More Than a Mission - Caridad Pineiro [21]
That had been Mitch’s specialty. He had been the kind who could charm even a snake-oil salesman. Not that his friend’s charisma had been enough to save his life. The Sparrow was apparently immune to it, although tonight…
Had it been his imagination that Elizabeth had responded?
Had she fooled Mitch in much the same way before plunging the knife into his gut?
His mood different, he looked at his watch, wondering what she could be doing in the bathroom for so long. And then he caught a glimpse of motion in another of the monitors at the furthest end of the table. He squinted at the picture; it was so dark, he was barely able to discern much beside the general height and body shape of the individual.
Cursing, he grabbed the monitor controls and flipped a switch that turned on the night vision for that camera. The picture improved, not that he would be able to get much information about the suspect. At first glance, the black-clad figure was built much like Elizabeth, but the identity would be impossible to confirm thanks to the ski mask covering the suspect’s face.
The Sparrow? he wondered and glanced back to the monitor in the bedroom where there was still no sign of Elizabeth.
How had she gotten from the cottage to the cellar of the restaurant? A tunnel between the two buildings?
His gaze fixed on the black-clad figure, he watched her move to the safe. With a few quick spins of the dial, she opened it and removed a moderate-sized foot locker from the bottom shelf. Placing the foot locker on the floor, she undid yet another lock and flipped open the top of the locker. The angle on the camera made it possible to see what was inside—an assortment of knives and bottles.
Don’t touch the knives, he repeated Elizabeth’s warning.
Elizabeth—the Sparrow—reached into the bottom of the foot locker and extracted a holster and gun. She took the time to check the clip and firing mechanism on the gun—a Heckler & Koch Mark 23. He recognized the weapon immediately.
The HK Mark 23 had been specially commissioned by the Pentagon for its Special Operations Command. A friend within SOCOM had raved about the gun and insisted both he and Mitch should check it out. Their friend been right. Both he and Mitch had loved the double-action .45-caliber gun that could be fitted with a silencer. His friend’s pistol had disappeared on the night he’d been killed.
More and more evidence was piling up against the Sparrow in Mitch’s murder. He had to remind himself that his friend’s death was not the reason for this assignment. His goal was to find Prince Reginald’s murderer. But maybe one of those bottles in the foot locker held a poison similar to the one that had killed the prince.
Aidan observed the Sparrow holster the gun and slip on the holster, quickly get the foot locker back in the safe and close it once again.
She turned, glanced over her shoulder as if sensing that she was being watched. Pausing, she examined the room, then moved to the one locker closest to the safe. Again with a few quick turns she opened the combination lock.
He wondered what she was up to and was surprised when she pushed aside some clothes hanging in the locker, stepped inside, and then closed the door behind her, disappearing from sight.
Shit. Standing, he rushed to Lucia’s room and pounded on the door. “Lucia! The Sparrow’s flown the nest!”
As Lucia opened her door, she grumbled, “This better be good, Aidan.”
He motioned to the monitors. “The Sparrow is armed and dressed to kill. She headed out of the cellar through some kind of hidden passage in one of the lockers.”
“Then you better arm yourself, as well,” she said, but he bent and picked up the hem of his jeans leg to reveal the mini six-shot Glock 36 tucked into an ankle holster.
Lucia let out a disbelieving chuckle. “If it’s the Sparrow, you’ll need more than that pea shooter.” She reached into the pocket of her robe, extracted her larger Glock 34 and held it out to him.
Aidan snagged the weapon from her grasp and, as he