Читать книгу Honeymoon With A Stranger - Frances Housden - Страница 7

It was November in Paris, a bleak, damp month when the City of Lights turned petulant, more given to dampen a lover’s shoulder with tears than blow a warm kiss, the way the capital would come spring.

The long nights and foggy weather suited Mac McBride’s calling just fine, but then, Mac wasn’t your typical American in Paris. As an agent for IBIS, the Intelligence Bureau for International Security on call 24/7, his days weren’t anyone’s idea of routine.

A snub-nosed pistol sat comfortably inside his left boot, and a 9 mm Glock, his favorite piece, was tucked neatly under the waistband in the back of his black jeans. Mac felt ready for anything.

His fingertips tingled with edgy anticipation as he fitted the PM53 Makarov pistol into his shoulder holster, knowing all his hard work was about to pay off.

The only important decision now was whether or not he should keep on the gray tie with the black shirt? Did his outward appearance say Jeirgif Makjzajev, Chechen rebel, or did the slick oily sheen of the stuff he’d put on his hair yell Mafia lieutenant instead?

Mulling over the appointment ahead of him, he ditched the tie, then scraped his fingernails through this rough face stubble.

He drew his thick brown eyebrows into a frown that quickly disappeared once he was satisfied his reflection fitted the hard-ass look he’d intended.

The small break that took his nose off the straight and narrow became an asset on gigs like these. Though, he had to admit, he hadn’t thought that at the time when he was training at Annapolis, but then life had been all about girls—women—and what attracted them. Now it was about terrorists.

His face hadn’t seen a razor in more than six days, and the stubble looked darker where a dimple made a hollow in his chin.

Six days of dragging his heels on top of the month he’d already spent inveigling his way into the confidence of the slightly down-at-heel Algerian arms dealer he was setting up.

Meanwhile, his firm had made short work of any competitors without arousing suspicion.

He’d laughed when they told him he’d got this gig because of his razor-sharp cheekbones. Laughed to realize they thought he could pass for Chechen, and him with his true-blue American bloodline and a family history spanning 250-odd years since the first McBride set foot in America.

What the hell, he was more than willing to be involved in one of the craziest operations he’d yet encountered. And it helped that he spoke fluent Russian.

Though the Algerian didn’t, so the odd curse word was enough to fool him.

Luckily, Mac’s ability to finesse a deal speaking French was every bit as effortless as working in English, Russian or any of the other languages he’d picked up while his father’s career took the McBrides to U.S. embassies around the world.

Mac was shrugging his broad shoulders into the soft well-worn creases and shoulder-hugging cut of his black leather bomber jacket, almost ready to leave, when the phone rang.

Without looking, he shot out an arm, snagging the receiver, thankful it no longer took a guessing game to locate things he needed in the Le Sentier apartment. Reciting his number, he heard, “Zukah is on his way up to the apartment.”

The voice was Thierry’s, one of the other IBIS agents—French—working with Mac. “Damn, how far away?”

The importance IBIS placed on this case showed in the amount of money they were willing to commit. Thierry’s assignment was to tail the Algerian and his men; he and three others covered that end, but only Thierry was a master at disguise.

“They entered the building as I punched in your number, three of them. Want me to follow them up?” he asked.

“No, wait. Pick up their trail again when they leave. Zukah probably thinks there’s safety in numbers, but three shouldn’t be a problem now I’ve been warned.”

Mac only stated the facts as he knew them. The word arrogance didn’t raise a ripple on his conscience.

After focusing most of his adult life training to be the best, able to kill with his bare hands if need be, he now took those abilities for granted.

Roxanne Kincaid looked back over her shoulder, wondering if it was the last time she would see the little Renault.

She hadn’t worried about the car when she’d stolen a heart-racing gap in the traffic from under the wheels of the one alongside her, or while she swerved into the corner to cross the Seine at the Pont Neuf, but parking in Le Sentier?

This dark, dank quartier of Paris was the contrast that proved the rule when they spoke of the City of Lights. It would be just her luck to find the wheels missing when she returned.

She looked along the sidewalk, saw three men walking ahead of her and slowed her pace.

Earlier that evening the couturier Charles Fortier had caught her eye as he spun his bright glance round the avenue Montaigne workroom, and before he could say “Bon soir, Roxie,” she’d known he had a special job for her.

One she couldn’t refuse.

And now here she was, outside a six-story apartment building that hadn’t been on her agenda for this evening’s entertainment.

Gathering the upstanding collar of her charcoal-colored coat closer to her ears, she cast a baleful frown up at the persistent drizzle, sniffing air that had long since lost the dusty scent of autumn.

Everyone said winter had come early this year, but what it meant to Roxie was that all the straightening lotion in Paris wasn’t going stop her hair curling.

Standing under the dismal street lamp, she checked the washed-out number painted on pitted plaster as she swayed against a gust of wind that funneled through the narrow streets. This quartier really hadn’t changed much over the years.

She found it hard to imagine her grandmother growing up not a two-minute walk from this very doorway. Grandmère’s neat Dorset cottage, where Roxie grew up, had been a far cry from the dark, sightless windows crowding the narrow cobbled streets.

Though, if Grandmère were alive to see her now, she wouldn’t be delighted to see Roxie visiting her old haunts.

No, Anastasia Perdieu Kincaid hadn’t been the type of woman who minced words or called a spade a shovel.

A quick twist of the wrist and Mac checked the time on the flashy gold watch—Russian—and checked it against the plain clock, the only piece of decor on his apartment walls. The transient feeling of the place was exactly what he’d had in mind.

The Algerian was thirty minutes early, but if he’d thought to surprise Mac…?

As far as he’d discovered, Ahmed Zukah had only lately begun playing out of his league. Until now the worst crimes listed on the Algerian’s rap sheet were shady arms deals.

But this one was bigger, much bigger, a deal deadly enough to be brought to the attention of the IBIS.

Though Zukah acted as front man and had two Frenchmen working for him, none of them had the cojones to put this together, but the IBIS had still to discover who was running the Algerian.

Mac wondered if tonight would bring him any closer to the man he really wanted to lay hands on, the fourth man. These others were small potatoes compared to the brain behind the scheme.

Right on time, a fist hammered on the door of the third-floor apartment. Mac sniffed; they could wait.

The wooden door received three more poundings while he finished pulling his shirt collar over the neck of his jacket.

His dark gold eyes narrowed, fierce lights burning in them, sparked from his resentment of the impatient demand on his door.

It was a look those who knew him had come to dread, but then, the bad guys outside the door didn’t know that.

Yet.

Roxie’s foot hit the first step of the two leading to the dark aperture of the six-story building. Stairs led to the floors above, but she ignored them.

At the end of the hallway she heard the courtyard gate clang shut and decided it would be wisest to let the men she’d seen get well in front of her.

She’d just mimicked Grandmère, saying, “Better safe than sorry,” when her eyes caught a movement in the darkness ahead that was hardly more than a shift in the dank air.

An uncanny flicker crept up the nape of her neck, and she dragged in a deep calming breath as her pulse fluttered.

The lighting was so poor, the electric globe sticking out from the wall sconce had to be as low wattage as they could buy and still have it give off light.

“So it’s dark, get over it,” she muttered. “It’s not that bad.” She’d heard some Parisians broke their necks trying to find an apartment round here so close to the heart of French culture that the Louvre was a mere ten-minute walk away.

With a couple of twists of the leather strap of her purse, she pulled its weight securely against her knuckles in case she needed a weapon.

She laughed unapologetically under her breath, fanciful maybe, but her instincts never let her down. Setting a brisk pace, she directed her toes toward the silhouette of an iron gate breaking up the gray light pooling in the courtyard.

Clamping her lips shut so the stale smell wouldn’t taint her mouth, Roxie took the last few steps at a run before her lungs exploded.

Almost there, she desperately gulped down air only to be swamped by a miasma of cheap wine and garlic fumes.

With the courtyard less than a yard away, a figure lurched out of the shadows under the stairs. Roxie’s heart leapt up to her throat, reducing her scream of fear to a squeal.

Unfortunately, the sound wasn’t loud enough to drown out the man’s slurred words, or the suggestions she read in them.

He wanted to intimidate her, but he didn’t succeed.

Wine sloshed wildly as she dodged the bottle waved in her face. She batted it out of her way with a forehand swipe of her purse before swooping low to avoid retaliation.

“Missed me,” she taunted under her breath, more for her than for him, and dove into the courtyard like a runner crossing the winning line.

With any luck the drunk would have gone by the time she’d completed her task, and if not, she’d be ready for him.

Without due haste, Mac flicked his black shirt collar up ’til it brushed the curled ends of his longer-than-usual hair, framing the planes and angles of his hawkish features.

Just as casually, he removed the Makarov from its snug place under his arm, then strode across the sparsely furnished living space of the apartment.

Even in boots his footsteps were soft, silent, those of a hunter. And, as if someone stage left called out, “Lights, cameras, action,” his expression took on the appearance of fierce determination before he wrenched open the door to an enemy who hadn’t heard him coming.

Butt of his pistol held high to knock, Zukah took a couple of involuntary backward steps, landing up against the men with him.

With his forearm resting on top of the door frame, McBride let his broad shoulders fill the doorway. He kept the hand gripping the Makarov hidden alongside his thigh, then slipped it behind a door that wasn’t built to stop a bullet.

Mac eyed the pistol in the Algerian’s red-knuckled fist with a lift of an unimpressed eyebrow, before his gaze dropped to Zukah.

A slovenly dresser, the man always looked as if he’d just stepped off the boat at Marseille, but Mac’s eyes saw beyond the front Zukah put on public view. Zukah was a hell of a lot shrewder than he wanted generally known.

Almost as quickly as he dropped his hand, a peevish frown drew the Algerian’s bushy eyebrows into a saturnine line. Looking foolish obviously wasn’t part of the act he cultivated.

That performance seemed confined to his beige crumpled suit straining over a creased shirt and protruding gut.

Sticking with French so there could be no misunderstanding, Mac said, “I see you brought your calling card, Monsieur Zukah, and some compagnie. There was no need for such diligent precautions. I’m quite aware who I’m dealing with.”

Zukah’s tar-colored mustache quivered above a smirk. “As I do, Makj…pah, your name is unpronounceable.”

“Stick with Mac, everyone does. And forgive me if I’m wrong, hadn’t we arranged to meet at La Grappe d’Orgueil?”

Mac’s eyelids narrowed as he spoke, and his smile when it arrived, though lethal, was a mere feral-baring of white teeth.

Only he knew that the smile was because his cover had withstood the test that he’d assumed the Algerian would put it through.

IBIS was nothing if not thorough when it came to cover stories. If only they’d been as successful at discovering how the Algerian had gotten his hands on a biotech weapon called Green Shield that the French military had supposedly destroyed.

Ahmed’s dark irises disappeared behind a mass of wrinkles as he grunted. No way could the sound erupting be taken for a laugh. “Precisely, mon ami. I decided meeting you here might save time.”

Mac couldn’t summon up any humor.

Though the bureau knew who had designed the weapon Zukah had on offer, no one had discovered how it had come into his hands.

Green Shield—named after a sap-sucking beetle—was a designation that gave no hint of the true nature of the beast.

Even the slick gel in Mac’s hair wasn’t enough to prevent it from lifting at the back of his neck, as he pondered the kind of sick mind it had taken to devise such a weapon.

“A pity you didn’t think to call first,” he said. “I’m particular about whom I invite into my place.”

Mac perused the Algerian’s self-loading pistol, a small Mauser, old, well-cared-for but no longer seen on the streets for sale. “For you, I’ll make an exception,” he said, stepping back, allowing Zukah a view of the Makarov he’d had pointing through the door at an extremely vulnerable target.

He’d never entertained the notion that the two men covering Ahmed’s back wouldn’t be armed. Though they’d hardly make a move with the Algerian’s bulk blocking the line of fire.

That Zukah was aware of the danger in his position showed in a sideways movement of his eyes that revealed their whites.

In or out, there was no way to dodge a bullet.

Mac generously decided to let him off the hook.

It was too late to back off now. The damn biotech weapon was reputed to be of awesome consequence. And no matter what, Mac’s mission was to obtain it at all cost.

He didn’t need telling his life was on the line.

What was one man’s life when millions might face a slow, lingering death from starvation? With that in mind, he said, “Since you and your friends don’t appear overly dangerous, come on in and let’s deal.”

To put a spin of honesty on his announcement, Mac turned his back on the Algerian filling his doorway to return to the living room, wondering, where was a Kevlar vest when you needed one?

Roxie paused, at the other side of the courtyard, winded by her frantic pace. Her boots were made for walking, not the hundred-yard dash.

Besides, she’d heard nothing to suggest the man had followed her, no shambling footsteps that signaled his approach.

The open square she’d crossed appeared dependent on the windows facing down into it for light. Luckily, the bleak weather had kept people at home and the lights showed her the way as she ran.

By now, she’d come to the sensible conclusion that the man was un clochard, one of the homeless, who’d been sheltering in the entrance to escape the worst of the weather.

Still breathing hard, she stood at the foot of the stairs and heard a door close, and wondered which floor the men ahead of her in the gloom had been going to.

As the apartment door closed, Mac decided that for the moment, he had nothing to fear from these wiseguys.

The dealer running Zukah and Co. was asking an arm and two legs for the weapon, and only the wealthiest terrorist groups could afford that kind of lump sum.

Al Qaeda hadn’t come sniffing around as far as IBIS knew, but then they preferred their weapons to go off with a bang, not the whimper of dying vegetation.

That was one of the few facts on Mac’s side.

The Palestinians couldn’t afford it, and since most of North Africa was pretty barren, anyway, the Israelis weren’t interested.

No, this weapon was designed to turn lush green countries, thanking God for their daily bread, into yellow deserts.

From what he’d been told, one miniscule drop could do more damage than a planeload of Agent Orange had done in Vietnam.

Perching on the arm of the only easy chair, Mac nonchalantly waved Zukah toward the sofa. “Asseyez-vous.”

“I prefer to stand.”

Stubborn, Mac concluded as the Algerian held his ground, the two men with him ranging themselves on either side like a pair of fierce black cats guarding a king’s ransom.

The closemouthed Frenchmen weren’t strangers to Mac. He’d seen them at previous meetings, always dressed like twins in dark suits and ties.

Mac stood, saying, “Your choice. Have you brought the goods?”

Zukah sniffed derisively, and had Mac still been seated he would have looked at him down the length of his nose.

“You think I would carry it around in my pocket? I am not foolish. It would be far too dangerous. I enjoy living in la belle France. If I had a passion for desert sands I could have stayed in Algeria.”

Mac caught a hint of something in Ahmed’s explanation that tightened the skin at the back of his neck.

Damn, the weapon sounded worse than he’d heard. “It’s really that potent?” he probed. “I was led to believe its specifics named grain crops, wheat, corn…?”

The Algerian shrugged. “Believe what you like. I refuse to take chances…and, anyway, I haven’t decided who gets it yet.”

Mac whirled toward the door. “Then don’t waste my time!” he snarled, privately wondering if another buyer had come on the scene to make his life more complicated than it already was.

Roxie took the stairs on the other side of the courtyard entrance and began to climb. A mumble of French drifted down from an upper landing, then cut off abruptly.

Though it was dark enough to make her want to hurry, she took her time, just in case the men she’d seen thought they were being followed. At this time of night most deals being done in Le Sentier would be dirty.

At the top of the first flight, the sign on the door facing read Claudette’s Lingerie. Not as startling as it might sound since Le Sentier was the garment district of Paris.

Halfway up a third flight, she heard raised voices and, nearing the top, was relieved to see light leaking under a door.

Her pace quickened with revived confidence,

Charles had trusted her to do this for him.

She hurried the last few stairs, the four-inch heels of her boots sounding an uneven tattoo on the wooden treads.

The Algerian soon made it known he hadn’t done with Mac. “I want to know what makes this your fight? You tell me you want to bring the Russian bear to its knees, yet you were born in America.”

Zukah spoke urgently, the soft sibilant accent of his home-land making it hard to follow. “The Cold War is over and those two old enemies are already swapping pillow talk. I would be a fool to take you at face value.”

Mac’s tempered flared; though he kept his voice low, it sounded harsh, in keeping with the role he’d taken on. “When you were selling guns, did you always ask who your customer was going to shoot with them?”

Mac had learned to be particular about his cover story, to fit into the skin of the character. Lip curling, he asked, “In your small conflicted world, did you ever hear of Grozny?”

Zukah gave him a blank stare, but Mac noticed one of his men nod as if remembering the siege.

Mac’s nose flared as he looked down on the Algerian. Zukah had a lot of native cunning but obviously wasn’t interested in events that didn’t affect him personally.

“Not that it’s any of your damn business, but my mother’s family were there. Not one of them survived the siege.” A single step brought Mac chest-to-chest with Zukah. “So, you might say I have a large stake in acquiring that weapon.”

It was a one-sided pissing match with only Mac speaking, but he continued, “And before you sell to someone else, it would be in your best interest to discover the punishments we mete out to those who cross us Chechens.”

The uncomprehending expression reminded Mac that a threat was redundant if the one being menaced lived in blissful ignorance, but the same guy shifted his feet as if in discomfort.

Mac reckoned it would pay to remember which one could be more easily unsettled, anything that gave him an edge.

Not to be outdone, the Algerian blustered, “And we have to be sure of your—” All at once Zukah broke off and as one their heads turned in the direction of the swift footsteps outside.

Mac spat out a curse and cast a murderous glance toward the door, wondering what else could go wrong. “If this is another trick, Zukah, it doesn’t sit at all well with me, so be warned.”

It was silent as Roxie crossed the landing, as if someone had turned the sound down on a TV. Roxie put her ear close to the door and heard nothing. Not a sound.

It could be the wrong apartment.

She knocked lightly. Nothing.

About to reach for the handle, she hesitated, thinking it could be very awkward if she was wrong. Then told herself, don’t be a coward. All you have to say is you’re looking for Madame Billaud, the seamstress who’s doing some specialized work for Charles Fortier, the couturier.

Everyone had heard of Charles.

Yes, if she made a mistake, she would simply ask them to redirect her. She tried the handle.

The door to the apartment opened easily. She took a deep breath and called loudly, “Bon soir. C’est Roxie….”

The rest of her announcement stuttered to a halt in the face of a deadly looking gun. She blinked in the bright lights for a few seconds, and still none of the men facing her spoke a word.

It was she who broke the ominous silence by blurting out, “Bloody hell!” in English, the second of the languages she’d grown up speaking.

The gun never wavered an inch.

Not even when the thin, hollow-cheeked man grabbed the shoulder she was desperately trying to ease back through the open door. He pulled her into the room.

Her eyes winced at the sudden transition from dark to light. But all the same, it looked as if she’d stumbled into the middle of a home invasion.

Four strange men and one solitary woman. Latent instincts stirred in her brain, telling her that the danger she felt could come from more than just a gun.