Burned (Vanessa Pierson series Book 2) (28 page)

Vanessa reached Khoury as he knelt over her attacker’s body. The man’s eyes were closed and his cloak had spilled out beneath him, creating the illusion of dark wings.

“I hope you killed him,” she said, barely able to push the words out. Her throat burned and each breath came with a harsh gasp. “Is he dead?”

“He’s out cold.” Khoury was breathing hard, too. “But unfortunately, he’s got a pulse.” He caught the edge of the man’s mask and pulled it away from his face. It was deeply pockmarked and a spray of shrapnel scars marred his left cheek.

Vanessa inhaled sharply. “He’s the Scarface Bogdan was talking about . . . and Dieter . . . he’s young . . .” And he’d been sent to kill her.

Khoury pulled his phone from his pocket with shaking hands. He snapped several pictures and the flash illuminated the unconscious man’s features: broad face, thick dark brows that almost met above his prominent nose, and, incongruously, a narrow rosebud-shaped mouth.

“But how did he know where to find me?” Vanessa asked. “Could Jeffreys have known?”

“It was—” Khoury broke off. “We need to get out of here
now.
”

They both heard the voices and laughter as holiday stragglers approached—a woman speaking high-pitched, rapid-fire French and a man answering in resonant and somewhat reproachful-sounding Italian.

Khoury grasped her hand. “We have about fifteen seconds before we have company.”

Vanessa started to turn but stopped, arrested by a glint of gold. She pointed to his throat. “He’s wearing the same cross as Jeffreys.”

Quickly Khoury snapped a close-up of the cross, and then he ripped it and its leather thong from the man’s neck. “Insurance,” he said, stuffing it into his pocket. He turned toward the approaching couple, just as the woman, dressed as a harlequin, asked,
“Qu’est-ce qu’il y a?”

“È malato?”
the man piped in. He was dressed as a clown with a huge painted smile and an equally large, perfectly round, red plastic nose.
“È ubriaco?”

The harlequin recoiled.
“Non, non, tu ne vois pas qu’il est mort?”

Vanessa understood the French and just enough Italian to get the gist of their bilingual bickering:
Was the man sick or drunk or dead?

Khoury clapped his hands twice in front of the harlequin.
“Il n’est pas mort! Il est ivre ou malade. Nous appelons la police.”

She stared back at him with round, kohl-rimmed eyes, one of her black harlequin tears smeared across her chalky white cheek.

Now Khoury turned to the clown, barking out the order:
“Chiamate la polizia, chiamate il 112! Quest’uomo è malato—è un’emergenza. Chiamate un’ambulanza!”

“Certo, sì, certo!”
The clown pulled out his phone, dialed, then pressed it to his ear in a way that dislodged his bulbous nose.

Backing away with Vanessa on his arm, Khoury ordered the man to stay until the police arrived.
“Avremo aiuto!”

“I told him we’re getting help,” Khoury whispered in Vanessa’s ear as they turned to retrace their steps quickly back toward the Campo de la Guerra. Already Khoury was dialing his contact at Rome Station to let him know about the urgent situation in Venice: international fugitive, unconscious at the moment, wanted for questioning in assault, murder, and the terrorist attacks in Paris. He told his contact to alert Venice police pronto. And, finally, to make it easier, he sent over the photo of Scarface with embedded geo-coordinates to the Station. “Our guys will be all over this like hungry cats on a rat,” Khoury said with a quick grin.

Without another word, they both slowed as they reached the end of the alley. The campo was still fairly busy with late partyers.

“What if he regains consciousness too soon?” Vanessa asked.

“Trust me, he won’t. Not if you felt his head snap back like I did.”

“Humor me, let’s wait to make sure the
polizia
get here,” Vanessa said.

Khoury nodded, guiding her into a darkened doorway of a flower shop closed for the night. “Listen . . .” He searched her face, touching her cheek gently, and brushing loose strands of hair from her eyes. “I need to tell you—it was Aisha.”

Vanessa stared at Khoury. From the troubled expression on his face, she knew what was coming. “Aisha betrayed us?”

“Against her will,” Khoury said, his fingers tightening around Vanessa’s shoulders.

She braced herself for the worst.

“The hostage in their last video? It may have been Aisha’s sister.”

“Oh, God, no . . .” She blanched. “Will this nightmare ever be over?”

“French forces found the farm where Farid was held—they
managed to kill one terrorist,” Khoury said. “I’ll tell you more when we get back, but they found the hostage, and she was dead.”

Vanessa covered her face with her hands as she fought back the rush of tears. “My God . . .”

Khoury put his arms around her. “But the terrorists got to Aisha just before you went to Amsterdam. They said they would kill her sister unless Aisha did exactly what they wanted.”

“That’s why she was acting so strange . . .” Vanessa looked up, blinking away tears. She asked the next question with dread: “What did they want?”

“She was to keep them informed about Team Viper, what we were up to. But that wasn’t all. They specifically wanted to know when you were on the move.”

“They knew me by name?”

“Aisha said they identified you as blond, young, American CIA.” Khoury’s voice quavered for an instant. “I know . . .”

It felt to Vanessa as if a hundred thoughts and questions careened simultaneously through her brain, and at the same time she felt twisted by conflicting emotions—anger, betrayal, sorrow, and horror. Then a wave of sadness for Khoury washed over her when she saw the look on his face. Aisha was more than his colleague; she’d been a friend and, briefly, his lover.

“Of course, there’s no excuse for this kind of betrayal”—Khoury swallowed audibly—“but Aisha confessed to me as soon as she guessed her sister was dead.” His voice broke.

It only took a few seconds before Vanessa felt the shift in his body—the tightening, the effort to hold back emotion.

“I wanted to tell you myself,” Khoury said.

Vanessa nodded. “Where is she now?”

“I told her to go to Fournier and tell him everything—” Khoury broke off again, but this time it wasn’t emotion driving the shift. He’d
seen the Italian police walking briskly toward them along the campo, coming from the direction of the closest canal. They would probably take their prisoner away by boat.

Khoury pushed Vanessa against the wall and kissed her. He didn’t stop after the police passed them by, and Vanessa didn’t pull away. But, finally, she came up for air.

“We should make sure they got Scarface.”

“I don’t think we need to worry,” Khoury said, turning his head as one officer’s very loud voice echoed up the alley. “By now Rome Station has already reached Headquarters and the locals, and my contact will be in touch with me as soon as they know where Scarface is spending the night.”

“Then let’s go home,” Vanessa said softly.

“Where’s home?” Khoury sounded exhausted, but she could hear the faintest smile in his voice.

“Follow me.”

—

INSIDE HER ROOM
at Hotel Ala, business came first: Khoury sent the photographs of Scarface and his cross to Zoe at Headquarters and to Chris in Paris. His text read, “Scarface had bad night. In Italian custody now.”

Vanessa left a separate, urgent message telling Chris to call her back ASAP.

“We need to move quickly,” she said, as she disconnected. She’d filled Khoury in on most of her conversation with Charles, most important, on the rumors that something big was scheduled tomorrow night in Istanbul. “We need confirmation from Chris if he can get it,” she said.

She disappeared into the bathroom and dressing area, returning with a wet washcloth, Q-tips, and a tiny packet of antibiotic ointment from her kit. She pushed Khoury gently to sitting. “You’re bleeding.”
She raised the cloth to the cut just above his left eye, dabbing lightly even as he winced. “If Jeffreys is going to make his move it will be then,” she said. “We have no time to waste.”

“I’ve booked us on a 0545 flight to Istanbul,” Khoury said. He glanced at his watch. “So we’ll need ninety minutes to get to the airport and check in and thirty minutes to handle logistics here, so that leaves us just over three hours to celebrate. Am I the guy or what?”

“You’re the guy.” She smiled.

He took the cloth from her and eased her face into the light with his free hand. “Ouch,” he said softly, framing her chin with his fingers. “You’ve got a fat lip.”

She ran her tongue along her lower lip, tasting the rusty blood, feeling the scab that had begun to form. “I think I bit myself when he had me by the throat.” She kept her voice strong. “We could have died, Khoury.”

“But we didn’t,” he said, searching for the clasps and zippers to get her out of her now bedraggled gown. “Call it cheating death.”

“I know,” she said, stopping his hands as she rested her face in the curve of his neck. “I was scared . . . terrified . . .” For a moment she felt nothing but darkness, emptiness, a feeling so horrible it took her breath away.

“Hey . . .” Khoury held her tighter.

She took a breath, opening to relief. They were both alive, they had each other.

Vanessa reached for the side zipper on the dress. “I can do it more quickly.”

“I love you.” Khoury took a deep, shuddering breath. He whispered, “Fuck . . .”

Vanessa kissed him urgently, pulling back for just a moment to respond in a hoarse whisper, “Oh, God, yes . . .”

Vanessa felt the soft rush of Khoury’s breath on her cheek. She opened her eyes to a close-up view of his aquiline nose, the thick dark tangle of his lashes, his dark strong brows, his hair tousled from the shower they’d shared after making love. They lay together on the huge hotel bed where they’d briefly fallen asleep.

For a few moments, she didn’t let the world intrude with its cold truths, like a defiant child in a darkened bedroom who squeezed her eyes tightly shut, refusing to let the monster under her bed hold sway.

But instead of closing her eyes against the world, Vanessa opened her heart, her senses, her entire being. She opened to her lover, matching her breath with his, breathing the air he breathed, feeling their hearts beating together, and for those minutes, that was all there was, just the two of them together.

Because it is love that keeps away the monsters.

His voice brought her back to consciousness from some deep place that was not quite sleep. His words were whispers. “Come away with me.”

She lay still, eyes just beginning to open, waiting for her mind to catch up and understand what he was trying to say.

“I love you, Vanessa.”

“I love you back, Khoury,” she said, smiling. The scent of his skin was warm and sexy. Their bodies were pressing so close that their legs and feet and toes were as entwined as roots.

Barely moving, she ran her finger lightly along his cheek where new beard bristled. “We have to get going, I know, but just a few more minutes. You feel so good . . .”

“I really mean it,” Khoury said, very quietly. “Let’s quit this work and go away and start a real life.

Her eyes blinked wide. His were open and watching her intently.

She cleared her throat a little. “Would you repeat that, please?”

“What kind of life are we living? We both said it—we cheated death tonight.”

She sat up. “What are
you
saying?”

“I’m saying that life is short. God knows we see it in the business we’re in, and I’ve seen what my parents and grandparents have been through with the wars in Lebanon. And Aisha and her sister. Most people don’t get to choose how to live, but we can. We can quit.”

“What about what you’ve been through?” she asked, resting her hand on his.

“What do you mean?”

She shook her head, giving him the look. “C’mon, the internal investigation, the fact they’ve put you through the poly a hundred times and then shipped you off to Paris so they could question your loyalty even while you put your life on the line. It sucks, Khoury. It’s outrageous. Of course you feel like quitting sometimes.”

“That’s not why,” he said. “I’m thinking about us.”

“Oh. Were you thinking about us when you slept with Aisha?”

He made a face as if he’d been sucker-punched. “I tried to explain . . .”

“Yes, you tried.” She swung herself over Khoury and off the edge of the bed agilely. She walked to the windows that overlooked the canal and opened one to the chill. It was past 0200 and the night’s crowds had gone home—to the mainland or hotel or residence—and the only sounds were faint, like music drifting from a distant radio. Boats jostled and bobbed against their moorings, like restless sleepers caught in dreams. Moonlight danced off the velvety surface of the water while a lone, belated firework exploded into fragments of color and light, all reflected in the estuary even as it sputtered and died.

She felt Khoury standing next to her. “It hurt,” she said quietly, “to think you’d been with someone else.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s too hard.”

“What’s too hard?”

“This. Whatever we have, our relationship, whatever it is.”

Khoury rested his arm on her bare shoulder. “It’s crazy.”

“It is,” she agreed. “It’s insane.”

“Then let’s quit. I mean it.” He shifted so he could see her face and wrap his arms around her. “Will you try it with me? We could take six months—”

The shrill, insistent squawk of her phone filled the room. She opened her mouth just as Khoury’s phone went off, too.

“This has to be bad,” Khoury said, crossing to the bedside table to pick up his phone. He immediately walked into the dressing room area, where he could speak without disturbing Vanessa’s call.

When she answered her cell, Chris was on the line and the first words out of his mouth were “Jesus! Thank God you’re okay.”

“I am,” she said. “We are okay.”

“By ‘we’ I know you mean your impulsive friend because I’ve been in touch with the office in Rome, so let me talk first, and I’m going to keep it simple—”

“And quick, sorry, right,” Vanessa said, knowing that they were
speaking on unprotected phones, cell to cell, because of the urgency of the situation. That, along with the need to be cryptic, had them both a bit rattled.

He said, “It seems somebody has offed himself while in police custody.”

Vanessa’s hands went to fists as she swore under her breath. They’d lost the chance to interrogate Scarface about the thefts, True Jihad, and Jeffreys, and Bhoot’s missing nuke.

“I understand it’s upsetting,” Chris said. “And we’ll talk about all this in more detail later. From the information they were able to give me, and it’s still pretty fragmentary, I’m guessing that maybe you were involved with this somehow? Just what the hell happened and where are you and where is your friend?”

“He’s here with me,” she said. “He found me at the restaurant where I was having dinner with my other friend. He warned me about potential trouble and, sure enough, we encountered it, so to speak, on the walk back to the hotel. We, um, prevailed.”

She wasn’t going to mention Aisha’s involvement in the situation and neither was Chris. Not now, not this way. That was a topic for a face-to-face conversation, but she certainly hoped Chris was fully informed about it.

Khoury was off his phone call now, and Vanessa, waking up to the fact she was naked and chilled in the early-morning air, gestured for him to please bring her a hotel robe. Khoury complied, holding it open so she could slide her arms in while keeping her phone shoulder-pressed to her ear.

Cigarette?
she mouthed to Khoury, who was now listening in on her call with Chris. The craving had just hit her hard and fast and out of the blue. But he shook his head.

Scowling at her own addiction, Vanessa said, “I know you got the photos—”

“Affirmative. We’ve got a preliminary ID,” Chris said.

Vanessa breathed a quick sigh of relief—that meant at least Zoe had managed to ID Scarface. “Listen, you saw, he was wearing the same . . . piece of jewelry as the person I suspected might be behind all this and more, right? Do you know
who
I am referring to?”

“Shit. Yes. Of course,” Chris growled. “He’s in midflight over the Mediterranean as we speak.”

“How do you know?”

“X32.”

Zoe.
“Right.” Vanessa made a face, her body contracting in frustration. “You know, if I’m right, this may all be going down tomorrow in—”

“Istanbul.” The word came out of Chris in a sort of croaking whisper of realization. “We can’t talk about this anymore, but I’ll fill you in when we meet up.”

And Vanessa felt a creeping cold inside her belly—her own realization of the gravity of the situation. She flashed to Charles and his remark about starting World War III. She felt sick.

She took a deep breath to ward off the nausea. “We’re getting on the next flight this morning—in less than two hours, actually. Where should we meet you?”

For a moment Chris was silent, then he said, “Remember where I told you Maria and I went on our honeymoon?”

Vanessa paced, suddenly able to remember everyone’s honeymoon destination, everyone except Chris and his wife. But it came back suddenly with an association—waving flags and dark glistening water—the Four Seasons Bosphorus. “Yes, I’ve got you.”

“Meet us there. The room will be under the usual.”

Meaning his usual alias when he traveled for the Agency.

“We’ll get on the next flight from here,” he said.

“Oh—” Vanessa was moving toward the dressing room and her small overnight case. “Don’t forget we need our star geek. We’ll need all the help we can get to keep eyes on our . . . friend.”

“Right.” Chris gave a small snorting laugh.

Vanessa thought it was a good sound. “Thanks for believing in me, boss.”

“We’re not there yet. I’m just glad you’re okay. See you in a few hours.”

—

KHOURY HELD
the door to the room open for Vanessa. As she passed him with her bag and laptop, she said, “You know the running-away-together thing?”

“Just spit it out.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe . . . what?” Khoury asked, slowly, letting the door swing shut behind them.

“Maybe is maybe.” Vanessa looked straight into his bruised, beat-up, and very handsome face. She would have to talk to him about Bhoot. Khoury still didn’t know about the phone calls. She’d have to admit how torn she felt. Could she even consider leaving the Agency until she finally got Bhoot? She tipped her head and shrugged. “But let’s take care of this first things first.”

“Like a loose nuke?” Khoury murmured.

“Like a loose effing nuke.”