Ultimate Weapon (McClouds & Friends #6)(19)

“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.