under, coiled up and just waiting for the moment to strike.”
“We used to try and outdo each other coming up with clever things for the letters to stand for,” Adam said with a chuckle. “‘Sinister Network of A-holes, Killers and Extortionists’—that was one of me own, I believe.”
“My personal favorite was ‘Society of Nasty Auld Knaves and Evildoers,’” Corbett added dryly. “I believe the current SIS meaning is ‘Syndicate of Nasties, Assassins, Killers and Evildoers.’”
“I know they’re killers for hire. Tell me what your connection is to them.”
“They started out as mercenaries. Their leader was Maximilian DuMont. He was a French mercenary in Southeast Asia during the early days of the Vietnam conflict, before he got a taste of the drug trade and decided it was a bit more lucrative than fighting other people’s wars for them. Made a mint of money, and when the Soviet Union fell, he was in a perfect position to expand into the arms business. Recruited a lot of ex-KGB agents who had an inside track to where the surplus weapons were stockpiled. There was a major war going on at the time among all the weapons dealers over who’d garner the lion’s share of the spoils. Max and his thugs came out on top, mainly because there wasn’t anything they wouldn’t do to eliminate the competition, and those competitors knew it. If they valued their homes and families, they got out of Max’s way. If they didn’t…well, then they probably died along with their wives, mothers and children.”
Lucia, though warm enough snuggled between the bodies of two big men, nevertheless felt a chill. “My God. And Cassandra DuMont is this monster’s daughter. No wonder—”
“Oh, that’s not the half of it,” Adam said with gossipy glee. He leaned forward to speak to Corbett around Lucia. “You want to tell her the rest, mate, or shall I?”
“Oh, by all means, be my guest.” Corbett’s tone was acidic—just short of bitter. Not at all like him.
And which didn’t appear to faze Adam. “After a few major arms deals featuring Soviet weaponry were traced back to the DuMont organization, SIS—CIA, too, I should think—got interested. Laz and I were part of the team on Max’s trail. We got a bit too close, apparently, because old Max decided we needed to be taught a lesson. Sent his daughter to seduce the lead agent on the case, which happened to be our friend, here.”
As Adam talked, Lucia watched Corbett’s profile, trying to decipher the tight smile and narrowed eyes in the everchanging light inside the cab. Wanting to understand the tension she could feel in his body, pressed up against her side.
“She was supposed to set him up—to be kidnapped, tortured, murdered—probably all three, based on Max’s track record. It was a warning to the rest of us to back off. That was the plan, anyway. Trouble was, things didn’t go quite according to Maximilian’s plan. You see, Cassandra fell for Laz, arse over teakettle—”
Revelation came to Lucia via the very tiny twitch she felt in Corbett’s body, as if he’d experienced an unexpected stab of pain.
He feels guilty. He blames himself for what’s been happening…his agents’ deaths.
And he shouldn’t, she thought angrily. He’s a good and decent man who cares deeply about all his agents. He isn’t to blame for someone else’s evil. He isn’t.
“—and instead of giving him up to her old man, she warned him. Maximilian never did forgive her. It’s a wonder he didn’t kill her, even if she was his own daughter. But in the end, I suppose, what he did was worse.”
“What did he do?” she asked, holding her breath for the answer.
“Disowned her,” Corbett replied in a flat voice.
“Cut her out of his organization completely.” Adam picked it up from there. “But that wasn’t the worst of it. Not long after that, Max’s son, Apollo, came gunning for Corbett.” He paused, and in the light of the street-lamps they were passing, Lucia saw the shadows in Corbett’s face go long and deep. Adam went on in a thoughtful tone, “I never did figure out how you knew just where and when they’d be coming for you. You want to—”
“It’s neither the time nor the place. Needless to say, I’m fairly certain Cassandra is behind all my troubles, all of them for the past nineteen years,” Corbett snapped.
They were in the financial district now and approaching the ultramodern building that, in addition to the well-known banking institution on the ground floor and several securities and insurance firms higher up, housed the secret headquarters of the Lazlo Group. Corbett moved as if to shift forward and at the same time reached for his wallet. Then he drew a sharp breath and held it, and leaned back instead.
“Got it,” Adam said under his breath, and taking out his own wallet, counted out some euro notes to give to the cabdriver.
Meanwhile, Lucia struggled to hold on to her frustration. There were so many things she wanted to know. Felt she deserved to know. Particularly since these dramatic events in Corbett Lazlo’s past appeared to be about to dramatically affect her future.
“She—Cassandra—said you killed her brother,” Lucia said to Corbett in a tight but steady voice. “Did you?”
He replied with a quiet, “Yes.”
“The little punk didn’t give ’im much of a choice,” Adam said as he settled back in his seat. “And that’s the plain truth of it. If he hadn’t—”
“Not now.” Corbett’s tone was one that neither Lucia nor Adam cared to challenge. Adam gave her a smile and a shrug of apology as the cab rolled into the underground parking garage.
Following Adam’s directions, the driver, with protesting tires, pulled around to a remote corner of the lot and jolted to a stop. Adam opened his door and turned to help Lucia, both of them carefully avoiding watching Corbett’s determined but obviously painful struggle to extricate himself from the car.
“He’ll be okay,” Adam murmured for her ears alone, and she nodded and mouthed the words, “I know.”
But she marveled at the strange confusion of emotions stirring inside her, seeing the indestructible Corbett Lazlo in such a state.
As the taxi drove off with a screech of tires, its three former passengers turned to a door marked in French, in large black letters: Emergency Exit—Authorized Personnel Only. Adam opened the door using a remote and held it while Lucia and Corbett entered what appeared to be a large steel-walled vault, then followed them in, closing the door after him. Corbett placed his palm on a glass panel near the door, and a steel panel above it slid open to reveal a state-of-the-art optical scanner. One by one, each of them stepped up to the screen, eyes wide-open. Only when all three had passed the iris recognition scan did the larger panel slide back to reveal the elevator.
The purpose of this, Lucia knew, was to prevent anyone from gaining access to the Lazlo Group secret headquarters by taking one of its members hostage. Hidden sensors in the vault would determine the number of people inside. Entry could only be accomplished once every person had been cleared by iris scanning. She remembered thinking, when she’d first been introduced to the system, that it seemed a bit excessive—even paranoid. Now, remembering the light of madness in Cassandra’s eyes, the way she’d stabbed those forked fingers when she’d spit the words, “Tu es fichue…”
A
