Joshua disconnected the phone from its charger and walked back into the bathroom.
“My place.” Taking a towel from the rack, he began drying himself with one hand. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to be climbing back into the shower. “It’s my day off,” he added needlessly. His uncle was on top of everything that happened or didn’t happen at the agency, but it didn’t hurt to add that little fact in.
“Not anymore.”
The finality of the tone was familiar. Something was up. His uncle didn’t pull strings just to watch people jump.
“I’m listening.”
“If you weren’t, you wouldn’t be working for me,” Corbett replied crisply. “The British prime minister’s daughter is missing. She was apparently kidnapped sometime this morning.”
“Why?”
The question was a spontaneous response to the information. He could think of a lot of other people who would have been easier to kidnap than Prudence Hill. The kidnappers obviously hadn’t realized what they were in for when they took the young woman. The tabloids, who loved to hound people of prominence, to build up and then tear down the same person within the space of a few paragraphs, had dubbed Prime Minister Jeremy Hill’s older daughter “Pru the Shrew.”
According to so-called “friends”—most likely disgruntled hangers-on that she’d had no patience with—Prudence Hill had a waspish disposition and never minced words. Word, among people who supposedly would know about such things, had it that the diplomatic corps would not be calling the prime minister’s daughter any time soon with an invitation to join their ranks.
“You’ll be briefed when you arrive.” Joshua knew that his uncle didn’t believe in saying any more than absolutely necessary over the telephone, even if the lines were secured and tested on a daily basis. “The rest you will find out and cover in the report that you will give to me after you bring the young woman back.”
Complete faith, that was what he liked about his uncle. The man did not waste words, did not heap accolades of any kind for a job well done. Nonetheless, you knew what he thought, knew where you stood with him. In Corbett Lazlo’s case, a simple nod spoke volumes and was all but euphoric for the recipient.
“Yes, sir,” Joshua responded. He finished drying himself and draped the towel haphazardly over the rack then padded back to his bedroom. Time was ticking away.
“There’s a jet waiting for you at the airport. Be there in forty minutes. Murphy is compiling a dossier on the woman for you. It’ll be waiting for you when you get to the airfield.” There was an infinitesimal pause. “I don’t have to tell you to be discreet.”
“No,” Joshua agreed amicably, opening his closet, “you don’t.”
He knew the rules. He was to get in and out without leaving a mark, retrieve the girl and bring her home—alive—as swiftly as possible. To aid him he had complete access to all the latest electronic gadgets and available technology, not to mention the considerable standard resources of the Lazlo Group, both human and otherwise, the caliber of which would have made James Bond salivate had the character actually existed.
In exchange for the faith placed in him and the arsenal at his disposal, he could never protest that an assignment found him at an inconvenient moment, nor that he might need more than the allotted amount of time to arrive at the appointed place. Corbett expected loyalty, compliance and agents who were as close to perfection as humanly possible. For this he paid extremely well. But there were rewards beyond money to garner.
He was just now beginning to find that out, Joshua thought, taking out a casual pair of cream-colored slacks and a navy jacket. A light blue shirt followed, along with whisper small briefs and dark, thin socks. All his clothes were aerodynamically light. You never knew when you had to flee and maximum speed was always good if your vehicle was “accidentally” destroyed.
The satisfaction of a job well done was nothing compared to the slight glimmer of approval occasionally seen in Corbett Lazlo’s eyes. And because he’d found himself such a student of his uncle, Joshua had become acutely attuned to the various nuances in the older man’s voice.
There was something more there now, something that Corbett Lazlo was not saying. Had he been the perfect agent, he would have refrained from asking. But Joshua had not yet completely morphed into a junior version of his uncle and so allowed himself to press the issue a little.
“Is something wrong, Uncle?”
He heard annoyance when his uncle answered. “Other than the fact that the older daughter of one of the most influential men in the entire free world has been kidnapped?”
His uncle made it sound as if that was more than enough reason for him to be troubled and distracted, but Joshua knew better. Very little ruffled Corbett Lazlo and they were in the business of thwarting international kidnappers among other things. There was something more, he’d bet his life on it.
“Other than the fact that the older daughter of one of the most influential men in the entire free world has been kidnapped,” Joshua parroted back, then waited to be filled in.
The pause on the other end of the line made him uneasy. It stretched out until it was as thin as a piano wire.
The feeling did not leave once his uncle began speaking again.
“Jane Kiley’s dead.”
He knew Jane. A small, thin woman with lightning-fast hands, a sharp mind and a smile that rivaled a sunrise. She knew her way around horses and tanks, an odd combination that came in handy. He felt an instant sense of loss. He also sensed that there was more.
“I’m guessing not from natural causes.” It was said for form’s sake. They wouldn’t be talking about it if the causes had been natural.
“There was a car bomb.”
Joshua could feel his gut tightening in sympathetic response. “Part of the case?”
“The case was closed,” Corbett said flatly.
Joshua could hear his uncle weighing his words in the silence that followed. Corbett was known to be closemouthed about almost everything. Information—any information—was released on a need-to-know basis. Even about something like this. Joshua didn’t have to be told that Corbett already had the right people working on this.
“Be careful, Joshua.”
The warning took him aback. That was a first, Joshua thought. His uncle never troubled himself with the risk factors. An assignment was gone over, assessed, then left up to the chosen agent to successfully execute. No mention was ever made of being careful.
Until now.
This was serious, Joshua thought to himself. Really serious.
“Not to worry,” Joshua told him buoyantly. “Today is not a good day to die,” he said, paraphrasing an ancient Cheyenne saying. “I’m on my way.”
“Of course you are.”
The connection terminated after Corbett’s last uttered syllable. Joshua was on his own.
He hurried into his clothes, into his holster and weapon and out the front door as if the devil was after him.
Because he very well might be.
Forty minutes later found Joshua Lazlo sprinting across the private airfield to one of his uncle’s private jets. The moment the pilot saw him approaching, he began to go through the necessary checklist, the end of which would allow him to take to the air. They had only a short transatlantic hop ahead of them, since the first destination would be London. He was to meet with the prime minister and the man’s chief advisor and oldest friend, George Montgomery, to personally obtain all the information that was available.