“You do have a great imagination.” She stole a kiss, then pushed off the bed. “I’m in.”
Savoring his success, Damon lay back upon the pillows, closing his eyes against the enervating wave of relief he felt at her pronouncement. He’d done it.
He opened his eyes at the hum of a zipper, to find her adjusting the fit of her jumpsuit. “What are you doing?”
“I’d think that’s obvious. I’m getting ready to leave.” She wrapped her tool belt around her waist and secured it, her hands moving to check its hang with the automaticity of long habit.
“But we still have things to discuss.”
“Like what?”
“Like, what should I call you?”
Tilting her head to one side, she nibbled her bottom lip thoughtfully, studying him with unreadable green eyes. “Rory.”
Damon raised a skeptical brow, trying to imagine a parent who could give a beautiful blonde like her a boy’s name. “Somehow, I doubt that’s your real name.”
His master thief smiled, catlike and secretive. “You don’t need to know that.”
“What do we put on the passports?”
A careless wave of her hand interrupted him. “Put whatever you like. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
“No, really.”
“Yes, really.” She shook her head at him. “I’m not about to tell you my usual aliases.”
Standoff.
With a mental shrug, Damon dropped the subject. Pushing was more likely to change her mind than get him an answer. Besides, he wasn’t up to an argument; he felt too good, his body still floating from his release.
He sat up, but that was as far as he could push himself without any imperative reason to move. She was in, so he didn’t have to chase her anywhere. “We still have other arrangements to make.”
“Here, send the money to this account.” She pulled a small, plastic case from her belt and passed him a card with the logo of a Zurich bank. “I’ll be back, once it clears.”
The smooth paper with its long string of numbers and instructions for currency transfers was otherwise uninformative: mass-produced, lacking handwriting or any other useful distinguishing marks, undifferentiated from the others in the pack that he suspected had been issued by the bank. He turned the card over to confirm his suspicions. Absolutely homogeneous. Probably nothing of it tied her to the card, not even fingerprints, given the care she’d taken in passing it to him.
In exchange, Damon reached into the nightstand to proffer her coiled rope and grapnel. “I believe this is yours.”
“I believe it is.” She took the rig with an appreciative smile, hefting it with easy strength, clearly accustomed to its weight.
With bated breath, he watched her attach the rope to her belt, apparently considering it unnecessary for her decampment.
“Oh, by the way”—her dark form turned from the balcony door; a gloved hand with pale fingers extended to him—“this isn’t mine.” Flicking the miniature electronic tracker he’d planted on her rope toward him, she disappeared into the darkness.
Damn, she didn’t miss a trick.
Ignoring the device on the carpet, Damon stared at the balcony, straining for some sound of her departure. Her aura moved away, that seductive, single-minded focus growing fainter until it disappeared into the background hum of less-disciplined minds; yet nothing reached his ears. Finally, he overcame the sensual lassitude that weighed down his limbs, and went outside.
The only thing that awaited him in the shadowed space was balmy night air that wrapped his naked body in a thin film of sweat. Just like that, she was gone. His master thief might as well have vanished in a puff of smoke for all he had to show for her visit. Almost as if she’d been one of his dreams. His hand drifted to his cock, still slick with her cream. Well, maybe not quite that visionary.
Rory.
He shook his head in rueful appreciation of her stealth. She was precisely what they needed for this mission . . . and they had her!
Triumph at acquiring her when others had failed finally broke through his carnal lethargy, setting his pulse racing. With a light step, he returned inside to inform the Old Man of his success. There were plans to be made and precious little time to make them.
Directing his attention to the next phase of his mission, Damon dismissed the unexpected wistfulness Rory’s departure had evoked. He would see her again soon enough.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rory studied the busy Maiquetía Airport, allowing the babel of conversations in Spanish and Portuguese, English, German, and Italian to flow over her unheeded. It was a cosmopolitan crowd, mainly composed of businessmen. They were taking a roundabout route to Europe and the Balkans with frequent identity changes intended to muddy the waters. Such precautions seemed excessive to Rory, but since she wasn’t the one making the travel arrangements, she didn’t protest.
Things had moved quickly once she’d accepted the commission. In a matter of days, Damon had provided her with fake passports for different nationalities that sported pictures matching her specifications, complete with requisite visas and stamped for past travel.
Close scrutiny of the passports in preparation for her Changes didn’t reveal any difference from previous fakes she’d used. Either they were the real McCoy or Damon used the same supplier as her father. The thought of Felix diScipio having access to the same resources as the Feds was rather daunting. Rory wasn’t sure which option she preferred.
They’d flown out of Miami, traveling separately, she as a different flavor of blond, Damon as a tourist. She had to admit that in bright resort attire, with his hair loose around his shoulders and sporting two-day stubble, he’d looked more like a beach bum than a typical Fed.
For the rest of their trip, they were supposed to travel together. Rory had already switched passports and Changed. All she needed now was her companion. So she sat in the lounge, watching the men around her and wondering how Damon would disguise himself. This time, her Adonis had the advantage. He knew what she was supposed to look like, while she didn’t know how he would disguise himself, only the name he would be using.
The crowd parted around a man with sleek, short hair and a stubborn jaw heading in her direction, prowling in that way of Italian men who believed they were God’s gift to women. His sleek charcoal gray suit hugged a powerful body that did nothing to contradict that notion of superiority.
Rory wasn’t the only one who’d noticed him. The heads of several women and not a few men turned to watch his progress across the airport lounge.
Her hackles wanted to bristle at his arrogant approach. Then he gave her a warm smile and recognition clicked: it was Damon. But he looked so different, she hadn’t recognized him. For a moment, she thought he’d cut his gorgeous hair; then she realized he’d merely clubbed it back, his wavy locks slicked to straightness, and done something to hide his distinctive widow’s peak.
The effect was startling.
With only an adjustment in hairstyle, clothes, and posture, her Adonis was suddenly European. Gone was the easygoing, scruffy beach bum extraordinaire who’d flown on the same plane from Miami. In his place stood Marco Vasile, suave businessman and her Fed’s current identity.
Was that how her Changes struck him?
Rory returned his greeting absently, still wrestling with her response to his disguise. She’d known he was good, since he’d managed to track her down, but his transformation was more telling—especially since he’d accomplished it without her advantages. It forced her to adjust her estimation of him, raised her respect for him a few notches higher.
Her gut spasmed in warning. Sex was one thing, but liking . . . She wasn’t sure it was a good idea for a thief to like a Fed quite that much.
Unwilling to examine that dangerous line of thought, Rory forced her mind elsewhere, toward ways to occupy the empty hours of travel. The overnight flight to Rome would take more than ten hours, and that wasn’t even their final destination.
Unlike on previous commissions, she couldn’t spend the flights reviewing her notes; she didn’t have much data to go on at the moment. She’d refrained from contacting Lucas again, wanting to wait until she was out of the country, so her brother wouldn’t be tempted to talk her out of accepting Damon’s commission, once he realized what it entailed.
Ignoring the fact that two-thirds of her agreed-upon fee was already in her Swiss account, this was something she had to do. The need to hide from public scrutiny had forged bonds of rock-solid affection among the wide-ranging diScipio clan. She couldn’t countenance doing nothing when it could threaten her loved ones.
Once again she recognized her isolation. Most of her friends were relatives; she didn’t have many outside of family. This admiration for Damon felt dangerously like friendship, maybe even affection—which wasn’t wise since theirs was only a temporary business relationship.
Preoccupied with her thoughts, Rory accompanied her Adonis through the crowded concourse in silence, nibbling her lip in unease. Despite the long flight and the lateness of the hour, the savory aromas of roasting beef and pork coming from the restaurants failed to tempt her appetite. With her gut in knots, she was in no mood for food.
Damon’s phone vibrated in his pocket in that special rhythm he reserved for communications from the Old Man, its unscheduled, inaudible summons heralding a change of plans. With a wave to Rory for her to go on ahead to the departure lounge, he turned aside to take the call, leaving the flow of traffic for a measure of privacy. “Yes?” The back of his neck prickled in wary anticipation of complications.
“Got another one for you.” The code phrase for an assassination. His hunt was starting early.
Calmness washed over him, hyperawareness giving his perceptions a familiar, knife-edged quality. In response to his heightened combat readiness, his senses stretched out, seeking the threat—and registered Rory behind him, a bonfire of curiosity against a quick-moving mental stream of blandness and boredom.
No danger.
Damon checked the display of his cell phone and found the attachments he’d been sent. He clicked through them, studying the images of his quarry carefully.
He acknowledged the order with an innocuous “So I see” that wouldn’t draw suspicion, even if an eavesdropper overheard him.
“Talk to you tomorrow morning?” After they arrived in Rome. That meant his target would be on their flight. Small wonder he was given the mission.
“Of course.” Damon cut the connection, then spent a few minutes refreshing his memory. His target was a familiar figure, someone he’d researched and studied in the past, in preparation for this day. The files he’d received were merely an update. He’d seen most of them before.
He shut the phone to find Rory by his elbow, the bored pout on her bee-stung lips entirely in keeping with her persona, watching travelers trundling past, the wheels of their hand luggage droning a monotonous harmony. No doubt she hadn’t wanted to leave him alone. Saying nothing, he continued to the departure lounge, confident that her professionalism would prevent her from asking the questions hovering on the tip of her tongue—at least until a more opportune moment.
One advantage of the wide stretch of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the runways was the reflections that allowed him to study the people around him without them being any the wiser. Which was why his back was turned when his target stepped out of the executive lounge.
A closer scrutiny as the black-haired man with an aquiline nose passed behind them confirmed his identity. It definitely was al-Hazzezi—the Hashshash, as he was know in certain circles, for his involvement in the drug trade.
Damon recognized the ragged shape of his target’s left ear, the result of a bombing gone awry. Al-Hazzezi hadn’t even bothered with prosthetics to change its appearance, wearing it like a badge of honor, though it ran counter to the image he projected of a successful businessman.
But that wasn’t what convinced Damon of his identification; it was the deep, abiding hate at the core of the man, the same hate Damon had sensed when he’d first encountered al-Hazzezi years ago: black, bitter cold, and spikier than a porcupine. There was no way the man could be anyone but al-Hazzezi.
He scanned the people around his target for bodyguards, but saw none. If there were any, they were keeping their distance. He smiled to himself. The odds of his success just went up— possibly into the eightieth percentile.
“Problems?” The curly haired redhead who plucked his sleeve looked like the perfect fluffhead mistress masquerading as a personal assistant. Only the sharp light in her round, aquamarine eyes belied the impression—and only if one were close enough to see it.
Rory had borne his silence well, and far longer than he’d expected, waiting until they stood in a modest pool of solitude to ask her question.
Damon shook his head. “No, just an update.”
He tilted her chin up with a light finger to better study her disguise. It was flawless, down to milk white skin with a hint of blue veins at her temples and on her eyelids. She fit the picture in her passport so precisely—high cheekbones, mole by the left corner of her lips, and all—she might have sat for it herself.
But she hadn’t. The photos in her passports had been Company-supplied to match the specifications she’d given him.
How the hell did she do it? Up close, he couldn’t see anything artificial to account for the vivid color of her eyes. She wasn’t using contact lenses, yet he’d have sworn she’d had violet eyes on the flight down from Miami, and jade green earlier. There wasn’t even a hint of peaches in her milk-and-roses complexion.
It was uncanny.
Damon still remembered that she’d somehow been Asian the first time he’d seen her, then quickly become a stocky Caucasian. It irritated him to no end that he couldn’t explain how she’d managed it.