Читать книгу Shannon McKenna Bundle: Ultimate Weapon, Extreme Danger, Behind Closed Doors, Hot Night, & Return to Me - Shannon McKenna - Страница 11

Val had been drawing reluctantly nearer to consciousness for a pain-blurred eternity. The bucket of ice water clinched the job.

He gasped, choked. The realization was a hammer blow. He tried a slit-eyed peek, gasped at the searing pain in his head.

There was no need to see. He knew the nightmare smell of the place. Bleach, disinfectant, humidity, mold. Beneath all that, a deathlier smell. Old blood, shit, worse. Novak’s secret torture chamber. Designated for executions, interrogations. No need for luxury here, just privacy, soundproof walls, and a drain in the floor for easy cleanup.

His past had caught up with him altogether. Its fanged jaws clamped down, crunching his bones.

He braced himself against the pain and nausea, and forced himself to look up at the blazing fluorescent lights. Eight men stared down at him. Seven held guns. All were pointed at him.

It had been eleven years since he had seen Daddy Novak. He’d been hideous then. He was a death’s head now: bulging eyes, jaundiced skin, long teeth. An old, pitted skull dipped in yellow wax.

Novak dug an ungentle toe in Val’s kidney. He flinched. Someone had already found the place and given it a thorough pounding.

“Wake up, fool,” Novak said. “We have business to conduct.”

Val ran a quick damage assessment as he rose carefully to his feet. A couple of teeth loose. Ribs cracked but probably not broken. A knot on his temple, sticky with blood. Hot red pain pulsing in his head with every heartbeat. Bruises, a shallow slash across his forearm, clotted and black, oozing fresh blood through the white sleeve.

Not so bad. He’d taken much worse on other occasions. They hadn’t meant to hurt him, just subdue him.

He looked around. He recognized András from the old days. That hulking, beady-eyed sadist had been Novak’s main man for years. Three more he remembered from the old guard, the rest were fresh blood. The blue-eyed blond man he had stabbed was not there. Dead, perhaps, or close to it. Several were marked. By him, he surmised, glancing around at the crushed noses, the split lips, the cold, murderous eyes.

New enemies. God. As if he needed more of them.

His eyes flicked back to Novak. He coughed to clear his throat and tasted blood. “This drama was not necessary,” he said. “You could have e-mailed or called.”

Novak smiled. “You would have ignored me, as you have done for eleven years. Now that you have risen so high in the world, you have forgotten your old friends, no? And besides, important business is best conducted in person.”

Dread settled deep inside him, heavy and greasy and cold. “We have no business,” he said. “I work for another organization.”

Novak steepled his skeletal fingers, smiling thinly. “Yes, of course. PSS bought you from me for a tidy sum, but I always suspected that I accepted too low a price for you. But this is special. I have a business proposition that you might find interesting.”

“I’m out of this business,” he repeated.

“Yes, yes. We know the success story. Vajda, prostitute, drug dealer, and gunrunner, who repented his wicked ways and now conducts a glamorous double life—covert operative by night, pampered entrepreneur and gigolo playboy by day. I follow your cover career on the Internet, you see. Very inspiring. Makes the boys weep with envy, particularly all the women you fuck. Bad for discipline, Vajda.”

“I do not want to—”

“What you want does not interest me.” Novak’s voice cut through his. “You’ve forgotten your manners. Must I re-educate you?”

Val shut his eyes against the light, the pain, and Novak’s probing gaze. The man’s hot, foul breath was inches from Val’s face, like gas escaping from a decomposing corpse.

Val hardened his belly to iron to control his gorge. He’d endured worse. In fact, he would endure worse tonight. Far worse, before this was all over. No way out. He tried to wrap his mind around it.

He swallowed. “What do you want?”

Novak seized Val’s shoulder, spun him around, and shoved him, stumbling, against a long, dented metal table. A file lay open upon it, a sheaf of photographs fanned out across it. “Her,” he said.

Val stared at the photos. They were of Tamara Steele. The one on top showed her in a bikini, on the arm of a hairy middle-aged man on the deck of a yacht. She was laughing, holding a champagne flute. Blond hair swirled out in the wind like a pale flag.

The next was a closeup. She wore a silvery evening gown. Her hair was red, coiled close against her head. She was looking over her shapely shoulder, listening to a man whisper in her ear. He recognized the blond, tight-lipped, pale-eyed young man. Novak’s son, Kurt. Her crimson lips curved in a secret smile. Jeweled earrings dangled low. Her huge eyes looked past the man, almost directly into the camera.

In another, she was getting into a black Jaguar, beaded with rain. The place looked like Paris. Dark hair, long against her white raincoat.

The next was unlike the others. It was black and white, shot by a long-range camera. She was oddly unglamorous, wearing a simple black dress, rendered elegant only by the intrinsic grace of her body. Her hair was drawn back in a severe roll. Her face was free of makeup. Pale, stark, and sad. People milled around her, but she did not notice them.

She was leaning over to drop a bouquet of small wild daisies and lavender in front of a bronze plaque on a big marble slab. He turned it over. The photo was date stamped. Five years ago.

He reached out, rifled through the rest. No pictures of her with Rachel. All of them must be from the Kurt era, four years ago or longer.

Perhaps Novak didn’t know about the child yet. He refused to let himself hope for that much grace. “Who is she?” he asked.

Novak backhanded him with his fist on the temple. The hard blow knocked Val against the table. Bloody spittle flew from his mouth, and spattered the silver evening dress photo. His head spun, his vision blurred. The old man was much stronger than he looked.

“Don’t even try,” the boss hissed. “I know that you are the one investigating her. That you know where she is.”

He pushed the pain aside, forced himself to concentrate. Three steps back. “Why do you care?” he asked.

“She was Kurt’s last mistress. The whore who delivered my only son up to his death.”

“Ah.” He kept his voice neutral. “So you want her dead then?”

“Nothing so quick. I want her chained to a table. I want to teach her what happens to a lying bitch who betrays my son.”

He let out a long breath. “And what do I have to do with this?”

Novak smiled. “You will bring her to me, Vajda. I know that you are looking for her, for PSS and Georg Luksch. But you will not bring her to Georg. You will bring her to me. Simple.”

The prospect of pain was getting more and more imminent. Val’s knees felt watery at the prospect. Chilly detachment only went so far when it came to torture. He closed his eyes. “I cannot—”

“Oh, but you can.” Novak’s voice oozed insinuation. “With your looks, your charm, your pretty body. Your respectable identity as a rich Roman business consultant. Your reputation as a gigolo and bon vivant. Any contract killer could blow her head off from a distance, but that does not satisfy me. I want her seduced. I want you to gain her trust. I want her to fall in love with you. I want her betrayed, turned inside out, as she did to Kurt. One pretty, lying whore to catch another.”

Val kept his face carefully blank. “Gain the trust of an assassin?” He paused. “A difficult proposition.”

“I did not say it would be easy. That’s why I am seeking out such rare bait for my trap, no?” Novak snagged the file with a thick, yellowed fingernail, and dragged it toward himself. “Everything we know about her is in these files. Her origins are obscure. She burst on the scene in 1997 on the arm of Sheikh Nadir.” Novak stabbed the yacht photo with his nail. “Said to be skilled with drugs and poisons, excellent with weapons, trained in hand-to-hand combat. Famous for bank, computer and credit card fraud. Skilled sexually, when she is not plotting her lover’s death, of course. She uses a dozen aliases that we know of, and certainly more that we do not. And now we have this.” He flipped open a jewelry case that lay on the table. “She designs jewelry.”

Val stared at the torque. It glowed against the black velvet.

“Interesting,” he murmured.

Novak pushed a red stone on the finial, and the piece slid out, revealing a small dagger. “This was poisoned. It was found on the neck of one of Vassily’s women in Paris.”

“Does she know who the—”

“No, she does not. The woman is dead,” Novak snarled.

Val sighed. Dealing with madmen was exhausting. It was difficult to pry useful intelligence out of a corpse, but explain that to a man like Novak. The lack of simple logic made his brain ache.

“That is unfortunate,” he said through gritted teeth.

Novak held up the business card. “It is a reproduction of an ancient Celtic relic that my son gave to a woman in the Seattle area, an antiquities expert. Erin Riggs and her husband were also involved in Kurt’s death. They will pay for their share, too, when they least expect it. But first, I deal with this treacherous slut.”

Val peered at the card in the old man’s shaking yellow claw.

Deadly Beauty. He recognized the name. He had moved some of those pieces before. They were very popular with many of his clients. Clever wearable weaponry with exquisite design and workmanship. They commanded handsome prices, and the mysterious anonymity of the artisan was part of their allure. He had not known that his target was the creator of Deadly Beauty. Interesting.

“Why haven’t you taken her before?” he asked.

“I was told that she was dead,” Novak hissed. “I was lied to.”

Val hesitated. “I have a previous commitment.”

“You wound me, Vajda. But I have the perfect motivation.” Novak’s smile widened. “Bring the man.”

Val went immobile, like a man regarding a snake that was poised to strike. Two of Novak’s men left. Minutes ticked by. The door burst open, and Novak’s men came back in.

Imre dangled between them. He looked terribly small and fragile. He had been beaten again. One of the lenses of his spectacles had been shattered. His head dangled, blood streaming down his chin.

The world receded to an unimaginable distance, leaving Val suspended in a vacuum. No air to breathe. No place to stand.

Imre lifted his head and looked at Val, breathing heavily. His eyes watered, but they were calm. One was swollen almost shut. New cuts and bruises were superimposed over the old.

“You thought we did not know about your pet?” Novak’s voice was a crooning taunt. “Your favorite client? You think no one wondered who taught you English, French, fucking existentialist philosophy? Cretin. I kept him aside for years for just such a moment, Vajda.”

Yes. He was a cretin, for not moving Imre closer to him. Criminally stupid, for not guarding his weak spot with more care.

“You thought you were too good to serve me?” Novak said. “You are a whining dog begging for scraps, Vajda. And this old pervert gave you scraps, did he not? When he was not buggering you?”

Novak made a sharp gesture. One of the men holding Imre elbowed him viciously in the face. Fresh blood spattered onto Imre’s white shirt, joining the dried spots.

Valery lunged toward them. Several guns swung up, trained on him. Someone wrenched his arms back violently and slammed a metal pipe across his throat. He barely felt it.

He stared at Imre, shaking. Unable to speak, to think.

“So.” Novak caressed Val’s chin with a clawlike hand in a hideous parody of tenderness. “I hope, for your old friend’s sake, that you are not going to tell me you are incapable of undertaking this.”

Blood was filling his mouth again, but Valery could not swallow. The pressure across his throat was strangling him. His ears roared.

“No,” he choked out hoarsely. “I am not saying that.”

“Good.” Novak made a gesture to the men holding Val. The pressure on his throat eased. His arm was released.

“And now, a demonstration of my resolve,” Novak said briskly. “We will remove a piece of your friend—a small piece. A finger, an ear, so we all know where we stand. Keep the piece if you are feeling sentimental. Did I hear your friend plays the piano? A teacher at the conservatory? Once a concert pianist? Charming. A finger, then.”

“No,” Val broke in. “Do not touch him. Or it’s no deal.”

“You do not set the terms of this deal.” Novak’s smile stretched out over his long, discolored teeth. “I set them. All of them. You have forgotten the rules, my boy. A few of his fingers should remind you.”

Val’s mind raced desperately like a rat in an electrified maze. He groped in his shirt pocket with his hand, felt a small, smooth cylinder.

He yanked it out, with a flourish. “The rules just changed.”

The snickering and muttering abruptly stopped. All eyes went to the ampoule in Val’s hand.

“And what is that?” Novak asked.

“Poison gas,” Val said. “If I break this, everyone in this room dies before they can reach the door.”

Novak chewed the inside of his sunken cheek. He shot a look at András. “Whose responsibility was it to search this man before he was brought into my presence?”

One of the younger men’s eyes went wide. He began to back away.

András lifted his gun and shot the man in the face. He hit the wall and slid to the floor, the swath of gore vivid against white cement blocks. Imre made a choked sound. He sagged between his two captors.

“Everyone dies, including yourself?” Novak’s tone was light. “And your friend?”

“Of course,” Val said. “It’s worth it to me. I dislike being bullied. You and I can continue this conversation in hell.”

Novak chuckled softly. “Do you always carry poison gas on your person? What an odd accessory.”

Valery’s eyes locked on Novak’s. “Life is so uncertain,” he said. “Death is much more reliable.”

The chuckles turned to wheezy gasps of laughter. “Ah, Vajda, I have missed you since I sold you on the auction block to those PSS dogs all those years ago,” Novak said, wiping his mouth. “So. Tell me. What do you hope to accomplish with your poison gas?”

“We talk terms,” Val said. “My terms.”

“And they are?” Novak’s voice had a humoring tone.

“The kill fee, to start. Five hundred thousand euro, expenses excluded.”

There were assorted snorts and snickers from the men assembled. Novak looked amused. “You think well of yourself, Valery. But why a kill fee? It is not necessary to kill her. I will take care of that personally.”

“Bringing her to you alive is more difficult than a straight kill,” Val said. “I require no interference, no backup team. Live webcam conversations with him upon request.” He gestured toward Imre. “As well as your solemn word before witnesses that he will not be harmed.”

Novak’s pale, poisonous gaze narrowed. Val kept his face impassive. His heart thundered.

This was a wild gamble. Novak had a pathological hatred of being lied to. There were whispers about what he had done to his wife years ago to punish her for lying to him. It was said he’d cut off his own son’s finger when he was a child as punishment for lying about some trivial childhood sin. The underlying message was brutally clear. If the boss did that to his own son, what might he do to a piece of shit nobody like me? It had been a very powerful deterrent to lying.

But the corollary was that in his own twisted way, he considered himself a man of honor. If Novak gave his word not to harm Imre in front of his men, he would consider himself bound by it. Val hoped.

On the other hand, the man was utterly mad, after all.

“Vajda.” Imre cleared his throat, coughing. “You cannot—”

“Shut up, old man,” Val said harshly. “I did not ask you.”

Tense moments crawled by. Novak pondered, rubbing his chin. “The demand for money is absurd,” he said. “But I do appreciate a man who gives good sport. For this, I will spare the finger—for tonight. And in return…” His voice trailed off, eyes sparkling with amusement.

Val waited, not allowing himself to swallow or breathe.

“You will provide me with video footage of your affair with Steele,” Novak said. “Something juicy and explicitly sexual, something to entertain the men on dull nights. You will have a few minutes of communication with your friend. If at any point the video rendezvous is missed, I will start to remove pieces of him. I require my first installment—let me see—Monday. I am giving you a few extra days of grace, to allow for travel time,” he concluded, his tone magnanimous. “After that, I will expect something every three days.”

Val’s jaw ached with tension. “I cannot guarantee—”

“Then I will start with his fingers,” Novak said lightly. “Do not try to intimidate me, Vajda.” His grin stretched wider. “Look into my eyes. Do I look like a man who has anything to fear from your poison gas?”

Val’s fingers tightened on the ampule. The faces of the other men in the room were rigid with terror. Novak’s was alight with triumph.

“Do we have an understanding?” Novak asked.

Val nodded. Novak jerked and wheezed with laughter. He gestured to one of his men. “Give him his things.”

The man jerked into movement, producing Val’s wallet, cell phone, Palm Pilot. He dropped them onto the table.

Val pocketed the items. He seized the file that held the photographs, and shoved the case that held the torque under his arm.

“I need this,” he said. “For pretexting an approach.”

“As you wish.” Novak’s voice was oily with satisfaction. “Be sure to bring it back when you deliver her. I wish to kill her with it.”

Val gave Imre one last look. The old man’s eyes were hollow and bleak. Val felt helpless. “We will speak on the videophone,” he said.

Imre did not reply. Novak’s men shrank away from Val as he made for the door, their eyes on the ampule. No one accompanied him as he made his way out of the labyrinth of subterranean passageways beneath the warehouse district in Köbanya. He remembered the way. The fully functioning businesses above were money laundering fronts for Novak’s other, more profitable businesses. He had organized the front company documentation for some of them himself many years ago.

The men at the guardposts stared at him as he stumbled out into the frigid night. He had left his coat behind. Snow brushed his battered face. It felt good against inflamed flesh. The water in his hair and shirt promptly froze solid. He shuffled aimlessly through ankle deep slush. Whoever saw his blood-spattered face scurried away, unnerved.

So they should. He was soiled, corrupt. Sent out to play roles he could not shake, despite all his desperate effort. Whore, liar, betrayer.

Killer. Worse. Delivering Steele alive to Novak was more cruel than the swift mercy of a bullet through the nape. Far worse than delivering her into Georg Luksch’s hands. Killing her outright would be kinder.

And he had to make her trust him. Hah. If not for Imre, he would not know the meaning of the word. But if he could not do it…

He seemed to stumble and shuffle for hours through the pelting snow. He stopped on the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, and stared up at the pitiless, implacable stone face of one of the lions. Wind whipped his breath from his mouth. He saw Imre, hunched in his cramped kitchen, frying egg-soaked bread for him as he lectured on Socrates, Descartes.

Imre, with blood streaming from his nose and mouth, his eyes full of mute suffering. Imre, with mutilated hands, dripping blood.

Val lurched to the side, and vomited up his guts. The heaving went on long after his stomach was empty. His eyes streamed, his nose ran. The dark water of the Danube roiled sluggishly below. He longed for the icy, airless darkness of it. Not for the first time. He thought of his mother.

No. It was not his nature. Fuck them. He was too angry to give in.

He straightened, wiping his face with a sleeve stiff with ice, and resumed his shambling way to the hotel, the jewelry case and file of photos clamped beneath his arm. The conversation with Hegel flashed through his mind. It seemed so long ago.

He began to laugh. At least he no longer had to worry about Hegel hurting Imre. His friend could only be savaged by one villain at a time.

Laughter hurt his cracked ribs. He stopped it.

At least Novak did not know about the child. He clung to that.

He was still clutching the ampule in his hand, he realized, though his numb fingers barely felt it. His hand tightened on the hard cylinder. He broke off the tip and inhaled deeply.

It was a sample vial of a new scent, blended exclusively for him by his personal parfumeur in Provence. An extravagant affectation, but fuck it, he had the money. Why not? He liked good smells.

The scent was voluptuous, hints of sweet wood, fleshy depths of forest mushrooms, the warm, spicy tang of pine, lavender and sage. A pathetically small victory in the face of the leverage that Novak wielded on him, but he would cling to any minor triumph.

Three more days of safety for Imre’s finger, for a vial of perfume.

He rubbed some on his skin, inhaled. His body was too cold to release the scent, and the inside of his nose felt frozen solid, but still, he smelled it, just barely, and the earthy, sensual essence warmed him.

It made him think of Tamara Steele. The way her red lips curved in that secret smile in the evening gown photograph. The picture of her in the black dress, wildflowers in her outstretched hand. Lavender and daisies. Her pale, beautiful face, filled with ancient sadness.

But the image of Imre’s mutilated hands battered at him.

He was unaccustomed to the sensation of fear after years of cultivating detachment. It was intensely unpleasant.

If they killed Imre, that was it. There was no other reason for Val to remain even remotely human.

You are a whining dog begging for scraps.

True. His stock portfolio had a net worth in the millions now, and look at him, still living on scraps. A chess game every few years. Distant memories of egg and bread fried in butter, Socrates and Descartes, Bach inventions played on the grand piano. That lumpy, dusty old divan.

And soon enough, a mossy grave in the cemetery with Imre’s name carved on it.

Scraps. All that he would ever be allowed to have.