beyond it.
Chapter
26
The Opel’s driver’s side door hung open as Val pulled the Fiat up next to it. The car subsided into ominous silence after a rattling death cough.
Val’s heart stuck in his throat as he shoved the stiff, creaking door of the Fiat open and stared at the scene. The ignition key peeked out from behind the left wheel tire. A single shoe lay on the asphalt between the two cars. A black, spike-heeled pump. One of the Manolos.
He got out, crouched to pick up the shoe. He hated to think of her barefoot. So vulnerable.
He thudded down onto his knees. Trying to breathe, trying to think. What next. What now. Ah, God.
Get up, Janos. You’ve got a job to do. Don’t just crash like a melodramatic asshole. It sounded like Tam’s crisp, merciless voice in his head.
It comforted him. Gave him the impetus he needed to fish up the keys from behind the tire, drag his leaden body off the ground, and slide into the Opel. The laptop and Hegel’s cell phone still lay on the passenger side floor, forgotten since that morning.
He reached for the cell phone. It still had some life in the battery. He stared at it for a long, hostile moment, and shook himself to break the paralysis. He pulled up the stored text messages.
348. The room number. Georg’s last message to Hegel.
Three steps back. His usual mantra struck him as ludicrous, almost cruel. He could not take three steps anywhere. He was too muddled, too exhausted. He was terrified.
You will have to do somewhat better than your best to get out of this. Imre’s dry voice echoed through his head.
Val’s chest twisted, to think of Imre. Better than his best might not be enough. It had not been so far, or this would not have happened. Imre, dead. Tamar and Rachel, taken.
Even Georg might do better now. Any variable that could give her another fighting chance, Val had to throw into the mix right now while he still could. While she was alive. He punched “call.”
It rang eight times. Someone picked up, and there was a waiting silence on the other end, though he could tell the line was open.
Val tried to speak, but doubt had seized his voice.
Georg got tired of the waiting game. “My curiosity cannot resist a telephone call from a dead man,” he said in English. “Do I speak with the spirits from beyond?”
Val cleared his throat with a cough. “No,” he said. “Janos here.”
“Oh. You.” Georg switched to Hungarian. “I am going to kill you when I see you. You know that, eh?”
“Fine. Whenever you like,” Val said dully. “I just want to give you some information first. About Tamara Steele.”
“Ah. Yes?”
One last moment of frantic wondering, if he was giving her another chance or condemning her to a living death.
No. His Tamar would never languish in a cage for long. Not his man-eating tigress. Not her.
“I am waiting, Janos,” Georg prompted. “I am not a patient man. What about her? Let me speak with her.”
Val shut his eyes and threw the dice. “I can’t,” he said. “Novak has her now. András abducted her. Less than an hour ago.”
Georg sucked in an audible breath. “You fucking idiot,” he hissed. “How could you have allowed this to happen?”
“She exposed herself when she ran from me,” he said dully. “She was trying to get back to you. She…she wanted you.”
Georg was silent.
“She will be in Novak’s hands within eight hours,” Val added after another minute ticked by. “Dead within twenty-four hours of that, almost certainly. If not sooner.”
“If this happens, you do know what will happen to you, Janos?”
Val stared bleakly at the horizon. “Yes,” he whispered. God help him. He did.
“Pain,” Georg said softly. “For as long as I can inflict it. Pain you cannot imagine. Think about it.”
Val broke the connection. There was no point in thinking about it. The threat barely touched him.
If Novak killed Tamar and Rachel, anything Georg did to him afterward would be supremely redundant. He doubted he would even notice.
In fact, he would make a point of being already dead.
Georg clicked the phone closed with a hand that tingled with excitement. His heart thudded with lust and fury.
She wanted him. She had always wanted him. He had known in his deepest heart that they were destined to be together. He was the only one who could accept or understand her dark side, her secret, shameful desires, and she was the only one who could comprehend his.
He would reward her for her loyalty and save her from that blood-drinking monster, Novak. And she would owe him her life. He liked that.
But he had to be quick and lucid. And ruthless.
He walked down the small spiral staircase into the common room of the luxury apartment he had rented in San Vito. His eyes slid over the five men who were there. Someone had betrayed him. Sold him out to Novak, telling the old man about Tamara’s continued existence and Georg’s search for her. It was one of the men in this room.
It galled him to harbor a traitor, but that same man could be used to feed false information back to Novak.
The traitor would subsequently die a slow and horrible death, once he was identified.
“We’re going back to Budapest at once,” he announced. “Novak has openly challenged me. Tomorrow at midnight, we mount our attack.” He turned to Ferenc. “Call the others. We will conduct a strategy meeting. We must videoconference. Hurry. There is a great deal of planning to do.”
Ferenc pulled out his phone and got to work.
Georg strolled out to the terrace of the luxury villa, which was perched right over the roiling sea. He turned up the volume on his telephone. The crashing of the sea served nicely as white noise to cover his voice. He punched in the code to scramble the call, and dialed the PSS man he dealt with now. The defunct Hegel’s second in command.
“Yes?” the man asked.
“It happens tomorrow,” Georg said without preamble.
There was a startled pause. “Tomorrow? So soon?”
“My men cannot know,” Georg said. “They’re baiting the trap. Your team will mount the attack. I will call you in two hours and explain the details. You will need an eight-man team in Budapest by tomorrow.”
Georg hung up the phone and stared at the
