Killing Time

2

When Mike finally came to and managed to blink through the cobwebs clouding his vision, three things registered in disjointed tandem… each one worthy of a nightmare.

One—he was spread-eagle on his back on a mattress in a room he recognized as standard-fare fleabag hotel. Two—flex cuffs bound his wrists above his head to the bars of an iron headboard. And three—the woman staring at him in stony silence from a chair at the foot of the bed looked vaguely familiar.

And even though the only light in the room of mustard yellow walls and cracked plaster came from a low-wattage bulb hanging from a frayed cord in the middle of the ceiling, he could still clearly see the very familiar Beretta 92FS she held in a confident grip. The gun was his, which not only made him stupid, it made him officially—if not literally—screwed.

Interesting. Sort of. Because there was some good news here. If she wanted to shoot him, she’d have done it by now.

So if she didn’t want him dead, then what did she want? And where, exactly, did he know her from?

He breathed deep. Fought to remember. Anything. Then he snapped to with a painful jolt when a memory as blinding as headlights cut through the fog.

Cantina. Pisco. Hot tamale. Leading with his dick.

He clenched his jaw. Dumb ass. He’d let her get the drop on him. She must have juiced him with something. Yeah… he remembered now the sting of the needle… then stumbling down an alley, his arm slung over her shoulders, her arm around his waist… falling into a cab… staggering down a narrow hallway, up a flight of stairs.

Collapsing on a lumpy bed that smelled of mildew and cheap disinfectant and where—judging by the fact that he was still zipped and tucked—he was willing to give pretty good odds that he hadn’t gotten laid.

He squinted and framed her between his boot tips, trying to get a read on where this was going, who she might be. But she’d stacked her deck rock solid with the three c’s—cool, calm, and in control. Her unwavering gaze wasn’t giving anything away. He could still smell her above the sour, low-rent hotel room odor, but gone was the sultry temptress with the bed-mussed hair. She’d pulled all that black silk into a sleek, utilitarian ponytail and bound it snug at the nape of her neck. She’d also replaced her “slut suit” with a blinding white T-shirt, tight jeans, and a pair of lace-up leather boots that had seen a fair share of wear. And yet, if you overlooked the gun, she was still damn sexy—in a kick-ass, GI Jane, ball-breaker kind of way.

But sexy didn’t hold much sway right now. Too bad he hadn’t realized that half a dozen shots of pisco ago.

So… was she local policía? No. That didn’t fit. He’d be locked in a cell by now, most likely beaten, more likely dead. Besides, his nose was clean this trip. And despite the Rambo-ette persona, she didn’t have enough sharp edges to be a hard-nosed cop. Not that he hadn’t been fooled by dangerous curves before.

Extortion? Good luck, chica. His plane was the only thing he owned of any value and that was hocked up to his eyeballs. Woman scorned, then? Did he know her from somewhere? Had he done her wrong? That didn’t fit, either. He wouldn’t have forgotten a face or a body like hers.

So… what? What did she want?

Nothing good. The only thing he knew with any degree of certainty was that so far, he didn’t much like her agenda.

“Tell me what happened in Afghanistan,” she said without so much as a blink and with absolutely zero warning.

His heart stopped.

Afghanistan?

And oh, hell, no, he didn’t like her agenda at all.

Eyes narrowed, he searched the face that had turned his mind to mush and landed him in this fix. Nothing computed. Nothing but the knot tightening in his chest, tripping a defense mechanism that demanded he not let her see him sweat.

“So.” He focused through a blinding headache. “You’re one of those.”

A finely arched brow lifted. “One of those?”

“One of those women who likes to talk before she does the big nasty.”

She gave a small shrug of her shoulders. “I’ve got more needles. You want another one? Go ahead. Keep giving me crap.”

He didn’t have much more crap to give. He was running on empty here. His mouth was bone dry. His head spun. And then there was the obvious. He tested the cuffs with a disgustingly weak jerk. The plastic dug painfully into his wrists.

He gave her a squinty-eyed look that was all for show. “You got a name? Or should I call you Mata Hari?” He had a sick feeling he’d want to call her a lot of things before this was over.

She sat back with a sigh and crossed her arms. His Beretta—a little over two pounds of cold steel nestled snug against her left breast—presented an image he would not soon forget. Neither would he forget the scent that stirred in the stagnant air when she moved.

“The only thing you need to know about me, flyboy, is that I’m the person asking the questions. Now tell me what happened in Afghanistan. Tell me about Operation Slam Dunk.”

The look on her face and the authority in her voice suggested that she already knew.

That couldn’t be. No one knew about OSD. No one was supposed to know. Not his family. Not his friends. And sure as hell not this woman who stared at him like he was week-old roadkill.

He dragged his gaze away from her chest and smiled to hide his panic. “That would be a big go to hell.”

She leaned forward and gave him a cold, calculated once-over that made his gut tighten. “Fine. Then I’ll tell you.”

He shot her his best “I could give a rip” grin and kept up the pretense of a man who didn’t suspect his past was about to come crashing down around him in an avalanche of shit. “Since I’m what you call a captive audience, go ahead, sweetheart. Knock yourself out.”

“Hola, señor. I need a room, please. One night only.” Jane Smith—per her passport—deliberately spoke in less than perfect Spanish as she set her utilitarian duffel bag on the floor at her feet and her Lonely Planet guidebook on the check-in desk in front of her.

She knew what the bored desk clerk would see if he ever bothered to glance away from his Angry Birds game long enough to look at her: a tired, thirty-something Anglo testing her limited Spanish skills, dishwater-blond hair twisted into a haphazard knot on top of her head, pale blue eyes behind an unfashionable pair of glasses, her unremarkable face flushed from the heat of the city and drawn a little tight with stress—no doubt caused by having to check into this decrepit hotel on Calle San Ramon. Her matching TravelSmith vest, khaki pants, and nondescript olive drab camp shirt, with her passport carrier looped around her neck, resting on modest-sized breasts, cemented the image. The weak, carefully staged, “I’m not an ugly American” smile added the perfect camouflage.

Even if he bothered to look at her, the night clerk would never remember her in the morning. She looked like every tourist on a budget who had ever walked through the front door.

“Second floor, please—street side, if you have it,” she added almost apologetically. She already knew he did—the key to room 205 hung on an antiquated peg board mounted on the wall behind the desk. That was the room she wanted.

She’d already done a quick recon of the three-story building by sneaking in through a rear service door and catching up with the assignment she’d followed from Langley to Lima. The woman had half-carried, half-walked her drunken mark up the first flight of stairs and into room 203.

The clerk dragged himself away from his laptop, swiveled on his creaking chair, and rolled over to the board. He snagged the key to room 205, rolled back, and slid it across the counter without ever meeting her eyes.

“Up the stairs, third door down the hall,” he mumbled in thick Spanish, then asked for cash up front as she signed the register.

She carefully counted out several 10 nuevos soles bills—she was a tourist on a budget, after all—then inspected her change. “Gracious, señor.”

He’d already dismissed her from his thoughts, his full interest back on his game. She picked up her duffel, smiled serenely to the two elderly gentlemen bent over a card game in the corner of the timeworn lobby, and headed down the hall.

The soles of her sandals where whisper quiet as she walked over the tile floor and climbed the single flight of stairs. Once on the second floor, she slipped off the glasses, stowed them in her shirt pocket, then paused briefly by room 203. The murmur of voices assured her they were indeed inside, and she moved on to her room.

Once inside, she checked her watch. The night was young. It was barely nine p.m. There was much to look forward to.

She set the duffel on the bed, withdrew the briefcase containing her specially fitted Heckler & Koch MP5KA4 and two boxes of ammo. In her line of work it was the perfect weapon, designed for close quarters battle because it didn’t even have a butt stock, just a flat end cap with a sling loop on the outside. Perfect also, because this particular MP5K could be operational, if necessary, with a squeeze of the briefcase handle. Control freak that she was, she’d hand-loaded the 9mm, subsonic-blended, metal-armor-piercing, antipersonnel bullets herself. A quick and devastating kill had to be a certainty. Hands-on loading insured that component.

She set the briefcase on the bed and opened it up. Almost had an orgasm just looking at the gorgeous weapon. With care, she removed and inspected each piece before she assembled it, double-checked the magazine, and screwed the sound suppressor onto the end of the barrel. No, it wouldn’t muffle the bulk of the sound but before anyone in this dive decided to investigate, she’d be long gone, the job done.

If an elimination ended up being the job.

Her heart rate picked up just thinking about it. She stroked a finger over the barrel, then laid the gun on the bed and drew a deep, steadying breath. She needed to settle herself down, check the adrenaline spike. Shaking her hands to encourage circulation to her fingertips, she walked into the bathroom and turned on the cold-water faucet.

She bent over the sink, splashed tepid water on her face, then straightened slowly and studied her reflection in the small mirror. Several more deep breaths restored her rock-steady composure. Finally satisfied with what she saw, she touched her fingers to her lips, kissed the tips, and pressed them to the mirror with a grin.

Then she returned to the bedroom, dug her surveillance gear out of her bag, and set up shop.