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If you sent your mind to a separate place you didn’t feel pain. You didn’t hear the rage, or the screams of the dying, or smell the blood, or count the dead. You turned your mind in a single direction, and everything else fell back into its own neat space, unable to touch you.
He was good at computers, fast and decisive, and he knew he didn’t have much time. The big question was whether someone was doing real-time electronic surveillance as well as monitoring them on security cameras. It could work either way—someone might be in one of the hidden rooms, watching everything he was doing on the computer, having already taken note of Chloe’s ham-handed searches.
Or they could simply search through the computer’s history on a regular basis, in which case he’d be safe wiping out Chloe’s tracks.
Either way, he’d do it—if Hakim and the others found any record they still wouldn’t know who’d cleared it. He could do that little for her, and not much more without compromising his position. Besides, there were always civilian casualties in every war. She was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.
He was just about to hit the Delete button when he heard a noise behind him. He didn’t have to turn—he had an almost preternatural sense of who was approaching, and his cool, dispassionate self took over. It was Hakim, and his arrival couldn’t be accidental.
Bastien let his hand rest on the mouse. One click, and it was gone. One click, and she would have a fighting chance at survival.
“So what have you discovered about little Miss Underwood, Bastien?” Hakim inquired, lighting one of his thick, Cuban cigars.
His fingers hesitated. “She’s an innocent,” he said. “No one sent her, she has no agenda. She is who she says she it.”
“How unfortunate. For her, that is. Would you like to tell me how much she suspects?”
Bastien stared down at his hand. He moved it away from the mouse, and turned the monitor slightly
so Hakim could see it. “Everything,” he said in a deadly calm voice.
Hakim leaned forward, peering at the screen. He nodded. “Too bad,” he said. “For her, that is. But I suppose it’s to be expected. I’ll take care of her—I’m quite good at it. I should tell you that the baron was most displeased that you and the girl were out of range of the cameras. I know you well enough to know that wasn’t an accident. Really unfair of you, Toussaint. The baron likes his little pleasures, and they do no one harm.”
“I wasn’t in the mood to perform for the old man.”
“You’ve done it in the past, with his wife. Don’t try to deny it, or say that you didn’t know there were cameras. You always know when there are cameras. So what made tonight different?”
The question was random, almost lazy, but Bastien wasn’t fooled. “Fucking his wife was one thing—if he wants to watch and she wants to be watched then who am I to argue?”
“And why didn’t you want him to see you do Miss Chloe? Were you protecting her? Do you have a soft spot for her in that ice cube of a heart?” Hakim purred.
Bastien turned to look at him, cool and unflappable, and Hakim shrugged. “Stupid question, Toussaint. Forgive me. I of all people should know that you don’t come equipped with any tender emotions. Do you want to watch me kill her?”
Bastien hit the Delete button then, and all trace of Chloe’s tampering vanished. “Not particularly. Are you sure that’s the best way to deal with her? When an American disappears without a trace there can be a great many awkward questions.”
“There’s no way to avoid it. Too bad for Miss Underwood, but she shouldn’t have been so nosy. Curiosity killed the cat, as they say in her country. And she won’t disappear without a trace. I’ll have my people set something up—a car crash, a tragic accident of some sort.”
“Won’t that cramp your style? I know your fondness for fire and metal, and they leave marks. Not the sort of thing that turns up in a simple car accident.”
“Kind of you to worry about me, monsieur, but I have everything under control. If I accidentally mark her too badly than we can always set the car on fire, have her body burned just to the point of recognition and no further.”
“Very practical,” Bastien said.
“And you’re certain you don’t want to join me in this? I’m more than happy to share.”
“I already enjoyed what I wanted from Miss Underwood,” he said without emotion. “The rest is up to you.”
He joined the others for coffee and liqueurs in the drawing room, flirting lightly with Monique. The baron gave him a disgruntled glare or two, but beyond that his earlier absence wasn’t even noted. No one seemed to notice that Hakim was gone as well, Bastien thought as he lit Monique’s cigarette for her. But then, as Hakim had said, curiosity killed the cat. And the members of their elite little trade organization were experts at self-preservation, and knowing only what they had to know. They knew they could count on Hakim to keep things discreet, as he always had. That was all that mattered.
He glanced at his watch. He’d left Hakim about an hour ago—would Chloe be dead yet? He supposed he ought to hope so. Hakim was an inventive sadist, and he could make it last for hours, even days if he so chose. He didn’t have that kind of luxury, but he suspected that mercy and brevity were unknown to him.
Monique would come to his room tonight—she made it more than clear, ignoring his previous dismissal. The baron would insist on it, having been deprived of his vicarious entertainment. And Bastien would service her, letting technique fill in where interest waned. If he were Hakim the thought of Chloe’s suffering would excite him. But he wasn’t Hakim, and all he could hope was that she died quickly.
He lingered in the drawing room as long as he could, not wanting to head back upstairs. He just wanted it over with—there had been nothing he could do to protect her, not without compromising his own position. And in the end, what was one innocent life compared to the thousands, hundreds of thousands that might be saved if this arms ring was shut down? Assuming that would ever happen—Thomason and his ilk seemed more interested in simply keeping tabs on it. But then, life was full of ugly equations, he’d accepted that long ago, and he wasn’t going to waste his time bemoaning it.
It didn’t help that his room was next to hers, the only two inhabitants in that wing. The maids were cleaning it out when he went back to his room, and he strolled over to the open door with the properly casual air. No signs of violence—he must have done her elsewhere.
The maids were stripping the bed. “Where’s Miss Underwood?” he asked, curious to see what kind of excuse Hakim had come up with.
