Combat Machines. Don Pendleton

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Chapter Two

      Geneva, Switzerland

      Two days later

      Mustering every bit of her willpower, Kathri Brauer extricated herself from her lover’s embrace and rolled out of bed. “What is the rush, my beauty? You still have plenty of time to make it to work.” Alexei Panshin snaked a muscular, toned arm toward her leg. “Come back to bed for just a few minutes...”

      Brauer looked down at him, nearly succumbing to her desire to just jump back into his arms. God, I could just stare at him all day, she thought, taking in his chiseled torso, strong legs and arms, and a face that could have graced the cover of a men’s fashion magazine. Just the thought of how they’d been spending every night since they’d met five days ago almost made her knees buckle.

      “That’s tempting, but I won’t be going anywhere if you keep that up.”

      Before her resolve could weaken any further, she hurried around the corner to the marble bathroom. Forgoing the whirlpool tub, she headed for the glassed-in waterfall shower and turned it on, luxuriating in the hot needlelike jets of water pouring over her. As she washed up, she thought of her new lover.

      Alexei Panshin was a midlevel representative of a large import-export firm out of Saint Petersburg, looking to expand its reach around the world. He’d come to Geneva on a fact-finding mission to investigate various banking methods that might better serve his superiors back in Russia. Brauer had met him at a networking gala held in the Four Seasons Hotel des Bergues. As good as he looked naked, he almost looked even better in a tuxedo.

      From the moment their gazes had met, it was as if fireworks had gone off. Brauer was more than experienced, having had a marriage, a divorce and several lovers under her belt, not to mention rising in the cutthroat world of international trade.

      With her penetrating intelligence, five-eleven height, Nordic good looks and white-blond hair, Brauer knew she often came across as intimidating on a first meeting. But Alexei Panshin hadn’t been intimidated in the least. When he first walked up to her bearing two glasses of champagne, the moment he opened his mouth, she was lost. The rest of the party fell away, and it was just the two of them, alone.

      Several glasses of champagne later, they were making out in the back of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedan Panshin’s company had provided to chauffeur him around the city. They’d ended up at his hotel, the luxurious Mandarin Oriental Geneva, and the rest of their time together had passed in a blur of incredible conversation, gourmet meals and mind-melting sex.

      She got out of the shower and wrapped herself in a huge, fluffy towel. Checking the time, she figured she would just make it if she didn’t mind putting up with slightly damp hair on the way over.

      Drying, dressing and applying her makeup in record time, she trotted out the door to find Panshin setting down his smartphone. He was sitting in front of two breakfasts on a tray—a full one for him, and a continental of croissants and fruit for her.

      “That’s so sweet of you.” Even though it would put her behind, Brauer buttered a croissant. “Who called?”

      “My company. They are impressed with what I have learned so far, and wish for me to stay in the city for a few more days—to better take advantage of the contacts I have made here.” He rose and took her hands in his, kissing pastry crumbs off them. “But we can discuss that this evening. As much as it pains me to say it, you should probably get going, yes?”

      Damn!

      “Yes, I’ve got to run.” She kissed him and turned to leave.

      * * *

      THE DRIVE TO the office seemed to take forever, and Brauer found it hard to concentrate on anything—paying attention to traffic, the emails she had her car’s built-in system read to her on the way, the project she was supposed to be briefing her boss on this morning—all of it paled in comparison to her new, white-hot relationship.

      Pulling into the underground garage, she got out of her car and trotted to the elevator. As she was getting in, her phone vibrated.

      Conference moved up. Go directly to 15th floor conference room, the text read. Brauer knew she was supposed to stop on the main level and go through the security checkpoint, but she was already running close to her scheduled conference start time as it was, and stopping there would make her late. Besides, she had been working at the WTO building for the past four years—she certainly wouldn’t risk destroying her career to smuggle in something. And no one else had gotten to her briefcase in all the time she’d had it, so when the elevator arrived, she got in and pushed the button for the fifteenth floor.

      Grateful to find the elevator empty, Brauer took a few moments to run through the salient points of her presentation in her head, thanking her lucky stars she had been mostly done with it before she’d met Alexei.

      The bell chimed, signaling she had reached her destination floor. Kathri stepped out and headed directly for the frosted glass conference room at the end of the corridor. She entered and blinked in surprise at seeing not only the CEO of the company, but also several board members.

      “Ah, Ms. Brauer, so good to see you this morning,” her boss, Loïc Gilliard, greeted her as he shook her hand. He quickly introduced her to the other board members. “We’re looking forward to seeing what you have to show us today.”

      “And I think you’ll be pleased with my recommendations, if you don’t mind my saying so,” she replied as she strode to the head of the table and set down her briefcase. “I’ll just need a few moments to set up—”

      As she reached for the locks, she noticed a new scratch marring the brass finish on the left one—the same one that had popped open back at the hotel room. I’ll have to get that polished and fixed, she thought as she set the combination dials, undid the latches and opened the case. Or maybe just replace the whole damn thing—

      The small bomb in her briefcase detonated with a force powerful enough to blow her face off. She was blasted off her feet, hitting the wall hard enough to crack the wood before crashing to the floor. She had no idea that the explosion blew out all of the windows in the room and set the fire alarm blaring.

      The bank’s CEO, who had been walking over to stand next to Brauer, took the full force of the flying briefcase lid in the chest, pulverizing his ribs and stopping his heart. He was dead before he hit the floor.

      With the blast directed more or less away from the board members, they escaped with their lives.

      Amazingly, Brauer lived for one hundred twenty-two minutes after the blast. But as the paramedics were lifting her onto a gurney to take her to a medevac helicopter in a vain attempt to save her life, all she kept repeating was one word:

      “Alexei...”