A Cold Dark Promise (Cold Justice #8.5)(14)
Alex: I’m now terrified of your mother. Glad they kept their shorts on. Would have hated to have to kill them all…
MR: Who said it was their shorts they kept on? ;)
Alex laughed. He never forgot how blessed he was to have found this woman, or the knowledge that she trusted him. It humbled him.
MR: I have to go. I love you. Keep safe. Don’t be late!
Alex: I’ll be there. I’m just off to find some strippers for my impromptu bucks night…
MR: You’re not the only one with a gun, buster.
Alex: :)
The fact he was sitting here smiley-face emoticoning his pregnant fiancée was not lost on him. His life had gone from doom and gloom to almost too good to be true. He didn’t intend to fuck it up.
Something bright caught his eye. The flaxen tresses of a slight figure hurrying along the quay. Little Taylor Masook. His fingers tensed on the handle of his coffee mug. This was a perfect opportunity to spirit her away. Would she fight him? Would he need to subdue her? Not a happy thought. But he could do it.
Or did he wait for Frazer?
He climbed to his feet, and the little girl glanced toward him and started waving frantically.
He froze. Had he been made? By a frickin’ eight-year-old?
“Josette!” she shouted.
Alex turned and saw the beautiful, young woman he’d observed on Saturday sitting at a table against the wall. He hadn’t noticed her arrival because he’d been distracted talking to Mal.
Fuck. That’s how operatives died.
The woman caught his gaze for a brief second before her eyes slipped to the child. So, this was Josette. She must be the nanny or a tutor. Perhaps she was the reason Masook had brought the child with him. Because if the child was close, so was the nanny? A man as insecure as Masook probably wouldn’t want to stray far from this woman if she was his lover. And if she wasn’t, then this would be a good opportunity to try and change that fact.
Alex put some euros on the table, weighed down with his cup. Then he headed inside on the pretext of using the bathroom. He stood at the counter checking out the cake selection as Josette climbed to her feet and went to meet the girl at the edge of the patio. Alex took a quick photograph of the woman and the child through the window. He sent the image to Frazer and his team back in DC.
From what he could gather from Taylor’s animated arm-waving and high-pitched excitement her daddy wanted Josette back on the boat ASAP. Probably meant he was going somewhere and didn’t want Taylor’s company but didn’t want to leave the kid alone. If Alex’s primary objective had still been to grab the kid, then the next couple of hours would have been the ideal time to do that. Jane would get her daughter back, Alex would make it to his own wedding.
He eyed the blue-eyed, blonde child as she spoke earnestly to Josette. He could see her mother in her coloring and the shape of her face. The slice of her nose was her father’s.
Ahmed Masook had forfeited a father’s rights when he’d lifted his fists to his wife, and again when he’d flouted the US court order. If Alex’s gut was correct then Ahmed Masook was also an arms broker, and they were some of the dirtiest scum in the universe. They didn’t care where weapons ended up. They just cared about their personal wealth. A kid shouldn’t be within a mile of that sort of evil.
Admittedly, some might say the same thing about him.
Josette went back to the table and collected her things and followed Taylor out of the patio and back along the quay.
It was another beautiful day on the Med. Alex followed slowly, losing them in the crowd ahead, but not worried. He knew where they were going. He mingled with tourists as they took in the opulence of the setting and the fancy yachts. He drew in the sharp scent of the ocean and enjoyed the heat of the sun on his skin. Even so, he’d rather have been in Virginia or DC on a cool spring day with Mal by his side.
He glanced at Fair Winds and the Akula with admiration and awe he wasn’t really feeling. These people expected gawkers and probably ignored them. There was a helicopter landing pad on both boats complete with machines that gleamed in the sunshine like giant metal wasps.
He passed a man smoking a cigar and wearing a cerulean silk suit. Alex kept his pace to a saunter, but his heart gave a jolt.
Serat Al-Hadam was a front man for the Iranians.
What the hell was Masook brokering?
The former Soviet Union had been rife with nuclear, biological and chemical arsenals when it had fallen and, with the tacit approval of the Russian government, men like Ranich had been lining their pockets selling off those instruments of death ever since.
The full heat of the midday sun hit him as he approached the end of Millionaires’ Quay. Something was going down. Something big. An international arms deal was too big to ignore, but so was his promise to help Jane get her daughter back.
Jane was trying to move on with her life. The same way he was. Images bombarded him. Not of the men he’d killed, but friends and patriots who’d died in service, innocent civilians running the gauntlet of warlords and governments as they tried to live normal lives between power grabs.
Only a month ago a white nationalist had tried to bring some homemade devastation to the heart of DC. What would happen if one of these bastards got hold of some bonafide military-grade hardware, or some other weapon of mass destruction?
He stood on the end of the pier, struggling with his options, trying to figure out which was more important—getting an innocent child away from a cesspit, or making sure everyone involved in this arms deal was scooped up and put out of business.