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Kismet was on his feet in an instant, but the intruders had the initiative. They also had guns—large semi-automatic pistols—which they trained on Kismet and Jade. One of the men grabbed Jade by the arm and pushed her back into the room.
Jade’s first thought was the men who had pursued her and Professor through the rain forest had somehow tracked her here, intending to finish what they had started earlier. It was a reasonable conclusion; the men were a rough-looking bunch and with their dark hair and swarthy complexions, they might have passed for locals. But when the fifth member of the group—the woman pushing the room service cart—stepped right past Jade and stalked toward Kismet, Jade realized they weren’t here for her at all.
The woman was strikingly beautiful. Her long glossy black hair framed an angular face with an olive complexion and high cheekbones; Mediterranean features, Jade decided, or possibly Arabian. She now saw that the server’s jacket hung loose on the woman’s frame, as if several sizes too big; no doubt borrowed from an actual hotel employee. The woman strode into the room with the confidence of a runway model, stopping when she was almost face-to-face with Kismet. Jade had only an oblique view of the confrontation, but she could see the anger radiating from the woman’s coal black eyes.
“You have something that belongs to me,” the woman said. Her voice was about what Jade expected, smooth and melodious, and decidedly at odds with the menace that dripped from every consonant.
Kismet, who had his hands raised, regarded her with thoughtful wariness. “I think you’ve got the wrong room.”
She stared back at him for several seconds, then gave him a cold smile. “No, Nick Kismet. I am exactly where I want to be.”
Okay, Jade thought. Definitely not here for me.
Although her heart was pounding like crazy, she willed herself calm, took a deep breath and cleared her throat. “Well you two obviously have some catching up to do,” she said, trying to inject some bravado into her tone to mask just how terrified she was. “I’ll leave you to it.”
And with that, she pivoted toward the exit. The move took her captor by surprise, and before he could react, she twisted out of his grip.
Jade wasn’t sure what she was trying to accomplish. On one level, she thought the intruders might just let her go. Unlikely, she knew, but not impossible. High-stress situations sometimes did funny things to people. Maybe they would be so focused on Kismet that they wouldn’t know how to react until she was already in the clear.
And if that happened, what then? Should she run for it? Call for help? Pull the fire alarm, maybe?
It was a moot question. The man wasn’t about to let her leave the room. He twisted around and made a grab for her, which was, after all, what she had actually been expecting him to do.
From the moment the gunmen barged into the room, Jade had started mentally reviewing all the self-defense lessons she had ever received. Maddock had taught her a few moves, and Professor had built on that foundation with semi-formal instruction in grappling and basic martial arts. One thing he had said now came back to her; just two words: Don’t hesitate.
In a potential hostage-taking scenario, Professor had told her, the longer you waited, hoping for someone to come along and save you, the more control you gave to your would-be captor. It was important to act quickly and decisively before those roles—hostage and captor—became fixed, hardening like concrete. Jade had remembered that lesson, forcing herself to act, to move, to do something...anything... before that deadly inertia could set in.
The rest was almost automatic.
She allowed the man to seize her forearm, but as he did, she sidestepped into his weak side, performing an aikido combination known as Irimi Nage—the entering throw. She moved in close, almost spooning him from behind, and got her free hand up onto his neck, pushing him in the direction he was already traveling. She could feel his astonishment in the tightening of his muscles, the immediate reflexive resistance. Professor had taught her to be ready for that, too. As the man shifted, trying to brace himself, she shifted too, whirling him around, unbalancing him completely.
Even as she launched into the almost choreographed routine, the rest of the intruders began reacting as well, but Jade’s decisiveness had deprived them of the initiative. They still had the numbers, but for the moment, she was calling the shots. Guns swiveled around and were aimed uncertainly in her direction. What were they supposed to do now? Shoot her? That wasn’t the plan. Almost in unison, they looked to their leader, the striking woman who had been in the process of confronting Kismet, only to discover that situation had undergone a similarly dramatic change.
“Guns down!” Kismet barked.
Jade finished the throw, putting the gunman on his back, hard enough to knock the wind out of him, and glanced up just in time to see Kismet whirl the woman around so that she was facing the other men. He had his left arm securely around her waist, and his right snaked up under her right armpit to press something to her throat.
It was a knife, but that description seemed inadequate. Jade was reminded of a scene from an old movie—Crocodile Dundee—where the Aussie hero, threatened by a mugger with a switchblade, laughingly says, “That’s not a knife,” and then, drawing a wicked-looking ten-inch long Bowie knife, finishes with, “That’s a knife.”
Kismet’s weapon of choice wasn’t a Bowie knife, but something even bigger, and perhaps just a touch more wicked-looking. It was a kukri, the signature weapon of the fierce Gurkha warriors from Nepal. The blade had an odd boomerang shape, with the cutting edge on the inside of the elbow-like bend. Jade had seen similar knives, variations on the same style, but the knife Kismet held looked less refined than most she had seen, rougher, more authentic somehow, and Jade couldn’t help but think that it had probably spilled more than a little actual blood.
She also wondered where he had been hiding it.
“Guns down.” Kismet repeated in a flat tone. “Or she dies.”
The gunmen all looked to the woman—Kismet’s hostage—taking their cues from her, and she evidently wasn’t ready to submit. “You’re outnumbered, Kismet,” she hissed. “If you kill me, you will certainly die.”
She had an oddly formal manner of speech and an accent that suggested English might not be her first language.
“Don’t bet your life on that,” Kismet said, and then directing his gaze at the gunmen, added. “Don’t bet her life on it. Put the guns down.” Then, before they could accede or refuse, he snapped. “Jade, come over here now.”
Jade lurched into motion, hurrying over to stand behind Kismet before any of the gunmen could even think about trying to grab her in order to balance the terms of the standoff.
Not that she would have submitted easily.
She recognized that he was doing the same thing she had. Reacting, moving, refusing to get bogged down in inertia. She got close to him, turning so that they were back to back.
The woman started to say something, another defiant threat perhaps, but Kismet silenced her with a rough shake and growled in her ear. “Tell them to drop their guns, or you will bleed.”
“Do as he says,” she said, her voice tight.
One by one, the gunmen lowered their guns. They did not drop them, but aimed them at the floor, as if testing Kismet’s resolve.
It was a mistake.
The woman let out a wail as the blade bit into the flesh under her throat. Almost simultaneously, the pistols began thudding on the carpet.
“That’s better,” Kismet said. “Now, get in the bathroom.”
The men hesitated, so Kismet dug the blade of the kukri in again until the woman whimpered. “Do it!”
The men grudgingly filed into the small lavatory room and, without being told to do so, closed the door.
“Get their guns,” Kismet said to Jade.
Jade hurried forward and collected the weapons, holding them with the same kind of caution she might have used holding a snake. “What should I do with them?”
He shrugged. “Think of something.”
She dumped them on the room service cart, and then picked up the domed tray cover and used it to conceal them. “Cool. What now?”
“Grab my tablet. And then get ready to move. We’re getting out of here in a minute. But first...” He moved his knife away from the woman’s throat but did not release her. There was a two-inch long red line on the skin below her jaw, slowly oozing tears of blood. “Who are you?” he hissed. “And what the hell do you want?”
She made a noise in her throat, as if trying to gather enough saliva to spit. “You killed my husband. And I am going to kill you.”
“I’ve killed a lot of husbands,” Kismet retorted. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
Jade felt an ominous chill at his casual admission.
He’s kidding, right?
She looked away quickly so her face would not betray her, and grabbed the tablet off the table, tucking it under one arm.
“His name was Alexander Cerulean,” the woman hissed.
Kismet nodded slowly. “And you are?”
“Aliyah.”
“Okay, listen to me Aliyah. I get that you think you need to avenge your beloved, but that’s not going to happen. Get over it. Go home and move on with your life. If you don’t, I promise you’ll join your husband in hell. This is your only warning.”
Then, to punctuate the ultimatum, he drew back his hand and hammered the butt end of the kukri into the back of her head.
Aliyah Cerulean crumpled to the floor.
Kismet whirled to face Jade. “Go! Get the elevator.”
Jade threw the door open and raced into the hallway, with Kismet right behind her. She sprinted to the elevator foyer, punched the call button and then looked back to see if any of Aliyah’s men were giving chase. There was no sign of pursuit, but Jade knew that might change at any second. She looked back at the elevators, checked the indicators above each set of doors. The hotel had only five floors, and Kismet’s room was on the third, so they shouldn’t have had to wait more than a few seconds, but like the proverbial watched pot, it seemed to take forever. Finally, there was a loud chime as one of the cars arrived, and a moment after that, the doors slid open.
She started to go inside, but Kismet held her back. “Not this one,” he said. He leaned head and shoulders inside the car, punched a button on the panel, and then drew back before the doors could close. He then pivoted away, rounding a corner and heading down an adjacent hallway. “Come on.”
“What the hell are you—?” Kismet was gone before Jade could finish the question, so she hurried to catch up to him. She caught up to him just as he was entering a door at the far end of the hallway; the placard beside it showed a graphical representation of someone descending a staircase.
Stairs, Jade thought. What the hell is he doing?
To her further consternation, instead of heading down toward the exit, Kismet began ascending. Jade didn’t even bother to ask, but hurried after him.
When he reached the next landing, Kismet pushed through the door and headed down the corridor, moving at a fast walk, too fast for Jade to simultaneously walk and talk. She could barely contain her ire when he arrived at what appeared to be his ultimate destination: the elevator foyer.
“Are you kidding me?” She snarled. “Why didn’t we just—?”
He touched a finger to his lips. “Shhh.”
“Don’t shush me,” she shot back, though in a considerably lower voice.
Kismet just pointed to the indicator. The one above the door to the car she had summoned earlier showed that it was now in the lobby. The elevator beside it was rising, responding to someone else’s call.
It stopped on the third floor.
Jade frowned. She was starting to grasp Kismet’s overall intent, but that didn’t mean she was prepared to forgive him for not including her.
God, she thought. He’s even more annoying than Maddock.
Another thirty seconds passed, and then the indicator changed to “2” and kept going.
Kismet let out the breath he had been holding. “I think they took the bait. Now they can chase their tail for a while trying to figure out where we went.”
“So, you never had any intention of leaving the hotel?”
“Oh, we’re leaving. But not until we’re good and ready.”
“‘We’ again? You’re making a lot of assumptions, Nick Kismet.”
“You’re right.” He inclined his head in a deferential bow. “Thanks for your help, Dr. Ihara. It’s been a pleasure working with you. I’ll send you a postcard from Antarctica.”
“And now you’re assuming that I don’t want to go with you,” she shot back. “Why don’t you try asking?”
A mischievous smile formed on his lips. “Okay. Dr. Ihara, I’m going to Antarctica. Would you care to join me?”
She stared back at him, her eyes hard as diamonds. “That woman, Aliyah... Did you really kill her husband?”
His smile slipped a notch. “A few weeks ago, Alexander Cerulean stole the Apex from my father. I tracked him to Cairo, to the Great Pyramid. He...” Kismet hesitated a moment. “We struggled and he fell. It was self-defense.”
“Yeah? You do that a lot?”
He uttered a short, humorless laugh. “More than I care to admit.” He paused a beat, then added, “Speaking of self-defense, you handled yourself pretty well back there.”
“Thanks.”
“Look, I’m sorry that you got dragged into this.”
“It happens.” She shrugged. “So, Antarctica, huh? Gonna be cold, yeah?”
Kismet nodded. “Yeah.