mission.
If Sandman was not where they expected him, he was dead.
At thirty-one thousand feet Korbin banked left and Carlos followed. Still no strobe, but trust ran deep in this team. Each agent would continue toward the objective with the absolute knowledge the others performed their part of the mission without fault.
Carlos squinted as they broke through the wall of white and closed in on the undetectable patch of earth.
A pulsing strobe came into view. Thank you, Sandman.
In the last thousand-foot drop to the mountainside, a ferocious wind gusted up from the canyon below. Carlos hit and rolled through two feet of snow. He released the chute that was dragging him and planted his feet. When he swiveled around, searching for the team, Gotthard was already standing and consulting his wrist video. Korbin was plowing his way toward Rae, who lay sprawled backward on the snow.
Carlos started toward her. A sick thought that her body might have hit a boulder in the snow flashed into his mind. But by the time Korbin reached her, Rae sat up and knocked away his offered hand. Prickly woman when it came to help in any form.
She and Korbin reached Carlos as Sandman strode up to the team, weapon hanging across his chest. Sandman raised a gloved hand Rae slapped for their usual high-five “hello.” Inside the dark mahogany skin beneath his dove- gray snow camouflage suit was a man Carlos always wanted on his side.
Sandman had two personalities. One could turn a female into his angel for the night in a blink, and the other could make a terrorist piss himself.
Once all the chutes were stowed out of sight, Korbin waited for the thumbs-up “all-set” sign from everyone, then struck out, leading the hike. A hundred meters from the three-level home, Carlos signaled to gather. The team closed quarters behind a mound of naked boulders.
Gotthard produced a compact thermal infrared camera and raised it to his face. He began passing information through hand signs: Two guards outside, walking-one on the east side, one on the west. Four bodies inside, two on the second level. Two on the third floor, one was horizontal and motionless-probably the female hostage.
Carlos signaled each operative to move into position. He’d rescue the young woman and protect his team first. Saving his own ass came last…if luck shined on him one more time.
He steeled himself and moved forward, ready to find out if the men guarding this chateau really belonged to Durand Anguis.
TWO
HAD HER E-MAILS gone through in time?
To the right people?
Gabrielle Saxe stood and paced from the workstation in her rental house to the window. A dreary Sunday. Heavy mist from a slow rain hovered over Lake Peachtree, blurring the dock lights. Peachtree City, a planned community in Georgia south of Atlanta, had been the best place she’d found to hide since living on the edge for the past ten years. She missed her family home in France, but the occasional fog here in the South made her long for her flat in London even more.
She missed her freedom, too, but safety came with a cost.
And not just hers. She’d do anything to keep her family in France safe, too. That was one reason she’d gone into hiding ten years ago. Right after her divorce from a rising Italian screen star who had charmed her into getting married with only one intention-to use her. The honeymoon lasted two months, then things started to sour between them. She met the true Roberto Delacourte. First came the verbal abuse on how lacking she was in the bedroom even after she’d tried to meet his expectations. She’d had no experience and hid her revulsion at some of his ideas. When she’d awakened tied to the bed and suffered the equivalent of rape, she started hiding from him.
Six months into the turbulent relationship he backhanded her across the face and punched her stomach.
Gabrielle had braced herself for more violence when she demanded a divorce and threatened to put him in jail.
He’d calmly laid out the terms for divorce in intricate detail, having clearly planned many things in advance. As he’d spoken, she realized how in her naivete she’d been played for money and social connections he used to further his career. He explained how he would inform the media that he was asking for a divorce and that she would pay him an exorbitant settlement from the trust fund her mother had left her. All details of the divorce would remain sealed unless he chose to share something, and she could never say a negative word against him.
She screamed that he was insane, which earned her another blow to her ribs. Then he warned her what he’d do to her and her family if she did not meet his terms. He reeled off a list that included releasing lurid stories about her supposed perverted sexual appetite to the paparazzi with doctored photos of her in compromising positions and alluded to having underworld contacts who liked small children, such as the two girls her father and his new wife had birthed. She wouldn’t allow anything to happen to those children. And with her father in a close campaign race for a high position in the French government, the scandal alone would cripple his career.
She’d been young and truly feared Roberto, afraid of how far he would go to get what he wanted.
Gabrielle would have fought Roberto if only her life and reputation had been at stake, but not her family’s. And Roberto had garnered a list of prominent people who would vouch for him in a public venue. Her fault. She’d introduced him to the cream of London and Paris, all of whom believed he was a wonderful husband since she’d been raised to keep her personal life private. He was a rising star who wanted enough money and platinum contacts to shove him onto the big screen.
And he’d known she’d sacrifice all for those she loved.
She hadn’t been planning her moves the way he had, hadn’t been careful to protect herself against a monster. Gabrielle had brought him into her family’s world, so she had to get him out. She swallowed her pride and agreed to his ultimatum, thinking money would get rid of him for good.
If she’d only known just how ruthless he could be, she’d have realized he would never be satisfied with a simple divorce settlement of $5 million.
Turning back from the window, she stared at her laptop, willing it to give her an answer. She fingered the oval locket dangling against her neck from a thin gold chain and checked the online site again.
Why wouldn’t someone-such as the CIA-post the message on the bulletin board as she’d asked? So much for appreciating the risks she’d taken to feed a message into the right channels, key words included for a suspicious eye. Anyone in the intelligence community knew better than to let a pipeline to information dry up. She’d secretly helped other agencies in the past, but she wouldn’t stick her neck out for the Americans again if they weren’t going to do their part.
Mon Dieu! What was their problem?
Cuckoo…
Gabrielle jumped at the broken silence. She had to turn off that clock when she went to bed. She never slept in the afternoon, but her body begged for the reprieve right now. Rest hadn’t been possible for the past fifty hours since receiving a postale card that almost stopped her heart in midbeat.
She rubbed her stomach where a mass of squirming nerves was doing a bang-up job of making her nauseous.
Maybe tea would settle her stomach.
Two days of sleep would do more good.
She scanned e-mails. Nothing, just mundane chatter that ranged from IT questions generated by articles she wrote anonymously for online publications to the rare personal e-mail.
Her gaze snagged on an e-mail from Fauteur de Trouble that read, “Call me soon-I’m being exiled and you’re the only one who will understand…” Gabrielle smiled. Babette had chosen an apt electronic name. She was definitely a troublemaker, but in a lovable way. Gabrielle doubted drama queen Babette, one of Gabrielle’s two half sisters from her father’s second marriage, was truly being exiled.
More likely, the rebellious fourteen-year-old faced being sent to a relative’s home for the holidays to give her father some peace. The headstrong teen was turning his hair gray, which Gabrielle found amusing.
Go Babette. Unfortunately for their father, he’d spawned another female who refused to be crammed into a
