Ultimate Weapon (McClouds & Friends #6)(67)

“Oh, really?” She flung her head back, tear-blurred eyes blazing up at him. “Spit it out.”

“Drago Stengl,” he said.

The handful of hair ornaments clattered to the ground, bouncing and scattering. Her face was white to the lips.

“No one knows that. How…?” Her voice was a dry whisper.

The change in her eyes unnerved him. He felt as if he had just driven a knife into her chest.

“There was a photograph of you in Novak’s files,” he admitted. “It was taken at the memorial service some years ago, for the massacre in Zetrinja. I did some research and found out who gave the orders. I thought that you might be interested in, ah…news of him.”

“News? Of the man who murdered my father? I want more than news.” Her voice was colorless, dead. “I want his heart’s blood. I want him stretched on the rack. I want him screaming in hell.”

He had won, he realized. He had hooked her, but the realization gave him no satisfaction. On the contrary. It made him feel like a piece of shit to use her in this way. Turning a knife in old wounds.

“Where is he?” she asked.

“I don’t have his location yet, but I have a solid lead,” he hedged. “I will help you follow it. In exchange for your support on my project.”

She laughed. “Project? What a word for it. What do you mean by a lead? If you are f*cking with me, I swear to God I will kill you.”

“I know where his daughter is,” he said.

Her soft white throat worked. “Ana,” she whispered.

“Yes, Ana. She lives in Italy. She is married to an Italian businessman with connections to the Camorra. I have someone following her right now. A client of mine can introduce us, the wife of a Camorra boss. I can exploit the connection. If you like.”

“If…I…like,” she echoed, her voice hollow. She stared at him, or through him. She had forgotten that he was there. She was looking back through the years at something he could not see and did not want to. From her haunted eyes, he understood that it was as vivid as if it were happening here and now.

He understood that. There were moments in his life as well that had burned their indelible afterimage onto every day that followed.

He steeled himself. “So?” he prodded her. “Do we have a bargain?”

She made a choked sound, put her hand over her mouth, and lurched out the door. Her rapid, clicking footsteps receded down the hall.

Val gripped the door frame with his fist. Was that a yes? Nothing was ever obvious with that woman.

Three steps back, he reminded himself, but it was no use. The emotions he’d learned to step back from had never been like these. They had no place, no right to exist. Inconvenient desire and guilt. And grief.

Imre. He gathered up the hair ornaments, retrieved the video camera, and headed out a door at the end of the corridor that led out onto the grounds. He cut through the forest on his way to the parking lot. It was freezing cold. He had not bothered to retrieve his coat, but he was still in a near molten state, from the encounter with Tamara Steele.

He could melt the polar ice caps in this condition.

He loped through frozen leaves and twigs crunching beneath his slippery dress shoes and slid into the car. Hoping desperately that there would be wireless coverage. He did not want to have to drive away from her and Rachel. He hated to let them out of his sight at all.

He booted up the laptop. Ah, joy. There was coverage. He established a connection, activated the tiny videocamera embedded in the screen. Downloaded the digital video footage.

Editing it made his heart pound. The footage was too good, the angle paradoxically perfect, showing every detail of Steele’s flushed face, eyes closed, head thrown back, her perfect thighs clamped around his.

His chest ached. This experience was private, precious. And he had to throw it to that fiend, Novak. A chunk of meat to quiet the beast.

He edited out her tears, their conversation. A meaningless attempt to protect what he could of her privacy. He encrypted it, attached it. His finger lingered for minutes over the button. He closed his eyes and thought of Imre’s hands.

He clicked “send.”

He sat in the dark with his hands clamped over his face for over ten minutes until he could trust himself to link up to the videophone.

András’s grinning face flickered into view. “Ah, there you are. We were enjoying your show. Lucky pig.”

“I want to see Imre,” Val said stonily.

“Wait.” András disappeared. Val waited, staring at the blank screen, the antique chair’s carved back. Several minutes passed.

Novak seated himself in front of the computer, grinning. He had licked his purplish lips until they gleamed.

“Well done, Vajda,” he said. “Forgive me for making you wait, but I was riveted to the screen. Your performance with La Steele was magnificent. I have not been so stirred in years. I shall set up video screens in the room where I conduct her punishment and loop the footage the entire time. Those will be the last images she ever sees, before I gouge out her eyes. Perfect, eh?”

Val instantly manufactured white noise in his brain to block out the image. It did not work. “I want to speak to Imre,” he repeated dully.

“Of course, of course. I had him brought down the minute your video appeared in my inbox. He was privileged to watch it with us. Let me give the chair to him. I wish to go back and watch it again.”