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“Surely I see that,” Bastien echoed ironically.
“Why don’t the three of you put down your weapons?” Thomason said in the amiable voice of a kindly uncle offering tea and biscuits. “My people are waiting in the room beyond, along with your recent failed mission, my dear. We should join them.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he must have seen Peter move and the blinding beam of torchlight fastened on him. “Another bullet in that leg would be both debilitating and painful, Peter,” Harry said. “I don’t think you want that. Put the gun down.”
Peter set his gun down on the littered stone flooring, and Bastien did the same. Isobel wasn’t ready to panic—she expected they carried other weapons, and both of them were capable of killing with their bare hands. They still stood more than a fighting chance.
“And you, my dear,” he said. “Put it down now, or I’ll put a bullet in your head this very minute.”
She set it down, because she had no choice. “You’re planning on doing it anyway, Harry,” she said. Her voice sounded nothing more tha
n bored. She’d learned her craft well.
“Yes, we both know that, but as long as there’s life, there’s hope, and you’re not going to willingly take a bullet until you have no other choice.”
“You’re very wise,” she said sweetly. She still had her Swiss Army knife, although it wouldn’t do much good against a semiautomatic.
“After you, my friends.” Thomason gestured toward the circle of light farther down the tunnel. “And do be careful. I believe your friend Serafin—or should I call him Killian?—has cut a bloody swath on his way down here. I wouldn’t want you to trip over any more bodies. Hands on your heads, please.”
Isobel’s back screamed as she put her hands on the back of her head. “Why are you doing this, Harry? Have you been behind everything? The car bomb in Plymouth, the pilot in Algeria, MacGowan’s disappearance?”
“Of course. But don’t expect me to make some long confession full of braggadocio. I do what needs to be done. And what needed to be done was to take you down, Madame Lambert. You’re weak. You put the safety of the world in jeopardy because you won’t do what needs to be done.”
“That’s why you’re doing this, Harry? To save the world?” Peter murmured.
“Sir Harry, my boy,” he snapped. “Remember, I was your mentor.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“This place is wired, isn’t it?” Bastien spoke suddenly. “You’re going to blow it.”
“You always were quick, Toussaint. Practically psychic, except that I know you’ve been around explosives long enough that you can probably smell them. That’s exactly what I plan to do. But I’m not leaving a thing to chance—you’ll all be dead before I hit the switch. I’m a thorough man.”
“So you’ve said.” Isobel kept walking. She could feel his eyes, his gun, trained on the middle of her back, and suddenly the tiny cuts from the glass seemed like the least of her worries. “Then I presume Killian’s already dead?”
Harry sighed. “I fear my employees have not been as efficient as I might have liked. But you’ll find out soon enough. There’ll be time for a touching lovers’ farewell, and maybe I’ll even let you die in each other’s arms.”
“Don’t make me ill, Sir Harry,” she said coldly. “Have you ever known me to be sentimental?”
“Not particularly. But you have a weak spot as far as this man is concerned, I know that much. Who would have thought the head of the Committee would be fucking a terrorist?” The word sounded strange in his elegant voice, clearly an obscenity.
“But he’s not a terrorist, Harry,” Peter said. “You missed that one completely. He’s CIA.”
“Preposterous!” the old man exclaimed.
“And are you sure we’re all present and accounted for?” Bastien asked slyly.
As a judgment call it was questionable. Harry didn’t need to know Reno was skulking around, but then, anything that dented Thomason’s self-assurance was an asset. “There’s no one else,” he said.
“What about our new recruit?” Isobel murmured.
The old man laughed. “He’s dead. My men saw to it. The nasty little punk killed one of them, and another one’s not going to make it, but he’s dead.”
“If you say so,” she said. The light was getting brighter, but there was no noise coming from the open doors ahead. Were Killian and Mahmoud already dead? Harry wouldn’t be nearly so sure of himself if he didn’t have the upper hand.
Peter was holding back, and she knew he was going to try to get between her and Harry. To take a bullet for her, if he had to, and that was one thing she couldn’t let happen. Not and live with herself.
She halted, turning to look at Sir Harry. He had always seemed a somewhat comical little man, until you gazed into his pale, blank eyes. She’d been a fool to underestimate him. A man who’d ordered as many deaths as he had over the years wouldn’t take to being marginalized with any grace.
