Deadlock

'That's right.' His hand was still stroking her hair with a gossamer-light touch. 'I had to do it. I had no choice.'

'But you have a choice whether you'll help me now.'

'Not really. I do keep my word. In my business, it was necessary to inspire trust and make a profit.'

'What kind of business?'

'Smuggling and other nefarious enterprises.'

'You're a crook?'

'Retired.' He smiled. 'But my background made me uniquely qualified to find you and get you out. Are you warmer now?'

She was warmer, she realized with surprise. She didn't know at what point the chill had vanished, but her body, pressed against Gar¬rett's, felt almost flushed with heat. 'Yes, you can let me go now.'

'For a little while.' He sat up and tucked the blanket around her. 'The chill will probably come back.' He got up and moved over to the storage chest. 'But I need to get you fixed up first.'

He was totally at ease with his nudity, she thought as she watched him rummage through the storage chest. He was a beautiful specimen of a man-tight, hard buttocks, powerful thighs, calves, and shoulders. He reminded her of a statue of Apollo she had moved from a museum in Sarajevo. But Apollo was the Sun God, and Garrett was all sleek darkness and hidden depths.

Not entirely hidden, she realized as he turned back to her. She looked quickly away from his lower body to the first-aid kit in his hand.

He chuckled. 'I told you I couldn't be cool and objective. It's not my nature.' He dropped to his knees beside her. 'I need to clean and put some antiseptic on those wounds on your breasts. It will just take a minute.' He carefully lowered the blanket. His lips tightened grimly as he gazed at her cut and swollen nipples. 'The son of a bitch. Bites?'

'Yes.'

'Human bites can be dirtier than an animal's. And I'd bet Shafir was as poisonous as a cobra. This may sting.' He carefully cleaned and dabbed the antiseptic on the tip of each breast, then put on an an¬tibiotic cream. Then he carefully cleaned and bandaged the wound in her leg. 'That's it.' He covered her again and sat back on his heels. 'Or is it? Do you have any other wounds that Staunton gave you?'

'Only my cut lip.'

He was silent a moment. 'You weren't raped?' 'No, he was saving that. I wasn't hurt at all.' She closed her eyes. 'It was all Joel.'

'Do you want to talk about it?' 'No.'

'It would be better if you did.' 'No.'

'You're starting to shake again, dammit.'

'Just give me time. I can't talk about it now. I won't-'

'Shh.' He was suddenly holding her again, pulling the blanket over both of them. 'You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to talk about. Just stop shaking.'

'He hurt. Joel hurt, and I couldn't-'

'I know.' He held her tighter. 'It will get better, Emily.'

'It's too late. He's dead. It can't get better.'

'Not for him, better for you. Like it was with your father. The pain won't be as sharp after a while.'

'It wasn't like my father. He died on impact. It wasn't like that.'

'Shh. I'm not talking about Levy, and neither are you.' His lips brushed her forehead. 'We're going to lie here and, if you can, you're going to sleep.'

'You didn't want me to go to sleep.'

'Who said I have to be consistent? I didn't want you to lose con¬sciousness until I knew what I was facing.' He tucked her arm be¬neath the cover. 'I can handle it now.'

Gentleness. Strange that the Angel of Death would show tender¬ness. 'You're being kind to me.'

'Every now and then I have a lapse. I think it was because the sight of those bites tore me up.' He drew closer, and whispered, 'And that was the moment I decided to give you a gift.'

'Gift? I don't want any gifts.'

'You want this one.' He held her gaze. They were only inches apart, and she felt as if those eyes were pulling her into him, absorb¬ing her. 'I'll keep my promise. I'll give you Staunton. I won't stop un¬til he's dead.'

She couldn't look away from him. She could almost see the lethal darkness swirling around him as it had when he'd killed Shafir Ali.

'Yes, that's a gift I want.' She closed her eyes. 'Thank you.'

'I don't believe I've ever been thanked for killing a man before.'

'You don't have to kill him, I'll do it. I just have to find him.'

'I think I'm better qualified than you to do the job.' He laid his head down beside her own and pulled her closer. 'Don't you?'

'Yes.' She had stopped shaking and was beginning to feel the warmth ease through her again. What a macabre response to an even-more-macabre promise. But it was no more bizarre than this bond that was beginning to form between them. She was lying naked in his arms and felt… joined in some manner. 'I knew that the moment I saw you.' She cuddled closer to him, taking his warmth, taking his strength, embracing the darkness. 'Angel of Death…'

FOUR

'SHAFIR IS DEAD,' BORG TOLD Staunton. 'He had a wound in his side, but he died of a broken neck.' He paused. 'The woman's gone.'

'Son of a bitch.' It was what Staunton expected from the moment the explosions had started to rock the encampment. He gazed out at the spiking fires he could see through the driving snow. 'The vehicles?'

'All damaged except the van closest to the huts. Six of Shafir's men are dead.'

'I don't give a damn about that asshole's men.' But he didn't want them to be captured and talk either. 'Tell them all to come to the woman's hut, and I'll give them enough money to scatter and head for the Pakistan border.'

'Don't we need them to go after her?'

'Do you think she did this herself? C-4 was used. Someone came to get her. But it couldn't have been a large force, or they wouldn't have hit and run. We have time to do damage control.'

'Perhaps we'd better cut our losses,' Borg suggested tentatively. 'You spent weeks, and she didn't break. Maybe she didn't know any¬thing.'

'But I didn't get the chance to make sure, dammit.' Anger was beginning to surge through him as he remembered those last moments before he had tossed her to Shafir. 'I didn't get to work on her.' 'You couldn't expect this to happen. The blizzard and the-' 'Excuses? He won't accept excuses.' And neither would Staunton. He had never failed before, and he wouldn't fail now. 'He's trying to hold up on paying me until I bring him the hammer, but it's not going to work. It's got to be pay as I go. That damn hammer was supposed to be here, and he says she has to know where it is.' He lifted his hand to his lip, where the bitch had bitten him, and he added viciously, 'Well, he'll get what he wants. She'll tell me everything she ever knew.' He turned away. 'Pack up. We'll take the van and see if we can catch up with her. They had to be on foot. We would have known if anyone had approached in a vehicle.'

'After you pay off Shafir's men?'

'Yes. Be sure they all come to the hut. I want every one of them in there waiting.'

'They'll be there.' Borg turned toward the burning tents. 'They'll need that money. But there are at least forty. It's going to cost you.'

'No, it won't.' He smiled. 'We don't have C-4 but we still have the explosives we used to stop the truck from the museum. I'll set the charge while you round up Shafir's men.'

Borg's eyes widened. 'You're going to blow up the hut?'