Shaking off what probably would’ve been a suicidal inclination, he took a seat on one of the barstools instead. She barely glanced up at him.
“It’s a pretty safe bet that Ramsey will know something about those Russian assault rifles. They had to have come off the black market. If someone has been buying that kind of weapon, he’d have heard about it.” She didn’t spare him a glance.
He bobbed his head, trying to decide how to put his plan into action without really pissing her off. “I know some people, CIA people. I was going to check in with them first. If my contact has good information, we might not need Ramsey.”
Her glare could’ve frozen hell. “If Yuri Dolohov is somehow involved with this, Ramsey Vitale will know. Those two have their heads so far up each other’s asses they can’t take a shit without the other knowing. It would be idiotic not to have a chat with Ramsey since I’m already here.”
He jerked his chin in a curt nod. He didn’t trust Ramsey Vitale as far as he could throw him. Anything the self-serving Russian mobster said would be negligible as far as Jace was concerned. The asshole always had an eye out for personal gain.
“When do think we should go, Jace?”
“Well, I thought I’d go now, actually.”
She lifted her gaze, eyes narrowing. “I’m not a babysitter.”
“We can’t leave him here by himself. And we can hardly take him with us.”
“Well then you’d best figure something else out!”
“C’mon Dayne, it’s not like I can call the front desk and ask for babysitting service—”
“Twenty bucks says you can!” she cut in.
“Not with the situation like it is.”
“This is ridiculous!”
“Look.” He gritted his teeth, loathing the compromise and yet knowing he’d get nowhere without one. “I’ll go and be gone just a few hours. When I get back you can pay a visit to Ramsey. Then we’ll meet back here and talk about it.”
Vitale wasn’t likely to do Dayne irreparable damage in one meeting. At least Jace didn’t think so. It made his blood boil to think of the Russian bastard putting his hands all over Dayne and trying to fast-talk his way back into her bed.
“You’re insane if you think I’m going to stay here with Ryan the rest of the afternoon!”
“It’s a big hotel. We’re right at the edge of the water. There’s plenty to do!”
“Hey!” Ryan yelled from the adjoining room. “Check out this pool! Can I swim?”
“See?” Jace said in his most encouraging voice. “He’s already found something for you guys to do.”
There was a heavy pause. For one moment he thought Dayne was going to leap across the counter and strangle him. Her full lips pressed together into a thin line, and her gray eyes grew stormy. Hands fisted at her sides, every muscle in her body looked ready to snap. Then the fury receded and he saw her relax. It began as an almost imperceptible loosening of the tension in her shoulders and ended when her jaw relaxed enough that she could open her mouth to speak.
“Go,” she snapped. “Before I change my mind and use my gun on you.”
Not one to waste time, he went.
“Hello, Jace, are you lost? Or are you putting your nose where it doesn’t belong again?”
Jace didn’t turn away from the panoramic view of the MIT campus. The great dome gleamed pale pink in the late afternoon sunlight, its Greek columns casting long shadows on the steps below. Students milled about, immersed in the creativity that blanketed the campus like morning dew on the sweeping lawns. He wasn’t certain why he’d come to the edge of the MIT campus to wait for what promised to be a CIA fishing expedition.
It wasn’t a surprise to hear CIA Agent Tyra Cantwell’s husky bedroom voice. He had been expecting her. It was a given that the agency had been keeping tabs on him the moment he stepped off the plane from Egypt. Coming to Tyra’s own city was like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
“Well?” Tyra’s voice took on a tinge of annoyance. “It’s rude to ignore somebody who’s trying to be polite.”
Jace turned casually, offering a lazy smile. “I’ve never known you to be polite without a reason, Tyra.”
She laughed, throwing her head back. The gesture allowed him a full view of the delicate skin of her slender throat. Tyra’s long pale blonde hair was pulled back into a knot at her nape. Generous breasts bounced gently, straining against the starched white cotton of her blouse. A fitted black suit jacket emphasized her narrow waist and the flare of her hips. He noted that the matching skirt was short, keeping a nice expanse of well-muscled leg in plain view.
She stepped closer, her black high heels creating a swing in her walk that sent an emphatic message to his groin. He had known her for years. She was part of a relatively small group of predatory females in his mental Rolodex. Tyra knew she was sexy. She carried herself as if she were hedonistic lust personified. There was no doubt in her mind that every male she met wanted a piece of her. But her brain was coolly analytical, detached, and sharp enough to manipulate every encounter while calculating the best way to work things to her advantage.
This very trait was what had brought Jace looking for her. He’d taken the contract on Yuri Dolohov’s brother, Kiryll. It had been carried out right there in Boston at Yuri’s Brookline estate. But Kiryll’s assassination had only seemed to be the important part of that visit to Boston. Jace had since come to realize that the quiet meeting he’d inadvertently stumbled upon meant more than the contract.
At the time he’d thought it was a meeting between Dolohov and the Feds. It wasn't wholly unusual, and Jace had almost instantly recognized Tyra’s trademark husky bedroom voice mingling with Yuri’s thickly accented English. Now he had to find out the purpose of their meeting.
It was a task that would’ve been easier had he known if Tyra was aware he’d assassinated Kiryll. As it was he would have to fly blind and hope he didn’t somehow compromise himself.
She stopped just short of running into him and then flung her head back to meet his eyes. Tyra smiled. “To what do I owe this…pleasure?”
He hadn’t missed the suggestive tone of her voice. Jace was no fool. Tyra used sex like some agents used interrogation. Both could be fatal. “Maybe I’m sightseeing.”
She laughed again, her bobbing breasts coming into contact with the flat surface of his abdominal region. “I can’t imagine a man with your talents sightseeing in such a busy place.”
“Busy?”
“Oh c’mon Jace, we both know there’s more going on around here than leaves turning and the Red Sox race for the pennant.”
Her fingers were snaking up his chest, picking at invisible lint on his snug cotton T-shirt. She sighed, and he fought the urge to dwell on whether or not he could feel her nipples harden beneath her blouse and if she could actually make them harden by sheer force of will.
Making a split second decision, Jace tried a new tactic. “Where’s your partner, Tyra?”
She stiffened, stepping back and throwing him a frown. Sparks shot from her brown eyes. “Why would you care about that twit?”
“I’m looking for some information. I thought he might have some.”
“Biggs? You thought Biggs would have information?”
“Senator’s pet and all, you know.”
She snorted. “Don’t remind me, Jace! It’s all I hear day in and day out!”
He fought a smile. She wouldn’t have been pleased to know it amused him that she’d been saddled with a partner nobody else wanted. He needed her happy, or at least talkative. It was common knowledge that Preston Biggs couldn’t keep his ass out of hot water for more than a few seconds at a time on his own. He was also the nephew of a very prominent Senator who sat on a CIA budget committee and several black ops oversight committees.
“You know, Tyra, you should be flattered they chose you to babysit.”
“Those dickless morons?” she snapped. “They only picked me because they knew I could keep him alive.”
“Must be your people skills.”
“More like my reputation as a notorious hell bitch.”
She made a frustrated noise in her throat before wandering several paces away. A black wrought iron fence enclosed one of the many expansive grass areas of the MIT campus. Tyra crossed her arms and rested a hip against the sturdy fence.
“Why are you really here?”
“Did they send you to find out?”
“More or less. A guy like you doesn’t slip by completely unnoticed in airport security, no matter what ID you use.”
“Are you asking if I’m here on a contract?”
“You already said you were looking for information.”
“So I did.”
He paused for several minutes. Tyra seemed to have lost some of her intensity. This particular side of her personality was the one that could be the most unnerving. Pushy, hardcore bitch he understood. Broody, introspective woman he did not.
Jace decided to go for broke. “Have you heard anything about a government sanctioned hit list?”
Tyra frowned. “Sounds like another Hollywood conspiracy theory.”
“Maybe.” He cast another glance at the gleaming dome of MIT. “But this is a list of spooks somebody wants exterminated.”
Several emotions flickered across her eyes before she quickly schooled her face back into blandness. Jace had his answer right there. Yes, she knew something. No, she didn’t want to talk about it.
“I suppose there’s been a rumor,” she finally relented.
“A rumor?”
“Sorgenson, Yves, Ortega and Nguyen have all turned up dead in the last three weeks. They were all gunned down in the same fashion with the same type of Russian assault rifle.”
“That’s not assassination, that’s execution.”
“Sniping another assassin takes careful planning and a big set of brass balls, Jace. When you’re working under deadline, eloquence and courage are the first things to go.”
Something that might’ve been labeled as shock seeped through his body, making his fingers tingle and his brain work overtime. Tyra had just listed off four of the most respected assassins in his field, all freelance and all deadly in their own way. Trying to compare their histories to find a common enemy would’ve been ludicrous. They were like Jace and Dayne. Practically everybody on the planet would’ve had reason to take them out at one time or another.
He calmly focused on the facts. “What do you know about the shooters?”
“Nothing much. Look at me! I may have a reputation in the field, but when it comes to politics, you get nowhere in a skirt.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
Tyra sighed. “Believe it. Some days I find myself thinking I’d do better in your line of work.”
His eyebrows shot up. “I don’t think you’d last.”
“Oh, I’m too feminine?” she snarled suddenly. “Unlike like your friend Dayne Castille, I suppose?”
“You may hate bureaucracy, but you still see black and white in the world.”
“It’s all fading to gray, I assure you.”
He chuckled. “Tired of watching my file get thicker and thicker while your bosses turn a blind eye?”
“It’s disgusting! I could name fifty of your marks off the top of my head. And those are just the ones we have actual evidence on! But they haven’t touched you.”
He didn’t add salt to that wound. The truth was that people like he and Dayne were a necessary evil. From time to time they did favors for their government or any other political organization that could come up with the cash. Who else could you send when it couldn’t look like political intrigue? Which was why it made no sense to be exterminating them one by one.
“I think the idea of a hit list is ridiculous. This is probably some petty personal vendetta gone too far.”
Jace dismissed her comment offhand. They were a prickly bunch, sure. In fact, it wasn’t unusual for mercenary types to kill each other for a variety of petty insults. This was larger than a personal vendetta. This was a systematic elimination.
“A government list just isn’t plausible!”
“Why not?”
Tyra frowned. “There’s no point to it.”
“Because the government uses us like a checks and balances system?”
She nodded, nibbling a cuticle. “As much as it pains me to say it, even your kind has a part to play in government politics. That’s what drives the agencies nuts. If we were assigned your missions there would be yards of red tape and possible jail time at completion. You guys just walk away. The problem of course is that none of you possess one iota of loyalty. You’re all a bunch of self-serving mercenaries.”
A disturbing possibility began forming in Jace's mind, one that allowed for the odd combination of players in the game. Much as it pained him to say it, Tyra was right. Assassins were a self-serving bunch. They had their alliances and their petty wars, but at the end of the day it was a lot like a reality television contest, something along the lines of “Last Man Standing.”
Which brought about an interesting question; what would happen if someone managed to unify a group of the world’s deadliest trained mercenaries and hit men?
Tyra abruptly changed the subject. “So how is she?”
“Dayne?” Jace shrugged. “Alive.”
Tyra said something unladylike beneath her breath.
“I know. You dominant female types rarely get along.”
“Are you sleeping with her?”
Now that was out of left field! His brief but torrid liaison with Tyra had ended more than a year before. It had never been serious to begin with. She was the kind of woman who discarded men like silk stockings.
“I shouldn’t have asked that, Jace. Sorry.”
“No,” he said quickly, searching for a tactful way to divert her. “Dayne and I have only ever had a business relationship.”
“The agency has her pegged as lesbian,” Tyra commented.
“What?”
“We keep tabs on everybody, you know that. There’s an entire department devoted to you guys. Off the books of course.”
“Isn’t that your department?”
Tyra turned back to the fence, leaning against it, staring off into the distance. “That’s what ten years in the agency will get a woman; a partner with a silver spoon up his ass to babysit and assignment to a department that doesn’t even exist.”
The intense bitterness in her voice jarred Jace. There was no doubt in his mind that she’d been the one in Yuri’s study that evening. Now the question was whether or not she’d been there on agency business. He began to suspect not. God save them all from a woman scorned.