Ice Storm - Anne Stuart [49]
“Not good,” Isobel said. “Where the hell are we?”
“Spain.”
“Thank God for small favors. Where in Spain?”
“Did you know your English accent is starting to slip, princess? You’d best be careful if you don’t want people like Peter Madsen and Harry Thomason knowing all your secrets.”
She didn’t blink. “How do you know who works for the Committee? I would have thought you’d be too busy pillaging and ruining countries and conducting ethnic cleansings. Though you have done a singularly bad job of it, haven’t you? One botched massacre after another. It’s no wonder you need to turn to your enemies to keep you alive.”
“I wasn’t aware there was anyone left in this world who wasn’t my enemy,” he said. “And I’ve survived as long as I have because I find out what I need to know. Do you want me to tell you where Bastien Toussaint and his family are living? I can even give you longitude and latitude. What about Takashi O’Brien and his American wife? I’m not sure she’s too happy with the Roppongi district of Tokyo—she’d probably be happier out in the countryside, but O’Brien has work to do. And then there’s Madsen and his wife, and their cozy little house in Wiltshire, where she plays dress-up and tries to get pregnant. I know everything.”
Isobel kept her face stony. “You must have an informant,” she said. “I’ll have to see about that when I get back.”
“Heads will roll?” he murmured. “What I’m most interested in is why you seem to have had no sex life whatsoever. Don’t tell me you’re still pining for me despite my betrayal?”
“Everyone betrays you, sooner or later,” she said with devastating calm. “You weren’t the first and you weren’t the last. I admit killing you might have been a little traumatic for the stupid girl that I was, but I’ve learned to adjust, and I can kill quite easily now.”
“I think that’s a lie,” he said. “I think you suffer the torments of the damned when you have to terminate someone. You’re not a born killer.”
“You think not? Perhaps you’re right—in general I don’t like to take lives, no matter how evil my target. But I can thank you for a major change in my attitude. For the first time in my life I’m really looking forward to killing someone.” The threat wasn’t veiled. He knew exactly what she meant.
And the son of a bitch laughed. “I give you free rein to try, princess. You should have realized by now I’m a great deal harder to kill than most people.”
“I can rise to the challenge.”
He wasn’t the slightest bit daunted. “Let’s get out of here. You can fill me in on your bloody plans once we’re in England.”
“We aren’t going to get to England unless you tell me exactly where we are.”
“Outside of Zaragoza. This little plane had more range than I realized, and I thought I’d get us as close to Bilbao as I could manage. Not the main airport—I didn’t want to have to deal with air traffic controllers and customs. Besides, the Spanish air force is stationed there and I’d like to avoid them if possible.”
“I imagine you would. What about rental cars?”
“Why rent when you can steal?”
“Because it attracts more attention?” she suggested with deceptive calm.
“Not if it’s done right. The Citroën was stolen, you know.”
She didn’t bother to ask which Citroën. “You’re just lucky you’ve gotten away with it so far.”
“I’m still alive, aren’t I? I guess that proves how lucky I am. How’s Mahmoud?”
“He woke up, tried to stab me, then fell back asleep again.”
“That’s my boy,” he said fondly. “Did you get the knife?”
“Despite all evidence to the contrary I’m not stupid,” she snapped.
“I never thought you were. And the good news is you can ditch the burka. It would cause more attention than your own spectacular self.”
She blinked. She was so used to pulling her protective coloring about her, sinking into the background, that she hadn’t heard a compliment in years. She had spent most of her life doing her best to be unspectacular—an elegant, faceless woman of a certain age. “Hardly spectacular,” she said dryly. “I do my very best to be quite ordinary.”
“Let me give you a hint, Mary Isobel,” he said, leaning toward