Ice Blue - Anne Stuart [27]
O’Brien hadn’t done his job, and the bodies were piling up. Some civilian had gone over a cliff in the girl’s car, and Takashi had had to take out God knows how many of that sicko Shirosama’s mindless goons. She’d asked Taka what the fuck he thought he was doing, but he’d been avoiding her messages, and in the end, it was up to him. He had experience and cool determination, and if he was keeping the girl alive there must be a good reason.
Maybe it had been too soon to put him out in the field again, but she hadn’t had much choice. O’Brien was tailor-made for the job—he could speak and read Japanese, he had the connections, the culture. No one else even came close. His body had pretty much recovered from some of the most advanced torture the modern world could devise, and his sang-froid had never been an issue. So why didn’t he finish the job? He must still think there was a way to salvage the situation, but from half a world away Isobel couldn’t see many signs of hope. But strategy, she knew. And the only way to stop a deluded megalomaniac, if you couldn’t get close enough to kill him, was to take away his toys.
Summer Hawthorne had no idea that’s all she was. A toy, a pawn in the hands of some very dangerous people, and both sides were deadly, experienced and ready to kill her before the other could get their hands on her.
Takashi must be convinced there was something to be gained from keeping her alive, or the situation would be done with and Isobel could finish whatever open pack of cigarettes she was rationing, go back to her elegant apartment and break something.
She’d tried with cheap dishes, department store glasses. Those didn’t work. To stop the pain she had to smash something of value, something of beauty, something irreplaceable. Like the human life she’d just ordered terminated.
And then she could calm down, pour herself a glass of wine, and no one would have any idea why there were tears streaming down her face. Because by the next day her perfect, flawless complexion would betray absolutely nothing. Only Peter, who knew her better than anyone else, would guess.
She picked up the mobile phone and pushed the buttons that would send her through a circuitous route to Takashi O’Brien’s corresponding device. She didn’t expect to reach him, but she had to try. She needed answers, any kind of update. The faint hope that things weren’t totally fucked.
She left another message, trying to rid herself of the powerful sense of unease that tightened her shoulders beneath the pale silk of her suit. If an operative didn’t check in there was usually a very good reason, and Isobel had learned to live with silence and unanswered questions until the time was right. For all she knew Summer Hawthorne was already gone—Taka could be very gentle and she’d never know it was happening. His ability to kill painlessly, and his experience with southern California, had been two other reasons he was perfect for the job. The fact that the Shirosama and his doomsday cult would hit a little too close to home for him only made the stakes higher.
Too high, maybe. She could have sent someone else, someone without an emotional investment in the Armageddon the apocalyptic cult leader was planning to rain down on Tokyo and every other major city in the world.
But she was a woman who went with her instincts, and there’d never been any doubt. Takashi O’Brien was made for this mission, and the sooner Isobel stopped second-guessing herself the better off she’d be.
Until Taka called in to tell her Summer Hawthorne was dead, she had no choice but to sit in her office and smoke, watching the streets of London in the misty pre-light, and wishing to hell she’d gone into some other line of work. Like being a travel agent or an accountant. Anything that would allow her to sleep at night.
The state-of-the-art phone vibrated in her hand, and she jumped, stubbing out still another cigarette. Someone had left a message—a coded text message