Page 69 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold
It was the only word that could make him stop. His name in her voice. So he pointed at the man-child in the chair and snapped, “He’s lying.”
Franklin gave a hapless shrug. “Have it your way. I just know what I know. Hey, you guys like Mexican food? I’m feeling nacho-y.”
“You have one more chance to tell us who hired you,” Alex warned, but Franklin just sat there, slowly shaking his head as if maybe Alex and King weren’t as good as he’d been led to believe.
“No. Nikolai didn’t hireme.”
King pinched the bridge of his nose. “But you just said—”
The smirk on Franklin’s face faded. The vein in his neck pulsed. He was the most serious man in the world when he whispered, “Nikolai hiredeveryone.”
The word itself wasn’t ominous, but King could feel it, swirling in the air and bouncing off the walls. They’d come to that island for the truth, but this was the kind of answer that only led to five more questions, and—
Franklin was reaching for a drawer.
“Hands!” Alex ordered, and he backed away slowly, raising his hands in the air but glancing down at the desk.
“There’s a picture in the top drawer,” he said.
King wouldn’t have put it past Franklin to booby-trap the place, so he pointed to the drawer and said, “You get it.Slowly.”
“Nikolai...” Franklin started but trailed off when King made a sound. “Orwhoever is using that namedoesn’t want you dead.” He reached inside the drawer, then pulled out a photograph and tossed it on the desk in front of them. “Nikolai just wantsthat. And he’s hired every free agent in the world to track the two of you down and get it for him.” He made it sound so simple—so easy. He looked almost smug when he asked, “Look familiar?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Seven Years Ago
Amalfi Coast, Italy
Alex
It probably shouldn’t have been so anticlimactic, the way Alex felt as she slipped off her harness and slid into the shadows of the house.
King had already disabled the alarm, and Irina and Kozlov were gone, so there were only two guards to contend with and, at that time of night, they were making their rounds of the perimeter fence. The house was empty. Just Alex and King and the shadows.
“I guess we’re alone.” Even King sounded mildly disappointed. After so much recon, it felt like there should have been... more?
“Does this feel too easy to you?” Alex whispered even though he was right—they were alone—but something in Alex’s gut was telling her something was wrong. This wasn’t safe. This wasn’t good. And the worst part was the look on King’s face—the cocked eyebrow and clenched jaw that told her he was feeling it too.
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” said the voice in her ear. “Let’s just get this done. And take it slowly. Those cameras blur if you move too fast.”
Merritt was listening—and watching—from the boat. Her zip-lining days were over, but she was still with them, and it should have made Alex relax, but there was something that had been niggling in the back of her mind for days now. One look at King told her she wasn’t the only one.
“And what, exactly,arewe doing?” King leaned close to Alex, staring in a way that made her want to punch him until she realizedhe was actually looking at the tiny camera embedded in the frame of her glasses.
“We’re searching for something.” Merritt had the tone of a woman who was wishing she’d just done it herself.
“Searching forwhat? Exactly?” Even Alex was running out of patience.
“Merritt?” King prompted.
It was hard to say, with the distance and the darkness and the static coming through the line, but Alex could have sworn that Merritt—a woman who had been doing scary stuff for more than half a century—was trembling when she said—
“Viktor Kozlov’s nuclear option.”
King found Alex’s gaze in the darkness. He found it and held on. “Are you being literal right now?”
There were always rumors about missiles that went missing after the fall of the Soviet Union. Someone like Kozlov would have the connections... the money... the desire to keep a pet nuke. And if he had one...
