.

She inspected the rest of her nails then, satisfied, tossed the file back in her bag and glanced down at the dark head bobbing between her thighs. "José, I'm sure, is en route from London. When should I expect the pleasure of his company?"

Her people,
new
people, were in place. A small select team. The Black Rose had sent her twenty-three men and women for this all-important job. It made her a little nervous that none of them had ever worked together before arriving in South Africa yesterday. It made her nervous not knowing the strength and weaknesses of her group.

Unlike Morales, who enjoyed wielding his sick power with might,
she
used her smarts to make her point.

Black Rose would be
the
most powerful, the most respected, the most feared terrorist group in the world. And she, Lisa Maki, would be right there near the top.

Couldn't be easier. It was like fucking taking candy from a baby. She stared out of the window. Where the fuck were they anyway? She'd been here for hours already, and she was bored, bored, bored.

No point getting any closer until T-FLAC brought the girl and she'd done her thing. Now
that
thought gave her heart an excited kick start. She crossed her booted ankles across his back, digging in the sharp, black, five-inch heels. "One more chance, dickhead. When will José be here?" She knew damn well José would want to park his zealotous butt in this little no-nothing dust bunny of a town as he waited for
someone else
to get him in to his treasure.

Soon to be the Black Rose's treasure.

What a fucking
moron
, to actually allow this to happen in the first place! The time for
Mano del Dios
time was over. Morales was too crazy, being afraid of God's wrath, to be fully effective.
She
had no such problem.

God didn't bother her and she didn't bother Him. A good arrangement, all in all.

She almost laughed. Except this was no longer amusing, just annoying and time-consuming.

Using her muscles like a vise, she started squeezing, effectively clamping his head and holding him inches away from what he craved. His hot, struggling breath rushed at her damp heat. "Last chance. When's he coming?"

"Fucking hell, honey, gimme a minute to come first, 'kay?"

"One." She tightened her ankles. Oops, her heel tore through the cloth of his shirt leaving a bloody gash down his back. He bucked at the pain. "Two—"

"Okay, okay, fuck.
Okay
! He'll be here first thing tomorrow. Please, baby, let me—"

She tightened her knees, gripping harder, giving an expert twist, up and around from her powerful leg muscles. She loved the sound of a breaking neck. Almost like a chicken bone—but better.

Chapter Thirty-six

Taylor had never imagined spring in Africa.

If anything, she'd pictured a blazing sun above parched, seared-brown vegetation. Or maybe green, junglelike foliage teeming with creepy crawlies and wild animals. Neither image fit with the reality she saw stretched on either side of the two-lane road they traveled several hours north of the cosmopolitan city of Johannesburg.

Impressed in spite of herself, she'd observed the military precision of Hunt's team as they mobilized for the trip. They were met at a private airport and driven to an industrial park on the outskirts of the city, where a dozen more members of the T-FLAC team waited with five fully equipped all-terrain vehicles. Within fifteen minutes the jeeps were loaded, everyone had their last-minute instructions from Hunt, and they were off.

Now, several hours into the journey, the late afternoon sun beat down on their Land Rover and they hadn't seen a house or a human for miles. She sat in the back with Hunt, who stayed in contact with the others through a lip mic.

The driver—Piet Coetzee—was as tough-looking as a piece of jerky, and quite friendly. Of course, to these spy types she'd been meeting, quite friendly was a relative term, she thought with an inward smile. He'd actually greeted her and almost smiled when they were introduced. Coetzee was probably in his late forties, but with his tanned-leather skin, and with more salt than pepper in his military-short hair, he looked about sixty.

Daan Viljoen, sitting up front in the passenger seat, was, Taylor was discovering, the usual manly man T-FLAC operative. Monosyllabic and focused. Short and wiry, with reddish-brown hair. Both men wore khaki… everything. Pants, shirts, hats. Very
Out of Africa
-ish.

Other than their own convoy, there wasn't another car in sight. On either side of the road, as far as the eye could see, spring-green grass gently waved in the breeze. It was dotted with thornbushes and the occasional gnarled and ancient-looking baobab tree. "Will we see any animals?" Taylor asked as they zoomed along the road.