In For the Kill (McClouds & Friends #11)(136)

“You’re doing this because you are bored?”

He looked irritated. “You’re missing my point. You just handed me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It’s not exactly the gift I was longing for, but I’ll be a good sport and take it. This bomb can never be traced to me. I did not purchase the material, nor build it, nor pay to have it built. Nor did I have contact with anyone who did, except for a few untraceable calls from burner phones. The only point of contact is you, Svetlana. With you gone, I can detonate this bomb and cause mass mayhem with absolute impunity. How could I possibly resist?”

The question was so foreign to the way her mind was wired, it left her stupid and stammering. Hazlett sailed smoothly on past.

“Renato and I were sure when we planted the trace on you that Pavel and his goons would just kill you. But you killed him instead. Who’d have thought you were such a virago, to look at you. So delicate. So feminine.” His eyes raked her hungrily, up and down.

“Sasha.” Her voice caught on his name. “Sasha killed him.”

Hazlett shrugged. “Whatever. Last man standing takes the credit. I was astonished you survived. I hated the thought of Pavel doing something grisly to your lovely, delicate person, but it was such a simple way to solve our problem.”

“Like with Mama,” she said. “You let them execute her.”

“True. But you survived long enough to deliver the long-lost radioactive materials into my hands. There’s really only one thing to do with such an item, right? Josef is hard at work right now, making us a huge, awful bomb. Alas for poor Rome. So rich in history and culture. My heart bleeds for the Sistine Chapel, and Michelangelo’s Pietà. Rome will be uninhabitable for God alone knows how long.”

“Rome? But . . . but . . .” She looked frantically from one man to the other. “You can’t mean to blow up a dirty bomb in Rome!”

Renato and Hazlett exchanged glances. “I’ve weighed the pros and cons, and I’m willing to sacrifice Rome,” Hazlett said. “Though you’ll be leaving this earthly plane tonight, so it hardly concerns you.”

That was too obvious to deserve comment. “But a war could start!” she protested. “So many people killed!”

“Not really,” Hazlett soothed. “Several hundred tourists are likely to die in the initial blast, yes, but it won’t level the city like a nuclear bomb would. It’s the lingering radioactivity that will be the problem. And the panic that will convulse the entire planet, of course. It’s like a needle, and I can jab it at the nerve center of the global economy, stand back, and see what twitches. What a rush. Josef will go ahead with his looting, which will be profitable enough to content him. And there will be a tremendous surge in interest for our new compound. An anti-radiation sickness med from TorreStark. Imagine the possibilities.”

Sveti’s gorge rose. “You’re doing this to drive up stock value?”

Hazlett shrugged. “I sounds so banal when you put it that way. It’s not that I need the money. After a few hundred millions, one wouldn’t even notice a tenfold increase. But once one starts making money at that level, it’s a habit that’s very hard to break.”

She had to keep him talking. “Why Rome?”

“I personally would have preferred another city, or another country altogether. I’m fond of Italy, and I’d rather target a place where I don’t own valuable property, where the disarray will not impact industries in which I am heavily invested, and where my favorite vacation spots will not become radioactive wastelands. But there are other considerations that lead me to choose Rome.”

He waited for her prompt, his eyes glittering.

She was unable to wait him out. “And these are?”

Hazlett’s smile was smug. “The people arriving at the airport this morning. Tamara Steel, Valery Janos, Nick Ward, Rebecca Cattrell.”

Fresh panic scattered what was left of her composure. “But how did you . . . I didn’t even know they—”

“We’ve been monitoring your e-mail, Svetlana. Ever since you were old enough to have your own accounts. They sent you their travel details. They have rooms at the historic Hassler Hotel, right next to the Trinità dei Monti church, overlooking the Spanish Steps. I’m very fond of the Hassler myself, and I regret blowing up a precious chunk of Roman history. But if it’s necessary . . .”

“No! Think this through!” she begged.

“I’ve thought of everything. With one push of a button, all the angry, irritating people who would have searched for you disappear, in a puff of radioactive dust. Of course, there’s your pit bull, but one of my people will pay him a visit, let’s see”—he glanced at his watch—“any minute now. A few drops into his IV and good-bye, Sam Petrie.”

“No! You don’t have to hurt Sam! Call your man off! He won’t look for me! We broke up, understand? Badly! He hates me now!”

“It’s probably already taken care of by now, Svetlana. Resign yourself.” Hazlett’s eyes were gloating. “And don’t lie. I saw the way he looked at you. You excite violent feelings, as you did in me. Renato, too. Even Josef. He wants to do the honors himself, when the time comes. You have panting admirers right and left.” He patted her cheek with the hand not holding the gun. She twisted, tried to bite him.