Ice Storm - Anne Stuart [84]
Peter had no illusions that his wife was suddenly going to become docile and complacent. Genevieve was a warrior woman, and if she had a child to protect she could take on the Russian army.
He passed the fourth checkpoint, punched in the code on the keypad and pushed open the door to the house, entering a long, narrow hallway with a row of closed doors on either side. Then he froze.
Somewhere in the depths of the house, a baby was crying, and for a moment he thought he’d somehow walked into the wrong building, the wrong life.
One of the doors opened, and if Peter weren’t so disoriented, the man who stepped into the hallway would have already been dead.
“You’re getting slow in your old age, Madsen,” Bastien Toussaint murmured. “You’d better come in and explain a few things to your wife.”
Peter shoved his gun back in the shoulder holster. “What the hell are you doing here?”
The crying noise had stopped—clearly the angry infant had been given what it wanted. Peter imagined a future filled with such moments, and told himself he should be miserable, but he couldn’t summon up much of anything.
“Safest place to be,” Bastien said. “Come in and meet Swede.”
“Swede?” God, not another person crammed into the tiny house.
“The new baby. We’re all here, in one piece, and we’re going to stay that way while we find out what the hell is going on. Three men tried to get to us in the States.”
“And you couldn’t find out who sent them?”
“They died too quickly,” Bastien said with his impenetrable calm. “I decided not to wait around to see if someone else was going to show up. Where’s Madame Lambert?”
“In trouble,” Peter replied. “More than I’ve ever seen her.”
“Then we’d better see to it. Chloe will keep Genevieve calmed down. I don’t think you have the time to deal with her at the moment. A pregnant woman is a dangerous thing.”
“How did you know she was pregnant? I don’t think she knows herself.”
“It’s obvious to anyone used to the signs. Chloe’s bound to blurt it out sooner rather than later, which means we’d better get this mess taken care of fast or your wife might possibly kill you. What’s Madame Lambert working on that’s got her in trouble?”
“Josef Serafin. He’s trading intel for immunity. Right now he should be filling her in on the inner workings of some of the worst fascist governments of the last twenty years.”
Bastien froze. “Hell and damnation,” he said. “He’s trading nothing but lies.”
“I imagine he’ll try, but Isobel’s too smart to fall for anything like that. Why don’t you think he’ll tell the truth?”
Bastien grimaced. “Because he’s not a professional mercenary, working for the highest bidder. He’s CIA, and always has been.”
Peter’s bad day suddenly got a great deal worse.
19
“You’re lying to me,” Isobel said.
“Now why would I do that? I haven’t anything to gain—I expect the Committee’s generosity is going to be contingent on the quality of intel I bring. I have no reason to hold back.” Killian turned his head to look at her. He was stretched out on the sofa, his long, lean body taking up the entire space. Not that she would have wanted to sit next to him. She was happy to keep her distance, and the uncomfortable chair was perfectly adequate. She’d fed him, simply because she was famished herself, and in a battle of wills he probably would have won. And she’d spent the last three hours grilling him. And getting nowhere.
He told her absolutely nothing she didn’t already know. It wasn’t common knowledge, but the Committee wasn’t a common organization, and their intel was first-rate. Killian wasn’t bringing anything new to the table.
“What happened in Mauritzia?”
He shrugged, perfectly at ease. “One of my more spectacular fuckups, I have to admit. I was in charge of removing the ethnic population of three small cities to a holding area