MICHAL PAUSED before climbing into the Jeep. He stared back at the villa some twenty or so yards away. Even the air around it seemed to still. He surveyed the hillside to which they would retreat, and then the grounds surrounding the villa once more.
“Something is wrong,” he said, his tone matching the somber mood that had abruptly settled over him. More wrong than his men could possibly guess.
This was the defining moment.
“What is wrong?” the Spaniard demanded. “The bastardo is dead and the electronic transfer is complete. We have confirmation. Nothing is wrong,” he insisted, clearly ready to leave the scene of their most recent kills.
Michal shook his head. “We can’t take that risk.”
“What risk?” Kolin prodded.
He wanted to get the hell out of here, as well, Michal would wager, but his years of experience over the other man’s would not allow him to so easily dismiss the possibility Michal had suggested.
“I have to go back in.” Michal did an about-face and started toward the villa.
“What the hell are you doing?” The Spaniard moved in front of him, blocking his path. He glanced up the hill, scanning cautiously. “We must get out of here. You know that, Michal. Going back inside is not necessary.”
“Mother of God,” Kolin swore between clenched teeth, his gaze fixed on the second story of the grand villa. “Someone’s in there.” He pointed to one window in particular. “I saw him in the window.”
The Spaniard threw his hands up. “We have accomplished our mission. It is time to go. Whoever else is in there is none of our concern,” he persisted.
“Go,” Michal said to them, his full attention locking onto the second story. “I will tie up this loose end and meet you in Marseilles.”
“How—”
Michal cut off whatever else Kolin intended with a look. “Go now. Wait for me in Marseilles.”
“This is loco!” the Spaniard snarled before double timing it toward the Jeep. He didn’t like what Michal was about to do, but he liked the idea of hanging around to watch even less.
Kolin reluctantly followed.
Michal didn’t look back. Not once. He strode quickly to the villa and disappeared inside.
Looking back would not have fit the character of the ruthless Executioner.
Michal Arad never looked back, he moved forward constantly. Always accomplishing his goal.
He had never failed.
Not once.
Fifteen seconds after he passed through the arched portal that separated the courtyard from the shadowy interior of the villa an explosion shook the very foundation of the massive structure. Glass and bits and pieces of decor burst from the windows…the doors, spraying down a lethal rain of razor-sharp edges and spearlike material. After a moment’s groan, the walls fell inward, burying all that was inside.
The Spaniard and Kolin watched from the safety of the hillside. They had scarcely chugged up the road half a mile when the unexpected tragedy struck.
The two men exchanged looks of sheer terror and then the Spaniard floored the accelerator.
Getting the hell out of here was their only priority now. The import of the news they carried would reach the farthest corners of the globe before the sun set.
The Executioner was dead.
THE HOUSEKEEPING CART stopped near Room 214 and the maid rapped on the door.
Thomas cautiously pulled the door open, but only a fraction. He had no intention of letting anyone get close to Ami. Michal had given him specific orders that her safety was to be considered above all else.
Unlike his predecessor, Thomas would not fail.
“What do you want?” he demanded of the maid before she could articulate a syllable.
“Yours is the only room on the floor I have not cleaned,” the woman said in French, her abuse of the language making him wince. “My work is not complete until I have cleaned all the rooms,” she added with a stubborn tilt to her chin.
Thomas didn’t want anyone else in the room, but he supposed this was necessary. He grunted an affirmative she would understand as he pulled the door fully open.
Ami lifted her head from the pillow when she heard the squeaky wheels of the housekeeping cart. She’d heard the voices, but the words hadn’t really registered. All she could think about was Michal. Why hadn’t they heard something already? How long would it take?
She worried and worried about what was the right thing to do, and in the end, when she’d realized that she actually had only one option, it had been too late.
Her head felt swollen and achy from her hours of sobbing. And far too heavy to hold up. When she would have collapsed back onto the pillow her gaze collided with an all too familiar one.
Fran Woodard was the cleaning lady who’d just weaseled her way past Thomas.
She fiddled with her supplies, smiled and shared a secret wink with Ami.
Hope soared inside her like a rocket taking off. Fran hadn’t given up on her, after all.
She had to be here to rescue Ami.
Her hopes crashed and burned like a doomed airliner. But what about Michal?
Utter fear slammed into her then. Had the CIA been watching, witnessing her full confession to Michal?
That was it, she realized with rising dread.
Fran was here to kill her.
Ami shifted into an upright position, preparing to run like hell if Fran came near the bed.
But she didn’t. She flitted around the rest of the room, dusting, rearranging, tidying anything that looked out of place. Finally, Thomas resumed his seat on the sofa and his captivation with the news. He didn’t have the vaguest clue what hit him when Fran brought the ceramic table lamp down onto his head. She then brushed her hands together and said, “Well, that’s that.”
Ami leaped from the bed, her destination the door.
Before she could make heads or tails of the cleaning cart’s sudden shaking and shifting, Jack Tanner emerged from it. One look at Ami was all it took for him to know total hysteria had hit.
“We’re here to help you,” he said quickly, stepping into her path when his sudden appearance failed to do more than slow her down.
“Get out of my way,” she yelled, shoving him as hard as she could. She wanted to scream at him for what he had allowed to happen. She wanted to demand answers. But there was no time. Michal might need her. She had to get back to him.
“I’ve got your son…” he began.
She barreled into him with the full force of her weight. “You bastard.” She lashed out. “Haven’t you done enough already? What else do you people want?” She stood there, directly in front of him, her whole body shaking with emotions too strong and too numerous to name.
He reached for her, but she stumbled back from his grasp. “It’s not what you think.”
“I know what it is,” she snapped. “You want both Michal and me dead.”
“We’re wasting time,” Fran put in, tapping the watch she wore on her left wrist and looking pointedly from Tanner to Ami. “Nicholas is waiting.”
Ami swiveled toward the woman, ready to tear into her, as well. “How could you taunt me that way? I thought you understood—”
Fran cocked an impatient eyebrow. “I do. Now let’s get out of here before sleeping beauty over there wakes up and we have to do permanent damage.”
For the first time since she’d recognized the CIA operative, Ami realized she was serious about helping. “My son is here?”
The mere idea sent warmth and relief flooding through her, weakening her knees, very nearly overwhelming her.
“That’s what Jack has been trying to tell you,” she said succinctly. “Now, let’s get a move on.”
At the door Ami hesitated, she looked straight into Tanner’s eyes and demanded the truth. “What about Michal?”
For two excruciatingly long beats Tanner didn’t respond, then he made her worst fears a reality.
“He’s dead.”
THE JOURNEY to the basement was made in a kind of shocked silence. Ami didn’t speak, she scarcely breathed. She was capable of nothing. Tanner, with one arm around her shoulder, ushered her forward as necessary, forcing her legs to make the required movements.
Michal was dead.
Nicholas would never know him.
And somehow, even though she didn’t fully understand it, she was partly to blame.
She had been the bait, of that she was certain now.
She didn’t need Tanner or Fran to spell it out for her. In two years they had not been able to bring him down, but once they’d brought her into the picture, the feat had proved painfully simple.
A shudder worked its way through her when she considered that the whole Nathan Olment thing could have been an elaborate setup. Tanner had told her she was one of theirs. Had she simply lain dormant—a sleeper, so to speak—until they needed her back in action?
None of it mattered now.
It was too late.
Michal was dead.
Tears rolled down her cheeks and she attempted to console herself with the realization that she was finally going to see her child again. But even that left a gaping wound in her heart.
Tanner stopped next to a long black SUV and opened the rear passenger door. “We’ll—”
The tip of a gun barrel suddenly pressed against his temple.
Ami gasped.
Tanner froze.
Fran had taken a position, her legs spread wide, her gun held in firing position and aimed directly at the interloper.
Michal Arad.
“Let her go,” Michal said harshly, his weapon cocked and ready to fire.
“I thought you were dead,” Tanner argued, a frown creasing his brow as he attempted to reason the situation.
“Obviously you were wrong,” Michal countered hotly. “Now, let her go.”
“You don’t understand,” Tanner hastened to explain, “we’re taking her to her child.”
“Drop the weapon, Arad,” Fran suggested. “Don’t make me do something we’ll both regret.”
He looked at Fran then. “This has nothing to do with you. It is between him—” he jerked his head toward Tanner “—and me.”
Fran shrugged and lowered her weapon. “You’re right.”
Tanner gaped at her. “What the hell—”
“Let her go,” Michal repeated, halting whatever Tanner intended to rant.
“They used him,” Fran reminded Tanner. “He didn’t deserve a termination order and you know it.” She said the last with more ferocity than Ami had heard her use before.
Tanner had known Michal wasn’t a bad guy? Shock radiated through Ami all over again. That meant the CIA knew…
Clearly recognizing when he was outnumbered, Tanner released her. Ami went immediately to Michal. She thrust her arms around him and held him close, determined to hear for herself the steady beat of his heart.
“Before you die,” Michal said to Tanner, “you will tell Ami all that you and your people did to her.”
Fran leaned against a nearby car. “Might as well get comfortable. This is going to take a while.”
Too thankful for Michal’s safety to care one iota about the rest of the conversation, Ami clung to him, sending up silent prayers of gratitude.
“Tell her,” Michal ordered savagely.
Startled by the savagery in Michal’s tone, Ami shifted her attention to him and then to Tanner. Anticipation spiked. He was finally going to tell her the truth. She could see the defeat in his eyes.
Her disbelief growing with every sentence he strung together, Ami listened as Tanner described her innocuous life as a med school student. The loss of her mother and the long-standing, deep-seated dislike for her father. Then, visibly reluctant, he told her the rest. The way her cover as Jamie Dalton had been initiated. The whole crazy scheme. Down to the fact that he had known she was alive all along, had been the one to rescue her.
When at last he’d finished, Ami did the only thing she could. She slapped him hard. Wanted the sting to go on and on until the quake shook loose some sense of compassion in him.
What he’d done had been wrong.
But it was over now. If what he’d told her was true and he’d brought her baby back to her, she could forgive him most anything.
“Where’s my child?” she demanded, ready to do him bodily harm yet again.
To his credit, he didn’t step back. He took it like a man. “Get in.” He tossed a challenging glare in Michal’s direction. “You, too. I’ll take you both to Nicholas.”
Michal inclined his head toward Fran. “She will take us to my son. The only place you’re going is to hell.” He tightened his grip around his weapon.
“Wait!” Ami pulled back and peered up at Michal. “He only followed orders. Killing him won’t make any of this right.” Her voice grew even more pleading then. “I just want to see my baby.”
“Besides,” Tanner put in, “the two of you need me.”
Michal made a sound of disbelief. “And how have you reached that ridiculous conclusion?”
“I can sink your files. As far as the CIA will be concerned, neither of you will ever have existed. Only a handful of people will know and even they won’t be able to prove it.”
Michal didn’t bother to tell him that Ron Doamiass had already taken similar steps within the Mossad. Michal owed him a great deal. A debt he would never be able to repay. As far as the world knew, Michal Arad was dead. Ron had risked his career as well as his life to set up that very scenario. That it was witnessed and survived by two of Michal’s men had been the pivotal strategy.
Yet, on some level, Michal knew that Tanner spoke the truth. The history of Michal and Ami would be best served if it no longer existed in any government agency.
“Who will ensure that you—” he glanced at the attractive older woman who had allowed him to make his case without interference “—and you keep this secret?”
“What was your name again?” Fran quipped.
“Your son is waiting,” Tanner reminded him, uncertainty as to his own fate hovering in his expression.
A single beat passed before Michal lowered his weapon.
Tanner’s relief was palpable.
In less than half an hour Tanner drove into the parking lot of a small dry-cleaning business. He looked from Michal in the front passenger seat to Ami in the back, her hand already rested on the door latch. “Fran will go in and bring him out.”
When Michal would have protested, Tanner reminded him, “We don’t need any more people than absolutely necessary to see you alive at this point.”
Seeing the reasonableness in his assertion, Michal allowed the woman to emerge from the SUV and go into the rundown shop.
Two minutes later she opened the rear passenger-side door and handed Ami a large bundle of squirming arms and legs.
Michal’s heart seized.
This was his son.
Her smile trembling on her lips, Ami pulled back the soft blanket and revealed the child’s expectant face. Michal’s breath evacuated his lungs in one blast.
This was his son. His every feature was just as Ami had described—a mirror image of his father.
“Michal.” Ami turned toward him and offered the child to him over the console between the seats. “Meet Nicholas, your son.”
Michal took the child in his arms, his heart swelling with equal parts pride and love. The child wiggled and squirmed, but did not pout up and cry. Awe paralyzed Michal’s ability to speak or to even think.
But words were not necessary.
He had all that he had ever wanted within his reach.