been waiting for…for years now.”
“And, ah, what is that?” She braced herself.
His pale lips thinned over those big fake teeth. “You.”
Her stomach twisted unpleasantly. She put down her briefcase, smiling, shining, glowing at him while a rapid-fire situation analysis crunched in her mind. She was alone with him, and that was a plus, but he was certainly armed to the teeth. He was a lethally quick fighter. Thin though he was, he had to outweigh her by over a third, and he had a much longer reach. He was a tall man, over six two. Insane, perhaps, but not stupid. He would be on his guard.
Her best bet were the earrings, but not until he was writhing on top of her, distracted by sexual pleasure. Then, once he was safely knocked out, she could kill him at her leisure in any of a dozen ways.
The trick would be to keep from vomiting or passing out while being intimate with him. She had lost her professional cool, and she had Val Janos and his manly mojo to thank for it. It was much easier to calmly contemplate the pits of hell when one didn’t have a shining paradise to compare it to. Damn him.
She shoved the thoughts away. This was all about survival now. She would deal with the mess later.
Georg held out his hand imperiously. “Well? Come here.”
She lurched toward him as if she’d been shoved from behind. His hand clamped her wrist. It was damp. Clammy and horribly strong, like the strangling coils of a snake.
“What, ah, do you want?” she asked faintly.
He grinned like a carnivorous dinosaur. “Take off your clothes.”
“Interesting footage you’ve got there.” Hegel let out an oily chuckle. “I see why you’ve been dragging your heels. Didn’t want to stop fucking her, hmm? And immortalizing the experience, too. Run back that last bit. I love the shape of her ass when she bends over you. And I go wild for a shaved pussy. Silky soft. Mmm. Run it back.”
“Fuck you,” Val said.
The gun dug harder into his neck. “Run it back,” Hegel repeated.
Val snapped the screen closed. “No,” he said.
Hegel leaned forward until Val could feel the moist heat of the man’s breath. “Don’t fuck with me, Janos. Do you know how bad your behavior made me look? Do you have the faintest idea how pissed I am with you? Because you’re just about to find out.”
Val started to turn. The gun dug deeper. “One false move, Janos,” Hegel muttered. “Pulling this trigger would be a pleasure.”
Three steps back. Val set the mechanism in operation, let the matrix start to turn in his mind, and floated apart from it. Or rather, he tried to, but the anxious question flew out of him without his permission. “Where is she? What is happening to her?”
“I expect she’s at the hotel with Georg. Although that twisted freak needs lots of help to get it on. You know, I bet she’ll thank me in the end for forcing the issue.”
Val could imagine exactly what Tamar would say if she heard those words. “You think so?” he said distantly.
“Oh, yes. There are worse things than being pounded by one of the richest guys in the world, even if he is out of his fucking gourd. And that kind of woman is sure to realize it real fast. You’ve done all right for yourself, Janos, but you can’t compete with hundreds of millions in drug, prostitution, and gun-running money. And if the moves he’s about to make pan out, his empire is going to expand. I’ll do everything I can to see that happen. This is the ass to kiss, Janos. Too bad you dipped your wick in the sacred well, you bad boy. Georg won’t like that. In spite of his sexual quirks.”
He hated to give Hegel the satisfaction, but fear prevailed, and the question burst out. “What sexual quirks?”
“Oh, nothing really that dirty,” Hegel said lightly. “He likes being watched, that’s all. No matter what he does, even if it’s just a blow job, someone has to be standing there watching, or else his dick goes south. I don’t mind watching myself. Particularly when he gets generous afterward. Me, I don’t mind a buttered bun now and then.”
Sexual confidences from Hegel—ugh. Val’s stomach churned. He changed the subject. “Who were those men at the Sea-Tac airport?”
“Oh, the ones you slaughtered? That was just an insurance policy. A local team based out of Olympia. I mobilized them when it looked like I couldn’t count on you. They were incompetent fucks, but wonder of wonders, you ended up doing your job anyway, Janos. Convenient, getting her over the pond without us having to deal with her kid. That would have been a big pain in the ass, having to keep a three-year-old’s ass wiped. Start the car.”
“How did you find me?”
“I have my ways,” Hegel said. “You’re not as smart as you think you are, Janos. And we need to get something straight right now. I’ve got no problem killing you where you sit. You know how I always told you how dangerous it is to get attached? I practice what I preach.”
“I do not doubt it,” Val muttered.
“I am not attached to you. Yes, we invested tens of millions in training you, but that’s OK. We got more than our money’s worth by now. And even the most expensive machine eventually breaks down. Repairs cost more and more, you reach the point of diminishing returns, and it’s off to the wrecking yard. Start the car up, shitbird, or the bullet goes into the base of your skull. Nobody’s watching. Nobody cares. We’ve got the woman now. Congratulations, asshole. You are now officially irrelevant.”
Val revved up all his senses, hyperalert for a split second chance to do something, anything, as he put the car into reverse and backed out of the lot.
Hegel directed him through the town and out onto a winding, potholed road that wound up the mountainside. They reached a wide spot in the road, with a decayed, crumbling stonework wall. An overlook point at a steep cliff. There was a deep, rocky gully from rain washout behind.
It was the kind of remote, forgotten place where lovers came to park and junkies came to shoot up. In point of fact, the ground was liberally scattered with condoms and syringes.
“Stop here,” Hegel said. “Hold out your right hand.”
Val hesitated. Hegel intended to send him over the cliff, attached to the car. He had to play for time. Good thing the car was a stick shift. “How will I change gears?”
“Shut the fuck up and hold out your right hand. Keep your left on the steering wheel where I can see it or I’ll blow out your brains.”
Val held it up. Hegel snapped a cuff onto it with one hand, grinding the muzzle of his gun into Val’s neck with the other.
A cell phone beeped. A text message arriving. Not his.
Hegel laughed. “The guy works fast.”
Val’s gut crawled with apprehension. “Meaning?”
“Meaning Georg’s hot to fuck her now. Jealous?” Hegel chuckled. “Fucking asshole. He just texted me his room number. He wants his audience and I’m the lucky winner. My treat, for hunting you two down.
