The crowded hotel casino downstairs was a mix of tourists and locals. Navarro noticed people in everything from casual slacks and open-necked, short-sleeved polo shirts to full-out designer evening wear.
Weber had packed a dark suit and black T-shirt for him, and the slinky, sexy-as-hell dress for Honey. High-necked, long sleeved, and straight to the floor. The only decoration it needed was her killer body, enhanced by her baby belly, which he thought made her look even sexier. Diamond earrings sparkled from her lobes, peeking through the short, dark strands of her hair when she moved. Simple had never looked so hot.
Even though he’d peeled Honey out of the dress less than an hour ago, he was ready to do it all over again.
But first things first. They had a bomber to catch. He told himself to attend to the business at hand and to keep his hands to himself. Catching the bomber looked to be the easier job.
Cigar and cigarette smoke hung in wisps of stinking gray pollution, a noxious gossamer veil over the oblivious crowd’s heads. Rafael guided Honey down the wide, shallow, carpeted stairs from the lobby and into the casino proper.
Piped Muzak was all but obliterated by the hum of conversation and the sounds of the slot machines, the prime cash cows of every casino. It was no accident that the spinning colors, flashing lights, and the familiar payout sound of falling coins, coupled with loud music, were key points of slot-machine design psychology. It didn’t take a degree in neurobiology to know that the one-armed bandits were designed to lure people into money-draining repetition.
“Manipulating the brain’s reward systems,” Honey noted as a bell rang nearby, indicating a payout. “Very lucrative. For the house.” They passed a row of comfortable chairs where people, deeply engrossed in their machines, seemed unmindful of the background clamor of loud voices, glasses clinking, and laughter.
“Kobevko just pulled up,” one of Weber’s people, Batchelor, Rafe thought, said in his ear.
Honey blinked, acknowledging the heads up too. Dark eyes, short black hair, dramatic makeup—it didn’t seem to make any difference how she changed her look, Honey was still stunningly beautiful. Gaze riveted to her face, he dug in his pocket, pulling out a handful of Euros. “Would you like to play, love?” The love was supposedly for his lovely and pregnant “wife,” but it tripped quite comfortably off his tongue.
Honey took the money with a false smile and obligingly fed a machine. When she won a scattering of coins, she turned her face up and grinned. “I told you I was feeling lucky tonight!”
For a second out of time, the moment felt real.
She
felt real. This was
so
not the time or place to indulge in dreams of happily ever after. Over her head, he kept an eye on the stairs near the entrance. “Then come and be my lucky charm at the roulette table.”
Honey obediently rose, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow and bumping her hip against his. “That was fun.” She said brightly, holding out her other hand with the newly won coins on her palm as they walked. “Look, I won—How much is this?”
For someone who had more dollars than she could possibly use in a lifetime, she did clueless damned well. “The equivalent of five dollars. Don’t worry, darling, I’ll share my roulette winnings with you.”
“I hope it’s a lot. I have my heart set on a lovely sapphire and diamond bracelet I saw in that gift shop we passed.”
Rafe’s heart contracted a bit. She was just playing her role. None of this was real, no matter what it felt like. He slipped back into his role as doting husband to a dark-haired, dark-eyed, pregnant wife. “You’ll have it.”
If Weber’s observations were correct, Kobevko would show in less than ten minutes and head straight for roulette table three in back. Showtime.
He and Honey had reconnoitered the first floor of the hotel, paying special attention to exits and hiding places. Inside and out, the local operatives were in place. Rafael made sure he knew where all the players were. They’d opted to take Kobevko on the way out, instead of on the way in. Should any patrons attempt to make a call, they’d get “no service” messages on their cell phones. Jamming devices were set to block signals inside the hotel as long as their target was inside. Once there, Kobevko would be trapped, unable to contact his people.
The team members, using a special frequency linked directly to the T-FLAC satellite, communicated with earpieces and lip mics, all so small as to be practically undetectable. Comms in place, and armed to the teeth, everyone on Weber’s team—now Rafael’s team—was ready.
As any attentive husband would with his pregnant wife, Rafael splayed his hand on the small of Honey’s back as they wended their way toward table three in the back corner. The slinky black dress was only marginally less sexy with LockOut underneath it, and that was only because he knew Honey would be commando, if not for his insistence that she be
fully
armed. And that meant the body armor of LockOut.
“Holy crap.
Savage
is here,” Honey said softly into the mic, gripping his arm with both hands and turning him to face her. “How the hell did she fin—Three o’clock, blue dress.”
Rafael didn’t believe in coincidences. It was
possible
Savage and Kobevko had a meet. Possible, but under the circumstances, too coincidental that an entire T-FLAC team, Savage,
and
the Ukrainian just happened to converge in the same place and at the same time.
How the hell
did
Savage know they’d be here? Know they’d discovered Kobevko’s location and alias, when the man had been off T-FLAC’s radar for years?
A rock of foreboding settled in his belly. Savage’s presence would fuck up the snatch and grab. Worse, he didn’t want the bitch anywhere near Honey. Christ. He didn’t need to imagine what could happen; his memories were painful and graphic enough. His mind went directly to how Rachel looked when he’d found her in Argentina.
“Do not engage, hear me, Winston? That’s an order.”
Her eyes widened at his harsh tone, but she murmured, “Got it.”
Had Savage ID’d him? Honey was in disguise, he wasn’t. Savage would recognize him with no difficulty at all. Rafael casually glanced in the direction Honey indicated. Even though she stood directly to his left, he’d only heard Honey’s voice through his earpiece. She barely moved her lips. He turned back, blocking her view of the woman with his body. Brushing a strand of chin-length, black hair from her cheek, he tucked it behind her ear.
Catherine Seymour was classically beautiful. Jaw-droppingly so. Centerfold body, waist-length—at last sighting—fiery red hair, and a cat’s sloe green eyes. The woman indicated appeared to be in her mid-sixties, helmet blond hair, red talons, and a lot of expensive, gold jewelry. An easy disguise, but she also had a French Riviera tan and the wrinkles to go with it. She sat at a slot machine with a plastic bucket on her lap, seemingly totally engrossed. “Sure?”
Honey laid her hand over his as he brushed her cheek. “Hundred percent.”
“Kobevko in the building,” an accented male voice informed them. Stuyvesant, the Italian, as he recalled. “ETA three minutes.”
“Think they’re in communication?” Honey asked softly, fixing the lapel of his jacket as people streamed around them. “I’ll distract her.”
Rafael held her hand against him where it rested in the crook of his elbow. “No. She’s heading to the lobby. Blond, tan, blue dress. Weber?”
“On it,” Weber said quietly in his ear.
Honey and Savage face-to-face? Not gonna happen. “Winston’s with me. Fan out. Stay here,” he instructed her. Weber had her team well prepared. Once inside, Kobevko would not be able to leave. Same went for Savage. A two-fer. They had the building surrounded, and the net closed around him as he approached the casino.
Savage, however, was the wild card.
The plan was to take Kobevko on his way out. Weber knew his habits, but even after all this time, she and her team still didn’t know where the bomber lived. The Ukrainian was wily and smart as a fox. He hadn’t eluded capture on three continents for thirty years because he was stupid. Rafael wanted Andriy Kobevko, and he wanted to pay a visit to his lab and home.
The fact that Savage was here established, once and for all, the fact that Kobevko and Savage worked together. There was no room for coincidence. Weber and her people would take care of Savage.
Since Kobevko was a creature of habit, they knew when he’d leave. He’d stay at table three until then. Now Rafael wondered if they’d made the wrong call. He didn’t usually second-guess himself. In fact, never. He suspected it was Honey’s presence and in the path of danger that made him cautious.
He’d better snap the hell out of it, because indecision got people killed. He’d already learned this fucking lesson with Rachel. She’d been killed on his watch,
while
he watched—
Fuck.
Concentration on his job was imperative, yet all he could think about was the danger Honey was in and how to prevent it.
As if she sensed his unease, Honey looked back and winked. “I told you, I feel lucky tonight. Stop worrying, Papa Bear.” She held out her coins, staying in character. A reminder for him to stay in his. He forced an indulgent smile onto his face, mouthing, “Papa Bear?” She nodded approvingly and patted his cheek.
They reached the table where the croupier stood waiting as two men placed their bets. Rafael sat down, tugging Honey into the chair beside him. He slid a wad of Euros across the felt and bought two sets of chips.
“I don’t feel like playing,” she said, sounding sulky. “I want to watch.”
“Then, my darling, just sit there and bring me luck while I play.” He placed his bet, his sleeve brushing her arm as he placed his chips on his numbers. He felt the small shudder, and shot her a no-nonsense glance, because he felt it too, and there’d be no fooling around until much later. Her unfamiliar, dark brown eyes narrowed in a very familiar way. Rafael grinned.
All business, she opened her small purse and removed a compact. As she brushed powder on her nose, she observed Kobevko’s approach behind them. “Twenty feet. Four muscle.”
“Four confirmed,” Stuyvesant responded.
Honey put away her compact, snapping the purse closed as the wheel spun. The dealer held up his hand as a man leaned across the table, a pile of blue chips stacked between his fingers. “Hold your bets.”
TWENTY-FOUR
H
oney burned with the need to go back and confront Catherine but knew it would be unwise. The last thing they needed was for Catherine to alert Kobevko. But damn, there was a hell of a lot she wanted to ask her old friend and mentor. Preferably, while holding her at gunpoint with her foot on her throat. Not now, but soon.
She relaxed her tense shoulders as the Ukrainian bomber took the empty seat to her left. She could feel the body heat of his security people, ranged behind their chairs, on the back of her neck, one of the few places she had exposed skin not protected by LockOut, and the warmth was an indication of just how close they were. She curled her fingers around her beaded purse, feeling the outline of her trusty SIG inside. The baby version, a P290, just over five inches of firepower, was in a holster strapped to her inner thigh, and a small hunting knife was attached to her left ankle.
What the well-dressed T-FLAC operative wore on a glamorous night out.
Kobevko wore an expensive brown suit and too much Ambre Topkapi cologne to go with his powerful stink of old sweat and cigarettes. She’d recognized the top note of bergamot and cardamom when he was several feet behind her; now she got a strong dose of the heart notes of leather and sweet sandalwood, lavender and citrus. The intense odor instantly gave Honey a headache. The exotic, expensive fragrance brought back memories of her father. Although, he’d usually smelled of expensive Scotch and cheap women as well as the six-hundred-dollar-an-ounce cologne.
Frowning, she rubbed her temple with two fingers.
“Okay, sweetheart?” Rafael asked, taking his eyes off the spinning wheel to glance at her.
“I’m pregnant, Kirk, of course I’m not okay. Men!” One hand on her belly, she turned to Kobevko and placed her fingers lightly on his sleeve. All four bodyguards crowded forward. The Ukrainian raised his hand to wave them back. Honey pretended not to notice. “Sorry. Not
all
men are insensitive.” She smiled, surreptitiously dropping a LTX17 GPS tracking device into his jacket pocket as she leaned in close. Her belly blocked her actions from his guards.
“Do you have children?” she asked in a too-friendly tone. She’d never met anyone with deader eyes. She’d forgotten about his eyes. A muddy brown, they were lifeless, flat, and completely disinterested as they flicked to her, then back to the bet he’d just placed.
“Not speak English.”
“Oh. Sorry. I was hoping—”
“Laurie!”
Honey gave Kobevko an apologetic look and took her hand off his arm after giving it a little squeeze. “Never mind.” She turned back to Rafael. “Sorry, sweetie, I was just being friendly.”
“You’re
pregnant,
it’s too late to be friendly.” His eyes said, “I’m playing along, but what the hell are you doing?”