Page 87 of Trust No One

“So, Cliff, what’s our final destination?” Mel said. The water had helped. She was able to speak more clearly. Move her fingers and feet more normally.

He turned to look at her, his dead eyes studying her for a long moment. Finally he shrugged. “Guess it doesn’t hurt to tell you. You’re not going to live to tell anyone else. We’re going to the Maldives.”

Mel nodded, although she was terrified. She wasn’t going to make it to the Maldives. He’d inject that syringe into her chest as soon as they’d taken off from JFK in New York.

If by some miracle she was still alive when the plane landed in the Maldives, he’d kill her as soon as they were out of the airport. But instead of letting him see her fear, she forced herself to relax into her seat. “Smart, Cliff. No extradition treaty with the U.S., and a paradise on top of it. You did your research.”

He swiveled to face her. “That’s what life is all about, Melbourne. Doing your homework. Figuring out where to run when you have a shit ton of money and don’t want the U.S. government sniffing around for it.”

She tilted her head, trying to appear steady. Calm, even though her head still felt like lead and her heart banged against her chest. “Ya don’t think they’ll come after you?”

Kingsley shrugged. “What can they do? They can’t drag me home.”

She was pretty sure they could and they would. “Are you sure about that, Cliff? Those SpecOps guys have mad skills. They could have you locked down and on a plane before you were completely awake.”

He raised one eyebrow. “I doubt it. My place over there has the latest alarm systems. Guard dogs. Video monitoring. The SpecOps guys are good, but they’re not that good.”

Mel shrugged. “Or, they could just kill you before you even clear customs.”

Kingsley shook his head, a tiny smile curling his mouth. “Then they’d never get their money back. And I know they’d want their money.”

She gave him a puzzled look, as if she didn’t understand. “Aren’t you worried they’d send a team in the middle of the night to snatch you? Exfiltrate you to one of those off-the-books hellhole prisons in a country like Turkey or Bulgaria? Toss you in a cell, torture you until you give up their money, then let you rot?” Her head pounded, but she held Cliff’s gaze. “You ever been waterboarded, Cliff?”

Unease flickered across Kingsley’s face, then he shrugged. “They’d have to find me first.”

“The CIA is very good at finding people.”

Kingsley snorted. “I worked for the CIA for more than twenty years. I think I know all their tricks.”

“You were a bureaucrat, Cliff, like me. You have no idea what went on in the SpecOps groups.”

“Like you do?” He rolled his eyes.

She shrugged. “Of course not. But I essentially lived with Devlin Smith in Kabul. He couldn’t talk about his missions, and I never asked him. But I got a sense of what he did. He’s my partner in Blackhawk Security now, and I’ve seen what he can do, up close and personal. Those SpecOps guys are terrifying.”

Kingsley made a dismissive sound, but a bead of sweat trickled down his temple. “Like I said, they’ll have to find me first. Then they’d have to get through my security set-up, which is the best that money can buy.”

Her brain was still fuzzy, and Mel leaned back in her seat, trying to act cool. Calm. The opposite of what she was, which was terrified. “Those SpecOps guys eat security systems for breakfast,” she said. She waved her hand. “Just saying. Something to think about, Cliff.”

“Those SpecOps guys are just dumb jocks,” he spat out. “They do that job because they don’t have the brains to domyjob.”

“You keep telling yourself that, Kingsley.” She shifted slowly in her seat to look directly at him. “Did you ever hear the story of how three of thosedumb jocksgot fourteen people out of a Taliban-controlled area and into the embassy compound in Kabul? After driving hours through Taliban territory? And managed to get valuable intel on a bomb-making site while they were doing it? Didn’t have to kill a single person, either.”

Kingsley swallowed. Glanced at the watch on his wrist as more sweat rolled down his temples. “Why isn’t this plane boarding?”

Mel shrugged. “Probably a computer glitch or something. Or maybe a computer crash.”

His gaze shot to hers. “You know that for a fact, Melbourne?”

“’Course not,” she said immediately. “How could I? I’m speculating.”

“Keep your mouth shut,” he said. “I don’t need your whiny voice in my head.”

Wow, Cliff was beginning to melt down.Good. Mel shrugged. “Sorry.” She mimed zipping her mouth closed.

Cliff rolled his eyes. When she opened her mouth to tell him he was in trouble, he reached over and slid his hand around her throat. Squeezed hard. She sucked in air frantically, finally reaching up and using her nails to tear his fingers away from her neck.

“Just tell me to be quiet, Cliff,” she said, massaging her throat as she sucked in air. “You don’t want to talk to me? Then don’t.”

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