Cold as Ice - Anne Stuart [33]
They wouldn’t move until he gave the word. He doubted if any of his hired help knew he’d chosen April twentieth as the perfect date—Adolf Hitler’s birthday, with the anniversaries of major American disasters such as Columbine, Waco, Oklahoma City surrounding it. They were good soldiers but they lacked imagination.
On the other hand, Peter Jensen had fooled him, something that Harry Van Dorn wasn’t about to forgive. And he’d known enough to choose April twentieth as his cover’s birthday. Which meant his enemies knew his timeline.
Well, he’d always liked a challenge, and even in his current situation, lying drugged and immovable on his own bed, he could already see his eventual triumph. There was no possible alternative.
He was going to see to Jensen himself, kill him slowly, gut him and watch him bleed to death. Maybe have his lawyer watch as well, since she seemed far too distracted by him.
He’d have time to enjoy himself with her before it all came together. Maybe he’d even keep her around for a while—it was easy enough to make a woman docile.
He should have known that a man born on Hitler’s birthday was going to be trouble. The coincidence had been too tempting, but it had been Harry’s one mistake.
One that could easily be righted. As soon as he found someone to turn.
7
Little Fox Island could have been designed just to his specifications, Peter thought a few hours later. The main villa was on a hill on the east side of the island, with a long, sloping path leading down to a pristine beach. The island was well out of the way of the normal shipping lanes, with a dangerous riptide that discouraged all but the most foolish of tourists, and the treacherous water took care of the rest. There were sharks as well—Peter didn’t know for certain but he expected Harry had had them brought in. As far as he knew, no one had managed to train sharks, but with Harry’s limitless resources he’d doubtless found a way to keep them nearby to ward off unwanted visitors. It would put a damper on swimming in the ocean, but Harry had both a traditional pool and a seawater tidal pool to make up for it. And it would keep interference at a minimum.
Renaud and Hans had lugged Harry’s unconscious body to the small shed by the dock and tied him up there. Not that it was necessary—the dose had been perfectly calibrated to keep Harry semicomatose until the time came. He wondered whether Harry deserved the kind of death he was about to get. He’d never know what hit him. Was it too harsh a punishment for his sins? Or was he, just maybe, getting off too lightly?
It didn’t matter. He didn’t waste his time second-guessing—as far as he knew no innocent person had ever been brought down by careless intel, at least by the Committee. The jobs were well researched, justified, and necessary for the greater good. Even if the details of this current mission were maddeningly vague, there was still no doubt about the catastrophic danger. The longer he stayed with Harry Van Dorn the more he’d discovered about the man’s rampant evil, and he suspected he’d only seen the tip of the iceberg.
He just wasn’t so sure of Ms. Genevieve Spenser.
She’d come with him docilely enough. He hadn’t bothered to tie her up or blindfold her—in the end it wouldn’t matter. Little Fox Island, or the greater portion of it, would be gone in an explosion—a faulty gas connection, they’d rule it. Unless he could figure out a way to get her out of there, she’d be gone as well.
She looked a little too damn good in the cutoffs. She thought she was wearing Harry’s clothes, and it gave him a wry kind of pleasure to know they were actually his. She wouldn’t like it. She was convinced that poor old Harry was the victim of terrorists, and she was going to keep fighting to save him. Which made her more than a pain in the ass, it made her a liability. He could tell her the truth, but keeping information