Ultimate Weapon (McClouds & Friends #6)(4)

Nor could he interfere with Val’s bond with his closest friend and fellow operative, Henry Berne. In fact, Henry might well be his only friend. The person known as Val Janos had “friends,” but none of them knew about his double life. Only PSS staff knew, and of them, only Henry could be counted as a friend.

One friend, in all the world, unless he counted Imre. But Imre was in a category all his own.

“This job is your ticket to retirement,” Hegel ground out. “Do not f*ck it up, Janos. I am tired of your superior attitude. I would love to see the ass end of you head off into the sunset, because the alternative would be stressful and bloody. And my personal responsibility since I was the dick who recruited you. Think about that.” Hegel hung up.

Val pulled off the earpiece. It flew across the room and hit the wall before he could even try to grasp for his elusive, detached calm again.

God. Twelve years of sweating blood and taking bullets for those ungrateful bastards, and still they waved their f*cking threats at him.

Scruples. Another thing he could not afford. His scruples had been a problem for most of his life. Ironic, considering the career destiny had in store for him. Imre’s influence, no doubt. He could hear in his mind’s ear exactly what Imre would have had to say about that, but he blocked the lecture before it could start to play in his head. He had no time or energy to spare for guilt.

He had told Hegel that he didn’t know if Steele cared enough about the child to use her as a lever, but he had lied. No woman of her type sacrificed an hour of her life to suffer through the tedium of Mommy & Me, or spent hours rolling a ball back and forth across the grass in the park except out of love. She cared, intensely.

From the point of view of expediency, it was difficult to justify not doing what Hegel had urged. Take the child, and start negotiations.

But he disliked hurting children. Kidnapping that child would hurt her. It would hurt any child. Particularly a small, wounded one.

That child was wounded. He knew her story, he’d seen her files, read her charts. He would not be the one to inflict the next blow in an endless series of blows. To say nothing of the practical logistics of caring for a small child with medical problems. He would need a team. It would be chaotic, complicated, messy. A state of affairs he took pains to avoid.

In the course of his career, he’d managed to finesse his dislike of hurting children, and still obtain successful outcomes. He’d relied on luck and cleverness, but his luck had run out last year in Bogotá.

The problem had been glaringly evident to the powers that be at PSS. Which explained the long vacation they’d given him. Aside from the small matter of the bullet wounds he’d sustained.

He’d been out of favor ever since, expecting them to put him down like a rabid dog at any moment. Vaguely surprised every morning that he woke to find himself still alive. They hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

He’d begun to hope that they would simply ignore him for the rest of his life, but no. They had called him to locate Steele—and behold, she had a baby daughter. It was a test he could not afford to fail.

He clicked automatically on the shower footage, thinking to distract himself with that dance of wet female flesh. It did not help, to watch her play with the toddler. It made him squirm, it made him sweat. He could not think straight, could not detach, could not take the three steps. Nothing had ever shaken his self-control to this extent.

Find the weak point. Then exploit it. The rule droned in his head.

Vaffanculo, he responded mentally, banishing it.

The beeper attached to his pants chirped at him. He took a look, and his gut clenched. It was a numeric code, sent by Imre’s housecleaning service in Budapest. They were supposed to inform him of any change in Imre’s health and welfare. They had never beeped him before.

The code informed him that he had an urgent message to retrieve from the computer bulletin board. Something had happened to Imre.

His heart accelerated without his permission. There was a tremor in his hand as he entered passwords, clicked the message, decoded it.

A few terse lines informed him that the woman who was paid to cook, clean, and do Imre’s shopping had come in that day and found the door forced, the apartment ransacked, and Imre unconscious on the floor, badly beaten. He was in the hospital, his condition grave.

Val stared at the text on the screen for approximately three seconds and sprang to his feet, overturning the cup of tea. He groped for his phone, splashed and slipped clumsily in his bare feet through the steaming puddle in his haste to dress, pack, go, go, go.

He was breathless, dizzy. Panicking. Calm down. Three steps. Panic was another luxury that he could not afford.

Find the weak spot. Then exploit it.

His gut churned nastily. It seemed someone had just found his.





Chapter


2




Adrenaline kicked her right across the barrier of sleep.

Tam jerked up in bed, every nerve screaming, and instantly put every mental trick she had into action to block the dream that had provoked it. If the images didn’t sink their claws into her conscious mind, the feelings faded more quickly. Though never quickly enough.

Tonight, she couldn’t block it. The crackle of rifle fire. Hard, clutching hands holding her down under a bruised white sky. Dark silhouettes, mouths screaming, but she could not hear what they said. She was deafened by those rifles popping.