Ultimate Weapon (McClouds & Friends #6)(104)

But Val’s thunderous face discouraged laughter.



András bent over the hotel room door, the lock pick hidden by his big hand. The antique locks of the old hotel were laughably easy to pick.

He had just arrived in San Vito. Old Novak had gotten nervous, not surprisingly, and sent András to secure the situation. This job would begin with a candid conversation with Ferenc, their spy in Georg’s organization. The man’s usefulness was beginning to erode, despite the generous sums they paid him. Jakab’s bloody delivery in the cardboard box had rattled him. The time was fast approaching when Ferenc would need to be recycled into some fresh use. But not quite yet.

The man sprawled on the bed with an ice pack on his face sprang into the air when the door swung open. His face was grotesquely bruised and swollen. His reddened eyes widened.

“Oh, f*ck,” he moaned. “No. You.”

“Me,” András agreed, strolling into the room.

“You’re insane to come here!” Ferenc whispered hoarsely. “I might not have been alone! The others could come back any time! Do you have any idea what would happen to me if Luksch realized that I am the—”

“But he hasn’t yet.” As if he gave a shit.

“You don’t understand,” Ferenc said urgently. “Luksch is suspicious of all of us ever since Jakab was killed! Ever since Novak found out about PSS and the woman, he knows that one of us is—”

“And did you not take this into account when you cashed the check?” András reminded him gently. “All of the many, many checks?”

“But…but he will kill me,” Ferenc whined. “He will—”

“Shut up.” András grabbed a chair from the desk, and rested his bulk on its spindly legs. “From the condition of your face, I assume you have met Janos?”

Ferenc’s face darkened. He struggled to his feet off the bed.

“He took us by surprise,” he said sullenly. “You should see the other men. Iwan’s ribs and collarbone are broken, Miklós is in the hospital with head and neck injuries. Hegel, too. Hegel’s lucky to be alive at all.”

“Hegel is in the hospital?” András was startled. That was remarkable enough to stop him from shutting off the man’s prattle with his fist. He knew the man, from Novak’s own dealings with PSS. It would take a great deal to get the better of Hegel. “What hospital?”

Ferenc’s face furrowed as he struggled to remember. “I Santi Medici,” he said after a doubtful pause. “I think.”

“His room number?”

“How the f*ck would I know?” Ferenc grumbled. “I didn’t send the man flowers. And you should leave. Immediately, before Luksch—”

“What name is he using?”

Ferenc gaped stupidly. “Who?”

“Hegel, you dickbrained idiot,” András said, with saintly patience.

Ferenc hid behind the ice pack. “It was an American passport. Mike something. Fowler, I think. Mike Fowler.”

András filed it all away, his foot tapping thoughtfully on the carpet. “And how did he locate the woman and the PSS agent?”

“He had a GPS tracer on one of them. Don’t know which one. Christ, this hurts. That bastard broke my nose. I saw Hegel running the program on his laptop a couple times, monitoring them.”

“Where is his hotel room?” András got up, took a step toward the bed.

“It’s a floor above this one,” Ferenc said sulkily, hanging his head. “He had to be next to the stairwell. You have to go, before Luksch—”

Crack. András punched the man’s already broken nose knocking him to the floor. Ferenc huddled, whimpering and gasping for air. András stared down at him thoughtfully, massaging his knuckles. Ferenc held his nose, choking. Blood streamed through his fingers.

“If I hear you whine again, I will call Luksch myself and tell him who our spy is,” András said calmly. “Be grateful I did not kill you.”

He let the door swing shut behind him, and headed to the stairwell, to search Hegel’s room, hoping that the man would not be comatose once he got to the hospital to speak to him. He needed Hegel conscious, at least for a few minutes. That was all that was necessary, for his purposes. After that, well…why not? Since Hegel had shown the poor taste and judgment to throw in his lot with Georg…

András just might indulge himself. It had been a very long time.



The one good thing about the Vespino was that it made conversation impossible. Anything he could have said to Tamar now would only make things worse.

Knowing that it wasn’t her fault, that she’d been compelled—ah, God. It did not help. He wanted to kill Georg for doing that to her.

And not only Georg. It was not enough. Others should die, too, for everything that had led up to it. Years of cruelty and misfortune, of doing what she had to do to survive.

And in spite of it all, she was so strong. Shining and beautiful.

The headwind blew tears of rage out of the corners of his eyes. He wanted to slaughter them all himself, all the way back to Stengl. That psychotic prick that had murdered her family, used her for a toy, and abandoned her to fend for herself when she was just a grieving child.