Ice Cold (26 page)

A shiver skittered through her as if a changer virus had infected her. Somehow, without her being aware of it, he’d changed her DNS settings, reconfiguring her previously preconceived notions about intimacy, leaving her open and dangerously vulnerable to further attack.

Where was her firewall when she needed it? “Almost ready.” She started pulling at the lining inside her tote, shoving aside assorted items to pull it free. “Just one more thing.” She removed the thick, curved piece of stiff, beige foam rubber, smoothing it out with her palm on the counter.

She was an intelligent woman, as scary smart as some people insisted. She knew malware when she encountered it, knew how to diagnose and fix the problem. But interpersonal viruses were a lot more complex and troubling than computer viruses. She had just cause for avoiding relationships—her lips twitched—like the plague.

When a computer told her something, there was no subtext. Filled with minefields, relationships had codes she had no idea how to interpret. She didn’t like being out of her depth. And God, Navarro had her completely off-kilter with his mobile mouth and clever fingers.

“That smile would make a wise man step back.”

She slanted him a glance and cursed her foolish heart for skipping a beat at his cocky smile.

“I stand in awe at whatever you plan on doing with that thing.” Rafael crowded behind her to look at the prosthetic with interest. “What
are
you doing with—”

“Don’t look so happy, Navarro. No time for a quickie, remember?” The sound of the engines changed, and they heard the landing gear coming down. They needed to get to their seats.

Lifting her sweater in both hands, she exposed the white-gold triangle between her legs. The heat index in the small bathroom rose by several scorching degrees as Navarro looked his fill. “God, you have gorgeous legs.”

His eyes reminded her of how she’d wrapped those legs around his waist, his shoulders, his head . . . She swallowed dryly as she fitted the faux belly around her middle and reached back to tie the strings to hold it in place. “Why don’t you go buckle up while I finish here?” Tugging her sweater down, she adjusted it around her newly six-months-pregnant tummy.

The skin across his cheeks tightened, and his eyes glittered black and focused as he stared at her middle. “Pregnant?” His gaze rose slowly to her face. “Jesus, Winston, you know how to bring a man to his knees. This is the sexiest thing I’ve seen since—Hell,
ever
.”

“You’re turned on by a pregnant woman?” she demanded incredulously, stuffing her makeup bag back into her tote, as she observed him in the mirror.

“Never before. But suddenly—Yeah.” She tamped down the odd flutter in her chest.

“You’re crazy. Move. We need to get back to our seats.”

They’d barely strapped in, when Navarro’s comm rang. Saved by the bell. Honey observed the fuzzy lights of Prague as they circled the city before landing.

“About to land at Ruzyne,” Navarro said in response to a question, then mouthed, “Nielson,” before saying out loud, “Not a surprise.” He listened for several minutes. “Want us to refuel and divert? Okay. Keep us apprised of further developments.” He stuck his comm into his breast pocket.

Honey absently brushed a strand of chin-length black hair from her cheek. “Where?”

“Algiers. Banque Al Djazair was bombed several hours ago. It was after closing. Human collateral damage minimal. Structural damage of surrounding buildings on a par with the others.”

“There
is
still significant violence there,” Honey pointed out, even though, like Navarro, she was damn sure it was their serial bomber. “The shift on the part of several extremist groups to join under the title of al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb has made AQIM the main perpetrator of terrorist violence there, particularly in urban and suburban Algeria. We know
they’ve
created a new and more regional threat extending well into the sub-Saharan part of the continent. Could be them . . .”

She met his eyes. It wasn’t. “Nielson doesn’t want us on the ground in Algiers?”

He shook his head. “Orders are to bring Kobevko in.”

The wheels touched down with a sustained screech. “So that’s what we’ll do.” Honey let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Business as usual she could handle.

“Let’s go bag ourselves a bad guy, Navarro.”

TWENTY

Prague

Czech Republic

 K 
obevko is laying low,” Operative Marika Weber informed them as she pulled out of the private terminal at Ruzyne in a zippy red sports car. A bit conspicuous for a spy, Rafael thought, feeling mellow. Weber was a slender woman with short, dark, curly hair, and a no-nonsense attitude despite her questionable choice of vehicles.

Honey took the front, while he stretched out at an angle in the small backseat to give himself legroom. It was a tight fit. Late-night traffic was sparse, and the distant lights of the city looked milky through a film of snow flurries. Not much stuck; the roads were wet but clear. Rafael suddenly wished for white sand beaches, hot sun, and Winston in a bikini. Or nothing at all.

He liked sex as much as the next man, maybe more. But never in his entire career had he fantasized about or been distracted by a woman while on a mission. This was unprecedented. He’d do well to remember that their adversaries weren’t similarly preoccupied.

“The picture I sent you on your comms shows what Kobevko looks like now.” Weber merged onto the Pražský okruh onramp heading south.

Rafael took out his comm and opened the message. T-FLAC had remarkably few images of the bomber. Three images spanning two decades. Rafael had never met the man face-to-face, but he knew his work well. His bomb-making skills were probably the best in the world. Methodical, specific. And sophisticated.

Bomb-makers were creatures of habit. They used tried and tested techniques that identified their work almost like a fingerprint or an autograph, and they usually didn’t veer from their modus operandi by more than incremental refinements. Kobevko had been dormant for almost five years, but his signature was unmistakable.

The bomb-maker had changed his appearance, Rafael saw. Bleached and slicked-back hair made him appear, in the picture at least, to be almost bald. He used to have a thick head of black hair. One of his vanities, as Rafael recalled from the thick dossier T-FLAC had on the man. His heavy brows had been manicured and thinned, making his eyes appear more deeply set. The biggest change was a dramatic loss of weight. He appeared skeletal.

Honey’s comm
pinged
. Message, not a call. “Update?” he asked, seeing the light of the screen reflected on her features.

“Yeah.” She frowned. “I’ll fill you in later. Weber?”

“He’s using the alias Vasily Dikau,” the operative informed them. “Goes to the casino every night at oh one hundred, leaves at oh two hundred; you can set your clock by him. Four ‘friends,’ packing, accompany him. He uses valet parking. Crowds of bystanders and too hard to snatch him in plain view. My rec is we follow his vehicle to an underpass one point two miles east of the hotel and take him where indicated on the map I sent you.”

“You have the man power?”

“I do. All info on your comms. We good with that plan? I’ll fill in the rest of the teams. I’ve booked you a room at the hotel under the name Laurie and Kirk Peterson, Seattle.”

She handed them their new passports, paperwork, and two old-fashioned keys, as she drove. She slanted Honey’s belly a wry glance. “Good thing I married you two.”

Two Americans showing up solo would attract more notice than a married couple would. It only made sense. Rafael reined in his vision of getting Honey naked again and fast. They were here to work. Not cavort about a hotel room having wild monkey sex.

The hotel was most likely bugged, his libido interjected. It could be part of their cover.

“Serendipitous,” Honey responded mildly. Navarro chuckled.

The lights of oncoming vehicles illuminated Honey’s slight frown. Rafael hid a smile. Man, she didn’t want to share a room, he already knew that much about her. She would be trying to distance herself physically as well as emotionally. Well, too damn bad and much too late. He’d already touched her everywhere, inside and out. He knew her body almost as well as he knew his own. Yet, he was deliciously aware how much more there was to discover. All they needed was another opportunity.

Despite a spectacular bout of sweaty sex and a hasty shower, she looked unruffled and business as usual. The Ice Princess was back in place and good to go. No one seeing or hearing her now would know just an hour ago she’d fallen apart in his arms, sobbing his name.

“You’re checked in, luggage in your room. I took the liberty of adding formal wear to what you requested,” she told Honey. “You’ll need it for the casino. There’s a detailed map and schematic of the hotel and casino, extra clips, trackers, headsets, and everything else you requested. If you need anything, text me. My team is already in position. We have a holding room ready for him on the third floor near a service elevator.”

“Let’s make damned sure the net is hole-free and tightens quickly, so this time he won’t wiggle through,” he told her, scrolling through the images on his comm. Getting a feel for the hotel, the casino. Familiarizing himself with the blueprint, while he had time to study it before they arrived.

“Count on it. I sent you IDs of my team. Best operatives I know. Erik Bäcker sent us Brandon Batchelor and Pam Olensky from Dresden. They both know his MO inside out, and like yourself, Navarro, they haven’t met him. The others are mine, and none of us has come face-to-face either. The only person he could possibly make is Winston, and frankly, seeing you this way, I doubt your own mother would recognize you.”

From what Rafe had learned, Honey’s mother probably would have passed her in the street even
un
disguised. “I’ve worked with all of them. You?” he asked Honey as they both scrolled through the images and data for each operative while Weber headed to the hotel/casino in New Town.

“I haven’t worked with any of them,” Honey answered, her thumbs flying over her small screen as she flipped through the profiles. “But I trust they’re a good team. They’d better be. We can’t afford to let Kobevko slip by us this time. Be prepared to do whatever it takes.”

Navarro shot Honey’s profile a look; she sounded as if she’d just as soon dump Kobevko in the Vltava River and call it a night. “Remember, ladies,” he cautioned. “We want him alive.”

Honey turned to look at him. “In any particular condition?”

Since they didn’t have to check in, they strolled through the lobby. Rafael threaded his fingers through hers and headed for the elevator. It might look as though he was being an attentive husband to his pregnant young wife, but as they walked, they both surreptitiously scanned the lobby. He’d memorized the hotel schematics given to them by Weber, but he looked for physical exits and hiding places. Large potted palms could effectively hide someone lurking, high-back sofas hid all but the crowns of a couple’s heads. Tables, chairs, floral arrangements, and plants made the large space look intimate. Afforded enemy operatives places to skulk.

A bellman wheeled a brass cart piled high with mismatched luggage followed by a gaggle of young women, clearly on vacation. Swedish, he thought from their accents.

Honey leaned into him and whispered, seemingly lovingly. “Newspaper, five o’clock.”

Rafael tucked a strand of short black hair behind her ear. Too studied to be natural, the bellman leaning nonchalantly against a pillar near the registration desk warranted a second look. “Bellman at two.” Both men were surveilling the busy space. Professionals. Rafael doubted their presence had anything to do with them. Probably following a cheating husband or wife. Nevertheless, it always paid to be on their toes.

Honey stepped back, putting a little more space between their bodies, but she didn’t let go of his hand. “You know I don’t like PDA,
honey
.”

“We’re married,
Laurie,
darling.” He brought their clasped hands to his mouth, kissing her knuckles. “And you’re carrying our first child, this might be our last chance to have a romantic vacation before our little Lincoln arrives.”