Sleeping With Danger. Wendy Rosnau

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СКАЧАТЬ wife. Remember that picture you used to carry with you? Her image became my lifeline, and that’s when I realized she was the perfect revenge between us.”

      “You’re dead, Cyrus. I’m going to kill you.”

      “You’re going to have to find me first. So far you’ve failed miserably, just like you failed to protect your wife.”

      “You’re insane.”

      “What I am is somewhere out of your reach, and right now you’re wondering where that is.”

      “I’m coming, Cyrus. It doesn’t matter whose face you stole, or what island in Greece you’re hiding on, I’ll find you, and when I do I’ll put a bullet in your heart and two in your head.”

      “That’s the spirit. I was hoping you’d still feel that way. I have unmeasurable patience, and it seems you’ve acquired a lengthy amount yourself. I wouldn’t want you to give up too soon.”

      “I’ll never give up.”

      “Good. The game is far from over. That’s why I called.”

      “What have you done now?”

      “I’ve been in touch with a friend of ours.”

      “No friend of yours is a friend of mine.”

      “I suppose he would agree with you. Nonetheless, Holic Reznik sends you his regards.”

      “The assassin is behind bars at Clume. Your sidekick is never going to see the light of day.”

      “Behind bars the last time you checked. When was that?”

      No, Merrick thought, it wasn’t possible. Holic was in solitary confinement in the highest security prison in the U.S., surrounded by a twenty-four-hour guard.

      “Semtex makes a helluva hole in brick and steel if you know how to pack the load. As you know, I’m an expert when it comes to blowing things up. Still living out of a suitcase?”

      Merrick was on his feet now, but before he could say anything more the phone went dead. Quickly he punched in his superior’s phone number. “Harry?”

      “Merrick. Hell, I was just about to call you. There’s been an explosion at Clume.”

      Merrick closed his eyes, listened to Harry’s account of what they believed happened. It was the perfect time to set Harry straight—he was talking terrorist attack. The perfect time to tell him about the phone call he’d had with Cyrus. What would he say if he told him Cyrus Krizova was alive, and that one of their own Onyxx agents was the Chameleon?

      But if he revealed everything to Harry now, he’d never get the chance to avenge Johanna.

      He asked, “What about the prisoners?”

      “It’s too early for a body count. It’ll take days to sort through the rubble.”

      Merrick didn’t need to wait days to know they wouldn’t find Holic Reznik among the dead. Cyrus had him. The question was, why? The assassin’s mangled hands made him as useless as a one-legged frog in a jumping contest.

      Merrick hung up the phone and dressed in jeans and a black sweater. As he walked past the window he saw it was still snowing. The Potomac was as gray as the sky, as gray as the day he’d left Cyrus in that minefield in Prague.

      Chapter 2

      For fifteen months Melita had been confined on the barren islet Despotiko. Some days it felt as if she would die there. She felt that way tonight as she hurried along the goat trail back to the monastery. For weeks she had been slipping out after dark in search of someone to help her escape the island.

      The village was three miles away, the harbor lined with boats. She could stow away so easily. The problem was convincing one of the fisherman in the village to risk it.

      What she needed was a gorilla with brass balls and a death wish. That’s what one of the fisherman had told her tonight. But there was no gorilla on the island, and that meant outside of growing wings, she was not getting off the island.

      It was almost dawn and she couldn’t get caught outside the periphery. Melita picked up her pace and crested the rocky knoll. She heard the sea rushing the rugged shoreline, and up ahead she could see Minare. The monastery’s tall tower in the moonlight.

      The first guard she slipped past was dozing against a rock. The second, too busy taking a leak off the rampart to notice her. Number three had left his post altogether.

      She moved through the flower garden, almost home free. Ten feet from the back door she saw a shadowy figure step onto the stone path. At first she thought it was Hector, but her bodyguard—and more importantly, her friend—was supposed to be inside keeping watch over the long corridor that she had to slip past to reach the stairs that would take her back to her bedroom in the tower.

      She was about to softly speak his name into the darkness when the shadow revealed himself. “Restless again tonight, Melita?”

      The heavily accented voice stopped her dead in her tracks. It was her father’s houseguest, Holic Reznik.

      He sauntered toward her with the grace of a stalking panther. He was smoking a cigarette, and he held it awkwardly in his disfigured hand a few inches from his lips. Both hands had been damaged in a shoot-out he’d been engaged in months ago. Holic was an assassin, and the maiming had been the result of a scrimmage with two government agents. It had cost him two fingers on his right hand, and the thumb on the left, as well as extensive nerve damage.

      For a number of weeks she had watched him from afar, wondering why the assassin had arrived and decided to stay. At the moment that question didn’t seem as important as the one affecting her breathing right now. Did he know where she’d been tonight? If so, did he know that her trips to the village were forbidden?

      “I asked you a question, Melita. Restless?”

      “I like taking walks before dawn,” she said. “It’s the quietest time of day.”

      His lips curled around the cigarette, sucked hard, then sent a cloud of smoke into the warm island air. “I rise early myself, but for a different reason. My hands pain me. They keep me up at all hours.”

      His Russian accent was colored with a sharp German influence. Sharp like his unnatural eyes, set deep into his sockets. Even though his dark complexion and masculine features would easily attract women, when Melita looked at him all she saw were his eyes—black soulless eyes…the eyes of a killer.

      On the other hand, when he looked at her, she got the feeling he was stripping her naked one piece of clothing at a time.

      Holic was in his early forties, not overly tall, with short, thick black hair in its early stages of growing out.

      Hector had warned her that Holic was a randy womanizer, and that she should avoid him. That was just what she intended to do.

      Melita forced herself to take two more steps. “I need to get inside.”

      “Before a guard spots you and reports it to your father?”

      That СКАЧАТЬ