Ice Cold (33 page)

Breathing erratic, Honey shivered uncontrollably.

Savage did not appear. And try as she might to listen beyond the two men conversing, she didn’t hear anyone else. Their voices echoed in the high empty reaches of the warehouse, but she was pretty sure there were only two of them.

She tried to focus, to concentrate. Warm blankets, hot coffee. The heat of Rafael’s hard body covering hers. She willed her muzzy brain to summon any warm memory she could muster to stave off the gnawing cold.

“I will send what we have. Kuroi Bara will tell us if it is sufficient for her purposes.” The man didn’t sound convinced, despite his reluctance to jab her full of more drugs.

Don’t do it.

“Cruising altitude has been achieved,” Kobevko said flatly. “She wants inclusion in the interrogation.”

Honey closed her eyes because keeping them open was too much of an effort, and she had to conserve what little energy she had. She didn’t feel movement or hear an engine . . . A moment ago, she’d thought she was in a large, steel structure. But maybe not . . .
Was
she on a plane? Where were they taking her?

She wondered—fleetingly—if Rafael would look for her then got a grip on foolish sentimentality. Of course, he wouldn’t. They’d been in Prague to bring in Kobevko. Navarro was a consummate professional, a few lapses notwithstanding. The last thing he’d worry about was his partner, who was also a professional. He knew she could take care of herself.

Unless he somehow realized that it was Kobevko who had her and the two paths intersected, she was on her own.

The tracker she’d planted on the Ukrainian was useless because she’d planned to track him with her comm. Which was somewhere close by, presumably, with her clothes.

“Turn on the feed. Let her instruct us how to proceed.”

A few moments of throbbing silence, then a familiar voice sprang to life as if she were right there in the vast warehouse. “How are you, Winston? Cold enough for you?”

The husky voice, with its English accent holding a hint of Liverpool, sent a deeper chill through her. Honey opened her eyes by sheer force of will. A camera pointed at her, the small red light a demonic eye watching her, but there was no sign of her nemesis.

“Cath—” She struggled to catch her breath, “—rine.”

Savage laughed. “Your lips are turning the same spooky color as your eyes, luv. Tell the boys what I want to know and you can tuck under and go to sleep.”

Honey pictured Catherine Seymour’s beautiful face. Her long, vibrant, red hair. Her cat-green eyes. “Go. To. Hell.” It felt like razors searing her lungs to push out the words.

Forget pain. Forget anger.

Where was she? How could she get away?

She wouldn’t tell Savage a damned thing.

Shoes scraped cement, and she felt the slight warmth as the unknown man came close to the table on which she lay. “Should I administer another dose?”

“No.” Savage’s voice, sharp and annoyed, came through the speakers in surround sound. “It’s taken too long already for her to be halfway coherent. No more drugs.”

A plus.

“W-why?” Honey wished she hadn’t spoken. The drugs must have weakened her self-control.

“Why are you lying there like honey on the half shell?” Savage’s voice filled with amusement. The faint sound of an engine hummed in the background.
Savage
was in a plane. Honey felt some relief knowing she wouldn’t have to physically deal with the bitch while she was naked and defenseless. But she wouldn’t always be this way.

“Because I want answers before I bid you a fond and rather permanent
adieu.
” Catherine’s voice was smug as she poured liquid into a glass. “You’ll continue to serve your purpose long after you’re dead, thanks to your fingerprints now being on dozens of timers and various bomb apparatus. Thanks, too, to your rather distinct machinations with computers that will prove you’re alive and well, infiltrating and manipulating financial institutions’ computers worldwide. Oh, you’ll be a very busy girl
long
after you’re deceased, Winston.”

Honey sucked in a painful gasp as agonizing pins and needles pricked her fingers and toes. She couldn’t remember if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Nevertheless, it was an
alive
thing. Good enough for now. “Why the b-bombings?”

“A
dénouement
? You know this isn’t a movie, right?” Savage said derisively. “This isn’t the part where I tell you my motivation, and explain why I did what I did, tying everything into a neat red bow for you, Winston. There is no neat bow at the end for you, I’m afraid.”

“Typical,” Honey told her, her anger fueling a little warmth in her veins. “No rhyme or reason for your ins-insanity. Don’t bother answering. I d-don’t care.” Her speech flowed more easily with every passing minute, although she remained frozen to the marrow. Flexing what large muscles she could, she
willed
herself warm.

“Reverse psychology, Winton? I thought better of you.”

“Since you p-plan to kill me anyway, there’s no
need
for m-me to know. Might as well get this over with. You’re boring me.”

The logic behind why Savage was bombing banks, why she was framing her, or why Savage did
any
of the illogical and bizarre things she did, was immaterial unless Honey got free. Lying here freezing her ass off, while two men stood by ready to do whatever they planned to do, took top priority. Other than giving orders, there was nothing Savage could do
personally
from thirty thousand feet..

“Winston, know where I am?”

“Don’t gi-give a shit.” She’d get free and track Savage to the ends of the Earth. But right now, she had more pressing priorities. Kobevko stood near her feet, but the other man was close enough to grab. Out of the corner of her eye, Honey saw his hand, holding a hypodermic near her shoulder. The problem was, she didn’t know what her strength was. If she made a move, and was too weak to follow through, they’d restrain her, and that would blow any hope of getting away.

There was the creak of leather, the clink of a glass, as Savage made herself comfortable. “I’m off to visit our mutual friend.” Her dramatic pause was unnecessary. Honey knew what was coming. “In Montana.”

The blood drained from her head in a nauseating rush, leaving her light-headed and sick to her stomach. Bitter bile rose in the back of her throat and cold slithered through her that had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with raw fear.

“That’s right,” Savage’s chuckle pierced her heart. “I’m on my way to see Pollack. Think carefully before you answer. He is going to die. It’s up to you if it’s easy or hard. You know me well enough to know what
my
choice would be.”

Déjà vu.
God. Not again.

Snow dropped from the black sky, not in flakes, but thick white sheets, making driving hazardous even at this ungodly predawn hour. He glanced out the side window and saw a few vehicles pulled over to wait it out.

Rafael braced a hand on the dash of the heavy, unmarked van, the one they’d anticipated taking Kobevko in, as it slewed across the slushy street.

“She’s still breathing,” Weber pointed out unnecessarily from the backseat. Rafael counted every puff of condensation emitting from Honey’s parted lips.

The arctic weather beyond the vehicle was no match for the cold fear running through his body like a river of ice.
I’m on my way, sweetheart. Hold on. I’m almost there.

Visual, no audio. Rafael concentrated on the live-feed images on Kobevko’s iPad as he, Weber, and one of her local guys, Stuyvesant, sped through the deserted streets, heading south out of the city limits toward an abandoned warehouse indicated on the GPS.

Naked
. Jesus. In this weather, it was a death sentence unless he got there fast enough. They had her strapped to a metal table with black ties, obscene against her milk white skin. Her lips moved, but he didn’t know if that was reflex or if there was someone out of the line of sight she was speaking to. He presumed she wasn’t alone.

“She’s tough,
si
? She’s maintaining.” Stuyvesant offered. “Did the survival training? The whole SERE thing?”

SERE was Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. They’d all been through the rigorous courses. “Yeah, probably aced them all.” But then, he thought, sick to his stomach, so had Rachel.

Eight years ago, Rafael helplessly watched his new wife be systematically, cruelly, tortured by a sick fuck intent on inflicting the maximum amount of pain prior to her death.

Now Honey was in those same, sick, sadistic hands.

He blocked the fear and ignored the painfully hard knock of his heart against his rib cage. He couldn’t afford to be afraid. Couldn’t afford sweaty palms or erratic breathing. The price would be too high.

And Honey would pay it with her life.

“Can you disarm it?” Weber asked, leaning forward between the seats to see the screen when he enlarged the image.

“Depends on the type of detonator he used, and whether he’s included multiple detonators with relays, which would snap shut and detonate the bomb if any power were cut . . .” He considered time-delay, a dead-man’s switch, firing switch—Rafael systematically went through every variable. Would Kobevko stick to what he excelled at? Stay with his signature application, which Rafael studied for years? Or would he switch it up this time?

What did he know? What didn’t he know?

“Have to consider tilt switches, trembler switches, a light sensor so the damned thing has to be disarmed in the dark, or hell—
brighter
light . . . There are a shitload of variables. We don’t know how much time we have. What’s going to trigger Kobevko to detonate? They’re asking Winston questions or trying to. She’s pretty much out of it; they may wait until she’s more lucid, or they might decide she’s expendable.”

“They’re
questioning
her,” Weber gripped his shoulder then realized that was too personal and withdrew. Rafe appreciated the gesture. “The answers are clearly important, otherwise they would’ve killed her back at the hotel, right?”

“Yeah. My thoughts too.” All T-FLAC operatives were well versed in the chemicals used to forcibly illicit answers from them in the field. It was part of their training to resist. To resist all known substances. But if this was something new . . .

“What could they want from her?” Stuyvesant asked, taking a right up and over the curb to avoid a six-foot snow berm plowed off the verge.

“What do we know about the bank bombings?” Rafael squeezed the bridge of his nose as he watched the faint rise and fall of Honey’s breasts, her nipples tight, too pale buds.

She shivered. Thank God. Alive. He was damned if he’d be too late again. Two men moved into view, making no effort to shield their faces from the camera. Kobevko and a man holding a hypodermic argued over her seemingly lifeless body. Rafael paid attention to the small puffs of condensation near her colorless lips.
Still alive.
He had to hold on to that.

What he had to concentrate on were the hundreds of intricately placed wires binding her. All attached to one of the Ukrainian’s specialty bombs tucked beneath the table.

TWENTY-SIX

 T 
he GPS tracker still blipped on the screen, indicating the bomber, and Honey, were still in the warehouse. Kobevko’s specialty was arming bombs so it took a mathematical genius to figure out the wiring. There were a hundred opportunities to get it wrong. Rafael loved his job. Loved the challenge, the uncertainty, and the danger of it. He thrived on the challenge.

But not today. Fuck it, not today. Not with Honey right on top of the unstable device.

He had no explosive ordnance disposal tools or equipment, no protective gear for Honey or his team. She didn’t even have the protection of her LockOut. Not that it would save her when the bomb was only a few feet under her.