Cold As Ice. Anne Stuart

good guys.”

      “The good guys?” she scoffed. “And you’re going to kill a harmless dilettante like Harry Van Dorn in cold blood?”

      “I assure you he’s not quite as harmless as he seems,” Peter said.

      “And what about me?”

      “What about you?”

      “You said you were told to kill Harry Van Dorn and anyone who got in the way. Does that include me?”

      He should have lied. People were better off if they didn’t know they were going to die. They got panicky, did unexpected things and made his job that much harder. “Would you believe me if I told you no?”

      She shook her head. “Then trust me, you aren’t one of the good guys. I’ve never done anything remotely worth getting killed over. And I don’t particularly want to die.”

      “Few people do.”

      “So how am I supposed to change your mind?”

      He considered it for a moment, as he’d been considering it for the last several hours. “I don’t think you can. For what it’s worth, I promise it won’t hurt. You won’t even know what’s happening.”

      “I don’t think so.” She set the empty Tab can down beside her and met his gaze quite calmly. “If you’re going to murder me you’re going to have to work hard to do it, and I have no intention of letting go easily. I’m going to kick and scream and fight all the way.”

      “It’s a losing battle, Ms. Spenser.” He was amazed at how calm he sounded. As if silencing unfortunate witnesses and accomplices was a normal part of his duties as one of the best-trained operatives in the Committee. He was the best marksman, brilliant with a knife and in hand-to-hand combat, and he never showed or felt emotion. The Iceman, as always, both in temperament and his specialty in putting unwanted evil on ice.

      But Ms. Spenser wasn’t evil. This was the first time he’d ever made the mistake of letting someone unwitting get caught in the careful trap he’d set, and he was going to have to live with the consequences. They were in the middle of one of the most complicated operations in his memory—Harry Van Dorn was up to something and all the resources and manpower of the Committee had been unable to uncover anything more than a few hints. Harry was a control freak—this wouldn’t go further without him overseeing it. They needed Harry on ice, permanently, with no interference, so they could find out what the hell the Rule of Seven was, and how they could stop it.

      He couldn’t afford to let her go…she had already seen too much, knew too much. She was a smart woman—give her time and she could put together far too much information on the Committee. She’d jeopardize the lives of the men and women who risked everything. It was an equation with only one solution, whether he liked it or not.

      “I specialize in losing battles,” she said. “I’m not going to die, and neither is Harry. You, I’m not so sure about.” She rose, stretching with all the intensity of a lazy cat, and smiled at him with utter sweetness. “In the meantime I think I’ll take a shower and change into something more comfortable, and then we can continue our negotiations.”

      He didn’t move. The door to the cabin was locked, and she wouldn’t be able to get very far. “We have nothing to negotiate, Ms. Spenser,” he reminded her.

      “I disagree. There’s a great deal of money at stake here, and if you’re deluded enough to think Harry’s some kind of evil monster, then your information is wrong. I have excellent instincts when it comes to people, and Harry Van Dorn might be a horny, superstitious, spoiled baby, but he’s miles removed from anything evil. You wouldn’t be killing one innocent bystander, you’d be killing two, and I don’t think you want that. Not when the alternative is so much money your mysterious employers would never be able to find you.”

      “They’d find me,” he said. “And everyone on this boat knows the mission. I’m sorry, but even if I wanted to let you go I couldn’t. Renaud or one of the others would see to things, and they tend to be a bit more… brutal.”

      He saw the nervous shift in her eyes and felt a pang of something. It couldn’t be regret or guilt, he didn’t allow himself either of those emotions, no matter what the circumstances.

      “If you say so,” she said airily. “That doesn’t mean I won’t try. Tell me, is this door locked or can I come and go as I please?”

      “It’s locked.”

      “Then please unlock it,” she said, more a demand than a request. “I’d like to go back to my room and change my clothes.”

      He knew what she was going to try, probably even before she did. It would have worked under normal circumstances, but she had no idea who she was dealing with, and that her body was telegraphing her plans loud and clear.

      Best to get it over with, he thought, rising. “I don’t think so,” he said. And caught her as she tried to jump him, turning her easily, twisting her arm behind her back. A second later she was down on the floor, his knee in the center of her chest, and she was staring up at him with mute shock.

      Madame Lambert set her encrypted PDA down on the table beside her untouched glass of wine. She prided herself on being able to make the hard decisions and do them in public—she was enjoying a solitary dinner at a quiet little restaurant not far from the office, and she had no trouble sending and receiving the information she needed.

      No, she wasn’t enjoying her solitary meal, she amended, picking up the glass of very fine wine and taking a sip. Right now she wasn’t enjoying much of anything. She had just sent orders to Peter Jensen that he would have to kill the young woman who’d gotten in the way. And it made her sick inside.

      Peter would do it, of course, no questions asked. And he’d do it in as humane a fashion as possible. But each death, no matter how justified, left a psychic wound that never healed over. The death of an innocent would be far worse. She’d known Peter too long to be happy about that.

      But they were running out of time, and Harry Van Dorn would never give up a thing, no matter what they did to him. The only chance of derailing things was for him to die.

      That was the problem with sociopaths like Harry, Isobel Lambert thought, taking another sip of wine. Torture was useless when the victim enjoyed pain, and even someone with Peter’s expertise wouldn’t be able to break him. Besides, once again there was the price to be paid for committing such acts. A clean execution was one thing. Torture was another, and there was a limit to what the human psyche could take. She was afraid Peter Jensen was reaching his limit.

      Killing the girl might put him over the top. But she had no choice.

      And neither did he.

      6

      Genevieve couldn’t catch her breath. Even on that padded, carpeted floor, he’d thrown her so hard the wind had been knocked from her, and his knee on her chest didn’t help. She gasped, and then the air came back, and with it her anger.