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The tires were kicking up too much dust, but during the seven-hour drive from Agadir she’d seen only a handful of sheepherders and a few nomadic encampments. There was a good chance she was being tracked by satellite, but there wasn’t much help for it. Killian…Serafin…was hidden in a deserted village near the Algerian border, and there was enough trouble in the neighboring areas that she had every confidence they’d manage to get away. But then, she never went into a mission without being convinced of its viability.
She could get Josef Serafin out of Morocco, back to London, without someone blowing his head off, no matter how many people wanted to do just that. Including his unwilling savior.
The sun was starting to set by the time she reached the outskirts of the deserted village of Nazir, and a shiver danced across her skin. It was getting colder, as it did in the desert, the blistering daytime heat turning to a bone-numbing chill.
It looked as if no one had lived in the town of Nazir for years, perhaps decades. The doors with their faded blue paint were shut, the dusty streets empty, and for a moment she wondered if she’d come to the wrong place. Had her intel been faulty? Or was she walking into a trap?
No trap—her instincts, on high alert, told her nothing worse than Killian would be waiting for her in the abandoned rubble. Though she wasn’t sure there was anything worse.
She pulled the Jeep behind the ruins of an old mosque, climbing out and stretching. She was a tourist who’d gotten lost—if she ran into anyone asking uncomfortable questions she could fend him off quite easily.
If she had any sense, she would have come in disguise. Someone younger, ditzier, so that her tale of getting lost on the road to Mauritania would seem plausible. But young and foolish was just a little too close to the woman Killian had known long ago. Even so, he would never recognize her. But she’d know. It would make her vulnerable.
Leaving the Jeep, she moved aimlessly down the deserted street. She had a knife at her ankle, a handgun at the small of her back, and the ability to kill swiftly and silently with her bare hands. No one would touch her, no one would get the upper hand….
“Hey, lady.” The young voice came out of nowhere, and she jumped like a startled kitten, too unnerved by the child’s unheralded appearance to even draw her gun. Which was just as well—to any hidden observer she was simply a foolish tourist who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“Lady,” the child said. She looked down at the collection of rags and dirt in front of her. He was the size of a six-year-old, with the eyes of an ancient. “Lady, you come.”
“Come where?” She hadn’t missed the gun he was holding. An AK-47. An early model from Russian surplus, she guessed. She’d seen child soldiers before, but she’d never been able to get over the shock of heavy machinery held so easily in such small hands.
“You come, lady,” he said again, seemingly the sum total of his English.
She touched the gun at the small of her back, to remind herself it was there, and followed the pitifully thin figure down the deserted streets. Killian ought to pay his stooges better, she thought, deliberately distancing herself. The child was skin and bones, held together by dirt. It was a wonder he could even lug that machine gun around with him.
They walked past crumbling buildings, some without roofs, the ubiquitous blue paint on the few remaining doors faded by the bright desert sun. She’d heard somewhere that blue deterred mosquitoes. Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be any around. She hated bugs of any sort. Just one of the many reasons she lived in England.
The sun was a shrinking orange glow on the horizon, and already, in the east, a few stars were visible. She’d left her flashlight in the car—probably not a smart idea, but she’d wanted her hands free. She still wasn’t quite sure for what.
The child came to a stop outside one of the larger houses. No windows looked onto the street, so there must be a courtyard within. The door was hanging on one hinge, and everything was silent.
The boy pointed with his gun, an unnerving gesture. “You go, lady.”
Isobel looked at him for a long, contemplative moment, then did the only thing she could do. She went.
A man stood at the far end of the courtyard, a silhouette against the darkening sky. Isobel moved forward, keeping to the shadows, letting the cold settle within her. Since her first moment of shocked recognition she’d felt nothing, nothing at all. Now she was ice.
“Where’s Bastien Toussaint?” His voice was that of a stranger—a mixture of ethnicities, a bit of Australian and South African, a touch of Spanish. Nothing like Killian’s smooth, deep voice.
“He’s retired,” she said, skirting the open courtyard. “I’m here in his place.”
“And who sent you?”
“I sent myself. I’m Isobel Lambert, head of the Committee.”
“Madame Lambert herself? You must really want me.” His tone was mocking, and her certainty was wavering. Had she been wrong? Even cleaned up, the grainy footage had been unreliable. Maybe it was a wild hallucination on her part; Peter had told her she was working too hard, burning out as everyone did, eventually. They burned out or were killed.
What she truly looking at a dead man? Or had the stress of her life finally caught up with her, making her see things that weren
’t real?
Her voice gave nothing away. “You have valuable information, Mr. Serafin, and you know it. You’re bartering that information for your life. If it was worthless I wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of you.”
“How ruthless.” The comment was light, mocking. Nothing like Killian. “I thought the days of Harry Thomason were long gone. No more random terminations.”
“Most death sentences are the result of careful deliberation and examining all the options. You, Mr. Serafin, are a no-brainer. Blink, and I’ll shoot you.”
“I promise not to blink. Are you pointing a gun at me, Madame Lambert? You’re skulking in the shadows. Maybe you’ve already made up your mind that what I have to offer isn’t worth the price of letting me live.”
